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Call The Generic King

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: September 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Haven: call of the king, tries to be a platformer, shooter and adventure all in one. The problem is that it does not succeed at any of these elements. Another thing that annoyed me was the fact that it claims to be a free-form game, when clearly it is not.

The level designs are incoherent to the flow of the generic storyline and awkward controls. Haven, has many interesting elements that it ignores and does not fully develope. The very first level has you running away from a giant rolling rock, just as we have seen in the Crash Bandicoot games. Your main task is to find cogs. The cogs will make machinery work or give you access to another area in the level. Sometimes instead of cogs, they tell you to collect energy orbs, which power your energy shield and turn on machinery. Since the village is divided into two halves, you must reach the other half. After passing the village area you will be riding on a mine cart to enter a mining facility. In a later level, you will strap on a jet pack and fly around putting out fires in a village. You must put out the fires within a certain time limit or you fail the mission. Even though you are wearing a jet pack and can fly anywhere in the area, you are restricted from doing so because of the time limit. Taking away the fun out of owning a jet pack. Later on you will also be riding a speedboat, but your purpose is to destroy some towers, by just crashing into them. You will then ride on a train and shoot some spaceships with the gun mounted on the train. The train of course runs along a fixed track and you have no control over it. You just shoot at the enemy ships trying to attack you.

So with so many great sounding levels its bound to be fun right?
Haven: call of the king is not really a free-form game. You have certain objectives to complete if you wish to enter a specific areas. You have time limits that prevent you from having fun with the jet pack. You ride along vehicles which you cannot control. They equip you with cool laser weapons with limited ammo. Many of the missions have a time limit. Even the weapons have a time limit, so when the clock runs out, your weapon stops shooting! This is the first time I played a game on the PS2 that gives you time limit on a simple weapon (that should have been supplied in the first place). Instead as main weapon you will use the mag-ball (a type of yo-yo) against the enemy. Can you really get satisfaction of destroying the bad guys with a yo-yo?! They give you an energy shield, which can protect you from enemy attacks, but the energy gets drained when you use it on machinery. So then you have to find energy orbs to restore your shield.

The graphics for some reason are a mixed bag, while good in some places, it is bad in others. For example, the village level, looks really choppy and weird textured, but then in a latter level, you see sharp graphics in the lava stages, with tons of detail and lovely colors. But then again you will see plain graphics when you ride the speedboat in another level. The level switching seem forced like they were placed there even though they look incoherent. The animation for your main character is smooth, the village people and the enemies are poorly animated. Your main character has a silly look on his face, and he is very ugly and awkward looking.

The creators of Haven had lots of good ideas by mixing several types of activities into one game, but did not focus on how well they played. They also forget to make the game less linear and more free-form. Mostly all of the areas you pass through cannot be revisited; so where is the free-form?

Pros:
+lots of play elements

Cons:
-bad controls
-not really free-form
-time limits
-limited weapons
-fighting with a yo-yo
-single player only
-generic characters
-stupid storyline
-choppy animations
-grainy looking graphics
-too difficult for kids
-too boring for adults
-cheap sound effects

Everyone else is wrong. Buy this game.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: February 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Look, if you're into any kind of platforming game at all, whether it be Jak and Daxter, Spyro, or Ratchet and Clank, then you will like this game. It has awesome voice acting, cool cutscenes, great gameplay, good graphics, and most of all... IT'S $5! I bought it right after it came out for $7.99 just because it was so cheap and I expected to be let down. Well, I was wrong. This game is packed with amazing gameplay, you get to drive all sorts of vehicles and there are tons of sub-missions. Look, bottom line, for the price, I don't think it gets any better. I would pay $20 for it, but you don't even have to, it's one-fourth of that. It will bring you hours of entertainment. The only downside is that sometimes the game becomes very hard at certain times which is aggravating. You will find a way to get past it and start playing it again for hours on end. Enjoy.

don't waste your money

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: October 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

It's not often that I regret spending a mere $5 on a game...but this game really makes me want my $5 back. The graphics are cheesy (worse than some ps1 games), the dialogue is corny, the music and sound effects are irritating. I found myself muting the volume at times to make gameplay more tolerable. Some levels are ridiculously easy, some are ridiculously hard. There's no real climbing skill level. Many of the levels get monotonous, making you perform the same kind of actions over and over and over again. The story could have been good, but all the other elements drag it down. A sore disappointment. Never played a game by these people before and I doubt I will again.

Unnecessarily Difficult in the Wrong Places

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: December 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Oh what could have been! Haven could have been one of the truly great video games ever: great graphics, good story line, great variety of skills that it tests, many fun-filled hours. Sadly, the makers seem to have taken a perverse joy in making many of the tasks so needlessly long, tedious and darn near impossible, that the average gamer simply throws his/her hands up in despair. What's more, there are no cheats to speak of or any way of moving to a new mission if (when!)you encounter one of the maddeningly difficult tasks, that most will simply give up (if they haven't already smashed the disc to pieces). For example: the battle at sea leading to the Isle of Heroes. The final battle against the Pirate Galleon is beyond challenging, it reaches the point of absurdity. You'd have to be a gamer masochist to continue. You simply cannot win. So save your money, yes, even nine bucks, until these guys revise Haven and make it the game it could have been.

My brother loves it

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 13
Date: August 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The first day he got the game he said that it is not a good game, but after he play it for an hour hr changed his mind. Now he really loves this game, it makes him think what he really likes to do.

Not Great, but definitely entertaining

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: June 26, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I've read many bad reviews for this game and either I like bad games or the other reviewers never really gave this game a chance. As a fan of platform games, I know what I like and don't like in a game, so I was a bit skeptical about 'Haven' trying to be several gametypes rolled into one.

The pace of the game was a little slow at the beginning and I'd have to agree with many others that the mag-ball (yo-yo) was quite cumbersome and difficult to control. I soon learned that with a little patience it was pretty simple and intuitive, although at times not always acurate. Many other complaints were that the game was just too difficult and I'd say that "yes" to a novice player it would be, but a seasoned gamer would say it is challenging but by no means difficult. I for one acutally prefer a game that is challenging, but of course that's one man's opinion.

The skinny on the game is that it has wonderful fantasy environments, nice gamelength (not too long, not too short), different and interesting game-play styles (driving, flying, platform jumping, arena battles, etc....), and a somewhat interesting story line. I think that at the budget price it's a solid buy and many (but definitely not all) people will find some enjoyment in playing this game. I know I did.

A mediocre genre-buster

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: April 29, 2003
Author: Amazon User

In Haven, you travel to all sorts of places on land, sea, and sky. It's very good they give you the missions so you know what you are trying to do. I really liked most of the platform parts, like going into temples and riding the spinning fans. However, the yo-yo is hard to handle, and you end up hurting yourself if you don't throw it in the exact right direction. It's pretty hard to find all the feathers you have to collect too. This game is long, and that could be good or bad, depending on how much you enjoy it.

Haven is a game that brings many different genres into one game. There is platforming, racing, hang gliding, but most importantly shooting. So many shooting missions come up, which are difficult and confusing. Often you have to shoot many things at once, which is somewhat frustrating. There are too many levels where you fly around in your biplane, trying to find what to shoot; I don't like that. The graphics are some of the worst I've seen on PS2. Some parts are more fun than others, so I give Haven a mediocre score. I hope that my future game purchases will be better than this.

Great Game but some annoyances do exist

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: April 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The game is a lot of fun but, there's parts where you might get a bit annoyed.

Good parts:
x Story is 3 stars - a bit childish
x Animation is 5 stars
x Cut scenes are boring - 2 stars
x Game play is 5 stars
x weapons are 5 stars

Bad parts

x cut scenes are boring and don't add to the game - 3 stars
x some of the story is a bit childish - 2 stars
x the timer is a bit annoying - 2 stars
x the camera stinks - 2 stars

Overall - the game is fun - and long enough to get your moneys worth. I would buy it again but, maybe wait for a sale.

A really nice fairy tale world to explore

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 14, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I heard a lot about the control problems of HAVEN and was reluctant in buying the title. However, there was a good sale at a local department store and I decided to buy it. I was not disappointed and am very happy with the game.

The story line is nice and the graphics are very good. You'll be kept very busy as there are numerous challenges and things to constantly find in the game. The issue about the yo-yo weapon is somewhat valid. It isn't easy to control, but you can master the device after some practice. After that, you should be able to enjoy the game to its fullest. When I first started this game, there were no load times at all. The game was so seamless that I didn't even know that the game had started after the first video sequences were finished. :)

For an action-adventure game, HAVEN will give you lots of entertainment value for the buck as well as a very big world to enjoy and explore.

worst hype ever!!! do not buy this game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: December 18, 2002
Author: Amazon User

though ambitious in design Haven fails in every way. This game is virtually unplayable. From frustrating camera controlle to cheap deaths. The main weapon is a yo-yo like contraption that is so difficult to aim you often die trying to hit a basic enemy. The game is hard by virtue of it's controle issues not beacause it presents anything challenging gameplay wise. Basically Haven is not fun to play, period.

also the first thing you see upon placing this game in your ps2 is the word loading flashing over and over.... for a game ment to never have no load times why did the developer decide to start with a loading screen when it could have eaisily made some opening animation ot cover this up... just like everything else in this game sloopy slow and devoid of any thing closely resembling creativity...

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