“You are the apprentice of the great Wizard, sent in the unholy lands to recover the Black Rombo from the hands of the evil mage’s castle. In your journey through the lands, you’ll encounter several creatures in evil mage’s service. Do not think twice before sending them to meet their creator; these are damned souls, lost forever in the realm from where the evil mage came and transformed an once healthy place to a dead zone where only the darkest entities enter.” – That’s what the webpage for Rombo by BadSector aka Kostas Michalopoulos (at least I’m assuming his name is that since he’s copyrighted the page this game is on.) Okay so Rombo is a thing and not a person, big deal, Rambo, Rombo, Jimbo, it’s all the same to me. Rombo is a first person “3D” flash game in the vein of the greats like Wolfenstein 3D, or Doom. So essentially you need to find this Rombo.
Okay pretty much like most old first person “shooters” you simply move and aim. Left mouse button does stuff when the cursor changes. For instance, it changes to a hand over a secret area in a wall. Or targeting reticule when over a monster. Arrow Keys or WASD to move, and Q/E to strafe, or space plus a movement key will also strafe. Left clicking shoots and apparently there’s no keyboard equivalent for shooting. This is pretty neat, on the bottom is how many monsters are in the level. You kill all the monsters to get the best score, but it isn’t needed to head on to the next level. There are two bars on the hud, one for health the other for mana, since you’re a wizard you need mana to cast spells (ie shoot). Please note, I wouldn’t recommend using my right mouse button because it froze up my browser, although my system seem relatively unharmed, I simply had to bring up the task manager to close Firefox.
This game is kind of cool, makes me think of the olden days. You know when we used to compute out of caves, and rendering meant putting hammer to stone tablets and producing a work that resembled a piece of rock. Back in them days you actually had to use your imagination. We used to walk six miles in our bare feet just to use the town modem, and then 300 baud was all we would get. And we liked it that way! …but I digress. If you want to find secret areas you need to be right up against the wall, like good old Wolfenstein 3d (Kids, that may be before your time, 1991/2 baby! We’re not talking that trash Return to Castle Wolfenstein, we’re talking pixelated, color full Nazi dungeons, where you could eat gibs and drink blood if you were too low on health, but I’m going off on a tangent again.) To pick up items you need to click on them when the hand icon comes up. This thing even has keyed doors.
The graphics are pretty good for early 1990 style 3d graphics. It has a certain charm. Although I wouldn’t say it couldn’t be improved. It looks like it could use a real good artists touch. Some of the textures clash, and the whole thing looks muddy. I mean it doesn’t look that bad or anything but it could use an artist. There’s no sound, but there’s a song that keeps playing in the background, old school sounding, almost chip-ish. And it keeps playing and playing and playing, so be prepared to turn off your sound.
Final Analysis: If you like old school 3d fps action, then you can’t go wrong with this, especially since it’s in flash. Plus it’s free. GooOO Free!
Name: Rombo
Developer: BadSector aka Kostas Michalopoulos
Price: Free – duh it’s flash, helloooo!
Where you can play it: Here on the Rombo page!
Tags: Browser based (flash/java), FPS, free, Freeware, game, games, independent, Indie, retro, retro styled, Shooter
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