Daikatana

STORY / GAMEPLAY
You are a man named Hiro Miyamoto battling enemies and overcoming obstacles of time and space through four different eras of time: 25th Century Japan, Ancient Greece, Viking Norway and 21st Century San Francisco. The year is 2455 and a magical sword (the Daikatana) was recently unearthed by a team of archaeologists. But Kage Mishima, a greedy mastermind hungry for world domination, steels it. Using the special abilities of the sword, Mishima travels back in time and rewrites history to his liking, subsequently altering the future. It's up to Hiro Miyamoto now, to take out Mishima and restore the planet to its actual state. Daikatana combines both shooter and RPG elements, character upgrading, and time travel, but none of these elements really changes how the game plays and do not distinguish it from the other FPS games of the time. You have to walk through hallways while shooting various flying mosquitoes (!), robots and guards. You may collect extra firepower during your quest (more than 25 different weapons), as well as other items that will increase your health and skills. The N64 version's gameplay is similar to the PC's but overall the game itself is very different. The levels differ from those featured on the PC version and are less in number (18 for the N64, 24 for the PC). Also, on the PC version rescued imprisoned will follow you along the way and help you in certain occasions, while on the N64 version they only return the favor via cut scenes. If you lose your energy, you have to start all over again, which is rather frustrating.The game also supports multiplayer modes which allow you to either death match against up to four players or fight it out to see who can collect the most gems.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The graphics are good but not exceptional and the framerate is OK with everything moving quite fast in its nicely detailed 3D environment! But the N64 version boasts a wide array of blurry textures. Note that, the final release of the game utilizes the Quake II graphics engine. The game's sound is good with several sound effects (like explosions, screams, gunfire etc) and single guitar riffs that play through the levels of the game.