I played this game for about a week before I gave it up. Let me clarify: I really liked this game, then one monumental experience completely wrecked it for me. I was being my usual Mesmer/Necromantic self, having fun in the arenas at around level 9 or so. At the time I really had no idea why some of my teams had a long streak and some didn't, besides sticking together and reviving and all that, until someone mentioned something about droks armor.
Now, this was about a month or two ago, just after Factions (although I didn't have that installed), so they might have balanced this already, but I cannot go back. Anyway, I'm in a group with a W/Mo 6, and she is breezing through opponents all by herself. We won almost every match flawlessly, until we faced this other group, who had a W/Mo 9 with droks.
The fight went something like:
We killed 3 of their party once while they killed 3 of us twice. Game over, right? Nope. My W/Mo goes and re-kills the 3 of their party members (no joke, they couldn't kill her 4 on 1) after some chain-ressurection, and thus armies of good and evil began their eternal battle. Fifteen minutes of sword swinging and healing later, the W/Mo 9 finally wins. Why? Because our teammate had to go. They could've just sat there fighting forever.
Thus, my conclusion that this game is absolutely retarded (which sucks, cause I liked it a lot initially). I can't think of another PvP game where there is just no way to win unless your opponent leaves. And I've played some really long DoTa games.
2006/06/30
2006/06/27
Free Downloadable Games: The Last Frontier
Let me paint this gloomy scene:
I am in Brampton (possibly the dullest suburb in Canada) at my in-laws, sitting in a small room, bored from hours of reading. There is something that passes as a computer in front of me (a 700Mhz Celeron) with a DSL Lite connection. Even the Yahoo! Chess interface (the old one) runs slowly on the "computer", so what is a gamer to do?
After some time researching many (slow-loading) pages, looking at unfinished products (about 99% of the free gaming remake projects out there are unfinished), here are some connections if you ever find yourself in such desperate times:
Do you have an inside scoop on any free offline gaming that doesn't require much processing power or a real video card?
I am in Brampton (possibly the dullest suburb in Canada) at my in-laws, sitting in a small room, bored from hours of reading. There is something that passes as a computer in front of me (a 700Mhz Celeron) with a DSL Lite connection. Even the Yahoo! Chess interface (the old one) runs slowly on the "computer", so what is a gamer to do?
After some time researching many (slow-loading) pages, looking at unfinished products (about 99% of the free gaming remake projects out there are unfinished), here are some connections if you ever find yourself in such desperate times:
- RetroRemakes - This site has tons of free options. Their
scope is basically limited to remakes of really old games, and their list isn't completely up to date in terms of projects that have been abandoned, but I found myself playing The Legend of Shadow (Legend of Kage remake) for quite some time. I did run into a play-stopping bug as it slowed down to about 8-frames a second for no apparent reason halfway into the second area though. And of course, there is no save feature, so I resorted to... - Space Quest 0 - Yes, Roger Wilco's lost adventure! This is such a throwback; you have to type. That evoked both a sense of horror and joy. Yes, you will actually have to type "search body" into the console if you want to make your way around this game. I didn't play this game too long, but the humour was spot-on and it didn't have any technical problems.
Do you have an inside scoop on any free offline gaming that doesn't require much processing power or a real video card?
2006/06/23
Industry goes boom?
I found this news article on Gamespot rather humourous. Especially the part where they refer to this analyst, Michael Pachter, who is predicting doom for the industry. Gee, if he didn't just prove that he knew nothing by predicting that the sales for this month would be way higher than they were. I love that logic. "This guy was totally wrong about this topic. But here is what he says about this topic in the future". I predict oil prices will go down over the next year. Way down.
This article led this Slashdot poster to believe that MMORPGs might be the cause. Of course, this inference is meaningless. What is interesting though is that if this is true, consoles will have to have a fast response on this front. They need to make MMORPGs work on consoles (except for Nintendo, whose consoles are niche and are clearly for people who enjoy having friends over to play). Good luck guys.
I think what is more likely is that consumers are just holding out on the current generation consoles until all the players are on the field. People are saving up months ahead so that they can get a PS3, or they are waiting for the 360 price drop that is imminent. I have often talked about starting some kind of PS3 fund this year, and I was only half-joking. I'm sure many people are doing the same. What are your plans for the next generation consoles?
This article led this Slashdot poster to believe that MMORPGs might be the cause. Of course, this inference is meaningless. What is interesting though is that if this is true, consoles will have to have a fast response on this front. They need to make MMORPGs work on consoles (except for Nintendo, whose consoles are niche and are clearly for people who enjoy having friends over to play). Good luck guys.
I think what is more likely is that consumers are just holding out on the current generation consoles until all the players are on the field. People are saving up months ahead so that they can get a PS3, or they are waiting for the 360 price drop that is imminent. I have often talked about starting some kind of PS3 fund this year, and I was only half-joking. I'm sure many people are doing the same. What are your plans for the next generation consoles?
2006/06/22
Heroes of Might and Magic V
This game is bugged as hell, and not all that different from its previous iterations, but still a lot of fun to play. I haven't tried the multiplayer (which, I hear has more issues than the singleplayer mode), but don't look for this game to rock your world. This game is more of an insidious widowmaker than a sanity thief.
Heroes V is supposedly more like Heroes III than Heroes IV. Whatever that means. I was a Heroes III nut (I bought and played all the expansions), and I am one of the rare few who liked the fourth iteration better (I hate having to hire heroes as a creature-delivery service). The truth is, you'll feel like you're playing the same game with 3D graphics. You'll be leading armies of creatures aligned to your town type and destroy patches of creatures or decently-intelligent foes on a square-based grid. The strategy is the same as the previous games: get your production on and control the map.
For the RPGers in all of us, you level your hero throughout the campaign, eventually leading to cool abilities (for example, the ultimate ability for the Ranger is that your creatures will always have luck applied to their attacks). The skill trees and ability trees are two mechanics that seem to have undergone a change for the better. However, you still don't carry your items between scenarios, which is still annoying.
Presentation and general polish is where the game falls short. In fact, if you bought this game before the 1.1 patch, you might have been tempted to concoct some desperate plan to evade store policy and return it.
The game teases you with many great tooltips. You can right-click to find out vital information about buildings and units. For example, right-clicking on a Grim Raider reveals that it has the ability Lizard Bite. But what could Lizard Bite mean? You're on your own. How a strategy game could be missing creature abilities blows my mind (check the my resource recommendation at the end to find out what it does). Not to mention that there is just no description on some artifacts. Who told them they could release it like this?
The music is standard, the voice-acting is spotty in some cases, and the 3D, rotating/zooming camera pretty much just gets in the way. Unless you're willing to move your camera every turn (and trust me, you won't be), you're bound to miss out on some precious resource or building because trees have occluded it. This is a bit of a minor issue, but the 3D terrain also gets in the way of some battles that involve sieging a town. You almost always have to zoom all the way out in these battles. The occlusion is also a problem when trying to target a small unit adjacent to a big dragon in some cases.
I won't even bother telling you about the story. It completely sucks. Everyone's all crazy about Queen Isabel, but she's a stupid loon and almost completely unlovable. I would be rebelling against her as well, the witch.
A couple of the new features, like a cinematic combat camera, I turned off by the time I was on the second scenario. When you are already going to devote 40 or so hours to a game, you probably won't want to waste the couple of seconds every creature action to have the camera zoom in on your creatures.
Bringing up the save dialog takes way longer than it should. My computer isn't the fastest thing on the face of the planet, but it should really be able to handle saving.
Some of these issues have been fixed with the 1.1 patch, but it seems to mainly focus on multiplayer bugs. I don't have the patience to try turn-based multiplay, even for my beloved Civilizations 4, so I don't think I'll delve into this one.
So, in summary: long, sweet, but it'll annoy you just enough so that you won't be playing it until you lie passed out at a cybercafe.
The best link I've found relating to this game is Celestial Heavens. They have a really cool skill wheel and up to date information! Oh, and of course there's a wiki. There's always a wiki.
Heroes V is supposedly more like Heroes III than Heroes IV. Whatever that means. I was a Heroes III nut (I bought and played all the expansions), and I am one of the rare few who liked the fourth iteration better (I hate having to hire heroes as a creature-delivery service). The truth is, you'll feel like you're playing the same game with 3D graphics. You'll be leading armies of creatures aligned to your town type and destroy patches of creatures or decently-intelligent foes on a square-based grid. The strategy is the same as the previous games: get your production on and control the map.
For the RPGers in all of us, you level your hero throughout the campaign, eventually leading to cool abilities (for example, the ultimate ability for the Ranger is that your creatures will always have luck applied to their attacks). The skill trees and ability trees are two mechanics that seem to have undergone a change for the better. However, you still don't carry your items between scenarios, which is still annoying.
Presentation and general polish is where the game falls short. In fact, if you bought this game before the 1.1 patch, you might have been tempted to concoct some desperate plan to evade store policy and return it.
The game teases you with many great tooltips. You can right-click to find out vital information about buildings and units. For example, right-clicking on a Grim Raider reveals that it has the ability Lizard Bite. But what could Lizard Bite mean? You're on your own. How a strategy game could be missing creature abilities blows my mind (check the my resource recommendation at the end to find out what it does). Not to mention that there is just no description on some artifacts. Who told them they could release it like this?
The music is standard, the voice-acting is spotty in some cases, and the 3D, rotating/zooming camera pretty much just gets in the way. Unless you're willing to move your camera every turn (and trust me, you won't be), you're bound to miss out on some precious resource or building because trees have occluded it. This is a bit of a minor issue, but the 3D terrain also gets in the way of some battles that involve sieging a town. You almost always have to zoom all the way out in these battles. The occlusion is also a problem when trying to target a small unit adjacent to a big dragon in some cases.
I won't even bother telling you about the story. It completely sucks. Everyone's all crazy about Queen Isabel, but she's a stupid loon and almost completely unlovable. I would be rebelling against her as well, the witch.
A couple of the new features, like a cinematic combat camera, I turned off by the time I was on the second scenario. When you are already going to devote 40 or so hours to a game, you probably won't want to waste the couple of seconds every creature action to have the camera zoom in on your creatures.
Bringing up the save dialog takes way longer than it should. My computer isn't the fastest thing on the face of the planet, but it should really be able to handle saving.
Some of these issues have been fixed with the 1.1 patch, but it seems to mainly focus on multiplayer bugs. I don't have the patience to try turn-based multiplay, even for my beloved Civilizations 4, so I don't think I'll delve into this one.
So, in summary: long, sweet, but it'll annoy you just enough so that you won't be playing it until you lie passed out at a cybercafe.
Powergame
My personal view on the factions, in order:- Necropolis - These guys are beaters. They're probably terribly unbalanced in multiplay. They will have 2k of skeleton archers in no time, while keeping their population up with a level 2 summoning spell. Plus, they can recruit at will and convert them to undead. Beaters.
- Dungeon - Black dragons and elemental chaining. First-level shooters with a decent ability. You can basically own anything with destructive magic in the early-mid game. The only faction with a level 2 walker that can actually be useful, albeit only if they're upgraded. You can also get cool combos off like land your Grim Raiders beside a unit and send your double-striking minotaur guards at them for two free attacks.
- Sylvan - With the right skills/abilities, lots of ancient treants and master hunters, you should be able to dominate. Their level 2 walker is useful on very rare occassion, and only if you have at least 30 of them and they're upgraded.
- Academy - Ranged level 7 critters is actually not that big of a deal, unless you're defending or applying a siege or fighting mobs. That being said, Titans are waaaay better than Colossi, so upgrade soon. They suffer in the second and third tier but make up for it in the higher tiers.
- Inferno - Sure, gating is good (especially with the ultimate ability), but their level three walkers are useless until upgraded. If you're desperate and you want to recruit from other factions, you're out of luck because your own succubus mistresses will destroy them. Large stacks of imps are crazy good against enemy heroes though.
- Haven - Archangels are a bit of a pimpsmacking, but this faction is so vanilla it's hard to pay attention. Cavaliers/Paladins are also allstars, but I hope I never have to play this faction again.
The best link I've found relating to this game is Celestial Heavens. They have a really cool skill wheel and up to date information! Oh, and of course there's a wiki. There's always a wiki.
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