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By Keith B (23rd Jul 2007)

The Goblins and Orc’s are attacking! And wouldn’t you know it……they’ve got themselves a Cave Troll! But never fear, Gandelf will protect us! Wait, where is Gandelf? Nooooooo…..a rip off game of Lord of the Rings has been made with no Gandelf? What is there instead then? A wimpy lil 14 year old pre-pubescent chick in a blue cape who you can’t even use until you unlock her? Great! Next thing you’ll be telling me is there is a weird race of Frog people who are working with the Goblins etc.! There is?! So, who is left to protect this ‘original’ land from the ravages of evil?....A chick in tight red vinyl (with a strategically placed cut away in the middle of her chest) wielding a bloody big sword and her gutless brother?! Oh yay!

Sorry about the overkill of sarcasm in the first paragraph, I just couldn’t resist ripping into the plot of the game! Never fear though, there are more than enough differences to ensure that they don’t get sued by any member of the Tolkein family! Ninety Nine Nights (NNN) is a cross between a role playing game (without any of the pesky non-combat stuff) and a First Person Shooter, except there are swords and medieval stuff instead of guns. To begin with you are Inphyy, a hot little bird, who is the leader of the ‘Temple Knights’, who are basically the good guys! She commands an army into various battle stages where the odds seem overwhelming. Fortunately with her insanely big sword she has the ability of taking out 10 or so enemy units with one hit. She must be hiding he muscles well, as she wields that big sword like it was a toothpick! Anywho, she, her big bro, a number of sergeants at arms and some random do-gooders, are battling to restore the Orb of Power. This orb (not unlike the Dark Crystal, which was an awesome movie) was broken many years ago, and the two major parts, i.e. the Orb of Light and Orb of Darkness, hold the balance of power. The Dark Orb is held by the Goblin King, and our hero’s job is the chop him up into little tiny pieces and take the other half of the orb, making the world happy and chipper for all time!

The format of the game is actually quite good. Originally you can only access Inphyy as a character. But as you fight through levels, you unlock a number of other characters, who have their own story/timelines. You can even play as the Goblin King and destroy the good guys! But don’t get ya hopes up too high all of you evil little monkeys out there….you can’t access that character until you have completed quite a number of story’s prior!

The game-play is pretty fast paced. From the first level you are ripping through hundreds of enemy’s like a hot knife through butter! Basically, if you can imaging the Helms Deep battle from Lord of the Rings….that happens every level! It is not uncommon to have 1300 hit combos or over 1000 kills per level! It can be a bit full on though, as there isn’t really a break in the action. I mean there are cut scenes, which are all very nice and all, but the game itself is a very frantic pace! As you battle, eventually you can work out combo’s and give your fingers a mini-rest. The game is a bit of a button masher! Having said that there are really only three buttons you have to worry about during combat, so it isn’t as bad at fighting games etc. You can also unlock ‘orb attacks’ which is kind of like a beserker mode. During this period you move stupidly fast and carve up hundreds of enemies. If you do this mode well, you then unlock this cool super orb mode, where anything remotely near you just keels over.

Visual presentation is certainly nothing to sniff at. The graphics are very sweet, and the animation is very smooth, which is even more impressive given the pace the game runs at! The biggest problem is that it can be difficult to determine which are the enemies and which are your soldiers in the battles! Now, it isn’t as bad as it sounds….you can’t hit your soldiers, it just makes it easier for an enemy to sneak in and get a cheap shot in. I found this was the only way I actually lost life points. Well, except for the massive Cave Trolls (identical to Lord of the Rings) and the Goblin Shamans….those little pricks can shoot lighting at ya! The other major stand out about the art work is the character/costume design. Needless to say, being fantasy based and I am pretty sure designed by a Japanese company, the major female character is portrayed with quite a revealing costume…perfect for fighting the scum of the Earth, no?!

The sound is good without being a stand out. The voice sync is a little all over the shop, but you don’t really notice too much. The background music and ambience is suited to the scenarios and the voices themselves are only marginally annoying!

As I mentioned earlier the controls are a bit of a button mash, but once you get the hang of things it isn’t difficult to hit very cool combos or navigate around the battle field. Speaking of which, the battle fields are massive, which doesn’t really pose a problem. The battles themselves always seem to clump in one central area, so if you are low on health you can lure an enemy or two at a time away from the major group and deal with them without having to worry about a sneaky lil blighter stabbing you in the back!

The Scotts Final Word
For a blatant rip of Lord of the Rings (plot) NNN wasn’t too shabby at all! It doesn’t really have a massive longevity factor, but it is ideal for playing when you are just nicked off with something and in a bad mood and you just need to do some damage! Although I mentioned that the female characters are scantily clad, you can’t really see them close enough during battle to appreciate it, so pay close attention to the cut scenes lads….or just watch Bay Watch, either way!