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Dec 3 2006, 6:05 AM EST (current)	Nickthegreat	1180 words added, 10 photos added
Dec 3 2006, 6:04 AM EST	Nickthegreat

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Lately it seems like it’s almost a guarantee that if a movie does even fractionally well at the box office there will, sooner or later, be a game tie in for it. This is the case with the game Night Watch, developed by Nival Interactive and published by CDV/Noviy Disk, based on the Russian film of the same name. Designed around the Silent Storm engine this is a turned based strategy RPG written around some of the characters from the movie, but without reusing the same plot or protagonist, which is a rather refreshing change from games that are just a replay of the movie.


Look…sparkles		I have no face, but I can scare a dog away

Fortunately the storytelling in Night Watch does a good job of introducing the supernatural elements in a way that the story makes sense no matter whether you’ve seen the movie or not. You play the man Stas, who is interrupted in an assassination attempt, money was tight, and informed that he is an ‘other’. Come to find out in this world there are all sorts of these others who are supernatural beings that tend to choose to either be light side or dark. Naturally these two sides are locked in constant strife, but have figured out that all out war would mean the end of both. This means that the confrontations going on are much more a matter of trickery, deception and guerilla attacks on each other as the light others take the Night Watch and the dark others the Day Watch to keep each other in line. When Stas begins he’s an unaligned other, with the assassination being a ploy to bring him to the dark side. He is interrupted by the light others and helped to see a better path, bringing him into play as a light other and into the full plot of the game to keep the dark others in check.

Night Watch is a game that is very heavy on the dialogue, which reveals much of the plot. Fortunately the sound is very good both as far as the voice acting and the background music. The music gives an appropriately dark tone to the game, though it vanishes when you step across into the ‘gloom’, which we’ll talk about more in a minute. The other drawback is that the animation of the characters can’t keep up with the voice acting which means you occasionally feel like you’re in a bad Godzilla movie where the lips don’t match up with what’s being spoken.

The graphics of this game are likely my biggest complaint as they have a tendency to be jerky and dull. There is very little detail work or thought put into either the characters or the world that they inhabit. Sometimes it’s difficult to even make out what an object is supposed to be, which is a pain when there are objects that you need to destroy or find in order to move forward in the level. Spell and combat effects do little to better the situation, coming across mostly as lack luster light flares. They suit the purpose enough that you know what they are, but it’s not anything particularly fun to watch.


Glowing does not make us any cooler. And what are those boxes we’re standing next to?		The rainbow connection, or just a bad headache?

Gameplay aspects of this game have both positives and negatives. On the positive, movement and combat are fairly straight forward and don’t take an extraordinary amount of time to master. Click where you want to go on the map and the AI is generally smart enough to get you there, even if sometimes you look like you’re doing the chicken dance around obstacles and other characters. You also may not stop exactly where you intended to without multiple clicks to select your location more and more precisely. You’ve got good control over the camera, but mostly this just gives different angles on the action, there isn’t one view that is really better than another.

Night Watch is a party based game that allows up to four characters in your party, each that comes with various skills and stats which can be increased through the confrontations and completing objectives. There are three general classes: shape-shifter, mage and enchanter, the difference between the last two being whether their spells work directly on an enemy or through another object. Unfortunately the increases in these classes as you go don’t make a huge difference and the same basic spells and tactics that you learn in the first two hours will still be your best tactics in the fifteenth. All character actions are based on the number action points that you have which replenish at the start of each new turn. On average you can get two to three actions per turn out of your points. In order to act you’ll set up the list of actions for each of your characters and press end turn, and then wait to see what the results of your actions are and how the enemy counters attacks or acts. Lather, rinse, repeat.

One thing that’s been done that adds a unique twist to the game is the introduction of the ‘gloom’, which is an alternate world that you can travel into if you have the points for it. The benefit of doing so is that your magic is MUCH stronger in the gloom, though the drawback is that the gloom affects your energy and eventually starts eating away at your hit points if you’re there too long. This adds an interesting aspect to your tactics to decide how long to fight on each side, though, honestly, by the end most battles end up taking place in the gloom as it’s a much more advantageous battleground.

The plotline of Night Watch is pretty heavily scripted and doesn’t offer much in the way of replay ability, save to go back and goof around with using different actions or spells in the same combats. You generally get enough chance to play with the variety in the first pass of the game, so there really isn’t much returning to play over again.


The Gloom		Bad doggie