Black Thorne is a cool game that everyone should play through at least once.
Graphics:
Black Thorne sports awesome graphics throughout the game. The animations as you jump around the platforms, grabbing the edges and drag yourself up, climbing up and down and leaping across chasms are just beautiful. The animations and style of scaling platforms and jumping reminds me of Prince of Persia more than a little. The enemies are not very varied but they all look really cool. The lightning and shading programming in this game is perfect. The backdrops could maybe feel a little repetitive at times but they have the atmosphere of actually being on Adumar and fighting to free it from the claws of the evil one. The intro I find extremely cool and to my liking as it unfolds the story behind the game. Every now and then, cut scenes will appear from the throne-room of the tyrant. They're all up to Interplay standard in terms of quality.
91%
Sound:
Sound effects to die for! The recoil sound as you pump the shotgun is awesome. The sound is very good overall, however, I would have preferred some more music in the game as it feels a bit quiet at times.
71%
Game play:
Sneaking around and killing monsters is good fun. An original idea is that instead of ducking to avoid enemy fire, you flat against the wall and wait for your chance to send some lead at your enemies. Apart from fighting, there are many "puzzles" to solve and keys and items to find. Climbing, jumping and some back-tracking help making the game feel varied and cool. The puzzles might be a bit easy sometimes, but that only keeps the pace of the game going. You never get really, really stuck, which is nice. The enemies are not very varied but consist of demons with whips, orcs in different colors, and even Adumari traitors that look like the slaves but are there to kill you. During your adventure you will meet many interesting and many not-so-interesting people that provide you with information and/or items to help you. After you reach a checkpoint and get a new password you lose all your grenades, health potions etc. Why? Wouldn't it be cooler if you could really stack stuff up? Maybe the game would have been too easy if that were the case. The amount of back-tracking is actually quite large but with these graphics it's still fun. You have to holster your weapon to climb and jump, which is a cool thing. There is a special attack available as you press C that allows you to swing your 12-gauge around with ONE hand and blast the bastard behind you. Warning! Only for experienced players! Really cool.
89%
Lastability:
There is no battery memory in this cartridge, but there is a password system that works just fine. After you have completed the game on all difficulty levels there is nothing to come back for. You WILL be very burnt out on the game play by that time, and the only thing I can think of that would bring me back is to enter a password to play a certain part again. It is, however, a very cool game that you would like to show your friends that you have so chances are you'll be back!
67%
Overall:
Well, how many times did I use the word cool in this review? That pretty much sums it up.
Black Thorne is a cool game that everyone should play through at least once.
88%