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Mace: The Dark Age
File:Mace The Dark Age box.jpg
Mace: The Dark Age box cover
Developer(s)Atari Games
Midway Games
Publisher(s)Atari Games
Midway Games
Platform(s)Arcade, Nintendo 64
ReleaseNintendo 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

In the 12th century, a collection of nations called the Covenant of Seven send their best warriors to kill 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. Leaders from the East sense that Asmodeus is plotting and send their own warriors to eliminate him before it is too late.[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.

Similar to its contemporary Dead or Alive, in lieu of ring-outs Mace: The Dark Age has arenas which are surrounded by dangerous terrain, causing damage to any character who goes out of bounds.[3] An evade button allows characters to step backward or forward into the 3D environments.[2]

Characters

Secret characters:

Development

The developers created 30 characters for the game, then narrowed them down to a lineup of 11 through focus groups of teenagers.[3] Mace: The Dark Age was originally released on the arcade machines using the 3Dfx Voodoo graphics card,[5] the same technology powering San Francisco Rush. The latest motion capture technology was used during the game's development.[6] A member of the Atari team who happened to be in the Society for Creative Anachronism did all the motion capture acting.[3] Besides the Nintendo 64 port, a PlayStation version of the game was also planned but never released.[7]

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."[5] 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.[8] 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."[9]

Next Generation reviewed the arcade version of the game, rating it three stars out of five, and stated that "Detail and depth on the order of a Virtua Fighter take years of development and practice, and Atari Games has a good start. Mace is a beautifully designed game with attractive characters and bodes well for Mace II."[10]

References

  1. ^ http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=8474
  2. ^ a b "Hot at the Arcades: Mace: The Dark Age". GamePro. No. 101. IDG. February 1997. p. 53.
  3. ^ a b c "NG Alphas: Mace: The Dark Age". Next Generation. No. 26. Imagine Media. February 1997. pp. 99–100.
  4. ^ Nintendo Power #106
  5. ^ a b "Mace: The Dark Age Review". GameSpot. 1997-10-15. Retrieved 2013-08-12.
  6. ^ Total 64 1, page 30.
  7. ^ "Video Game Graveyard". The Official PlayStation Museum. Retrieved 2015-09-13.
  8. ^ "Mace: The Dark Age". IGN. 1997-10-03. Retrieved 2013-08-12.
  9. ^ "The Klone Wars: The 10 Most Blatant "Mortal Kombat" Rip-Offs Ever". Complex. 2011-04-18. Retrieved 2013-08-12.
  10. ^ "Finals". Next Generation. No. 31. Imagine Media. July 1997. p. 174.
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