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Apr 29th, 2011 at 11:20:22 - Demon's Souls (PS3) |
Demon's Souls:
Demon's Souls is an action RPG from the third person perspective. The Game is renowned for its difficulty and daunting boss battles. It also has an innovative online that is "passively" multiplayer.
Story:
The Kingdom of Boletaria has been swallowed by a deep fog, and all those who venture into it are never seen again until. Only after Vallarfax of the royal Twin Fangs is able to break free of the fog that the world learns the terror that has befallen Boletaria, The Old One has been awakened and with it an army of demons who consume the vary souls of the people. Those without souls soon fall to madness. And without and resistance against the Demons the deep fog is spreading and will eventually consume the whole world, but there are those that will venture into the Deep fog to fight or seek the power of Soul magic that originally awakened the Old One.
Character:
At the beginning of the game the player is able to customize their hero, by choosing appearance, name, gender (which affects what gear you can use), and one of 10 classes. The classes are a preset arrangement of Character Stats and Starting gear, but have no affect on what you can evolve your character into overtime. Stats are the main way you create your own class as the Class you choose is just a starting point based on where you put your Stat points will determined what you can do well. Weapons and Shields have stat requirements that if unmeet make the weapon very ineffective, and magic and miracles are more effective when you increase your Magic or Faith Stats.
World:
The Game World of Demon's Souls is Broken into 5 Lands that are all accessible from the Nexus. The Nexus is a place of Power that your hero is was bound to after your death which occurred after entering the deep fog. The Nexus Function as a kind of town where the Hero can return, it has a place you can store your stuff, a couple venders, and trainers for Magic and Miracles. The Nexus also contains Arch Stones that you use to travel to the 5 different lands that you must free from the Demon's grasp. Each of the five lands is broken into three sections, and each section has a boss at the end. The first two sections of each land are fairly large and difficult to traverse, and the third section is always the Arch Demon of that Zone and is accessible immediately from the end of the second section of the zone. The first land Boletarian Palace, is the only exception to this as it has four sections all of them contain a level before the boss. After any boss is defeated a new Arch Stone appears which can be used to travel back to the Nexus and from the Nexus back to the new Arch Stone.
Each land is drastically different from the others. They each have a unique setting and Set of Monsters and challenges to face. And even from one Section to the next the Setting can change greatly as well as new and more difficult monsters are encountered.
Combat:
The core of the game is its excellently implemented combat system, your character is very free to move, dodge, block, and attack. You do not feel limited by the controls(once your familiar with them of course). You can roll at almost anytime which allows you to dodge the vicious onslaught of your enemies. You are also able to block, how you perform your block is different based on if you have a shield and if you are wielding your weapon in a one handed or two handed grip. Unless you have a shield when you block you will still take damage but you will take reduced damage, with a good shield blocking will prevent all damage at the cost of stamina. Weapons have 2 basic attacks, a strong and a weak attack, but you also have a dodge attack, a guard break attack, a rolling attack, a running attack, and combo attacks. In addition all weapons can be wielded either 2 handed or single handed and each stance has its own variation for each move, also you can with a single button switch between the stances, making it viable to change mid combat to the appropriate grip. Where you swing is where you damage, meaning if you make a large arcing swing you will hurt every monster in your path, but if you hit a wall your swing will be interrupted, this forces you to choose the proper swing when fighting so as not to be impeded by the environment.
Spells are also not to be left out. In order to cast a spell you must have a catalyst equipped in one hand and have enough mana to cast the spell. You can put the catalyst in either hand so you can use it with a sword and mix magic and melee or you can use it with your shield and maintain your ability to block. Most spells are quick to cast so can be worked into the fast pace of combat fairly easily, though some are slower so must be carefully planned. Mana does not recharge on its own so mana is limited, but there are recovery items that allow a player to play a pure magic build.
Online:
The passively online feature of demon's souls is Multifold. Players can leave messages to other players in the world in the form of glowing runes that can be interacted with to be read. It is simple to leave messages, as they are all in preformed structures that have variables that are filled in. For example "Beware the ______ ahead" where you c an fill in the black with a large selection of items such as "Floor" or "Dangerous Foe" and so on. By restricting what can be said like this it maintains the feel of the world as players cannot type their own messages, this is great as think of what some would say given free reign as well as it makes leaving a message speedy. Players are encouraged to leave good messages by the game because they receive an Instant full heal anytime someone recommends their message, and messages with a high rating are seen by more people and stick around longer.
The Multiplayer also involves blood Stains and ghosts. A blood stain is left by a player whenever they die, and player in other world can interact with it to see a the last 10 seconds or so of the players life before they died, they see in the form of a ghost of the player who died replaying all the actions that the player took. While you can only see the players ghost from this you can get a pretty good idea of what happened to them before they died so you can avoid the same fate. Ghost are players in other worlds that you can sometimes see in your own world, they are just other people playing the game but you may gain some insight by seeing their actions.
Black Phantoms and Blue Phantoms. This is how Demon's Souls Does Multiplayer. A player can use special stones that allow them to either invade and attempt to kill another player and by doing so returning the Phantom to life or they can use the stone to come to the aid of a living player where they are returned to life after helping the player defeat a Boss.
Conclusion:
I love this game, there is so much variation in the combat that it doesn't get old, and the enemies are dangerous enough that they can easily kill you if you are not careful, this makes it so every fight is satisfying and remains so.
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Mar 30th, 2011 at 00:53:30 - Drakan: The Ancient's Gates (PS2) |
Drakan: The Ancients' Gates
Drakan is an 3rd person action adventure game with a few RPG elements. It was developed by Surreal Software and published in 2002 for the Playstation 2.
Story:
Drakan: The Ancients' Gates is a sequel to Drakan: Order of the Flame but the story is not dependent upon the first game. You Play as Rynn, a dragon rider who is bonded to her Dragon Arokh who is a Dragon of the Elder Breed, which turns out to be very important. To Summarize Rynn and Arokh are summoned to the City of Surdana where they find out an evil race of demons know as the Desert Lords are gathering monsters from around the world and enslaving humans cities. They only way to fight back is to awaken the rest of the Elder Breed, who have the power to save them. They are told the only way to do so is to Activate several Gates that are scattered around the world. Arokh alone posses the ability to reactivate these gates so the task falls to you the only Dragon Rider.
World:
The World of Drakan is very large, and filled with places of interest and things to do. The Game is basically broken into several zones that each have a main quest and several minor quests. Each zone has a different theme, such as Forrest, Coast, Arctic, and Desert, this variation of scenery helps keep things fresh and gives a sense of progression. You begin only being able to travel in one zone, but as you progress through the game you are given opportunities to travel to new zones and once there you then must find and unlock a Gate in that zone which allows you to travel back to the zones you have previously been, by traveling through the gates. You do most of you large scale travel with the help of your Dragon Arokh who will go anywhere he can fit, but as he is quite large this leaves you to explore all those dungeons, caves and Buildings on your own. In general the world is very pretty for a game of its time, and the environment are generally interesting to traverse.
Dialogue:
The game is fully voice acted and you can talk to everyone you meet. Overall it is acted and written fairly well. Most of the dialogue is actually worth listening to and there is a definite humor is some. I found that I especially loved the back and forward between Rynn and Arokh.
Controls:
The controls are well thought out and map well to a console controller. I did find the movement to be a little stiff, this is due to the lack of sensitivity setting options that I am used to modern games. Instead of newer games where you press the stick in one direction and that is the direction you run, Drakan uses the scheme: press up move your character forward and Pressing left or right turns Rynn at a set rate left or right. This probably sounds worse than it is as the camera stays behind Rynn so movement end up working like most games Its just turning is a little to slow. The game does allow you to change the control scheme to duel shock but there is still no sensitivity so it didn't really help me. However even with this issue I was able to get used to the controls fairly quickly.
Combat:
There are basically two kinds of combat in Drakan, ground combat and aerial combat. More of the Game takes place on the ground so ground combat is more complex. For ground combat basically you can have a one weapon and optionally a shield. You are able to perform a 3 hit combo with melee weapons as well as 8 different special attacks. Each special attack has a different range and a different swing, you learned to chose which special to use based on the enemy you are fighting and the position you and the enemy are in. This special attack can have a variety of effect such as staggering your opponent, knocking them down, and even disarming them. To perform a special attack you press a combination of up to 2 buttons on the direction pad followed by the attack button. This allows you to very quickly choose the best special attack and execute it in combat. This system felt great to me, it was like mixing a simple fighting game into an action game. It added the tension of making you be careful not to mess up a special attack under stress. It was also a great way to map more attacks then would fit on a normal console controller. In addition to the melee option Rynn is very maneuverable, she is able to dodge attacks by rolling or Flipping out of the way, which is very important as her health does not recover over time. In addition to dodging Rynn is able to parry or block (if she has a sheild equiped) incoming attacks, this however requires timing as you can not simply hold down a block button.
Arial combat is actually done well in Drakan. The controls to fly Arokh feel pretty good and he is responsive. Basically Arokh can fight other flying enemies and enemies on the ground. He starts with fire breath but you can find other breath weapon types. Each breath weapon type has two attacks which generally fall under the categories of ranged and close quarters. Arokh is able to make may breath attacks quickly but each attack takes energy. The energy bar regenerates fairly quickly but it is slow enough that it is better to only attack when you are sure you can hit. In order to dodge incoming attacks you can try to dodge by quickly flying up or diving down. I found that i tended to strafe enemies while zig zaging up and down to avoid incoming fire.
Gear:
In Drakan you have a fairly small inventory that contains all the weapons, armor and items you are using as well as what you are carrying. The inventory is slot based so larger items take up more space. Due to the size of the inventory you cannot just carry everything you ever find with you, choices of what is useful have to be made and everything else should be dropped or sold. In addition to limited space your weapons and armor all have durability, where each hit you deal (or take for armor) reduces the durability of the item by one and when the item has no durability left it cannot be used. Items that are broken in this way can be repaired but when this is done the total durability of the item is cut in half. This imposes a natural limit on how long you can use any particular item and forces you to change your gear as you find new things.
Leveling:
This game has a very simple leveling mechanic, when you gain enough experience you gain a level which gives one skill point. You may spend a skill point in one of three categories: Melee, Archery, or Magic. You can not every reset your skills. And based on your skill you are able to use different and better items and magics.
Overall:
Basically I remember loving this game as a kid when I first played it, and now when I come back to it so many years and game later I find I still find the game quite enjoyable. I even like the combat so much that I wish other newer games were like it. It has its flaws but Drakan has aged very well.
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