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The Fifth Element (PS1)

5th Element PSX
Genre: Action
Perspective: Behind view
Setting: Sci-fi / futuristic
Published by: Activision
Developed by: Kalisto Entertainment SA
Released: 1998
Platform: PlayStation (PSX, PS1)

This game was somewhat delayed with the release, since the movie "The Fifth Element" is no longer so popular and the game should hardly rely on it when planning big sales. Putting that aside, what are the chances for a game to prove its worth on its own? Under the shrill sounds of Diva Dance, from the original soundtrack of the film, the Fifth Element opens very convincingly. Under the growing sounds of music, cool scenes from the film are scrolling in front of the viewer - Milla Jovovich jumps from a huge skyscraper in Bruce Willis's taxi, then you see the moment of saving the world, when all five elements are combined into one, all this will very quickly set you in that sublime mood , which Luc Besson managed to find in his adventure-rich world of the future. To say that the promise given to the players at the start of the game has not been fulfilled would be too mild. You will play as either Korben Dallas or a scandalously dressed Leeloo, and in order to complete the level given to you, you will need to complete a simple task. After that, you will only have to find relatively important switches, doors or rooms, while staying alive, but at the same time two rather serious obstacles stand in your way - your enemies and the disgusting game mechanism (no offense to the fans!), which turns all your attempts to succeed into continuous torment. You're watching the game from a third-person perspective, you can only see twenty-five feet ahead before everything else fades into thick fog. Enemy guards roaming the corridors obviously don't suffer from the same trademark myopia, they have a nasty habit of opening fire on you from the shortest distance before you can even see anything ahead of you. And after the first bullet, all the rest that will be directed at you will hit the target exactly. And absolutely regardless of whether you will stand still, like an idol, or will rush from side to side, in desperate attempts to escape from the lead hail that so suddenly struck you. Something does not come to mind that in the film the main characters had to face such a terrible enemy, who always hits for sure and appears out of nowhere, with the inevitability of death. The terrible background and absolutely unbearable control system will quickly drive you into complete despair, all this adds up to the feeling that this entire game was made from the remnants of the code that was thrown out of Fade To Black, as unnecessary. And it doesn't make much of a difference whether you're using Leeloo or Korben, The Fifth Element's controls are the most frustrating. Each movement takes so long to animate that you just can't adjust your reactions to the speed of the game, you fight first with control, and only then with your direct opponents, so it turns out just some kind of heroic confrontation that does not inspire you on exploits, but on the contrary, completely demoralizing. The time it takes you to jump back and then turn around in the direction you want after you get a volley in the face from enemy droids or New York cops is about the time it takes the enemy to to get closer to you, go through your entire animation cycle and unload your weapon at you again. You can also try to crawl past some guards or under the laser beam of the security system, this is the only way to go unnoticed, but as a rule it turns out to be not very effective, since you will notice that your hero will not at all happily follow your command to stand up. You will have to crawl a little further, stop slowly, and then press the "stand up" button, after which you can raise your weapon and start defending yourself - just in time when the enemies will already pin you to the ground with heavy fire. As for the "go" and "act" commands that are carried out using the same button, very often you will repeatedly press a switch on a computer that you actually wanted to pass by to the next switch. In this regard, The Fifth Element is made quite impossible. It is impossible to talk about any fascination of the game, given the speed of events. The most exciting moments of the whole game are undoubtedly the additional scenes from the movie that you are shown before each level. All of these scenes are oddly recut here and there, and you'll find quite a lot of tape at each break. At the same time, there is not much sense in all this, since the game develops in a completely different way than the film, and of course you can buy this entire film on a laser disc for much less money and watch the entire film without interruption. Fighting with an impossible control system is not at all something that can give you pleasure, so do not expect that you will be adequately rewarded for your perseverance - soon you will find yourself in another dead end, which this game is full of. In every respect - The Fifth Element is a rather nasty licensed product, the offspring of a great movie. Nevertheless, in summary, fans of the film should definitely play this game, at least in order to somehow be alone with their favorite characters, in addition, the game has its fans, and this suggests that, with due perseverance, you can overcome the most stubborn management, which apparently could fans of the film and the game.