arbinger is a space ship. We aren't, however, talking Mercury capsule, space shuttle or even Moya. Harbinger is big, real big. Think Death Star big. Onboard this big ship live a multitude of factions (the game's user manual really never explain why): high-tech Vantir, tribal Scintilla, the mandatory science-fiction bugs—Cimicidea in this case—and, oh yeah, humans.
Unfortunately, all is not well. That's a good thing. People don't design games about nirvana. It seems that Harbinger's newcomers (i.e. the bugs) have evil intentions for the rest of the great warship's inhabitants. It's up to the gamer to discover those intentions and blow them to kingdom come.
The blowing takes place in the third-person isometric view made famous by Diablo and Crusader: No Remorse before that. The gamer can choose to control one of three distinct characters on their quest: A wise-cracking human, a velvet-voiced Culibine (read armed and dangerous sex queen) or a robot-like gladiator. Each has a unique fighting style. For example, the human can riddle the bad guys from afar with the various rifles he finds, or run them through with the scythe-like blade that tips his gun. Conversely, the Culibine may fire bolts of energy from her gauntlets, or detonate a ring of energy that puts a serious hurting on everything in her vicinity.
No matter what their talents, each must battle their way through level after level of bugs, big gun-toting Vantir, and other assorted baddies to clear the ship (and other places) and save the day. Unfortunately there is no multiplayer.
Been there, killed that
Harbinger is kind of a like a peanut butter and banana sandwich—you've seen it all before, but not in the same place. The game feels like Diablo with lasers. That's both good and bad. Diablo was a lot of fun, but it is also several years old. So it is with Harbinger; the game is a lot of fun. You just can't beat walking into a Vantir barracks and shooting up everything in sight, and the Culibine's voice will surely keep the lonely boys at their computers long past their bedtime.
Lamentably, lasers aside, we've seen this all before. In fact, we've not only seen it before, but we have seen it done better. In the Diablo series, each level brings a sense of "Now what?" That same suspense is pointedly lacking in Harbinger. For the most part one level looks like another—miles upon miles of metal corridors. Robotically predictable opponents add to the boredom. They advance to within a handful of paces and then stand and shoot. Hence astute players soon learn to shoot while the enemy moves and then move when the enemy stops.
Nevertheless, it's fun. Just when you think you can handle anything the bad guys throw at you, the bad guys will throw so much at you that you'll break a serious sweat killing them all, and it's these moments of sweat that make the game worth while. Harbinger may not be anything new, it may not even be anything great, but it can be a lot of fun. And fun, after all, is the reason we game.
Simple, mindless fun. You gotta love that.
— Mark
Back to the top.
