Mace: The Dark Age

Mace: The Dark Age

Mace: The Dark Age box cover
Developer(s) Atari Games
Midway Games
Publisher(s) Midway Games
Platform(s) Arcade, Nintendo 64
Release date(s)

Nintendo 64

  • NA October 1997
  • EU December 1997

Arcade

Genre(s) Fighting game
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer

Mace: The Dark Age is a fighting video game released by Atari for arcade machines in 1997[1] and ported by Midway to the Nintendo 64 in 1997.

Plot

"For centuries an impenetrable darkness has shrouded Europe, Arabia and Asia, with countless victims succumbing to the ravenous hunger of unchecked pestilence and war. In Asia, Khan's ruthless Golden Horde wages a war of terror from the shores of Japan to Europe. In Arabia, the legendary Assassins' Guild asserts a bid for power, toppling sultans and kings. Europe, once a promising glimpse of humanity's potential, has become a well of despair under the despotic rule of a handful of feudal lords.

"Many great kingdoms have been devastated, but a few have grown more powerful. These comprise the Covenant of Seven - lords who have allied with Asmodeus, a practitioner of the dark arts who wields the fabled Mace of Tanis. The Mace is imbued with necropotic energy, offering those who wield it a tantalizing promise of ever-lasting life and unbridled power. With this power comes a terrible price: Asmodeus must feed off despair, disease, and poverty. In limited doses, Asmodeus grants the Seven the power they need and crave. In return, they expand their kingdoms with bloody battles and torment their peasants. But Europe can no longer sustain Asmodeus' ravenous appetite. He now reaches East into the Orient, to find new lords who yearn to sample the dark powers.

"But there is rebellion. Each of the Seven, addicted to the corrupting power of the Mace, dispatch their best warriors to kill Asmodeus and steal his power. Leaders from the East sense Asmodeus' plottings and strive to destroy him before it is too late. Heirs to kingdoms long since vanquished seek revenge on Asmodeus and those who wield the dark energy. They are the fiercest fighters in the world, and they all have one thing in common: they each must possess the Mace."[2]

Gameplay

The game is similar to Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. and the Mortal Kombat series. Like in Mortal Kombat, when a character wins both rounds, they can perform an execution move on the enemy. Methods included severing an opponent's limbs and torso (Al Rashid), beheading (The Executioner), repeated stabbing (Koyasha), impaling the opponent with a sword (Lord Deimos), breaking an opponent's back by hoisting them on top of a Viking helmet and throwing them to the ground, causing their body to explode (Ragnar), and some more far-fetched methods including pulling out an opponent's heart (Xiao Long), shrinking (Namira), transforming the opponent into a chicken (Taria), and entering an opponent's body and bursting them from inside (Dregan).

Characters

Secret characters:

Development

Mace: The Dark Age was originally released on the arcade machines using the 3Dfx Voodoo graphics card,[4] the same technology powering San Francisco Rush. The latest motion capture technology was used during the game's development.[5] Besides the Nintendo 64 port, a PlayStation version of the game was also planned but never released.[6]

Reception

Mace: The Dark Age was praised mainly because of its graphics. It was also noted for stage interactions with things such as water, and damaging areas such as lava. According to Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot, Mace "looked fantastic but still played poorly." He gave it a score of 5.4/10, stating: "All in all, Mace is a depressing game. It looks so good that you really want to like it, but it just isn't very much fun to play at all. It falls squarely between Dark Rift and War Gods in the realm of 3D fighting on the N64."[4] A more positive review by Matt Casamassina of IGN gave it a score of 7.1/10 credit as the best N64 fighting game at the time of its release, though openly acknowledging that the pool of good fighting games available for the N64 at the time was quite shallow.[7] In 2011, Complex included it on the list of ten "most blatant Mortal Kombat ripoffs, adding, "If anything, it was like a more brutal version of Soul Edge."[8]

References

  1. ↑ http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=8474
  2. ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/19980117090733/http://www.atarigames.com/mace/story.html
  3. ↑ Nintendo Power #106
  4. 1 2 "Mace: The Dark Age Review". GameSpot. 1997-10-15. Retrieved 2013-08-12.
  5. ↑ Total 64 1, page 30.
  6. ↑ "Video Game Graveyard". The Official PlayStation Museum. Retrieved 2015-09-13.
  7. ↑ "Mace: The Dark Age". IGN. 1997-10-03. Retrieved 2013-08-12.
  8. ↑ "The Klone Wars: The 10 Most Blatant "Mortal Kombat" Rip-Offs Ever". Complex. 2011-04-18. Retrieved 2013-08-12.

External links

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