Burn: Cycle is an action adventure game from Phillips designed in cyberpunk style. You play a runner by the name of Sol Cutter who, while attempting to get information out of a company named Soft Tech, is infected with the Burn Cycle virus that infiltrates your brain. Now, you must escape from the company and their goons and get the virus out of your head before it kills you. To make matters worse, you have only two hours to eliminate the virus.
The game's graphics are extremely crude looking and hurtful to the eyes. Without taking a rest every hour while playing, I got a headache of massive proportions. Even the digitized movies look crude and blurry. I'm not sure if this is what Phillips was going for, (a gritty look) or if they simply didn't care about the graphics enough to invest time fixing them.
The controls are easy and instinctive. To indicate when interaction with an object is possible, the cursor changes to a different picture or lights up. Some objects and puzzles, however, require you to have the proper object in your hand in order to effect the interaction. A good example is the bank where you must have the bankcard in your hand before you put it in the slot.
Though the game gives you only two hours to save Sol Cutter's life, time stops during the puzzles so you can take as much time as you need to solve them and still have time enough to win the game. It does not stop when you are interacting with other characters or wandering around in locations, so spending too much time on these activities can be fatal. It is often wise to save before starting a conversation with a character for this very reason.
Aside from the graphics, the game does have a compelling storyline and the cut movies can be very interesting. While the actors don't always do such a good job of portraying their characters and convincing you to believe they're more than just actors doing a job, the performances aren't bad enough to ruin the game.
There are many interesting places including the Televerse, the cyberpunk-style city, the neo-gothic inside of Soft Tech, the Karma Bank and the Zero Sum Bar. The characters are just as diverse: Vielli, Dealy, Doc, Gala and Zip (love the Cyberbuddha in the Televerse!). Unfortunately, most of the game's environments and characters are ruined by the crude graphics.
As mentioned previously, the game does have an interesting storyline but the graphics don't exactly make you want to play for an extended period. Any excitement the game generates is lost when you must rest your aching eyes and head. Interesting game, bad execution.
Graphics: Graphics are really terrible and the bright colors hurt your eyes. Objects are crude and blocky.
Sound: Fades into the background for the most part and is not memorable at all. However, it is very successful at generating a cyberpunk/futuristic feel in the game.
Enjoyment: Not too enjoyable when your eyes are screaming from the bad graphics and your head is hurting. Enjoyable in short doses with time to recover in between.
Replay Value: Not something you'll want to play more than once.
You play data thief Sol Cutter in a very Johnny Mnemonic -like plot. You have just pulled off a major data theft, but in doing so you've infected yourself with a neural virus, named Burn: Cycle, which will literally turn your brain into goo in 2 hours. Unless, that is, you can find a cure while you simultaneously try to avoid the people whom you stole the data from.
Why are they chasing you if you're gonna die anyway? How do you get rid of this virus? What does it all mean? You'll try to figure that out in this game which plays like a Cyberpunk Journeyman Project, in full screen and with more action sequences. Gameplay consists of first-person action and puzzle sequences spiced up with video in-between.
How to run this game on modern Windows PC?
People who downloaded Burn:Cycle have also downloaded:
Fox Hunt, Dark Earth, BioForge, Bermuda Syndrome, Cyberia, Blair Witch Volume 1: Rustin Parr, Dagger's Rage, Johnny Mnemonic
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