Crusader: No Remorse

Crusader: No Remorse
Developer(s) Origin Systems
Realtime Associates
(console versions)
Publisher(s) Electronics Arts
Director(s) Tony Zurovec
Producer(s) Warren Spector
Designer(s) Mark Vittek
Programmer(s) Tony Zurovec
Artist(s) Beverly Garland
Writer(s) Lisa Smith
Mark Vittek
Composer(s) Dan Gardopée
Andrew Sega
Engine Enhanced Ultima VIII: Pagan engine
Platform(s) PC (DOS), Saturn, PlayStation
Release date(s)

PC

PlayStation & Saturn

  • EU March 1997
Genre(s) Action game
Mode(s) Single-player

Crusader: No Remorse is an action game developed by Origin Systems and published by Electronic Arts. It was first released in 1995 for the PC DOS, with the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn ports following in 1997. Set in a dystopian world of 22nd century, the games center on an elite supersoldier that defects from the tyrannical world government, the World Economic Consortium (WEC), and joins the Resistance rebels.

Critically well-received, No Remorse was followed by the PC-only sequel Crusader: No Regret in 1996.

Gameplay

The Silencer is shooting a non-combatant with two guards and a robot present.

Crusader is divided into missions, each with their own locations and objectives. Settings vary from factories to military bases to offices to space stations, and contain a variety of enemy soldiers and servomechs, traps, puzzles and non-combatants (who can be killed with no penalty and their bodies can be looted for credits). All locations have alarm systems which are triggered by walking into view of security cameras or destroying a secured door, and can be deactivated by using an alarm box. So long as the alarm is active, either a new enemy soldier will teleport into the area every few seconds or a confined servomech will be released, depending on where the player is. In addition, the player cannot use keycard slots or door switches while an alarm is active. In the PC version, the Silencer can carry no more than five firearms at once.

The game featured an unprecedented level of setting interaction. Most of the environment can be destroyed by weapons fire and some traps or defenses can be manipulated for use against the enemy. The geography of the setting encourages the use of tactics and combinations of moves in order to hit the targets effectively with the minimum possible loss of resources. No Regret added a handful of new maneuvers to the original game, including the ability to dive forward, and to sidestep while crouching. Weapons, ammunition, credits (money), healing facilities, and other equipment are scattered through the levels, allowing the player to upgrade their arsenal.

Plot

Due to economic downfalls, the nations of the planet Earth began gradually to organize themselves into huge economic super-conglomerates. Eventually, these continental organizations merged into the World Economic Consortium. The WEC is a tyrannical entity; while the world is made to look peaceful and prosperous, the reality is that most freedoms are suspended, taxes are well over 90%, military force is used mercilessly against those who dare oppose the WEC, and freedom is barely even remembered. Only an elite upper class of WEC executives have true power and wealth; among these are WEC President Gauthier and Chairman Nathaniel Draygan. The WEC is being fought by an organization calling itself the Resistance, led by former WEC colonel, now general, Quentin Maxis. The Resistance is a severely outnumbered and outgunned ragtag mix of disparate people: ex-WEC soldiers and employees rub elbows with political dissidents and criminals.

As No Remorse opens, a team of three Silencers—enigmatic super-soldiers—are returning from a botched mission in which they disobeyed an order to fire upon civilians who were (mistakenly) believed to be rebels. They are ambushed by a WEC mech and two of the Silencers are killed. The remaining one, a nameless captain (the player character), was able to disable the mech with a grenade. Reconsidering his options, the Silencer joins the Resistance, where, as a significant symbol of the WEC's military power and political philosophy, he is met with resentment, distrust and outright hatred. As the game progresses, the Silencer uncomplainingly undertakes dangerous missions, often with substandard equipment, and his continued success gradually earns the respect of his fellow Resistance members.

The Silencer eventually uncovers secret plans for a WEC space station, the Vigilance Platform, which can attack any location on Earth from space, meaning cities with a known Resistance presence can simply be annihilated at the leisure of the WEC. All such cities are threatened with orbital bombardment unless they surrender. Concurrently, the player's Resistance cell is betrayed from within, and almost all the non-player characters are killed. Despite these setbacks, the Silencer infiltrates the Vigilance Platform and destroys it. The traitor is also on the station, guarding the lifepods, and challenges the Silencer to a duel over the access card for the last pod. As the Vigilance Platform is exploding, the Silencer is contacted by Chairman Draygan, who swears vengeance against him.

Development

Both games use an advanced version of the Ultima VIII: Pagan isometric view engine featuring full SVGA graphics. The game's audio uses a specially made engine, called Asylum Sound System, which employs MOD files rather than General MIDI, in order to provide good quality without relying on expensive hardware. Each mission and intermission level has its own track. The soundtracks for both games were composed by Andrew Sega and Dan Grandpre of the now-defunct Straylight Productions.

The Crusader games feature full motion video (FMV) sequences with live actors; FMVs are used in cutscenes to further the story, generally through interaction with other characters. These conversations are generally one-sided, as the player character never speaks. Like many Origin games, both No Remorse shipped with significant in-universe back-story material, including a fold-out propaganda poster, newspaper and guides from the WEC and the Resistance.

Crusader contains several references to Origin's Wing Commander series and is also referenced by other games. The introduction of the game shows a dating system as used in Wing Commander (a year number, followed by a decimal signifying a day). According to Wing Commander backstory, the Terran Confederation is a government that replaced the WEC[4] and the Wing Commander Arena manual "Star*Soldier" has an advertisement for an in-game movie titled No Regret, which is portrayed in the manual as based on true events. Furthermore, an article in the newspaper added to the No Remorse box mentions SHODAN and the Citadel space station in a reference to System Shock, and the blood-soaked operating tables seen throughout certain levels are of the same model used in Bioforge, on which its main character LEX was created on. According to the game's lead designer Tony Zurovec these references are solely easter eggs and Crusader is not sharing a universe with any other game series.[5]

Release

In June 2011 the game and its sequel was re-released by the digital distributor GOG.com with compatibility for Windows XP/7/8 and Mac OS X (10.8.6 or newer).[6]

Reception

Reception
Aggregate score
AggregatorScore
GameRankings84.00% (PC)[7]
73.20% (PlayStation)[8]
70.70% (Saturn)[9]
Review scores
PublicationScore
Game Informer7.25/10 (PlayStation)[10]
GameSpot8.4/10[11]
7.1/10 (PlayStation)[12]
7.4/10 (Saturn)[13]
IGN7/10 (PlayStation)[14]
PC Gamer (US)93%[15]
Computer Games Magazine[16]

Crusader: No Remorse won the Action Game of the Year award from Computer Gaming World.[17] In 1996, Computer Gaming World ranked it as the 38th best PC game of all time,[18] also listing the game's ultraviolet rifle among the 15 "best worst ways to die in computer gaming".[19]

Legacy

Sequel

Main article: Crusader: No Regret

Other legacy

A third game in the series (with several working titles such as Crusader 3: No Escape, Crusader II and Crusader: No Mercy) was never released.[20] Tony Zurovec of the Crusader team left Origin and joined Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts at his new company Digital Anvil and Origin refocused its efforts on Ultima Online. Preliminary storyline ideas included boarding a shuttle and making a daring assault to get back to Earth.

In 2006, Slovakian company Outsider Development tried to convince EA on porting Crusader: No Remorse to the PlayStation Portable, but their Crusader: No Pity project (which included a working prototype) was rejected despite the support from Andrew Sega.[21]

The game also had a big influence on the Fallout development team.[22]

References

  1. ↑ https://www.origin.com/en-us/store/buy/crusader-no-remorse/pc-download/base-game/standard-edition
  2. ↑ Crusader: No Remorse - PlayStation - IGN. IGN. Retrieved July 17, 2012.
  3. ↑ Crusader: No Remorse - Saturn - IGN. IGN. Retrieved July 17, 2012
  4. ↑ "Wing Commander CIC Encyclopedia". Wcnews.com. 2004-08-06. Retrieved 2012-10-13.
  5. ↑ "News - Your questions about Crusader answered by Tony Zurovec". GOG.com. Archived from the original on 2014-08-16. Retrieved 2012-10-13.
  6. ↑ Crusader: No Remorse on GOG.com (June 2011)
  7. ↑ "Crusader: No Remorse for PC". GameRankings. 1995-08-31. Retrieved 2012-10-13.
  8. ↑ "Crusader: No Remorse for PlayStation". GameRankings. 1996-12-31. Retrieved 2012-10-13.
  9. ↑ "Crusader: No Remorse for Saturn". GameRankings. 1996-12-31. Retrieved 2012-10-13.
  10. ↑ March 1997 Issue, GameInformer.com (archived)
  11. ↑ May 1, 1996 12:00AM PDT (1995-08-31). "Crusader: No Remorse Review". GameSpot.com. Retrieved 2012-10-13.
  12. ↑ January 16, 1997 12:00AM PST (1996-12-31). "Crusader: No Remorse Review". GameSpot.com. Retrieved 2012-10-13.
  13. ↑ January 23, 1997 12:00AM PST (1996-12-31). "Crusader: No Remorse Review". GameSpot.com. Retrieved 2012-10-13.
  14. ↑ "Crusader: No Remorse - IGN". Uk.ign.com. Retrieved 2012-10-13.
  15. ↑ "PC Gamer Online". pcgamer.com. Archived from the original on 6 December 1999. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
  16. ↑ "Crusader: No Remorse Review". cdmag.com. Archived from the original on 17 August 2003. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
  17. ↑ CGW 143 (June 1996)
  18. ↑ CGW 148: 150 Best Games of All Time
  19. ↑ CGW 148: 150 Best Ways to Die in Computer Gaming
  20. ↑ "“We had a lot of fun with the other explosives…” – An Interview with Jason Ely". ultimacodex.com. 2014-03-18. Retrieved 2014-05-16. UC: Were there more Crusader games planned, provided Origin hadn’t closed down? JE: There were actually two more Crusader games planned — Crusader: No Mercy and Crusader: No Survivors.
  21. ↑ Crusader- No Pity | The Gaming Liberty.com (archived)
  22. ↑ Fallout Classic Revisited, GameSpot, 9 March 2012.

External links


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