Life Changers: Oni

Tough as nails, but worth the effort.

As a lot of people wouldn't have played Oni, it's a third person brawler developed by the legendary Bungie. Unfortunately the title ultimately fell short of the many promises made during development, such as dropping the promised multi-player.

Many that did play Oni were put off by the unconventional controls and intense learning curve. Oni was indeed unforgiving. Stick with it though, and Oni has a lot to offer.

Despite the obvious shortcomings, there was still a lot to like about the game. Oni broke new ground by combining 3rd person gun play with martial arts. A lot of the moves were quite complex and required trial and error, but nailing your combos was extremely satisfying. Once the controls were mastered, you could run up to a bunch of enemies, disarm the first baddie before shoving him away and jump kick his buddy in the face. Many epic brawls ensued, and there still aren't many games that have approached the chaos offered up here. Despite coming up against a number of bad guys, your moves flowed together amazingly well. A skilled player could cut through enemies in a series of deadly moves rivalling a Tony Jaa movie (Youtube Tony Jaa if you don't know who this is).

Oni offered up an assortment of guns: there were rocket launchers and rail guns, but they really paled in comparison to the brutal close combat moves. I often fired the weapons at the enemies from a distance before dropping the weapon and charging in with a jump kick, sweeping kick or a good old-fashioned elbow. Like many games these days, Oni also had its fair share of stealth take-downs for those that don't favour such primitive smash and grab techniques.

I first played Oni at a friend's LAN party. Because I'm a bit of a numpty at setting up computers, I was playing this while my friends were trying to get the game we went around there to play running over the network. When we did finally get that game running (I can't even remember what it was), I kept coming back to Oni, and assisted by many bottles of Mountain Dew, a few of us played through the single player campaign on different computers. At the time, Oni just reeked of 'coolness' and we couldn't get enough of it. Later I picked up the PS2 version, but I felt the controls felt a little worse for the port.

Action wasn't all Oni had going for it though: the artwork and feel was completely 'borrowed' from the cult manga, 'Ghost in the Shell'. Bungie even went as far as to hire architects to design the buildings in the game. While I won't comment on whether architects know what makes a fun level, I will say that the game had an incredible atmosphere, and playing through, I always wanted to see what the next level offered. Despite all this effort in other areas, Oni was a little undercooked on the storyline. A shame as a strong narrative would of added that extra layer of polish.

Although the graphics are simple these days and the controls seemingly even harder to get to grips with (especially on console), I'd still say Oni is worth a solid play as the only games to rival this in terms of rewarding choreography are Enter The Matrix and Devil May Cry. The main reason I'd say this was a 'life changer' for me is that this game was really the first 3rd person video game to make the player feel like a real bad-ass.