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Restricted Area
The year is 2083 and pretty much every science fiction cliché has come true. Earth is a polluted wasteland inhabited only by mutants and other deformed monsters. Large corporations have taken over from world governments and the populations that cluster together in the dark, gritty cities are all cybernetically enhanced for survival. The mutant infested desert wastelands hold some treasure however as the corporations store their loot here in “restricted areas” that are far from the prying eyes of city dwellers. You step into this world as a freelancer, willing to do business with the corporations you despise in exchange for cold hard cash. The four characters you can choose from is Johnson, a ex-global government special forces agent who looks like a fugitive from “The Matrix, Jessica Parker, a hacker with her robot drone in tow, Kenji Takahashi, the son of a powerful Yakuza on the run after trying to kill his father and Victoria Williams, the first known human gifted with psyonic powers. At first glance this group doesn't have much in common but their stories are intertwined and you’ll discover a few startling revelations along the way.All things considered Restricted Area is a very hard game to review. On the one hand this game is quite an achievement considering how many people worked on it. In fact most of the hard work seems to have been done by only two people, something that is virtually unheard of in this day and age. Secondly these guys clearly have good taste as the major influences on Restricted Area seem to be Diablo and Fallout, two of the greatest games in the genre. Unfortunately despite some nice ideas and interesting features Restricted Area falls flat in quite a few areas and at the end of the day is hardly a game that can be considered anywhere near a classic.
Graphically the game is quite dated for this day and age and none of the areas that you explore are really that interesting. The city that you start out in looks rather nice but ala Diablo everybody that inhabit it is nailed to the floor and serve no other purpose than to supply you with weapons or upgrades. The “quest” areas fare even worse and consist of dark factories, prisons and other decaying futuristic buildings. The whole look of the game is closer to Diablo than anything else which is bad considering how old that game already is. There are a few outdoor levels that feature actual daylight but like all the other areas these are also pretty barren and uninteresting. Since pretty much all the levels are randomly generated they all tend to look the same after a while and after a while you won’t even be able to distinguish one level from the next. For some odd reason the game also has a zoom button which like the name suggest allows you to zoom in on your character but since the result is a blocky, pixelated mess I don’t know why they even bothered. This game is stuck squarely in the realm of 2D so it’s not like there’s any advantage to zooming in. The monsters in the game show some imagination and a few of the bosses are quite impressive. Some effort has also been made to include decent cut-scenes and while none of these come even close to the benchmarks set by Diablo 2 they are fairly watchable and add a nice touch. It’s a pity then that gameplay consists mostly of mindlessly clicking your left mouse button until everything around you is dead. The four available characters are all very different and have their own skills and abilities which make for a unique experience each time but this all kind of falls apart when all you do in the game is walk into a room full of monsters, watch as they all mindlessly shamble toward you before killing them. I'm fully aware that Diablo has become a legendary game and consist of pretty much the same type of gameplay but Restricted Area just lacks that “spark” that made Diablo such a joy to play. In keeping with the futuristic tone of things your characters don’t equip any type of armour but instead can use “cybernetic” hardware to enhance their stats. The freaky thing is that you can install new eyes, a brain, heart, skin, legs and arms all by yourself in the middle of a dungeon. Picking up a new brain dropped by a foul mutant on a rusty, dirty prison floor before slotting it into your own head and continuing on isn’t something I thought I’d ever see in a game but there’s plenty of it happening in restricted area. It’s the future though so anything is possible I suppose. Since each character has their own special skills the game actually has some replay value but despite a rather short campaign for each one it’s still hard not to suppress a yawn after the umpteenth eradication mission. All you ever do in this game is kill things and it does get old rather quick. Each character has a few of their own story missions but I don’t think anyone will like this game so much that they’d play right through it with all four characters after each other. The audio is not too bad and the voice overs is pretty bearable I guess. Johnson sounds like his role model is Agent Smith from the matrix and a Kenji has the worse accent I've ever heard but all things considered I don’t have any complaints. The soundtrack isn't that memorable but neither does it annoy. Controls are pretty easy and if you've played Diablo (and if not don’t even consider getting this game but head straight for that one) you should feel right at home. You get the occasional awkward moments where your character runs straight into a group of enemies instead of shooting at them from a distance just because you didn't click EXACTLY on the right spot but this is nothing new for the genre. The fact that you only have one Save slot is a bit annoying but fortunately I didn't encounter any game stopping bugs during my play through. If you like this type of game then Restricted Area should provide you with a few hours of entertainment as long as you don’t expect too much from it. If you’re not a fan then Restricted Area won’t change your mind. I’d like to see a more polished sequel building on all the good points of this game but until then the best I can give this is a “nice try”.
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System Requirements
TAGS: Restricted Area, Johnson, Victoria, Kenji, Jessica,
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