Arena Champion, the ‘attractive’ shooter that undoubtedly was not

From 2010 to 2014 Richard Cobbett wrote Crapshoot, a column about rolling the cube to carry random video games again into the sunshine. This week… we’re the Champion. We are the Champion. No time for losers, as a result of we’re (seems to be round)… where did everybody go? Aww.

Yes, there is a porny component to Arena Champion, however whereas it is why it was despatched my means, that particularly is not very attention-grabbing. You play the game, you win the game, and it performs some animations that vary from a fast dance to a badly animated intercourse scene. Yawn. Seems like plenty of effort to go to when any participant who cares can only a) sort a few phrases into Google or b) open the video information straight in VLC. These form of video games aren’t precisely uncommon, and infrequently provide a lot that is amusing. Still, that is what it’s, probably made in some FPS Creator/Pie within the Sky-style game creation device.

But a number of the stuff round it… that caught my consideration. It’s a uncommon game informal sufficient to simply use a ‘Breaking News’ tune as theme music, and that is nothing in contrast how odd it will get elsewhere.

It’s all wrapping, actually. The game is horrible, however you do not begin off in the course of both an attractive sequence or an epic battle to the dying. Instead, Arena Champion kicks off in an workplace so abandoned, so missing in life, it is as if SHODAN had been employed because the Facilities Manager. After a fast pop-up itemizing the controls and suggesting that should you get randomly trapped by the extent geometry at any level, it is best to crouch to flee (any game that has to particularly give this sort of recommendation is doing nicely right out of the gate), you are despatched off on Mission: Find Where The Actual Bloody Game Starts.

A horny shooter game ought to by no means be this… creepy. Every wall has big cameras, turning to watch the empty halls for bother or potential mutants. Chairs sit, un-sat on. Office after workplace branches off the principle room, adorned with submitting cupboards and sofas and comparable props, however with no goal by any means. There are board rooms. TV rooms. Server rooms. None really do something, or have any operate. 

Occasionally, they’re inhabited by silent, standing figures who do not even flip as you stroll in. They do not react. They say nothing. A break room. A safety workplace. An elevator whose flooring drops away to permit entry to a second flooring of ineffective rooms like an armory you may’t go into, a medical room with a nurse apparently drafted in from someplace in Silent Hill, locker rooms and—

This looks like a hell of plenty of effort for a game whose solely promoting level is “Come look at naked anime chicks”, even when it makes use of the actual fact to place a number of posters up right here and there. Only the world simulator room really does one thing, where ‘one thing’ is revealing simply how terrible this game goes to be. 

But that may wait a second. First, there’s the Champions Lounge, which I think can also be accessible by taking the Black Mesa Transit System. I’m simply saying, if this competitors seems to be a entrance for an evil authorities challenge to tear tears within the universe, I for one won’t be shocked. At least Gordon solely needed to fear a couple of HEV swimsuit, not a visit to an HIV clinic.

In the Champions Lounge, issues actually get unhappy. This is where the groups you face within the area dangle round with bikini-clad women in a bar space. I wander as much as the bar to say whats up, however no quantity of hitting Enter will ship a salutation. Everyone simply stands round giving the distinct impression that they need I’d go away and depart them alone. So, factors for realism there.

Then I fall via the ground. Hurm. Easy come, straightforward go.

Aside from that, there’s not a lot to notice right here, besides that the entire place is adorned with photos of some women in variously skimpy outfits, however the identical face, as seen right here:

A message pops up on the way in which in to inform you no weapons are allowed within the floozy chamber, however the game would not care and you’ll’t kill anybody anyway. In reality, you may’t do something right here. Not order a drink on the bar, not strike up a dialog, not have interaction in some light-hearted banter with the opposition. 

The solely leisure is placing knuckle dusters on, going as much as individuals and punching all of the blood out of their head, to which they often react by stoically getting right again up and shaking their heads as if to say “Please do not punch all the blood out of my head again.” Eventually, this works.

And then it is time for the world. Oh good lord. If you might have a particular Hat of Failure, put it on now.

The smartest thing that may be stated about Arena Champion is that it is barely higher than Extreme Paintbrawl, although that might most likely be a little bit of a fib. It’s laborious to think about a a lot duller shooter, being set in an enormous sprawling maze of similar corridors for the obvious leisure of a paying viewers however the precise leisure of no person in all the world. 

The stage stretches about 5 textures out over a few ranges, with corridors giving technique to extra corridors, these corridors main into different corridors, and people corridors… you guessed it… linking collectively. I’ve by no means performed a game so dedicated to bloody corridors, and I’ve performed a game referred to as Corridor 7. Its corridors have been a lot cooler too.

Occasionally, the corridors open out right into a mini-arena, and that is really worse. The thought is that you are going up towards a crew {of professional} corridor-shooters, for causes that I believe we will sum up as ‘no person likes you and also you scent’. I’m simply saying. 

It’s not just like the Champions Lounge precisely provides champion status, with even the paid floozies refusing to provide the time of day till you single-handedly gun down about 49 guys in chilly blood. They then again get beer and all the eye they may need earlier than the match begins. Sure, they will be too useless to take pleasure in it afterwards, however nonetheless.

The enemies don’t precisely distinguish themselves, regardless of having fast hearth. In true bad-AI vogue, most react immediately to a gap door or different set off, however usually have an “Erp!” second where they must first load their gun. I shall repeat that. They’re in the course of a gladiatorial deathmatch, figuring out that somebody armed with a semi-automatic, a machine gun, and a knuckle-duster that is already punched all of the blood out of their heads on a minimum of 15 completely different events is on the way in which to do the identical factor for realsies this time… and so they’re not even able to shoot.

Sorry for resorting to a meme right here, however: You had one job, individuals.

Just to make the degrees much more tedious, they are a maze structure with locked doorways all over the place. To open locked doorways, you want keys. However, all you get is ‘a key’, with no trace as to which door it opens, and doorways flashing up a “Locked.” immediate even should you’ve obtained it. This doesn’t make navigation any extra fulfilling, except you actually take pleasure in sickly colored lighting that likes wanting again at mid-90s Unreal engine video games and declaring “Whoa. Classy dudes.”

Oh, and talking of the ’90s, it would shock you to know that as straightforward as the thought of an area shooter clearly was again then, they did not actually exist till Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 have been capable of present bots that have been enjoyable to play towards and ranges that have been attention-grabbing sufficient to hassle with. Of course, there have been mods for engines earlier than that, and some makes an attempt. They simply did not actually take off. 

Hands down essentially the most ’90s of the lot was a game referred to as XS, from an organization referred to as SCi, makers of Kingdom O’Magic, The Lawnmower Man, and loads of different video games too. XS was bloody terrible, which I do know first-hand, having been given it free with a duplicate of the improbable Jedi Knight, however simply take a look at its character line-up. So ’90s, it is the mega mac-daddy of… one thing, most likely.

And, sure, crap because it was, it is nonetheless higher than Arena Champion. Arena Champion’s sequel—sure, there is a sequel—barely raises the bar on stage design, in a lot the identical means that, to a ravenous orphan, two Maltesers is best than one. 

There’s glass within the wall, the degrees are a bit much less mazey, the arenas do not have fairly as many enemies able to shoot… however it would not matter a lot. Fight via it, and one load later… there’s extra of it to struggle via! Then, lastly, the most cost effective factor in gaming historical past!

That’s not the actual prize, clearly. No, the actual prize is to return to the Champions Lounge, for a supposedly attractive cutscene. The first of these is is a pink-haired lady gyrating for some time earlier than her shirt vanishes for barely extra express gyrating, for 2 immensely tedious minutes.

The different scenes provide touching in addition to wanting, assuming that the man in them is supposed to be the Arena Champion and he hasn’t simply walked in on the opposite crew persevering with to be extra profitable at love in addition to life. 

Again, customary drill for this sort of game, with 3D characters grinding and looking at one another in what can solely be described as ‘inhuman dead-eyed apathy’, and infrequently doing this horrible factor with their huge flappy tongues.

Anyway, repeat that a number of occasions and the game is over, to be continued in Arena Champion 2 and presumably Arena Champion 3: Seriously, Even We Feel Bad That We Made Another One Of These. (The game is generally in Japanese, so presumably it sounds catchier in that tongue. The tongue not writhing round within the air like a drunk octopus in quest of its different legs. I imply it, should you ever kiss anybody like that, your kissing privileges ought to be instantly revoked by legislation. Eeew.)

It’s unhappy that even with all this, Arena Champion is not on the backside of the FPS barrel. Near the underside, completely. If it stretched out even a bit of, it may scrape the barrel, however a game that appears extra all for creating a sensible workplace where its bullshit sport takes place than the precise bullshit sport itself has priorities skewed to a stage that even the likes of Venus Hostage cannot match. At least it has the advantage of age on its aspect. After all, for a game made in 2001, it is fairly detailed, and—

Wait, it was made in 2010? Oh. Well, by no means thoughts then.