O.D.T., which stands for Or Die Trying, is an ambitious action/adventure game from Psygnosis that never quite comes together.

The premise is the usual dungeon exploring mayhem. Your team of explorers is the last hope for a dying civilization. Carrying back a magical green pearl which holds the cure for a deadly plague, your ship is attacked and crashes on a mysterious tower which serves as the vast dungeon environment. The crew of the ship consists of four playable characters. The missions and weapons are the same no matter which character the player uses. The overall objective of the game is to recover the stolen green pearl and escape the tower.

From the beginning of the game, its apparent that the graphics are less-than-perfect. The opening cinema sequence is not impressive at all. In fact, it's very grainy and reminded me of early Sega Saturn movie sequences. It's a far cry from what the PlayStation can handle. The gameplay graphics are even worse. The main problem is simple that the game is too dark. Not only is this aspect visually annoying, but it hurts gameplay as well. It's hard to see ledges, drops, and approaching enemies. I can understand the designers trying to make a creepy environment, but gameplay should not suffer as a result. The sound and music are also very scarce, mainly consisting of background ambience.

On the surface, the gameplay offers a lot of options. The player's character is able to run, walk, crawl, roll, and jump. Weapons consist either of guns or throwable projectiles such as grenades. An added bonus is the ability to use magic later on in the game. Magic consists of four elemental spell types: Air, Earth, Fire, Water. All magic types must be collected and set to respective button controls on the status menu. Other items of importance are energy bars which recharge life and ammo items. There are also several classes of weapons and ammo that go with each class. The player must constantly reload and select which weapon to use. This is very annoying during combat because you can actually be damaged while in the status menu. Another problem is the fact that your own weapons can hurt you. Stepping in front of your own grenade will set you on fire and kill you. Experience points are gained after solving areas or performing assigned tasks.

One interesting aspect of character growth is there are three classes of characteristics that can be improved with experience points distributed according to the choice of the player. These include Armor, Weapon, and Spirit. Armor determines the defense potential, Weapon is the ease of handling certain weapons, and Spirit defines magic power. The differences in which character that is being used becomes most apparent during distribution of the experience points. A character which is naturally strong in Armor will never get a high Spirit statistic. Despite a plethora in moves, weapons, and options the game never utilizes any of these effectively.

What kills O.D.T. is the control. Movements are very jerky and unresponsive. The camera moves with the direction of character movement and the result is a viewpoint that never holds steady. The biggest problem is that the player has absolutely no control over the camera. You can't look over cliffs or around corners to gauge what's ahead of you or where the enemies are. This, along with the ever-present darkness, means constant death as you step off unseen ledges or get ambushed by unseen enemies. This problem adds an unnecessary amount of difficulty to the game. Since there are only three lives before the game is over, the frustration factor will be very high for anyone trying to beat the whole game.

O.D.T.'s unoriginal plot, lack of any variety to the dungeons, and horrendous control make this game a sad copy of a genre that was done much better in the Tomb Raider series. Psygnosis should go back to the drawing board on this one and rethink their approach to the action/adventure game.