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| KISS Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child | | By Eric Lopez | | August 04, 2000 | |  When people think of the band Kiss, they might think of things usually associated with their music: strange makeup, simplistic '70s thud rock and multiple farewell tours. You probably wouldn't expect a first person shooter but that's exactly what Third Law Interactive has given us. Third Law has chosen to modify the increasingly popular Lithtech engine for their game, and the marketing literature promises fast and furious gameplay even under relatively low system requirements. Let's take a closer look, shall we?
KISS: Psycho Circus is based on the Todd MacFarlane comic book series of the same name. A brief synopsis follows but I'll warn you: it's pretty strange. At some point in the past the Four Who Are One, aka the Elder, defeated a being known as the Nightmare King, aka the Destroyer, in an epic battle. As a last gesture of defiance, the Destroyer pulls the spirits of the Elder with him into the void. Before this happens, he plants a seed of evil, the Nightmare Child, which will take over the space left vacant by the Elder, thus allowing the Destroyer a way back into our world to rule unopposed. The fragments of the Psycho Circus, once protected by the Elder, have become tainted by the Destroyer and drift through the elemental realms. Meanwhile, four bandmates show up at the Coventry to play their gig only to find the place deserted. Enter Madame Raven, matriarch of the Psycho Circus. She promptly recruits these four friends as the Elder need mortal avatars to anchor their power. She sends them off to gather the pieces of the Elder's power so they can challenge the Destroyer and his progeny, thus restoring balance to our world.
 The game is divided into episodes, each devoted to restoring one of the painted alter egos of the original members of Kiss: the Starbearer (Paul Stanley), the Beast King (Peter Criss), the Celestial (Ace Frehley) and the Demon (Gene Simmons). Each Elder also has his corresponding element: Water, Earth, Air and Fire. Despite the backstory, the plot of the game is simple. Each episode consists of gathering all the pieces of a given Elder's armor, then defeating the end-level boss to ensure that Elder's return. Level briefings are conducted by Madame Raven, and the accompanying cut-scenes usually give you a pretty good idea of how to accomplish your goal. You can choose to start with any episode, but the game strongly recommends (in several places) that you stick to the default path.
There are six components to Elder armor: Gauntlets, Boots, Belt, Vest, Plate and Mask. Each armor piece adds an additional power to your character, and by the time you've collected them all you're a nearly unstoppable killing machine. For example, the Elder Belt greatly increases your running speed and improves your jumping ability, while Elder Plate adds 100 hit points to your health. This is a nice touch and gives the player a sense of progressing in the game.
During each episode, you will find six different weapons to wreak havoc with. Weapon one is a bladed melee weapon that is unique to each Elder, but performs similarly. Weapons two through five are each based on one of the elements, and recur throughout all the episodes. The sixth weapon is also unique to each character, and is the ultimate weapon found in each episode. Their wide area attacks do a lot of damage, but they also use a lot of ammo. I've had mixed results using these weapons, but the animation effects were very nice.
 More on the weapons: even though the common elemental weapons have otherworldly names, most of them perform like typical weapons from other examples of the genre. The Zero Cannon fires ice bullets not unlike a submachine gun. The Magma Cannon acts like a super shotgun (a personal favorite from Doom), and the Windblade behaves just like a rocket launcher. The Scourge, however, is unique. This powerful whip not only has a very far-reaching range attack, but you can use it to latch on to hooks or branches to pull yourself to a new area. Even though it's far from the most powerful weapon, it's one of the most fun to use. Kudos to Third Law for implementing this one so well.
For the most part, any weapon can be used to dispatch any foe, but you'll discover some weapons are better in certain situations than others. For example, when being swarmed by Headless, crab-like horrors with a claw attack, it's best to use your melee weapon rather than wasting precious ammo. The Windblade is ideal for taking out powerful missile-launching foes from a distance. The Zero Cannon is especially helpful for killing Ticklers, giant disembodied heads with a devastating spit attack. Shot damage for all missile weapons is directly proportionate to your distance from your foe. You'll need to carefully balance the two to kill the enemy without wasting all of your ammo, or without being thrashed within an inch of your life.
 There are several inventory items you'll find throughout the game. I won't list them all, but here are a few examples. There's the Jack in the Box, which can be used as a grenade or a land mine. Toss a few in your enemy's path to soften them up a bit. Hawk Eyes grant you the ability to enter sniper mode, a useful ability for taking out missile weapon foes from a relatively safe distance. Then you have Black Diamonds, useless trinkets in and of themselves, but when you collect 40 of them they become a Rage Orb. This artifact grants you unlimited ammo for a brief period of time. Needless to say, this item is very useful. Not all inventory items need to be used immediately upon acquisition, and this allows you to conserve your energy for when things really get rough.
Psycho Circus also features a wide of variety of imaginative and disgusting creatures to mow down. Take the Ballbuster, a gentleman with a cannon attached to one arm, or the Unipsycho, a grinning maniac on a unicycle, perpetually aflame, who tosses fireballs which home in on your position. One particularly repulsive foe is the Fat Lady. A tormented soul trapped in a body with a will of its own, she throws blubbery pieces of herself at you. These giblets are semi-sentient, and bounce noisily toward you until they explode. Like I said, gross stuff.
 Regarding gameplay goes, this is definitely a shoot-everything-in-sight type of game. Puzzles are few and far between, and for the most part levels are very linear. Each level consists of advancing a few feet, fighting off an overwhelming force of enemies, then wading through the blood to reach the next area.
The game is almost completely stable. I only encountered one crash after completing the tutorial. Otherwise, I was able to play for several hours (and dozens of reloads) without causing a single crash. The only rough edges I found were spelling errors in the installation screens and unfinished sentences in the readme, but these are trivial and don't impact the game in the least.
As far as FPS games go, this one is a bit on the difficult side. I was able to finish most of the game on the middle difficulty setting, but for the last episode I created a new game using the lowest difficulty setting. Once I knew the maps, I was able to go back and finish it on the original difficulty setting, but players new to the FPS genre may find this game frustrating. The best thing to do when you're having trouble in a certain area is to walk away for a while, then come back with a clear head and a new tactic. Quake deathmatch veterans and hyper-reflexive teenagers will definitely be challenged by this game.
Graphics: 
Psycho Circus is built upon a modified version of the Lithtech 1.5 engine. When installing the game, you're given a choice to use OpenGL or Direct 3D. Given other recent high-profile games that completely failed to deliver using the Direct 3D renderer, I braced myself for the worst. However, the graphics in Kiss: Psycho Circus are no less than excellent. As the literature promises, gameplay is indeed smooth no matter how many enemies are on the screen. Clipping problems are non-existent. Missile attacks, both yours and your opponents, are all rendered in beautiful 3D. I intentionally got myself in over my head whenever possible in an attempt to slow the game down to no avail.
On my machine, a P2 400 (in dire need of a Windows reinstallation) with a 16MB TNT card, I was able to play at 1024 x 768 resolution with no perceptible slowdown. Of course, for me the game looked and performed best at 640 x 480, but this game is good news for those of us who choose not to buy a new video card every six months. For those of you with top of the line systems, Psycho Circus supports resolutions up to 1600 x 1200. One caveat - the game is in 16-bit rather than 32-bit color. Still, the usage of color is more than effective, and at times levels reminded me of their garish comic book predecessor.
However, for whatever reason, the interface and Heads Up Display graphics took a hit when expanding over 800 x 600. Different resolutions create different blurring effects, and I seem to remember fine text always was troublesome with the TNT card. At the readme's insistence, I installed the Detonator 3.68 drivers but noticed no improvement in this area.
Sound: 
The sound effects are alternatively impressive and disgusting, as you would expect for this type of game. The background music consists of original compositions and midi versions of old Kiss tunes, and in certain places you can activate jukeboxes that play wav files of a few actual Kiss songs. Their goofy placement evokes the feeling of a soundtrack set to a bad '80s horror movie, but I get the feeling that kind of campiness is exactly what the developers were intending.
Interface:
Like all FPS games, you'll need to use the keyboard and the mouse to play Psycho Circus, although joystick support is enabled. Some of the default keys are a little weird, but everything can be customized to your preferences. The setup screen allows you to tweak the video and audio as necessary to insure a smooth experience.
The multiple onscreen boxes are referred to as the Heads Up Display in the manual. The upper left box shows your accuracy ratio, number of kills, number of items found and number of secrets found. The upper right box shows your score and elapsed time on your current map. Your inventory is brought down from the top center of the screen. The bottom of the inventory screen shows your available weapons, current armor pieces, health and ammo. The far left box shows your current state, if any (such as invincibility). The far right box shows a clue box. When you position your crosshairs over an item you may see an icon indicating the item can be used or broken. I used that clue box for a few minutes, got tired of saying "duh", then ignored it for the rest of the game. Otherwise, the interface is very useful and functional.
Monster damage is shown upon impact by a small bar on the right side of the screen. If you hit multiple monsters, multiple bars pop up showing the damage done. This was very helpful when deciding which monster to take down first.
You can also customize the violence level to allow limb loss, or remove blood effects altogether. Turning off the blood results in most enemies simply disappearing when you kill them, which is a bit disconcerting.
I'm also happy to report that you can save anywhere at anytime when playing Psycho Circus, except during boss encounters. Given that boss encounters only occur at the end of each episode, this is quite acceptable. Thanks for bucking the industry trend, guys.
AI: 
AI is questionable. Many enemies will refuse to chase you, not out of self-preservation, but because they're stuck on a piece of scenery. Nearly all enemies with a missile weapon attacks have missiles that home in on your position. So your foes may be unable or unwilling to chase you down, but their missiles will happily do the job for them.
The "sealed room" tactic is also overused. You'll walk into countless areas in which you'll activate a trigger point that releases a horde of enemies while simultaneously preventing you from leaving the room. Having this happen once in a while is tolerable, but on one particular map I had to push myself into continuing the game. I was glad I didn't quit, but that one map really tested my patience.
Another problem is the abuse of Spawners. Spawners are interdimensional portals that activate when you get too close to them, and start spitting out hordes of melee enemies. You'll need to take them out as quickly as possible to avoid being overwhelmed. I realize Third Law wanted to prove their engine works, but having three or four Spawners in close proximity to each other, especially during the beginning of the episode when your avatar is relatively weak, is a bit of a cheap shot.
The worst AI offense is the teleporting monsters. You'll activate trigger points that suddenly warp creatures into being out of thin air. It's one thing to have suspicious walls suddenly reveal enemies; it's quite another to literally create them from nothingness. Provided you avoid the trigger spots that create monsters from thin air, maps stay cleared once you empty them; monsters don't respawn.
Psycho Circus brings back a favorite feature I don't recall seeing in a FPS since the days of Doom - enemies will fight each other! This may sound like a trivial detail, but when you've suddenly dropped into a room with several dozen enemies, you'll appreciate all the help you can get. Sometimes monsters will attack each other on sight, even their own species. Ticklers seemed particularly predisposed to fighting amongst themselves, which I appreciated given how tough they were.
Multiplayer: N/A.
Kiss Psycho Circus does indeed support multiplayer, but I was unable to test it as of this writing. To play a multiplayer game, you need to enter the IP address of the hosting computer, or provide your own IP address and convince others to join you. I was unsuccessful in either venture. The Psycho Circus press kit promises a multiplayer patch is imminent, and it would be a big plus if a partnership with Mplayer or WON was announced at the same time. Not everyone has a LAN network, guys.
Replayability: 
The single player game is definitely a one-shot experience. However, unlike some FPS games, the single-player game is plenty long. Average players should be able to finish this game in about two weeks. According to the press kit I mentioned earlier, the patch is supposed to contain lots of new maps, which could add to the longevity of this title (providing they come up with an easy way to multiplay).
Conclusion: 
I have to be honest; my expectations were pretty low for this one. I've never been a big fan of either Kiss' music or MacFarlane's artwork, but I have to admit, Third Law made a damn decent game out of it. We gamers have been subjected to some rather lame marketing messages for games in recent months and it's nice to see a game actually live up to the publisher's hype. The subject matter is not for all players, and gamers new to the FPS genre will definitely be reloading quite often, but players who stick with the game will definitely have an enjoyable experience. Is this a revolutionary title? No. But aside from AI quirks and a rather weak multiplayer option, Psycho Circus is a great way to unwind. Turn off your brain, fire up this game and cause some carnage. Now, where did I put my Magma Cannon... |
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