Oni (game)
Oni is a third-person action game developed by Bungie Studios (now part of Microsoft), and released in 2000. It was considered an innovation and broke new grounds by blending weaponry with hand-to-hand combat, resulting in a unique, yet familiar game for Third-Person Shooter enthusiasts.
Main Storyline (General Description)
Oni is inspired by Ghost in the Shell, which explains the game's animé feel and the female protagonist.
Its actual storyline follows a general formula: Good guy(s) versus Bad guy(s), of which the latter is/are bent on world-domination, but the storyline is nevertheless engaging.
It is the year 20321, and you play Konoko, an officer of the Techonlogy Crimes Task Force (TCTF). She was brought up by the state and has an unknown past, a past that was never dug up until the game's story commences.
In the game, Konoko/players will get to vast and varied locations. In these levels, Konoko would encounter different classes of enemies, with each class having its own set of lethal moves. As she advances further, she will encounter enemies that put her hand-to-hand combat skills to test. She will also gradually discover her past, and eventually uncover a plot by the Syndicate that causes the world's fate to hang in the balance.
1 There have been debates as to whether 2032 is the actual year of the game's setting as the manual has never clearly stated this to be so. It is only given that the World Coalition Government was formed in January 12th 2032, and as the game progresses, the possibility of the in-game storyline actually being set in 2032 gets lesser.
Gameplay and Features
Players of Third-Person shooters would find Oni's weapon-system familiar and would feel at home using the varied arsenal in the game. Altough there are only two kinds of ammo (ballistic and energy cell), there are several weapons, ranging from handgunds to rocket launchers:
- Campbell Equaliser Mk4, TCTF's standart issue sidearm, a ten round pistol with high recoil
- Hughes Black Adder SMG, a Syndicate 30 round supression gun, similar to the Uzi
- SBG Man-Portable Mortar, a grenade launcher referred simply as Superball Gun.
- Scram Cannon, Syndicate's weapon of terror, a rocket launcher capable of firing several rockets at the same time.
- Mercury Bow, a one-hit kill long-range gun. It can be considered a sniper game, dispite the lack of a usable scope.
- SML3 Plasma Rifle, a medium-range rifle
- Phase Stream Projector, a handgun capable of firing a continuos stream of energy
- Van de Graaff Pistol, the game's stun gun capable of disabling more than an enemy at close range
- Screaming Cannon, a strange weapon that unleashes a Screaming Cell, a "out of this world" entity that feeds on life force.
- Wave Motion Cannon, a vehicle weapon converted to (super)human use, is a much more powerfull mix of the Phase Stream Projector and the Superball Gun. It can be used only once, in the first encounter with Barrabas. While it's being used by Konoko, she can only barely walk.
However, what makes Oni truly unique is the choice of using hand-to-hand combat, a genre of gameplay previously found only in console games. Since the player is only allowed to carry one gun at a time, hand-to-hand combat eventually turns out to be more common than the use of weapons. Advertised as the key feature, the combat system lived up to expectations. The heroine has punches, kicks, throws, flips - basically anything that would turn enemies to a pulp - at her disposal. There are also 'special moves' that unlock as she progresses. Enemy classes has their own set of moves.
Unlike console games, the main character (Konoko) has an entire level to be her combat arena where she can explore and move about freely, instead of being confined to a small arena and fighting a small group of enemies as is the case of most, if not all, console games, although recent such games has started to develop on this aspect.
The game allows Konoko to explore 14 levels of varied sizes, ranging from medium sized to huge, entire-building levels. These levels include research facilities and a truly massive atmosphere processor. Most of these levels in Oni has a futuristic feel to them, with heavy use of metallic and bland, grey textures to highlight them.
Bungie had gone to the extent of hiring real architects to design the buildings in the levels, resulting in levels that are 'architecturally sound', meaning the levels would be logical and has the look and feel of real buildings.
The animation system implements something called 'interpolation' that has the animation engine fill in 'in-between' animations that makes the animation smooth which means Konoko can switch from one animation to another smoothly. It also enables the characters to execute combat moves with surprising fluidity.
