darn never heard of this one before. The PSONE was really amazing with its huge variety of games. I guess that was a single moment in history that won't be repeated.
Retro Game of the Week: Project: Horned Owl
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 On 08/17/2013 at 09:55 AM by The Last Ninja See More From This User » |
Funny, there's not a single owl in this game, but there's a lot of shooting
Get ready for anime cut-scenes and giant robot mechs! Project: Horned Owl is an on-rails shooter that was released in 1996 for the Playstation. It was developed by MOVIC Inc. and published by Sony. With only five stages, PHO feels like an arcade port, but it's not. This short length would have been justified if this were true, but since its not, the game feels a little cheap.
The game opens with a lengthy and impressive anime opening. It goes on for about five minutes, making you feel like you're watching a cartoon. Anime scenes are between each stage, but these are short (I mean short, like 20 seconds). The voice acting is not bad. It's enjoyable to listen to the two main heroes, Hiro and Nash, banter back and forth during the levels, even if sometimes it's cliche.
You can configure the buttons to your liking before the game starts. You will only use three buttons: one to shoot, one to drop bombs, and one to reload your ammo. That's it. A crosshairs will appear on screen. Moving it around using a d-pad is a little tricky, but it's actually more difficult with an analog stick since the crosshairs tend to move at an uneven pace. Sometimes it won't move quite where you want it to go, which can be frustrating. Dropping a bomb will instantly kill all the enemies on screen, and will greatly reduce the lifebar of a boss.
The annoying part is reloading, as you will run out of bullets quickly and need to reload constantly. A robotic female voice will say "Reload, reload" over and over again until you press the button to reload. Of course, after awhile it will become second nature to reload all the time. The botton left corner of the screen displays your life (the shield of your armored owl), your ammo, and your bombs.
The story is typical of any anime plot, as the two pilots belong to the Horned Owls unit, responsible for protecting the citizens of Metro City. The city is attacked by a corrupt dictator and his robots, and your team of cyborg mechs are the town's only line of defense. To stop Blair, the villain, you will go to the airport, the sewers, and even his evil base, shooting robots all along the way.
The action is diappointing. There are no special weapons, no upgrades or power-ups, just your regular gun and bombs (which are limited to three per life). You will shoot the same robots throughout the entire game, and while the change of scenery is nice, the pace and enemy placement are monotonous, making the game repetitive. Robot dogs will leap right at you; standard mechs will fire double shots at you that you must blast before they reach the screen; flying mechs will zoom in and fire at you; these enemies persist throughout the game, and there's not much variety to them.
The graphics are not 3D, which is strange. Everything is pixelated. As enemies fly closer to you, they become ugly as the pixels grow and become apparent. Everything blows up the same, adding to the repetiveness of the whole game. The graphics make this game look cheap, and perhaps it is. The game is fun to play (especially with a friend for co-op), but it had potential to be so much better if the lazy route had not been taken.
Outside the main game, there is a training mode, but it's absolutely boring. You shoot standard mechs as they appear on screen; they don't even blow up, just disappear. The goal is to shoot so many in a certain amount of time. They never shoot back, and they freeze in a certain spot so you can hit them. Don't worry, the ammo lady will still yell at you to reload when you run out of ammo.
Final Verdict--3 Stars: It's Okay
It's a shame that a game is just "okay" when it has the potential to be great. PHO is content to do nothing new and be only a standard on-rails shooter. Nothing special here. We've seen it all before. The game is fun to a certain degree. The music is pretty good. The anime scenes are cool. But overall, the game does not deliver like it should. Lack of variety was the worst part here; for being a simple light gun shooter, this game was a bomb.
Join me every Saturday as we take a look back at all kinds of retro games, good and bad.
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