Mark of Kri

A millennium later and the spell had become just another tale among many told around campfires. But then one day the six parts of the spell came back to the light, giving agents of evil a chance to recreate the world to their desire.

The main character, whom you play as in the game is named Rau. Rau is a young warrior: muscle-bound and armed to the teeth, he's in training to face his destiny and hopefully save his people from this evil curse. As Rau you must venture out and defeat evil where you can find it, using steel, skills and stealth in Sony's latest action adventure game.

Mark of Kri has a unique combat system, specially designed to take on surrounding enemies all at once. The way this works is fairly simple and easy to pick up. Rau has a spinning arrow that helps him to locate and mark enemies around him (time slows to allow this though). Once marked, each enemy has a controller symbol above them. Rau can then hit the button to his the desired target, and this in turn allows Rau to attack any of his enemies in any direction.

Reasons for buying it:
-Unique battle system
-Varied weapons
-Stealth and vicious action
-Great storyline, brilliantly illustrated
-Secondary character to add original tactical element.

Reasons to leave on shelf:
-Rau is a little slow at running (!!!)
(you must be thinking surely there are more reasons, but no!)

Overall Verdict:
-8.9/10 (89%)
A great action adventure wrapped within a superb story. The battle option and cheats will occupy you for six months onwards.

The game is professionally presented in all its facets: the packaging is as good as most PS2 games are in presentation. The graphics are staggeringly well executed. The most obvious difference of the game is its `Disney' or `Don Bluth Studios' looks: the game looks and moves like a high quality animation. All the characters and scenery are effectively stylised have immediately recognizable personalities. In this regard the textures are simplified, but this works extremely well and adds to the depth. The lighting effects are stunning: golden shafts of sunlight spearing through the forsts that Rau prowls, catching leaves that drift from the trees. The atmosphere is at all times incredible.

The sound is of an exceptionally high quality: the music being suitably tribal and changing to reflect the events in the game as they happen, usually with a fair degree of smoothness in the transition. The voice acting is some of the best to be found in any game at the moment, lacking distinctly in both cheesiness and poor quality writing. Much of the dialogue is wryly amusing, all of it contributing to the heroic atmosphere. The voiceovers are reminiscent of the voiceovers from the Conan movies, both in sound and style- adding yet more to the atmosphere.

The gameplay and animation are breathtaking in Mark of Kri. Each character has a considerable number of frames devoted to them, whilst still maintaining speed- and what speed! this game is a fighting game, in the tradition of the 2D side-scrollers of ten years ago- Rau is a barbarian hero firmly in the tradition of Conan: he is gigantic (head and shoulders over most opposition), fast, strong and extremely adept at stealth. Frequently Rau will engage ten opponents (and even twenty or thirty at one point in the game), with little or no slowdown on the part of the PS2. What is truly amazing is the lack of pausing: in most games action is formed in sequences and there is some transition between them. In Mark of Kri there is no such transition visible- Rau just keeps swinging the blows with variety and believability, in a full 360 degrees. Whether you parry attacks, go for an instant kill combination (tricky at first, but worth it) or try to peform disarm (instant) kills the game never ceases to look like a superbly executed cartoon.
The combat system is, I think, unique- Rau is moved with the left stick, attacks with the symbol buttons and selects opponents with the right stick: as a result he can attack and defend at all times in all directions, controlled to a large extent by the player.
The game's brutality bely its cartoon looks: although the fighting is over the top, Rau is a perfectly portrayed barbarian hero, the gore is realstic: heads fly, limbs fall, torsos are bisected and enemies are impaled. A lot. Stealth kills raise the vicious nature of combat to a new level, made wincingly uncomfortable by believable sound effects.
If there is a downside to the game it is that it is short, although it has tremendous replay value, having only six large levels. The game is also solidly fighting, no puzzles, no interaction just pure fighting (but what fighting!). At times it can become incredibly frustrating, particularly against armoured foes: in these cases it is usually a case of using strategy and forethough whilst scrapping.
A magnificent game that genuinely tries to do things differently: it has a great cartoon look all of its own, has fantastic ambient sound and some of the best fighting action anywhere. If you don't like violent games avoid it, otherwise you won't go far wrong.