Jul 19
The Disciples games had their own comfortable sub-niche in the genre of fantasy strategy. Unlike games with finicky tactical combat, Disciples focused on the units moving around the strategic maps. Battles played out quickly on a simple grid rather than the extensive, chess-like encounters that characterized games like King’s Bounty, Heroes of Might and Magic, Master of Magic, and Age of Wonders. It was simple, fluid, and uniquely slick.
But for whatever reason, Disciples III has decided to be like the competition. Now it’s virtually identical to King’s Bounty and Heroes of the Might and Magic, except for the fact that it’s nowhere near as good as either of them. If you’re going to compromise your unique identity, the worst thing you can do is do it poorly.
There’s almost nothing to recommend the new tactical battles, especially since the A.I. is unable to play them in any meaningful way. For instance, there are special squares on the map that give units a bonus. The A.I. is absolutely unaware of these. A cover system lets melee units defend frail neighbors, which is a great way to lend the tactical battles a sense of actual tactics by encouraging units to stay together. The A.I. has no sense of this. The A.I. has no idea how to effectively use unit abilities, ranged fire, spells, and so forth. This is a classic example of how a strategy game is utterly undone when it doesn’t have a competent A.I. Continue reading »
written by cimaul
\\ tags: game, PC, RPG
Jul 14
While titular character DeathSpank attempts to convince an orphan girl to get into his bag (there’s context to this, which I will leave for you to discover for yourself in-game), she demands that he find her a cell phone. You then have to choose from a bevy of adventure game dialogue-style options, one of which expresses confusion with, “What does an orphan need a cell phone for?” To which she replies, “To update my blog, of course!”
That is the kind of humor that peppers DeathSpank (the game): a sort of deadpan absurdity where pretty much anything — no matter how anachronistic or fourth-wall-breaking — gets said as naturally as we would discuss the time of day. The unflinching delivery of some of the most surprising and out-of-left-field (yet flowing and not at all awkward) dialogue makes DeathSpank simply one of the funniest games to watch and listen to. The script, filled with references and quips covering topics from fantasy RPG tropes to the secret history of felt to the value of unicorn excrement to even sly references to other games, positively shines with classic designer Ron Gilbert’s influence. The jokes hit on so many topics that something is bound to make you chuckle — multiple times even. Even the diverse color palette, the Animal Crossing-esque “on-a-hill” perspective, and the visual gags, along with the voiced dialogue, all make DeathSpank a charming standout compared to other games of its ilk. Continue reading »
written by cimaul
\\ tags: game, PC, PS3, RPG, Xbox 360
Jul 13
When the first Dragon Age 2 details were revealed last week, it sounded a lot like the game was moving away from the classic RPG roots of the first title and more toward the hybrid action-RPG style of BioWare’s other big franchise, Mass Effect. Now new details are hitting the net from Game Informer’s cover feature on Dragon Age 2 (via Kotaku), and they’re only strengthening that supposition.
For starters, the story confirms that with Dragon Age 2’s new hero, Hawke, being fully voiced, the game will eschew the dialogue trees of the first Dragon Age for a “dialogue wheel” system similar to Mass Effect. One new wrinkle, though, is that Dragon Age 2’s dialogue wheel will show you exactly what type of response each option will give, noting whether it’s “anger” or “flirting,” and so on.
Interestingly, though, a whole new character with his (or her) own personality doesn’t mean everything you did in the first Dragon Age doesn’t matter. Dragon Age 1 save files can still be transferred over to Dragon Age 2, which actually begins during the final moments of the first game. Continue reading »
written by cimaul
\\ tags: PC, RPG
Jul 09
BioWare’s new approach to the franchise could be interesting, but the original origin stories will be missed. As has been said many times, Mass Effect’s evolution has cut down on the RPG elements quite a bit in exchange for appealing to a much wider market, while Dragon Age represents the opposite side of that equation — the desire to create a classic PC RPG in the vein of Baldur’s Gate.
With the announcement of Dragon Age II though, the two games now have a bit more in common. In the character of “Hawke,” Dragon Age is basically picking up its own Commander Sheppard, and maybe sacrificing a bit of its identity in the process.
That’s not to say that I don’t like Commander Shepard. As I’ve played through the first two Mass Effects, I’ve steadily grown to like the hardnosed renegade that has been my stand-in for the past two games. It’s jarring to see any other Shepard simply because I’ve come to think of my commander as the only one. Continue reading »
written by cimaul
\\ tags: PC, RPG
May 07
Nier certainly isn’t the most descriptive title for a videogame. Then again, this latest effort from Drakengard developer Cavia (and published by Square Enix) kind of defies description. Sure, it might start off like your typical, hack-and-slash RPG, but Nier’s identity constantly fluctuates as the game co-opts mechanics from bullet-hell shooters, 2D platformers, Diablo-style, isometric dungeon crawlers, and more — even morphing into a full-on text adventure at certain points.
I’m not talking about subtle homages, either. There are sections in Nier where the gameplay, camera angles, and control methods all change drastically. One minute you’re chopping away at hordes of Shades (the game’s chief enemy type) from a third-person, behind-the-back perspective, the next moment you could be staring at a top-down, swords-and-sorcery version of Geometry Wars — twin-stick shooting and all. Or maybe you stumble upon a seemingly deserted manor (a near brick-for-brick recreation of the mansion from Resident Evil), at which point the normally player-controlled camera shifts to a static position for each room and the color palette drops to just black and white. Continue reading »
written by cimaul
\\ tags: RPG, videogame
Apr 28
Considering that Nintendo and Mistwalker’s The Last Story is due out on the Wii before the end of the year, the Hironobu Sakaguchi-run developer is being awfully quiet about the game. A full-on reveal will probably have to wait until the E3 show in June at this point, but until then, Nintendo seems content with releasing tiny little drips of info on the RPG — partly on the Japanese teaser site, and partly in previews published in Famitsu and other Japanese game mags.
A few of the tidbits released so far:
- The game’s fictional world is a pretty orthodox take on the sword-and-sorcery genre, without the sort of SF-style trappings often seen in Japanese RPGs.
- Much of the game is set in Ruli, a peninsular bay home to a thriving merchant metropolis. Ruli has survived relatively unscathed from the war and devastation over on the main continent, and the city in its center is massive and filled with twisty back alleys. It is run by Count Alganan, a cunning leader with shrewd political sense and a full knowledge of magic and its potential powers Continue reading »
written by cimaul
\\ tags: game, RPG, wii
Mar 07
Final Fantasy XIII is a game at a crossroads. It’s stranded at the intersection between the desires of an existing fanbase, the fading popularity of a genre, a legacy of cutting-edge visuals, and the rising cost of game development. It’s a creation that displays the compromises of its development process at every turn, yet to its credit, it doesn’t feel compromised. It’s defined by creative tradeoffs, yet it embraces those potential shortcomings and transforms them into integral components of its design.
FFXIII is ambitious and daring, not to mention gorgeous and energetic. It approaches the concept of “role-playing games” with ruthless pragmatism, lopping off hunks of RPG tradition like a doctor operating on a terminally gangrenous patient. Traditional towns are too difficult to manage in light of the demands of current technology and art design? Whack — they’re gone. Free-roaming exploration too difficult to Continue reading »
written by cimaul
\\ tags: console, game, RPG
