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Oct 3rd, 2013 at 19:19:52 - QuizCross (Other) |
Been playing this a month. Downloaded it the day I got a phone plan here in the US because my stepmom insisted I play with her. It's like trivia tic-tac-toe! You have to answer questions right on a 3x3 grid and get 3 in a row. For each cell, to put your X, you answer 3 questions. If you answer 0-2 correct, then the other player can attempt to steal the X from you. If you get 3 correct, then that X is yours and can't be stolen. It's a fun strategic, risky little game of tic-tac-toe. Standard trivia categories. I've cheated some against my stepmom (who is a trivia goddess) and enlisted my girlfriend to help me win. She also likes to play against me. I suck really bad at the entertainment and music questions, but am pretty good at science, history, and oddly, sports. You can play random strangers. It's fun if you are just sitting somewhere waiting on someone for a minute or whatever.
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Oct 3rd, 2013 at 19:09:24 - King's Bounty: The Legend (PC) |
Really happy about this one. Tons of gameplay, which unfortunately does get repetitive by the end, but it's so fun. I learned that King's Bounty was like the predecessor to the Heroes of Might and Magic series. I played one of the Might and Magic games, I think HoMM3, and was struck by how different of an RPG it was compared to what I had usually played. In King's Bounty, you have a main character and can choose among 3 classes. I chose a mage, who focuses on spell-casting and tries to stack intellect and mana. There's a standard skill tree that you spend runes to unlock. You get experience from killing enemies and doing quests and you level up and your stats increase like any other RPG.
In battle, you act as sort of the puppetmaster, like who you are in Magic or Culdcept, where you are the main wizard or whatever and you command troops. As the Mage class, I had 5 troops, which are groups of units. You recruit the troops from NPCs on the map, or you find them, hatch them from eggs or whatever. As a mage, my strategy was usually kill enemy troops from a distance and don't let them close in. The game is long enough that you get pretty much all the talents you want, so I wound up with 3 tiers of this badass talent which lets you cast spells twice each round (each round consists of your turn and the enemies' turn). Getting it 3 times made it so I could cast spells twice per round 3 times in every battle. As you get more powerful spells and increase your intellect, casting 2x, especially being able to do it 2x for the first 3 turns, is sick. I'd usually blast away a huge chunk of the enemy army on the first turn. The troops I recruited were usually ranged, like elven rangers and hunters, inquisitors, priests, evil beholders, dwarven cannoneers and alchemists, goblin shamans and so on. I'd try to hit them really hard with initial spells, slow them so I could pepper them with arrows and magic bolts before they could reach. By the end of the game, the enemy units get pretty damn tough so if, for example, a big troop of orc veterans made it to my hunters, my hunters just get destroyed. Orc veterans have a mean ability where they can counterattack a counterattack. So if they attack you, and you counterattack, which always happens unless that character has already counterattacked that turn, then the orc veteran will counter-counterattack. Orc veterans were some of the meanest enemy troops in the game. Them and black dragons. Black dragons hit really hard and they are immune to all magic. Not good for a mage.
You control your troops in typical turn-based strategy style, moving them on the hex board. They've got action points and some troops have special abilities and all that is very standard for the genre. King's Bounty lets you cast a spell per turn (or two with that talent) as well as use one of your Spirits of Rage. Those are basically just additional spells, but they use rage as a resource instead of mana, and that's on a little bit of a different system. It actually functions exactly like a WoW warrior's rage, where it builds as you attack and are attacked and then diminishes outside combat. But the Spirits of Rage were really cool because it's a big side quest line to get them all. I don't think you technically even have to get them all. But once you have them, there's no more quest or interaction with them besides just using them in battle. I wish they had played more of a role in the story or something.
There are a ton of things to level up in King's Bounty. Your main character levels up, your Spirits of Rage level up through use. When something levels up, you get a choice between two random things to increase. Each Spirit, for example, has 4 spells. Any given level that a Spirit gets, you'll have a choice between, say, Underground Blades damage increase or Rockfall decreased rage cost. There must be 12 different potential options. Damage/duration increase, rage decrease, or recovery decrease. So 12 things. This person on howlongtobeat told me that when Time Back leveled up, it was like a WIN button. But my Time Back never leveled up! Then your main character will get a choice between attack, defense, intellect or leadership. Leadership determines how big your troops can be since each unit costs leadership. You can also level up items by going into them, sort of like Disgaea. You go inside and subdue the gremlins, which get more difficult the more powerful the item becomes. Then the items' stats increase if you win.
You can also marry in the game. Some side quests net you a wife (you can only play a straight male), and different wives grant different stat bonuses. I married a frog who gave +3 intellect if I kissed her and turned her into a human. Complete use value. Wives also have equipment slots, so having any wife allows you to equip 4 additional items, which is awesome. Quests are just going and killing things, sometimes getting an item and bringing it back. They're very basic. Some of the quest stories are nice short reads, but for the most part pointless. The main quest story is nothing to write home about. All the various races (humans, dwarves, elves, orcs), are upset at one another, the orcs kidnap the human king's daughter, you go save her. Blah blah.
The story is completely overshadowed by traveling on the overmap killing troops, finding runes to increase skills, finding gold and leadership banners and so on. It's all about exploring that map and building big armies and leveling up. The game really tapped into my completionist streak. I felt compelled to explore every nook and cranny because there may be treasures or enemies. You can dig for treasures on the overmap, and they may be anywhere, so you are VERY FREQUENTLY rewarded for exploring everywhere. There's almost always something good to get. I wish the story had been better or more interesting because when the game got repetitive and began to overstay its welcome there was no story driving me forward. I actually took a week or so break because it was getting dull toward the end. And the whole finale got plain ridiculous.
The finale is the last thing I'll talk about. By the end, like I said, I was getting weary of fighting anymore. The battles were becoming harder and I was losing a lot of troops every time. If you lose troops, you have to run around the map buying them back, and there are set amounts of available troops, so losing them a lot toward the end was making me a little nervous like I was running out, and since I was running out of money. Also it gets annoying, or tedious, running all around the world restocking your troops. It makes losing troops very painful. Anyway, so I was trying to just avoid battles and go straight from A to B to get to the end and finish. So, I used a walkthrough on the last 2 main quests and a map to get through the Dragon's Labyrinth and avoid the maze. It surprised me that I basically skipped the last 3 areas of the game, Demonis, Dragon's Labyrinth and Murdock and I still beat the game. That was an additional 4 experience levels for sure that I missed! Anyway, Go me. Actually I almost quit at the last battle. The big orc next-to-last boss guy decimated my army and I had just a few troops for the end. I started it, saw I was in the middle of a bunch of dragons, said "Nope" and turned it off. I really hated fighting against dragons. Over the course of the day I was thinking about it and I was like, I can beat it. I went online and looked for help and read that Glot (or Glob)'s Armor, one of the Spirits of Rage abilities, made the character it was cast on invulnerable to friendly fire. I didn't know that. So I used Armageddon (damages all enemies by A LOT and your troops take 35% of the damage) twice and killed 95% of the last boss's dragon army. The Glot's Armor troop lived through both Armageddons. That troopfFinished them off and with one more round of Fire Arrows I won. Literally beat the last boss in 2 rounds. Now realize I could have gotten through all those end areas using the same strategy. But whatever. Level 26 Mage on Normal.
I have another King's Bounty game, Crossworlds. I also have Armored Princess, but I've read that Crossworlds is Armored Princess with additional content. I'll wait a while to play Crossworlds, but when I do I will play a warrior for a different experience. Also I really hope they have changed some things in the game just for variety since it was quite long. But I'll be glad to jump back into this type of gameplay. Great game. Highly recommended.
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Sep 28th, 2013 at 15:18:44 - Torchlight II (PC) |
Burned through Torchlight II in a few days. Complete and total grind to the end with nothing pushing me along except compulsively killing things and leveling up and getting better gear. I'd definitely talked this up in my head like it was going to be a much enhanced version of the original Torchlight and more similar in quality to Diablo 2/3. Didn't realize it was still such an indie game. Not saying that derogatorily. Visuals didn't make me look twice, sound design was bare, I don't recall any music except an odd electric guitar that surfaced here and there. I kept wanting to hear Diablo 3's barbarian roars and feel the weight of those badass characters, but the "oomph" was missing here.
While I'm on sort of depressing downsides, I'll keep going. The story was utterly absent. They set up a skeleton narrative. You follow a bad guy named The Alchemist who is going after some artifact to rip open the portal between the real world and the Netherworld or something. Everywhere you go, The Alchemist has already been. He kills/takes over/enrages a few big elemental guardians along the way to sap their power and take it. In the end, you kill him and take the artifact. I just told you the entire story in 4 sentences. Nothing happens, absolutely nothing. The main quest has weak voice acting to tell it. The side quests almost all involve "going into this cave right here and killing a baddie" and "running around the map and clicking 4 things or picking up 4 objects." The only point of the side quests, the narratives of which are lame, is to go into a dungeon or cave or whatever and kill stuff, gain some XP and hopefully some items, and sometimes kill a miniboss that nets an achievement.
When I reached the end of the game, I didn't know I had reached the end of the game. This made me very sad because it felt rushed. All of a sudden...and I mean ALL OF A SUDDEN...you're fighting the "Dark Alchemist," which I guess was The Alchemist. No one tells you that. You just approach some stairs that say "The Alchemist," then you enter and have a fight. He doesn't say anything, nothing happens. You just fight and kill him. Then I was like, what? Are the credits going to roll? No, they don't. You keep going. I was asking myself at that point, okay, what is next? I didn't even know that was The Alchemist. Or was it? So go another level or 2 down the dungeon and all of a sudden there are some stairs for "Netherlord" or something. Go in there, hey it's another boss, fight and kill whoever the Netherlord is. It dies, a bunch of achievements pop up for beating the game. No story, no boss speech, no nothing whatsoever! I didn't even know who that was, and wasn't even sure if I'd faced the actual Alchemist! So disappointing! Part of the reason I kept playing through to the end was just to see what the last boss would be like, and I was just confused as to who I was fighting and what I was doing at the end. I would have quit earlier had I known nothing happened!
If, on the chance you loved playing through the game, there is a ton of replay value. 4 difficulties (I played on Normal, which was 2/4), a hardcore mode, online, a new game + that starts from the beginning with all your equipment and everything at level 51, and a bunch of maps. These maps are cool and reminded me sort of of Bastion. Basically they are areas you can purchase your way to that have level recommendations and various penalties and enhancements for you/allies and enemies. In my game, I had a map that was recommended for level 105 as the highest! I was 53 at the end, by the way. There were probably 50 maps all the way from level 45 or so, to that 105. They'll say things like Allies gain 10% chance to find magic items, have 20% increased cast time and attack speed. Enemies gain 100% damage, 20% chance to freeze for 4 seconds. Stuff like that, handicaps and ways to weigh risk and reward. I think it's neat for those who want to continue improving their character or face serious challenges.
Despite my general disappointment, there was some neat stuff going on. There were secret rooms to find and champion enemies and special bosses to discover, kill and get achievements for. Usually about one per big map area, you find a locked golden chest. If you explore thoroughly, you'll also find a fairy who, if you kill, drops the key to the chest. There are also, with about the same frequency, phase beasts, which if you kill open a portal to unique challenges. These were my favorite parts of the game. Sometimes you fight arena battles with waves of increasingly difficult enemies in the phase portals. Sometimes you run a gauntlet or something. The best one, which was really memorable, and which I wish there was more of, said "Stay in the light" when I entered. Then a big spotlight shone on the ground and began moving forward. I had to fight my way through this linear dungeon, and try to grab as much treasure as I could, while staying in the light! It allowed for some cool set pieces where the light would stop and you had a little sumo match with some hulking enemy, and these frantic parts where the light moved quickly and tons of enemies were coming out of the walls, and when you saw a good item, you're like gogogogo get it get it! If you stepped out of the light, you started taking a lot of damage. I can't remember if it culminated in a boss fight. But the boss fights in the game were quite fun. There was always a lot happening on screen. Usually they were very easy, but still hectic and fun.
And of course, there was tons of random loot, sets, unique items, gems, enchantments and on and on and on as you would expect. Sometimes you'd find in dungeons special enchanters who could do a certain type of enchant, like one that just enchants random poison enchants or one who does only stat attributes. Enchantments were probably the main way I burned through gold. Also, purchasing items from vendors, because they often had purple set items, and later you find a vendor with spells, which I didn't know I could learn until like level 20. As an Outlander, I ended up learning some passive spells that increased my pet's attributes, my dual wield damage and so on. Pets are still fun. You still feed them fish to transform them into spiders with a web ability or warbeasts with high attack or crabs with high armor or whatever else. I utilized mine as a tank a lot.
All in all, Torchlight II was a fun game, but felt lackluster compared to Diablo 3, even with all that game's flaws. I was expecting more.
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Sep 25th, 2013 at 19:04:33 - Antichamber (PC) |
Gonna be blunt. I didn't enjoy Antichamber very much. I played a little over 2 hours and by the end I was frustrated and had a headache I think from the white walls and the solid color blocks everywhere. The visuals are just very minimalist and I think the colors and the geometry just gave me a headache. That's fine. I could play in chunks. But here's the thing too. I think after spending years playing and researching Portal 2, games that are similar feel automatically inferior. I think, why would I play this since I've already played Portal 2? Granted, I see lots of merit behind the design of Antichamber. The technical wizardry with perspective I really appreciated, but the philosophy behind it I thought was boring and I felt like I was being hit over the head with all these little quotable quotes like "Sometimes taking a step back is the only way to go forward" or "The same puzzle can have multiple solutions" or whatever. Yeah, yeah, I've played puzzle games.
The signs that had these sayings, accompanied by a picture on each sign, often were placed after you'd just done whatever it said, which I thought was odd. Why not put the signs before so players anticipate how to think instead of realize after doing that they've (perhaps) thought a certain way? The signs I suppose are interesting ways of teaching the player and guiding them at the same time. They teach how to think about puzzle games in general, and this one in particular, though like I said, I felt I already had everything I'd done in 2 hours under my belt beforehand. Sometimes when you went backwards, things would be different. Sometimes, what seemed like a dead end wasn't, when you returned to a spot there was a new path, when you looked at something from a different angle, a new path appeared, and so on. I didn't feel any of this was that amazing. Then there was a sort of gravity gun where you could pick up blocks. You can upgrade the gun later on, but you essentially pick up blocks and use them as ledges, as doorstops, as keys...neat okay, but nothing new or exciting.
I was intrigued at first by like going backwards and how the hallways changed, but after a couple hours, I wasn't anymore. I was just trying to progress, solving each little room until I hit a snag, then just going back and retracing my steps looking for a new path to have opened, or looking for something I could now do with the block gun. There was a certain logic to the game that I enjoyed, the logic of multiple perspectives I guess, but it felt more like a logic of "ok now come back and look." Yeah, it's a different perspective on the same room, or yeah, now you have a new tool to help, but it's still linear in that way. This, then that, then come back and now this, and now that. Underwhelmed and a little bummed out. Headache's gone though.
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