Garshasp: The Monster slayer is the first Iranian game. Developed by Dead Mage it’s a fantasy action adventure game, based around Persian mythology. The story revolves around the character Garshasp. He returns to his town to discover it under attackfrom creatures called Deevs. He fights through waves of Deevs to find his brother dead at the hand of Azhi Dahaka the leader of the Deevs. Garshasp swears revenge on his brother’s murderer and pursues Azhi Dahaka.
The game is played in third person with fixed camera angles although these camera angles are not perfect they are not horrible either. The game is a hack and slashplatformer that allows players to slash their way through enemies and slide and climb walls in the process. The A.I in the game is somewhat lacking however they do not sit their beating a wall, their just a little slow to attack. While playing it is relatively easy for you to slice them with the sword or stab them with the wrist blade.
The combat in Garshasp is relatively simple left click for light attack; right click to heavy attack and middle click to block. However there are some additional features such as; counter attacks which are rewarded for performing a block at the appropriate time and grabs. Grabs are activated by pushing the E key (also known as use key), on weaker enemies this can quickly finish them allowing for more space to manoeuvre during fights. Larger enemies have to be weakened before you can grab them and grabbing them starts a quick time event to complete the finishing move.A large mechanic in combat is Rage. Garshasp’s weapons generate rage allowing him to use special abilities which require its presence. In addition to this Garshasp’s weapons slowly level up unlocking more skills that require rage to be used.
When not stuck in rigours combat Garshasp has to climb walls, slide down walls, shimmy across ledges, jump gaps and complete the occasional simple puzzle. Using his dagger to slide down a wall with control Garshasp is met with ledges and other obstacles that he has to manoeuvre around.
The graphics in Garshasp are not the greatest nor are they the worst; there is a minuscule amount of glitches that appeared with a hole in the scenery. Graphical detail is to an average standard with the Iranian company showing that they can compete in the industry with other developers using the technology they have.
The sound engine used for Garshasp is not HD quality however saying that it is very fitting to the game genre and does not consist of any sound lag.
Technical Overview of Fanafzar and the Iranian Gaming Industry
The Garshasp game has been under development in Fanafzar Game Studios with collaborations from Dead Mage Studios since early 2006.Fanafzar Company’s revolutionary new video game, Garshasp is a symbolic recreation of the spirituality, grandeur and mythical atmosphere of ancient Persia, derived from the epic poem GarshapNaame.Most of the images and scenes depicted in this game are drawn from or based directly upon historical resources and ancient stone carvings found throughout Iran, and a chain of thoughts that goes back thousands of years to the dawn of Western and Eastern civilizations alike.
While the game Garshasp is not ideal for the western world there are many restrictions on why this is. The relationship between Iran and other countries has not been at its strongest and has limited parts of the western world’s culture to reach the developers.
Garshasp used these applications to complete its development;
Ogre
OGRE (Object-Oriented Graphics Rendering Engine) is a scene-oriented, flexible 3D engine written in C++ designed to make it easier and more intuitive for developers to produce applications utilising hardware-accelerated 3D graphics. The class library abstracts all the details of using the underlying system libraries like Direct3D and OpenGL and provides an interface based on world objects and other intuitive classes.
OIS
Object Oriented Input System (OIS) is a cross platform, simple solution for using all kinds of Input Devices (Keyboards, Mice, Joysticks, etc) and feedback devices (e.g. force feedback). Written in C++ using Object Oriented Design pattern
Particle Universe
Particle Universe is a complete system to create visually stunning particle systems for Ogre powered video games and video editting. The package consist of an editor for creation of particle systems using a visual editting system, and a runtime plugin (C++) for in-game usage of the created particle system scripts.
Boost
Boost provides free peer-reviewed portable C++ source libraries.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
