Rise Of The Triad Dredges Up A Dev Diary
Rise of the Triad is one of the last games anyone expected to spring back into the spotlight via what will go down in history as the year everyone finally decided necromancy was kind of cool, but it's actually not doing half-bad for itself. Sure, it's another retro revival shooter, but the immaculately coifed folks at Interceptor seem to understand exactly what powered the original: total lunacy. There were dog modes and magical baseball bats and castles and jump pads and flame walls. Modern shooters pretend to make sense - even when they really, really don't. Not so with ROTT. Watch the Interceptor gang explain the method to their madness - with words and not guttural howling noises, somewhat surprisingly - after the break.
So it sounds like levels will be a bit more straightforward, which might not be exactly what diehard fans of the original want to hear. Mazes are out, but beyond that, it's too early to judge whether this will be a linear slog or secret-laden romp that takes a flame-spewing bat to any notion of downtime. That, I suppose, will come down to level design chops, and Interceptor's still pretty unproven in that arena. And every arena, for that matter. Fingers crossed, anyway.
Also interesting: all sorts of spiky, spinny traps are still in the mix. Will narrowly dancing our way through them be fun, though? Or is this a relic of the past that should really just stay buried - ala, say, first-person platforming segments? I'm hoping for the former, because platforming when - in most cases - you do not actually have legs is something of a frustrating challenge. It's fine to be tough, Rise of the Triad, but please don't be mean about it.