Kileak the Blood (The DNA Imperative)

"Deep beneath the South Pole permafrost, a crazed scientist has unearthed an ancient DNA code, dormant for 2,000,000,000 years. Is this discovery of the "ultimate evolution"? Or does he now hold the damnation of mankind in his grasp? ... Only you can stop him!"

The year is 2038 and the International Peace Keeping Force has been ordered to investigate an invasion of an underground scientific research base. As the I.P.K.F. strike team arrives at the base in their 'Ligra' helicopter, heat-seeking missiles are fired and the aircraft is shot down smashing into a mountain. As Captain Matt Coda of the elite 'White Lightning' polar operations team you are the sole survivor of the crash. Armed with only your SJ107 protective armor, a 'wales gun' and a portable computer, you head towards the base to investigate. Fight your way through 15 foe filled levels and end the threat of the evil Dr. Kim.

'KILEAK The Blood' (released as 'KILEAK The DNA Imperative' outside of Japan) was the first ever 'first person shooter' released for the Playstation back in 1995. In this somewhat forgotten game developed by Genki you must battle against level after level of mechanical robots, solve puzzles and defeat an evil scientist before he wipes out humanity. The monotony of the gameplay seems to have been universally reviled by gamers and reviewers alike resulting in Kileak regularly being described as "one of the worst games ever made for the Playstation"...

"Here’s a genre I’ll never understand. Kileak is part of a practically dead breed of animal known as a corridor FPS (first person shooter). LikeDoom and Duke Nukem, you’re your own eyes running around shooting stuff. However, what keeps Kileak from ever being any fun is the one thing its niche template is based around; tediously mind numbing exploration in vast, boring levels. Everything looks the same, and its even worse when there’s literally only three textures to a level (if this place really had that many lights the heat generated would have melted the frozen prison it was stuck in)."

Despite these shortcomings as a game the project did feature Kow Yokoyama's mecha designs for both the lead character's 'Protect Armor' and the enemy robot 'Bosses'. These designs were published in a promotional book for the game ...

You can watch some of the story sequences from the game on youtube which look pretty good considering when the game was made ... but then contrast that with the actual game play.