by Kyle - April 9, 2005

In the year 2022, the world is coming close to the end from the Apocalypse. The only person who can save everything from falling lower is you, Angie Prophet. Angie is half human and half angel. Your mission is to defeat the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse from the ancient city of Babylon.

Released Before Completion?

I was surprised at how disrupted Psychotoxic�s gameplay was. In the main screen, the mouse itself moves slowly and very jumpy. Apart from that, your character is quite jumpy and hard to control in game. The controls were basic for other common PC games I have played. Controlling Angie�s direction with a mouse wasn�t the easiest thing to accomplish and took a bit of time to get used to it. At least there was a keyboard controls menu to change the default settings. After a little adjustment to the game�s layout, I was able to get a hold of it and set off on my way for the Fourth Horseman.

Before installing the 1.04 patch, the game would force quit itself every time I would die. That added a little frustration to what already existed. In my opinion, there could have been far more fixed with the latest patch. The new patch fixed a few of the smaller errors such as it force quitting and some minor detailed errors.

The selection of weapons was a good treat. It had stuff you would see today classified as, real weapons, and an interesting selection of dream weapons. The real weapons ranged from tranquilizers to pistols and machine guns. The dream weapons were things you don�t see everyday. They consist of weapons ranging from a lightweight assassin�s knife to a four-legged weapon and harpoon projecting gun.

Something Was Done Right

I personally can�t complain about how the graphics were laid out. From some of the screenshots I had seen, it made me want to play the game more. But once I got there I noticed other problems. The major problems were mainly bug related such as the lag of the game play.

Watching the movies set out for a nice, beautiful storyline. At times, I could just kick back in my chair and enjoy the presentation. However, at other points in the short scenes, the sound didn�t match up with the person talking. After you are taken by the FBI, you meet up with Professor Saunders, who knows all about you. Saunders explains to you everything that had been happening and concluded it with, �Only you can save the world from this disaster.� As he was giving his speech, his lip movement wasn�t matching with what I could hear out of my speakers.

Poor Audio/Visual Contrast

The sound is the one other thing I can compliment on. Although it didn�t match some parts of the graphics it still sounded good. The background music played well although the constant screaming of people was a little head aching. As you�re walking, Angie is moving faster than it would seem from the sound of her footsteps. I noticed how the sound would separate from the graphics at times. I can only imagine this was from the enormous memory used to run Psychotoxic.

A Complete Letdown

I was entertained by the storyline, but the game play was just a shame. I could see this doing better as a movie than as a game like it is now. For 3.16 gigabytes, I would expect something much better for my computer�s hard drive. If anything, I could assume that the memory requirements on the game were set too low. If that�s the case, it would take a massive computer to bring this up and running to a better pace.

Not Evenly Balanced

There were plenty of bugs and problems with the game that the graphics just couldn�t make up for. Depending on newer patches that have yet to be released, would possibly change the outcome of Psychotoxic. I wouldn�t count on that in the near future since there is too much more work to be done.

Best Saving For Something Else

Even though this is a long, time consuming game, it�s not worth all the hard drive space it takes up. I would classify this as the type of game you would want to exclude from your shopping list.