GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links.

3D Golden Warrior E3 2005 Hands-On

We head to the UK developers' capsule to get our hands dirty with Blue Sphere's 3D Golden Warrior.

1 Comments

3D Golden Warrior bears an unmistakable resemblance to PC dungeon crawls of yesteryear, like the Might and Magic or Ultima series. The game stars Aurelius, a heavily muscled warrior who seeks to destroy Plumbius, a warlord who's been plundering and pillaging at unacceptable levels. To accomplish this, Aurelius will have to retrieve the golden armor and golden sword from the skeleton-infested Caverns of Doom. The game is rendered in full 3D and runs surprisingly well on Vodaphone's new Sharp 902 handset.

The game was written completely in J2ME, using the JSR184 standard only available for use on high-end Java devices. As a result, 3D Golden Warrior pumps out some pretty impressive visuals. The game also seems to play well, despite its complex controls. It's difficult to guide movement along two axes with a cell phone keypad, so some clunky control layouts were necessary.

Certain enemies, such as ghosts, are invulnerable to your basic sword and crossbow attacks. Unfortunately, they can only be damaged with the golden sword. So you'll just have to avoid these foes until you retrieve the fabled artifact.

3D Golden Warrior is a compelling mix of platforming and action elements set in a dank dungeon that's unmistakably evocative of classic PC adventure games, both graphical and textual. Golden Warrior runs much better than most 3D Java games, although it doesn't yet feature much sound. What was there was inaudible in our loud E3 test setting. The game was just released in Europe, but a US release date is not yet set.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

Join the conversation
There are 1 comments about this story