The Myth of Hero Legends

If anyone has played and enjoyed Bimboosoft's Battle of Tiles on the PC, there is now a game on the iPhone/iPod that plays quite similar to it.

It's called The Myth of Hero Legends and its about a party of heroes, who you position and then slide along, and fight oncoming enemies. The party has mages, healers, fighters and archers/spear throwers, and you manage their physical positioning and their abilities fire off as they commence an attack. You earn experience and gold as you progress through the waves, and you can purchase/bribe enemy types to join your band to help against the onslaught. It has a chinese flavour to it, and the party arrangement isn't as tight as BOT, but its fluidity and smaller scale suits the iPhone better I think.

You tap your adventurer icon to select them or deselect them from the party, then to advance you swipe the screen in a given direction and the selected units move forward in that direction. As you do, the enemy move towards you. So you basically set up a movement and protection formation and advance, and see how the combat turns out. Its essentially turn based. If you healer is near a unit that takes damage he will heal it. If your ranged troops spot an enemy in their range they will fire. Similar you use the fighter as a shield for your weaker support troops. You tap and hold over the units or the enemy to see their stats. Although I don't think there is any equipment management or whatever, but your troops do level up as they do damage to the enemy. So it behooves you to keep all your troops rotated through a position where they can attack or kick off their specials, because thats how they level up I think. You can purchase incoming enemy and add them to your party if you can get them back fast enough. So you can take on their abilities and level them up.

Its right up my street, I can see me putting some time into it, because I was utterly charmed by BoT, and this is a smaller more manageable scale. With nicer graphics. I think its about £1.79 on iTunes at the moment.

Worth the effort if you like turn based party RPG-lite strategy.

Demon's Souls: Multiplayer Rant

I think its time for a rant.

I love the game. But the online component is getting to me a bit.

1) theres quite a faff about to get a co-op game sorted

• a) you have to be a revived human to draw others into your game, if you want this, you have to have recently killed a Demon, and not died. Easier said than done in this game.
• b ) you have to have your friends in a soul level range +-10 from your main, revived character.. and you have to tell them somehow which unmarked summon point in which level area to meet up.
• c) they have to all be in phantom form to join your game, and be within 10 levels and be at the same place
• d) you can't talk to them within game, easily.
• e) you take them through the level, they get nothing but a share of the souls, you get everything loot wise and a share of the souls
• f) If the die, they're booted. If you die, they're all booted. Repeat and rinse the whole getting together scenario, only this time, your a phantom, and you'll have to wait till one of your mates beats a demon boss to be revived to invite you.

2) PUGs are easy to join

• a) You can pick up virtually anyone, if your alive, and they drop their stone somewhere you can find.
• b ) Most players rush through the levels without thought or concern about you
• c) Most players seemed to be tooled up to the bollocks whilst you're a level 6 ranger with a pissy scimitar
• d) If you die you're booted, if they die, you're booted. The only way to relay any thoughts or feelings is by a ratings scale which is artbitrary to say the least. Most rank you S or A, unless they didn't like what you did, then they rank you D.
• e) If you summon someone into a game, but you've cleared quite a few of the nasties, then you're dragging them along just for the boss ride... I unintentionally did this, and on the way to the boss the guy charged out and got himself killed, so he got no souls reward, and he didn't make it to the part of the level where we could have faced enemies together, let alone have a stab at the boss. With a die once, and you're out policy its very harsh on the summoned player.

3) Black Phantoms are a pain

• a) If you're a revived human, you've managed to summon two other phantoms into your team, with all the buggery pokery that that involves, and then a Black Phantom invades your game, stalks you, and takes you out, thus kicking the other players.. you then have to try and be summoned into a co-op game, or beat a demon boss to get to the point where you left off, before this Black Phantom griefer turned up.
• b ) You can sometimes hear them coming, but most of the time, they're beefed up "evil" teens, who take you in a hit or two. No level playing field, just added threat, to a game that already exudes threat and loss, particularly in the online game.

So, as a single player game with some "Fable 2 like" ghosts and shadows its great, the messages are a cool idea, the limited death replays are cool. But as a multiplayer game it lacks presistancy between the party assembled, the forming of a party requires quite a hefty starting price, that can be lost so very easily, the joining of a co-op game as a phantom results in little rewards apart from shared souls.. but if you make it to the end and the boss fight, you can then host your own co-op game and draw upon other souls. However, there is always the persistance danger that a Black Phantom will turn up and mess it all up for everyone involved. Theres no method of direct communication, and the party assembled is disbanded if the host dies, and any invited phantom who dies is lost forever. But you can pin a more or less meaningless rating upon that player that will affect their co-op game uptake in the future.

As a single player game and an action RPG with top notch twitch based strategic control, and an artistic bent that ICO itself would be proud of, its brilliant, and well worth the extra 20 quid for import. As an online multiplayer game, it lacks features severely and what it does provide it does badly (compared with most multiplayer co-operative and competitive console games out there)...

Ok, rant over.

I've been approaching the game as a bit of a single player workout for a multiplayer game, but I see now its a single player game with tiny multiplayer novelties. I think I've been coming at it from the wrong angle.

I would say, in its defence, its one of the best single player action RPG's I've ever played... and I've played a bucketload of those.

And the cool multiplayer ideas (the player marked comment system, seeing brief ghosts of others playing, and the blood pool replays), do add to the game - but if you put multiplayer in, and then leave out the basics like communication and party persistance, it gets frustrating to those of us who play a hell of a lot of co-operative multiplayer in both console titles and MMO's. Fable 2 had similar co-op multiplayer novelties, and I didn't get to play much satisfying multiplayer in that also. So for DS, its a bit of a shame. Because if it was setup a bit more robust, or even a bit more like Phantasy Star Online (which had textual communication and party mechanics for four people), I could see me being sucked into this game's multiplayer for months on end.

Perhaps the problem is its an niche game only being marketed to Asia, and I'm judging it against Western multiplayer standards?

Demon's Souls

I cannot praise this game highly enough. Its an action RPG by the FROM SOFTWARE people, that really captures twitch combat, and strategy, along with quite a harsh progression, that ups the stakes and makes it even more tense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon%27s_Souls

Its not available to America or Europe at the moment, but can be imported (as the Asian copy has full English text and audio)

You can import it at Renchi
http://www.renchi.com/renchi/PS3_Games_Asia_Demon_s_Souls_AS.htm

Anyway, the key features to the game that make it stand out

* A detailed fantasy "twitch" combat mechanism that just feels right (without remembering strings of combo's), melee, magic and ranged combat all covered.
* Huge multi-pathed levels, that open up shortcuts and exploratory mechanisms of getting around.. some of the parts to a level require actual thought and strategy to get through without dying.. this isn't a chug a health potion diablo game, you need to use the right weapon, time shield blocks, backstabs etc..
* Impressive bosses, with an array of tactics required to take them down
* Online co-op and PvP capability
* Looks absolutely gorgeous, and captures mood and lighting very well, with some stunning set pieces as you fight your way through

Anyway, the unique features are that you play in one of two modes, either as alive, or as a soul, destined to slay demons to revive yourself. As a soul, you'll only have a smaller percentage of your original health. As you play through your single player levels, you'll see ghosts of other players souls online flash by you, for a brief moment, other players can etch ectoplasmic messages so you get tiny twitter style hints and tips (or misinformation from evil players), you'll also see pools of blood where other players have died, and by activating them you can watch their death moments as a ghost figure, so these can give you a warning of trouble ahead. Once you're into the game and have earned your soulstones, as an alive player, you can pick up bluestones and summon the phantoms of other players into your game, and they can help you get through the levels and beat the boss. You collect the souls throughout the level and share it with them.. If they beat the boss, they are then revived back to alive status. If you are a soul, you can lay your bluestone down and other players can summon you to their game.. its quite a unique mechanism for online play. After a level you can rate a player, and their ratings are shown with their bluestone, before you summon them. One thing though, as an alive player, with other phantoms in your game, you can have black phantoms (PvP players) break into your world, and hunt you and your players down!

The game has quite a harsh death mechanism, in that you respawn at the beginning of the level, and remember these levels are huge, and you have to battle everything again. You also lose your current stash of souls collected, but you can return to your blood pool and retrieve these - if you make it that far. You also have some wera and tear on your armour. However, because of this, you will tread very carefully, because getting to the boss is the ultimate aim of the level, but even then you're not secured a win, and so the penalty is just enough to make it very tense, but although frustrating at times, you can make progress, over time, if you shift your tactics, if something is not working and is getting you killed.

Overall, the game is outstanding. And if you're serious about your RPG's and you have a PS3 this is a must grab title. Its a shame its not out over here at the moment, and it comes in a little expensive on import - about 60quid in total for me (but that was with delivery that had it to me in 5 days from Hong Kong).

It mechanism reminds me very much of Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast, with its central Nexus and multilayered levels and impressive end bosses.. its just so much more intense, and so much more strategic.. and the combat plays out brilliantly. Top Marks. I was worried about the harsh death penalty, but this is so good, it doesn't feel like a penalty at times it just feels like a tactical lesson.

Gods: Land of Infinity

http://www.gods-game.com/

Its a very well done Homebrew style RPG, with first person roaming, and chatting, and a turn based combat mechanism (ala Final Fantasy). Not sure its worth real money, but its worth having a look at the demo and seeing how the small independant developers are having a crack at some 3d RPG's.. and with a God called Arswaargh you just can't go wrong..

Mass Effect

I've finished a Normal run through Mass Effect in about roughly 25 hours. I would say it has been one of the most exciting and involving pieces of game play I've had this year. I must declare the fact that I come to Mass Effect prepared, in that I'd given enough time to read the prequel novel to the game beforehand. I enjoyed that novel and its story immensely. It was good, believable Science Fiction. Continuing that story into the game itself, was a big part of the experience, because I was able to step into that universe and take an active (if fairly predetermined) part in it. Places and races I'd imagined through the writings had become tangible and interactive. The pleasurable fog of imagination had been gently blown clear to reveal a living and pulsing environment where I could explore (and sometimes scrutinise) individuals to my hearts content, where I could exercise control over bursts of action, and decide what parts of the unfolding destiny I would delve into next. The prequel novel is by no means a requirement to enjoying Mass Effect, and if you question the right people, you get a summary of the books plot explained to you fully. But, what the prequel did was whet my appetite for this world, tease me with tidbits for the epic scale of the tale about to be told in the game.

I could wax lyrical about the game in terms of my emotive attachment to the character I created and controlled in that world. But I'd like to get across not only the cinematic euphoria that you open up along the way, but the mechanics by which they assemble this journey.

Highlights of the game:

Story: I've mentioned the Story already, a very adult and convincing story that takes place in a very believable setting. Drew Karpyshyn http://www.drewkarpyshyn.com, the writer, has certainly won me over and I'll be looking forward to sampling his other titles.

"Acting" and dialogue: Normally imparting a lot of dialogue to the player can slow things down, and hinder any sense of forward flow. Players begin to skip over sections in favour of tasting the action based "sweet spots". Bioware has managed to craft a mechanism by which NPC's can perform their lines with believable acting. Coupled with excellent voice acting, natural conversational flow and concise trimming of the information presented, their ability to impart story elements in a fascinating and engaging way is probably one of the games major achievements. I have been guilty of dialogue skipping in the past in many info heavy RPG's, but Mass Effect had me positively excited at the prospect of learning more about a character or about a story hook, wanting to delve deeper into the conversational tree and unearth more treats.

Mako: Much of the planetary exploration is done via the Mako, an all terrain vehicle, resembling an armour plated moon buggy. I found the Mako a joy to drive/pilot, I believe many people found the controls to be awkward. I think if you come at the Mako as if it was a Warthog from Halo, you'd be misjudging its elegance in control. Whilst it does have a similar point and move interface the right stick is primarily used for aiming the main cannon, or artillery shot. Moving the aiming reticule left of right will attempt to adjust the Mako's direction in small increments, if the left stick (for throttle) is pushed forward. However, the left stick is the key to controlling the Mako, not the right stick. Point the left stick hard left and the Mako will move forward in that direction, left. Move the stick back and the Mako will move backwards. So its entirely possible to circle strafe an installation or enemy using the left stick to determine the Mako's direction, and the right stick to aim the cannons. This coupling (and independence) of the two sticks makes the Mako a very manoeuvrable vehicle indeed. Plus on top of this you have the jump jets, that can launch the buggy up in the air - particularly useful for overcoming difficult terrain and avoiding slow moving rocket fire. The machine can turn on a sixpence and is very adept at climbing up steep mountainous landscape. I had nothing but fun with the Mako, driving it and positioning it for strategic shots was most rewarding. Escaping and taking cover and repairing it was necessary at times. It is a powerful armoured transport, but its no way invincible. The Mako physics were a real treat, once you understood and adapted to the controls.

Action: I found the combat to be fast paced and tactical. A major step forward in terms of going real time and ranged, from the turn based approach Bioware used in the Knights of the Old Republic games. What was extremely satisfying was the fact that if you died taking one particular approach to the combat, you could load the save game, change your tactical approach and see obvious advantages and disadvantages quite clearly. The gunfights are more Rainbow Six than Gears of War. But they still delivered the action based adrenaline surge, with the satisfaction of seeing different RPG tweaks and modifications manifest into victories or defeats.

Classes and Difficulty: The three main classes, plus the three hybrids give enough breadth for you to try the play through with a few characters and still see different approaches to the same tactical combat situations. The mix of ranged weapon types, with biotic powers and technological devices creates a very interesting mix for your characters development and those of the main accompanying squad members. You also have 6 squad mates who you can pick and choose from, with their fixed class/race representations. So you could play through with the same character build, and just choose different squad members to ally with and possibly have a different approach to combat situations. The variety on offer fuels your enthusiasm for creating a different build, and playing through again on a harder difficulty setting. As soon as I'd completed the game, I'd already mapped out what I wanted to be and how I was going to approach it on my Hardcore play through. I must say, as hardcore ramps up the enemies health and resistances, it does turn the game into a much more tactical experience.. and part of me wished I'd done it on Hardcore from the start. The combat now has to be thought out almost before the first shot is taken. And with a single run under my belt, I can now feel my way through parts of the game I didn't explore with my first character. I think the game has succeeded in creating something which is at least re playable and still entertaining for two or three passthroughs. Unlocking the specialist armour and arms in itself is a draw for some people.

Music: It may not appeal to everyone, but the almost vangelis like musical score sits very well with the art direction and general theme of the Mass Effect world/universe. I found it enhancing during combat situations and mood setting in most places. I like the enjoy game music outside of the game too, Anarchy Online's soundtrack still being an all time favourite of mine, and I think Mass Effect's musical score has a similar appeal.


Lowlights of the game:


Squad AI: There were a number of times when your squad members get stuck, or move somewhere inappropriate and get chewed up. I found if you paid close attention to the commands you sent your squad, holding them back mainly and opening up long range or crossfire opportunities, you could minimise these 'errors of judgement' on your allies part. But sometimes they hinder your movement in narrow corridors, sometimes they don't move when they should - stuck on environment.

Unlocking/Decrypting Mini-game: Adopting a very simple key tap process to give the impression of a complex hacking task is a bit too much like over-simplification. If they could have varied it slightly for different operations. Added some other mini-game mechanic in there to keep the process time dependant and interesting it might have helped. As it is, its hardly a 'mini game' and even lockers/containers that are deemed HARD, seem very easy to tap open. Its not a major downer, because it becomes just a pedestrian task to have to do, to get at the all important loot.

Elevators: A loading mechanism, that seems to be used very often in the game. The world of Mass Effect is littered with Elevators. And whilst you do get a chance to listen to some snippet of radio chatter, or your squad members banter, it only serves the purpose of slowing down the game with long inactive pauses. I realise with such a lot of information needing to be loaded its more aesthetic than a loading screen. But the long elevator rides do wear away at some of the enjoyment, possibly keeping you back from exploring places, simply because you cannot bear another long pause of doing nothing. I used most elevator rides to spin the camera round and admire my character's outfit and other attributes.

Exploration: In addition to the main storied planets, you can explore Uncharted Worlds. Essentially some of the planets in each galaxy, star system can be explored. Whilst this was a welcome addition, in terms of including side-quests (assignments) to the main story, the reality was that only one planet per system usually allowed set down, and then once there only one or two curiosities were available for you to drive up to and investigate. Sometimes you'd have to assault a base or check out an anomaly, but the bases tended to be built around a very limited set of tiles, often encountering the same base type on a number of Uncharted Planets. The freedom of the Uncharted Worlds is a real plus point in terms of longevity from Downloadable Content, because I can see a lot of scope for including additional content through this exploration mechanism, or even randomly generated assignments, the ability to do this is there, whether it is on the cards at Bioware I'm not sure. The limited implementation and repetitive use of tile sets at the moment take away from the feeling of galactic freedom that the game seems to promise.

Graphical Glitches: Some frame rate slowdown when the combat becomes very frantic and littered with enemies. That was the main graphical downer for me. And I must say it only happened a handful of times. People have reported the texture pop-in being a major cause for concern, but I didn't find that annoying really. It meant less time loading in elevators or in game transitions and more time in game. So there were few seconds of low texture mapping till the proper textures were loaded up, it was a price I was prepared to pay.


Overall:

Bioware had me, as I delved into their prequel novel. I was sold on their concept of bringing a believable science fiction universe to life, where I could take part in the main story line, and explore the nuances of the details left in all the sub-plots and side assignments. Mass Effect is going to be a trilogy, but the first installment was satisfyingly brought to a close without leaving a frustrating cliffhanger. The game world has enough depth to open up the story for the next games to come, I think Mass Effect will become a very popular vehicle for Sci Fi RPG's on the 360, and I'm hoping they will boost the games longevity with key downloadable content, building upon the uncharted world mechanism they have in place. Despite the few niggles and mechanisms that don't seem to work that well, I think Mass Effect has pushed the envelope significantly forward on what we will expect in our action RPG's in the future. What worries me is how can I watch other games dialogue scenes without having the same level of "acting" and lavish story detail? They've set a new bar for NPC interaction, and I doubt most games will be able to hurdle it.

Mass Effect, well worth your time and money, if you have any interest in good Science Fiction, Tactical Action, and Character progression/tinkering.

Hellgate

The more I play Hellgate, the more I fall in love with it. I'd sort of sidelined it, after the beta, as a distraction that was ultimately souless. As an FPS it is poor. If your'e wanting to play this game in first person then you're probably coming at if from the wrong angle, buy Bioshock, or Timeshift, or Blacksite, they'll probably deliver in the first person shooting department tenfold over Hellgate. Wheelmouse your expectations backwards, and take on the third person perspective, better still take up a tech sword, splash damage boomstick or kit yourself out with some attack droids and inhibitor drones.. and you'll be ready to take on Hellgate as the action fest it is meant to be.

This is Diablo. In the future. But with the demons. And guns. And robots. Played in sumptious 3d gore-o-vision. There are six classes on offer, which all play different enough to warrant your exploration of them. The game provides London tube stations as hubs for you gather quests and tweak your kit, with generated instanced quest locations to dive into and test out your latest action hero. The game has single player and multiplayer modes, both of which follow the same storyline, and quest progression. However the multiplayer mode allows you to group up with others. Although it offers a paid subscription for additional functionality in the multiplayer game, this is probably only something Hellgate fanatics will bother with. You get 2 character slots for single player and 3 character slots for the multiplayer game - so your average Joe will have enough slots just out of the box, to explore most of the game with the classes they want. The nutters who want to pay the subs fee, get another 20 odd slots, can make guilds, can hold more items in their stash and inventory, as well as download content that has been promised in the future.

So, taking on the demonic hoards, whether single player or solo-ing on a multiplayer server, is a rewarding affair, mainly because you get frequent rewards, theres a lot to tinker with in terms of item upgrading with slotted additions, item breakdown to constituent parts, and the forging of new items from those parts. Theres always something to tweak after each high octane blast of action. And the station hubs provide more or less everything you need for that tinkering process. You'll also be climbing the skill tree, slowly but surely, experimenting with new skills, seeing how it fits in with your overall idea of the character. I think the most rewarding experience in the game, is taking on a new skill that sounds "cool" and then taking that skill out and seeing where it fits in to the chaos of the combat. Grabbing a high arc swing of your sword that is meant to take down otherwise unreachable enemies in flight, and then scrapping with a room full of sonic bats, and dropping high arc's, to see your futuristic character leap into the air, and slash her weapons hard down grounding the bat, and finishing him in one swing.

The damage caused by the weapons can be quite specific, such as fire direct, or electric splash, so its worth having an array of specifc weapons set up to tackle certain enemy situations. Tailoring the spectrum from close panic striken direct damage, to rocket launchers that hit floating entities, and fire splash guns that lay a carpet of napalm for that added area effect, slowly gnawing away at the enemy, slowing them down and controlling the flow of seemingly endless minions of beelzebub. I think one of things that strikes you as you play through, is the variety of attacks coming from the enemies side, and the variety on offer from the player side to counter this. Theres nothing that new about roaming hordes, mini bosses, and then lovely tough bosses to take on. The areas are fairly consistent, broken streets of London, underground tunnels and warehouses, or staggeringly epic halls of hell - but a lot of the time the area adds a hint of flavour to the combat, but isn't the main thrust of the dish, its the combat that slaps your tastebuds around and satisfies you at the end of the meal.

There are mechanisms in place, common to MMO's, for travelling swiftly through the world - station terminals that will port you from station to station, as long as you've visited it before. There are recall gadgets for piping yourself out of an instance temporarily (or not) - so you can complete that quest, tinker with your set up, sell up etc. Although some instances have recall blocked.. if they're end quest lines, or boss levels. Death is handled in a way that doesn't seem to harsh, you can pay a sum of money to resurrect where you are, or you can enter the current instance as a ghost at the beginning, and then you can be resurrected when you get back your deathstone.

The game seems to have some sort of memory leak at the moment, so after a few hours play, shutting it down, your system will need a reboot for it to start performing again. There are moments of intense slow down, which is a shame. Because a lot of the time it does come across as stunning to look at, with lots of atmospheric lighting and weapon/spell effects on the go.

There doesn't seem to be an online community as such, the time I've spent on the EU server, has resulted in lots of silence, no co-operation, only one group. The grouping tactics haven't yet revealed themselves to me. Apart from melee characters get in up close and personal, and ranged ones don't. However, I can see this game being very enjoyable if a small group of friends decide to take it on, with characters all levelling at the same pace, enjoying the thrill of the action as they progress together through its challenges. Whether MMO style guilds and co-operation takes off, I'm not sure.

So, I reckon Hellgate is pushing the action RPG onwards, taking what Diablo did so well, but twisting it third person, removing the endless clicks, and giving it almost an MMO lick of paint - but with a candidate for "twitch" action mechanics on offer rather than your usual queues of special attack keys. This is the new Anarchy Online. Sci Fi action in bucketloads. But at your own pace. In your own futuristic armour. Lovely Jubbly.

The Witcher

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=86156

An action RPG, using the much enhanced Aurora toolset 2007(NWN2), so you can play it top view (diablo style) or Over the Shoulder OTS (almost Gears of War style). The world is beautifully realised, much more grittier and realistic than Two Worlds (or even Oblivion), with a strong storyline by Andrzej Sapkowski (http://tinyurl.com/2k6gch ) behind it. I've only dabbled in it for an hour or two, but it does seem to be another sound action orientated "free roaming" RPG game with good presentation and a selection of unique skills to explore.

The one area that is difficult to get to grips with is the combat mechanics. Basically if you're in OTS mode, you expect it to play out weapon strikes by clicking and holding your left and right mouse button.. but since its all based around a point and click mechnism from a top down perspective, to get the hang of it, you simply click the opponent at the appropriate time, to build up a chain of weapon swings. So it's not entirely free form and real time as such. You tap out the battles key strokes, when your icon turns into a flaming sword. Get the tap wrong, and you lose the chain, and sometimes can fumble the strike.. initially I struggled to understand this mechanism. And I would almost constantly be interupting my own attacks, making me seem inept at battle. But as you get into a rhythm with the game, it starts to click (forgive the pun) and you see how this almost turn based sort of timed combat actually works and is very cinematic and pleasing to watch. If you play it in top down mode, and you've played NWN/NWN2 you should find the combat easy to slip into to. I think its just the perspective change, and your expectations of real time sword swinging conflict with this "rhythm tap" style game.

Did I mention its an 18? And theres every encouragement for you to get drunk and have intercourse with some of the female NPC's you come across? It's all very artistically done, and I'm pelased it has such an adult approach to the gritty fantasy world. It kind of makes it a bit more exciting to be honest. In fact some of your key combat skills rely on you being drunk to perform them! Now then!

Well I've only scratched the surface of the game really, there seems a complex alchemical system built into the game for potion creation, the day and night phases of the world affects the encounters you have, and the starting quests are full on, no gentle lead in really, which is good.

I think if you like action RPG's, such as Two Worlds, Diablo, you'll like The Witcher.. even those of you who fawned over Oblivion will see this game has merit. Whether you can get on with the Aurora way of combat, is another matter though. But as jarring as it is at first, I can say after 15 minutes or so you should slip into it with ease..

Depths of Peril

http://www.depthsofperil.com/

Take a fairly rough around the edges Diablo II clone, add to it some 4X style diplomacy and conquest, and you have Depths of Peril. It's an intersting idea, taking your standard click based hack and slash action RPG, and meld it with a faction based trade and conquest ethos. Every game you play, you set the parameters for the world, the
difficulty of the monsters, the number of opposing factions to your own - and then you forge a hero to go out into these areas to perform quests from the settlement hub, to level up, gains new skills, gain influence, cashand loot - as well as try to recruit others to your party and your faction (or in game its called Covenant). Once you've got a few members, and you've decorated your Covenant hut with relics and tomes of knowledge, plus placed some guards to defend the place. You can begin to start allying and ganging up on some of the other Covenants who are AI controlled factions, running similar heros and recruits around the world trying to gain the most influence and power and utterly destroy the other factions. If you are Allied with other factions just make sure when you destroy the bad guys, you have the top level of influence within your alliance, so that you can claim the win.

Despite the 1990's graphics, it can be quite involving when you begin to use your hack and slash hero, to stock up your hut based barbarian "empire". I like the scope of the game, to make a balance between the decidedly average (in terms of graphics and complexity of quests) killing and questing sprees and the empire building (basically collecting bonuses and hired hands), with the diplomacy of joining some factions together to then turn and wipe out the weaker ones. Good effort on the hybrid gaming idea.

Two Worlds

Mayhap I verily like Two Worlds, Forsooth.

I was looking forward to this game, heralded as the next Oblivion.. not that I hold Oblivion up as the definitive console RPG game that everyone else seems to do. Anyway, I grabbed a copy of Two Worlds and hurdled into it with both feet fervently jabbing my medieval stirrups into my horses sides. I was bitterly disappointed to see such a awkward and ugly game crumble in my hands. The graphics just jarred with me from the off, nothing was crisp, nothing was easily read or sometimes even identified in the user interface. The single player character customisation was singularly under whelming, I couldn't change gender, the hairstyles available were all very similar and limited to about 5 in total - and the colours supported seemed even less. You could mess with the characters stature - chest size, arm length, eye shape, nose width and length but nothing seemed to define your character as anything but this bland hero. So onwards, into the tutorial, some combat, some magic thrown about, haphazardly as the targeting mechanism shifts according to distance away from you, rather than have any focus on one enemy. Some chatting with blurred and shaky NPC's, the chatting itself being laden thick with Ye Olde English, almost too thick for any credibility. Sort of the way people who don't play RPG's think all RPG's are voiced. The stuttering and frame rate issues didn't help, the blatant halts for environment loads had me wondering if my 360 had crashed at times. I did begin to enjoy the freedom and the combat, particularly once I'd secured a mount to ride. There is a decent game behind this cranky port, its not so much Oblivion as Diablo, which is a plus point in my opinion.

I decided I'd try out the PC demo, I wanted to see what this game looked like with graphics I could be comfortable with. Needless to say, the PC version of the game is crisp and looks the part. At last. The scenery looks good, the Armour and your character crisp and defined, and the interface isn't garbled and just plain works as you'd expect. I went out and bought the PC version. Very pleased with it. In terms of features it has a large continent that can be explored at your leisure, or in a focussed manner as you progress through the main quest line or side quests. It has a very pleasing combat mechanism, in that its easy to use and looks good in third person. The console ranged combat (archery and magics) targeting mechanism leaves a lot to be desired, but in the PC version is well suited. The archery in particular requires you to draw the bowstring and control the power of the shot, with many enemies attacking you from all sides this becomes key when you're timing your shot in between taking melee damage and the shot being interrupted. It has a readily accessible alchemical process for manufacturing your own custom potions. Harvest crystals/gems and plants from the world, and combine them freely. It also allows you to take multiples of existing equipment and combine them to boost the stats, so if you find another sword similar to the one you're wielding, pick it up and combine it, to gain an increase, this also applies to Armour, shields, quivers and jewellery. The magic system allows for a five school spell card collecting game, with each spell card also having booster cards that can be combined with them to tweak your spells. You find spell cards as loot, or you can buy them from vendors. One of the nicest features is the horse travel and combat. They have really taken horse travel to another level with this game, in that your horse feels and moves as a horse would. With it shying away from steep drops, and only following land it can feasibly travel. This can lead to some interesting refusal issues with such a undulating landscape, but it makes you truly appreciate the road system when you want your steed to get up to a proper gallop. Press forward to make the beast trot at a gentle pace, or hold forward to make it increase speed from a trot to cantor to gallop. You can also take swings at enemy from your horse if you are wielding a single handed weapon. Something which can be boosted with extra damage using the riding skill. I can imagine it being quite tricky to become proficient in mounted combat, mainly because of the larger turning arcs your horse has to take compared to most enemies. Imagine the jousting style PvP combat of the online game though. Which leads me on to ..

The 360's online mode allows you to create an RPG or PVP character (and this time you can select gender). There seemed to be "arenas" created where you could adventure or battle with your online friends. These arenas seemed to be various portions of the main map, but with invisible walls marking them off. The enemies present in these online worlds seemed to be much more difficult than the standard single play, presumably for team combat to play a part. I only tried one arena, as an RPG character and was promptly hacked to pieces for the next 10 minutes by another player, which didn't do a great deal to endear me to the experience. The PC's online mode seems to be more modelled on Diablo's Battle.net, and it is indeed called Warnet. You log in to the warnet servers and you enter into a multiplayer zone (usually a city) where you can assemble and buy/sell/tweak, then you take yourself off into an instance pretty much like the 360's arenas. With its own quests and harder enemies to battle. Returning to the city hub, you bring back your experience and equipment. I can see this aspect of the game, giving it some life in the online community, much like Diablo II did. And I'm itching to try it out to see if there are party mechanics at work here.

Overall I'd say Two Worlds is a great game, if you're looking for something approximating to a free-roam, story filled Diablo style game. It doesn't take itself too seriously as the dialogue can be very "hey nonny nonny", I believe intentionally so. If you like good visual combat, looting and tweaking a lot, and riding around a vast lush landscape on a horse ready for battle at any moment, then Two Worlds is worth a look. If you want to see it in its full glory I'd say buy the PC version. The 360 version will suffice if its all you've got. Is it the next Oblivion, probably not. But for me, its better than Oblivion. I'm likely to see this game through to the end, and the ride feels far more enjoyable.

Fastcrawl

http://www.pawleyscape.com/fastcrawl/

I was impressed with this beauty, I had to buy a copy. It's great for a quick play, and although it doesn't actually allow you to specify the characters in the party, it rolls up a random bunch and a random dungeon romp, usually with a quest of killing some boss, somewhere deep in the dungeon. You can customise the length of adventure, so a short one has about 3 levels in the dungeon and takes about 20-30 minutes. You can also customise the difficulty which may affect the time your romp takes. Although its a simplification of party based fantasy combat, it really works with just the right amount of complexity to keep it interesting. It's very good for explaining party mechanics to enthusiastic children. Position affects Melee/Ranged combat, there are cold and heat resistances, additional damage, duel wielding, and even a barebones skill tree to climb, each level you go down in the dungeon. Obviously this doesn't make much of a difference in a 3 level dungeon, but it can start to examplify character skill specialisation in deeper dungeons, where your two clerics are differentiating into a spell based damager and a party healer. The loot that drops is sufficiently tweaked with pros and cons to make judgement calls on its use become a key part to winning battles. Plus theres a resource management game in that you use supplies to take each move as well as a quota of supplies to rest fully and heal and mana up. There are out of combat potions that can be used (no in-combat ones, sadly), as well as scrolls of various kinds, including resurrection which becomes important if you havent got a cleric, or haven't specced him with the resurrection skill yet. Although there is no in-combat resurrection.

I guess the fun of the game comes from having to deal with whatever party makeup you are given at the start of the game, and then customising them, and playing them out in the combat well enough to win the game. It probably won't be a viscious challenge for your average RPG'er, but I've heard the road ahead is tough if you stick it on insane mode. Future enhancements planned are having storied dungeon quests, perhaps a dungeon editor for submitted content, and the ability to generate your own characters. All of which will make this pleasant quickie crawler much more sophisticate, but won't take away its 'quickie' charm. Although there is no save game as such, if you do have to quit out of a game, the state is saved until you continue next time. Theres no library of saves to go back to, but there is an ability to continue with your current foray.

I like these abstract concoctions where quite complicated gameplay can be made accessible and addictive. More like this please..

Titan Quest

It's a worthy attempt at a beautified Diablo II clone with a Greek mythology at its heart rather than the darker material of D2. Seems to perform well, apart from some chuntering when going from outdoor environments to indoor dungeons. Still a clickfest, with pretty much the same UI as D2. A primary and secondary set of skills to customise your character with. Although you seem to use your levelling skill points to not only buy the skills, but also buy the tier of skills. So you have 3 or 4 skill points every level, and the tiers of skills require 4 skill points, then 6 more (so level 10) skill points to open them. You also gain points to increase your basic stats. Theres the usual enhancements that can be made to your equipment, which drop in the form of relics, that can then be applied. Theres portals, and map jumping mechanisms, and a quest log, and a nice map, the usual stuff you expect from a D2 clone.

The graphics are well done, crisp and nice zoomed in. It has to be said they've done a much better job of scrolling and running around than Sacred did (with its jerk-o-vision). Bosses seem to pop up much more frequently, and theres enough variety (boars, crows, Harpies, Satyr's, skeletons, spiders, gollums, centaurs etc) to slay in the first few levels, to keep you exploring and killing. The voice overs for the quests and information seem very well done. The Greek mythology doesn't seem to grab me though, as much as the darker traditional fantasy based stuff. It seems a bit too timid, not menacing enough.

The good thing though is that the game comes with an editor, so I think the TQ community will embrace it and start to knock out plenty of custom quests beyond the single player game. Plus you can multiplayer with up to 5 others I think in your party. Looks promising for the action hack and slash click crew.

Untold Legends

I finally got my copy of Untold Legends, and it is good. You'll enjoy it if you like Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance, or Champions of Norrath, or Dungeon Heroes style action RPG. It's an action button masher make no mistake. From my brief play, it seems to give you a lot of cool equipment up front, like weapons with specials and trinkets to enhance your armour, way before it feels like you should be earning those sort of things as loot. I mean I've got some modifier runes installed on the rough patchwork stuff I was given when I started the adventure at level 1! From the few bosses I have encountered it still seems like the game can present a challenge. But it just feels a little wrong to have a level 2 alchemist wander about with a glowing and shimmering double headed axe.

The classes seem a bit odd, Knight, Beserker, Druid and Alchemist. They all rely on melee a lot, even the Alchemist, with casting really only providing support damage to the melee. I guess in the single player game, then you're going to have to melee more often than not, simply because you have no-one to stand at the front and take the damage, whilst you waggle your fingers. Tried a Druid too, although again at these levels I'm guessing melee figures big in the only way to progress.

The graphics are excellent, and you can zoom close in for some hot boss action, or pull out to watch the horde fall. The play areas seem a little too small, but dungeons tend to consist of lots of these small rooms interconnected, with a boss at the end. Some story, enough to get you to the next quest boss.

The action is non stop, frenzied fun though. This is the definitive action RPG game your'e going to get on a handheld for a while, nearest thing you'll get to it though, is the Lord of the Rings diablo-fest on the GBA. And if you're comparing the two, theres no comparison.

If only my fat hands wouldn't ache so much using that bleeding analogue PSP thumbtack. Why they situated it at the bottom of the console, so that youre like pinching the handheld and twiddling your thumb in small circles is beyond me. I'd have much preferred it if they'd have swapped the d-pad with the thumbtack, since most of the games I have use the tack.

Shadow Hearts

Take a splash of FFVII, a splash of FFVIII and a dollop of Koudelka (I know most won't know what that is anyway) and you have Shadow Hearts. Its an RPG with a dark story, leaning more towards Horror and the Supernatural than anything else. Theres plenty of blood and evil goings on, in this steam-punk alternate world. You take the role of a rather brassy stereotypical japanese wise guy - who has an ability (named fusion) to shapeshift into a number of elemental monsters. He hears voices in his head, he is plagued by an ever increasing malice, that builds up to dangerous levels as he fights. If his Malice is allowed to reach critical (red) then the spirit of his fusion-capable father complete with scary fox-face mask comes down to taunt and battle him and generally kill him off. To quell the malice he has to enter a spiritual graveyard to do battle with monsters conjured by the four face mask keepers. If he wins his malice disipates for now. As he does battle in the 'real world' he also gathers soul points from his opponents depending on their elemental type - and as these level up - when they gain a level, he can battle an elemental monster at the graveyard and upon winning captures its soul allowing him to shapeshift into that beast, and adopt its special powers and attacks.

Our hero can only equip 3 monsters souls at any one time, so selection of souls is key to winning some battles. While all this is going on, you are following a quite complex story, and interesting characters roll in and roll out from time to time. The dialogue tends to be a bit camp at times, and there is an overtly teenage obsession with being fruity with the lead scantily clad japanese schoolgirl. It's amusing at times in that it just says things like 'You were staring at my breasts!' Over the top mostly, but expected.

The characters tend to have quite strong personalities and a good history behind them, some of the battling animations are downright slapstick - and that warms me to the game. One of my favourite characters is Margarete, a lovely lass in mini skirt, fishnet stockings and Dr Martin boots. She calls on her mobile for her special equipment, and from the sky it drops, maybe a grenade, a sniper rifle, a large pair of Elton John comedy spectacles or a toilet chain to flush. Shes a mean shot with a luger pistol also.

The battle system is turn based, like Final Fantasy, however they've added an arcade twist. In order to perform anything you have press the button in time with spinning arc on the Judgement Ring. In essence its like hitting the strike zones on any golf game. For different actions there are different numbers of zones, some are narrower and some (mainly the attack ones) have a red sub-zone which indicates a harder hit. Striking with a weapon, you can pull off a perfect if you land marker in the three red zones - and this is very satisfying. But taking the risk of a landing a perfect leaves you open to actually failing to make the attack at all. Even healing is judged by the ring, and also bargaining discounts on some equipment purchase. Some people have said that this distracts away from the basic fight, and labors every action you perform, however, I found it livened up the battles - keeping you focused - and giving you an amount of participation in the battle that previous turn based RPG games haven't had.

The graphics are ok, well done, but are not of PS2 quality. This game could easily have sat on a PSX - having said that, the characters and monsters are pleasingly large and some of the monsters are the oddest ones I've seen in a long time. Frogs with faces in their eyes and a hand for a tongue - backward facing ghouls whose heads rotate whilst attacking you with their what can only be described as very long penis! The shapeshifting beasts our hero can turn into are also lovingly crafted and are suitably different from each other. Spell and attack effects can be a little dull and simplistic but they are swiftly executed and keep the pace of the battle up.

The musical score is excellent!

Overall, I like Shadow Hearts. It gives a Final Fantasy style game with some interesting twists and a darker more horror based setting. There are not many FMV scenes, although there is a lovely ghost story told part way in the game that amused me no end. Schlop! Scholp! Schloop! It doesn't take itself too seriously, but it does give you a good story to participate in and some nice shapeshifting paranormal battles. Worth it, while you wait for FFX.

Dungeon Siege

A number of people I have spoken to have expressed their opinion that Dungeon Siege is boring and the problems with Multiplayer drag it down enough to give up on it.

I think DS has given action RPG'ers an engine to play out their fantasies. It's only been out over here a couple of days. Give it time to develop some community. I think the single player game rocks big time. It's already kept me busy for over 20+ hours. It's beautiful to play, its got an interesting character development system (albeit limited to 4 specialisations, melee, ranged, combat and nature magic), its much more a immersive world "graphics wise" than Diablo II. It falls down on a number of issues, but I don't think they as a whole warrant total dismissal.

The Multiplayer is poor, in terms of arranging, joining and connecting to online games - the lack of save ability in the multiplayer world - your character and its stats are saved, just the state of the areas you've sweeped through isn't. This is no worse than PSO. You log on, you face the forest monsters again, if you want.

The single player game gives you too much too soon. In an hour or two you can have a fully functioning party of 4 or 5 characters - and if you specialise correctly they can pretty much hold their own in most combat situations - setting the combat AI on the characters can leave you without much to do. Point them in the right direction and they'll do their respective jobs and hopefully you'll win. However, if you experiment with the games development system, and come up with interesting party combinations - it can be a much more involving experience. Revealing more subtle ways to play it.

On the whole, DS is an engine for fantasy battles, and as such it does a wonderful job. I guess gamers shouldn't have to twiddle and tweak too much with the single player game to get a level of enjoyment out of it - but it is worth the effort - and its more about exploring the games dynamics - than following 'lead me by the hand' story.

Basically, dismissing it on a few problems with multiplayer and its inherent clickety-click wave after wave battling mechanism is a bit unfair - at such an early stage in the products development.

Perhaps your money won't have been wasted when the modding community gets some decent player built add-ons together? Even without the editor, there are mods emerging day by day that address gold and inventory limitations - and I saw a post on how to convert the multiplayer game to a single player game that can then have its progress saved, and converted back when you want to play it.

I too am hoping for a patch to address the multiplayer problems - but as a single player game I think its just what us Action RPG'ers wanted. And I think my moneys been well spent on just the 20 hours I've played it. And I plan to play it a whole lot more.

Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance

Well, I got it, I played it - I'm spent. Simply a beautiful game, well put together, is a Diablo freaks wet dream. If it had online play they'd be leaving D2 in droves.

9 hours later and I have completed it with a Dwarven fighter clad in full plate with an ice burst double edged axe. I did bluster through it - mainly because the weapon acquisition/gold collecting and character levelling and development spurs you on. There was always another skill on my agenda, another piece of armour, a couple more damage points to the weapon. There are side quests, I did a few of these early on, but I found the drive of the main storyline quest enough to want to make progress.

The graphics are beautiful. The different areas have a nice characteristic feel to them, the ice lands are barren and icy, the swamp lands are swampy, some of the castle-type dungeons really are nicely engineered. The water effects are the icing on the cake for me. It is a joy just to go jumping in the puddles and watching the ripples. At one point the effect is essential in taking care of whipping dogs that cloak with invisibility. You quickly cotton on that the water is your best friend. As you see through their invisible veil using their water trails to aim your axe.

There are some simple jumping puzzles, some lever puzzles, but all in all its pretty straight forward - and you are more or less led to the conclusion of each dungeon - simply by strolling around adventuring. The bosses are nice, some of the mobs are MASSIVE and scarey. From rhino type dinoasaurs emerging from the swamp mud to fecking HUGE mechanised warriors. There is even an ice dragon in there for us PSO ver2 dragon lovers who never managed to catch a glimpse of the ice dragon in Sega's tawdry update.

You get three class/race combinations to choose from, dwarven fighter, elven sorcerer and human archer. My nipper wanted the dwarf first. But I started a sorcerer just to get a feel for the magicks. The dwarf is pretty much a diablo slasher. You can block, or twirl around and slash. Many of the mobs can be dispatched with jumping and twirling taking them from behind. Although if you get surrounded by 6 mobs all pounding down you cannot jump out over them, you have to break the circle to get out. Later on there are two specific disciplines that allow you to impart damage on multiple mobs (one with an axe - a spin, and one with a warhammer - a bash to the ground that affects all nearby mobs). At least one of these disciplines was essential for the later stages - I found I could kill 5 or 6 minotaurs easier with my axe spin, than I could taking them carefully one at a time.

Alot of the loot dropped off mobs isn't as good as you can buy from the shops until very much later on in the game. So you tend to scoop up the trash and sell and save for the good stuff. Theres something lovely about a dwarf in full shiny plate armour. It took me to the last level of the game to get him fully kitted out.

It may seem a little short, 9 hours, but given that there are three character types to play and they seem to handle quite differently (although I found archery with the dwarf a bit tricky and the damage dealt was piss poor compared to my axe) - I think nearly 30 hours of play is pretty good. Plus the two player co-op game will add to this nicely if you can find someone to team up with for 9 hours. It's a shame they all go through the same story though. So you will know the route through the game the second time round, I'm using this as an advantage because the sorcerer (steamy sexy temptress that she is) is way below par at getting going - the initial magicks don't seem to help her much and she hasn't got the hit points to take the blows. She can however use her cunning knowledge of whats up ahead to plan round-the-corner toastings.

BTW the tits on the barmaid at the Tavarn are unbelievable and put DOA to shame. The beauty of independant movement brought about by arm gestures is mesmerising. I had to run through it at least another couple of times - just to get it out of my system. Did I mention every bit of kit affects the characters look? So in theory, you can de-armour the sorcerer and have her running around almost naked in a very skimpy leather thong and bra. If her magicks could hold the mob off thats how I would take her through the whole game :)

I'm off to spray fire from my fingertips..

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

Well, the new Lord of Destruction expansion is upon us.

I bought it on Sunday, and installed it on top of my D2 v1.07 - the offline characters seemed unaffected. One thing to note converting your current D2 chars to be expansion chars, means you can't join any vanilla D2 games. Which obviously has implications for Pinwig and me, and our D2 love-ins.

Anyway, I fired up a new character, theres two classes added, Assassin and Druid. I chose the Druid, cos he gets to summon creatures and transform into creatures.

The ability to shift the graphics up a notch (800x600) is nice, you lose a lot of the pixilated edges. The only downside I noticed was a veritable chug, with the automap displayed whilst running. The larger inventory stash is very welcome, along with the two weapon loads configuration and the ability to shift between them with a single keypress during combat.

Not sure whether I was just summon happy or not, but I levelled up my druid pretty swiftly, with my team of 3 summoned ravens - dive-bombing the enemy, pecking at their eyes, whilst I floored them with an arrow or two. If things got too tough for me, and my birds were down, I'd shift into werewolf form and claw the living shit out of everything that moved. Not a bad expansion. Just for the interface enhancements and the new classes.

I did try the assassin but much prefer the druid and his summonings. I didn't feel right playing a charlies angel. Did I mention I can shapeshift into werewolf form..? Oooooh man, now that gets me excited. Basically, my Druid is well hard. Much easier to take on the quests "solo", when you have a pack of wolves and a hired archer, along for the ride. I barely need to hit anything. My whirlwind team, maul and masacre the horde before I get there. I sometimes like to play target practice with my flaming arrows, or perhaps freeze a wandering brute with my cold attack mace. The life of a Druid is a good one.

Anyway, I guess now the servers will be teaming with Druids and Assassins.

Dragons Blood

Dragon’s Blood was a game that caught my eye before I’d bought a Dreamcast. It was one of those that went on the slowly growing list of titles that eventually tipped the balance and forced me to part with the cash to become a Sega fanboy for the first time. Odd I know, but that’s me, just getting into the whole Sega ethos as the company starts to die out. I curse myself daily that I didn’t years ago.

In any case, I’m now sat at the start of the penultimate level of this beastie and I can say hand on heart that Ian is right in his assessment of the game’s merits. You need to like that particular genre to get on with a game like this – but if hacknslash epics do float your boat then you’ll find a surprising depth in this. It’s not without one downfall though. The aforementioned swoop and sway will eventually I’m sure send you blind. I find after an hour plus in this (the time needed to explore a level fully and knock it on the head) each turn of the wide angle perspective camera sends not inconsiderable stabbing pains to the eyes. Infact a glance in the mirror after a two hour stint recently showed them up to be noticeably bloodshot.

Funny how games can get you like that. FPS’s are prone to give people motion sickness, that is well known. This is the first time though that a game has reddened my eyes and made them sting. Perhaps the Draconus’s abilities extend beyond those just on the screen…

Regardless, this is a stomping slasher. Each episode like level is enough to fulfil one sitting at a time but the drive to go back always returns. The worlds are large, they are atmospheric and although the dialog is awful and voiced by a genuine B movie star wannabe it somehow only adds to the overwhelming feel of an eighties fantasy movie. Marc Singer in Beastmaster? This is what this game gives you. Peter MacNicol in Dragonslayer? Oh yes. Ken Marshall in Krull? Absolutely. If only there were fair maidens to rescue.

As it is there’s undead skeletons, creatures, minotaurs, goblins, trolls, giant insects, dwarves, the Draconus and ultimately the mighty Dragon to take on. Each level brings harder and more tactically aware adversaries. As your skills with the excellently weighted controls improve, those of your opponents do too. The dwarves imparticular are very adept for figures so stout. With the option to use an effective block though combat never degrades to a simple hack, hack, hack process. Hang back, observe, block attacks, take a stab when you can see an opening. Its not a beatem up, and nor does it want to be, but the swordplay here maintains a strong and enjoyable tactical balance that sets Dragon’s Blood above most slashers. Throw in a few button presses, sidequests and simple puzzles and the games rounds itself nicely into a well presented, solid and enduring use of your gaming time.

As Ian says, quite a surprise from a game that has been very quickly relegated to the bargain bin. This hidden gem is considerably better than a lot of titles sitting proud above it on the full price shelves.

Diablo 2: A buxom Lady

I got wind that playing a Paladin in Diablo II is great for the early Act's but later on, it becomes increasingly difficult to progress - now this in itself won't deter me from rolling out my stainless steel clergyman, but coupled with the fact that I really fancied playing with a buxom lady archer - I conjured up an Amazonian ranger.

This blonde haired big boned beauty is fast. Swifter than a kitten with kattitude. Early on she couldn't take the smacks and blows - but as she progressed she found the perfect weapon to have did cold damage. The ability to freeze and slow down enemies was invaluable. At first she found a spear with slight cold damage, which was ok, but in close combat she was bitch-slapped to the ground before she could get enough of them iced up. So she saved up and bought a socketed hunters bow. Two blue gems later and the thing did a fair amount of cold damage with the arrows it hurled. Suddenly she turned from a very poor warrior, into a speedy ranged attacker, who could outrun the evil horde, slow them down even further and pick most of them off before they got a single swipe in. I decided I'd prefer her to be a master archer than a spear women. Although I did put a few skill points into spear abilities - just for those caught-in-the-melee moments. One of her bow skills that proved most effective was the multi-shot - enabling her to unleash an array of arrows at the same time. If she is surrounded, when clicking close to her, they splay out in a circle - slowing the menace and maybe even killing one or two of them, opening a path for her to escape. If they are charging from a particular direction in a vicious group, when clicking a medium distance away from her, they will scatter in an arc - hopefully stopping all in frozen torment. If they are at the end of a corridor, when clicking a long distance away from her, they will group together and travel in a linear direction passing through the column of victims. Beefing this skill up adds more and more arrows to the shot. Last count she had 9 arrows in one shot. The mana used to perform this trick shot also increases with every arrow. So a fine balance is needed between arrows, mana, and usage of this skill. She was draining mana too quickly at one point, and her regeneration rate was too slow to keep using this skill effectively. So, she scoured the land high and low for some chipped skulls and I managed to buy a socketed helmet, and a couple of mana rings. By fusing the skulls in the helmet it now bestows a +20% mana regeneration ability on her. I can now use the multi-shot and I gain mana quickly enough not to worry about it. She is a demon.

Lodoss Revisited

I'd just like to mention that several of the bosses in the game are DRAGONS! Although I'm not beefy enough to fight em yet AND there is a Shrimp equivalent - although there's fooking millions of em in the desert - sandworms - dune revisited. I went in at level 15 started to have a go - only to be beaten down in the blink of an eye. Later I
find out you have to be about level 70+ to take down a sand-worm. Theres ghosts, zombies, goblins, skeletons, lizards, dark elven swordsmen, preists and preistess, winged demons, Ogres, Golems, Medusas and many more characters. A veritable fantasy feast!

Theres quests/mini-quests galore! After taking about 3 hours
to level up and prepare myself for one of the boss fights that had been crippling me - I eventually beat the bastard - I mean he was torching the forests and the elves didn't like that! I get to carry his severed head around with me now - just to prove how hard I am.

Some of the spells are quite nice to use tactically - heres a tower of stone one that allows you to block mobs advances, a bonfire whichyou can land a mob on and circle around them whilst they are being burned, chopping them as they try to free themselves from the flames. The animate the dead is always useful to use a fallen mob as a tank.
Theres a one called mirror that I've used a lot against big golems who hit hard. It throws two mirror images of you so the mobs attack that and you sneak behind them at let them have it. More effective with your critical stats boosted on your oriental sword. Mainly does 150+ dmg but every now and then hits for a sweet 800+ - mobs can do this also. But there are runes and potions to nullify their critical hits.

For a hack and slash - its actually quite deep and involved and I like the way quite different tactics present themselves after you've died a couple of times..

Icewind Dale: Freezing Hard

I got Icewind Dale (IWD) bundled with Baldurs Gate II, my instinct was to install the later game first. I wanted to check out the flashier improved game. Well, the other day, in a particularly fickle mood, I installed IWD. I thought I'd give it a look-see. I'd previously been informed that IWD was more of a Dungeon Hack than the Baldur's games. More action, less plot.

The first thing to suprise me, was the fact that you have to create a whole party of six before you start the game. Performing the character generation routine six times, is a bit daunting for someone who wants to dive in. I think you can create as many characters as you like, so you could go in battling with just two or three. But to err on the side of caution I spent some time coming up with a plausible combination of adventurers. In the end, I took the characters from the anime Record of Lodoss War and created a party of six adventurers, mapping the IWD attributes to the anime as best I could. So, I have, Ghim a dwarf fighter, Parn a human Paladin, Deedlit an elven druid, Etoh a human cleric, Slayn an elven mage and Woodchuck a human theif. I don't have to spend hours coming up with the best balanced group, the anime has forced my hand.

After a bit of plot, I get to prance around a village with my Lodoss troupe and begin some of the simple quests. The graphics are not stunning. The quivering pixelated sprites really are offputting. However, the fixed backgrounds are nicely rendered and it has a rustic feel to it. I get to the shop, kit my adventurers out with slings and bows, helmets and leather armour, and off I go. The first real battle. Some naughty Goblins have become a pest just over the bridge. My team stride into battle. A single Goblin walks up to them, and promptly slays them all. This cocky fellow only takes a couple of scratches damage. Hmmmmm. Ok. Tactical rethink. I jiggle character positions, make sure the ranged attackers are protected by my two fighters. The mage right at the back. Lets try again... two men down and the Goblin is giggling at us. Finally an arrow from somewhere at the back hits him in the eye and he's down. Hmmmmmm. Am I missing something here? Two of my main group are decaying in front of me. I can see no way of resurrecting them. Do I continue with a party of 4, mainly ranged attackers and a mage in a dress? Or do I start again? Obviously, I went back to the drawing board. Either this game is way too hard for the fickle gamer, or I am missing out on something quite fundemental. Surely, the game should ease the player gently into the mechanics? Surely, your first encounter shouldn't be a complete massacre? I found that there were no scripted AI for my players. So I went through them all and selected the most appropriate AI. I saved. We tried again. This time things went well. The first Goblin was dispatched without much suffering. Although several of his mates turned up and I lost a man. They seemed determined to attack the mage in a dress. I guess because his HP was very low - unless they have a problem with cross-dressing in their Goblin world?.

Now, this is were I get confused. I have six adventurers. I laboured over their creation. I spent a good long while kitting them out, choosing the right colours (for hair, skin and clothes). Only to find the first conflict, one of them drops and I can't get him back! IS this right? In order to go into battle, I have to save the game, before, during and after a battle. Only saving if all members of my party make it! This takes a good while, and means you progress VERY VERY carefully. Maybe, later on in the game, when your party are much tougher, you can wade in and command a battle without fear of loss, but at the moment this game forces me to be way too cautious. It almost puts a dampner on the whole exploration/adventuring side to the game. I cannot venture too far without a save, or if one dies, I'll have to do it all again.

The game certainly has a lot going for it. The AD&D stuff makes it suitably complex. But the fact that each step forward has to be so cautiously made with correct use of the save game. I just can't see me sticking with it, the adventuring is not fun. I keep thinking its something I'm missing. Like there is a resurrect spell or potion that allows you to progress, take casualties, but recover the party. If there isn't then its a game where the icewind doth blow through the fun.