Oni Action Shot
Oni is a 3rd person action game for the PC and PS2. The game is focused on hand to hand combat with some shooting elements as well. I think it is easily the best 3rd person hand to hand combat action game that isn’t a fighting game for the PC. The controls are very intuitive. To punch you left click the mouse, and to kick you right click the mouse. You move around with the standard, WASD controls. I am a big fan of 3rd person shooter games so I was really happy to play Oni. The enemies have good AI when you fight them in hand to hand combat. They will try to block your attacks and if you try to block too many of their attacks by standing still (that’s how you block, by standing and facing your enemy without moving) they will simply grab you and throw you. The game is very cool because each of the different enemies have different looking attacks and throws. Some enemies will suplex you or do other cool throws.
The game is about the main character Konoko, is a TCTF officer in a dangerous future. TCTF stands for “Technological Crimes Task Force.” It is basically like a heavily armored SWAT Team that has detectives. You are on a mission to find out what is going one with a criminal Syndicate and the construction and distribution of illegal weapons. But the story takes a twist because you learn about yourself and your special nature. There is a helper officer who is called Shinatama. She gives you mission objectives and helps you navigate to the different parts of the stage by updating your compass data. She has a very cute voice and she has pink hair and so Shinatama is a great addition to the game.
Oni Screen Shot
In Oni, you get to use your fists and guns to defeat your enemies. What is interesting about the game, is that you are only able to carry one weapon at a time. This makes the game more realistic than many 3rd person shooters that let you caryy a veritable arsenal. Oni makes sense because there is no way a hero would be able to carry tons of heavy guns. So since you can carry only one gun at a time you need to use your brain when you pick up a weapon. There are two different types of ammo in the game: Ballistic ammo, and Energy Ammo. All of the guns that use ballistic solid ammunition are able to be reloaded by the ballistic ammo packs (red ammo packs) that you find in the game. This works from everything from your basic pistol, to the sub-machine gun, to even the grenade launcher and sniper rifle. The same goes for the energy weapons. The plasma rifle, the screamer gun (this is a cool slow moving heat-seeking weapon), and others like the Phase Stream Projector all use the energy ammo packs (Green Ammo Packs). So whenever you find a gun, think for a second and ask yourself if it is really a weapon worth reloading, or do you want to use the ammo quickly and swap the gun later for a more powerful weapon. This strategy is really helpful in later mission when you get to use the sniper rifle called the Mercury Bow. The Mercury Bow can kill almost all regular non-shielded enemies in one hit. But it only gets two shots per ballistic ammo clip. So if you are on a stage where you know there is going to be a Mercury Bow, then you should consider saving your ballistic ammo and forgo reloading weaker weapons like the Sub Machine Gun. Another tip is that when you fight an enemy, if you disarm them before they get a lot of shots off, there will actually be more ammo left in the chamber of their weapon. So when you fight, try and use your jumping kick attack to quickly knock the gun away from an enemy. This way you will have more ammo when you steal their weapon.
Another good thing about Oni, is that the game rewards you for exploring the level thoroughly. There are oftentimes power-ups like healing hypo-sprays, and ammo clips, and even sometimes you can find energy force shields lying on the ground. Also if you explore enough, you may find civilians who want to help you if you press the “ctrl” key on your keyboard when you get near them. The civilian will usually talk to you and then when they are done talking they will more often then not, give you an item like a hypo-spray or an ammo clip.
The fighting system in Oni is excellent. The combat that you have with enemies is exciting because they might attack you by throwing you, or they may try and kick you in the shins to stun you. You have to try and guess what the enemy is going to do in order to block. But I find the best strategy is to be offensive and use your special moves for crowd control. The throws are great because you not only hurt the enemy you are throwing, but you also damage bad guys that are unluckily in the way of the guy you’re tossing. There is one move where you run at an enemy and throw them by doing an acrobatic flying-neck-snap attack. This move hurts the guy whose neck you’re snapping and you also kick anybody who is nearby at the same time. The triple punch combo I find is one of the best opener attacks in the game. It come out fast, and you do good enough damage to knock down your opponent, which you can follow up with a jumping somersault kick. As you progress through the game you unlock new fighting abilities, for example, the neck snap attack doesn’t come until later in the game. While the triple punch attack combo is unlocked around stage 3 or so.
I’d think twice before throwing most enemies over a ledge. It’s true, you get a free kill when they fall off the ledge. But sometimes enemies will drop hypo-sprays which greatly increase your health, so it’s better to fight it out and see what items they drop. The overall best weapon in the game is the Mercury Bow because it’s an instant kill, but the standard pistol does good damage also. The plasma rifle is good but, the enemies can dodge the plasma balls that come from your gun. Be careful when using the Screamer Gun, because if you get too close to the tracking bullet, you can get killed by your own bullet. So it’s best to use the Screamer Gun from a distance against enemies that are hard to get to. It is especially effective against enemies that are perched on a rooftop.
Another great hand to hand combo to do, is to kick an enemy, kick them again, the dash forward toward them and press forward + kick at the same time and do a throw. Then follow up with a crouching kick attack which is like a tripping spin kick or else use the jumping somersault attack. Remember you can weaken enemies that are running at you by shooting them a few times with the plasma rifle and then holstering your weapon and then punching them a few times. Later in the game you get a move called the, “Devil Spin Kick” where if you hold crouch (“Shift”) for a second and then release the key and then right click the mouse quickly you will do an area-of-effect damaging attack while jumping in the air. This move is great if you are being surrounded. It also does good damage.
Here’s a tip when you are trying to move quickly. If you tap “W” twice and then hold “W” (W is the key for moving forward) you can dash. But what the game doesn’t tell you is that if you jump while dashing and then keep holding “W” you will hit the ground running and continue to dash. This is extremely important to know in the stages where you need to run across an electrified area, because you need to jump over rings of energy quickly. So if you jump over a ring of energy while dashing when you hit the ground if you keep holding “W” or forward you should maintain your fast run speed.
Oni is a great game and the graphics are good but the real fun is in the gameplay and fighting. I’d recommend this game to people who like fighting games and 3rd-person shooters. This game is longer than Heretic II but then again most games are! I’m playing through it for the 2nd time now and I’m having a blast. It seems to work OK on windows Vista, but on my computer there sometimes are issues with the textures of the ground. I’m not sure if that is because my computer basically has NO VIDEO CARD. My video card is some kind of generic thing. If you have issues running the game please let me know by leaving a comment.
-Tyler