We always come back to the classics.
Twenty years have passed since dank and dingy storefronts in malls were the center of the video-gaming universe. Arcades jammed with “Donkey Kong” and “Dragon’s Lair” machines sucked endless hours and quarters out of mesmerized gamers.
And despite what parents must have feared about the arcade phenomenon, gamers enjoyed these blinking and blasting machines because the games offered essential digital thrills.
It’s no wonder that when you take the staggering computational power of the Xbox 360 and focus it on bringing out a game of mythic combat, it ends up feeling like an update to the timeless 1985 classic “Gauntlet.”
“Ninety-Nine Nights,” or “N3,” as the fans and the game’s box like to call it, winds a knotty story line about a battle for good and evil that twists into a rationale for sending a few glorious warriors onto the battlefield in a carnival of carnage. The more you kill, the better you do, and the enemy just keeps on swarming in dizzying numbers.
Minus the epic story line, that same description would work fine for the “Gauntlet” arcade machine, which challenged a warrior, a wizard, an elf and a valkyrie to slaughter endless dungeon dwellers.
“N3” starts players out as Inphyy, an obviously young and presumably naive fighter whose taste in armor is more stripper than soldier. But as the first hordes of goblins come pouring down into the valley, it’s obvious that with sword skills like hers come the luxury of wearing anything, or as little, as she wants. Players mashing on the controller buttons send this dervish of death into a whirlwind of brutal action, and the meanies fall by the tens and the hundreds.
Leaning on its computational might, the 360 renders lumbering waves of goblin and troll cannon fodder. None of these marauding hordes is especially bright, though, tending to cluster in groups and mill around in the heat of battle. And with only a couple of buttons available to unleash a wide variety of attacks, players might start to feel they are cutting the lawn, assuming that trimming the grass includes ninja back flips and magical fire that mows down wide swatches of evil.
Maybe there was more intelligent game-play undiscovered in the “N3” premise. But what the game does deliver works just fine in the mold of “Gauntlet.” Exploring new places and generating body counts with a mad pounding of a button or two was as amusing then as it is now.
The trouble is, anyone who has stood side by side with three other “Gauntlet” players can tell you that the fun of a rising death toll was only part of this classic’s pleasures. Playing together – balancing your need to cooperate – brought a little social science to the art of exterminating monsters. Despite all the power at its disposal, “N3” unfortunately left out the ability to invite friends along for the fight.
“Ninety-Nine Nights”
VIDEO GAME|Xbox 360|$49.99|Rated M for Mature
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NHL 07, PC/X360/PS2/Xbox, Electronic Arts, released Sept. 12; LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy, PC/GCN/X360/PS2/Xbox, Lucas-Arts, Sept. 12; Company of Heroes, PC, THQ, Sept. 11; NHL 2K7,360/PS2, 2K Sports, Sept. 12; Mega Man ZX, DS, Capcom, Sept. 12; Harvest Moon, DS, DS Natsume, Sept. 12; Mario Hoops 3-on-3, DS, Nintendo, Sept. 11|Gamermetrics.com
