I'm going to deviate a bit from my standard format today and just talk about something cool and free that you might not be taking advantage of. Now I have kind of a love/hate thing going with free gaming. On one side, I fear that having high quality free games around makes people feel entitled to gaming for free instead of cultivating an expectation that if you want something good, you'll need to pay people to make it. On the other side though, I foolishly spent my life pursuing game making instead of doing something that earns money like I dunno - baking or sanitation work, so having fun stuff around for free is quite useful. I guess I'll just recognize I can't really change it regardless, so I will simply be bitter and play some good free games.
On that note, here's a site you should have bookmarked: www.kongregate.com
Kongregate is an aggregator, which means it scoops up free Flash games from a variety of sources and provides them in one location. It has a ton of games of every size and style available for public consumption. Now many of these are fairly low quality and not really worth your time, but there are also a huge number of absolute gems buried within the collection. These actually aren't very hard to find, since Kongregate does a pretty good job of putting them right out front with their Featured Games, and you can always search the highest rated lists by genre to find games you'll like.
Kongregate then wraps these games with a lightweight achievement system. Basically points, levels, and badges that don't particularly mean anything but make you feel happy. They also throw in some random unlocks on their site-specific card game (Kongai), that you'll probably want later.
Ok, so now you've got the basic idea. Lots and lots of Flash games with a better percentage of higher quality stuff than on the majority of similar sites and some really damn good ones mixed in. Got a little time to kill and want some random fun? Head over and try something out. To get you started, look up these and give them a play:
Sonny / Sonny 2 : You play as a zombie with memory loss in this turn-based combat/RPG. The first guy who talks to you calls you 'Sonny', so that's your name. Nice skill system, classic japanese-style RPG combat, and just all around too good for a free game.
Gemcraft : If you haven't done so, there's an entire genre of 'tower defense' games you need to try out. Whether or not you've already done this, give Gemcraft a try. You place gems in towers to shoot at the attackers with a variety of gem types for different abilities. Its massively long though, so don't feel compelled to finish it. Just savor the experience while you have the urge.
Epic War : I believe there are 4 Epic War titles built now and they're all pretty good. You play as one side of a big battle and churn out units to take out the other side. There are very few commands in the battle so its much less about micromanaging your units and more about monitoring the flow of battle and spell use. Between levels you'll get to unlock and improve powers and units and customize your army to your preferences.
Momentum Missile Mayhem (2) : Stuff explodes and BOUNCES! Simple mechanism makes for very enjoyable play. Typical minor enhancements and unlocks, but the key remains the joy of knocking stuff around and causing it to explode.
Kongai : Kongregate has its own strategic collectible card game associated with the site and it is very well made. Think of this like rock/paper/scissors on super-steroids. Each player picks three heroes who come with four special moves and a single item. You play against another player and simultaneously select your action for the round. The server then shows you how those actions interact. The balance is good enough (not perfect, but what is?) that games are really decided on how good you are at guessing your opponent's actions and outplaying them.
PlanetDefender : A constant stream of missile-shooting spaceships attacks your poor hapless planet which you must coat in defensive structures. You'll need to carefully weigh the tradeoffs of building lower strength structures for short term advantage or saving for larger stronger items or researching new options. This is another example of a simple mechanic that is well used to make for compelling gameplay.
The Necronomicon : Based on the Cthulhu mythos, this strategic card game has all the tentacled monsters and gibbering insanity we know and love. Using a large collection of horrific events and creatures, you try to kill or drive your opponent insane. What's not to love?
There are many more worthwhile games on the site waiting for you to give them a try, so hopefully I've at least tweaked your curiosity. Don't be afraid to just poke around and try stuff out. The real joy of Kongregate is that it really does have a ton of very good games hidden a few clicks in. Explore a bit and you're sure to find something you enjoy.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Bayonetta (PS3)
Bayonetta, by Platinum Games is a low-impact semi-erotic dance video that someone in marketing figured might sell better as a PS3 action story game. You laugh, but play it through and then come back and tell me I'm wrong.
You play from the perspective of the title character - an impossibly leggy gun-toting dark witch with weapons on every appendage - who blasts her way through a variety of feathery 'angelic' critters and halo'd giants with creepy baby faces. Beset by a healthy dose of random memory loss to provide an excuse for reveal background information at regular intervals, she bounces and blazes through a strictly defined story path.
A hail of bullets rains from Bayonetta throughout combat. Actually, a hail of bullets just rains from Bayonetta all the time. She probably has to pull slugs out of her shower walls. As mentioned before, she's got a gun on each hand and another on each foot and makes constant use of all of them. Prancing through combat with moves that would make a professional contortionist cringe she gyrates and weaves with joyous abandon. The lower the difficulty level the more random bullets are launched, but even on the harder levels she apparently exudes them from her pores or something.
Bayonetta has a zillion combat moves, but learning all of them is largely a waste of time because the difference between a spinning uppercut and a sliding hell jab is basically nil. You can button mash to your heart's content whenever something isn't actively pounding you and be rewarded by a series of increasingly powerful attacks that culminate in a nice combo finish. What does matter is your ability to get out of the way of incoming attacks - either by movement, jumping, or a well timed dodge. Performing such a dodge at the last moment also unlocks "witch time" - a world slowdown so you can pound on stuff some more for free.
Weak enemy monsters have absolutely no chance against Bayonetta at any difficulty level and you can roll your fingers as much as you like until they are all dead. However, Bayonetta is full of boss fights. Some of these are just big tough creatures that you have to fight in a more cautious fashion (dodge occasionally), and some are terrain unto themselves that you will end up climbing, bashing, jumping off of, etc... in sequences a bit reminiscent of Shadow of the Colossus. Boss fights also involve following key and control sequences displayed at the bottom of the screen in order to avoid damage, advance past cinematic moments, or (at the end of every fight) cause your clothes to vanish and your hair to turn into a giant demon which them crushes the boss in question. Yes, Bayonetta understands the truly important rule of combat - when you want to really kick ass, its naked time!
Artistically, Bayonetta is fairly pleasant, if a bit heavy on the juvenile fantasy. She's enjoyable to watch fight, bouncing around smoothly with a wide variety of moves in a graceful fashion. They did a good job with the animations and make frequent use of wall walking to add to her field of movement. To add to the video > game quality, the entire game is packed with cut scenes, breaking into one between every fight, and sometimes several times in the middle of those as well. Bayonetta uses these to trade inane banter with whatever large nasty has come to eat her, or the couple people with a vested interest in her future. High marks for the choreographer but the script writer needs a firm talking to.
There's a shop with additional unlockable moves, equipment, temporary boosts, etc... that you will visit between levels. Unfortunately there's also a painfully dull shooting gallery mini-game that comes along at the same time. What's odd is that they actually put a lot of work into providing additional mini-games throughout and then decided to use this particular turd as the one that you play over and over. There's an entire level with a Space Harrier feel to it plus driving and shooting games. Someone spent a lot of effort on making them all, but then felt compelled to use a horrible no-depth 3 target shooting gallery as the between level repeat instead.
The truth is that Bayonetta is mostly about just watching her bounce around and randomly kill stuff in a cinematic fashion. However, to be fair, they really do try hard to mix in a lot of gameplay at the same time. There's clear effort into maintaining a high standard of artwork and many cases of opting for gameplay variety with interesting surfaces to fight on, jumping puzzles, shooting challenges, missile guidance, and more. I love the way they introduce new bosses (boss arrives, looks mean, gets named and framed, then gets on with killing you). They even unlock animal transformations about halfway through and all of a sudden your movement capabilities have been expanded. Its just a bit hard to take too seriously with all the silly dialogue and dance moves.
Don't expect anything deep but you'll have some fun anyways.
Bayonetta
Rating: 7.5
You play from the perspective of the title character - an impossibly leggy gun-toting dark witch with weapons on every appendage - who blasts her way through a variety of feathery 'angelic' critters and halo'd giants with creepy baby faces. Beset by a healthy dose of random memory loss to provide an excuse for reveal background information at regular intervals, she bounces and blazes through a strictly defined story path.
A hail of bullets rains from Bayonetta throughout combat. Actually, a hail of bullets just rains from Bayonetta all the time. She probably has to pull slugs out of her shower walls. As mentioned before, she's got a gun on each hand and another on each foot and makes constant use of all of them. Prancing through combat with moves that would make a professional contortionist cringe she gyrates and weaves with joyous abandon. The lower the difficulty level the more random bullets are launched, but even on the harder levels she apparently exudes them from her pores or something.
Bayonetta has a zillion combat moves, but learning all of them is largely a waste of time because the difference between a spinning uppercut and a sliding hell jab is basically nil. You can button mash to your heart's content whenever something isn't actively pounding you and be rewarded by a series of increasingly powerful attacks that culminate in a nice combo finish. What does matter is your ability to get out of the way of incoming attacks - either by movement, jumping, or a well timed dodge. Performing such a dodge at the last moment also unlocks "witch time" - a world slowdown so you can pound on stuff some more for free.
Weak enemy monsters have absolutely no chance against Bayonetta at any difficulty level and you can roll your fingers as much as you like until they are all dead. However, Bayonetta is full of boss fights. Some of these are just big tough creatures that you have to fight in a more cautious fashion (dodge occasionally), and some are terrain unto themselves that you will end up climbing, bashing, jumping off of, etc... in sequences a bit reminiscent of Shadow of the Colossus. Boss fights also involve following key and control sequences displayed at the bottom of the screen in order to avoid damage, advance past cinematic moments, or (at the end of every fight) cause your clothes to vanish and your hair to turn into a giant demon which them crushes the boss in question. Yes, Bayonetta understands the truly important rule of combat - when you want to really kick ass, its naked time!
Artistically, Bayonetta is fairly pleasant, if a bit heavy on the juvenile fantasy. She's enjoyable to watch fight, bouncing around smoothly with a wide variety of moves in a graceful fashion. They did a good job with the animations and make frequent use of wall walking to add to her field of movement. To add to the video > game quality, the entire game is packed with cut scenes, breaking into one between every fight, and sometimes several times in the middle of those as well. Bayonetta uses these to trade inane banter with whatever large nasty has come to eat her, or the couple people with a vested interest in her future. High marks for the choreographer but the script writer needs a firm talking to.
There's a shop with additional unlockable moves, equipment, temporary boosts, etc... that you will visit between levels. Unfortunately there's also a painfully dull shooting gallery mini-game that comes along at the same time. What's odd is that they actually put a lot of work into providing additional mini-games throughout and then decided to use this particular turd as the one that you play over and over. There's an entire level with a Space Harrier feel to it plus driving and shooting games. Someone spent a lot of effort on making them all, but then felt compelled to use a horrible no-depth 3 target shooting gallery as the between level repeat instead.
The truth is that Bayonetta is mostly about just watching her bounce around and randomly kill stuff in a cinematic fashion. However, to be fair, they really do try hard to mix in a lot of gameplay at the same time. There's clear effort into maintaining a high standard of artwork and many cases of opting for gameplay variety with interesting surfaces to fight on, jumping puzzles, shooting challenges, missile guidance, and more. I love the way they introduce new bosses (boss arrives, looks mean, gets named and framed, then gets on with killing you). They even unlock animal transformations about halfway through and all of a sudden your movement capabilities have been expanded. Its just a bit hard to take too seriously with all the silly dialogue and dance moves.
Don't expect anything deep but you'll have some fun anyways.
Bayonetta
Rating: 7.5
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
FrontierVille (Facebook)
Wait a minute, why are you reviewing facebook games?! The reader stomps off in a fit of rage...
Yeah, I think most self-styled hardcore gamers will be pretty down on any facebook related gaming thanks to the click-farming horrors that we all formed our association with. However, with the massive influx of first-time gamers that facebook brings to the table, and the huge amount of revenue pulled by some of these titles, it becomes worth your while to at least take a look and understand the genre.
There are a lot of facebook games around now, so I'm going to pick the one that seems to be the latest evolution, crafted by facebook giant Zynga - FrontierVille.
FrontierVille's basic premise is that you are a brave pioneer, working hard to set up a new place to live 'out west' somewhere, probably during the mid 1800s. You arrive alone in your covered wagon and have to clear land, plant crops, raise animals, build structures, tend trees, and do other wilderness-oriented stuff to improve your personal space.
Every action generally takes one energy to perform, and you have a limited supply of energy which regenerates one point per five minutes of real time. You also get refills by leveling up, or the odd bit here and there from random drops (when you clear land/harvest/etc it drops goodies), or you can purchase more from the shop in exchange for food resource.
The first few levels come very quickly, so you get to play a bit longer on your first sitting since it keeps refreshing your energy every time you level up. It has a long quest path where you are assigned one task after another. This both gives you something to do, and lead you towards developing your area in the normal sequence. Note that you can choose to completely ignore the quests and just do your own merry thing - build 28 sawmills into the shape of a giant turtle if that's what floats your boat, but the quests give you useful rewards and generally ask you to do reasonable stuff so you'll probably follow along.
You quickly run out of energy and will need to set the game aside for a bit. "How annoying!" your hardcore gamer self says. But that's also an advantage for their target demographic - casual gamers who really don't want to spend a lot of time playing something. Instead, it rewards them for checking in on it every day, puttering around a bit, and then setting it aside again without the pressing temptation to just play nonstop.
Normal gameplay is to check in once or twice a day and see what you can do to advance your homestead. To begin with, your entire area is overrun with weeds, rocks, trees, etc.. These need to be cleared out so that you'll have room to build and plant. Occasionally clearing something will turn up a varmint which also needs to be chased away (more energy use). This portion of the gameplay isn't bad. You've got a couple limited resources (energy, wood, food, money) and make choices on how best to build your homestead (buildings, trees, animals, crops) to unlock new items, create additional resources, and advance your quests. All pretty solid gaming fare and enjoyable in a bit of a Harvest Moon sort of way. One interesting element is that the land actually evolves a bit in real time, so each day when you check back the trees grow and you'll have more grass, flowers, bushes, saplings, etc.. there to deal with. More importantly, the new arrivals are proportionate to what you had on your homestead beforehand, which is both a plus and a minus. Careful though! It is very easy to clear every single cactus from your homestead early on and then never see one again only to later realize you have a cactus quest for 5 of 'em and no way to cause new ones to grow.
After you progress down the quest path a bit you start getting letters from your wife who will come out and join you if you make the right preparations, build the right structures, and collect the right supplies. Unfortunately this is also where you're going to start hitting the loathsome aspect of facebook gaming - the expectation to spam your friends. Yeah, all building construction requires building supplies that can only be acquired by spamming your friends for help. It is typical stuff for facebook games, but honestly pretty crappy. If none of your friends happen to be playing this game at the same time you can make yourself a fake account and farm it that way, but welcome to nuisance.
Even worse, later on you'll hit the minimum number of frontier friends requirements to unlock various items and structures. "Sorry, you can't do that until you have 3 more neighbors!" This too, is a common evil of facebook games but one that I feel really breaks the original purpose behind facebook - that of having a social environment to keep touch with your friends. Now you end up making one of several distasteful choices. You could spam your other friends who aren't already playing to play too - generally a bad option since if your friends wanted to play they'd already be doing so. You can create some fake accounts to neighbor you - bunch of extra nuisance for a low impact game. Or you can just friend a zillion random internet strangers who play the same facebook games you do and turn your facebook experience from one of interacting with actual people you know, into just a platform for crappy games.
I'm sorry facebook game makers haven't figured this out, but while cooperative gaming is good as an opt in experience, expecting people to spam their friends frequently or with stuff they don't actually want is terrible. I hope they figure it out before the industry suffocates itself with this kind of garbage since when you disgust a casual gamer to the point where they quit playing, you didn't just sour them on your game, you probably soured them on the entire genre. Its really just greed pushing marketing decisions that spew onto game design in a putrid way. Zynga, get your act in gear now!
So you probably get the basic idea now. The game progresses further down these lines. You have a kid, build a schoolhouse, convince a teacher to come work there, make more buildings, raise more animals, plant more crops, spam your friends, etc... The school teaches classes, which also require friends to send you supplies, and there is a quest path to expand your homestead (give you larger playing area) which also requires you to... wait you know this one... spam your friends.
Overall the game is moderately fun, and does have some nice resource tradeoff decisions and a cool gradual land evolution which lets you tailor your environment. The later quests get ridiculously long and repetitive so you need to kind of figure out when you feel done rather than expect an end to it. I'd suggest trying it out just to get a feel for what's hot in facebook gaming these days. This market is huge now and doesn't look to be going away soon.
FrontierVille
Rating: 6.1 (basic gameplay probably 7.1, but -1 for friend spam)
Yeah, I think most self-styled hardcore gamers will be pretty down on any facebook related gaming thanks to the click-farming horrors that we all formed our association with. However, with the massive influx of first-time gamers that facebook brings to the table, and the huge amount of revenue pulled by some of these titles, it becomes worth your while to at least take a look and understand the genre.
There are a lot of facebook games around now, so I'm going to pick the one that seems to be the latest evolution, crafted by facebook giant Zynga - FrontierVille.
FrontierVille's basic premise is that you are a brave pioneer, working hard to set up a new place to live 'out west' somewhere, probably during the mid 1800s. You arrive alone in your covered wagon and have to clear land, plant crops, raise animals, build structures, tend trees, and do other wilderness-oriented stuff to improve your personal space.
Every action generally takes one energy to perform, and you have a limited supply of energy which regenerates one point per five minutes of real time. You also get refills by leveling up, or the odd bit here and there from random drops (when you clear land/harvest/etc it drops goodies), or you can purchase more from the shop in exchange for food resource.
The first few levels come very quickly, so you get to play a bit longer on your first sitting since it keeps refreshing your energy every time you level up. It has a long quest path where you are assigned one task after another. This both gives you something to do, and lead you towards developing your area in the normal sequence. Note that you can choose to completely ignore the quests and just do your own merry thing - build 28 sawmills into the shape of a giant turtle if that's what floats your boat, but the quests give you useful rewards and generally ask you to do reasonable stuff so you'll probably follow along.
You quickly run out of energy and will need to set the game aside for a bit. "How annoying!" your hardcore gamer self says. But that's also an advantage for their target demographic - casual gamers who really don't want to spend a lot of time playing something. Instead, it rewards them for checking in on it every day, puttering around a bit, and then setting it aside again without the pressing temptation to just play nonstop.
Normal gameplay is to check in once or twice a day and see what you can do to advance your homestead. To begin with, your entire area is overrun with weeds, rocks, trees, etc.. These need to be cleared out so that you'll have room to build and plant. Occasionally clearing something will turn up a varmint which also needs to be chased away (more energy use). This portion of the gameplay isn't bad. You've got a couple limited resources (energy, wood, food, money) and make choices on how best to build your homestead (buildings, trees, animals, crops) to unlock new items, create additional resources, and advance your quests. All pretty solid gaming fare and enjoyable in a bit of a Harvest Moon sort of way. One interesting element is that the land actually evolves a bit in real time, so each day when you check back the trees grow and you'll have more grass, flowers, bushes, saplings, etc.. there to deal with. More importantly, the new arrivals are proportionate to what you had on your homestead beforehand, which is both a plus and a minus. Careful though! It is very easy to clear every single cactus from your homestead early on and then never see one again only to later realize you have a cactus quest for 5 of 'em and no way to cause new ones to grow.
After you progress down the quest path a bit you start getting letters from your wife who will come out and join you if you make the right preparations, build the right structures, and collect the right supplies. Unfortunately this is also where you're going to start hitting the loathsome aspect of facebook gaming - the expectation to spam your friends. Yeah, all building construction requires building supplies that can only be acquired by spamming your friends for help. It is typical stuff for facebook games, but honestly pretty crappy. If none of your friends happen to be playing this game at the same time you can make yourself a fake account and farm it that way, but welcome to nuisance.
Even worse, later on you'll hit the minimum number of frontier friends requirements to unlock various items and structures. "Sorry, you can't do that until you have 3 more neighbors!" This too, is a common evil of facebook games but one that I feel really breaks the original purpose behind facebook - that of having a social environment to keep touch with your friends. Now you end up making one of several distasteful choices. You could spam your other friends who aren't already playing to play too - generally a bad option since if your friends wanted to play they'd already be doing so. You can create some fake accounts to neighbor you - bunch of extra nuisance for a low impact game. Or you can just friend a zillion random internet strangers who play the same facebook games you do and turn your facebook experience from one of interacting with actual people you know, into just a platform for crappy games.
I'm sorry facebook game makers haven't figured this out, but while cooperative gaming is good as an opt in experience, expecting people to spam their friends frequently or with stuff they don't actually want is terrible. I hope they figure it out before the industry suffocates itself with this kind of garbage since when you disgust a casual gamer to the point where they quit playing, you didn't just sour them on your game, you probably soured them on the entire genre. Its really just greed pushing marketing decisions that spew onto game design in a putrid way. Zynga, get your act in gear now!
So you probably get the basic idea now. The game progresses further down these lines. You have a kid, build a schoolhouse, convince a teacher to come work there, make more buildings, raise more animals, plant more crops, spam your friends, etc... The school teaches classes, which also require friends to send you supplies, and there is a quest path to expand your homestead (give you larger playing area) which also requires you to... wait you know this one... spam your friends.
Overall the game is moderately fun, and does have some nice resource tradeoff decisions and a cool gradual land evolution which lets you tailor your environment. The later quests get ridiculously long and repetitive so you need to kind of figure out when you feel done rather than expect an end to it. I'd suggest trying it out just to get a feel for what's hot in facebook gaming these days. This market is huge now and doesn't look to be going away soon.
FrontierVille
Rating: 6.1 (basic gameplay probably 7.1, but -1 for friend spam)
Monday, August 23, 2010
Might & Magic - Clash of Heroes (DS)
I know it reveals my inner dinosaur, but I'm still a big fan of turn-based gaming. I really miss the plethora of such titles that used to grace us on the PC so I appreciate the turn-based goodness that is provided by my Nintendo DS.
This week, a franchise that has spawned both good and poor games - Might and Magic, makes a foray onto the machine in question. Clash of Heroes, no doubt named in hopes that you'll feel some vague association with their Heroes of Might & Magic line, is an enjoyable puzzle / RPG.
You play as some forgettable generic storyline hero and fight some generic storyline villians to give you an excuse to play the game. Fortunately, the gameplay is neither generic nor forgettable, and is actually quite a bit of fun. All battles are resolved using a 'match three' style playing field. You have a variety of troops that stack up against the enemy that can be rearranged or removed in order to form sets of three or more. Once a set is formed they lock into place and charge up to deal damage to the enemy a few turns later. Enemy units that get in the way of this damage can blunt it (block with your face!) as can walls.
Its an easy mechanism to understand and has some variations and bonus complexities to produce fancier effects. There are larger and more powerful units that can take different matching sets to prepare and have more impressive combat effects. You can match units sideways to build walls, and you can stack multiples of the same type or timer for extra power. There are also some additional spells that are powered up as you get hit that produce powerful turn-around effects - significant damage, protection, board sweeping, etc.
All this is wrapped by a lightweight RPG excuse to provide flow and progression. There are five different factions that pick from, each with slightly different powers and units. The variations aren't particularly large, so battles are decided more by successful matching and pre-emptive attack (a unit locked into a matched set and powering up has significantly more durability than one standing around by itself, so you want to make sure to block with matched sets or walls, not idle guys). Each race's advanced units have a bit more variety to them, with some stunning, or absorbing health, destroying multiple rows of guys, or firing concussive blasts into the enemy. These advanced units are frequently what dictates the success or failure of a battle, so getting them set up early is very important.
The whole game has a bit of the same feeling as Puzzle Quest, with simple gameplay fleshed out a bit to include some variety and a nice dose of smoothly crafted fun. The campaign has a few amusing bits (undead dragons are good), and provides an excuse to play through each of the five factions. There's quests, items, gradual acquisition of units, minor resources, and the usual stuff you've probably come to expect in such games.
Overall I found it quite playable, and worth a run. If you're looking for something to bring with you on your next airplane trip, pack this in your bag.
Might & Magic - Clash of Heroes
Rating: 8.1
This week, a franchise that has spawned both good and poor games - Might and Magic, makes a foray onto the machine in question. Clash of Heroes, no doubt named in hopes that you'll feel some vague association with their Heroes of Might & Magic line, is an enjoyable puzzle / RPG.
You play as some forgettable generic storyline hero and fight some generic storyline villians to give you an excuse to play the game. Fortunately, the gameplay is neither generic nor forgettable, and is actually quite a bit of fun. All battles are resolved using a 'match three' style playing field. You have a variety of troops that stack up against the enemy that can be rearranged or removed in order to form sets of three or more. Once a set is formed they lock into place and charge up to deal damage to the enemy a few turns later. Enemy units that get in the way of this damage can blunt it (block with your face!) as can walls.
Its an easy mechanism to understand and has some variations and bonus complexities to produce fancier effects. There are larger and more powerful units that can take different matching sets to prepare and have more impressive combat effects. You can match units sideways to build walls, and you can stack multiples of the same type or timer for extra power. There are also some additional spells that are powered up as you get hit that produce powerful turn-around effects - significant damage, protection, board sweeping, etc.
All this is wrapped by a lightweight RPG excuse to provide flow and progression. There are five different factions that pick from, each with slightly different powers and units. The variations aren't particularly large, so battles are decided more by successful matching and pre-emptive attack (a unit locked into a matched set and powering up has significantly more durability than one standing around by itself, so you want to make sure to block with matched sets or walls, not idle guys). Each race's advanced units have a bit more variety to them, with some stunning, or absorbing health, destroying multiple rows of guys, or firing concussive blasts into the enemy. These advanced units are frequently what dictates the success or failure of a battle, so getting them set up early is very important.
The whole game has a bit of the same feeling as Puzzle Quest, with simple gameplay fleshed out a bit to include some variety and a nice dose of smoothly crafted fun. The campaign has a few amusing bits (undead dragons are good), and provides an excuse to play through each of the five factions. There's quests, items, gradual acquisition of units, minor resources, and the usual stuff you've probably come to expect in such games.
Overall I found it quite playable, and worth a run. If you're looking for something to bring with you on your next airplane trip, pack this in your bag.
Might & Magic - Clash of Heroes
Rating: 8.1
Monday, August 16, 2010
Titan Quest (PC)
With the recent release of Starcraft II I think quite a few people are turning a wishful eye towards the upcoming (but unscheduled) release of Diablo III. If you're one of these people, twitching for the critter-crushing loot-grabbing skill-unlocking goodness that we remember, then do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Titan Quest in the meanwhile. You should be able to pick up a gold edition (including the expansion pack Immortal Throne) for like 20$ which is well worth it.
Titan Quest is a third person RPG set in (mostly) Greek mythology. The controls are very simple - click to move, click to attack, big obvious keys for spells & abilities, etc. You start as a random peasant with a lot of nothing, but as is frequently the case in such games, your foes have been conveniently laid out in order from weakest creature in the entire land to strongest, in a nice 'follow here' pattern starting at your feet.
It has a pretty typical inventory system with body locations to drop equipment onto and a backpack for carrying spare loot, healing potions, and the like. The items are decent but not amazing, with some minor random modifiers added to magic items and different levels of rareness for better gear. The rarer the item, the more cool bonuses it has tacked onto it. There's also a nice collection of charms that can be assembled and attached to items, letting you customize their bonuses slightly to your own preferences. These will vary a bit depending on what sort of character you build. I'm a big fan of lifesteal since healing all the time while you kill stuff seems like a better health tip than eating vegetables regularly.
Once you've gained a couple levels you'll get the option to choose your first Mastery. This is your class selection. You'll end up getting two classes over the course of the game so choose carefully. Each class has an associated skill tree with abilities to match. Think about how two of those are going to go together, since the two will interact and the combinations can be pretty fun. Combine spirit magic (necromancy) with warfare and you get a life draining melee combatant with undead minions. Hunting and storm yields a bow-wielding lightning mage. Nature and rogue combine to give you a trap-laying sneak with wolves and healing at his call. With 8 masteries (or 9 if you have the expansion) there are a lot of fun combinations to try out, and you'll probably end up playing a couple different characters at some point just to do so.
Core gameplay is decent but a bit repetitive. The monster AI is just proximity triggered so its not going to surprise you by doing anything interesting. Monsters tend to be clustered in little packs at regular intervals so you can fight one group, move up, fight the next. Generally every level is laid out in one long path so you just move forward fighting group after group until you reach the next checkpoint / town / guy in a cart / whatever.
It does spice things up a bit once in a while with a serious boss monster though. These are notably tougher, have some cool spell powers of their own, and can actually be a reasonable challenge, particularly if you've over-specialized a bit too far. All your damage revolves around your pets? Whoops, this guy eats pets for breakfast. Entirely dependent upon your life-drain to stay up? Sorry, undead are immune to lifedrain and here's a BIG one. You get the idea. If you get stuck you can always pull back and level up a bit, fill your pack with healing potions, and try again. But when you've been coasting through the normal waves like they were butter for a while it comes as a bit of a surprise to hit something that's actually challenging for a change.
I should say more about pets. Quite a few masteries have a pet or two (or three) at their disposal. These are monsters that follow you around and lend a hand. Pets are fun! They come in a variety of flavors depending on the mastery and almost all of them are really enjoyable to have around. Nature, for example, gets a couple wolves that patrol around you, sweeping the little critters you might not even have noticed before you see your wolves busy eating them. Earth gets a big elemental that stomps around and tanks for you. Spirit has a friendly lich that happily life drains away next to you the whole time. You get the idea. There's several more, and almost all of them are fun, with perhaps the single exception of the Wisp. Storm has a floating electric zapper which I excitedly saved up to unlock. At last I had the points needed and finally summoned him, only to discover that he was a total dud. The Wisp is a close range defender that sits on you and only attack things that are super close by. Unfortunately, its cast by a class that defaults to long-ranged attacking so your Wisp ends up being a pointless speck that hides next to you and does nothing. *Shakes fist* Why couldn't you be a useful pet?
Anyways, there's definitely fun to be had here. You can play it multiplayer just fine. It scales the monsters up a bit for multiplayer play so you still make comparable progress to single-player. Make sure to play completely different masteries so you won't be competing for loot. It sucks to all want the same rare item of coolness when you know you won't see another one like it anytime soon.
If you've got the Diablo itch right now and need a way to scratch it, pick up a copy of Titan Quest today. It is a solid, enjoyable game that does a good job of staying true to its genre while providing enough unique additions to make it worth a run through.
Titan Quest
Rating: 8.2
Titan Quest is a third person RPG set in (mostly) Greek mythology. The controls are very simple - click to move, click to attack, big obvious keys for spells & abilities, etc. You start as a random peasant with a lot of nothing, but as is frequently the case in such games, your foes have been conveniently laid out in order from weakest creature in the entire land to strongest, in a nice 'follow here' pattern starting at your feet.
It has a pretty typical inventory system with body locations to drop equipment onto and a backpack for carrying spare loot, healing potions, and the like. The items are decent but not amazing, with some minor random modifiers added to magic items and different levels of rareness for better gear. The rarer the item, the more cool bonuses it has tacked onto it. There's also a nice collection of charms that can be assembled and attached to items, letting you customize their bonuses slightly to your own preferences. These will vary a bit depending on what sort of character you build. I'm a big fan of lifesteal since healing all the time while you kill stuff seems like a better health tip than eating vegetables regularly.
Once you've gained a couple levels you'll get the option to choose your first Mastery. This is your class selection. You'll end up getting two classes over the course of the game so choose carefully. Each class has an associated skill tree with abilities to match. Think about how two of those are going to go together, since the two will interact and the combinations can be pretty fun. Combine spirit magic (necromancy) with warfare and you get a life draining melee combatant with undead minions. Hunting and storm yields a bow-wielding lightning mage. Nature and rogue combine to give you a trap-laying sneak with wolves and healing at his call. With 8 masteries (or 9 if you have the expansion) there are a lot of fun combinations to try out, and you'll probably end up playing a couple different characters at some point just to do so.
Core gameplay is decent but a bit repetitive. The monster AI is just proximity triggered so its not going to surprise you by doing anything interesting. Monsters tend to be clustered in little packs at regular intervals so you can fight one group, move up, fight the next. Generally every level is laid out in one long path so you just move forward fighting group after group until you reach the next checkpoint / town / guy in a cart / whatever.
It does spice things up a bit once in a while with a serious boss monster though. These are notably tougher, have some cool spell powers of their own, and can actually be a reasonable challenge, particularly if you've over-specialized a bit too far. All your damage revolves around your pets? Whoops, this guy eats pets for breakfast. Entirely dependent upon your life-drain to stay up? Sorry, undead are immune to lifedrain and here's a BIG one. You get the idea. If you get stuck you can always pull back and level up a bit, fill your pack with healing potions, and try again. But when you've been coasting through the normal waves like they were butter for a while it comes as a bit of a surprise to hit something that's actually challenging for a change.
I should say more about pets. Quite a few masteries have a pet or two (or three) at their disposal. These are monsters that follow you around and lend a hand. Pets are fun! They come in a variety of flavors depending on the mastery and almost all of them are really enjoyable to have around. Nature, for example, gets a couple wolves that patrol around you, sweeping the little critters you might not even have noticed before you see your wolves busy eating them. Earth gets a big elemental that stomps around and tanks for you. Spirit has a friendly lich that happily life drains away next to you the whole time. You get the idea. There's several more, and almost all of them are fun, with perhaps the single exception of the Wisp. Storm has a floating electric zapper which I excitedly saved up to unlock. At last I had the points needed and finally summoned him, only to discover that he was a total dud. The Wisp is a close range defender that sits on you and only attack things that are super close by. Unfortunately, its cast by a class that defaults to long-ranged attacking so your Wisp ends up being a pointless speck that hides next to you and does nothing. *Shakes fist* Why couldn't you be a useful pet?
Anyways, there's definitely fun to be had here. You can play it multiplayer just fine. It scales the monsters up a bit for multiplayer play so you still make comparable progress to single-player. Make sure to play completely different masteries so you won't be competing for loot. It sucks to all want the same rare item of coolness when you know you won't see another one like it anytime soon.
If you've got the Diablo itch right now and need a way to scratch it, pick up a copy of Titan Quest today. It is a solid, enjoyable game that does a good job of staying true to its genre while providing enough unique additions to make it worth a run through.
Titan Quest
Rating: 8.2
Monday, August 9, 2010
Starcraft II (PC)
With their well-earned reputation for great game making, many of us wait anxiously for any new Blizzard launch. Starcraft II certainly got its share of associated pre-launch hype and anticipation. So it was with some excitement that I cracked open the case and fired up my copy.
Right away its obvious that the production values on SC2 are top notch. The UI is clean, the graphics are sharp, and every single campaign level smoothly designed with an abundance of integrated cutscenes, voice overlay, and high quality atmospheric elements. This level of detail, carefully designed missions with storyline relevance, and attention to tying elements together clearly make SC2 stand out as a well made game.
So let me step back for a moment and cover the basics a bit.
Starcraft II is a standard RTS, very much in the same model as the original Starcraft. There are three races to choose from - Terrans (human), Protoss (magic feeling aliens), and Zerg (swarming bug aliens). Gameplay involves harvesting minerals and vespane to gain resources, and to train units, buildings, and upgrades. Stronger units unlock with the progressive creation of additional buildings so you always have to make a tradeoff on building specific units to fight with now or continuing to push towards better late game units which might not be ready in time to save your bacon when you need them.
Terrans are the race you end up playing for almost the entire campaign (a departure from the original where they let you play all three races during campaign mode). They've got inexpensive ranged units, strong vehicles, healers, and a long-distance siege tank for smashing fortifications from a safe distance. Protoss (space elves, just admit it and move on) are shield-based with personal shields that recover naturally over time if not killed. They tend to be higher investment per unit but higher per unit output as well. They have some heavy high end units that give good returns for a lot of investment, including a carrier that releases a storm of independent fighters to scour the area around them. Finally, the insectlike Zerg are the rush race, with rapid deployment and the ability to spawn wave after wave of small fast damage-dealing units. Zerg have their own arsenal of tricks as well such as underground movement and infestation, heal naturally, and gain movement bonus when running across their terraformed terrain.
As I mentioned earlier, campaign mode is really well done. Between missions you can enjoy some well crafted story bits, upgrade individual units in the armory, and select tech advances in the lab which allow you to choose between one of two upgrades that will carry forward for the rest of the campaign. No single upgrade is game-breaking, but it gives a nice feeling of variety as you modify units to suit your own playstyle a bit more.
The story progresses forward in a fairly linear path, but you can switch up the order of missions a bit to unlock certain units or upgrades first depending on your preference. You get to do one brief set of missions as the Protoss, but for the most part you're Terran all the way through, so I apologize on Blizzard's behalf to all you Zerg lovers out there. Maybe they'll do a Zerg campaign follow-up later.
Multiplayer battles feel like the old Starcraft multiplayer, with tradeoffs between rushing, teching, and defense. Unfortunately, I actually find it a little too old-style faithful in this respect, as its missing a lot of the RTS evolution that you have probably come to expect in an RTS game. Terrain really isn't all that important, height yields very little advantage, there's no suppression, and battle is much more about straight numbers and rock/paper/scissors tradeoffs than about position and timing. I'm sure the Starcraft junkies are going to yell at me for saying it, and explain how if you memorize all the unit stats you can pick the perfect unit counter for your opponent's build, but truthfully I find multiplayer gameplay to be an awful lot about build fast, build plenty, and run them over with a giant blob. Really good Starcraft players may experience it differently, but I think most players are going to end up sharing my impression of it - speed and quantity is what wins games. That's ok, but not amazing as a tactical experience.
I should perhaps mention the achievement system, because... its got one. But its not memorable in any way, serving mostly as a stamp collection and unlocking a couple different profile images. I would have liked to see them use it for something more - unlocks, bonus content, etc... and was disappointed that they didn't bother.
Overall, I found Starcraft II to be enjoyable, but not impossible to put down. It has solid gameplay and a good campaign to play through. Even shooting for all the campaign achievements though, its not going to take you all that long (a couple days at most perhaps while still remembering to eat and bathe occasionally). It is a good game, and worth a play through, but it doesn't make me feel compelled to keep picking it up over and over for more.
Starcraft II
Rating: 8.9
Right away its obvious that the production values on SC2 are top notch. The UI is clean, the graphics are sharp, and every single campaign level smoothly designed with an abundance of integrated cutscenes, voice overlay, and high quality atmospheric elements. This level of detail, carefully designed missions with storyline relevance, and attention to tying elements together clearly make SC2 stand out as a well made game.
So let me step back for a moment and cover the basics a bit.
Starcraft II is a standard RTS, very much in the same model as the original Starcraft. There are three races to choose from - Terrans (human), Protoss (magic feeling aliens), and Zerg (swarming bug aliens). Gameplay involves harvesting minerals and vespane to gain resources, and to train units, buildings, and upgrades. Stronger units unlock with the progressive creation of additional buildings so you always have to make a tradeoff on building specific units to fight with now or continuing to push towards better late game units which might not be ready in time to save your bacon when you need them.
Terrans are the race you end up playing for almost the entire campaign (a departure from the original where they let you play all three races during campaign mode). They've got inexpensive ranged units, strong vehicles, healers, and a long-distance siege tank for smashing fortifications from a safe distance. Protoss (space elves, just admit it and move on) are shield-based with personal shields that recover naturally over time if not killed. They tend to be higher investment per unit but higher per unit output as well. They have some heavy high end units that give good returns for a lot of investment, including a carrier that releases a storm of independent fighters to scour the area around them. Finally, the insectlike Zerg are the rush race, with rapid deployment and the ability to spawn wave after wave of small fast damage-dealing units. Zerg have their own arsenal of tricks as well such as underground movement and infestation, heal naturally, and gain movement bonus when running across their terraformed terrain.
As I mentioned earlier, campaign mode is really well done. Between missions you can enjoy some well crafted story bits, upgrade individual units in the armory, and select tech advances in the lab which allow you to choose between one of two upgrades that will carry forward for the rest of the campaign. No single upgrade is game-breaking, but it gives a nice feeling of variety as you modify units to suit your own playstyle a bit more.
The story progresses forward in a fairly linear path, but you can switch up the order of missions a bit to unlock certain units or upgrades first depending on your preference. You get to do one brief set of missions as the Protoss, but for the most part you're Terran all the way through, so I apologize on Blizzard's behalf to all you Zerg lovers out there. Maybe they'll do a Zerg campaign follow-up later.
Multiplayer battles feel like the old Starcraft multiplayer, with tradeoffs between rushing, teching, and defense. Unfortunately, I actually find it a little too old-style faithful in this respect, as its missing a lot of the RTS evolution that you have probably come to expect in an RTS game. Terrain really isn't all that important, height yields very little advantage, there's no suppression, and battle is much more about straight numbers and rock/paper/scissors tradeoffs than about position and timing. I'm sure the Starcraft junkies are going to yell at me for saying it, and explain how if you memorize all the unit stats you can pick the perfect unit counter for your opponent's build, but truthfully I find multiplayer gameplay to be an awful lot about build fast, build plenty, and run them over with a giant blob. Really good Starcraft players may experience it differently, but I think most players are going to end up sharing my impression of it - speed and quantity is what wins games. That's ok, but not amazing as a tactical experience.
I should perhaps mention the achievement system, because... its got one. But its not memorable in any way, serving mostly as a stamp collection and unlocking a couple different profile images. I would have liked to see them use it for something more - unlocks, bonus content, etc... and was disappointed that they didn't bother.
Overall, I found Starcraft II to be enjoyable, but not impossible to put down. It has solid gameplay and a good campaign to play through. Even shooting for all the campaign achievements though, its not going to take you all that long (a couple days at most perhaps while still remembering to eat and bathe occasionally). It is a good game, and worth a play through, but it doesn't make me feel compelled to keep picking it up over and over for more.
Starcraft II
Rating: 8.9
Monday, August 2, 2010
League of Legends (PC)
League of Legends is a team-based strategic RPG, of the recent genre emerged from the Defense of the Ancients mod. That's a mouthful. More importantly though, its a lot of fun, and surprisingly, completely free to play. It runs under the microtransaction model with lots of small items that can be purchased one of two ways - either for straight money, or credit earned via game time. What is somewhat unusual is that everything (with the exception of a couple custom skins - visual change only) is purchasable with earned credits. So really they're just banking on people being impatient in order to make money.
The overall gameplay is relatively familiar - You choose a champion, basically a very strong individual hero, who you then take part in a larger ongoing battle with. Throughout the battle small NPCs fight the other team's NPCs while you stomp around and try to push your side to victory. Throughout the course of the game your champion will level up, choose skills, buy items, and refine him or herself into a pinnacle of kick-butt-itude. Sound like Demigod? Yeah, it should. That's the workings of the basic genre that both games are in.
Don't shake it off prematurely, thinking you've already played that. LoL is a really well done version with a lot of winning elements to it. Even if you've spent your hours on Heroes or Demigod you're going to want to pick this up and give it a spin. You're just missing too much goodness if you don't.
Right out of the gate, LoL has some great champions to pick from. There are 55 champions total, and each week about 10 of these are unlocked as free to play. The precise available ones change from week to week, giving you a chance to try them all out over time. In addition to that, you can spend your credits (earnable by gameplay) to permanently unlock specific champions. The champions have a wide range of play styles with a lot of individual personality. Feel like playing a giant demon that eats people and gets larger as it does so? You're in luck. There's the usual assortment of warriors and ninjas mixed with angels, rocket-powered gnomes, and a pyrotechnic little girl who animates her giant teddy bear to romp and stomp! The champions are done with a definite but not distracting humorous nod and lend a very enjoyable air to the gameplay. "I am evil! Stop laughing at me!" announces Veigar, the Tiny Master of Evil, and I still smile when he says it. There's also a lot of goodness in the sheer variety of abilities available. Definitely spend some time trying new champions out and savoring the options.
Gameplay itself is relatively fast and furious, with both sides gaining gold and levels at a fairly rapid pace. Your only real way to slow down the opposing team is to blast them into oblivion, so you end up spending a lot of time doing exactly that. If you are familiar with Heroes of Newerth, you may be distracted by the fact that you can't last hit your own NPCs (killing them when they are low health to deny experience/gold to the opposing team). This means that the only way to actually deny experience/gold is to chase off or kill the enemy heroes, and gameplay adjusts accordingly.
Each side has an assortment of large defensive towers that pack quite a punch in the early game. But since real advantage comes from making sure the other guy is dead, there's a lot of incentive to press dangerously close to them while trying to finish a wounded opponent. The towers are pretty unforgiving so it makes for a nice dance on the edge as you try to build a small positional advantage with one successful skirmish into a slightly larger one with a hazardous foray into tower space.
Another huge win that LoL has over Heroes of Newerth is that it actually has a reasonable beginner path and NPC opponents that you can battle. In addition to normal matchmaker mode, it has a 'practice' area, where games may be set up to include computer opponents. These are worth slightly less credits than normal games, but they're a great place to learn and try stuff out. They also have the advantage of being fast, with a typical practice game vs NPCs taking 11-15 minutes. Don't finish before 11 minutes or you won't earn any credits, but generally speaking most games naturally run just a bit longer than that anyways, so it doesn't tend to be an issue. The computer opponents aren't exactly gifted, but they're a nice way to learn a champion you haven't played before, or simply farm some credits and experience.
Speaking of experience, you also level yourself up a bit and have a minor skill tree full of small bonuses to unlock. You can reset and repick these at any time, so don't worry about 'bad' choices. Nothing you do is going to harm you later. Similarly, you have an inventory of Runes, that also give small bonuses. As you level up you unlock the ability to use more and stronger Runes, which once again, give small bonuses. None of these bonuses are huge, but you end up with loads of them to stack up, so you can tune yourself a bit with them as you grow.
Overall I had a surprising amount of fun with League of Legends. What I originally expected to be just another remake on a known genre turned out to have enough style and flavor of its own to be worth a lot of play. I encourage you to give it a try and get a giant flaming teddy bear of your own. Oh, and when you do, ping me for a referral (or just use the game link up top). Only 9,998 to go until they let me design my own champion!
Cheers!
League of Legends
Rating: 9.1
The overall gameplay is relatively familiar - You choose a champion, basically a very strong individual hero, who you then take part in a larger ongoing battle with. Throughout the battle small NPCs fight the other team's NPCs while you stomp around and try to push your side to victory. Throughout the course of the game your champion will level up, choose skills, buy items, and refine him or herself into a pinnacle of kick-butt-itude. Sound like Demigod? Yeah, it should. That's the workings of the basic genre that both games are in.
Don't shake it off prematurely, thinking you've already played that. LoL is a really well done version with a lot of winning elements to it. Even if you've spent your hours on Heroes or Demigod you're going to want to pick this up and give it a spin. You're just missing too much goodness if you don't.
Right out of the gate, LoL has some great champions to pick from. There are 55 champions total, and each week about 10 of these are unlocked as free to play. The precise available ones change from week to week, giving you a chance to try them all out over time. In addition to that, you can spend your credits (earnable by gameplay) to permanently unlock specific champions. The champions have a wide range of play styles with a lot of individual personality. Feel like playing a giant demon that eats people and gets larger as it does so? You're in luck. There's the usual assortment of warriors and ninjas mixed with angels, rocket-powered gnomes, and a pyrotechnic little girl who animates her giant teddy bear to romp and stomp! The champions are done with a definite but not distracting humorous nod and lend a very enjoyable air to the gameplay. "I am evil! Stop laughing at me!" announces Veigar, the Tiny Master of Evil, and I still smile when he says it. There's also a lot of goodness in the sheer variety of abilities available. Definitely spend some time trying new champions out and savoring the options.
Gameplay itself is relatively fast and furious, with both sides gaining gold and levels at a fairly rapid pace. Your only real way to slow down the opposing team is to blast them into oblivion, so you end up spending a lot of time doing exactly that. If you are familiar with Heroes of Newerth, you may be distracted by the fact that you can't last hit your own NPCs (killing them when they are low health to deny experience/gold to the opposing team). This means that the only way to actually deny experience/gold is to chase off or kill the enemy heroes, and gameplay adjusts accordingly.
Each side has an assortment of large defensive towers that pack quite a punch in the early game. But since real advantage comes from making sure the other guy is dead, there's a lot of incentive to press dangerously close to them while trying to finish a wounded opponent. The towers are pretty unforgiving so it makes for a nice dance on the edge as you try to build a small positional advantage with one successful skirmish into a slightly larger one with a hazardous foray into tower space.
Another huge win that LoL has over Heroes of Newerth is that it actually has a reasonable beginner path and NPC opponents that you can battle. In addition to normal matchmaker mode, it has a 'practice' area, where games may be set up to include computer opponents. These are worth slightly less credits than normal games, but they're a great place to learn and try stuff out. They also have the advantage of being fast, with a typical practice game vs NPCs taking 11-15 minutes. Don't finish before 11 minutes or you won't earn any credits, but generally speaking most games naturally run just a bit longer than that anyways, so it doesn't tend to be an issue. The computer opponents aren't exactly gifted, but they're a nice way to learn a champion you haven't played before, or simply farm some credits and experience.
Speaking of experience, you also level yourself up a bit and have a minor skill tree full of small bonuses to unlock. You can reset and repick these at any time, so don't worry about 'bad' choices. Nothing you do is going to harm you later. Similarly, you have an inventory of Runes, that also give small bonuses. As you level up you unlock the ability to use more and stronger Runes, which once again, give small bonuses. None of these bonuses are huge, but you end up with loads of them to stack up, so you can tune yourself a bit with them as you grow.
Overall I had a surprising amount of fun with League of Legends. What I originally expected to be just another remake on a known genre turned out to have enough style and flavor of its own to be worth a lot of play. I encourage you to give it a try and get a giant flaming teddy bear of your own. Oh, and when you do, ping me for a referral (or just use the game link up top). Only 9,998 to go until they let me design my own champion!
Cheers!
League of Legends
Rating: 9.1
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
EVE Online (PC)
EVE Online is a MMO spaceship game.
I'm going to admit up front that EVE and I are undergoing a trial separation at this time. We used to be pretty close, but over time she's gotten kind of ugly and ill-mannered and I think it would be better if I spent my time seeing other games.
EVE is definitely not new player friendly. In fact, if you don't know people who already play this game, I can't imagine anyone ever starting it and not utterly hating it. The interface is clunky and more importantly, the introductory mission path leads you through what ends up being the absolute worst parts of the game - which is everything except shooting other players.
So before I get too bogged down on that, let me talk about some of the good stuff. EVE's ship system is nifty. There's a nice variety of ship classes, each with configurable modules to specialize the performance of any given ship. Something they did really well is that ships of every size are actually useful throughout the life of the game. A veteran of many years can still get great utility out of a tiny frigate, and perhaps more importantly, a new player in that tiny frigate has usefulness as well. That's a goodness that few games accomplish, largely based on tradeoffs between size / firepower / agility, and providing roles that are filled by smaller ships as well as those filled by larger ones. Your tiny interceptor can be key in holding an enemy in place so your battleships can get close and slug it out, or a covert ops can be providing warp-to locations for the fleet, or deploying bombs in space. This wide range of useful actions for ships of all sizes is where EVE truly shines and you can spend quite a bit of time exploring and mastering the variations.
Player vs player combat is very well done, and both small and medium sized fleet battles are adrenaline-pounding intense. There's an outstanding cat and mouse component, strategic decision making, coordination, timing, and just a wealth of ways to make a difference that create some absolutely outstanding battle dynamics. Coupled with the fact that everything you own in the game is destructible and can be at risk in these situations, EVE combat with moderately well balanced forces can be a serious rush.
Unfortunately, absolutely everything else in the game is just blisteringly dull. I'm not even talking a little dull, I mean like really really excrutiatingly dull. All forms of in-game money generation are painfully boring. The mission paths, fighting NPCs are horribly repetitive and quickly mastered in a trivially repeatable fashion with zero risk. The more money an activity is worth, the more sacrifices you have to make (of your own time and sanity) to do it. And sadly, although relatively evenly matched combat is just a total blast, its hard to generate. You see, there's absolutely nothing in the game that encourages players to be in a situation where there's two relatively even sides fighting, and just tons of ways that discourage it. Combat is hard to find, and pretty easy to avoid. Generally the only good battles come from where both sides mistakenly think they have the advantage and thus choose to engage when they shouldn't have.
Now I spent a long time playing EVE with the acceptance that the 90% painfully dull gameplay was the price I paid for the 10% of really good combat. EVE was (and is) a serious waiting game. The kind of game you play in the background while you have a life and occasionally check in to see if its time to have some fun. That being said though... it got worse.
Basically CCP (the company that makes EVE) has gradually modified the reward structure and ship capabilities to encourage larger and larger groups, with no penalties for group size. They've removed area-effect weapons that punished large sloppy group use, and pushed the high end money-making activities to being focused on (wait, you know what's coming...) large groups.
Large group play takes all the good parts of EVE and just squashes it. Instead of interesting tactical decisions, you end up with a tactical decision of "can I get more guys?". Forget tailoring your ship for special roles, just have everyone equip long range lower powered weaponry. That way it doesn't matter where you are positioned, you'll still be able to shoot something. Since there's no longer any meaningful area-effect attacks, there's no penalty for just adding additional garbage ships. They take almost as long to kill as useful ones.
Worse yet, the larger the group is that you operate with by default, the longer it takes to get a battle set up. Whereas you might have had to get 10 guys on in one place for a good fight before, that quickly climbed and climbed and climbed. Whereas it was hard to find an interesting engagement with a smaller numbers of people, swell that to several hundred and add the increased visibility that comes with it, and your ability to generate a good battle becomes dismal.
This is the model CCP pushes towards though. Epic space battle, thousands of people shooting at each other in one place! Of course, once you hit about 100 people in one place on the server, server performance becomes completely sporadic. So now you're no longer going to get a battle based on the quality of your decisions, but instead based on whether or not you got the random blessing of the server. It is entirely possible for one side to simply freeze in space while the other side shoots them freely, or have their weapons lock up, get broken up, or even just sit there and watch while the other team gets to act and they don't. Yay, thanks CCP, you really took a good game and crapped all over it!
For me that's really EVE's kiss of death. It has been dumbed down to an unforgivable level, rewarding nothing but the addition of more bodies, and then causing larger battles to be completely random. If you were a low skill and uncreative player before, then this is great for you. After all, now you've moved up to a 50-50 chance of winning, and all you have to do is find the largest group around to tag along with. But if you were looking for the mental challenge of outwitting and outplaying a skilled foe, then EVE's days of glory are dead and buried.
If you haven't played it yet, give it a pass. EVE is no longer worth your time. If you still play it and haven't escaped, well there's still some fun to be had, but at the same time CCP is going to rub your face in all their screw-ups over and over and over while you play.
EVE Online
Rating: 7.0 (down from maybe a 9.0 before bad evolution)
I'm going to admit up front that EVE and I are undergoing a trial separation at this time. We used to be pretty close, but over time she's gotten kind of ugly and ill-mannered and I think it would be better if I spent my time seeing other games.
EVE is definitely not new player friendly. In fact, if you don't know people who already play this game, I can't imagine anyone ever starting it and not utterly hating it. The interface is clunky and more importantly, the introductory mission path leads you through what ends up being the absolute worst parts of the game - which is everything except shooting other players.
So before I get too bogged down on that, let me talk about some of the good stuff. EVE's ship system is nifty. There's a nice variety of ship classes, each with configurable modules to specialize the performance of any given ship. Something they did really well is that ships of every size are actually useful throughout the life of the game. A veteran of many years can still get great utility out of a tiny frigate, and perhaps more importantly, a new player in that tiny frigate has usefulness as well. That's a goodness that few games accomplish, largely based on tradeoffs between size / firepower / agility, and providing roles that are filled by smaller ships as well as those filled by larger ones. Your tiny interceptor can be key in holding an enemy in place so your battleships can get close and slug it out, or a covert ops can be providing warp-to locations for the fleet, or deploying bombs in space. This wide range of useful actions for ships of all sizes is where EVE truly shines and you can spend quite a bit of time exploring and mastering the variations.
Player vs player combat is very well done, and both small and medium sized fleet battles are adrenaline-pounding intense. There's an outstanding cat and mouse component, strategic decision making, coordination, timing, and just a wealth of ways to make a difference that create some absolutely outstanding battle dynamics. Coupled with the fact that everything you own in the game is destructible and can be at risk in these situations, EVE combat with moderately well balanced forces can be a serious rush.
Unfortunately, absolutely everything else in the game is just blisteringly dull. I'm not even talking a little dull, I mean like really really excrutiatingly dull. All forms of in-game money generation are painfully boring. The mission paths, fighting NPCs are horribly repetitive and quickly mastered in a trivially repeatable fashion with zero risk. The more money an activity is worth, the more sacrifices you have to make (of your own time and sanity) to do it. And sadly, although relatively evenly matched combat is just a total blast, its hard to generate. You see, there's absolutely nothing in the game that encourages players to be in a situation where there's two relatively even sides fighting, and just tons of ways that discourage it. Combat is hard to find, and pretty easy to avoid. Generally the only good battles come from where both sides mistakenly think they have the advantage and thus choose to engage when they shouldn't have.
Now I spent a long time playing EVE with the acceptance that the 90% painfully dull gameplay was the price I paid for the 10% of really good combat. EVE was (and is) a serious waiting game. The kind of game you play in the background while you have a life and occasionally check in to see if its time to have some fun. That being said though... it got worse.
Basically CCP (the company that makes EVE) has gradually modified the reward structure and ship capabilities to encourage larger and larger groups, with no penalties for group size. They've removed area-effect weapons that punished large sloppy group use, and pushed the high end money-making activities to being focused on (wait, you know what's coming...) large groups.
Large group play takes all the good parts of EVE and just squashes it. Instead of interesting tactical decisions, you end up with a tactical decision of "can I get more guys?". Forget tailoring your ship for special roles, just have everyone equip long range lower powered weaponry. That way it doesn't matter where you are positioned, you'll still be able to shoot something. Since there's no longer any meaningful area-effect attacks, there's no penalty for just adding additional garbage ships. They take almost as long to kill as useful ones.
Worse yet, the larger the group is that you operate with by default, the longer it takes to get a battle set up. Whereas you might have had to get 10 guys on in one place for a good fight before, that quickly climbed and climbed and climbed. Whereas it was hard to find an interesting engagement with a smaller numbers of people, swell that to several hundred and add the increased visibility that comes with it, and your ability to generate a good battle becomes dismal.
This is the model CCP pushes towards though. Epic space battle, thousands of people shooting at each other in one place! Of course, once you hit about 100 people in one place on the server, server performance becomes completely sporadic. So now you're no longer going to get a battle based on the quality of your decisions, but instead based on whether or not you got the random blessing of the server. It is entirely possible for one side to simply freeze in space while the other side shoots them freely, or have their weapons lock up, get broken up, or even just sit there and watch while the other team gets to act and they don't. Yay, thanks CCP, you really took a good game and crapped all over it!
For me that's really EVE's kiss of death. It has been dumbed down to an unforgivable level, rewarding nothing but the addition of more bodies, and then causing larger battles to be completely random. If you were a low skill and uncreative player before, then this is great for you. After all, now you've moved up to a 50-50 chance of winning, and all you have to do is find the largest group around to tag along with. But if you were looking for the mental challenge of outwitting and outplaying a skilled foe, then EVE's days of glory are dead and buried.
If you haven't played it yet, give it a pass. EVE is no longer worth your time. If you still play it and haven't escaped, well there's still some fun to be had, but at the same time CCP is going to rub your face in all their screw-ups over and over and over while you play.
EVE Online
Rating: 7.0 (down from maybe a 9.0 before bad evolution)
Monday, July 12, 2010
Elements (Flash)
I'll do some larger games soon, but am spending too much of my time coding right now to give them proper attention. Until then, I thought I'd touch upon this little hidden gem for those of you who enjoy a bit of turn based strategy gaming. This game is completely free to play with no hidden costs or add-ons, which makes me feel kinda bad for the selfless fellow who builds it since it is a high quality game with solid production values.
Elements is an online card game, in the same basic genre as Magic the Gathering, but without the bloodsucking over-the-top pricing. Now everyone deserves to make money off their work, but MtG is pretty evil about it. Fortunately my addiction is done now, with only occasional flashbacks and gibbering in the night.
You start by picking your element - one of twelve, each with a different style of play. There's no 'wrong' answer here, since you will get to change it freely later on. But it does commit you to playing a particular style of deck while you are first learning and getting new cards. To begin with, pick anything that looks fun and then start getting a feel for what your cards do. Generally each element's starting deck comes pre-splashed with a second element since there are a large number of crossover benefits.
From there you'll get to select your games to play. There are a range of levels to play at, with the higher levels providing harder opponents, higher risk (each match costs you gold to play), and higher rewards. The lowest level match has no cost, but very limited rewards, so you can't ever get stuck in case you do horribly. More importantly, after every win there's a random chance of getting free cards copied from your opponent's deck (they don't lose said cards, you just gain them).
Between matches you can adjust your deck and buy or sell cards. I suggest not selling much, since its generally harder to get cards that gold. More importantly, there are a variety of rare cards that won't ever be for sale in the store, so you really don't want to sell these and then find yourself wanting them later. Sure, you can eventually find another, but it is really annoying to be stuck waiting for a specific drop.
Once you finish all the quests (there aren't that many) you're also given the option of upgrading cards. This generally makes a slightly better version of the original (lower casting cost, stronger defense, etc...), though a few of the upgrades have new powers or utility.
From there you pretty much just play for fun. The quest path is really short, but there's a great deal of fun to be had in building new decks and making them work. If you find yourself just playing one deck over and over and over, kick yourself and try something different. I occasionally let my kids pick an element and then build a deck around that for a change. There's a lot of solid replayability buried in this game if you avoid getting stuck in a rut.
On the down sides, the most competitive decks tend to be fairly predictable rainbow decks, using the most efficient cards from every element and pushing for a late-game win. Also, the top two npc opponents are just stacked with advantages to give them a chance to compensate for their lackluster AI. Double hit points, draw two cards/turn, three free mana/turn, ignore card maximums in deckbuilding, etc... Sure, they remain beatable, but losing because the opponent is drawing two cards/turn and casting the same spell 8 times in the first 8 turns is pretty bleh.
Anyways, I don't want to leave on a bad note because overall Elements is a really well made game, just leaps and bounds above the quality generally seen in free titles. If you enjoy strategy / card type games, it is well worth a play. Have fun!
Elements
Rating: 8.0
Elements is an online card game, in the same basic genre as Magic the Gathering, but without the bloodsucking over-the-top pricing. Now everyone deserves to make money off their work, but MtG is pretty evil about it. Fortunately my addiction is done now, with only occasional flashbacks and gibbering in the night.
You start by picking your element - one of twelve, each with a different style of play. There's no 'wrong' answer here, since you will get to change it freely later on. But it does commit you to playing a particular style of deck while you are first learning and getting new cards. To begin with, pick anything that looks fun and then start getting a feel for what your cards do. Generally each element's starting deck comes pre-splashed with a second element since there are a large number of crossover benefits.
From there you'll get to select your games to play. There are a range of levels to play at, with the higher levels providing harder opponents, higher risk (each match costs you gold to play), and higher rewards. The lowest level match has no cost, but very limited rewards, so you can't ever get stuck in case you do horribly. More importantly, after every win there's a random chance of getting free cards copied from your opponent's deck (they don't lose said cards, you just gain them).
Between matches you can adjust your deck and buy or sell cards. I suggest not selling much, since its generally harder to get cards that gold. More importantly, there are a variety of rare cards that won't ever be for sale in the store, so you really don't want to sell these and then find yourself wanting them later. Sure, you can eventually find another, but it is really annoying to be stuck waiting for a specific drop.
Once you finish all the quests (there aren't that many) you're also given the option of upgrading cards. This generally makes a slightly better version of the original (lower casting cost, stronger defense, etc...), though a few of the upgrades have new powers or utility.
From there you pretty much just play for fun. The quest path is really short, but there's a great deal of fun to be had in building new decks and making them work. If you find yourself just playing one deck over and over and over, kick yourself and try something different. I occasionally let my kids pick an element and then build a deck around that for a change. There's a lot of solid replayability buried in this game if you avoid getting stuck in a rut.
On the down sides, the most competitive decks tend to be fairly predictable rainbow decks, using the most efficient cards from every element and pushing for a late-game win. Also, the top two npc opponents are just stacked with advantages to give them a chance to compensate for their lackluster AI. Double hit points, draw two cards/turn, three free mana/turn, ignore card maximums in deckbuilding, etc... Sure, they remain beatable, but losing because the opponent is drawing two cards/turn and casting the same spell 8 times in the first 8 turns is pretty bleh.
Anyways, I don't want to leave on a bad note because overall Elements is a really well made game, just leaps and bounds above the quality generally seen in free titles. If you enjoy strategy / card type games, it is well worth a play. Have fun!
Elements
Rating: 8.0
Monday, July 5, 2010
Plants vs. Zombies (PC/Flash)
One advantage to having kids (and there are a bunch actually) is that they play a variety of games you wouldn't have found and you get to look over their shoulders and check them out. My spawn are both hardened gamers at this point, so the variety of games this exposes me to is quite high.
My son found this one and soon had us all addicted to it. More importantly perhaps, he went the extra step and bought the full version of it, so we got the chance to play it start to finish with all the bells and whistles.
Plants vs. Zombies is a functionally simple single player strategy game where you defend your yard from Zombie assault by use of a variety of combat-oriented plants. Shooting plants, biting plants, magnetic plants, snowball plants, exploding plants, you name it, plants and violence just go together! Which is good, since there sure do seem to be a lot of Zombies out there in need of some chlorophyll laden crushing.
In the 'campaign' mode you are gradually introduced to an ever increasing array of plant options, while new types of Zombies are unlocked to assault you. The whole thing is done with an outstanding sense of humor. The help screen for example reads "When the Zombies show up, just sit there and don't do anything... - this help section brought to you by the Zombies". Each level you choose which of your plants to bring (enough to give some variety, but not enough to have the perfect solution to every problem) to match against the Zombies lurking outside your yard. Later levels include water plants for your pool (and corresponding Zombies with scuba masks, flippers, ducky floaters, etc..), fog, roof levels, and even a Zombie Zamboni machine that lays down ice for ice-loving Zombies to follow.
In addition to the campaign mode there are a plethora of minigames, puzzles, and alternate game modes. There are quite a few easter eggs buried in, which are gradually shown to you with a purchasable Tree of Wisdom. And you absolutely want to reach the final level on campaign mode. The end credits are a blast!
Plants vs. Zombies is light gaming, relatively easy with cartoony graphics, but its well worth a full play through. It is definitely fun, and was worth the purchase for the full version. Give it a try!
Plants vs. Zombies
Rating: 9.0
My son found this one and soon had us all addicted to it. More importantly perhaps, he went the extra step and bought the full version of it, so we got the chance to play it start to finish with all the bells and whistles.
Plants vs. Zombies is a functionally simple single player strategy game where you defend your yard from Zombie assault by use of a variety of combat-oriented plants. Shooting plants, biting plants, magnetic plants, snowball plants, exploding plants, you name it, plants and violence just go together! Which is good, since there sure do seem to be a lot of Zombies out there in need of some chlorophyll laden crushing.
In the 'campaign' mode you are gradually introduced to an ever increasing array of plant options, while new types of Zombies are unlocked to assault you. The whole thing is done with an outstanding sense of humor. The help screen for example reads "When the Zombies show up, just sit there and don't do anything... - this help section brought to you by the Zombies". Each level you choose which of your plants to bring (enough to give some variety, but not enough to have the perfect solution to every problem) to match against the Zombies lurking outside your yard. Later levels include water plants for your pool (and corresponding Zombies with scuba masks, flippers, ducky floaters, etc..), fog, roof levels, and even a Zombie Zamboni machine that lays down ice for ice-loving Zombies to follow.
In addition to the campaign mode there are a plethora of minigames, puzzles, and alternate game modes. There are quite a few easter eggs buried in, which are gradually shown to you with a purchasable Tree of Wisdom. And you absolutely want to reach the final level on campaign mode. The end credits are a blast!
Plants vs. Zombies is light gaming, relatively easy with cartoony graphics, but its well worth a full play through. It is definitely fun, and was worth the purchase for the full version. Give it a try!
Plants vs. Zombies
Rating: 9.0
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
DemiGod (PC)
So right now no one knows to look here and I'll just be talking to myself. That's ok, I'll just think of it as practice (for something terribly important to be sure) and go from there. I'm going to make a habit out of reviewing some of the games I'm playing and later probably point people over here and let them play some of my side projects as they become available. I suppose at that point I'll be "Talking to Other People Too" and have to change the name or something.
For starters, let's hit a relatively overlooked but quite enjoyable PC title: Demigod by Gas Powered Games. These are the same guys who more recently made the somewhat clunky Supreme Commander, but always carry a special place in my heart for Total Annhilation, which is truly a RTS genre classic. If you haven't spent hours upon hours harvesting energy and building robots in that game, stop now, go dig it up, get an emulator if you have to, and try it out. Thank you Chris Taylor, I still appreciate that one.
Anyways, back to Demigod. This is one of the recent hero-based combat/rts titles that have recently hit the market. It draws its concept from the Defense of the Ancients mod that was so popular on Warcraft III. In Demigod a fierce battle rages between two fantasy armies throughout the course of the game. Each side starts out well fortified with a series of defensive structures and only ordinary warriors and archers (tiny in comparison) to attack the other team. As the battle proceeds both sides gain access to more powerful units with special abilities (healers, siege equipment, stun, etc...) and the fortifications upgrade. However, you don't control any of that directly (you can spend money to decide which things to upgrade first). Instead, you stomp around the battlefield as a massive ultra-powerful semi-divine being and really dictate the ebb and flow of the battle with your presence as you crush enemy troops and slug it out with the opposing DemiGod(s) directly.
It's a good concept and a lot of fun. The armies keep slugging away around you throughout the game, giving a feel of constant activity. Without your help though, they'd be well balanced and really never make much progress. The DemiGods themselves have a variety of special abilities, giving each one a unique feel to it. Granted there are a couple with a bit too much overlap (why look this guy is fast and good at close combat, and this guy is... fast and good at close combat) but I'm willing to forgive that because DemiGod gives us the Rook. Rook is basically a walking castle, and as you level him up he gains more towers and independent weaponry mounted on top of him. He is huge and slow, but while he slogs around you can see showers of arrows raining down onto nearby targets, his magic fortress linking with the other towers, and even a ballista launching from his back at distant targets. He's actually not the strongest DemiGod in my opinion, but he's just so darn fun!
The DemiGods are broken into two major categories - Assassins, who are well suited for individual combat and just control themselves on the battlefield, and Generals, who are weaker individually but have the ability to construct followers (Minotaurs, Vampires, Yetis, whatever) to help them out. The Assassins tend to be stronger early-game but frequently struggle to keep up late game with a General and his full entourage. Gameplay involves defeating enemy combatants (smaller army members and hostile DemiGods) for gold and using that gold to upgrade your army, structures, and equipment.
The equipment system is decent and allows a bit of customization, but really there are some clearly better choices. You also get to pick one bonus item every game which stays with you throughout the entire match but I'm hard pressed to ever come up with a reason to pick something besides the "Swift Anklet" which conveys a movement bonus. With movement leading to the ability to get in/out of fights, finish off fleeing targets, and simply get to good experience opportunities faster, there's really nothing more important as a selection that will stay with you all game. Maybe someone else can show me a compelling reason to pick something else in certain cases, but I'm not holding my breath.
There's an enjoyable 'tournament mode' which has you pick one DemiGod and then play a series of battles of different types with him. These can have a variety of win conditions (destroy certain structures, first team to 10 kills, flag control, etc...). Structures are well done by the way, with small bonuses passed for controlling various locations (extra gold, mana, hps, etc...), a couple flavors of straight combat locations that fight nearby hostiles, and conquerable weapon turrets. There are purchasable upgrades to make these stronger, and as the battle progresses all of your structures will upgrade themselves, and some new structures will be constructed as long as you still control their construction site when you reach that stage of the battle.
You can play DemiGod multiplayer, but my suggestion - don't bother. It is a fine game, and there's probably fun to be had multiplayer but it just doesn't have the depth of something like Heroes of Newerth that falls into the exact same genre and has better multiplayer options but no single player one. Instead, play Heroes if you have time and a multiplayer urge, but enjoy DemiGod when you need to be able to put it down and deal with other stuff or just don't feel like having some prepubescent dolt swearing at you.
DemiGod
Rating: 8.5
For starters, let's hit a relatively overlooked but quite enjoyable PC title: Demigod by Gas Powered Games. These are the same guys who more recently made the somewhat clunky Supreme Commander, but always carry a special place in my heart for Total Annhilation, which is truly a RTS genre classic. If you haven't spent hours upon hours harvesting energy and building robots in that game, stop now, go dig it up, get an emulator if you have to, and try it out. Thank you Chris Taylor, I still appreciate that one.
Anyways, back to Demigod. This is one of the recent hero-based combat/rts titles that have recently hit the market. It draws its concept from the Defense of the Ancients mod that was so popular on Warcraft III. In Demigod a fierce battle rages between two fantasy armies throughout the course of the game. Each side starts out well fortified with a series of defensive structures and only ordinary warriors and archers (tiny in comparison) to attack the other team. As the battle proceeds both sides gain access to more powerful units with special abilities (healers, siege equipment, stun, etc...) and the fortifications upgrade. However, you don't control any of that directly (you can spend money to decide which things to upgrade first). Instead, you stomp around the battlefield as a massive ultra-powerful semi-divine being and really dictate the ebb and flow of the battle with your presence as you crush enemy troops and slug it out with the opposing DemiGod(s) directly.
It's a good concept and a lot of fun. The armies keep slugging away around you throughout the game, giving a feel of constant activity. Without your help though, they'd be well balanced and really never make much progress. The DemiGods themselves have a variety of special abilities, giving each one a unique feel to it. Granted there are a couple with a bit too much overlap (why look this guy is fast and good at close combat, and this guy is... fast and good at close combat) but I'm willing to forgive that because DemiGod gives us the Rook. Rook is basically a walking castle, and as you level him up he gains more towers and independent weaponry mounted on top of him. He is huge and slow, but while he slogs around you can see showers of arrows raining down onto nearby targets, his magic fortress linking with the other towers, and even a ballista launching from his back at distant targets. He's actually not the strongest DemiGod in my opinion, but he's just so darn fun!
The DemiGods are broken into two major categories - Assassins, who are well suited for individual combat and just control themselves on the battlefield, and Generals, who are weaker individually but have the ability to construct followers (Minotaurs, Vampires, Yetis, whatever) to help them out. The Assassins tend to be stronger early-game but frequently struggle to keep up late game with a General and his full entourage. Gameplay involves defeating enemy combatants (smaller army members and hostile DemiGods) for gold and using that gold to upgrade your army, structures, and equipment.
The equipment system is decent and allows a bit of customization, but really there are some clearly better choices. You also get to pick one bonus item every game which stays with you throughout the entire match but I'm hard pressed to ever come up with a reason to pick something besides the "Swift Anklet" which conveys a movement bonus. With movement leading to the ability to get in/out of fights, finish off fleeing targets, and simply get to good experience opportunities faster, there's really nothing more important as a selection that will stay with you all game. Maybe someone else can show me a compelling reason to pick something else in certain cases, but I'm not holding my breath.
There's an enjoyable 'tournament mode' which has you pick one DemiGod and then play a series of battles of different types with him. These can have a variety of win conditions (destroy certain structures, first team to 10 kills, flag control, etc...). Structures are well done by the way, with small bonuses passed for controlling various locations (extra gold, mana, hps, etc...), a couple flavors of straight combat locations that fight nearby hostiles, and conquerable weapon turrets. There are purchasable upgrades to make these stronger, and as the battle progresses all of your structures will upgrade themselves, and some new structures will be constructed as long as you still control their construction site when you reach that stage of the battle.
You can play DemiGod multiplayer, but my suggestion - don't bother. It is a fine game, and there's probably fun to be had multiplayer but it just doesn't have the depth of something like Heroes of Newerth that falls into the exact same genre and has better multiplayer options but no single player one. Instead, play Heroes if you have time and a multiplayer urge, but enjoy DemiGod when you need to be able to put it down and deal with other stuff or just don't feel like having some prepubescent dolt swearing at you.
DemiGod
Rating: 8.5
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