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this is the best game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: November 18, 1999
Author: Amazon User

The hype of this game is that it is a "fully-realized world" and I don't think I can argue with that. The streets are filled with people, you can be hit by cars (or sliders as they are called) heck you can even go down to a supermarket and buy some food. This game is very fun. Another excellent feature of this game is its wide variety of gameplay. Most of the time you are in adventuring mode but other times you can switch into fighting, shooting or swimming mode. The fighting mode is very fun (you have a hologram fighting program in the main characters apartment) It is not the best fighting out of fighting games but it is a lot better than some of the pure fighting games out there. The strange thing about the fighting is that there is no block button. Every person has a different skill level of fighting in the game so each person has different skills in blocking, special moves, styles etc. The fighting is excellent. The shooting is not as satisfying as the fighting because of the way it is set up. All of the enemies come out of predesigned spots so all you have to do is play the level over and over until you know exactly where the enemies will be. It is still fun but not as satisfying as the fighting. I haven't really experienced the swimming so I do not feel inclined to review it. I'm having a lot of fun with this game so I suggest that you get it.

I'm glad I bought it, but it lacks here and there

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: January 18, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game has an allure because of its revolutionary concept, but not all is delivered. To make it short:

THE GOOD:

-incredible graphics, with or without a card

-free atmosphere that just begs to be explored

-somewhat of a branching storyline and some choices along the way

-huge, seemless city areas

-great concepts - many inhabitable characters and NEARLY endless possibilities

THE BAD:

-the four different 'modes' (adventure, shooting, fighting and swimming) are kind of annoying

-the objects (books especially) are somewhat repetitive and limiting

-all the people in the street... do they all look EXACTLY the same or am I seeing double - triple - quad... AHHHHHHHH!

-I personally don't like the concept that you are REALLY sitting there playing a computer game which is controlling bodies in another demon-infested parallel universe... I'd rather put myself in the position of the character than just be myself sitting on my butt

-for the life of me, I can't drive those blasted cars

-some of the puzzles are very hard and in some, the solution doesn't really make sense. I had to buy the PRIMA strategy guide, which, in a bind, I recommend.

Ummmmm... a bit overhyped.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 14 / 19
Date: November 21, 1999
Author: Amazon User

I've been reading a lot of online game reviews wetting their pants over this title, and I'm also a Bowie fan, so I really wanted to check it out. Everybody is saying this game promises a HUGE, fully-realized virtual reality. Well, I'm sorry, it's not--not for me anyway, not at the moment. The graphics are gorgeous, the controls smooth, the story excellent, the sound wonderful. And yet... the moment the game started and I saw that the "camera" trailed along behind my character instead of being in first-person perspective, I found it impossible to make that leap of faith that I was looking forward to so much. Instead, as I played, I kept watching my character walk about and thinking things like, "Wow, I wonder how much work it took to get the shadow beneath him to move so smoothly." Omikron allows you to do a ton of things like in real life, that's true, but there really isn't THAT much you can do here apart from playing the game despite what all the magazines would have you believe. There aren't even THAT many non-plot characters to interact with despite claims to the contrary. You can, of course, buy David Bowie albums and bring them home to your virtual apartment to play, but as those same songs are on the new album "Hours" I can just as easily do that in real life while playing the game itself, so that doesn't impress me overall. The game has REALLY fantastic design and camera angles--even though the camera angles are HORRIBLY confusing when trying to move around. The bottom line is, to buy into Omikron, you have to buy into the perspective which the game presents you with. If only this was a first-person point of view, it would be perfect and everything I could have asked for. As it currently stands, when I play it I feel like I'm a mere observant, not a participant.

Original and entertaining but not without problems

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: May 05, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game has intrigued me ever since I saw the ads in game magazines. Now having expended close to several weeks effort on the game I can only say that the game is original, entertaining and fun if you can overlook some of the faults in the design. You play a 'nomad soul' that jumps from body to body living and interacting with the game world as a host of different people. Each new person you inhabit has his/her problems and goals which you try to solve as that character.

The good parts: a great story, an original idea (for a PC game), smooth 3D graphics, a chance to experience several different lives in a single game. The not-so good parts: clumsy controls (expecially combat) and the fact that while you can generally control when you want to jump bodies, at several points this is forced by the game (usually just when you thought the current one was perfect). It may just be me, but I don't really like being railroaded just because the storyline demands it. The new game 'Messiah' has a similar idea but allows you total control over when you want to enter or leave host bodies. Also you may want to web over to the publisher's website to check for patches - the game seemed a little unstable, at least on my PC that no amount of tinkering with drivers, Direct3D, etc could fix.

How to Catagorize This Game -- A Point of Much Debate.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: May 21, 2003
Author: Amazon User

What to say that hasnýt already been said more eloquently? Letýs hit the obvious first. Genre-wise, this game definitely fits more into the ýadventureý category than anything, but spans several other mini-modes of game play. During the course of your adventuring, you will encounter first-person shooter, melee fighting and role-playing elements that supplement the interface youýd normally expect from an adventure game. This is quite a pleasant change if you are expecting a run-of-the-mill adventure. On the other hand, donýt go into it expecting a great fighting game, FPS or RPG; you will surely be disappointed. Let me explain by covering each of these sub-genres found in Omikron in greater detail:

FPS:
The first-person shooter aspect comes across as somewhat crude and limited, in that movement is stiff and slow, the AI lacks coherent intelligence, and as a result there really is no great depth of game play here. The interjection of FPS scenes into the game lack smooth transitions, and therefore feel more like a blatant attempt to graft an FPS branch onto an adventure tree, so to speak.

Fighting:
Represented as a fighting game, Omikron fares much better. Attack combinations, fluid character animations and a 3-dimensional opponent-oriented movement make for some great action sequences. On the other hand, it wouldnýt be fair not to mention the inconsistencies in the AI opponent. When playing a scene in this game mode, it seems that there really are only two different AI models with which to fight: way too hard and way too easy. The discrepancy lies in the fact that you may fight the same character twice -- beat them without taking damage the first time and being pummeled down mercilessly the next -- a bit like a coin toss.

RPG:
It really is tough to even stretch the RPG factor in Omikron to the point of calling it a sub-genre. This element consists mainly of the ability to broaden the characterýs skills to their full extent, with the use of training, items and spells. In relation to the rest of the game, it does not influence the tide of the adventure part in the slightest; only melee combat is affected. Even this muted form or role-playing is further castrated by the fact that during the course of the game, you move from body to body quite often, which is mandatory. In doing so your former body is lost forever, and the new body must be quickly re-trained if it is to fare well in martial combat.

In conclusion, this is simply one of the BEST adventure game Iýve ever played. Thatýs right; even with their drawbacks, the varied modes of game play do well to shake up the monotony of adventuring, ýtalk to X, find Y, and open Z. Rinse, lather, repeat.ý You may not look forward to the action scenes youýll encounter in this game, but you will likely appreciate them anyway. Sub-genres aside, this game tells a superbly crafted and well balanced story, paces nicely, and offers you many decisions and possibilities without leaving you feeling directionless. For fans of adventure games, missing out on this game because of its weak action elements would be a poor decision. After all, at least it HAS some action elements! ;-)

What a frustrating game!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 12 / 21
Date: December 25, 1999
Author: Amazon User

If you are going to buy this game because of either David Bowie or because somebody said "you can interact with almost everything in this world", DON'T! It's just not worth the frustration of having to play the game. First of all if you want Bowie's music get it on CD sounds better. If you want an interactive world talk to your friends. Both these things get old in the first 30 mins of the game and you have hours to go before you are done.

First the positive, Omikron does give you a huge world that you can play around in. The graphics for the people and places are pretty good. The general story line is pretty good, enough to keep you interested for a while. The sound is excellent. That's about it for the good.

The Bad:

The Controls: Nothing good can come from having to set your movement controls for four different gaming situations (Exploring, Swimming, First person shooter, and hand to hand combat). If you don't mind the default settings this won't be a problem for you. If you do, you have to go in and change the controls for different situations independently.

The Graphics: Althought visually stunning, they are not so good unless you do the 1.6 M install, if you don't everything you do the game has to read from the CD kind of slows down the whole gaming experience. If you don't have the best in equiptment expect slow downs anyways. I'm also not exactly sure what the people at Quantic Dream deemed it necessary when they enveloved the entire game in a fog. It detracts from the gameplay because you can never find anything unless your standing in front of it.

The Gameplay: The puzzles in Omnikron are not that difficult to figure out, and they seem to rehash the same puzzles again under a different premise. Once you solved it the first time the subsequent times are just tedious (Actually the whole puzzle solving part of this game is tedious. It doesn't really involve all that much thinking it's more you have to run around and find the components which are sometimes obvious and other time just plain obscure or hard to read). You will also spend an inordinately large amount of time just running from place to place. The world is just to big sometimes. If you forgot something or need something from storage, it gets frustrating when you spend 10 mins having to run to the closest terminal to extract it. The biggest frustration in the whole game is you don't always know what your suppose to be doing. Other adventure games always give you a sense of what your suppose to be doing next. Omikron fails to do that several times and this is enough to get you to start cursing the day you bought this game. The game seems to have an agenda of its own and neglects to tell let you in on it. This is just bad game design.

The first person shooter: It's like playing a beautiful Commodore 64 (computer from the 80's) game. Not much challenge and enemies seem to have the ability to appear wherever they want.

The hand to hand combat: Remember the Original Street Fighter game this is even worse.

The final bad: Bugs lots of them everywhere.

Try this game at your own risk.

A thorough and unbiased review, trust me and read it

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 11 / 19
Date: December 12, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Please read this review. Try to disregard the fanatical praises heaped on it by all the others that have succumbed to the rediculous amount of hype piled on the game. You'll thank me for it some day.

Ok, I'll admit i was suckered into buying this game just because Bowie was in it. I am still, however, a hardcore gamer. I've spent plenty of hours on Everquest, Tribes, Quake 3, Starcraft and plenty of others. So I know a quality game when I see one.

We'll start with graphics. First off, you need to be running a very high end machine for this game to look decent. I'm running a 'pitiful' P2 450 w/ 256 megs RAM, and a Voodoo 3 2000, and I needed to set the game to 800 x 600 with all the detail levels at medium for this game to have a tolerable framerate. I can run Quake 3 at 1024 x 768 and almost maximum settings, and its by far a much better looking game anyways.

And this MUCH HYPED facial moting capture? Its AWESOME, BUT THE PEOPLE DONT $#$%# BLINK! Thus shatters the illusion of emotion, as all the characters stare at you creepily like retarded zombies. Come on, how the heck did Quantic Dream miss that? Plug in your old Nintendo and you'll see that even the original Super mario Brother blinked! Cripes.

The setting is well done, if not original. Sort of 5th Element meets Dune. The plot is obscure at first and there's little to get you interested. it does get better, but there's one main problem. . .

the play mechanics suck BIG TIME in all modes of play! This is typical of games that try to cover too many areas. Rather than excell in one singular aspect (like Quake 3, Tribes or EverQuest) it spreads itself very thin and comes out mediocre at best.

the First Person shooting is choppy, the weapons are unispired and slow to fire, enemies appear out of thin air (probably due to some bug) and you are forced to rely too heavily on med-kits.

The fighting engine is also weak. Its especially difficult to play with the mouse and keyboard combo, not to mention the fact that its boring and usually fights are tossed in hap-hazardly to culminate a first person shooting round. I would have preferred that this was just left out and the FPS tweaked, but oh well, what do I know, I'm just the consumer.

So with all this frustration, tis a chore just to continue in the game. not to mention the fact that your objective is very damn obscure at first and you'll spend most of your time walking around aimlesly.

And then there were BUGS. And plenty of them. Certain commands like walking or crouching dont work when applyed to certain buttons. No particular reason it seems. For instance, I set walking to left shift, as almost all FPS players will do, and I use the WSAD running / strafing system. Forget it, cause that will cause a ton of problems. Instead of using the up arrow when at the game menu, you need to use the 'w' key because the game is too stupid to know when its playing and when its not. You cant us the 's' key in your name if you've done this either, because it takes you back to the menu. Sucks if your name is Scott. There's plenty of other bugs too, but'll lets not spoil ALL the surprises.

As for Bowie's 'gametrack', dont buy this game if you own his new album, 'Hours. . ' because thats all it is. Really. he doesnt supply the ambient sound as I had hoped he would, and the only time you get to hear his songs is at a bar where some badly animated singer jerks around like a puppet while Bowie's music is dubbed over. Sure the songs are great but by the album, its cheaper. The ambient sound is still good, but it skips, a LOT. So it gives you a headache most of the time.

As for the game, if you want depth, by Everquest. if you don't like D&D go the Final Fantasy 8 route. if you want shooting, by Quake 3 Arena or better yet Tribes. If Omikron only runs half decent on your computer these games will look amazing. if you want fighting buy Tekken 3 and see how it's SUPPOSED to be done. Avoid this Eidos cash-machine like the plague.

Very, very good adventure game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: November 12, 1999
Author: Amazon User

I don't play many games, but this one intrigued me - it had an interesting story, excellent graphics, and incredible cut-sequences. I'm not too far into it yet, but so far the story and the main interface is immersive.

The main problem with this game is in it's "alternate" user interfaces, for the game actually has four modes: adventure, fighting, shooting and swimming. An somewhat uneasy transition takes you from one mode to another. Shooting mode is a traditional first-person shooter; however, it's one of the worst I've ever seen. It's fortunate you don't have to spend much time in this mode. Adventure and fighting modes are adequate; not the best I've seen, but they don't detract from the excellent story.

Overall, I'd recommend this game.

Great game - a must

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: January 16, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game took me by surprise. I didn't know how to handle this strange mix of adventure-game, roleplaying and action-game at first. Once I got the hang of it, I couldn't let go. What a fine game this is. It's breaking new ground with the mix of styles, and I certainly praise the makers for this. It's an immersive, breathtaking experience, sure to provide long evenings, long nights even. There's plenty to discover, as in a good adventuregame, and there's some figthing and shooting to do as well. There are some minor drawbacks. The procedure to save a game is quite annoying. You can't save whenever you like: you have to find gold rings first. The amount of rings grants you the amounts of saves. So when you're far advanced in a the game, but didn't find any rings yet - well, you have to start again at the last save... Hence four stars instead of five. Overall, this is a sublime game, very haunting and with humour as well. A extremely good buy.

Awesome...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: December 01, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Omikron pulls you into another world where 3rd person adventure is taken to a new level. The graphics are top-notch, but not perfect (Although it really isn't critical for such a game to have Quake 3 quality graphics, with such an immersive storyline) while the sound truly completes the experience. Bowie's pulsing techno-injected melodies stay with you even after the song is over. If you're looking for a serious (as in "Everquest" serious, meaning it will destroy your social life) RPG, then look elsewhere (you Dungeons & Dragons geek). If you're looknig for a new style of 3rd person RPG that evolves the genre, pick up Omikron: TNS.

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