Cross of the Dutchman is a delightful little hack-and-slash game by Triangle Studios. based around the legend of Grutte Pier, who spent a sizable portion of his life beating the shit out of the Saxons. And that, more than anything else, is represented in game.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’d never heard of him; mostly due to the fact that much of the information on him is really local to the Netherlands. I very much wish that wasn’t the case, since reading up on him has painted something of a picture for me; he was exactly the sort of historical badass that has all sorts of wild legends attributed to him, like gigantic size (which may not be far from the truth in this case) or incredible fighting prowess (allegedly knocking five men down with the shaft of a plow). Hell, there are a few swords attributed to him that only a seriously large man could actually swing, one of which resides in a museum in Leeuwarden. Many people don’t believe such a sword would’ve been used in battle, but if you can imagine a nearly seven foot tall man covered in solid muscle and capable of bending coins with his thumb, index and middle fingers, and take into consideration that there is a man in Martha’s Vineyard that makes hilariously over-sized and overweight swords that are still (more or less) swingable despite being a few times heavier than Grutte Pier’s, it’s not quite so fanciful.
You spend much of the game absolutely wrecking these Saxon mercenaries, as could well be expected. For over half the game, you beat men in armor to death with your giant fists of justice. That is, until you get the aforementioned sword, at which point there is very little that’s really going to stop you. And why would it; making things too adverse for a man described frequently as a giant is like making a Superman game in which Superman is easily beaten by-, oh wait, never mind. Regardless the game isn’t very difficult overall; I 100%-ed it in just under four hours. The truly difficult parts are the scant handful of stealth missions (it is hard to tell the actual distance of the guards’ range of vision), and the occasional bit of combat problems.
Thankfully, the game has full controller support with rebindable keys (if only all action games on Steam had that). I must say, however, that in combat, and especially against single targets, it’s very hard to actually aim your attacks for some reason. You’ll often find yourself striking just to the left or right of an enemy, much to your frustration. The best fix I could figure out for such situations was to move up to an enemy, release all movement keys and hit attack. Or just use a special attack, which generally plasters the area in front of or around you with pure pain. Otherwise, the game controls quite well, and never really asks for anything out of you that is unreasonable.
Cross of the Dutchman has a decided aesthetic going for it. While it’s not exactly a game meant to show off the graphical capabilities of your hardware, it’s not unpleasant to the eye. Even at lower settings, the game remains graphically consistent, which surprised me. It remains both colorful and smooth when lowering the settings: though I must admit I didn’t see any need to test the resolution too far.
The soundtrack is fairly pleasant medieval/renaissance fare. I can’t honestly say that any of it ran rampant in my head in the hours after playing the game, but it didn’t strike me as the sort of thing I would consider bothersome, either. You will get used to the sounds of the various grunts you’ll encounter over the course of the game, though.
Overall, Cross of the Dutchman is good game. Which is why it’s sad to note that due to funding, it was somewhat stripped down from its original concept. You can see where that affected the game, which is a shame. Just when it feels like things are going to kick into high gear, the game ends. Less than coincidentally, however, Cross of the Dutchman has upped the profile of Triangle Studios. And if ever there is a sequel made, I would love to see the few issues I had addressed, as well as everything kicked up a notch.
Title: Cross of the Dutchman
Developer: Triangle Studios
Publisher: Triangle Studios
Platform: PC
Price: $8.99, $10.99 for Deluxe Edition
*A copy was provided for this game for review*
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