Crusader: No Remorse

Boba Fett’s half-brother goes postal.

You’ll be hooked on Crusader’s bloody carnage the minute you enter the game’s first level. This shoot ’em up has its own brand of murderous mayhem rendered in crisp, SVGA graphics, all in exacting detail. Add to this a strong sci-fi atmosphere, a wealth of character control options and more explosions than you can shake a stick at, and youâ€™ve got an action game thatâ€™s just as conducive to mindless bloodletting as any high tier Doom clone.

In Crusader: No Remorse you play as a Silencer, an armor-clad shock troops in the service of the WEC who suspiciously resembles Boba Fett. The WEC is an oppressive governing body run by shadowy figures that ruthlessly decide the fate of the world and treat average citizens as nothing more than mindless drones. You turn on the evil ways of the WEC and go on a killing spree on their home turf, essentially becoming the good guy but still being able to gun down harmless civilians. Hey, it was their decision to work for the bad guys, and it’s a rough world.

You begin exacting your revenge on the WEC in 15 missions that serve the rebellion — destroy a power generator, rescue prisoners, capture scientists, etc. — as you guide your character through one enormous level after another. There are some adventure game trappings in your dealings with both the rebels and WEC, with full-motion video clips depicting mission briefings and brief character interactions, but at its core Crusader is a high-energy action game with some simple puzzles thrown in.

In Crusader, you basically shoot anything that gets in your way and try not to get killed, pulling a few switches along the way to progress. You find keys to open doors, figure out how to turn force fields on or off, etc. But itâ€™s Crusaderâ€™s wide variety of control options that make the action youâ€™ll find here so different from what youâ€™ve seen before. You can run, duck, roll left or right, jump, and of course, strafe as you tackle wave after wave of bad guys. If youâ€™re willing to spend just a few moments getting the basics down, youâ€™ll appreciate the amazing amount of control at your disposal.

Not only will you battle it out with WEC goons, you have the choice of murdering civilians and workers or laying waste to consortium property with an assortment of high-tech weapons. And because your entire environment has been designed so every shot you fire does something, the results are always explosive. Launch a few grenades into a crowd of workers or guards, and theyâ€™ll run around on fire; shoot a barrel filled with radioactive material, and youâ€™ll be rewarded with a massive fireball that engulfs three quarters of the screen.

Crusader has plenty of fast-paced action, some minor puzzling, and enough gameplay to last more than the average weekend.