Blade of
Betrayal by HPT
Interactive, Price: $14.95
Reviewed August 2003
Finally a great looking 2D scrolling and
fighting game that comes with an enticing story! Blade of
Betrayal, developed by HPT Interactive, is an original platform
game with very stylish graphics and animation to go with
a wide range of environments. You will not only explore the
15 dangerous and sometimes hazardous levels to search for
secret computer disks or office files, but also face different
types of enemies or monsters and their bosses! What ties
the graphics and gameplay together is a Shakespearean story,
full of betrayal and many surprises, that reveals the truth
over 5 chapters.
Starting on a rooftop guarded by ninjas,
the game casts you as Spencer Corinth who is on a quest to
invest the mystery behind your father’s death. After
you get off the rooftop, you will be thrown in prison, escape
through an office building and then travel into mechanical
wastelands, an infectious laboratory, a monster-ridden forest,
underwater mine fields and more. If you survive the attacks
by prisoners, security guards, mutant monsters and all the
obstacles along the way, you will only be rewarded with tougher
boss fights at the end of the chapters. Luckily there are
three difficulty levels to choose from.
You control the game by either a combination
of the hardware buttons and the d-pad or the on-screen action
buttons and the d-pad. Veteran gamers of this genre should
feel right at home with this set up and newbies will take
very little time to get the hang of the controls. The game
design intends that you both explore the environment and
fight enemies, but it doesn’t stop the advancement
if you didn’t find every single item. There are two
status bars on your character that indicate the health and
power, and you can pick up power ups and lives as you travel
through the levels.
The comic-book graphic style gives the
game originality. Not only do the backgrounds and cut scenes
have nice style, but they also look very sharp. The animations
are smooth, responding well to the action controls. The monsters
and enemies fit with the scene with bosses punctuating the
end. The breakable walls and creative use of 2D space give
this game a dynamic look.
Supplementing this stylish graphical world
are equally well-crafted music tracks and sound FX. The dramatic
background music and good collection of sound FX help gamers
immerse themselves in the story. Blade of Betrayal supports
ARM/Xscale and MIPS devices running Pocket PC 2000, 2002
and 2003. It uses about 10MB of memory and 12MB of storage
space.
Even though the gameplay repeats
in Search, Fight and Escape sequence, Blade of Betrayal
can provide at least 20 hours of fun, more if you play
at different difficulty levels. While your enemies can
pull out machine guns or send tanks to attack you, you
have very little weaponry to counter the attack. The challenge
is sizable, but at least you can pick up power-ups to replenish
your character and monsters don’t usually re-spawn.
Playing Hints and Tips
There is no shame in surviving on your
knees. If you get hurt too badly or the enemy is too strong
for you, kneel down and hit them low! |
