Kabus22

21.02.2008

Kabus22 looks great. And it is huge. Take the characters, to start with: Iznar needs only an overcoat and maybe a little more white hair in order to be taken for Dante’s brother. Ebru seems to have a Jill Valentine or a Claire Redfield somewhere in her family tree, and Demir’s clothing somehow reminds me of a certain Solid Snake – yet he moves more like a Chris Redfield.

So – if everything is so well copied – what is still missing to create the perfect atmosphere of horror? Exactly! The doomsday scenario. An unknown demon has reached Earth and has been able to create a new ‘world religion’ with the promise of eternal luck, which the majority of mankind now believes in (including heads of state). Whoever refuses to convert is enslaved, and their lives become a nightmare (in Turkish, Kabus). The world is separated into 22 zones and only an unbeliever from the 22nd zone can order the demons to stop. For good measure, this must be someone who worships Satanism and is a good person. Completely confusing, isn’t it? Hmm – to be honest – if I didn’t have the press release here beside me, I would have understood even less of the story. This is so confused that it is hard to find a recurring theme in the game play, and to follow this. But be that as it may, I did not need to understand too much of the story in order to have my fun with Kabus22. I must also confess that I would much rather have a manufacturer copy from a variety of games and re-package these than have them fret and panic to be innovative.

In Kabus22, you control, depending on the storyline, three characters through a typical Silent Hill scenario. Demir – the policeman searching for his beloved, Ebru – the object of his love, and Iznar, a mixture of man and demon. The two aforementioned love-birds are relatively simply to control. With these, you run or scuttle through the beautifully arranged levels. In a lovely manner reminiscent of Resident Evil & Silent Hill, you can turn flip switches, combine objects from your inventory with objects form your environment or arrange coloured stones in the correct order and yes – there is even a time puzzle. So that the whole thing does not become too tedious, you continuously come across human or “Silent Hill-esque” opponents, whom you must clear from your path with the help of various weapons. You save your game by standing on fixed “save points” in the form of blood-smeared circles which you will find on the ground. Step onto these, and the game is saved. An open saving system would have been desirable, but as the points are quite fairly distributed, it is still easy to overlook this.

The ‘Iznar’ character seems to have been a great fan of Mortal Kombat in his childhood. Wit two arm blades such as the great Baraka liked to carry, he prefers a lot of body contact. As he can heal himself with his magic capabilities, the game with the half-demon is quite easy to guess. Healing is however only one of the six spells which this nice young man can draw upon. Ice arrows, time-slowing hooks to the chin, lighting or energy balls. Pick the one you want. But it is not all about this. There is no point in talking about tactical finesse here. The Hellspawn have almost no hope against Iznar, who ploughs through the hordes of fiends like a combine harvester.

In terms of display techniques, the current Kabus22 title lags far behind its progenitors and sources of inspiration, Silent Hill and Resident Evil. The well-done level design cannot conceal the antiquated graphics engine. Sludgy textures and shabby light effects ensure that Kabus22 is no eye candy. Btu the title holds its own remarkably well in terms of atmosphere. Great, psychedelic sound effects allow a superb horror atmosphere to develop.