One (video game)

One is a video game released for the Sony PlayStation in 1997. The game was released as a PSone Classic for download on the PlayStation Network on March 18, 2010.

One
North American cover art
Developer(s)Visual Concepts
Publisher(s)
Director(s)Scott Patterson
Composer(s)Mark Chosak
Platform(s)PlayStation
Release
  • NA: November 30, 1997
  • PAL: March 1998
Genre(s)Third-person shooter
Mode(s)Single-player

Gameplay

One is a linear 3D platform shooter with a dynamic camera that automatically shifts perspectives with the action.

In lieu of power-ups, the player builds the "rage meter" by killing enemies. Building the rage meter increases their character's abilities, in some cases in ways that are necessary to advance through the levels.[1]

There are six levels in total with a boss at the end of each, most of whom cannot be dispatched by direct gunfire and instead must be defeated by usage of the surrounding environment.

Plot

The goal of One is for the player to discover the identity of the main character John Cain. The only clue available is a barcode on the player-character's neck. At the beginning of the game, John Cain awakens on the floor of an apartment building, with a gun in place of one arm, no memory, and police helicopters shooting missiles through a window. Meanwhile, the player character is pursued across the city and country-side by military and police forces who are apparently intending to kill Cain, and have mistaken the player character for him. To combat the police and military forces and other enemies, the player has the option to use Cain's newly installed arm cannon, or rely on more traditional fighting weapons like punch and kicking combos.

Development

Visual Concepts president Greg Thomas stated, "The whole idea behind this game was to take the kind of hard-hitting fast pace you used to see in side-scrolling platform games and translate those values into a 3D game."[2]

The game uses asynchronous loading, a common PlayStation technique which makes the game load data into the console's RAM during play, thus preventing the game from having to pause for load times.[2]

Reception

The game received favorable reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings.[3] Next Generation said that the game "had a lot of promise. If only ASC could've gotten the graphics and the control in sync. But then that's the trick, isn't it?"[14] In Japan, where the game was ported and published by Capcom on March 25, 1999, Famitsu gave it a score of 23 out of 40.[7]

Shawn Smith of Electronic Gaming Monthly selected One as his pick for "Sleeper Hit of the Holidays", praising the originality of mechanics such as the rage meter and saying the game "brings back some of the feel of the Super NES Contra games - and does it well on a 32-bit machine to boot."[16]

Notes

  1. Four critics of Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the game different ratings: two of them gave it a 7/10, and the rest each scored it a 7.5/10 and 8.5/10.
  2. Three critics of GameFan gave the game each a score of 96, 98, and 97.
  3. In GamePro's review, the game was scored 4.5/5 three times for overall fun factor, graphics, and sound and 4/5 for control.

References

  1. EGM staff (August 1997). "One: Despite All My Rage... (Preview)". Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 97. Ziff Davis. p. 106.
  2. "NG Alphas: One". Next Generation. No. 30. Imagine Media. June 1997. pp. 87–88.
  3. "One for PlayStation". GameRankings. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on May 5, 2019. Retrieved November 8, 2020.
  4. Sackenheim, Shawn. "One - Review". AllGame. All Media Network. Archived from the original on November 15, 2014. Retrieved October 8, 2020.
  5. Edge staff (March 1998). "One". Edge. No. 56. Future Publishing. pp. 96–97. Retrieved November 8, 2020.
  6. Smith, Shawn; Hsu, Dan; Kujawa, Kraig; Williams, Ken "Sushi-X" (February 1998). "One". Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 103. Ziff Davis. p. 119. Retrieved November 8, 2020.
  7. "ONE [PS]". Famitsu (in Japanese). Enterbrain. Retrieved November 8, 2020.
  8. Reiner, Andrew; Anderson, Paul; Storm, Jon (January 1998). "ONE". Game Informer. No. 57. FuncoLand. Archived from the original on September 13, 1999. Retrieved November 8, 2020.
  9. Jevons, Dan "Knightmare"; Mylonas, Eric "ECM"; Griffin, Mike "Glitch" (December 1997). "One". GameFan. Vol. 5 no. 12. Metropolis Media. p. 22. Retrieved November 8, 2020.
  10. Major Mike (February 1998). "One". GamePro. No. 113. IDG Entertainment. pp. 82–83. Retrieved November 8, 2020.
  11. Clint (January 1998). "ONE Review". GameRevolution. CraveOnline. Archived from the original on April 18, 2003. Retrieved November 8, 2020.
  12. Toister, Dave (January 13, 1998). "One Review [date mislabeled as "May 2, 2000"]". GameSpot. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on October 1, 2003. Retrieved November 8, 2020.
  13. Douglas, Adam (December 11, 1997). "One". IGN. Ziff Davis. Retrieved October 8, 2020.
  14. "One". Next Generation. No. 39. Imagine Media. March 1998. p. 111. Retrieved November 8, 2020.
  15. "One". Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine. Vol. 1 no. 5. Ziff Davis. February 1998.
  16. EGM staff (November 1997). "The 5 Sleeper Hits of the Holidays". Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 100. Ziff Davis. p. 184.
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