Kreed is a sci-fi first person shooter in which you will become legionnaire - one of the most trained and dangerous warriors of 3rd millennium. You are marooned on a graveyard for spaceships, inside the space anomaly zone called Kreed, a massive gravity field attracting everything in its wake, like a giant organism. Discovering the secret to Kreed is the goal of the game.

When first details of Kreed surfaces, I was amazed at how awesome the game's screens looked. The Doom 3-killer, as Kreed was dubbed, was not only visually impressive, but also seemed to be on track to providing gamers with some great action shooter action. I've played it for a few hours, and I think it's probably one of the worst FPS I've seen last two years :( The game is extremely generic as you playing from the start to finish killing everything that crosses your path, picking up new weapons, pushing buttons and pass cards for locked doors. There is no stealth, no lock-picking, no searching dead bodies for ammo, no skill-building, no playing around with nice devices. In addition, the objectives aren't always clear and it is quite easy to lose track of where and what you are suppose to do.

There're over 10 different weapons, including knife, shotgun, carabine, triple shotgun, chaingun, flamethrower, rocket launcher, grenades and alien "Vard" energy concentrator. Most weapons have alternative firing modes. However, there is one glaring problem - the weapons are poorly balanced or rather underpowered. I mean the combat is definitely lacking in the "wow factor" stakes. There are also healing kits that seem to give more of a boost when you really need it the most - very useful in some of the trickier situations. The enemies are certainly varied, from some "zero IQ" aliens to marines that take cover, hide and either run towards you.

The game doesn't even have anything new in terms of multiplayer. There are three regular modes (DM, TDM, CTF) playable through the Internet or LAN.

The controls are standard fare - familiar WASD interface, and the mouse is used to look and shoot. Unfortunately, the mouse sensitivity is extremely bad, making Kreed even more frustrating.

Overall this is a poor game. Kreed has poor level design, poorly balanced weapons and numerous glitches keep it from being up there with the best of the genre, and the game seems to lack - in almost all aspects - what other "First-Person Shooters" have to offer. Also, there's a very little in Kreed that you won't have played before. I cannot really recommend this game. Acclaim declared bankruptcy about two months after Kreed release. Need I say more?

Related links: demo (198MB)

System requirements:
Minimal: 800 MHz CPU, 128 MB RAM, 3D-card with 32 MB memory on board and HW-T&L support - GeForce2 or better, 1.4 GB of free disk space (additional space required for Windows paging file), Windows XP/2000/98/ME with DirectX 8.1 installed, Sound card, Mouse, Keyboard.

Recommended: 1+ GHz CPU (Athlon XP or P4), 512 MB RAM, 3D-card with 64/128 Mb memory on board and HW-T&L support, 24-bit z-buffer and hardware implementation of pixel and vertex shaders (GeForce 3 / ATI R8500 or better), 1.4 GB of free disk space (additional space required for Windows paging file), Windows XP/2000 with DirectX 8.1 installed, DirectX 7-compliant sound card, Mouse, Keyboard.