PSO: When Four Battle as One

When I first played PSO on my Dreamcast I was convinced the world had moved on. Gaming had advanced one more step into the online world. Now the consoles were getting in on the action. The wave of euphoria as I teamed up with a couple of others and raided a Hildebear enclosure was unsurpassed. For months afterwards I classed PSO as an EQ beater. Better than EQ was the highest accolade I could give it. PSO is based on action. It is a team based role playing game, with lots of arcade style action. Admittedly the team can only ever number four. And the action is limited in as much as the game world has 4 areas, and a set number of monster types, culminating in battles with four bosses. However, the buzz remained for around 3 months. Solid playing. Every night. I never once logged onto Norrath in all that time.



Imagine, landing on a planet, with a hunter who is learning the art of the light sabre, with a brightly coloured force character, resembling a circus magician, who can summon a mean fire ball or two, with an enormous mechanised robot ready to dish out some punishment and me, a ranger with a laser pistol. Imagine, finding a world inhabited with strange bear/dog like creatures who take a swipe at you and you land on your backside. Imagine, said creatures ganging up on you and pounding you into the ground. But, finally imagine, the four of you, each slotting into a niche and covering each other backs. Working together to eradicate the planet of these menacing hordes. Pumping laser rounds into the back of a Gobooma, enough to knock him away from the magician he is currently pounding - giving the magician the breathing space necessary to let a fireball from hell toast the furball.



Although set in a "phantasy" world, the combat is pure action. Sci Fi action. With guns and light sabres.

The first boss you meet after a lot of carnage is The Dragon. In my opinion, he is the best of all the bosses available. He is beautifully rendered, his attack patterns are just stunning to watch, and of course, he IS a dragon! Each boss has a different attack pattern and often requires quite careful planning to avoid party wipeout.

The ability to quest offline and then go online with the same character - gives PSO one the most flexible approaches to character development. However, this does not come without a price. The Gameshark kiddies have found that you can use codes to tool up your character with all sorts of items and powers. Sega tried to stomp on this heavily. With character banning and other measures. The Gamesharkers also found ways to kill other players (yet PSO is strictly co-op), to use jumping tricks to get past locked doorways amongst a number of other cheats and scams.

All in all, PSO is one of the brightest online games I've played in a long time. And although the content is limited, it still draws me back to it - searching for that teamplay buzz once again.

Onimusha: Chop Shlocky

The hype surrounding this title, really pumped it up for me. Although I shy away from Resident Evil clones - never really like them - the lure of the magical samurai sword and the smell of freshly cleaved zombies drew me in.

To sum it up, Capcom have basically given you a Resident Evil with a sword instead of a gun. That's it! The cut scene graphics are quite nice, with plenty of focus on the handsome face of Samanosuke, the demon warrior. There is the usual storyline of good versus evil, with the "Soul Reaver" slant being that you are bestowed with a gauntlet that allows you to capture the souls of the demons you kill. These souls allow you heal, or replenish your magical ability, or enhance your equipment. Each soul type has a different colour and the demons relinquish a cocktail of soul energy when they die, often in different quantities. In general, big demons leave behind large amounts of soul energy. The energy adds a level of strategy to the generally mundane task of chopping and slashing these gnarled minions of evil. You have to take a break from the endless culling, once in a while to harvest some energy to heal up a bit. Then back into the melee.

The slashing action is fun for a while. There are however a couple of things that let this title down badly. Firstly there is no use of the analogue sticks for movement. So all your clever manoeuvres have to be done with just the d-pad. Secondly, the camera angles will often leave you in the position where all the action is taking place in the distance, making it difficult to see exactly what is going on. As a different camera angle kicks in, you often find yourself having to re-adjust your spatial reasoning to the new viewpoint. Sometimes this is confusing, when you are trying to navigate a twisty winding corridor, and it often leaves you visiting the same locations over and over again, simply because you are disorientated. For all its beauty up close, the game is played at quite a distance.

The monotony of bashing the square button to slash, slash and slash is broken up by an L1 guard and then quickly back onto slash, slash, slash. You can execute an impressive magical attack pressing the triangle button, if you have magic enough. It seems as though magic is always in short supply, so use these special attacks sparingly. Save them for the big bosses. You collect a variety of sword types each with an elemental power of its own. Lightning swords, fire swords etc. And it has to be said that the special attacks are suitably impressive and satisfying.

There are small puzzles, usually to unlock a chest with a power up or plot item in it. The game is saved at some sort of Shinto shrine called a "magic mirror". Here you can save your progress, and use the red energy collected to enhance your weapons or items. Much like an RPG (Role Playing Game), each weapon has a level and it can be made more effective by levelling it up. As they gains levels they change form, and their attacks become more powerful. There are sealed doors that can only be opened by collectible orbs. These orbs also have a level, and in order to progress you must invest some energy in levelling them up to open higher levelled seals. You can also level up some of your items, such as healing herbs into medicine, increasing their healing powers considerably. The RPG-like qualities of the game do add some depth to play. However, it is often necessary to collect more energy than the current flock of demons possess. This means you have to back track into previous areas, and the enemies seem to spawn endlessly to allow you this privilege. While useful in places - this can become tedious. Having defeated a room full of nasties only to become disorientated and foolishly enter the room again, to be attacked by the beasts you have just slain.

It seems if you have to load your save game quite a number of times, the game opens up the Easy mode. However, you cannot continue through the current game in Easy, you have to re-start the game again. Some have reported finishing the game in around 4 hours. Reducing the games value-for-money status considerably. Zone of the Enders clocking in at 8 hours was considered a poor show.

All in all, Onimusha gives you a short-lived hack and slash buzz. In places, it’s too much like Resident Evil. The RPG/Soul Reaver aspect adds some depth to the game. It's not a game I could rave about - but I've only done about an hour in total. Maybe it will flourish in the remaining 3 hours?

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.

Ring of Red

Well, I snapped this baby up the other day and thought I would give you my thoughts on the game.

Once again, its a mech combat game. It has stomping big mechs in it. It is set in the 1960's, and the introduction includes some WWII footage with these industrialised mechs hulking around in the background. They call them AFW's. Armoured Fighting Walkers.

The initial couple of training missions, highlight the pretty simplistic battle mechanism. Two mechs, face-off. Each mech has a loading time for its main weapon. Whoever gets loaded first, enters the sighting screen, depending on your distance from the target, you get an initial % accuracy, if you wait, this increases, the longer you aim, the higher your accuracy. Although the rate of accuracy increase starts to level at around 90%+. Once you figure you have high enough accuracy for the shot, you press [X] and fire. Thats all there is to it.

The game opens up, once you get to select crew and ground troops to support your AFW. The stats can be quite bewildering to begin with. And the manual is a bit poor. Each AFW in your team can have three support units. One to help pilot it, the Crew, and two ground troops, the Forward and Rear Vanguard. Each company has its own special abilities and stats (loading times, troop recovery, special attacks etc.) The companies are also split by their primary function, such as infantry, shooters, medics, minelayers.. etc. And you can swap troops in and out of your AFW's slots. With a team of four AFW's choosing the right troop combination takes some time. But it allows you to design specific battling combinations. Not only is the AFW and primary pilot levelling up and gaining new abilities, but you can further tweak your force using troop combinations. On the battle field, there are towns where you can capture and then win-over new troops, with new abilities.

The AFW combat is initiated from a mission map, where like Front Mission III you move representative counters around a grid. There are different attacking distances, and some of the AFW's specialise in close combat, some short, some medium and long distance. The long distance AFW's are basically a large cannon mounted on a spidery 4 legged mech. All the AFW's are nicely modelled and really do look like a WWII tank has mated with a Japanese robot. Whirring cogs, puffs of smoke and jittering engine parts make these hulks come alive. The map movement and attack is turn based. You can move and then attack, just move, wait on standby or recover. Standby and recovery have different time costs and affect the units turn, recovery being the most costly.

Once an attack has been initiated - you enter the 3d battle arena, which is usually nicely animated. Most of the work going on the AFW's themselves - but the landscape is usually representative of the landscape presented on the mission map. The troop models are ok, but tend to look a little blocky. Combat with the troops is a real joy. Not only are you co-ordinating the firing of the main weapon and maybe slotting in a special attack/move whilst loading.. you are readying your troops and maybe sending the one of the flanks in to start picking away at the enemy AFW or laying surpressing fire on the enemy troops. Your crew can have special shells, such as White Phosphor shells, which temporarily disables the enemy's troops, or incendiaries, or armour piercing shells for that extra damage. Your troops can also perform specials such as getting up close and personal and lobbing grenades at the enemy AFW, or firing a wire wrap around the enemy AFW's legs preventing movement and escape (good for holding them steady whilst finishing them off, or preventing them from advancing into a position where they can initiate close combat melee). They can also, try to repair the AFW and heal the other troops. So despite the relatively simple loading/firing mechanism for the AFW, actually co-ordinating the battle on several different fronts is quite exciting. Theres always something to be checking and reacting to during the battle. Your battle tactics have to adapt to what the enemy throws at you. If they start laying into your troops (and the AFW's can attack troops with their main weapon too) - until you have lost them all - then you are open to troop attack - and getting your weapon to fire with sufficient accuracy will be difficult. If you take hits whilst aiming, you lose some accuracy. So if you are taking many hits you will have a job on getting your weapon to fire and hit.

The chaos of the battle is where this game shines. And the troops running around your AFW's legs, advancing and retreating on your command, realy does give you a sense of battlefield combat.

There are a couple of niggles with the game:

On the mission map, if an enemy base is occupied by an enemy AFW, you move up to them and attack, and if you win, you have to wait for the next turn to move one square into the base.

On the battlefield there is an operational timeout - which means you have to destroy the enemy within a time limit. This prevents overly long wars-of-attrition between AFW's - but it invariably closes the battle - just before you land the winning blow. This is a bad thing if there are two or more enemy near by, who now have a chance to have a go at your battle weary AFW. Leaving the near dead enemy AFW to recover/escape and have another pop later.

When issuing a AFW move order (forward/backward only) in the
battlefield the AFW will only move when you are NOT issuing troop movements or aiming your weapon. This can be a pain when you want to assault a 4 legged AFW using close combat, and you have to keep your troops well out of it until you get up close. I would prefer the mech to keep moving forward, alongside my advancing troops.

Overall, I would recommend RoR to anyone who enjoyed Front Mission III and want similar sort of action, but with a ground troop element thrown in. The storyline is interesting, introducing an alternative history, where the Japanese, Germans and US are battling against the Soviets. The characterisations are pretty dismal. The translation
doesn't always work, and a lot of the dialogue is cheesey japanese boy/girl stuff. But on a whole the game stands up as giving you a mech-based battle arena with some lovely chaotic and desperate moments. And theres nothing more satisfying than getting that APC Shell off just seconds before the battle is about to timeout, watching the enemy AFW tumble and burn.

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.

Dragons Blood: Slash the Price

A game which caught my eye in the bargain bin of Toys R'Us the other week was Dragons Blood. I had considered buying this game many times, at full price, but I was always led astray by classics such as Crazy Taxi etc. In fact, I remember juggling Dragons Blood and Sword of the Beserker one time, finally deciding on the gory anime slasher. However at £4.99, I could not resist, and the game finally had a home.

Booting it up, you are treated to a chunk of crimson FMV. You get to play a butch warrior type, or a svelte but magical lass. Both characters possess magical abilities as they level, but the lassy can use it more readily. The graphics are really special. They portray a detailed world and the characters are realistically medieval. The movement mechanism is simple enough, although it does take some getting used to. You character seems to sway and swoop around alot. I was expecting the "fixed perspective" of Tomb Raider, however, Dragons Blood uses a much more realistic perspective, where the landscape and character alter according to your position in the world.

The battling mechanism tries for realism too. As the swipe of your trusty sword connects with mob, they recoil and are often thrown quite a distance. Perform a series of slashes, chops, and thrusts in succession and you will pull off a combo strike which can be very satisfying indeed. Theres nothing quite like a flying chop from above. Different mobs require different fighting techniques and strategies. You will often require a well timed block using your shield, following it up swiftly with a counter-lunge. You can circle strafe around slow mobs and slash at their back. The beauty of the fighting is that it takes real skill and co-ordination to battle three fairly cunning enemies each try to get around behind you to deliver that fatal backstab. You'll have to use the landscape to corner yourself in and protect your rear, whilst blocking all attacks and getting a counter in. A side swipe can often lift the mob off the ground and hurl them away long enough for you to skewer the one left. The sword and shield play are varied enough to make a battle strategic enough and not degenerate into a mindless hack and slash.

After each kill, you can steal a small amount of health back from the deceased's heart. Not all mobs drop a heart - but since your health bar is incredibly important, you cherish each mobs lifeforce. In order to progress and level up the game adopts a mechanism by which you collect wisp blessings and trade them in at the end of the level for skill improvement. Offense affects the weapons you carry, Defense affects the armour you wear, while you can learn new magical abilities by spending points on the elemental skills. You can also invest in rank which is effectively levelling you up. There is a predefined tree which you will climb, as you are blessed and go through the levels. Although it seems to allow for some specialising, particularly in magic. One of the offensive power ups I gained was a morphing blade. It can morph between broadsword, axe and spiked club. Each having different rates of attack and damage abilities.

The one area the game falls down, is its lack of ability to save mid-level. This particular niggle is a problem that affects many games out on the market and some game designers argue against mid-level saves - because they use it as a tool to set game difficulty. For an aging gamer who sometimes only has a spare half hour, there are times when I cannot sit down and plough through a level for 2 hours just so I can save my progress. Anyway, Dragons Blood goes some way to alleviate the frustration - because it allows you to set a mark anywhere on the level, where you will restart if you die. This mark however, isn't written to the memory card, and if you turn the console off - you will have to start the level again next time you play. This mark has helped me get through the really long levels, because I just set it, pause the game, leave the console on and then return when I have some spare time to finish it. Obviously this is only going to work if you can keep the console on, and the poor little box got rather hot, awaiting my attentions again.

I am starting the sixth level I think, so still a way to go, but for a budget game - this really is worth it. In fact it is such a shame it has hit the bargain bin, and will no doubt be passed up as mere tat. This game deserves much better. Then again, perhaps the cheap price will give it more exposure than it would have got. If I'd have paid full price for this, I'd have been happy. Since I got it at a steal, I'm very happy.

Right, I'm off to kill something, I wonder what I should kill it with, sword, axe or club?

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.