Casanova
(kas-e-nov-a) n. 1. A romantic or promiscuous man; libertine. 2. Adam
Rodman (see also: grouper, herring)

I really wanted to review
Casanova: Duel of the Black Rose. Really. Being the libertine
I am, I spent countless hours just staring at the CD case thinking,
“Finally, a game where I can use my undeniable man-charm to woo
the pants off the ladies!”

I kid, of course, because
my undeniable man-charm generally consists of, “So, is that a
banana in your pants or are you just happy to see me?” at which
time I usually realize that I’m talking to a woman (and if not, I
usually get fisticuffs in my abdominal region.)

Well,
fellow Casanovas, fear not. Casanova allows for more pants-charming-offness
than even Peewee Herman could handle (ha ha! A Peewee Herman joke!)
Lonely and love-lacking women fill the Renaissance-era streets of
Venice, just begging for a handsome and charming stranger to, well,
charm their pants off. In fact, I – the master ladies’ man himself
– learned a few new tricks from Casanova, namely:

1. The vast majority
of women respond well to lewd jokes about their hindquarters.
2. You always have a one in four chance of picking up a babe.
3. And women in the Renaissance did not wear pants, making the charming
removal of the pants all the easier.

Of
course, there’s more to Casanova than the mere pursuit of love.
Unfortunately, it sucks.

The story, while okay,
can drag along at the pace of a snail weighted down with lead and
towing a Ford Expedition through three-foot deep molasses in the peak
of winter (that is, slowly). Basically, fierce Mongol pirates attack
the handsome Giacomo Casanova’s ship and kill his ma while severely
injuring him. While he recuperates in the city of Venice, he discovers
that plenty of women roam the streets, just waiting for him to charm
their respective pants off of. Oh, and the said fierce Mongol pirates
threaten the city and other such pointless miscellany (not much matters
when there’s pants-charming to be had.)

And the graphics, while
okay, can drag along at the pace of a snail weighted down with lead
and towing a Ford Expedition through three-foot deep molasses in the
peak of winter (that is, slowly). Even at the lowest detail level,
the speed of the game made me feel sorry for my computer (and this
is a machine to which I have intoned, “You worthless hunk of
bovine fecal matter and silicone,” “You hell-spawned machine,”
and, “I’d rather word process on Michael Jackson than on you!”).
Once you start to add in the water, the sky, and crowd effects (I
had to turn all of those off for halfway decent playing), you might
as well read a good (and long) book while you play Casanova.
The complete, untranslated works of Nietzsche, for example. Not to
mention the clipping problem. The gondolas flew through the frickin’
sky!

And
don’t get me started on the gameplay, which while okay, can drag…
Okay, the gameplay outright sucks. You control Casanova a la
Grim Fandango. The arrow keys move him in the cardinal directions,
and an action key does, web, action. No problem with that setup. However,
the sometimes confusing camera angles can make walking around a freakin’
square difficult.

Don’t get me started on
the combat. Casanova can kill both fierce Mongol pirates and random
robbers with either a rapier or a crossbow. That is, in theory he
can. Considering the Suckiness Factor© of the combat system (a
9,984 out of 10,000), Casanova will die a tad bit more than he will
kill. The crossbow is next to impossible to aim and the supposedly
intuitive sword commands are best utilized by randomly ramming the
keyboard with your open palm.

But
that’s not to say that Casanova doesn’t have its high points.
The sound is halfway decent, the Italian accents are really funny,
and there’s always the picking up women. Basically, Casanova goes
and talks to a woman. Then, judging from her response, he chooses
one of four approaches (if she says, “Egads! My mamma is dying!”
I would suggest a sensitive approach. If she says, “Ya know,
I haven’t had sex in four years,” I’d go with the lewd approach.

In short, Casanova
isn’t a bad game if you want some pants-charming-off-deformed-computer-generated-women
action. But if you wanted a quality adventure game, I’d look somewhere
else.

Final Grade: D+

System Requirements:
P300 MMX
64 MB RAM
3D Graphics Card
WIN98/2000
500 MB free hard disk space