Updated 09 Feb, 2012, 6:24 pm IST

Hanuman - Boy Warrior

02 Apr, 2009, 4:30 pm IST | Nikhil Singh | Console Console

There are good games and there are bad games; then there are sorry excuses for games developed by studios who don't give a flying falooda about quality. Hanuman - Boy Warrior falls under the last category, and is developed by Hyderabad based studio - Aurona Technologies Limited and published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. The game boasts of being the first ever Indian game to be released on the PlayStation 2; if Indian developers are going to develop this sort of crap for consoles, let's hope it's the last.

Now before I sound like I have an irrational hatred towards Indian developers, let me explain why this game is complete trash. Apart from it being an incredibly lame attempt to cover a terribly designed game with a mythological mask so that the religious amongst us lap it up (if no one else), the game's got a ton of flaws. To begin with, the game looks like it's something off the PlayStation One era - it uses glaringly bright, saturated textures to mask its horrendously designed game world, which it fails at miserably and ends up making your eyes bleed. It even features the worst possible character design I've seen in decades. From the initial character art I'd seen at the launch event of Hanuman - Boy Warrior last week, it seemed like it had potential.

But when you actually get down to seeing the completely modeled characters of any creature in the game's universe, be it the bad rakshasaas or the dim-witted villagers who look like they've been in-bred for centuries (yep, they all look the same), you can actually taste the bile rising from the inside of your stomach - it's that disgusting. I've seen better character modeling done by animation students; so to have this kind of quality pour into what the guys at Sony claim to be India's maiden voyage into PlayStation 2 game development, is undeniably shameful.

Click on the image above for the exclusive gameplay video

If that wasn't enough, the character animations are stiff too. Pressing the jump key makes Hanuman spasm and rise in the air in an awkward manner. Hanuman attacks like he's terminally constipated, through the most choppy animation I've seen in a long time. There's no flow between running, jumping, climbing and attacking - performing any of these actions immediately cancels the last, making it seem extremely abrupt and disjointed. Come on Aurona! if you're trying to capture a part of Indian Mythology through the gaming medium, at least try to do it justice.

Tags: Hanuman , PS2

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