Sound

The Second Circle of Pain

With your eyes damaged beyond repair when you're done with Episode 1, you think you're safe from any more pain that Daikatana can throw at you. Right? Think again - you've still going sound. Sound effects range from the uninspired to the kind that make you want to stick screwdrivers in your ears to pierce the eardrums. Guns, the sword, and in fact all the weapons are just plain - nothing spectacular. However, the important thing is that they don't hurt the ears, like say - critter sounds do.

But the hesitation cost him his life!

Umm... gee... should I shoot that?

By far the most obnoxious and annoying ones occur in the first episode (*surprise!*). From the dragonflies that constantly pop in and buzz around your head for what seems like an eternity while you're busy killing real targets, to the zipping sound of frog movement and ... just so many bad, BAD sounds. If the first couple of maps don't convince you that ION is out there to pre-emptively punish every reviewer for the bad reviews Daikatana is surely getting, then the prison facility levels will. The sounds are done poorly and are extremely repetitive. Prisoners whining from invisible cell blocks (or through feet of concrete) will constantly grate on your nerves as you put up with all sorts of crappy bzzt and buzz and tink sounds.

Close-quarters bitchslap!

Yay! I levelled!

The 'atmosphere' sounds fade away as your progress through the episodes and you are soon left only with regular game sounds to be disappointed with. Weapons and their effects continue to be uninspiring right through the game.

Yummy

Don't worry, they're not Half-Life marines

Stop that Chatter!

The voice acting is nothing special, pretty typical for a game released nowadays. Voices seem kind of lifeless, but not particularly bad. Most of the annoyance comes from the corny dialogue than the voice acting, though Mikiko might be deliberately annoying. Superfly is actually kind of cool, in that cheesy sidekick kind of way. Except for the rare time that he says "Suck It!", he actually manages to come off amusing and a positive point in the gameplay.

Mikiko is just an over-done 'sly/sleek/deadly' girl type, which when combined with her looks, hardly does anything to ingratiate her. The characters will occasionally talk to each other but it's the same lines over and over. The Quake3 bots have more life to them, with their character and situation specific text chat.