- Platform: IBM PC Compatible
- Release Date: 1995
- Genre: Sports
- Style: Futuristic
Game Description
Welcome to the future of sports. In Locus, you're placed in the seat of a cycle looking out on the action. With you are your two teammates; opposing you are two other teams with three players each. The objective: get the ball into another team's goal three times to knock them out of the competition; last team left wins. Move up the ladder from team to team until you're playing with the elite.Sounds easy, huh? Just shoot down that tube into an arena (12 in all, each with its own quirks and idiosyncracies, just like a baseball stadium) and go at it. You've got magnetized pinchers on the end of your cycle to pick the ball up with, but so does everyone else. And you have lasers to knock your opponents away from your goal or the ball, but so do they.
Don't use your lasers too much or leave your magnetic pinchers on too long because you'll use your energy up too fast. You can drive through an energy beam to replenish your supply, but in some arenas the beam moves, and you slow down as your energy ebbs away.
Win the best-of-three series and you'll move on to a new team. Keep going and you'll become locus.
~ Brad Cook, All Game Guide
Review: Overall
Locus is an enjoyable game in the Here's-a-sport-I-made-up tradition. Part demolition derby and part hockey/basketball, its rules are simple but the gameplay is actually quite challenging and enjoyable.You ride around in a sled inside an arena. Two other sleds the same color as you are on your team while there are two other teams competing against you. Get the ball in the other team's goal using the magnet at the end of your sled and you score against them. Three scores against a team and they're out. Last one standing wins, and you get to move up the Locus League ranks if your team wins the best-of-three competition.
The graphics are vector-based and simple, but they do their job. The arenas are fun in their variety and each offers a different challenge than the one before it. Sliding down the tube at the beginning is fun, since you get to blast your opponents along the way, but it's a shame they didn't include a crowd. It would have been fun to hear the roar of the crowd every time you scored a goal or slammed the other guy.
Since this is a game born in simplicity, it doesn't get bogged down with a lot of superfluous stuff. Get the ball, stick it in the goal. Sounds easy, but in reality it's hard because six other sleds are after you the whole time (well, actually it's less than that since there are always multiple balls floating around), and they have the same lasers you have, along with the same electromagnet with which to steal the ball.
The gameplay is challenging because you can't just shoot your lasers to your heart's content and leave the electromagnet on all the time. You have an energy supply which drops real fast, and there are these beams of light you need to pass through in order to replenish it. In the easier arenas the beams stay still, but in the tough ones they move around on you.
There are even stats to view at the end of each contest, and they're saved under your name for the next time you play. While this game doesn't lend itself to the pile of stats which football and baseball games have, they're still fun. Too bad they didn't go the distance and include leagure standings along with league news and other tidbits. You work your way up the ranks of the league, moving from team to team, but there's no actual season with a championship game. That might have been fun.
Locus is definitely a game to keep an eye out for.
~ Brad Cook, All Game Guide
Review: Enjoyment
Fun game. Definitely challenging.~ Brad Cook, All Game Guide
Review: Graphics
Very nicely done, although they looked a bit pixelated on my system, especially the cut scenes.~ Brad Cook, All Game Guide
Review: Sound
Great sound. Very ambient sound.~ Brad Cook, All Game Guide
Review: Replay Value
Lags a bit here. Not a game you'd want to spend all afternoon playing.~ Brad Cook, All Game Guide
Review: Documentation
Nice, slick booklet. Tells you what you need to know.~ Brad Cook, All Game Guide
Production Credits
Executive Producer: Mark Long; Producer: Janet Galore; Technical Lead/3D Coding: Christine McGavran; Senior Programmer: Mike Dussault; Original Game Concept: Mark Long, Joanna Alexander; Animation/Arena Design: Guy Hundere; Artificial Intelligence: Gregg Seelhoff; Sound Code: Jay Prince; Installation and Interface Coding: Mark Kreitler; Music Composition/Sound Design: Roland Barker; Packaging and Advertising Art: REM Graphic Design, Lisa Liedgren; Modeling: Rick Welsh; Interface Art: Joseph Walker; Modeling, Arena Art, Animation: Kathy Buchheit; Digital Sound Effects: Clatter and Din; Manual and Storyline: Edward Galore; Macintosh Version: Jay Bartot; Playstation Version: AfterScience
~ Brad Cook, All Game Guide
