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Title Ivanhoe
Game Type Beat-em-up
Publisher Ocean
Players 1
HD Installable Yes with WHDload
Compatibility OCS but AGA patch available
Submission Chris Vella cvella@specdata.com Profiled Reviewer

Review
When you first boot up the game you will say "wow real nice graphics".
Well my friends, you have just seen the best part of the game. This is a
CLASSIC example of great graphics with no gameplay.

The game is a sideways scrolling beat'em up where you can slash and
jump your way past various enemies. You are armed with a sword and shield
and will be attacked from both sides of the screen. You use your sword to
kill the enemies and the shield to block any items that the enemies throw
at you. The game follows the simple and hard to screw up beat'em up
formula but somehow manages to screw it up anyway. How the game testers
let this game pass quality assurance is beyond me. There is so much wrong
with this game I don't know where to start.

Good Points

1) Great Graphics

Bad Points

1) Sluggish Gameplay
2) Terrible Animations
3) Frustrating
4) Terrible joystick response
5) Boring
6) Bad collision detection

Need I say more?


In conclusion, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the
programmers focused all their attention on the game graphics and not the
gameplay. Don't get me wrong, I love great graphics in a game but even
this couldn't save this game. The gameplay is just plain horrible. Do not
consider wasting your money on this disgrace. You have been WARNED!

"As you would come to expect from the talented graphic artists at Ocean, the presentation is of a high standard here. As for the game-play . . ."

I only vaguely remember playing this one some fifteen years ago when I was ten, and honestly couldn't remember if it was any good or not, so I decided to reinvestigate it.

Anyone who remembers Ocean software in their prime in the 80's and early 90's will recall that they were the undisputed king's of the licensed game. As you come to expect from entertainment software cashing in on lucrative hot properties, it's always a mixed bag in terms of quality from one game to the next.

With Ivanhoe, Ocean has taken the title character from Walter Scott's novel, and loosely adapted the medieval antics into a side-scrolling hack and slash affair with a cartoon like visual style.

To set the scene, King Richard has been kidnapped and is being held in a castle dungeon. Of course, it's up to you to go on a quest to rescue him.

Okay, so you take control of Ivanhoe, a vertically challenged knight with a huge cow lick, that is equipped with the standard sword and shield combo. You guide him from left to right, and you are attacked by various villains from both sides and above. You have an energy bar, and handful of lives, and also a time limit displayed on the status bar on the bottom of the screen.
As you move along, the screen jerkily scrolls, and you stop to mash the fire button when thugs, archer's, wizards and the like attack you. You'll find your life essence depletes very rapidly during skirmishers, and time isn't on your side.

One of the first thing you will notice are the controls are put simply, awful. Slow and unresponsive, and generally a pain. Jumping has been made a trying ordeal, you first have to look up, then press fire, and you will go up and down in two frames in half a blink of an eye. When there are enemies up high shooting arrows at you from above, you have to hope you time the pressing fire again on the up part of the jump at exactly the right moment to get a response. It might work every third try, if that, and then if your slightly out of position, your swipe won't make contact.

If you do manage to hit one, a power-up will be left in place that you can collect. This will grant you things like a bigger shield or a multi directional attack for a limited time, but there not as useful as they should be.

You have to contend with some other obstacles like rolling rocks that you are supposed to jump over. They approach in an unnatural fashion, and you can forget about avoiding them, you simply have to take the damage. While this is going on, you are still being attacked by various projectiles from all directions, and other nasties attacking with melee weapons.

In the event you make it through the first level, you are treated to a bonus level. In stark contrast to what you just went through, this part is an absolute cake walk. You have a one on one bout with an ogre in a cave, just on a single screen this time. The ogre starts out with considerably less health than you, and he simply walks into your attacks. The camera is much closer to the action in this section, and the sprites are much bigger and richly detailed, much better than the smaller, more finically detailed sprites seen earlier on. These bonus levels appear after each normal one, and let you earn an extra life, and break the play up a bit.

There are four side-scrolling sections, and four bonus levels, and one unique level, where you ride on horseback. This is the most technically impressive level in the whole game, and the horse is decently animated, and the action rolls along fast, with multi-layered parallax scrolling. On this section, it is a reflex tester, you have to jump over obstacles, shoot or dodge things that appear in front of you, and also contend with the headless horses-man and others. This section is far too long, making the whole routine very difficult to commit to memory. I think this should have been a bonus level. It is very reminiscent of the first level on Wrath of the demon, for anyone familiar with that game.

As you would come to expect from the talented graphic artists at Ocean, the presentation is of a high standard here. The intermission pictures that appear throughout the course of the game are very well drawn, and give you something to look at during the relatively short loading times. This is only one disk also, so there isn't any swapping, thank goodness.

The backgrounds are nicely drawn, and have a subtle soft pastel stroke quality about them. The level designs range from a forest, a pirate ship, to a castle's interiors. The backgrounds aren't animated in any way, but they still remain interesting to look at.

As I mentioned earlier, the sprites in the standard scrolling sections are rather small and the detail is a bit fuzzy. The designs are not so dissimilar to something you might see in a Asterix comic book, except their not so colourful. You would expect the animation to be of a high quality because the sprites aren't exactly huge, but at a meager three frames each, it comes off choppy and unattractive. Sort of akin to the poor animation in some old Atari games like Skull & Crossbones.

In terms of sound, some fairly chirpy mods play through the various levels, they are composed of a mixture of drum beats and synths, and they are so-so, not great, not terrible, but fit okay with the nature of the theme. With sound effects, you get a clang sound when you hit things, and that's about it.

When it comes to staying power, Ivanhoe comes up craps. There is a skip level cheat which allows you to explore the game, which is handy given the great difficulty. Once you've seen it all, and beaten the last level, you won't be compelled to come back.

This game is a lesson in how style without substance can't carry a game. The unresponsive controls, coupled with the slow and boring game-play makes it ultimately dull, and an exercise in frustration to boot.

Graphics 7/10
Sound 4/10
Playability 3/10
Last-ability 2/10
Overall 4/10


Reviewer's Score: 4/10 | Originally Posted: 11/30/06