Raw Danger (Playstation 2)
created by Irem, 2007

An enjoyable game masked by an outdated engine

Review written by: Caffeine

Posted February 4th, 2008

I’m torn. On the one hand, Raw Danger has excitement, adventure, and danger that certainly fits the bill for any gamer looking for a way to spend a weekend. On the other, it has a clunky engine, which creates less then average visuals even on the PS2, infuriating controls, and a UI in need of severe polish.

If only it were a 2D game...

Raw Danger is at its core, a third person action adventure set in the fictional Geo City that has you overcoming simple puzzles and navigating obstacles to reach the next point in the map. The story is told through from the perspective of 6 playable characters, and remains engaging enough to see you through the end of their storylines. It starts simple enough, with a river levy breaking during a heavy storm, causing the city to slowly flood.

Over time, the stories of the characters develop as they attempt to escape the drowning city. One story has you attempting to locate the mother of your traveling companion. Another has you escaping in handcuffs from the city and a police detective intent on catching you. Though never reaching great heights, they do a job of adding detail into what would have otherwise been a simple plotline.

The game does present you with interesting conversation choices too, with each choice apparently affecting the ending of each character’s storyline, and in some cases the storyline of other characters too, which are played out through the numerous short cut scenes in the game.

Despite the poor graphics, a sense of impending doom is another well portrayed aspect in Raw Danger, with sections of the city crumbling before your eyes, and events where you race to escape a approaching wave of water. The water is truly your greatest enemy in this game, in addition to the winter weather. As you get soaked, your character begins to freeze. Fail to locate a source of heat, and he or she will eventually succumb to the cold.

So don't get him wet? Is he a mogwai?

Raw Danger lacks a decent engine to run things on though. The game usually feels a few frames short of a smooth run, with clumsy animations and outright frustrating controls. The voice acting never reaches the atrocity that was Siren, but it’s still quite bad.

This is why Atlus lets you turn on Japanese voices...

The menu system is a pain to navigate too, and isn’t very intuitive. The inventory system can be annoying, with your having to discard items just to keep space free for the one item necessary to advance the plot.

Despite these serious flaws though, Raw Danger has enough of a good thing going that can be quite rewarding, provided you have the patience to overlook its shortcomings. Oh, and before I end this, I’d just like to point out that having “hug” as a talent is quite incredulously weak, and it doesn’t even seem to work half the time!

So, a compromise. It's charming and kept me interested, which is more than many games can say. But it's undeniably rough around the edges. If it had been released when the PS2 first came out, it'd get some slack. As it is, released in 2007... a 6.5, I'm afraid.