

Virtuoso, by Data East/ Elite Systems Ltd,
3DO version, 1 player.
In case you hadn't noticed, the future of gaming is in 3D worlds--witness the beginnings of the next thing in games with titles like Origin's Bioforge and the upcoming sequel to Flashback, Fade to Black (neither of which are planned for the 3DO, but keep hoping anyway). Doom was really the lead up to this new trend and the new 32+ bit machines and powerhouse PCs are making true 3D worlds possible. Virtuoso, Data East's first 3DO title (though they only distribute it), is a sort-of compromise between the 1st person Doom style and the new 3D gaming environments. And frankly, it's not particularly successful in either case.
	Essentially a true Doom clone with some guy in the way of your line of sight, Virtuoso is in no danger of living up to its namesake. In Virtuoso, you play a bored heavy metal icon who, in order to get away from his meaningless, groupie mobbed, shallow existence, plugs himself into a virtual reality game system and... And that's it. He doesn't get trapped by some evil AI, he isn't fighting for his life, hasn't met the devil in the machine. He's just playing a game. Just like you. 
	So much for an interesting, grabbing storyline. 
	Virtuoso has three different worlds to explore, each with around 8 individual sections. The object is to score points by finding bonuses, killing lots of weird computer creeps, getting the key to the next level and then finding the exit. Throughout the levels, you'll find bonus containers which have various sorts of goodies within them--weapon power-ups, points, radar, maps, smart bombs, extra lives, etc... The game also conveniently asks if you'd like to save your game after each level.
	Virtuoso's main claim to fame are its graphics. Visually, Virtuoso looks very good. The three levels--Mars, the Haunted House and the Undersea Biosphere--are all very nicely defined and look excellent. The game takes place mainly in confining tunnels, but has slopes, pits and wide open areas as well. The monsters--ranging from killer snowmen, giant snowballs, ghosts, guys with uzis, giant octopi, scorpions, eels and other ugly nasties--are rendered and most look great as well. 
	Sonically, the game is pretty good. The soundtrack--done by the unsigned rock group, Thai Dyed Suicide--is merely adequate with some interesting tunes that play during the game, but nowhere near the level of Quarantine's or Road Rash's cool tunes. The sound effects are nicely atmospheric, though, and the sound of monsters creeping around you is actually helpful to playing.
	The levels are pretty varied, which is a big plus and have plenty of niches and corridors to explore and hide behind. Interestingly enough and probably the only advantage to having your character standing directly in front of you is his ability to hug the walls and move tightly along them to avoid enemy fire. But, the fact of the matter is that, at its core, Virtuoso is a Doomer. The perspective is the same as Doom and that proves rather detrimental to the game's self proclaimed "Unique 3rd-person perspective." 
	What this 3rd person perspective really does is just restrict your line of sight. Had the developer moved the viewing perspective to a higher angle, so you could actually see around the character, without having to physically move him out of the way (another use for hugging the walls), the game would have been much more interesting and innovative. As it is, you can't help but get the feeling that Elite (the makers of Virtuoso) cheated.
	Control is on the sloppy side as well--again, partly because the player character is right the middle of the screen. Everything has to rotate around him and aside from the incidental Sam Raimi style effect of watching the scenery move without any relation to the subject, it makes control feel even more clumsy than it already was. You also can't run, nor can you move and shoot at the same time--both unfortunate oversights to playability. Your character has virtually no capacity to aim on his own, so you have to aim him rather exactly as well. The player character can, however, rotate and fire simultaneously, which is kind of cool. Monsters in the game can be obnoxiously tough to kill at times, especially since you have to stop shooting to back away.
	Virtuoso is no masterpiece, but the good graphics and interestingly claustrophobic levels might make it worth checking out as an odd aside to the Doomer genre. The game would have been much better served had they not attempted the "unique 3rd person perspective," but even then it wouldn't have been anything more then a standard and rather mediocre Doom clone. Overall, there's probably enough here to make Virtuoso worth a look for fans of the genre, but not much more.
