Juggernaut
Juggernautby Jaleco
Platform: PlayStation
ESRB Rating: Mature
ASIN: B00001ZWUE
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GameSpot Review: Freeway veterans know the kiss of death: a slow-moving car in the passing lane. When boxed in, speedy drivers are forced to suffer slowly behind these traffic-jam instigators. That frustrating feeling of moving slow and being powerless to do anything about it encapsulates the experience of playing through Juggernaut, a point-and-click puzzle adventure that, to paraphrase Austin Powers, puts the "ger" in meager gameplay, baby.
This three-CD game starts with a fairly unconventional plot: A girlfriend possessed by an evil spirit needs the player to warp into her twisted soul to save her. However, the gameplay is strictly cookie cutter: Move, gather items, then use intellect and/or items to solve puzzles that will ultimately rid the evil from the player's gal pal.
The main problem with this first-person point-and-click game is that there's not much to point and click at. Game screens have only one or two items to select, at most - a drawer or an object - and the rest is eye candy. Gameplay would've been more exciting if players could interact with the game screens and explore them in greater detail. That shortfall in both detail and animation makes players feel as though they're walking from one painted game screen to another, which dulls the excitement level immensely. Compounding the dullness are transition FMV screens that shuttle players from one screen to the next. These slow the game's pace to boredom-inducing levels.
That's not the only complaint. Frankly, most puzzles are too easy. A few ask youto memorize and repeat sound or visual patterns - those aren't too bad. Worse are the mindless puzzles that get "solved" after you visit different areas randomly. For example, a character will give you a password only after you have visited a nearby area twice. You're only going to solve that puzzle after wandering from screen to screen - hardly the definition of challenging fun.
In addition, many of the puzzles are made difficult not by being challenging intellectually, but by the fact that you must backtrack repeatedly to solve them. For instance, in the mansion stage, you must switch between small and large bodies to explore different areas. Every time you have to make a body switch to solve a puzzle, you must run back to the nearest switching station. This task gets tedious after time, especially if the switching stations are far away.
Juggernaut lacks the presentation savvy found in other video games. Most conversations are text-only, with sparse audio effects for background music and sound effects - painfully vanilla for a three-disc game. Despite extensive full-motion video sequences, the prerendered screens seem more suited to a first-generation title.
This game has a few redeeming qualities that should be noted. The idea of using different "bodies" to explore the game's mansion stage is indeed unique for a puzzle game - meaning that you need a certain body type to enter a given area of the mansion. The game's surreal plot, while convoluted and often hard to follow, makes for unique exploration stages, such as one where you surf the Internet in the year 2250, or another where you visit a village where all the murdered residents lack their eyeballs.... now if that's not the definition of a convoluted plot, what is? Finally, the game's storyline does get better once the second disc is popped in, but the puzzles remain woefully unchallenging.
Juggernaut's slow-paced gameplay and bare-bones interactivity make for a lackluster game - one that only patient puzzle fanatics could embrace. For the rest, switch lanes and pass this title up. --Nelson Taruc
From the Manufacturer: Get ready for a roller coaster ride through Hell. Juggernaut will take you on a journey through time and space that could prove to be the most frightening and puzzling experience ever on a video game. Demonic possession, murder, and ghostly vendettas are some of the terrors that you will be forced to confront as you make your way through this horror. If your nerves and your intellect are good enough, Jauggernaut will amply reward those who accept the challenge of this trip through dementia.
Customer Reviews:
If you like crap. you'll like this, August 13, 2002
Reviewer: Bryan Guarino from California City, CA USA
Ohhhh Jaleco why have you forsaken yourself? Premise of the game is you have to save your girlfriend (ooo originality). This game wouldn't be so bad if it actually had action in it. But unfortunatly this game has none, you don't even get to walk around. Which wouldn't be so bad if it had good graphics, but it doesn't. If your hoping for good puzzles this game isn't for you, because the puzzles often make no sense at all! After ten minutes of the game I wanted to hunt down the creators of this game and beat them with a golf club. This game would of gotten two stars if it's name was thuggernaut. And the people that said this was good were high as a cloud. If you buy this not only will you waste your money and time, but also your life because this may ruin video games for you.
Psychotic and subliminal, August 20, 2001
Reviewer: essenapaj from Fort Myers, FL
Juggernaut left me with mixed feelings...Confused, content, frustrated, thirsty, and pantsless because this game scared them off of me. You bought your g/f this lovely, simple bottle (I dont know either, but it's a video game so let it go...) that happened to be possessed by a demonic creature that travels into her soul and you actually enter your girlfriend to chase the demon out...or perish in hellish misery (actually, you get a game over screen, but I'm sure it's rough for the guy.)
Gameplay: Juggernaut begins with a psychotic and freakish opening that will immediatly have you running to turn the lights back on...the scenes with your g/f are just amazingly detailed, be that a good thing or not (the parts with the priest slicing something with the knife, revealing horrible screams and the doll each are very VERY scary). The gameplay, unfortunatly, lacks a bit in interactivity...it's very very Myst-like, only in a parallel place with almost no people. Too bad the concept wasn't played out well enough, and it left me with mixed feelings about the game.
Graphics: Graphics in Juggernaut are also skitzo...they're highly detailed and lifelike, but they're grainy...it bothers you a bit when you first begin playing, but you adjust to it. Most of the game is cinema, and the quality comes very close to Parasite Eve. It gives it a creepy quality comparable to the game Nocturne for PC. The game is still highly disturbing and starting in the middle of disc 2 gets extremely nightmarish (do NOT play this game if you are squeemish)
Sound: Music in Juggernaut is so clear it's almost unbelievable...the score is a flawless masterpiece, also very disturbing. The sound is lacking something though...no dialogue, just canned screaming and demonic (and BOY do I mean DEMONIC) laughter...
Overall, this is a game for the adventure genre fan crowd. It will leave many of you bored. Rent it and then make a decision, because it will take you MONTHS to finish this game.
This game is very hard and VERY disturbing, December 4, 1999
Reviewer: A gamer from El Paso, Texas
The plot behind this game is you bought a bottle with a weird substance for your girlfriend and she has now possedesed by something in it. A priest calles you and tells you that only you can save her. You have to enter her body and save her. Then the adventure begins with you inside her body. When I first played this game, it seemed to have a couple of easy puzzles, WRONG! This game has puzzles that no one can solve. It has very gory sequences and is NOT for the average player. I found it to be very hard to play. The graphics are poor, but it still is a good game for people that can solve VERY HARD puzzles. I had nightmares after the first day I played this game. Trust me, you WILL have nightmares after you play this game also.