by Jaime Skelton

Created on: January 13, 2009   Last Updated: April 11, 2011

When I started my first training mission in Caster by Elecorn, I thought to myself, "Cool! A third person shooter game! You don't find many of those." After doing my best to play through the demo, however, I was beginning to understand why.

In Caster, you play a "Caster" named, by default, Ethan. You are sent out on missions to defeat the Flanx (monsters) and help save the land from evil, like any good hero. Your first mission is a tutorial mission, which does a fairly good job of explaining the basics. Here, you might already be caught up by the controls: moving is managed by using the WASD keys or arrow keys (plus the space bar for jumping), but your aim, camera view, and weapon use is controlled by the mouse. The tutorial makes sure you know the basics of movement and shooting your weapon before sending you on your second mission.

In the second mission, you're confronted with a real 3D environment, and real enemies. Your job is to gather up the energy orbs, while avoiding, or killing, the Flanx in the area. Here in the second stage, I figured out aiming is best managed by getting the camera view as close to the character as possible which, of course, is the worst view for seeing what's around you. Klutzy, but I manage the mission with minimal problems.

Any of the next missions proved to be a migraine. Most games provide you with a gradual learning curve. But from your third mission on in Caster, the skills you need to succeed ramp up exponentially. My third mission challenged me to kill large bugs which, once hit once, would fly up in the air and shoot at you for five seconds with honing lasers. My fourth required me to kill a large worm that used several of these honing missiles in succession. By the time I faced bugs only weak to lava, I gave up.

Caster's graphics are mediocre. Your hero is cartoonish, the enemies realistic, and the landscape is a poorly textured 3D render. None of the graphics mesh well together, and they give the impression that an expert graphics designer was working with a rookie. All this combines to give the game a dated, non-immersive feel.

Any music in Caster was unnoticeable. Like many shooter games, Caster puts a lot of emphasis, and volume, on the "pew pew" sounds of the hero's attacks. The enemies are, for the most part, silent; the ambience is non-existent. For a 3D game, you would expect better.

I admit, Caster aimed for a genre not often used in independent games. Unfortunately, its aim was far off-center, and it ended up shooting in the dark. If you can survive the demo without once getting frustrated or applying your palm to your forehead, this game's for you. Otherwise, I don't suggest you try.

Rating 1/5

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