The Creed was a very forward-thinking game for its time, with its dark, science fiction cyber punk themes and interesting ideas. It was only released in Asia and Australia and was published by Electronic Arts Incorporated. It was developed by Insomnia Entertainment, and was released for play on the personal computer running the more modern Windows formats in the late nineties. The entire game plays from a quite user friendly third person perspective. It is a nice blend of arcade style action and a classic adventure game.
The plot surrounding the game is very dark and deals with a lot of blood, gore, death, and political intrigue. The gamer will play the part of one of two men who have become stranded on the not-so-friendly planet of Outpost IV. Within the walls of Cerberus City, either Guy Kreed or Gene Matrix will find himself performing a delicate balancing act between the three major powers of the city: the Brotherhood, the Government, and the Order. Of course, serving one will incite the other, so the character has to be careful for whom he performs missions and must be stealthy in his every move. The factions will offer the man various missions, generally dealing with some sort of political motive, and
they will range from assassinating people in power, espionage, sabotage, and so forth. The character, whichever you choose, has his own objective. He is not on Outpost IV willingly, but as a crash victim, and he needs to earn enough cash through these varied missions to get himself out of the city and off the planet…alive.
The character within the game will be a three dimensional, nicely done sprite in a two dimensional world. The gaming environment is fairly large and is also nicely done, with backgrounds that add to the theme and dark feel very well. The controls are, admittedly, a bit clunky and will likely be one of the larger challenges of the game, besides the missions themselves. The detailed backgrounds of the characters are also dark and interesting and add to the gaming experience. The non-playing characters, within the individual missions, are intelligent and feature some good voice work. (Those just ambling about the city are not so good.)
The Creed should certainly be attempted. Most seasoned gamers will be able to work around the controls and interface issues and will get into a really surreal and dark gaming experience. It is challenging, nonetheless, and still has a good classic feel to it…perfect for the gaming generation between old school and Virtual Wii.
