Erevos Review

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            Erevos

Review by LakerzAugust 2003

You awaken from a deep sleep with an insatiable thirst, one that burns from within. The darkness is soothing, the sounds of the night beckoning you onward, outward. The thrill of the hunt gives out a high like none other, and you can almost envision the blood on your tongue from a fresh kill. Yes, such is the life of a vampire, a hunter of mortals, a being to be feared! Alas, sometimes the hunter can become the hunted …

Thus begins Erevos, an intriguing horror adventure game from a small development team in Greece called NYX. I was not familiar with them, but I could not pass up the chance to play an adventure game involving vampires!

At the beginning of Erevos’s story, you choose to play as either Eric Koplot or Giannos Romar. The two vampires come from differing backgrounds but share the same storyline. It all started in 1450 in a French town named Lille where the Travers family was attacked by what the townsfolk believed were vampires. The king tried to quell the citizens’ outrage by finding a scapegoat for the murders and hanging the man. The only surviving Travers member, Alexander, did not believe the king’s story for a second and vowed revenge against the vampire clan that murdered his wife and son.  He ended up forming his own cult, dubbed Erevos, which stands for deep darkness. The members of Erevos had but one goal, the extermination of all vampires from the face of the earth. As a cardholding member of the vampire allegiance, you can’t let this go without retribution.

Installation of Erevos was very easy for me. It installed and played just fine in both Win98 and XP. The game gives the option of a full install (roughly 640 MB), negating the need to play from the CD-ROM, or a minimal install to spare disk space. I opted for the full install, as I couldn’t let CD-ROM access times get in the way of some bloodletting, right? Installation progress is shown by a creepy-looking doll with rivulets of blood leaking from its eyes. When the installation is complete, the eyes fly open, showing a fiery supernatural gaze beneath. If this sounds a bit too much for you (and it is a bit creepy, I admit), then I can safely say Erevos is not for you. Erevos is rated M (mature) with the corresponding age limitation of 18+. This is due to violent graphics (who would have thought?) in addition to some occult subject matter. I’d also like to note that a few of the scenes can be rather disturbing, but more on that later.

I knew right off the bat that Erevos meant business when I tried to start the game in the daytime. Erevos wouldn’t run, as vampires can only come out once the sun sets! Between seven p.m and eight a.m. is the preferred time to play, thank you very much. This is easily bypassed by changing the system time, but it got a chuckle out of me.

The intro sets up the gameplay quite nicely, paying homage to The Blair Witch Project. When I finally took control of my vampire, it did not take long to become accustomed to the controls. Erevos is a mouse-driven, first-person perspective game. However, depending on the situation, the camera will either be fixed or rotated. When fixed, Erevos is controlled like most other games of its genre. The cursor changes depending on where you can move or where there is an item that can be picked up, manipulated, or observed more closely. If you hit a node where the character can rotate, two arrows will appear on the sides of the screen. A click on either one will alter the camera 15 degrees or so in either direction.  All in all, I thought this to be a suitable scheme, although it is a bit of a pain to have to click the mouse umpteen times to get the vampire facing the right way. The inventory is easily accessed from the main screen as well, as is morphing into your “familiar.”  The morphing function is a great idea and proves useful in solving puzzles, etc. The only complaint I have regarding the interface involves the save/load system. It’s entirely automated—one’s progress is saved after each completed chapter. There are no other saves allowed. If you die during gameplay, you have to start from the beginning of the last completed chapter. Also, there is no way to bring up the load screen once a chapter is started. You have to quit the game and then restart it to access the load screen again.  A very odd design decision to be sure.

Graphically, Erevos is trailing the pack of recently released adventure games, although for a small development group they’re not bad at all. It plays at a 1024×768 resolution, and the various scenes you travel through are for the most part sharp, if not exactly overflowing with details. The video cutscenes are pretty grainy, but I feel this was done on purpose to imbue Erevos with a gritty, urban atmosphere. They are effective if not exactly clear in some parts given that some of them are shot at night in black and white. Probably the low points graphicswise are during conversations.  Each character is represented by a looping video made up of a dozen or so stills. While reading the text, these character videos are playing over again and again, and I found them very stilted. I think it would have looked better (and been easier to implement) to show just a static picture of the character. All criticism aside, the graphics did an acceptable job and did not detract from my enjoyment of the game.

Where Erevos really shines is in the music, which makes the added soundtrack CD-ROM a nice bonus. From beginning to end, the music really drew me in to the game world, varying from classical to gothic, from softly melodic to edgy. Sound effects are of similar quality. From the creaks of a coffin opening to the anguished yell of a victim, I was constantly on the edge of my seat. Knowing that the acolytes of Erevos are hounding you and could be behind you or right around the corner, the developers did a nice job of keeping the majority of scenes filled with tension and surprises. I honestly was startled a few times during my play through, something that rarely happens to me.

I finished Erevos in about 10 hours, so I find it fair to classify it as a short game given that I am not a champion puzzle solver. Technically, you can play through the game as each of the two separate vampires, but only one chapter ends up presenting a separate locale and puzzles. The rest of the game plays out in the same no matter which vampire you initially choose. If each character could have had his own storyline, that would have been the perfect boost to the game’s length.

The puzzles are very easy. Only a handful of times was I stumped for very long. The main problem with the shortness is in how Erevos is constructed. There are eight chapters, plus an epilogue of sorts. Each chapter only has a few locations you are able to visit, so at any given time there are not too many choices you must make.  Instead of the game world opening up the farther in you get, it remains restricted throughout. In fact, Erevos would be even shorter if it wasn’t the case that you can die. As each chapter begins, the vampire’s health is constantly decreasing. Only feasting on someone’s blood or finishing a chapter will replenish it. Death can also be instantaneous at the hands of the Erevos group. What makes dying even worse is the game kicks you all the way out to the desktop, which is irritating.

I was also a bit dissapointed that none of the characters in Erevos were fleshed out too well. The only interactions between vampires are strictly linear conversations tethered with a few fetch missions to bring them stuff. I would have loved to really dive in to a rich backstory tying their lives together somehow, providing some reasoning behind their motivations and actions during the game. There are some small references to the past histories of the vampires but not much else.

As noted previously, Erevos is not for everyone. There are several scenes and images that are downright disturbing. I don’t want to give too much away, but one chapter has you invading a hospital to steal a baby so one of the head vampires can feast on it. Yes, pretty demented stuff. But hey, you’re a vampire—please check your morals at the door.

I doubt Erevos is a game we’ll ever see in US stores, but the last time I checked, the Erevos website indicated that it was accepting internet orders. (The site appears to be down as of this writing.)

I had a good amount of fun during my brief venture into vampiredom.  Erevos is certainly not without its niggles, but I feel that the developers have done a decent job creating a dark game for the inner vampire in all of us. If it wasn’t for the shortness, the funky save/load system, and the shallow characters, I would have scored Erevos higher. If a little depravity is what you’re in the mood for this upcoming Halloween, you might want to check Erevos out. The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: NYX Publisher: Gennadios Editions Release Date: 2002

Available for: Windows

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Screenshots

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System Requirements

P133 MMX or higher 32 MB RAM (64 MB recommended) 8X CD-ROM (24X recommended) VGA card and monitor that can handle 1024×768 resolution 7 MB free hard disk space (644 MB free for full install)

Where to Find It

Links provided for informational purposes only.  FFC makes no warranty with regard to any transaction entered into by any party(ies).

      Copyright © Electric Eye Productions.  All rights reserved.  No reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission.

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16 Responses to Screw the Internet

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    God damn, Scout, I’d never heard of this Lanier fellow, but that’s pretty profound.

    Information is not a manufacturable item… as you said, we are making less and less. This is either indicative of a larger-scale societal transformation, or a bad thing. I’m afraid I’m inclined to assumed the latter.

    Thanks!

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    Steerpike, that was exactly the argument Lanier was having with callers on the BBC. Lanier was all fatalistic about society’s drop in real productivity while his opponents claimed that this was a huge transformation and that he was just too old to grasp the coolness of it all. If you notice, the web address of that first Lanier link is well.com. I mean, that is old! The Well?

    Lanier’s thoughts were pretty much echoed by David Simon, one of the creators of The Wire. Here he speaks with Bill Moyers about the fate of paid journalism in the face of the web.

  • Spike

    I’ve read many criticisms of Facebook et. al.  I’ve also read contradictions of those criticisms, namely, that social sites are making people more connected than ever.  I think that that connectedness is an illusion.

    For several months at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 my daughter badgered me to join FB.  I could connect with her and some of her friends that I know as well as renew old acquaintances with some of her friend’s mothers.  I finally signed up so she’d quit the badgering. I used to check in every day to see what daughter and friends were saying because if I didn’t she’d ask if I saw her post, or a friend’s post. 

    What I’ve learned is this:

    1.  “Karen Likes John’s photo (or post)” IS NOT communication.

    2.  The reason I lost contact with some of these “friends” in the first place is that we no longer had anything in common.

    3.  I am bombarded with so many ads in so many places that I can do without more.  My policy is to never click on ads on FB or on many other sites. 

    4.  While FB’s original mission was connectedness/communication, I think it has become “Let’s make as much money from these fools as we can.”  “Wanna have gobs of fun playing a free game on FB?”  That game is gonna cost ya big, folks. 

    5.  Social sites are just more places where your personal info can be stolen.  There’s enough risk out there as it is.  Additional risk is not providing any valuable payoff for me.

    6.  Why do I want to “friend” a certain handbag manufacturer?  Why do I want to take a quiz that tells me what my personality is?  FB content providers tell you up front that if you click the link to take their quiz (goes for other types of content as well) you are giving them permission to access your profile info.  That’s ok.  I’ll also give you my SSN, bank account number and the key to my front door.  Not.

    7.  Don’t even get me started on the number of people who start an account in a pet’s name, and even have the pets making friends and posting.

    “…he was just too old to grasp the coolness of it all.”

    No, it’s just that most of us get to the age when we demand a bit of wheat with our chaff.

    At 38 my daughter is older than the average demographic of social sites although I know that that demographic is skewing up.  She seems to be cooling on FB.  Some of her 221 friends are as well.  Many of them do want some wheat.  When more cooling has taken place I will unjoin.

    I wonder, though, what new fad will come along when FB, Twitter and others run their course?  MySpace, anyone?

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    My favorite line from the BBC interview was when Lanier was comparing MySpace and Facebook. He admitted that MySpace had some eye gougingly bad pages but said that he liked the “strangeness” of personalities that you get with it. With Facebook, he claimed that it was like looking at a tax form. A boring, watered down, bland presentation of people.

    I joined Facebook almost exactly a year ago. Apart from sparking up a new friendship with a very dear buddy, I’ve gotten about zero back from it. I sort of read with bemusement the activities of people I hardly know and could care less about. And when you consider how much information the devs harvest there…it’s scary. Lanier claims that the information is so far worthless to the investors and that the whole thing has become a sort useless ritual serving no purpose. He claimed that Google’s ads on the other hand will probably turn out to be the greatest advertising model ever created. He also thinks Google should stop before it’s too late but says they probably won’t. Just a glance at the side bar reveals about 4 ads for advertising agencies. Heh.

  • lokimotive

    Has anybody read Anti-Oedipus? I’m slogging my way through it (the third attempt I believe), and Deleuze and Gauttari’s ideas seem relevant to this in a way that I’m not sure I can articulate. This probably has something to do with a conversation I was eavesdropping on that, coincidentally, mentioned a lot of Deleuze and Gauttari’s theories. Someone was talking about another theorist (whose name I didn’t catch) who was defending “Generation Y” essentially. The argument went that Generation Y is an example of a “de-Oedipalized” cultural group (that’s Anti-Oedipus jargon, just stay with me). Apparently this meant that they made connections in a different manner than other generations, the idea of bricollage was brought up and things were generally mired in a lot of reasons why I don’t have my Masters in English. What I got from it was this Generation Y shoots out connections everywhere and attempts to make up a whole idea with them as opposed to relying on predefined pathways. In Deleuze and Guattari’s language: the schizo as opposed to Oedipus. In language that probably makes sense: Peer to Peer as opposed to client-server.

    So, of course, no one’s really right. I’m skeptical of the idea that Generation Y (full disclosure: I’m 29 so I’m part of that group) has enacted some sort of paradigm shift in how to operate in social systems, but facebook has changed how I connect with people. Then again, it’s not like I don’t value face to face communication.

    The future is somewhere in between. I’m really not cynical enough to believe that we are at the end times of civilized society because of Web 2.0. Instead society will change and stay the same because that’s what it does. Facebook is not the future; it’s probably a rung up the ladder though.

  • kaythomas

    To me, Facebook and Twitter are 0’s. They are not worth my time.  I do not care what someone I know or don’t know did a half hour ago or will do next.  I have met up with people on facebook I had lost contact with.  But, in truth, the reason I had lost contact was I was not that interested in staying in contact.

    I think for many people the Facebook/Twitter world is great.  For me it has nothing to offer. 
    kay

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Tap has an automated device that twits… tweets… whatever whenever someone posts a new article. Just in case it draws some visitors.

    To be honest, though, I’m on Kay’s side of the fence, I don’t understand Twitter and I don’t understand why it’s so popular. I barely care what I’m doing from moment to moment, why should anyone else?

    I don’t get Facebook either, though I’m a member to keep track of all the girls who wouldn’t give me the time of day in high school.

  • Lewis B

    Tweets are great for giving me snippets of news.  If I like what I’ve read in the short paragraph tweets give, then I will visit the main page for that tweet. (Very good for following world news, favourite columnists, etc.)

    However, reading tweets from people such as “Just woke up, Madonna is giving me a massage while I shave my nuts” is not my idea of a good read.

  • Toger

    I use tweets the same way Lewis does. Of the people/things I follow, if the tweet is interesting I’ll follow the link to read the entire article. I follow fairly intelligent people, so I’m not subjected to the idiocy of “Just brushed my teeth while sitting on toilet”.

  • Gregg B

    @loki: I’m afraid I’ve not heard of them. I’m a couple of years below you so that puts me in the same Generation Y as well. I read through a few of those links Scout posted as well as a few more on Lanier’s new book “You Are Not a Gadget” and it took me a fair while to get to the crux of what he is saying and he has a lot to say, most of which I find very confusing.

    As a graphic designer the whole “everything is becoming advertising” thing has been bothering me for years. The incessant barrage of advertising is like fingernails on the chalkboard of my soul, which sort of makes me a hypocrite. After all the years of tuning my art and design skillz my creative abilities have amounted to nothing more than crafting pretty ads that sell things. Non of it speaks any truth or has any sort of ‘beauty’; it’s just stone cold mechanical capitalism. Granted there are ads out there that are beautiful, clever and visionary but the front line stuff is as dull as it gets. I’m sure this isn’t strictly what he’s getting at but it’s definitely something that irks me in relation to Scout’s last remark.

    Anyway, I remember Twitter just exploding in what seemed like the space of a week and I still can’t fathom the allure of it aside from providing a direct stream of consciousness from famous folk to their ravenous fans. I wish I’d thought of it to be honest. I can see the creators sitting around a table staring at Facebook and then saying “I know! We make a website that’s just about status updates! You can even update them with your mobile phone!”.

    With regards to Twitter news snippets, unless it’s for a phone, I don’t see the point because RSS feeds do a great job. At present too great; I simply can’t keep up with my subscriptions. There’s too much information on this super highway.

  • Jen

    Twitter is officially the dumbest thing ever.

    That said, it looks like I will have to be the official “tweeter” for my day job before too long. I can’t wait! (roll eyes)

  • xtal

    I’m with everyone else here. I’m glad to say I’ve never signed up for Facebook; I fear that if I ever had I would have long ago died from loss of brain cells due to reading moronic status updates. It’s as Kay said: ninety-five per cent of people with whom you lose contact are probably no longer in your life because you have nothing left in common. And echoing Steerpike’s comment, me eating toast and jam on a Sunday morning watching Fawlty Towers is not interesting, not to me. Why the hell would anyone else give a shit?

    Twitter I signed up for about a year ago, not really understanding what it was. I now understand it…but don’t care to use it often. I have made 58 tweets over that year. I suspect for some that is a daily or weekly average. It’s just Facebook status updates without all the drunken photographs. I admit it can be mildly useful for following, say, a news site. Usually when I hop on my twitter (once every two weeks??) it reminds me that I should read The Onion more often. That’s about it.

    Let’s see… looking at the actual humans I follow, um… Wil Wheaton is happy that the LA Kings have won 9 games in a row, my sister-in-law thought our dinner tonight was “delicious,” and Kevin Smith’s batteries are recharged … or something.

    Wow, my life is already getting better!

    p.s.  <—– Gen Y'er (can we call ourselves that?) and proud that when I Google my own name a real estate company pops up.

  • Fraser

    Twitter is exactly as useless as the person who’s writing it. If someone is telling you boring shit over Twitter, it’s the person wasting your time, not the delivery channel.

    MySpace is the same, but it seems more intrinsically garbage because for some reason almost everyone who used it was an intellectual embryo with a fetish for unreadable hyperneon text on top of garish uninteresting photos. Facebook’s great trick is that it prevents you from realising that most of your friends would make a brutally hideous homepage for themselves if they could.

    That’s the argument against the whole of this post: the internet isn’t evil, but the people who use it might be. It’s people who make business models successful; people who make money flow to advertisers instead of artists, by buying into the advertising.

    This has been a pretty didactic post, so let me compensate by saying VIDEOGAMES WOOOOOOO!!!

  • Gregg B

    Good point about not blaming the delivery channel Fraser. I seem to recall Lanier saying that he preferred the personality that MySpace has over Facebook despite its Craptastic Pages of Illegibility. I’m trying to think of something intelligent to follow that up with but my brain is failing me at the moment, so…

    VIDEOGAMES WOOOOOO!!!

  • Jason Venter

    Fraser, I really loved your following comment:

    “Facebook’s great trick is that it prevents you from realising that most of your friends would make a brutally hideous homepage for themselves if they could.”

    I think that may just be one of the most hilariously true comments I’ve read in a comments area on any video game web site ever.  That sounds overly dramatic, I know, but I actually mean it.  Kudos to you!

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    Yeah but don’t you miss all the ugliness of MySpace? All those hideous pages at least had personality or what Lanier called the “strangeness of the person” to them.

    I actually don’t agree with a lot of what Lanier says esp “the hive mind must die” stuff. But I do think he is right about the spirit shriveling blandness of Facebook.

    I also suspect that Twitter is going to be around for a while. It will be more and more influential. People are simply not as willing to ingest huge amounts of information in the form of pages of text anymore. The delivery systems that succeed will be those that can communicate a lot of information in a short amount of time. Most days we want “glimpses” or “snapshots” not total immersion. Lewis, Toger and Fraser are correct in that you get out of it what you decide to follow.

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