Developed by: Bungie Published by: Gathering of Developers Official website Genre: Action - Adventure Number of Players: 1 ESRB: Teen 8 Graphics:....................8/10 Sound:.........................7/10 Documentation:.........8/10 Getting Started:.........7/10 Gameplay:..................8/10 Value:..........................9/10 The Good Press: Love that bleak futuristic vibe. Konoko is a cool-as-hell heroine with seriously slick moves. Did I mention she has purple hair? Konoko rocks. The Bad Press: Futuristic doesn't mean big, empty, and flat. Oni desperately needs a save-anywhere feature (bad Bungie! bad! bad!), and would benefit from an in-game option screen for configurations. A month or two more on the drawing table might've helped. System Requirements: • Windows 98 • 266 MHz Pentium III processor or higher • 64 MB of RAM • 800 MB free hard disk space • Hardware-accelerated 3D graphics card (OpenGL compatible) • Video modes supported: Voodoo 2+, TNT2+, Rage Pro+, Intel i890 • Supported graphics: 3dfx Voodoo 2, ATI Rage Pro, ATI Rage 128 • Only OpenGL, Glide, and software rendering supported on WindowsNT.

Two great tastes that taste great together.

Leave it to Bungie to come up with a game that combines the slick moves of a fighting game like Soul Calibur with the immersive storyline and adventure of a futuristic anime-style third-person shooter with enough sass and mystery to make you want to hug an electric sheep. Oni is Bungie's latest offering to the gaming world, and it incorporates all of the above ingredients and more for a unique--if slightly unfinished--flavor.

Konoko is an agent of the Tech Crimes Task Force (TCTF), and she's sent on a mission to investigate a Syndicate warehouse. With seriously unsavory undertones, the Syndicate is a techno mafia otherwise known as "the bad guys" (although nothing is ever really as it seems, right?). Konoko receives her orders from Griffin, although a scientist named Kerr seems to take some special interest in Konoko's well-being too. In addition, a strange pink-haired girl named Shinatama maintains constant contact with Konoko. Shinatama sees everything Konoko sees, and monitors her health during the missions. As the missions unfold, Konoko becomes inexplicably drawn into something much bigger than a bit of info smuggling. It becomes, ultimately, not only a question of her future, but also (dum dum dum) the future of humanity.

As the TCTF agent to end all agents (literally?), Konoko excels in hand-to-hand combat. She has room for one weapon, which means the player is often weighing the pros and cons of each type of weapon, availability of ammo, the upcoming action, and so on. This proves to be quite tricky, especially taking into account the lack of a save-anywhere feature (more on that in a moment). The panel on the left monitors her weapon status (including ammo), and also provides a sort of objective compass, pointing her in the direction of her next checkpoint. The panel on the right monitors her health, hypos, the direction of assault (if any is occurring), and also any shield information she may have. Konoko can pick up energy fields that help her withstand shots, as well as invisibility shields that last a short while.

Pressing F1 calls up a handy-dandy screen that tells the player the control configurations and lists the combinations that Konoko has learned so far, her objectives, and even a little hint or two. Hitting Esc pulls up a load/quit screen. Notice I don't say save/load/quit: as mentioned above, there is no save-anywhere function. This becomes more than an inconvenience; I actually spent a day and a half on one level. Not one level as in "fight all the way through and find a boss and complete the mission." Nope. I was stuck on part of one level. I can hear you saying, "Jennifer, get off the cross, 'cause we need the wood!" Okay, my point has been made. And I know for a fact from my excursions on the forums as well as from reading the opinions of my fellow reviewers, that I am not alone in my bitching. The coolness of having to sneak around and be crafty was soon outweighed by sheer boredom and frustration. It also sucked to not be able to skip cutscenes. Ever.

For a game like Oni to incorporate hand-to-hand (or should I say foot-to-butt) combat with a keyboard-mouse configuration is really nothing to sniff at. However, Oni does seem more suited to console gaming, especially in the way that in-game configuration is, well, nonexistent. The console-oriented nature seemed obvious even in the way the demo set itself up by basically taking over the PC and starting the game directly from the zip file as opposed to installing on the hard drive. Overall, it was not terribly sympathetic to the desktop cause, but on the other hand, to release a game on PC, Mac, and PS2 at the same time is really cool, and almost makes up for the lack of finishing.

It did take a bit longer than usual to get into the groove of playing Oni, but to have the range of motions available to Konoko is well worth the extra effort. For the most part, melee combat was actually preferable to using weapons; not only was it less time consuming, but it was safer for Konoko to pull her own punches rather than to shoot a couple of times and get clocked while she's stuck reloading. Oni also features much more sneaking than I imagined it would, which complicated gameplay in both excellent and horrifying ways. I really enjoyed trying out different game plans, and the tension of sneaking around was really fun...at first. The fifth or eighth time around I could have done without. See above rant. I also felt that Konoko's special moves were more visually impressive than useful; they didn't seem to do much damage, and by the time I got the rhythm of crouch-jump-kick just right, I often got clobbered. I only managed to pull a backbreaker twice or maybe three times the whole game. I also found the bosses to be easier to beat than some of the levels; even Muro just required good old stamina. However, the replay value is multiplied several times over by the shapeshifter option; you get to play Oni again as a male or female striker, a tanker, Barnabas, or even Konoko's nemesis Muro.

Like any other game, and especially a Bungie game, Oni will have its passionate defenders, converts, and heretics alike. I count myself somewhere in the middle, acknowledging the innovations of Oni while also being aware of its inherent flaws.

Tips:

• Plasma guns are the way to go.
• Isolate and attack; being surrounded by a group of disgruntled strikers sucks no matter how many cool combos you know.
• Choose your actions carefully, as they may help you later in the game when you need backup.
• Play peek-a-boo, and then dodge enemy fire until they're out of ammo. The disarm move is your friend.
• Using your weapons close up could be your downfall; enemies can and will sock it to you and then grab your weapon. Sucky.