Venetica Impressions

It’s an action RPG. Shiny, I like action RPGs.

It’s developed by Deck 13 (360 version by Wizarbox), and published by DTP Entertainment. No, I’ve never heard of them either. Oh, well.

Hang on a minute, practically every action adventure or RPG in the world uses either the tried and tested Unreal or Havok engines, why have they decided to go with Nvidia’s much less capable PhysX engine? Warning bells are sounding…

Now, so far I’ve got all of this information from the back of the box, and there’s a voice telling me to put the game down and back slowly away from the shelf. But apparently I’m a sucker for the old “maybe it’s better than it looks” appeal.

It isn’t.

Graphically, it’s adequate but unspectacular. I feel like I’m playing a port of a four year old PC game. <Two minutes of Wikipedia later>. Ah, apparently I am. Well, not quite. It appears to have been released in Germany on PC and 360 last year. What, there’s a Venetica Wiki?

Ok, don’t panic, it has 15 pages, and lists two achievements. Despite DTP’s claims of the game “going gold”, no one seems to be playing it.

The characters are incredibly two-dimensional, and appear to have been picked out at random from a box marked “generic fantasy NPCs”, and placed into an opening chapter that seems to be trying to win an award, possibly for “chapter that most resembles every other opening chapter that you’ve ever played or read”.

The Attractive Female Protagonist (henceforth referred to as AFP, I really can’t be bothered to look up her name) is bidding farewell to her butch, heavily armoured boyfriend as he prepares to make his way forth from their quiet, tranquil village (yes, really), to earn his name and his fortune.

There is some sort of celebration going on, although it’s not really made clear why. Maybe the villagers didn’t like the boyfriend much and are happy that he’s leaving. Personally, I think it’s because quiet tranquil villages are always attacked by a horde of identically masked or helmeted evil villains during the celebration in chapter one. I don’t know why this is, it’s just the rules.

Anyway, the village is attacked by a horde of identically helmeted evil villains. The game gives you a weapon (a poker) and the opportunity to pick up the basics of combat (press “A” a lot) as you bash a couple of them about a bit on your way to… well, it doesn’t really explain where you’re going, so let’s just say on your way to the first cut scene.

At this point, I’m beginning to ask a few questions. Why has everyone except me got a sword? Why am I wearing a nightdress? And most importantly, where’s my fucking boyfriend? You know, the guy in the armour?

Oh, wait a minute, here he is. I’m exhausted and cornered by three bad guys when the cut scene kicks in. Can we guess what’s going to happen here, folks?

Slash! There goes one. Stab! Another bad guy down. Swipe! That’s the third, and he turns to me without bothering to make sure they’re all actually dead.

So I woke up the next morning in the home of the Wise Old Crone (all villages have one, it’s the law), having had a dream in which Death tells me I need to save him by finding a legendary weapon and defeating an evil adversary. I was slightly less amazed by the originality of this approach than I was by the amount that Death resembles that pirate with a squid for a face in the Disney movie (you know the one). I was also given a choice that appeared to set me up for a good/evil/neutral approach to the game, so I chose the “avenge my boyfriend’s death” option – apparently that’s the evil one.

Wise Old Crone got offended when I mentioned the legendary weapon, and insisted that it is not talked of in her home. She told me that the Blacksmith may have more information, which apparently doesn’t count as talking of it in her home.

I wander around the village for a bit, interacting with the stock characters. No one has anything interesting to say, except the guys guarding the exits to the village, who tell me I’m not allowed to leave while wearing my nightdress. The dress code for the countryside seems to be stricter than that for the village.

There’s a trader, but I have nothing to sell and no money to buy anything.

There’s also a guy who offers to teach me the basics of combat. I was a little confused by this, as I’m fairly sure I killed more bad guys the previous night than anyone else, but I give it a go. My combat moves (hit bad guy, back away from his attack, rinse, repeat) are deemed insufficient, and I need to learn to roll away from attacks. This would be fine if either the roll function or the lock-on function worked. Neither of them work.

When rolling, I often found myself caught on a twig, or a blade of grass or something else invisible, while the trainer beat the crap out of me. I wouldn’t have minded if the roll stopped when it was interrupted and allowed you to act, but no, you carry on rolling in the same place until the animation decides it’s had enough.

The “lock on to enemy” function works for a few seconds, but after that I found myself locked on to rocks, trees, houses, distant mountains, and nearby beetles. Anything that was in a different direction to the enemy I was trying to hit, really.

Eventually I passed the test (it took way more attempts that it should have), and got given a sword. Hurrah! I went straight to the trader and sold my poker, as well as the copper ore that I’d found lying around the village. Still didn’t have enough money to buy anything.

Incidentally, what is it with NPC traders and their consistent lack of business sense? Surely if she wanted the copper ore that much (she told me she’d buy as much as I could find), she could have picked it up herself and saved some money?

Time to visit the Blacksmith and pick up some quests. His forge was damaged during the attack, and he won’t be able to do anything for me except modify clothing until I’ve got him some new pliers. (Huh?) On the modifying clothing front, his daughter may have something he could tailor to my fit. And the legendary weapon I dreamed of? That’s in the same place as the pliers.

As luck would have it, I’d already turned his house over and stolen his daughter’s clothes, so I had a new outfit in moments. Now I can leave the village.

Travel between areas consists of walking from one to the other along unnecessarily narrow and twisty paths hemmed in with rocks or trees which play hell with the camera. Ah, the camera. In open areas, it’s fine. Triggering an area load (for example, entering a building) results in the camera view defaulting to “facing the character” instead of the more useful, and universally accepted “behind the character”. Trying to control the camera in an enclosed space (such as in a building, between buildings, or anywhere in the open world) is an exercise in futility. This becomes most apparent when you need to see an enemy that you can tell is hitting you because your health is going down, but you can see neither yourself nor the enemy in question.

The enemies in the “open” world seem to be the same as the bad guys who attacked the village, except this time they can fight. I want my poker back! This sword is rubbish! Where did he go? Why am I attacking this rock while he’s hammering away at my back? Why can’t I stop this fucking useless attack sequence the moment I realise I’m facing the wrong way instead of waiting for the animation to finish? Is he dead yet? Oh, fuck, obviously not, something’s hitting me from behind. Again. If I try to roll, will I actually move, or just roll about on the ground helplessly?

Ah, helplessly it is then. How many levels do I need before I learn that funky “block” thing he keeps doing? Is there any way to break a block? I’m not dead yet, but the way the screen keeps pulsing red doesn’t look good. Fuck it; I’m running back to the village. Bollocks, the village is the other way! There are more of them! Ok, calm down, there’s one in between me and the village, and he’s nearly dead. A couple of hits will do it. Stay frosty, do what you did in the intro – hit, back away, hit, back away. Ignore that “rolling” shite. Come on, have some of that. Boo-yah! 25EXP! And another sword (identical to mine) and a bit of cash. Better grab it quick and leg it back to the village before his mates catch up.

Well, luckily the villagers don’t seem to mind much if I walk into their houses and use their beds to rest and recover HP. It’s just a shame I didn’t accomplish more with my first venture to the outside world than get the shit kicked out of me by a generic level 1 bad guy.

Ok, a while later, and with some revised combat tactics, I’ve made it to the location the Blacksmith gave me for the legendary weapon. And the pliers; don’t forget the pliers. En route I’ve discovered that if I’m killed, the “Twilight World” option will allow me to respawn provided that I have enough “Twilight Energy”. Note that I discovered this in a scripted scene, not by actually dying, this will become relevant later.

Also, I’ve saved my brother from some bad guys, even if he didn’t seem too happy about it. I think I’m starting to get the hang of this combat thing.

I arrive at the generic Slightly Spooky Cottage in the Woods location to find two brothers outside arguing about their dead uncle’s will. One appears to be good hearted while the other is clearly a wastrel, although both seem to have some rogue abilities. For some reason, neither of them will actually go into the cottage to find the will, so I guess I have to.

I’m warned that the dead uncle really liked puzzles.

The ground floor has a locked door and a stairway up.

The first floor has stairs back to the ground floor, stairs up, and a hearth surrounded by four interactable emblems.

The second floor has stairs back down, and a door to a balcony. If I exit to the balcony, I can look down on the two brothers, who remind me that the dead uncle really liked puzzles.

Ok, I get it. I need to interact with the four emblems in the correct order. This is standard RPG fare, and exactly what I was expecting. I was also expecting something somewhere to give me some sort of hint as to what the correct order actually was.

There’s nothing. A couple of pots which can be broken up for a few coins. The locked door. There are some coat hooks by the entrance, but there are five of them, and they’re all unmarked, so no help there. That’s it. That’s everything in the house.

Dear Deck 13,

This is not a puzzle.

Love,

John.

There are only 24 combinations for the four emblems, so I go about it by the numbers and incidentally this takes less time that I spent searching for clues.

The hearth opens, and I now have the will, which leaves everything to the wastrel. I get the option to lie, and tell the brothers that the dead uncle left everything to the good one so he could build an orphanage in the middle of the forest, but I chose not to.

I’m a little surprised that they take my word for the contents of the will, and don’t insist on actually reading it themselves, but there you go.

The brothers then give me the tutorial on lock picking, which I don’t really understand since it consists of them standing over a lock with four picks in and pointing at one of them occasionally.

The locked door is unlocked, and the legendary weapon is inside. It’s a bit rusty. I take it back to the Blacksmith (along with the pliers, don’t forget the pliers).

The Blacksmith takes one look at the legendary weapon (which is apparently some sort of mortal equivalent of Death’s scythe), and declares that he can’t do anything without his pliers. Don’t forget the pliers! After I’ve given him the pliers, he still seems very off-hand about holding such a powerful mythical item, and tells me that if I want him to fix it I’ll need some mythical ore. Of course, he doesn’t believe such a thing even exists, but he is quite clear with his directions on which miners to talk to if I want to find it.

While I had the opportunity, I levelled up a couple of times and learned some new skills. I was slightly distressed to find that most of the skills I had learned could be assigned to the D-pad, which is very awkward to use when wrestling with the camera in combat.

I also took the time to check out the HUD, and refer to the manual to find out exactly what everything meant. This is no reflection on the game, but the publishers ought to know that when you print a picture of the HUD in the manual and number various parts of it to describe them, the descriptions really need to be on the same page. Ho hum, I figured it out in the end.

To the mine! That’s where the miners are!

I got to the mine, following a side path from the route to the Slightly Spooky Cottage in the Woods. There were a couple of bad guys outside, and I prepared to hack them to pieces with my new sword (I’d been able to upgrade with the trader – I only needed to sell 12 of the level 1 type to get a level 2 type). The location was slightly enclosed (by trees and rocks) so I anticipated some minor camera problems during the combat, but nothing I couldn’t handle.

I died.

The “Twilight World” thing resurrected me with half HP, but by then the bad guys had called a couple of friends over and I died again.

And that was it. Game over, man. Not enough “Twilight Energy” left for another respawn.

Fine, I thought, back to the last autosave.

Nope.

The game has an autosave, this is documented in the manual. However, even though I had played for approximately five hours, levelled up twice, entered about eight different game areas, and completed about as many quests, the autosave had not yet activated. The only option was “New Game”.

To be fair, this is entirely my fault. I hit the “Start” button many times while attempting to bring up the in-game menu (“Back” button), and was presented with the option to save. I could have taken that opportunity. But at no point other than my first battle outside the village did I feel even vaguely threatened. I considered myself to be in the “intro” part of the game, where I was unlikely to die, and had even been told that I had the resurrection option. I’d even been told in the manual that there was an autosave, so I was less careful than I might have been otherwise.

So I’m done with Venetica. I didn’t even get to Venice, where the game looks like it gets interesting. Maybe it’s worth trying again to get to, but frankly I’d rather open my front door at midnight to a man wearing a Richard Nixon mask and carrying a jar of Vaseline and a sack full of hedgehogs than play through those five hours again.

It’s ok, Venetica, you didn’t break my heart.

Fable III broke my heart, like the anticipated return of a long distance lover who comes back having gained three stone, picked up a Scouse accent and lost 30 IQ points (although she worked with some awesome voice actors while she was away).

You were more like the ugly girl at the bar who asked me if I wanted a drink and maybe some sex, and despite being drunk, I said no.