Customer Reviews

Beowulf - The Game

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The heavier name they bear, the harder they fall.

BEOWULF was supposed to transfer the epic story of the old Norse hero torn between brutality and nobility to our PCs. The original story takes place mostly in Denmark and Sweden; nevertheless, since it is the only surviving AngloSaxon heroic poetry, it is revered as England's National Poem.
To those of you not having to struggle with its old English in high-school and are not familiar with the story: the Viking hero comes in aid of king Hroogar and defeats three foes (Grendel, Grendel's mother and a giant (sea-serpent) Wyrm - that unfortunately delivers Beowulf's fatal wounds as well). Since the poem runs for 3,182 lines, you can bet that the story is a lot more complicated than this.
It was this epic that provided J.R.Tolkien with the seed ideas for his LORD OF THE RINGS Trilogy (he had even published a paper on its influence on Western literature).

Towards the weight of such legacy UBISOFT demonstrated...total and blatant disrespect. To try and fail to follow the complicated story could be forgiven. To flagrantly display no intention of using the story for anything but an excuse is unforgivable.
The game is released in tandem with the Beowulf movie. Yes, that means that the game drafts the appearances of Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie, and John Malkovich.

This is the game that could had been (amongst many other things) RUNE's spiritual successor - being a Third person action slasher with Viking swords and axes and special moves. Well, it is definitely NOT!
As an innovation, two fighting modes are introduced: unarmed (carnal) and armed (heroic). Although your preference will determine the ending, this is not really a choice since the game pretty much favors the one fighting mode over the other at various segments. Using each fighting mode earns you points to be used in either improving your character's or your squad's abilities (in rudimentary RPG-like fashion - which this game clearly is not).

Yes, for a game following a Hero's quests, you actually have a group of followers, the Thanes. Of all the stupid sidekicks and squads I have ever encountered (remember the DAIKATANA bunch..?), these Nordsmen were surely...dropped the hardest at childbirth. Their AI is truly dismal! An enemy may be hacking just besides them yet all they do is stand idle and stare. You are supposedly able to encourage them to fight harder - yet to no effect. Even ordering them to do simple tasks will often fall on deaf ears...

The graphics are good but not great - when compared to this season's major releases - and its hardware requirements are pretty steep for what it eventually delivers. To be fair though, artistically it manages to be more atmospheric than over-hyped games such as BIOSHOCK.

No, I cannot recommend it to anyone - not even English-Lit Majors...

Game won't play, tech support useless, this stupid game was a loser and now resides in the county landfill,

I have played a lot of games before, and even if a game is bad I try and finish it because I would like to see what happens at the end of the game. I wanted to play this game because I really liked the movie and I was curious what happened between the 30 years in the movie, like the game says you can play through. After shortly playing through it, I just gave up playing it, it wasn't even worth it to try and suck it up to see the ending.

To begin with the graphics are not that great, I know it's a 2007 game, but Final Fantasy 10 had better graphics than this game, hell some psp games have better graphics. I don't mind graphics in a game, if that game is good. The story is changed a bit from the movie, and some weapons he use changes. (*minor spoiler* i.e. The sea monster`s horn instead of a sword). Weapons break way to fast, but in its defense you run into them a lot.

The fighting is ok in this game, but I have played others that have a better fighting system. The only good thing about this game is the bloody kills, and finishing moves. No dismemberment though. You get "power-ups" throughout the game, but I only got two of them so far in the game. One makes you powerful, and the other makes your party powerful. If your "party" dies its game over and your hits hurt them too, and they get in the way all the time so you end up killing them. The grendle part is the part your party members can die.

The game leans heavily on Quick Time Events and I tend to hate these types of gameplay. Some games do it well, but some make it extremely annoying, i.e. this game. They even have a music Quick Time Event, but its more annoying than anything. The only cool part was the song Beowulf sung to bring out Grendel.

Overall this game is trying to be a God of War game with Beowulf instead of Kratos, but it failed horribly. I got the game and the movie for 4 dollars together at a sale at Wal-Mart, so I didn't lose that much on it since I really liked the Beowulf movie. I do feel bad for the people who bought this at retail price just to find out how much this game sucks, save your money for another game.

Length: I didn't complete the game because it was so bad, so I don't know the length.

Trophies / Achievements: I don't know its achievements due to playing it on the PC, and I don't recommend trying for them since it would be a very painful process.

Positives:
*Some kills are nice, but not much

Negatives:
*Bad Graphics
*Changed Story
*Bad Gameplay
*Try's to mimic to many games, and fails

It a pretty nice game the comands are hard to get use to, your using the keyboard and the mouse buttons to do things other wise the game is okay and graphics are really nice for what I paid for it the game is fun.

First time this has ever happened to me. I have a pretty good video card and my processor is top of the line so i have no idea whats going on