Active Reviews

Written by Kyle Jenkins

It's 2042 and quite a bit has changed. Humans have a settlement on mars and there is no government in control of anything. The world and mars is currently being run be thugs with guns and money. The background is basically that you are involved in some group and you have been taken prisoner. You now have to fight your way out of the space ship that you are being held in and try to escape. Once you escape you get involved in another group because they want you to help them get an edge on their gang competitors. From this point you get to run from stage to stage completing missions, sometimes against your will. You will slowly regain your memory throughout the game and the levels of the game aren't as easy as just running through with a death wish and a loaded gun. Sorry if you wanted a game for mindless destruction you should look to a new title. Now don't get me wrong I am not saying that the game is difficult to master. It just is not recommended to go sprinting towards the enemy.

Now for the most part the game play is pretty standard for a first person shooter. It even comes fully equipped with "adrenaline mode", which is when everything slows down except for your ability to aim. For the most part the game is nicely done. Being critical you can definitely tell when the creators have spent the extra time developing certain images and when they have let things go. For instance, the backgrounds while you fight your way through the ship on the first level are very nicely down. Not to mention the reflections of the water and lighting look really nice on many of the levels. But when the space ship is exploding the ship some how explodes in perfectly square pieces. It certainly defies physics, unless of course john chaser is escaping off of the Lego's space station.

The firearms in this game however are done very well. You can tell that the writers have some knowledge of guns available. The Heckler & Koch G11 is a gun that was being tested in the military to get a feel for the usage of caseless ammunition. Virtually all of the weapons are real, but there are still some that are completely fictional. It was made a point to model these weapons after real guns for almost all the weapons available in the game. I also enjoyed the effects of the weapons, the explosions from the grenades and the splattering of the enemy on walls and ceilings is always a nice touch.
The game was a lot of fun and also challenging. The enemies in the single player mode move around like someone would during a LAN game. Making it much harder to kill them when they are running around and jumping. But they are very good at aiming so if there are 3 enemies on the screen you will have to be good at putting them down or you will die very quickly. The AI in the game is pretty good at keeping up with how well you progress through the game. Not to mention that the levels seem to have more than one way to finish. I seem to find places on many of the levels that could be explored. This will help a lot with keeping the game interesting to explore these areas of interest throughout the levels.

So overall the game is a good first person shooter. Graphically pleasing during game play, EAX sound (if you have an EAX supported sound card), gratuitous blood shed, and LAN/Internet multiplayer for testing your gaming abilities against other competitors. The only thing about Chaser is that I didn't really see anything about the game that really put it out above the other titles. It is a solid first person shooter with all the basics but nothing stands out. So if you are looking for a first person shooter that will give you more than mindless destruction than I would recommend picking up this title.

Go back to the Chaser page.

Screenshots