Illbleed is a must have

souledge · Post by **souledge** » Sun Jan 11, 2004 10:25 pm

Ok I just got a new game in the mail last week, this game doesn't seem very popular in the forums or the collection lists on my earlier post, but if you never played it before its definetly worth the money.

I bought games like wwf attitude just for collection, i never play that game(not much of a wrestling fan) but sometimes you buy a game thinking its going on your stack just for collection, and you end up with an amazing title you just can't stop playing.

That is exactly what happened to me with illbleed.Im a complete b-horror movie freak and i hate blockbuster movies and great special effects, wich is why if you give me the evil dead series,night of the living dead and the fulci zombie movies im in the zone.Illbleed is the answer to all my horror b- movie prayers, it has all the elements of most of the good movies from the 80's and early 90's.

The game has great graphics, a lot like spawn and house of the dead, wich in my opinion have smooth gameplay and good antialiasing.Ok so the characters don't move their lips when they talk, big deal.The game plays very well for the most part.

The music and fx are perfect for it, they deliver good old haunted house effects and soundtrack.Play this one loud and on a stereo system.

Original is the only way to describe this games battle system, you have to rely on your senses to survive, adding to that the main survival horror trade with a twist in the battles, because you fight enemies only after they have scared the crap out of you, and to defend yourself from this assorted monsters you havebaseball bats,handguns,flame throwers,theoldboomstick etc.

The controls are good, definetly not great but ok.I read a few reviews that gave this game really bad control scores, but after 5 minutes of playing you should be able to control the characters just fine, the analog has a distinctive response to how fast you move it on a direction, depending on that the player will walk or run.

Something that you must know is that you might find yourself asking "how the hell do i play this game" and thats ok, the learning curve in this title can be somewhat long, but after you learn it you really start to pareciate this game.

To compare illbleed with any other survival horror game woul be a mistake, cause its way too original and gives you more scares than any resident evil game(this comes from a hardcore resident evil fan)

In general there really is nothing for me to complain about regarding this game, sure it has flaws but they can be easily overlooked because of all the good things it features.I would say its a must for any DC owner, even if you dont' like survival horror games, you will at the very least give credit to this game for its originality.

I wrote this review without exploring the game completely, cause i haven't even finished it, but im glued to it and i've seen enough to be able to form an opinion on it, and its probably one of the best games i have on the DC, definetly on my top 10 list.

souledge · Post by **souledge** » Sun Jan 11, 2004 10:32 pm

I forgot to mention a very important illbleed fact.The game takes place in a horror theme park, so don't expect it to be a serious plot, once you get on every mission of the game it does get a lot scarier and serious though.

Oh and illbleed has THE BEST BLOOD EFFECTS YOU CAN ASK FOR!!....blood everywere,i mean seas of blood!!!

nymus · Post by **nymus** » Sun Jan 11, 2004 11:35 pm

I haven't played the game but I like the originality of it.

Climax Graphics are (were) a good company with some very nice visions of original games (they made Blue Stinger). I just feel they didn't have the right tools or a slightly weak technical department, but they had originality.

Blue Stinger has some technical issues, but it's still a fun game. I'd love to try illbleed.

I was just thinking the other day that when Dreamcast returns, those 2 games would be guaranteed remakes.

souledge · Post by **souledge** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 2:56 am

You have to get this game, its worth the try and once you learn to play it you won't stop.Believe me when i say that this game might not be the best on the DC, but it's the most insane creation the system has to offer.Some of the cinemas are completely morbid, the game is rated 17+ for a good reason.

Fatalist · Post by **Fatalist** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 5:36 am

Great game, I love it. On my top 10 list too. It's original, crazy and has replayability because of the different endings and the randomness of the traps.

Segata Sanshiro · Post by **Segata Sanshiro** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 8:00 am

I bought this game a long time ago, and never got past the first mission, i think it had something to do with a burnt house, a baseball fan... dont exactly remember, but i left it cause i was too confused about how to use the senses ... The graphics are nothing like HOTD, they are much more like Blue Stinger - which is not a bad thing (whoever says that Blue Stinger sucks is very wrong, i think of it as the first true next-gen title back there in the good old days). Anyway the game couldnt grab my attention, but now when i see somebody so excited about it, i'll give it another go, i dont want to miss a great game just cause i was too lazy to get into it back then.

xericx · Post by **xericx** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 9:40 am

this game will probaly be my next game purchase.it looks good and i like the idea of the game.plus i love cheesy b-horror movies...a lot of reviews i have read on the game always complain about the controls, well i doubt it can be a whole lot worse than the resident evil series.i love resident evil but i have the controls on them.

CoasterKing · Post by **CoasterKing** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 10:01 am

I thought Illbleed was utter c0ck.

Good:-
- Has a really genuine B-movie atmosphere

Bad:-
- Nice original ideas but every single one poorly implemented
- Slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow paced
- The worst, sluggish, unresponsive controls in any game I've played
- That bloody fixed camera angle during combat
- Climax managed to make a game worse than Blue Stinger

It could have been very good but it isn't IMO.

souledge · Post by **souledge** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 8:51 pm

CoasterKing wrote:Bad:-
- Nice original ideas but every single one poorly implemented
- Slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow paced
- The worst, sluggish, unresponsive controls in any game I've played
- That bloody fixed camera angle during combat
- Climax managed to make a game worse than Blue Stinger

+ new ideas are always improved
+ only slow paced when player has no clue of the way its played(i agree that it's not action packed)
+ the controls are ok, if you can't jump or hit the right way then you need practice
+ the fixed camera in combat gives you a good angle
+ blue stinger is not great but ok imo

souledge · Post by **souledge** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 8:57 pm

BTW the fact that this is one of the most original game ideas in a long time should be more than enough for a DC collector to get this game.

CoasterKing · Post by **CoasterKing** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 10:22 am

souledge wrote:BTW the fact that this is one of the most original game ideas in a long time should be more than enough for a DC collector to get this game.

I agree, which is why I own it. I just don't like it

ulikegamehen · Post by **ulikegamehen** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 1:54 pm

being a horror game/movie nut, i must own this game. I have pretty much all the other survival horror games for DC though. Word up.

aisupikku · Post by **aisupikku** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 2:43 pm

While we're on the subject; Is Alone in the Dark one that I should put to the front of my list? I can't play many games, and can afford to buy even less (I go for the new+sealed; I'm overprotective of my DC)... I like RECV, and dug Silent Hill 2 for PS2 (and XB); didn't think I'd get into RE0 or RE (remake) for NGC (little sister has those) even though they both looked good, and can't say that I felt the burn with Dino Crisis or Fear Effect (strange that I bought that, since I don't have a PS... okay okay, so it was for the girls, big deal). I had never looked at AitD, since I thought "oh, that's an old franchise" and not as popular as the RE series... But, I saw some screenshots, and heard that it was halfway decent, so I thought that I'd stick it at the (then-) bottom of my list...

ulikegamehen · Post by **ulikegamehen** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 4:19 pm

if your a fan of lovecraft style horror junk it's a pretty cool game. The graphics are some of the best the DC has to offer and the gameplay is similar to RE. Now it's pretty slow in the beginning but it picks up and the story line is pretty sweet. Also a movie is being made on the game which should be awesome so get ahead of it and play the game before the movie comes out. You can buy it new off amazon dealers for a reasonable price (that's how i get all my games). the link below has a new one for 11.95 which with shipping will probably be around 14 bucks. Not a bad deal if you ask me. Peep the link. Hope it helps.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/st ... 08-5072111

aisupikku · Post by **aisupikku** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 7:34 pm

Whoa, thanks buddy! \=]

I'll check my finances, but I think that I'll nab that little guy very shortly!

Segata Sanshiro · Post by **Segata Sanshiro** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 4:37 am

Blue Stinger is not an ok game, its great!!!!!! Yeah, it has the crappiest camera around, ant the characters hands look very ugly, but please point me out another DC title that has all of BS's features together:
- insane humour
- great story
- bright, colorful and varied textures
- RPG like menu system (evolve your character- "steak!?")
- coins coming out of the mutants killed (again RPG elements)
- the main character even get zombied himself, allowing him to gain interesting abilities (like walking on the wall and ceiling and urinate acid -yeah!!!)
- you get to fight a mutant LandRover where else you can find that
- or the stamp rally
- the annoying but GREAT music (killing zombies and seas of blood over a happy christmas tune, that is twisted)!
- the manga style graphics and story (giant Gozilla-like creatures)
- all the stores that you can buy sushi, hamburgers, pasta, automatic bazookas, iron fists, Star Wars lazer sword.........

The world of Blue Stinger is just so full of imagination, it's so creative, and the best of all is that it doesn't take itself too seriously------> unlike other games eg. the crap called Evil Dead, it has humour and a great story at the same time!!!

It's totally worth playing!!!

BTW: @aisupikku: if you played RECV, RE2, SH2, Alone in the dark is the way to go!!!! (if you want a comedy Blue Stinger should cost like 5$)

nymus · Post by **nymus** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 5:04 am

I loved Blue Stinger. The camera and controls did completely ruin some parts of it, but I enjoyed it.

It's one of those games that actually succeed in creating a movie-like atmosphere.

souledge · Post by **souledge** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 8:11 am

Blue stinger is a good game, but its nothing compared to the sick/dark/morbid humor on illbleed.

I think climax graphics did a great job on both of these games, but illbleed really stands on its own.

I heard illbleed will be or is already out on xbox, if thats true then halo and the soon to come halo2 plus illbleed are so far the only reason i own an xbox, this could sound like the usual DC hardcore fan BS, but i have all the new generation systems except for the ps2, and i still find most dreamcast games better.

aisupikku · Post by **aisupikku** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 2:04 pm

Okay, that does it... I'm getting Alone in the Dark, and I'm going to play it this summer! I've also been secretly flopping back and forth with regard to Blue Stinger, but now, I think that I owe it to myself to get it... Should I get the US version or the JP? I ask only because I kinda like the cover on the JP...

Thanks Segata Sanshiro!

On the topic of "new generation systems"... There are a bunch of little bunches of games that I would like to have, which are spaced somewhat evenly amongst the trio, annoyingly enough. My older sister was thoughtful enough to get a PS2 for me about a year ago (one year left in the service plan; do I mod it?), but I have to admit that the one I've been thinking about is the XB (mainly because it's the supposed best-looking). I can't remember if I mentioned this here or elsewhere, but, it still wracks my brain about how I say that I don't have one (XB) for lack of funding, yet I'm readying to purchase a multitude of DC titles coming out over the next few months; Funds of which would easily buy an XB along with any of the few games that I'd like to play on it... And yet, the DC games takes precedence. Somehow I can imagine myself buying those more easily, even though they don't help Sega out any less than buying an XB (it'd probably be better for me to get the XB plus seventy copies of Sonic Heroes, in that respect).

Ugh. I need to get my Gameshark or NTSC-J Dreamcast to finally play this Border Down that's been sitting in my room since... since whenever Lik-Sang got stock in and shipped one to me. Anyway, I was going to say that if SNK Playmore released KOF 2003 for DC then I'd be set for life, but, I know that they're thinking that it would be like opening a whole new can of worms, and so, they'll most likely leave it at KOF 2002...

Sorry about the humungo unnecessary post!

nymus · Post by **nymus** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 2:16 pm

I beliee the us version of Blue Stiner had a better camera.