The Middle Ages – a dark time in European history: devastating wars, plague, inquisition. Perhaps not the period in which you would like to be born or live, but at the same time very interesting for implementation in games. Unfortunately (or fortunately), there are practically no games where you take on the role of a priest or inquisitor, so let’s talk about knighthood. Knighthood, in simple terms, was a heavy cavalry consisting mainly of nobles (later not only nobles, but also large landowners were knighted). Chivalry was conventionally divided into two branches: secular and religious. Secular knighthood was in the service of the king, and religious knighthood took vows and fought against infidels. The Order of the Templars, perhaps the most popular of all knightly orders, belongs to the second branch. It owes its appearance to the First Crusade, as a result of which the so-called Holy Land was formed. He often carried out tasks to protect Christian states formed in the occupied eastern lands. It was also considered one of the richest orders of knighthood, in principle. I can ramble on about historical events for a long time, and if anyone wants, I can ramble on in a separate blog, but now we’re not talking about that, but about the game, so let’s move on to it.
Stellar wind
The creators of the game Knights of the Temple: Infernal Crusade, which we will talk about today, were Strabreez studios, which had previously made a successful debut in the form of the game Enclave, and on April 4, 2003, the crusade set off towards XBox and only a year later reached the PlayStation 2, PC and Game Cube. As sad as it may be, the console pedigree had a bad effect on the quality of the product for the spoiled PC audience. The game was a third-person action game, seemingly with role-playing elements, but they don’t even let you upgrade them at will, so it’s just action.
Speaking about technical aspects, first of all https://bidbingocasinoonline.uk/withdrawal/ I would like to say about graphics. It’s that moment when you want to say something about her, but in fact there’s nothing to say. A simple, decent picture, no frills, a little worse than in Silent Hill 3. This is understandable, it’s one thing for Konami to be the monsters of the industry that have been in it since the 80s, and completely different for a young, poor studio taking its first steps towards success. But the graphics are graphics, and the quality of the videos that we inherited from the consoles leaves much to be desired, and this is a shame.
Also, what may be unusual for today’s player is a fixed camera, but as for me, this is not at all critical and only adds the notorious atmosphere to what is happening.
As for the artistic side, everything is not much better, but for reasons of the setting. It is quite difficult to interest a wide audience with a story about knightly showdowns and a crusade in the name of faith, if you approach the task from the point of view of historical accuracy (especially since you have to bias history in favor of any religion, which is also so-so). And the scriptwriters chose a completely logical path – adding ancient evil and turning the conflict into a standard: light versus darkness. So the best part comes from the locations, the combat system and the music.
Army of the gentlemen
Before the game, the introductory video introduces us to the hero – Sir Paul McCartney who is a hereditary Templar, has been studying military affairs since childhood in a real way and on the eve of the events of the game he is accepted into the order. The plot itself revolves around the girl Adele, who has a certain divine gift and who is kidnapped by the Bishop. You and I, of course, understand that good will prevail in the end, the Bishop will be punished, and the beautiful lady will be saved, but the story here, although banal, is not so bad as to spoil it completely.
During the game we have to travel a lot and the geography of these trips is quite extensive: Belmont Monastery, Acre, Jerusalem, Petra, hell.
At first the game is very reminiscent of Silent Hill with its camera and fog on the streets
