Save Our Souls!

From time to time a game will appear where the concept is so strong it alone can carry any amount of development errors. SOS: The Final Escape (Disaster Report for you merkins) has it all; bad control system, slowdown, horrible voice acting, robotic animation and yet it still manages to retain its form and be remembered as a GOOD GAME, pure and simple.

The premise is so incredibly basic I can't imagine that this is the first time it's been tried, yet I'm stumped if I can come up with any other game that has revolved around simply trying to survive following an earthquake. It doesn't matter that the save system's clunky and that the game's extremely linear and even the fact that the main character seems to drop dead if you let him go more than 15 minutes without water doesn't prevent you getting fully immersed in the city that's falling down around your ears.

I think what does it is that it's not actually that far-fetched. Yes it's the stuff that disaster movies are made of but everything in the game just looks so familiar. I challenge any city-dweller to not find themselves wondering "what if" about their own home town when they see how much an earthquake turns the friendliest of urban landscapes into a veritable deathtrap (or challenging obstacle course).

Obviously things would be even better without all the flaws mentioned above, so here's hoping someone who has access to a good city-rendering engine gets their hands on the license in order to make a bit of a "Director's Cut".

In other news this week, NFS:MW took a bit of a back seat whilst I piled through SOS, but I've also been making good progress in Castlevania Dawn of Sorrows. At its heart it's as old school as they come but I'm having a great time with it and I can even see myself replaying it, which is a rare thing these days.

Only 15 days to go now until the ban :-/