

Additionally, as he collects the departed souls of his fallen enemies and comrades, he can also run around in bullet time, and he can even temporarily freeze time.

Aside from just shooting up everything in his path, Drake has the ability to jump (and double jump) and can run along walls. There are a few other tricks to Drake's gameplay, but they aren't much better. Basically, this whole thing comes down to a constant tug-of-war between the camera controls and the game's buggy auto-aim, thus reducing Drake's gunplay to a harrowing-and often angering-experience. Unfortunately, this leads to yet another big problem, as the game's camera control is also controlled by the right thumbstick, so swinging the stick in a manner such as this will pretty much cause you to lose all sight of what you're supposed to be shooting at. Whatever the case, you'll have to swing the stick around to get his aim back in line. This could be caused by another enemy in another room somewhere, or it could just be a random occurrence.

Yet his guns will be aimed to one side or the other for no discernable reason.
#DRAKE OF THE 99 DRAGONS GAMEPLAY RATING FULL#
Targeting an actual enemy is largely relegated to an auto-aim function that, incidentally, is completely broken.įrequently, Drake will run into an area that's full of bad guys who stand directly in front of him. The right thumbstick controls Drake's aiming, and a light-frequently indistinguishable-targeting reticle appears on targeted enemies. However, whatever varying degrees of effectiveness might have been gained from such a mechanic are entirely negated by the game's unbelievably bad targeting system. The right and left trigger buttons fire each of Drake's weapons, and he can actually hold different types of guns in each hand. Drake is a third-person action game that is almost solely based on the one gimmick of having Drake hold two guns at once. The story isn't even the most frustrating or awful thing about Drake, either, as its gameplay definitely earns that dubious distinction. Add in the fact that new characters and scenarios are frequently brought to the table with little to no satisfactory explanation, and the end result is a story that you just won't have the chance or desire to ever care about. Clearly, Drake isn't exactly the most adept storyteller, as his ability to speak in broken sentences of little or no meaning far surpasses his ability to tell a decent narrative. The story itself is told through disjointed cutscenes that are narrated by Drake. This initial setup takes up the first few missions of the game, and, beyond that, it's pretty much anyone's guess as to exactly what's going on. He is then sent on a mission to retrieve the artifact and to avenge his fallen clan. Immediately following the raid, Drake is brought back from the dead by the gods. Unfortunately, Drake, along with the rest of his clan, is murdered, and a sacred artifact of theirs is stolen. One day, the clan is attacked and pillaged by a mysterious gang. The game's title character, Drake, is an assassin for a Hong Kong-based clan known as the 99 Dragons. All of these factors combine to make Drake one of the most atrociously unplayable games to come along in quite some time.ĭrake is about as bad as third-person action games can conceivably get these days. Its story is derivative in design and is nonsensical in its delivery its graphics consist of a jumble of uninspired cel shading and ugly animations its sound design consists of a cacophony of terrible effects and voice acting and its gameplay features some of the worst controls and horrendous targeting ever found in a third-person shooter. The brainchild of Swedish developers Idol FX (who also created a comic book to go alongside the game), Drake is just an absolutely broken mess of a game. As far as third-person action games go, they don't get a whole lot worse than Drake of the 99 Dragons.
