Game: "Get Medieval!"
System: PC
Genre: Arcade
Published by: Other

Reviewer: Dr. Boogie
Posted: 2/4/2008

Review: Remember Gauntlet? Of course you do. Back in the day, it was one of the few ways to have fun with up to four people. It stands to reason, then, that countless Gauntlet clones would emerge to fill in those brief periods of time between Gauntlet sequels.

Even Monolith Productions decided to give it a shot with a Gauntlet clone called Get Medieval! The hook, apart from it being a PC-only title, was that the game was made to be a parody of the genre. All four character archetypes are there (archer, wizard, warrior, and valkyrie), only rather than heroes, the game paints each of them as being self-absorbed caricatures. This is briefly described in the manual, but throughout the game, the characters toss out little situational remarks to help drive the point home; the archer brags about his stunning outfit and his ability to outshoot Robin Hood, the female wizard lets loose a string of double entendres, the valkyrie spits out lines about how she hates men, and the warrior keeps the player in stitches with his Arnold Schwarzenegger impression! It wasn't high comedy, but it was impressive for the day, people.

Gameplay-wise, Get Medieval totally captures the spirit of Gauntlet. To keep from being a complete copy, however, the developers threw in a few extras. Weapon and armor power-ups abound, as do keys, but in addition to those things, you can find temporary power-ups that let you unlock as many chests and doors as you want, repel weaker monsters, and even turn invisible. They've also kept that unfortunate rule where one of your stray shots can easily wind up destroying a useful powerup.

Speaking of holdovers, the game makes great use of a narrator. The original Gauntlet had a computerized voice that belted out classics like "warrior needs food badly", but Get Medieval has The Voice, as voiced by none other than Jason Hall, the CEO of Monolith at the time. He provides the situational remarks heard in Gauntlet, plus he taunts the player whenever a resource is "squandered" and taunts the enemy whenever a monster generator is destroyed. The sound in general is done really well, from the voice clips right down to the sickening splattering of dead monsters.

The single player boasts an arcade mode for Gauntlet fans, as well as a static, fixed dungeon for "quest mode". Both modes play roughly the same, but the quest mode is meant to have a story about a dragon set to it, though the characters wind up talking over the intro video that explains this. Multiplayer is fun too, but you're probably limited to hot seat games, unless you know of someone else out there with a copy of this game. Too bad about that, but PC games don't age quite as well as console games.

Overall rating:
(Scored on a 0.5 - 5 pickles rating: 0.5 being the worst and 5 being the best)