How to make a half baked video game

Ingredients

1 x PC
1 x copy of God of War
1 x random middle eastern legend

Directions

Take your copy of God of War and be careful to remove any element that may be considered fun. This includes the interesting puzzles, great fighting mechanics, awe inspiring graphics and great story. Now replace Kratos with a random figure from Persian mythology. In this case we are using the legend of Garshasp. The next step is to program the game for the PC, a platform wholly unsuited for this sort of game. To add that extra level of frustration, make sure that playing with a gamepad is almost impossible, thus ensuring the precise analogue control needed for the platforming elements will be unavailable to the player. Bake your final creation for half the time of an enjoyable game and serve on a digital distribution service, hoping that the idea of an ‘Indie God of War’ will earn you a quick buck.

Upon loading Garshasp: The Monster Slayer, you’ll immediately be struck by how dated it appears. The options menu is reached from Windows, meaning you cannot change video, control or sound settings from within the game. This is something you probably haven’t seen in a PC title for a long time and not being able to adjust things on the fly will leave a bad taste in your mouth. Once you finally set the game up, you’re presented with a blast from the past, and not in a good way. The graphics are appalling. There were better looking efforts created using the Quake 2 engine and that is now over 15 years old. Jaggies, bland textures, angular enemies and horrendous pop-in are all present within the first 10 minutes of play. As the game progresses things don’t get much better. Scenery is obscured by a bland fog and the action is often shrouded by a horrible bloom effect that does nothing but hurt your eyes.

Speaking of the action, if there was one area that Garshasp needed to get right, the combat was it. Unfortunately there are just as many problems here as in the rest of the game. ‘Click, click, click’ will be the overwhelming sound coming from your computer room and it won’t be because you’re playing Diablo (though you’ll wish you were). Ninety precent of combat situations can be completed by simply clicking the left mouse button repeatedly. The game tries to offer you some variety by giving you two weapons, a heavy and light attack and some basic combos, however these options are all less effective than simply spamming the light attack button. To make the action worse, the controls are woeful. Simply walking in a straight line is nearly impossible due to the poorly implemented dynamic camera system. This makes the various platforming sections nothing but a rage inducing chore.

The level design is among the few competent components and with a decent control system it could have been quite an enjoyable experience to traverse the landscape. The one shining light is the sound design. The narrator gives a nice performance, highlighting your struggles with deep, gravelly tones. The sound effects and enemies are all great. Ambient sounds are also present and they really add some much needed atmosphere to the game.

“But it is only an indie game” I hear you say, “You can’t hold an indie game to the same standards as an AAA release.” This is a fair comment, but in this day and age the best indie titles are no longer simply cheap knock offs, but highly inventive, original and entertaining experiences. It is these standards that you should hold Garshasp too and it fails all three categories dismally. Another disappointing aspect of this game is the price. At $20 it is about $15 too expensive for the experience it gives.

Your time with Garshasp will be brief, but that won’t stop you from wanting it back. If you only have a PC and you only have $20 and you simply have to have a God of War style game, you should put that $20 on a horse paying 40-1 and hopefully win enough money to buy a PS3 and God of War 3. Even if you lose your money, you will probably still have more fun at the races than with this game.