The Captain Silencer is just too cool for that. Cool, because he never misses.
When he’s got you in his sights, you’re already dead.
Boots, coming up the hallway. The Silencer counted them as they grew louder. Three, four, five…one leading ahead, heavy footfalls. Running. Two more guards behind, staggered and trying to keep pace. Seven, eight, nine…two more in the back. Five guards. He breathed in underneath his maybe slightly IP infringing helmet. Focus. Ten. Right outside the door.
“He’s got to be in here! Just look for the glaring red armour that is not at all useful for remaining hidden! Let’s all stagger in one at a time and take cover behind the obviously explosive barrels!”
Fools, thought The Silencer. He already killed a bunch of guards with explosive barrels, that’s boring now. This time, he’s going to do a cool tactical roll and shoot them in the crotch.
The door beside him slid open, and The Silencer moved like a streak of red lighting. He brought his head down, tucked in as he began to kick off the ground behind him. The first guard's boots thudded in front of him, echoing through the room. The Silencer, through years of being a really cool action guy, could pull off a wicked tactical roll like it was nothing. He couldn’t wait to see the looks on the guards faces as he got in fron- he collided with the wall to his left, instead of the open air to his right. The boots turned, staring at him from his new uncomfortable angle sprawled on the metal grated ground.
“****”, I, the person playing the game, said. “I always forget that the movement direction is relative to Silencer. Man, that was going to be really ****ing cool.”
The Silencer sighs. It’s going to be a long level.
I have a soft spot for the old MS-DOS games of a long passed era. Some of my very first gaming memories, other than trying to learn how to do Honda’s handslaps in Street Fighter 2 (you just mash a punch button, it took me far too long to figure it out), was going through my dad’s computer trying to find ‘the good stuff’, and by good stuff I mean old computer games of course, what else would I be looking for. He had some great DOS gold in there; I remember playing Descent, the eternal classic Marble Madness, a few Commander Keen games, some really obscure shooter called Doom or something, Prince of Persia, Hunter Hunted, and of course the single greatest MS-DOS game that everyone knows and agrees on, Battle Chess. I still dig through the fabled tomes of MS-DOS titles from time to time to uncover some new nostalgic rabbit hole to tumble down, and that is how I stumbled onto the title of Crusader: No Remorse.
I have never played Crusader before, but I’ve always heard about it. I remember seeing ads for it in my dads old computer magazines when I was a young octo-ling, and always being interested in it. I would always say “heck yeah, I want to play Crusader: No Remorse!” but I had of course always forgotten the title before I could remember to look into it more, and gone back to playing Might and Magic probably; I was a really ballin' octo-ling, if you can't tell. Well, here we are; I’ve looked into it more. One ad that stood out to me was in Computer Gaming World. I don’t know why this ad has always caught my attention. Maybe I just really like Silencer’s red armour, complete with helmet that definitely doesn’t look similar to a famous bounty hunter from a certain sci fi movie franchise. Maybe it's the 90’s ‘tude of it; I'm a sucker for some radical 90’s ‘tude.
Way past cool, dude.
I never played it in my youth, but that’s okay as I’m playing it now only some XX years later. Was it worth the wait? Well, let’s drop my usual background exposition ramble first. Come on, you should know what you’ve signed on for when you opened one of my articles.
Is the Silencer also a captain? Do the rebels recognize standard WEC military decorum? Do they have military ranks? Maybe I’m just overthinking this, but the fact you play as someone legally known as ‘Captain Silencer’ is astounding.
Crusader: No Remorse comes to us from Origin Systems in 1995, creators of the famed Ultima and Wing Commander games. It may strike you as odd that Origin, known for its more high brow games would make a shoot ’em up, but by this point in their life they were putting out a variety of games by small in-house studios. Crusader was put together by one such in-house studio called Loose Cannon Productions, and was produced by the man himself, Warren Spector; at this point, Looking Glass had become a part of EA and therefore Origin, and Spector was the resident producer for many of their games.
As per the usual Origin Systems release, it also had some ‘feelies’ included with the game. Copies came with a fold out in-universe propaganda poster and newspaper, as well as a beefy manual and game guide. Trying to find images of these proved entirely fruitless for whatever reason, so we’ll just have to imagine that they were probably pretty cool.
How did the game do upon release, considering it wasn’t an Ultima or Wing Commander? It did amazingly well, ‘astoundingly’ you could even say. At its time of release, it broke the record for the greatest return investment for Origin, selling over 250,000 estimated copies when the director, Tony Zurovec, expected to only sell maybe 100,000. It was getting glowing reviews across the board, from GameSpot’s Ron Dullin giving it a really specific 8.4/10, Next Generation’s perfect 5/5 star review, to Edge’s 8/10. UK-based PC Zone gave it a 91%, and here’s a quote from the very descriptive first few paragraphs of the article; “This here Crusader ain’t no chain-mailin’ helmet-wearin’ hey nonny no motherfunker, this here is some high-tech futuristic lethal weapon kind of guy.”
He really spoke to the humanity of the premise on that one, cut it right down to the dramatic core.
It topped many ‘best of’ lists of 1995, and was so successful that Origin made a very rare move and decided to make some console ports of it. The only previous non-PC based games they had released had been the first Wing Commander on the SNES, and a few Ultima games on the NES and GameBoy. There was one fairly major obstacle in the way of this plan; Crusader was programmed in assembly language which was common at Origin, namely C++. This however made it essentially impossible to convert the code as-is to the planned consoles of the PlayStation 1 and the Sega Saturn, and so they actually entirely remade the code from the ground up with help from Realtime Associates. Coming out finally a year later, the console versions of No Remorse were also met with positive response as despite having to make some obvious technical cut backs in the graphical department, including cutting the games resolution in half down to 320x240, the game was ported as faithfully as it could be done.
Here’s a screenshot of the Saturn version. All things considered, it's genuinely a pretty impressive port. The movement controls very smoothly and responds quickly and precisely, which means it’s already better than 80% of the garbage I’ve played in my other articles. Check it out if you’re curious.
For this review, I am playing the GOG PC version. Part of their newer ‘Good Old Game’ restoration and preservation collection, it's been apparently certified to run without any technical issues on newer hardware and that is, in fact, correct. It's running on some custom DOSBox settings, and has some other bundled improvements to allow for borderless full screen and modern resolution support which is all very appreciated. It's always a 50/50 when you first launch an old game like this if it's going to work without some major tinkering, so thank you GOG. It’s clear of many technical issues, but it’s definitely not clear of bugs. I’ve gotten stuck on a few things in my time with it, requiring a reload. Most frustratingly I cleared the first mission once, then a door that was supposed to open for me to extract never opened. I was a little miffed, for sure, but I soldiered on; I’m a professional amateur, after all. I restarted, went through the level one more time and then it happened again. I researched all I could for a solution to what I assumed was this progress breaking bug, and came up empty handed so I did the only thing I could do, and ran through the level for a third time. I'm a dedicated man, what can I say? Thankfully, the third time went off without issue and I was actually able to progress.
I had to see this first screen far too many times. I pushed through for Captain Silencer; oh, and you guys the audience of course.
Bugs aside, it’s great that the game runs on a technical level without any issue- I had to tinker for a few hours to get the latest entry in the From the Depths series to go full screen and also not crash when trying to take screen captures, but now it's all good and the article on Gia-
Oops, almost let it slip completely there. You’ll have to wait…
The game has some crisp explosion sprites, just the finest fireballs.
Let's get into the actual gameplay of Crusader: No Remorse.
Crusader: No Remorse is an isometric action game where you run around levels as The (maybe Captain?) Silencer, if you haven’t gotten that by now, and commit various acts of violence against an evil government/corporation called the WEC, who were your former bosses. Let’s get this out of the way; the story of the game is inconsequential. It’s simply not the point or draw of the game. It’s just set-up to have some base level of context for who you are, and who you’re shooting at. That being said, the game's storyline gives one fantastic aspect of entertainment- the glorious mid 90’s FMV cutscenes that play around the missions. They are pure, beautiful and a chef’s kiss on the whole experience.
There is some level of effort put into the story and world building that I will give some credit to. The game puts a little bit of social commentary spice on the cutscenes here and there, with some obvious themes of exploitative capitalism and skewed media coverage. It's no Robocop and is really only surface level, but it’s decently entertaining and elevates the complete lack of story in other departments. I do enjoy how you start off the game with the rebels barely tolerating your presence when you talk to them in the HQ, seeing as you were probably shooting at them only a few hours before. How did this whole new arrangement with you and them come about? I don’t know, unimportant; blow **** up.
They’ll never find me here behind the wall. This is the extent of the stealth the game offers.
What the game does have is a focus on destructible environments to add a little something. Just about anything in sight you can reduce to a static ‘destroyed’ sprite, if not entirely destroy it through either your gunfire or the varied types of explosives you can find. It comes into effect very frequently with the large number of grated floors that litter the Crusader world. Weakened floors will collapse when someone goes to walk over them whether they are a red power armoured turncoat or an enemy guard. Mainly you, in my experience; that’s what I get for frequently going out of my way to shoot every explosive barrel, I suppose. The destructibility can also be used to bypass the need for keycards on some doors in a way that should be obvious.
There's also more to the game than you might initially think; I was personally surprised at least.
Yes, the suit is just for infiltration purposes, you can trust me. Seriously, how did Captain Silencer ever get in with the rebels?
After you complete a mission, you're brought to the rebel HQ spawning in at the bar they seem to really prioritize for some reason. This little hub stage has a merchant, Weasel, who is portrayed through utterly absurd FMV and my favourite character.
I see no reason to distrust this man.
Here you can buy weapons and gear with your hard earned credits (read: ‘looted from the pockets of your victims/former co-workers’), and they all feel very nice to play around with. I love the shotgun, one because it's a shotgun so of course I do, and two because it's a cool little touch that you have to manually pump it after each round. The grenade launcher is also a destructively good time that obliterates and/or immolates any grossly outmatched guards, and I also used the burst firing SMG pretty heavily for clearing out densely populated rooms.
You can also have one sided chats with some rebels in the bar, including their secret weapon even more powerful than The Captain Silencer; the ‘Tax Man’.
Oh my god the rebels have a tax man on their side. How could they ever lose?
No Remorse can be a hard game. Enemies can quickly deal a lot of damage if you don’t manage them quickly, and the nature of some of the ‘traps’ the game springs on you means that save scumming is all but essential, so don’t feel bad- save scumming is always a valid option, fight me. The levels are large and expansive, and filled with shortcuts and occasionally secret rooms or stockpiles to discover. Each level can sometimes take a good hour or so to get through, which was more than I was expecting.
That explosion? I did that. Its effect? Nothing other than this sweet screenshot. Worth it.
Another way these proto-immersive elements show themselves is the classic immersive sim thing where people frequently leave sensitive information such as room or safe passwords, door keycards and important info lying around in notes, or just open on their computer sometimes. Some computers even let you take control of some robotic defences to turn them on your enemies, or see rooms up ahead through the cameras.
The game's controls definitely took a little bit to get used to, but once I did it wasn’t too bad…except maybe a few times I kept rolling into a wall instead of a hallway. You move The Silencer around with ‘tank controls’, with the directions being relative to his location and facing instead of the static camera. It took me a little bit of adjustment, but once I started thinking about turning as ‘clockwise’ or ‘counterclockwise’ instead of left and right respectively, it started coming together. The controls are well and good once you get used to them, but the game has some little glitches here and there with the movement. Sometimes when you collide with something, which will happen frequently, Silencer will sort of teleport forward a few steps which can quickly become disorienting. I’m not sure why this happens, and it doesn’t happen all the time making it odder. Doorways in particular can be troublesome for this reason.
I’d never shoot an innocent maintenance worker. They can't put up any fight or resistance, and serve no purpose to leave or kill. You wouldn’t either, would you?
You can sprint with the shift key and jump forward a good distance to clear occasional pitfalls and gaps, but most importantly; you can do some wicked side rolls, and also crouch. Once you get used to the system, it becomes a lot of fun to roll around corners and into cover and it really helps contribute to how great the game feels to play.
Being the Captain Silencer is a violent business.
It all really came together for me after a few missions in. I was rolling around corners blasting away with my pump action shotgun, exploding doors to make my own shortcuts, unleashing some controllable spider bots to blow things up without ever leaving my safe corner, and feeling like the goddamn Captain Silencer.
The game was an astounding success for Origin as we saw earlier, and so only but a year later the sequel, Crusader: No Regret debuted. It's considered more of an expansion or map pack of sorts than a full sequel, being essentially the exact same gameplay experience but with obviously new maps and missions. If you just can't get enough Silencer, then tactical roll right in.
Graphically, the game was a demanding master of its time and required an unfathomable 8MB of RAM, which at the time was hitting pretty high end. It runs on a heavily modified Ultima VIII engine souped up even further, and using full SVGA graphics enabling it to run at a pretty impressive 640x480 resolution. Something else that deserves a shoutout are the music tracks, there's some bangers on here like the pause menu music and the somber rebel HQ track being some of my favourites.
Not even Captain Silencer is immune to terrible teleporter pad malfunctions.
What is my final opinion of Crusader: No Remorse? **** yeah. This game is a fantastic DOS shooter gem. It feels great to play, runs perfectly, and is an interesting release as a shooter just starting to form some deeper layers to its gameplay, and I think it can be considered a precursor to the latter classic immersive sim shooters. Your character's official name may actually be Captain Silencer and you can light innocent maintenance workers on fire with a grenade launcher, what else do you want?
Pros
- + Riveting DOS blasting action.
- + FMV 'kino'.
- + Deeper gameplay elements then you would expect.
Cons
- - Controls can take some getting used to.
- - Movement can be a little clunky, particularly doorways.
8
out of 10
Overall
Crusader: No Remorse is as fine a DOS action shooter game as you can find. Great atmosphere, fun minute to minute gameplay, and a deceptively great soundtrack make playing as The Captain Silencer a hell of a good time.
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