Requiem: Avenging Angel

About Requiem: Avenging Angel

Requiem: Avenging Angel (1999) is Cyclone Studios' first-person shooter in which the angel Malachi fights fallen angels on near-future Earth with divine powers, and the first game with bullet time.

Requiem: Avenging Angel in Depth

Looking down on his creation, God is not entirely satisfied, and while most angels wait for his guidance, some descend to Earth to interpret his wishes themselves and become the Fallen. By the mid-21st century, led by Lilith, they control humanity's leaders, impose a totalitarian regime and drive the building of the Leviathan, humanity's first interstellar craft, which would let mankind reach Heaven itself and force God to bring about Armageddon, just as the Fallen want. The player is Malachi, a servant of God, who must leave Heaven, cross the limbo realm of Chaos and stop the Leviathan to avert the apocalypse.

The game opens in Chaos, where Malachi has no conventional weapons and relies on angelic powers that work much like the Force powers of Jedi Knight, each explained in the manual with a Biblical quote; one turns an enemy into a pillar of salt. It was the first game with a bullet time feature, slowing time to dodge bullets and kill several enemies. Alongside standard weapons such as a pistol, rocket launcher and railgun, Malachi can possess enemies to use weapons he cannot wield himself. Like Half-Life, it has no distinct levels but a seamless, interlinked world, mostly stylised everyday places on mid-21st-century Earth, such as a bar, a hospital and a power plant.

Making Requiem: Avenging Angel

Cyclone Studios developed it and 3DO published it in 1999. It received above-average reviews. PC Zone's Charlie Brooker praised its varied character models and advanced animation, "impressive character models that move in all kinds of unpleasantly believable ways". GameSpot commended its innovative angelic powers, comparing them favourably with Jedi Knight's Force powers, but felt it was ultimately a typical shooter without groundbreaking elements, and IGN found its level design boring and its multiplayer lacking.