There are plenty of brand-new video games released every week to get excited about but getting to experience older games in new ways continues to excite me. Companies continue to bring back games released in the 80s, 90, and early 2000s and as someone who missed out on tons of games when I was a kid, I’m here for it. One of the latest I got to check out is Enclave HD from TopWare Interactive and developers Sickhead Games and Starbreeze Studios. This game originally released in the early 2000s but is now available on all the modern platforms. Here is my review of the PlayStation 4 version.
Enclave HD is a 3D third-person (or first-person if you choose) action-RPG that originally released on the original Xbox and PC. I don’t typically play games on PC and I never owned the original Xbox so this was my first time experiencing this game and world. The story in Enclave is one of light vs dark and there are two campaigns to play through centered around each of those two things. You’ll start off by playing on the side of light and when you finish that campaign you can play through again on the dark side. The game is level based so you’ll play through one level and then transition to the next. There are also a dozen different characters you can play as with the light side having things like humans and elves and the dark side having things like orcs and goblins.
While playing through the two campaigns has their own unique parts there really isn’t a ton of diversity in the gameplay. Sometimes you’ll have to do something like guard or assassinate a character but it felt like I was just doing a lot of walking around and hack ‘n slashing at enemies. The combat doesn’t have much depth and also doesn’t feel great due to things like the camera and poor hitbox detection. This wasn’t too surprising given the time period this game is from but that doesn’t change the fact that it isn’t much fun. This is a port after all with some slight visual improvements so anything related to the gameplay is pretty much untouched from the original release. Each level does have collectibles to find in the form of gold and you can then use that gold to obtain new weapons and shields for your character. If you miss any gold in a level, you can always choose to go back and replay it. You can also do this if you want to try a level out with a different character.
The gameplay wasn’t the only thing that didn’t impress me as the visuals were also a bit of letdown. I never played this game before but I went back and looked at footage of the original release and while this game has HD in the title it really isn’t that much of an improvement. It very much looks dated whether we’re talking about character models, animation work, textures in the levels, and so on. It’s just a tad disappointing that a bit more work didn’t go into making the game a little prettier. The audio isn’t much better as the voice acting is pretty bad as are the sound effects. The soundtrack is a bit better as it was touched up for this release. Trophy hunters will find 35 trophies here to collect including a Platinum. It isn’t a hard list but sadly the Platinum is unobtainable right now as the trophy for completing the bonus missions appears to be glitched. Hopefully that gets patched in the near future.
Enclave HD provides quite a bit to do across its two campaigns but as an HD re-release it sadly disappoints. The visuals didn’t get enough of a touchup and the gameplay and mission design very much show their age. If you were a fan of the original game, you’ll enjoy this the most while anyone who wasn’t familiar with it will likely wonder what was so special about it.
*Enclave HD is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. PlayStation 4 version reviewed. Review copy provided by the publisher for this review.
Enclave HD
$19.99
Pros
- Two campaigns to play through
- Decent number of characters to use and weapons to obtain
- A bit better looking than the original
Cons
- Visuals disappoint for an HD title
- Clunky gameplay
