One

One is an intense action/shooter game for the PSX by Visual Concepts. The game begins with the protagonist  waking up in his apartment building and realizing he has a huge bionic weapon for a right arm. Before the main character can abjust to his situation he suddenly finds himself  being attacked by an army trying to kill him. Lucky he soon finds that his weapon is very useful, and decides to search for answers while trying to survive.

GAMEPLAY

One features a gameplay mechanic that is original as far as I know. Instead of a health meter, you have a rage meter. The more enemies you take out, the more your rage meter builds making your weapon more powerful. When the meter reaches max, a massive explosion happens that kills every one on screen. If you get injured however, your rage meter decreases, your weapon becomes weaker, and when you meter runs out, you die.

You also have the ability to pick up other weapons, instead of just relying on your arm weapon. These weapons range from rocket launchers to shell cannons. These weapons do a lot of damage and gives you a satisfying sense of destruction. The game features great boss battles that require some kind of method to beat them, and the enemy AI is surprisingly smart.

There is one bad thing about the gameplay, There are some levels that have platform jumping. You can easy tell this game wasn't meant for it. It's pretty easy to miss judge jumps and kill yourself.  In fact, one later level in the game features nothing but platform jumping, and the level can become quite frustrating.

GRAPHICS

The epic action movie was what the developers were going for in this game, and they mostly nail it. Huge explosions look great and will really get the blood pumping. The scenery is really well done for a PSX game, and has an epic feel to them. You fight in a futuristic city filled with traffic hover cars, a secret mountain army base. An undeground base, and even in an advance security type level.  The characters skins are well done. The main hero moves fluid without any jerky animation. The enemies also move very fluidly. Overall the 3D graphics are some of the best on the PSX.

MUSIC & SOUND

For me the highlight of this game was the sound design. From the beginning, you'll notice chatter going on between the military trying to kill you over their radios. They update attack teams on your current position. They setup traps and ambushes. They call in reinforcements. They even show frustration when having a hard time killing you, and give congrats to their teams if they do succeed in killing you. The fact that the enemy AI acts according to the chatter is also a big plus in giving this game an epic feel. If you heard them setting up an ambush, best believe the ambush will be there when you arrive.

The music sounds like it came right out of Hollywood. The epic soundtrack will remain people of the action movies Terminator and Total Recall. The music matches the on-screen action very well and will give you the feeling of playing a Blockbuster film rather than a videogame.

OVERALL

Overall ONE is a great action/shooter game that got completely over looked by most people and it's a shame.  This game would definitely qualify as a buried treasure, and if you can get you hands on a copy, then do so. It's not perfect. The platform jumping parts kept me from giving it five stars. But the platform jumping is hardly enough to take the enjoyment out of the whole game.

4/5