Ra.One, the game now available in India

At a suburban five star hotel in Mumbai yesterday, Ra.One the game, was launched amidst much fanfare. The PS2 and PS3 game that’s being touted as one of the first Indian PlayStation 3 games loosely based on Shahrukh Khan’s movie, Ra.One is now available at stores all over India. The game is kind of a prequel to the movie although how anyone understands anything from that game is beyond me.

I tried the game out at a kiosk at the event and in all my years as a journalist have never played a more disjointed and ugly game. The game’s a brawler by nature in the same vein of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance but lacks everything that makes games fun. Horrible visuals – check. Clunky animations – check. Archaic gameplay that makes absolutely no sense – check. Terrible voice acting – check.

Me and a few other journalists tried the game out but none of us could really figure out what we had to do. The game claims to have both single as well as a multiplayer modes but they both feel the same. You spam two keys for just two attacks and that’s about it. Animations are stiff, combat is beyond horrifying and every character felt he/she was dipped in starch. In every mission, the player must face waves of enemies and well, that’s about it. Hit detection was so terrible that even after whaling on an enemy for like ten minutes, his health bar refused to budge. And once you get caught in an enemies’ attack, you can’t dodge or counter-attack. He’ll pummel you till you die and happily mutter “Threat not detected” over your dead corpse.

If this is the future of Indian gaming, God save us all

I never get why Indian companies set their sights so high as far as gaming is concerned. Half the time they fail miserably because they’re trying to ape the West but don’t really grasp the amount of money, time and talent that goes into making a AAA title. I mean God of War wasn’t made in a week you know. Start with something simple yet enjoyable like a top down shooter or a side scrolling game and move on from there. Games like Angry Birds have proven that you don’t need flashy visuals to pull off a good game.

Either way if you’re a huge Shahrukh Khan fan, especially sadistic or just like wasting money, you can pick the game on either the PS2 or the PS3 respectively for Rs. 499 or Rs. 999 (just so you know, the game looks the same across both platforms.) Alternatively you could pick up the PS2 bundle for Rs. 5,990.