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The main thing every developer wants is something to set their game apart from the crowd. Midway and Traveller’s Tales tried to do just that with their new release, Haven: Call of the King. The hook? Cross-Genre; meaning platform, adventure, fighting, racing/flight/boating simulation, all wrapped up in one neat tiny bundle. The result? Debatable. While it does manage to combine all the genres, some of them look like they were thrown in at the last minute, or were just concessions to have more points written on the game box design.

The game thrust you into the world of Auria, ruled by the dark forces of “Lord Vetch”. A very nasty dude, who has enslaved the population, and infected them with a deadly virus. He continues his vicious rule over the people by threatening not to offer up a drug, which they need to survive. Our hero, “Haven” has managed to break free of the slave encampments, and go on a galactic jounrney to find a “golden bell” to ring. Yep. Seems if Haven manages to ring said bell, he will summon a mythic ruler, named Athellion, to return to their little corner of the universe and set them free from the evil reign of Lord Vetch.

So now we have set the stage.. go find bell, ring bell, save planet and population. How does Haven accomplish this? With a set of missions with vague explanations of why you need to acquire “5 cogs”, or “3 feathers” in some place you haven’t really been briefed on. It’s an altogether strange premise, and you often feel like you have no idea what you need the “parts” for. Most of the time you aren’t even told an explanation as to why you need them.

Like I said earlier, the development team were really hoping to hook the audience with the cross-genre game that they had created. We must say it was quite amazing to play the game, running across platforms one minute, then playing a very arcady-racing level the next. The best part of it, is the fluidity that the game has switching between those different genres. One of the problems with doing a cross-genre game is that a player who isn’t exactly an expert at one type, say flight-sim, would be stuck on that level, and not be able to progress thought the game. The dev team alleviated that problem, by making the controls act exactly as you would expect. The also have designed the game so that the difficulty level will change depending on how you perform. For example, if you have problems on some of the racing sections, the game will lessen the difficulty in order to let you pass that area easier.

You’ll sit back at points, and not even really notice that you’ve just gone though 3 or 4 levels, with no real loading times. There are of course the prerequisite cut scenes, and they are pretty well done as well, the voice acting is quite good, but the best part is the eye and eyebrow movements of the characters, this is what really brings these scenes to life.

The graphics in Haven are quite crisp in some areas, while in some they almost look like an afterthought. The most impressive graphical features are found in the outdoor environments, and the effects. The environmental effects like rain, and the day night cycles are just brilliant to look at. And the fire and weapon effects can really make the next gen consoles work it.

The music and sound in Haven is another mixed bag (becoming a trend in this game isn’t it). The sound effects themselves don’t do that much to stand out as a great aspect of the game, and mostly come off sounding like you’d think they would, albeit a bit quiet, or lacking the “boom department”. The music itself has it’s bad points as well, with unspectacular moments throughout the game except for a few regions, where you’ll literally be blown away with the tunes emanating from your speakers. Some of the songs in the Egyptian level and a few of the towns are perfect examples.

Overall, Haven is a worth a chance in your gaming collection, but it doesn’t really bound out of the screen at you. Some of the sections are downright boring (such as the rail shooting area) but for the most part, the developers did a good job of tying all the different genres together, for example, when you’re racing along in a boat, you don’t really ask yourself “why the heck am I in a boat”. That in itself, is why they did a good job.

For those of who love cross platform games, fear not -- Haven will be making it's way onto both the XBox, and Gamecube.