KnightsBlazing's GameSpot Friend's Reviews KnightsBlazing's GameSpot Friend's Reviews KnightsBlazing's GameSpot Friend's Reviews en-us Copyright (c)1995-2013 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved. http://www.gamespot.com 20 Wed, 19 Jun 2013 11:07:14 -0700 GameSpot KnightsBlazing's GameSpot Friend's Reviews http://img.gamespot.com/gamespot/shared/promos/misc/gs_logo.gif http://www.gamespot.com 135 40 Mon, 17 Jun 2013 08:23:17 -0700 Uesugi-dono reviewed The Last of Us for the PlayStation 3... http://www.gamespot.com/the-last-of-us/user-reviews/812518/platform/ps3/ ...and gave it a 9.5!

The tension is palpable. Four of us are huddled, hiding from three armed hunters who are inbound to search our area. Something goes wrong and they'll call that armored humvee back down on us. I move forward with a determination that gives me an aura of bravery; my real motivation are my companions though. Not only do I have Ellie to look out for but our new companion, Sam, also has Henry, a boy near Ellie's age. I don't have much to work with: no arrows, a handful of bullets but I don't want to risk gunfire and call that .50 cal back down on us. Hunter number one is easy; I blindside him with a punch and then choke him out... it takes time. The others are near my companion. In a bigger hurry I hurl a brick at Hunter 2 and then shiv him in the carotid, but I've been careless. Hunter 3 grabs me in a chokehold. He's got me dead-to-rights, no doubt about that, but I've got a wildcard: Ellie climbs up his back and wraps her arms around his neck. He released me and I turn the full fury of a lead pipe on him till he's still.



Endure and Survive.



- Such is life in The Last of Us. You survive from moment to moment, encounter to encounter. I am playing on Hard at @katzenbalger 's suggestion and I think it's a good idea. Trying to figure out how to get through a flooded basement filled with infected and carrying only 7 shotgun shells and a brick is surely a challenge, especially when you need to start a loud-ass gas generator to get out of the area! But make no mistake: at least the infected don't shoot at you.



- What's left of humanity is, by far, more dangerous than the various degrees of the infected. The latter are predictable: Runners run, Stalkers wait, Clickers, well, click but are also relatively easy to sneak by. Hunters, on the other hand, patrol, investigate and, if you're spotted, flank your position. I nearly screamed out loud in one situation where I thought the floor below me was clear so when a Hunter seized me from behind while I engaged a bottleneck of enemies I nearly pooped my pants. Needless to say this action led to my hasty demise. And demise is certainly at hand in nearly every situation you encounter. Just remember: Feeling like Batman will get your silly ass killed in The Last of Us.



- The Last of Us already holds a distinction for me. There have been several games that have been tear-jerkers at the end but this game gets you right at the beginning. Despite a review to the contrary, I identified with Joel quickly and it's easy to see how he descended to what he became. I can see a parallel between this game and Red Dead Redemption; Ellie is clearly Joel's ticket to redemption. As for the girl herself she is spunky, clever, and instantly likeable. Thus far the supporting cast of characters have all been pretty likable (or despicable as the situation calls for) and I am especially pleased with Joel's Texas drawl; it gives him an air of realism in a genre dominated by a handful of recurring lead voice actors... least that's what I thought! I didn't recognize Troy Baker as the same voice of Red Faction's Alec Mason or Persona 4's Kanji Tatsumi. (That last one just makes me like him more!) The accent is subtle but real; probably because Baker is from Texas. At any rate Joel comes off as a geniune character, a man who has had some bad sh*t happen to him and whose dreams of the future end with tomorrow morning.



- A LOT of praise has been heaped on Ashley Johnson's portrayal of 14 year old Ellie, and for good reason. Despite the fact that she has never voiced a 'serious' video game character before the 29 year old actress nailed Ellie; breathing life into the character such as to make her strong yet vulnerable, likeable yet fiery... she's a realistic blend of an all-to-mature teenage girl trying to be both brave and, at the same time, just be a girl who is full of wonder and curiosity at the world she never knew; almost like an orphan yearning to know about the parents who died before she had a chance to know them. I found it particularly touching how Joel tries to shield her from the corruption around her yet, before long, must accede to the fact that she has to learn how to protect herself... and him as well.



- A lot has also been said about the brutal level of violence in this game. Is it visceral? Yes. It's it vulgar? Not really. Is it necessary? Absolutely. We live in a post-Mortal Kombat age; accustomed to violence-as-comedy. Is this level of violence funny? Not at all, but it actually shies away from what I was expecting. (Although there was a scene with a morbidly facinating arterial spray.) It is definately the most violent sounding game I think I've played. Sound design is excellent and every brick you smash into an enemy's face just sounds like hurt, but I guess I was expecting a horror-of-war type of experience with guts blasted out with every shotgun blast. You'll be spared that, but otherwise The Last of Us pulls no punches. Most of all no regenerating health here. Every drop of alcohol, every scrap of bandage is all very precious... like Gollum precious, because you need it for creating health kits. You need it MORE for health kits than for infected-destroying molotovs, despite how effective those really are.



- Admittedly the AI of your companions can get a little ridiculous. They are effectively invisible to the enemy, which can be immersion-breaking. They can also act as roadblocks if you decide you're not quite done with the area and turn around to investigate more, but they do try to get out of your way. I haven't noticed any clipping, such as others have mentioned, but I will offer a warning: while you can save at any time I recommend you do it after you clear an area. On several occasions I have been bum-rushed immediately after loading a game if I stopped in mid-combat. True to Naughty Dog's word Ellie will never be a concern in an encounter, but that's also a little disappointing. It kind of takes you out of your role as her protector because you literally never have to worry about her or any of your other companions. The encounter I mentioned at the beginning of this piece; my companions we never in any danger. I could have taken my time and used stealth to kill all three hunters but, for me, that is immersion breaking. I prefer, instead, to still act as though they are in my care. It means waiting for all of my companions to get up a ladder before me while waiting nervously in a zombie-filled room when I could just scoot to safety myself and not give them a second thought. It means me taking huge risks when a Hunter gets too close to Ellie instead of slipping quietly away and conserving ammo. Such moments are less immersion-destroying than if I just worry about Joel. I respect what ND was trying to do but, honestly, I would prefer a little more concern for the 14 year old girl I'm supposed to be protecting.




- Overall believe the hype. The Last of Us is not only a powerful and moving experience, it is clearly Game of the Generation material. While Bioshock Infinite may take local GOTY awards due to its multi-platform nature, The Last of Us deserves to win the crown. Naughty Dog has created a beautiful swan song for the 7th generation and you'd be remiss to let it pass you by. Beg, borrow, steal, or just work your ass off to get a PS3... this is one of those ICO-like games that people will be talking about for many years to come.






The Last of Us - 9.5



Get the full article at GameSpot

"Uesugi-dono reviewed The Last of Us for the PlayStation 3..." was posted by Uesugi-dono on Mon, 17 Jun 2013 08:23:17 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/the-last-of-us/user-reviews/812518/platform/ps3/ Fri, 14 Jun 2013 20:42:25 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Orcs Must Die! Lost Adventures for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/orcs-must-die-lost-adventures/user-reviews/812401/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 6.5.

INTRO:

During the development of any game, there would be content that is made and then cut out of the final product because it does not fit well with the rest of the game. Said cut content would have been wasted work, but the advent of DLC as a new way for game-makers to make profit with has encouraged some game-makers, including Robot Entertainment, to package their cut content into DLC with price tags.

Sometimes, the cut content should have remained excised because they are just not as good as the content in the vanilla product. Unfortunately, this is the case with Lost Adventures, the second premium DLC package for Orcs Must Die!

The additional rift fortresses that it offers are functional but uninspired. One of the two additional mob types is likely an idea gone awry and then reconstituted, and the other is little more than a palette swap of an existing mob type. If not for the Mana Well that it introduces into the game, Lost Adventures would have been quite a waste of money.

ADDITIONAL ENEMY TYPES:

The game introduces two types of enemies. One of them is the Frostbat, which is the frosty counterpart of the Hellbat. It has a model that is similar to that for the Hellbat's and shares the same animations and behaviour. The only differences are its particle effects and the secondary effect of its attacks, which freeze their target for a few seconds.

The secondary effect would be worrisome, but only if they get within range. Like Hellbats, they can be shot down before they could do much damage, assuming that the player has made preparations that are specifically against their archetype of mobs.

The other enemy type would have been formidable if not for flaws in its targeting system. The Cyclops Mage fires a homing projectile that will eventually catch up to the hero, and it so happens to pass through solid objects as well.

This would be quite distressing, at least until the player notices the Cyclops Mage's very long casting animations; if the player can have the hero hiding behind an obstacle to obscure him from sight, they stop their casting and have to start over if they catch sight of the hero again. The player can use this behaviour against them to stall their progress.

RIFT FORTRESSES - OVERVIEW:

There are five rift fortresses in the DLC package. The similarities between them is that all of them have distressingly high numbers of mobs that will come through the gates. Choosing different difficulty settings will not change their composition by much, though "Nightmare" introduces a handful of enemies that are particularly troublesome when they appear in their associated waves, such as a Fire Ogre right in the first wave.

Unfortunately, after having played through the rift fortresses, one would have the impression that Robot Entertainment resorted to using plenty of mobs to provide most of the challenge from them, instead of utilizing clever level designs like those seen in the fortresses of the vanilla version of the game.

There are no additional story-centric voice-overs to be heard in these rift fortresses, which can be a bit disappointing.

DOUBLE TROUBLE:

Double Trouble is a fortress that is so simply designed that it gives a strong impression of being a map that was made to test out design concepts.

There are two entrances that lead into two large hallways that are simply impractical for funnelling strategies. However, two trios of acid cauldrons run across each hallway, making stalling strategies stupendously effective against the mobs that would come.

The only catch here is that the player has to shuffle the hero to-and-fro the two hallways, which is not easy as the mobs are quite immense in number, with plenty of Gnoll Hunters among them. The player may have to rig one of the hallways at the expense of the other just to ease the pressure.

Eventually, the player will get enough money to kit out both stairways to the rift with swinging maces and tar traps, making any further defence quite trivial.

REVERSE TOWER:

This rift fortress is practically the original Tower with the rift and the lower gate switching places. The game sends an uncomfortably high number of fire ogres and kobolds through the upper gate.

However, eventually the observant player will notice that there is a chokepoint close to the gate that can be invested with swinging maces and tar traps, which make the elimination of the mobs that come through the upper gate quite easy.

As in the original Tower, putting plenty of archers on the central platform pretty much ensures that no mobs would be able to go down the stairs without being turned into (flaming pincushions), not even the Frostbats that come down from the skylight at the top of the tower.

Such strategies make the otherwise massive mobs in this fortress quite trivial to handle.

THE PIT:

Despite its name, there is not any lava or acid pit to be had in this fortress.

Instead, the pit refers to the lower levels of the entry hallways, which will be inundated by an alarming number of kobold sappers. These will ruin any strategies that attempt to handle the waves down-stream.

However, once the player discovers the trick to this rift fortress, which is to funnel the other mobs into the pit together with the kobold sappers, the defence of the rift fortress becomes so much easier than one would think. The fire ogres and gnoll hunters can be a cause for concern, but with enough mana from Mana Wells (which will be described later), even they can be kept at bay.

TRIPLE DOWN:

As the name of the rift fortress suggests, the risks in this risk fortress are great. In fact, this is perhaps the only convincingly challenging map in the game.

This is because much of the fortress is made of stairways with high ceilings that lead downhill to the two rifts, making defensive options very limited and fighting itself difficult. The stairways are also obscured from each other by thick walls. Kobold sappers appear out of each of the three entrances, making funnelling strategies quite frustrating to pull off.

A conspicuous side room filled with pre-existing boom barrels strongly suggests stalling and bunching tactics, though the player is likely to only get by at a hair's breadth.

GREAT GORGE:

At first glance, the Great Gorge may have architecture that is counter-productive; the corridors that the mobs have to take have a lot of cover that prevent the use of any long-ranged tactics. Floor space is also very limited, though this also means that they have to move down narrow paths that can be lined with some wall-mounted traps. However, the volume of the mobs is so high that it is unlikely that the traps will prevent leaking.

Eventually, the wise player will learn that the best way to handle the mobs is to resort to the wall-mounted device that is introduced in this DLC package, the Mana Well. That there are no kobold sappers in the waves also strongly suggest that the player should use barricades to funnel and concentrate the mobs for attacks with area-effect items, which consume a lot of mana.

The least impressive aspect of this rift fortress is the pair of sewer grates at the bottom of the fortress. They will discharge flying enemies, mostly the Frostbat, but they can be easily stymied by having many elven archers on the conveniently-placed bridge in between the two grates.

MANA WELL:

The only element of worthwhile value in this DLC is the additional wall-mounted "trap", the Mana Well. As its name suggests, it is a repository of mana that refills itself constantly. The player can retrieve a lot of mana at fantastic speed from it, though it will usually not recharge fast enough to keep up with the player's consumption.

Thus, for hero-centric defensive strategies, the placement of multiple wells is required, yet mana wells are some of the most expensive traps around. Nonetheless, most players are likely to appreciate the inclusion of the Mana Well in their spellbooks, though it may not be compensation enough for having to put up with the rest of the less valuable content in the DLC package.

ADDITIONAL MUSIC:

The only additional sound designs to be heard in the DLC package are additional music tracks. Initially, they may sound new, but the discerning player may notice that they are very likely remixes of the soundtracks that have been heard in the vanilla version of the game, albeit with significant changes in the refrains and choruses which make for near-convincing disguises.

CONCLUSION:

The additional rift fortresses in the Lost Adventures DLC give a strong impression of being mere afterthoughts by the developer, who may well have decided that they should make some money out of their cut content. Moreover, the additional enemy types are not convincingly challenging and refreshing. The only saving grace of the package that is worthwhile is the Mana Well, which can see great use in the vanilla version of Orcs Must Die!

Still, the value of this DLC package is spotty at best.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Orcs Must Die! Lost Adventures for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Fri, 14 Jun 2013 20:42:25 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/orcs-must-die-lost-adventures/user-reviews/812401/platform/pc/ Fri, 14 Jun 2013 00:25:12 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Orcs Must Die! Artifacts of Power for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/orcs-must-die-artifacts-of-power/user-reviews/812362/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 7.0.

INTRO:

The vanilla version of Orcs Must Die! is challenging enough with the arsenal that is available to the player. In its attempt to enrich the game – and itself – further, Robot Entertainment has released a premium DLC package that introduces two items and two traps to the game.

The traps have balanced designs, but the items might be more powerful than they deserve to be. Still, all of them grant new ways to kill orcs and their allies with, so this premium DLC is far from boring.

SHOCK ZAPPER:

The Shock Zapper is a specialized trap that is designed to kill flying enemies before they even have a chance to fly through the rift fortress. The auto-ballista can do the same and more, but the Shock Zapper has a more consistent damage output, is better in tighter spaces and has a chance of zapping more than one target with each discharge.

Its designs strongly suggest it is intended for players who do not want to bother with waves of flying enemies. This may be so on the "Nightmare" difficulty setting, in which the ground-based mobs can be a greater concern than the flying ones.

FLOOR SCORCHER:

The spring trap in the vanilla version of the game may be a bit too powerful; it can launch mobs far out of the rift fortress, causing problems. The floor scorcher is a bit gentler than the spring trap, in that it merely flips mobs that step over it, which is adequate if there is a hazard just next to the trap.

Its secondary function is to shoot fire in the direction opposite to that which it flipped its first victim at; anything within two squares that its vents are directed at is fried. Clever placing of Floor Scorchers, supplemented by spike traps or brimstones, can defeat very thick waves in fiery manners.

However, the Floor Scorcher is an expensive trap, which is perhaps understandable considering its versatility.

VAMPIRIC GAUNTLETS:

The gauntlets can rapidly fire a stream of magical bolts that damage anything that they hit, while healing the hero if the bolts land. Alternatively, the player can have the hero sacrificing his health to restore mana. To prevent the player from abusing the gauntlets, the trade-offs between mana and health happen to be less efficient for restoring mana than it is for hurting enemies.

These designs suggest that the Vampiric Gauntlets are intended to be a risk-versus-reward item, but it may have given skilled players too much versatility in strategies that involve the extensive use of the hero. Said players can exploit the presence of healing potions and the hero's regenerating mana to juggle their mana and health expenditure so that the hero can stay in the battle longer.

Of course, one can argue that the juggling consumes time that could have been spent doing something else, but this is still better than having the hero run back to the rift(s) to recover.

ALCHEMIST SATCHEL:

The satchel lets the hero toss large round acid flasks that bounce around a bit before settling down. They can be detonated by the satchel's secondary attack or upon being hit by anything. The acid flasks take a lot of mana to create, but the player can set up to three of them to be remotely detonated. This makes the acid flasks one of the most tactically valuable items in the game, especially when one considers that their acid douse kills most mobs outright.

Unfortunately, the alchemist satchel is overpowered, mainly because the radius of effect of each acid flask is massive – its area of effect is even larger than that for the Boom Barrel. This allows players to eliminate whole swathes of orcs and other weak mobs with just a single flask.

OTHER MENTIONS:

The additional items and traps in this DLC may have their own models, but all of their particle effects are recycled from existing ones in the vanilla version of the game; in the case of the items, the hero's animations are recycled from existing ones too. Their sound designs are new, fortunately, so Robot Entertainment has not exactly been too lazy.

CONCLUSION:

This would have been a balanced package of additional game content, if not for the rather overpowered items in it. Still, the package is at least entertaining as it gives new ways and permutations of strategies to slay orcs with.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Orcs Must Die! Artifacts of Power for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Fri, 14 Jun 2013 00:25:12 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/orcs-must-die-artifacts-of-power/user-reviews/812362/platform/pc/ Thu, 13 Jun 2013 22:18:10 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Orcs Must Die! for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/orcs-must-die/user-reviews/812358/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 8.0.

INTRO:

There are few medieval fantasy stories that are willing to describe what orcs would do when they storm a fortress, beyond saying that the defenders have already lost because the orcs have managed to get inside.

Orcs Must Die! begs to differ, and at the same time, will also tell one extra tale about the orcs: they don't have much experience spotting traps and are terrible at utilizing their numerical superiority indoors.

This is the tale that Robot Entertainment wishes to use for its next game – incidentally after its previous project that was Age of Empires Online, which is an entirely different game. One would wonder how Robot Entertainment could handle such a change in direction, but they had and it just so happens to be so much gleeful fun.

Unfortunately, they were not entirely perfect in their execution, so up until now, the game is saddled with annoying bugs. However, it would be difficult for these bugs to take away too much of the fun from the rest of the game.

PREMISE:

Orc Must Die! is set in two fantasy worlds where there are magical rifts that are used as both sources of magical energy as well as means of transportation between said worlds. One of the worlds is inhabited by peace-loving, magic-dependent people, whereas the other is hell-blasted, no thanks to its barbaric natives.

Considering the importance of the rifts, there is an entire order of warriors and mages that are dedicated to learning the secrets of their use and protecting them. To do so, they have constructed strongholds around these rifts on both worlds. These bastions are simply called "rift fortresses".

The denizens of the dark world have long threatened the rift fortresses, but they were not organized enough to pose a threat beyond just banging on the gates. Lately, they have become more concerted in their efforts; the unprepared order was simply overwhelmed. The marauding mobs passed through the rifts unchecked and brought their menace to the other world.

The couple of war mages that still survive happen to include the oldest and most jaded of them and his regrettably dim-witted apprentice. Unfortunately, a freak accident fell the old man, leaving the apprentice without guidance and mentorship. Yet, he is not exactly saddened and is in fact eager to take charge now that he has "graduated".

PLAYER CHARACTER:

The protagonist has been referred to with many epithets and titles (more of the former than the latter), none of which are truly canonically recognized in this game. For purposes of brevity, this review would refer to him to as the "hero", which is perhaps more appropriate if killing angry orcs that are bent on destruction can be considered heroic.

The hero may be terrible at sorcery, but he is surprisingly gifted at handling magic that creates traps and the summoning of guardians. He is also apparently very physically fit, sprinting at great speeds and fighting tirelessly. He is also difficult to take down, though whether this is due to his connection to the magical rifts or his thick-headedness is up to debate.

It should be apparent to most players that the player character is the main weapon that they will use to defeat the mobs with, despite the game having significant tower defence elements. The player will be making use of the hero's mobility to travel to-and-fro hotspots in the rift fortress that is currently being defended.

Dying does not mean immediate defeat. Due to his connection with the rifts, the hero is resurrected every time he dies, but this takes away strength from the rifts. Oddly enough, his mentor did not appear to have the same benefit from being connected to the rifts; of course, the hero is too dim-witted to wonder about this. (This question was answered in the sequel, though this is for another day.)

Plot logic aside, dying is still a setback, as the player will lose a few precious seconds that will allow the mobs to advance. More importantly, the rift weakens each time the hero dies, so careless players can actually end up losing even if not one enemy made it to the rift.

The hero does not heal naturally. To heal, he must either pick up healing potions that the orcs sometimes – and somehow – drop, or run back to the rift, which will rapidly heal him. Relying on either option too much generally leads to poor performance however, so it is in the player's interest to avoid as much damage as possible.

The hero may be terrible at sorcery, but he has mana reserves that most of his magically enchanted gear will draw form. He regenerates mana over time, but in the vanilla version of this game, the only other default alternative is to retreat to the rift. There are some upgrades that allow him to regain mana through other ways, but they come with opportunity costs.

ARSENAL/SPELLBOOK:

The hero's arsenal is practically his spellbook . There is not much story-based explanation for this, but it is popularly thought that he conjures his equipment and traps into existence.

Every subsequent new fortress that the player has to defend grants a new piece of content to be included in the spellbook. Coincidentally, this new trap or item tends to be more useful than most others in that rift fortress.

The content of this spellbook is retroactive, meaning that the player can return to previously defended rift fortresses and use traps or items that were not available in those fortresses. Considering that the progression of the story is based on the progress of the player across the consecutive fortresses, there is no story-based explanation for this retroactive property of the spellbook.

Before selecting any rift fortress to defend, the player can choose to spend "skulls" to upgrade traps; upgraded traps are generally better than regular traps, or they have capabilities that regular ones do not. The traps that are cheaper to build during actual gameplay require fewer skulls to upgrade, while the more expensive ones typically require more skulls.

These skulls are obtained from completing levels; this will be elaborated further later. There can only be so many skulls to be had before the player runs out, so the player may want to pick upgrades carefully.

There is no story-based explanation for the skulls either, other than they are both meta-game rewards and badges of performance of sorts.

U.I. DESIGN – SPELLBOOK SCREEN:

In the spellbook screen, the traps have icons with background colours that delineate which type it is, or more precisely, where it is set. For example, traps that have icons with blue backgrounds are floor-set traps, whereas traps that have icons with green backgrounds are traps built into walls.

This thoughtful design could have been more useful, if not for the icons for items mingling together with those for traps. They have background colors with no particular associative logic to them, and unfortunately there does not appear to be any way to segregate icons for traps from icons for items.

In fact, there is no way to rearrange the icons in the spellbook either. They appear in the order that they are introduced to the player, but this is the only arrangement that the player gets.

Any item or trap that the player has picked goes into the slots in the hotkey bar at the bottom of the screen. The items and traps are arranged in the order that they are picked. Unfortunately, there is no way to rearrange them after that, short of removing them and re-picking them again.

The spellbook screen is only accessible before the start of the first wave in any rift fortress; an obnoxiously huge prompt appears on-screen to inform the player of this. However, the game does not inform the player that if the player builds any trap or even uses any item during this phase, the spellbook screen is disabled, thus locking the player into using whatever he/she has chosen.

ITEMS:

Items are gear that the hero can equip in lieu of traps. They do not require currency to be used, but almost of them draws from the hero's mana reserves.

Every item has a default firing mode and a secondary mode; both have different effects. However, the secondary mode for any item almost always consume more mana, as it is usually more tactically potent, e.g. usually having area-of-effect properties.

The default item that the hero is always equipped with is the crossbow. It may seem odd and even restrictive that the player is required to always have it, but it will turn out to be the most useful and reliable weapon in the game – assuming the player is a good shot.

This is because a shot from the crossbow to the head of any enemy deals tremendous damage, usually killing the target outright unless it is a bruiser like an ogre. The crossbow also has a rather large hitbox, making it easier to hit heads with; it just so happens that the enemies in this game have large heads, which should make headshots even easier.

In fact, a skilled player may be able to successfully defend the earlier rift fortresses with just the crossbow alone, except perhaps on the highest difficulty setting and only in rift fortresses where the mobs can be easily funnelled.

The crossbow's secondary fire sends a bolt that explodes on impact to slightly damage and stun a small group of enemies. The stunning duration is rather short, which can have players wondering about its usefulness. However, more observant players will notice that it can stall the mobs long enough for them to bunch up, which makes them very vulnerable to traps and items with area-effect attacks.

Like the crossbow, the bladestaff, which is practically a sword, has a primary attack that does not use mana. Its secondary attack pops up enemies that are directly in front of the hero, making them vulnerable while they are falling down. The bladestaff has wide arcs of attacks, making them very handy against bunches of enemies. With enough practice and study of the animations, the player can even kite the mobs around.

However, the wise player would discover that the bladestaff is a risky weapon to use. The mobs may lack finesse in their attacks, but their numbers more than compensate. More importantly, the player will be spending too much time kiting that could have been spent on killing more enemies, which is not wise to do in levels where the hordes have more than one path of approach to the rift.

As mentioned earlier, the hero is simply terrible at casting spells. However, he is at least still capable of using items that can release spells of their own. These spells would be recognizable by veterans of medieval fantasy games, such as spells that burn enemies, freeze them or some other effects.

However, the most useful of these spell-releasing items is the Wind Belt, which tosses enemies around, with the exception of the ogres. The rift fortresses tend to have many hazards, so the player would eventually realize that forcing mobs into them is one of the easiest ways to get rid of them quickly.

Its secondary attack mode picks up objects and suspends them in front of the hero. This can be used offensively, such as picking up and dropping individual enemies into hazards, which uses far less mana than tossing them about with the primary attack but is of course more time-consuming. If anything else, the player can suspend an enemy in front of archers for them to pepper it with arrows.

The Wind Belt is also the only means to retrieve loot drops from hazardous places. Enemies that die in hazards will release their loot drops in said hazards, making them impossible to retrieve safely. However, there are many problems that hinder such efforts, as will be described later.

TRAPS – OVERVIEW:

Traps are the main means of disposing mobs. The hero can only be at one place at any time, even if the player is familiar with the layout of any rift fortress. Furthermore, traps often deal with enemies that they harm very decisively. In addition, the meta-game of Orcs Must Die! happens to rewards kills with traps more lucratively than kills with items.

There are several categories of traps in the game that function differently from each other and with varying effectiveness, so they will be elaborated separately. The wise player will eventually learn how to place them together such that they complement each other, or at least catch enemies that slipped past the earlier traps.

However, all traps have one similarity: they do not affect the hero, who does not appear to be able to trigger them either (though attacks with the Wind Belt appear to do so). Even physical traps simply clip through the hero's model, though this does not mean that there is no discomfort from this; this will be elaborated later.

All traps can be upgraded with skulls, which impart more properties to them, as mentioned earlier.

FLOOR TRAPS:

One of the first two kinds of traps that the player will be introduced to is a trap that is set onto the floor. Each floor-set trap takes up quite a sizable amount of space on the floor; they are almost big enough to affect three orcs that are very close to each other. As to be expected of such traps, they are triggered by having enemies step on them.

Spikes that jut out from the floor are the first to be introduced among these. This is quickly followed by the less-lethal but perhaps more tactical tar trap, which slows down mobs that step into it. Spring traps are introduced in a rift fortress that has vast pits of dangerous liquids, and will become the trap of choice in similar rift fortresses.

Eventually, there will be more entertaining traps, such as Brimstones and Spore Mushrooms.

A few floor traps can be difficult to appreciate though. One of these is the Steam trap, which causes the mob that triggered it to be suspended in the air helplessly for a while; it does not do any damage. It could have been more useful if it can lift any further mobs that move over it, but it does not.

WALL TRAPS:

The first wall trap that the player obtains is the Arrow Wall. An observant player will notice that the wall has a very long range but fires down a narrow corridor; this makes it more useful against mobs that are moving towards it instead of past it. Watching it at its utmost effectiveness can be quite enjoyable.

The push trap is practically the wall-mounted version of the spring trap, so it is not much of a surprise. However, this trap is associated with one of the camera issues in the game, which will be described later.

Wall Blades are perhaps the least useful of the wall-mounted traps, as it has a very small triggering range and it can only inflict heavy damage on a few targets before having to spend time to reset itself. It is best used against tough mobs like Ogres, but there are more efficient ways to deal with these enemies.

Grinders practically turn an innocuous segment of wall into a hazard. It does not sit around waiting for the player to toss mobs its way either; it vacuums in any mobs that come too close, churning them until they jam after having sucked in a number of enemies, upon when they have to reset.

It should be noted here that wall-mounted traps can be placed at any height on a wall. Presumably, this is so that they can attack flying mobs, which can trigger them if they come within the range of the traps. However, in practice, gauging where to place them is difficult as they do not always follow a straight path of flight.

CEILING TRAPS:

The mobs never look up (or down either), so it would not be a surprise if they are quite susceptible to traps that are mounted on the ceiling. However, ceiling traps are the smallest category of traps, perhaps understandably so as most rift fortresses were not designed to have flat and low ceilings (which is probably a strategic mistake).

The player is introduced to the Pounder first, which is only effective against targets that are just underneath it. It is quickly outclassed by the Swinging Mace, which is much larger but is more cost-efficient, especially when it is set along the path of the mobs instead of across it.

In fact, the Swinging Mace may be a tad overpowered when paired with tar traps, especially when both have been upgraded.

The auto-ballista is a hybrid of a trap and a guardian (more on guardians later). On paper, they would seem to be better than the archers, as they have much better damage per shot and longer range; they are also not targeted by the mobs. However, they have limited arcs of fire and slow firing rates, which are perhaps understandable balancing drawbacks.

OTHER 'TRAPS':

There are other 'traps' that do not exactly fall into any of the categories above, as they are more utilitarian in nature. They are still set in the same ways as the other traps, but they do not exactly inflict harm on the mobs that will pass by/through/over them.

Barricades are the most useful of these, because they can direct the mobs into following terribly inefficient paths – the orcs and their cousins are not very smart. However, there are enemies that can circumvent barricades, chief amongst these are flying imp-like creatures. There are also a few rift fortresses where the mobs will attack any barricades that block their paths anyway.

The player can attempt to wall off a rift, or even a corridor, to divert the mobs, but if the player gives them no clear routes to the rift, they start to attack the nearest barricades that block the shortest route to the rift. This is undesirable, because as durable as the barricades are, the mobs' momentum of numbers will blow through them quickly.

Barricades are the only traps that can be damaged by the mobs. Any barricades that are destroyed are permanently lost; the player will have to spend resources to replace them. However, if the player can preserve them until checkpoints in the waves are reached, any damaged but still functional traps are restored to full health. The player can also attempt to sell them and then replace them during lull times (more on these later).

Boom Barrels are barrels of ordnance that are not automatically triggered in any way. Instead, they need to be directly attacked to detonate, and most mobs are not stupid enough to do so. Attempting to trigger them while they are surrounded by mobs can be tricky, as the mobs obscure the barrel.

However, the design that discourages players from using Boom Barrels the most is that they are not replaceable: any Boom Barrel that has been detonated is permanently lost. It can be argued that they are effective against certain tough creatures, but there are other cheaper ways to deal with them.

The Decoy is an improvised version of the Boom Barrel, and one which mobs actually attack – to their explosive detriment. However, like the Boom Barrel, Decoys are one-shot devices that can be wasted carelessly.

GUARDIANS:

Guardians are living defenders that the player can place on just about anywhere where there is a floor. They do not occupy the space that is used by floor traps, so floor traps can be placed under them for some interesting combinations.

However, guardians can be targeted by the mobs and can be incapacitated, rendering them useless until the next break.

There are only two types of guardians in the game: elven archers and paladins. The elven archers act a lot like towers in tower defence games; they stand on the spot and fire on any enemy within their (considerable) range. The player can change their initial facing, but this is unimportant as they do not have any limitation to their arcs of fire.

Elven archers can attack any member of the mobs, making them the more useful of the two guardians. However, archers are rather weak and fall easily, especially when attacked in close combat.

The paladins meander about the spot that they are placed on, waiting for any enemies to come over. They are more mobile than the archers, though this is a double-edged sword as they may end up chasing enemies instead of killing them; they are not exactly fast.

Anyway, when they do what they are supposed to do, they can tie down half a dozen or so enemies, as well as attract a lot of ranged fire (which they shrug off with magical shields as long as they are not engaged in close combat). A few of them in a corridor can stall the orcs as they saunter over, but any other enemy would present a problem, e.g. kobold runners simply move past them, whereas ogres are especially effective against them.

Overall, it would appear that the elven archers are the more utilitarian of the two, leaving the paladins as niche defences with very specific uses.

WEAVERS:

Sometime into the game, the Weavers will be conveniently introduced. They are members of the same order as the War Mages, but unlike the latter, the Weavers are researchers and inventors who invest their effort into creating tools and improvements for the War Mages to purchase and use.

At any time during the defence of a rift fortress, the player can bring up a screen that puts the game on pause and allows the player to purchase upgrades from the Weavers. There are up to three Weavers in the game, but they are all mutually exclusive; picking one prevents the player from perusing the others' upgrades.

The Steel Weaver is likely to be a favourite of many players, as she has upgrades that improve guardians' durability and offensive power and the efficiency of traps. For players who prefer to have the hero doing most of the heavy lifting, especially in maps where the mobs can be corralled, the Elemental Weaver offers upgrades that greatly increase the fighting prowess of the player character.

If there are any possible tactical upgrades that the two aforementioned Weavers do not offer, the Knowledge Weaver has them. These include a lucrative upgrade to the movement speed of the hero, which is very handy in maps with multiple rifts to defend.

ORCS & KIN:

The orcs are the core of the dim-witted hordes that would come crashing into the rift fortresses. They are susceptible to traps, most of which kill them outright. As individual opponents, the orcs are laughably weak.

However, there are many of them – so many that they can leak past the first set of trap-filled corridors and chokepoints. Therefore, the player must plan for further sets of kill-zones to catch any leaks, or at least stall them until the player can have the hero handling them himself.

On higher difficulty settings, the orcs become smarter and bring along shields that can absorb the damage from the first attack that hits them from the front. However, as long as they still have their shields, they move a bit slower. Wiser players may consider using tactics that get rid of them while they still have their shields, such as tossing them into hazards.

Some other orcs happen to be taller than the rest and have skin that is ochre instead of green. They use crossbows instead of melee weapons, which make them more dangerous than the rest. However, they have to stand still while aiming and firing, and their projectiles cannot shoot past other orcs.

Kobolds are the lowliest of the mobs, but they are also the smallest and fastest. Typically, they are either sent as the vanguard, or somewhere in between the waves of hardier mobs. Kobold runners are easily stopped with barricades, which they have a lot of trouble destroying. Kobold sappers are suicide bombers who run into the closest barricade, guardian or the hero, whichever is closer, to blow themselves up to great effect.

Ogres are the toughest of the mobs, whose presence if not seen can be heard some distance away. They appear to lumber slowly at first, but upon catching sight of the hero or any guardians, they charge forward surprisingly quickly, delivering strikes that can stun their victim, often leaving them open to another strike (which fortunately does not re-apply the stunned state). In addition to the vanilla ogre, there are a few others, such as element-specific ogres that are vulnerable to the attacks of certain items.

A few ogres happen to be armored, and these are the toughest enemies in the game, mainly because they are very difficult to stun. However, like other ogres, they can be affected by upgraded physics traps, which can make their elimination somewhat trivial. On the other hand, this requires the player to take the path of the Steel Weaver, which may not be the choice of every player.

There are only two flying enemies in the vanilla version of Orcs Must Die!, but they are a handful enough. This is because they completely circumvent floor-set traps and they are not affected by the physics-scripting for enemies that move on foot, e.g. using the Wind Belt on them does nothing.

This severely reduces the player's choices for dealing with them; the only few things that are effective against them are the elven archers, the auto-ballista and of course, the hero's crossbow. As mentioned earlier, trying to place wall traps in their path can be tricky due to the vision perspectives that the player is limited to having.

Gnoll Hunters announce their presence with howls (which is odd, since they are supposed to be anthropomorphic hyenas, which do not howl). If these are not enough, the loud grunting that they make as they run would. Gnoll Hunters do not go after the rifts, but instead go after guardians and the hero, usually in that order.

They happen to be quite tough and are very fast. Their strikes slow down their target, which makes it even harder to escape from them. They are also only a tad larger than most orcs, making them difficult to pick out from the crowds, at least until they burst forth. They also run over barricades.

Such advantages mean that the player should consider getting rid of them first. In any case, they will take precious time away from dealing with the more numerous mobs.

If there is one trait that all of the enemies in this game share, it is that they have disproportionately huge heads. This makes landing headshots with the crossbow quite easy – for the composed yet twitchy player that is. There are many targets to hit and the hordes would seem to meld together into one intimidating tide that can unnerve inexperienced players into spamming shots without finesse.

Furthermore, on any difficulty setting higher than "Apprentice", the numbers of the mobs have been designed to overwhelm even players that are crack-shots, thus forcing them into utilizing tactics that stall the mobs or cluster them together into bunches for area-effect attacks.

The Hobgoblin Shaman will also discourage the use of headshots. Headshots leave corpses intact, which the Shamans can use to revive and return mobs to the fray. Corpses do eventually disappear, but only if there are no Shamans around to revive them. They can even revive very tough monsters, such as the Gnoll Hunters and Ogres.

However, they do have more than a few limitations and drawbacks. Shamans are as weak as kobolds, and do not actively go for the rift (though they will move towards the nearest corpse that they can see). Shamans also cannot revive anyone that has been gibbed, fried or otherwise died a horrible death that damages its corpse beyond repair.

The presence of Shamans makes traps and items that obliterate corpses or otherwise fling them into hazards quite valuable.

LOOT DROPS:

Each enemy has a chance to drop one of two types of loot; the more powerful enemies have higher chances to drop them when they are slain. Both loot drops float and spin in mid-air, as well as sparkle, which makes them quite easy to spot from afar. Loot drops also persist throughout the defence of a rift fortress, which is convenient.

The more common of the two loot drops is the healing potion. Having the hero retrieve one heals him by more than half of his health bar. The less common one is the golden coin, which gives the player a varying amount of resources to spend; ogres are guaranteed to drop golden coins.

Generally, the player must have the hero running over the models of these loot drops to pick them up. However, if they fall into hazards that the hero cannot go into without dying outright, the player must use the Wind Belt to retrieve them; there is no other way. Yet, even the Wind Belt has its limitations: it cannot pick up things from too far away (the limit on its range is not immediately clear), and the player needs a clear line of sight (and what constitutes a clear line of sight is not clear either).

Unfortunately, sometimes, the models and particle effects of these loot drops fail to appear; the only way the player will know that they are there is through the mini-map. Even so, the mini-map also has its own problems, which will be elaborated later.

SKULLS:

Half of the meta-game in this game concern the collection of skulls, which are used to upgrade traps, as mentioned earlier.

Skulls are mainly awarded by making sure the rifts are not weakened, either by having the hero survive the defence of the rift fortress without dying once. At the default "War Mage" difficulty, completing the defence with the rift intact grants four of the five skulls; at the lowest "Apprentice" difficulty, this reward is limited to just one skull.

The fifth skull has to be obtained by completing the defence of the rift fortress under its official par time. Any time that the player spends dallying during the breaks in between waves is counted too, so the player might want to make decisions quickly or already have a plan beforehand. However, any time that passes while the game is on-pause is discounted, if only so that the player can take a toilet break.

LEADERBOARDS:

The other half of the meta-game concerns the accruing of achievements and races up the leaderboards. The achievements can obtained with enough determination and knowledge of the best strategies to be used to defend the rift fortresses, but the leaderboards are a different matter.

As the player pursues the defence of a rift fortress, he/she will rack up points from the slaying of mobs.

Unfortunately, being efficient at slaying mobs is not rewarded much. If the player resorts to strategies that remove enemies as quickly as possible, he/she would forgo on many opportunities for bonus points. Quick players do get bonus points for completing the defence of a rift fortress below the par time, but the amount rewarded is very lousy: one point for each second saved. Any money saved does not grant any bonus points whatsoever either. This discourages any attempt at speed-runs.

To rack up more points, the player must play at higher difficulty settings where there are more mobs to worry about and subject as many enemies as he/she can to overkill.

Having an enemy suffer many hits from multiple traps or guardians before death racks up a combo multiplier for the point rewards from eliminating this enemy; this must occur in a very short period of time. Orcs happen to be preferable targets for this purpose, as any other enemy either takes too long to die or die very easily.

Most score-racking strategies will require the player to have the hero actively participating in the application of damage, so they will require not only fantastic planning to pull off, but also amazing twitch skills on the part of the player.

Unfortunately, for the Steam version of this game, getting to the very top of the leaderboard with honest effort is pointless and impossible; there are dubious score ratings that hog its highest rungs that strongly suggest cheating.

BREAKS & SELLING THINGS:

Every wave of mobs is followed by a lull, either temporary or indefinite until the player decides to continue. The latter is always present on the "Apprentice" and "War Mage" difficulty settings, and it happens to be a crucial calm-before-the-storm that players would use to make preparations. However, any time spent preparing goes to the time record for the player's session.

Temporary lulls happen to be just 10 seconds each, just enough to make quick tweaks to the player's defences.

Both kinds of lulls are the only times during the defence of a rift fortress that the player can sell traps and guardians; their sales always let the player recoup their costs completely, even on "Nightmare" difficulty. However, on "Nightmare" difficulty, the timers are severely reduced to just a few seconds.

DIFFICULTY SETTINGS:

There are three difficulty settings in the game, though only two are available by default.

The "Apprentice" setting is perhaps the best one to start an unfamiliar rift fortress with, as the game can be surprisingly hard sometimes. Enemies appear to be less numerous, making them easier to handle. However, the skulls that the player can gain are capped at just two for each successful defence at this setting.

The default "War Mage" setting releases the cap to allow the player to get up to five skulls for each rift fortress. The hordes are more naturally numerous and leaks can easily ruin the player's performance.

The perhaps appropriately-named "Nightmare" difficulty is only available after the player has successfully defended all rift fortresses at the War Mage difficulty setting. "Nightmare" has a tally of skulls that is separate from that for "Apprentice" and "War Mage", which share the same tally.

This separate tally is intended to give the player more skulls to upgrade traps with, but working for them is far harder than one would think.

"Nightmare" greatly increases the size of the mobs, as well as includes powerful mobs in the waves of earlier rift fortresses. For example, the very first rift fortress will culminate with an armored ogre at "Nightmare". In addition, all indefinite breaks are removed completely and replaced with timers. The rift is also substantially weaker, at almost one-third of its strength in other difficulty settings.

Meticulous planning, practice and impressive twitch skills are required in order to succeed at the "Nightmare" setting, especially if the player is gunning for full five-skulls performance and high leaderboard scores. This makes the "Nightmare" setting more suitable for hardcore enthusiasts of this game than anyone else.

If the different difficulty settings do alter the durability of enemies, the differences can be difficult to discern. This is because most traps and items kill orcs and weaker mobs outright at just about any difficulty setting. The differences are perhaps easier to see in ogres and gnoll hunters, but skilled players will have developed ways to deal with them very quickly, making the differences quite pointless.

CAMERA DESIGN & MINI-MAP:

The camera always follows the hero, watching over his back and giving the player a good view of what is ahead of him without having his burly model obscuring too much of the screen. However, this is not always the case.

Physical traps clip through the hero's model if they happen to be triggered while he is adjacent to them. Although he is not affected in any way by the trap, the clipping does cause the camera to go haywire, attempting to reposition itself in order to prevent the hero from being visually obscured. A similar occurrence also happens if the model of the trap is moving through the camera's position, e.g. when the hero is just in front of the trap.

This repositioning can cause some visual discomfort, as well as obscuring the action when visual clarity matters most. Otherwise, the camera is mostly competent at what it does.

The mini-map, unfortunately, is not as reliable. It sits in the upper right corner of the screen and is useful for small rift fortresses, but for the bigger ones that are seen later in the game, it may be inadequately small.

This is because mobs are represented as red dots on the mini-map, and the sizes of these dots scale according to the size of the rift fortress in play. Bigger rift fortresses are squeezed into the mini-map, and consequently the red dots are smaller.

This becomes worse when one considers that the game uses a terribly simple way to depict whether an enemy is on the same vertical level as the hero or not. The red dot for an enemy is bigger and brighter when it is, but when it is not, the red dot is dimmer and smaller; only a black outline denotes its presence on the mini-map. If there are differences between red dots for enemies below the hero and red dots for enemies above him, they are too subtle to be of any use.

The mini-map is at its most useless in the Tower, which is the rift fortress with the greatest verticality in the game.

One more problem with the mini-map is that it is very poor at keeping track of the dots for healing potions and coins. An observant player may even have the impression that the developer has not given the same effort into tracking loot drops as they had for tracking mobs.

Another feature of the mini-map that is mildly interesting at best and simply obstructive at worst is its mapping of kill-zones. As more and more mobs die on a certain spot in a rift fortress, that spot will be represented with splatters of colour in the mini-map during break intervals; areas with low deaths will be colored green, whereas particularly nasty areas will have red splatters.

Some players may be amused at this, but most players would notice that when the mini-map shows the colour splashes, it removes the dots for loot drops. This can be an annoyance if the player prefers to look for loot drops during break intervals.

PHYSICS:

Perhaps the most nuanced and yet most unpredictable aspect of Orcs Must Die! is its virtual physics.

However, firstly, it has to be mentioned here that the physics scripting in the game is mainly for the mobs; the player character, traps and guardians have very rigid physics, perhaps for the purpose of tighter gameplay.

The physics in this game can be seen when enemies are tossed about by the Wind Belt or physics traps. Unlike many other games that resort to silly ragdoll physics to simulate the tossing of bodies with mass, Orcs Must Die! makes use of models with restrictions on the movement of their appendages when simulating models that are being hurled through the air.

This makes the plight of orcs and their kin being tossed through the air or shoved about with great force quite the amusing yet believable sight (as believable as these fantastical creatures can be).

An observant player will notice that their necks are rendered rigid for the purpose of these animations, which may be for the better as any odd twisting of necks would have caused quite a lot of disbelief.

However, the trajectories that enemies will take when they are subjected to physical traps and items can be unpredictable. Spring traps, in particular, can hurl enemies out of the rift fortress if it is not entirely indoors or it has windows leading to the outside. This in turn leads to more problems that will be elaborated later.

The effectiveness of physics traps and items is also affected by a damage application bug, which will be described later.

Enemies that had been tossed about takes damage from hard impacts, including from any bouncing that might occur when they are tossed about particularly hard. However, it is rare that damage from such sources can accumulate such that they die even before hitting the ground.

FORTRESS DESIGNS:

The player may be able to develop workable tactics for each member of the mobs, but whether the player will be able to deploy these tactics or not in the rift fortresses are a different matter. Each of the game's two dozen rift fortresses is very different from the rest in terms of layout.

The first few rift fortresses are very simple. Typically, they have the mobs moving down linear corridors that can be lined with traps. Eventually, the game will introduce rift fortresses with corners, stairways, overhangs, bridges and such other architectural features that the player should learn to utilize to great effect against the mobs.

The last few rift fortresses are the culmination of the designs, having so many fixtures, corridors and other features such that they are almost-believable fortresses.

Rift fortresses also have built-in hazards and defences, as well as pre-existing guardians. While the guardians are mainly only there to catch any possible leaks, hazards and built-in defences are there for players who prefer quick and free ways of getting rid of the mobs.

There are lava and acid pits as mentioned earlier, though their sizes vary tremendously. Some are no bigger than fire places, making them only useful when the player is using the Wind Belt. Others are massive, yawning pools that work very well with spring traps. Yet a few others are practically moats surrounding the main body of the rift fortress, presenting very convenient ways to get rid of the particularly massive mobs that will come crashing into it.

Built-in defences include chandeliers, cauldrons of deadly liquids, rolling logs and mountable ballistae. Some of these defences can be overlooked by unobservant players, but for players who explore and experiment a lot, they may discover their usefulness very quickly.

The chandeliers, with their rather thick wooden structures, seem oddly out of place in many rift fortresses. Eventually, the player would realize that they serve another purpose other than being decor; dropping them on any enemy (by shooting them with the crossbow) is a sure-fire way of killing them, even armored ogres. However, gauging when to drop them can be challenging, though fortunately they drop vertically straight.

There are two types of cauldrons: one pours acid and the other lava. There are a few enemies that are immune to damage from the lava version, but there is nothing that is immune to the acidic one. However, the lava cauldron imparts burning damage to its victim, if it survives – most mobs do not.

The effectiveness of the cauldrons can be a bit disappointing though. Despite pouring their contents onto hard stone floors, the liquids do not spread out; it is as if that right underneath the cauldrons, there are invisible drains. Consequently, they only affect limited areas. Yet, cauldrons can somehow refill their contents after a short while, making them reusable.

Rolling logs are conspicuous one-shot traps, but they practically kill anything they roll over once they are released (by shooting at them).

Lastly, there are manually-operated ballistae. These fire bolts that are far more powerful than those of the crossbow, but they still move at the same speed. The ballistae do not have any issues of accuracy from repeated fire, but that is because it has a far lower rate of fire. The game makes use of a first-person perspective when the hero is operating a ballista too, reducing the player's visual awareness.

Despite being called "fortresses", most players would eventually wonder whether their architects have thought of security when designing them. Some fortresses have multiple routes and entrances to the rifts, of which there may be more than one yet all of which share the same number of "lives". Even the hero mentions this concern early in the game.

Of course, from the perspective of gameplay, this is just additional challenge – which the hero will remark on too, albeit without breaking the fourth wall too much.

BUGS & CRUDE WORK-AROUNDS:

There are a few bugs in the game, and although they are few, they can be game-breaking at times.

The worst of these and which remains unresolved is a bug that prevents enemies from dying after they have been thrown into lava or acid pits by physical traps. This happens very rarely for orcs, but a rare one or two may still somehow stand in the lava or acid for a while before the immediate-kill scripts kick in.

In some conditions, this happens more often than not. In the rift fortress that is Balcony, having a Gnoll Hunter tossed from the drawbridge by a spring trap and then hitting the walls around the lava moat causes it to become immune to the lava when it does fall into it. The player will have to pick it out from the lava with the Wind Belt and kill it with other means.

Another less frustrating but no less disconcerting bug is that blocking the routes of enemies sometimes causes their pathfinding A.I. to break. For example, blocking the upper corridor in the Chaos Chamber might cause the mobs that enter through the upper gate to accumulate in front of the gate, seemingly turning to their left to face a wall. This bug can make this otherwise very challenging level a cake-walk.

If the player makes use of lava or acid pits, he/she would eventually have to fish loot drops out of them with the Wind Belt. There is a chance that their particle effects may be left behind when they are retrieved, which makes them harder to spot from a distance.

Furthermore, sometimes, the player is unable to use the Wind Belt to levitate loot drops around; the game merely plays the sound clip for "invalid targets", but otherwise sends the loot drop over to where the hero is. Out of these occasions, there are also rare occurrences where models for the loot drops do not reappear.

Kobold shamans can resurrect other mobs as long as their corpses are intact, but it would appear that they can resurrect enemies that had been killed with acid from cauldrons. This results in skeletons walking and running about, which is a sight that would have been comical if not for the player's dismay that he/she has to kill them all over again.

If enemies somehow end up out-of-bounds due to spring traps, they will eventually die when they are unable to return to main areas of the rift fortress within a quarter of a minute; the player can see their red dots move about outside the boundaries of the rift fortress before they die. This is a crude work-around that could have been averted if enemies that had been tossed outside of the rift fortress would immediately die.

Another ugly work-around that the player may see is what the game does to get orcs that have been thrown onto nook and crannies that are not outside the rift fortress but away from the paths that they would take back to said paths. The solution that the game uses is to simply remove their models and then placing them back onto their paths at the nearest point. This transition can be jarring to look at.

As mentioned earlier, the player can place guardians anywhere as long as there is enough floor space for them. There are places where the player can place them, such as small ledges on walls or protrusions from pillars, but the game considers these places to give too much of an unfair advantage to the player. If the player attempts to place them anyway, the game removes and replaces their models somewhere nearby.

Up to this time of writing, these bugs have yet to be solved and the work-arounds have yet to be improved upon, at least for the Steam version of the game.

GRAPHICS – CHARACTERS:

Orcs Must Die! makes use of a comical artstyle, which is appropriate as the game is about uproarious fun.

The hero is a hilariously burly dude that has amusingly exaggerated facial expressions. Unfortunately, the player cannot see these most of the time, as the camera always hover behind and above the hero, though his face can sometimes be seen when he performs his victory dances.

Speaking of victory dances, he makes very silly performances when the player successfully defends a rift fortress. He has several of these, which are picked at random, but all of them can be very entertaining.

The hero is described as being particularly fond of killing orcs and their cousins. This eagerness can be seen in his posture and stance, giving his character a hyperactive vibe that is quite fitting.

The mobs come in many shapes and sizes. There are the regular orcs, which have several variations to their models that can be difficult to discern when they are flowing down corridors and stairs. Still, there is enough variety in their models and lack of synchronization in their animations to make their romps through the rift fortresses seemingly believable and natural – as natural as their comical waddling and disproportionate body parts can be of course.

The mobs that are not orcs have fewer variations in their models, unfortunately, but then, they are not the core of the hordes after all. Nevertheless, they have models that are distinct and easy to recognize, provided that they are not obscured by the green/ochre tide.

Speaking of the tide, the flood of orcs tend to be a lot more visually distressing than the silhouettes of ogres, kobolds or gnolls looming behind or among them. Depending on the player's perspective, this can seem appropriate as the orcs are supposed to screen them, or not, as these non-orc mobs are actually more dangerous and the game should have made them easier to spot among the orcs.

Despite the comical and perhaps even cartoonish designs of the characters in the game, there is quite a lot of gore to be seen, or more precisely, severed body parts; in fact, there are more severed body parts than splurts of blood (and incidentally more models than there are decals).

Perhaps this was intended to preserve the game's "T"-rating in the eyes of the ESRB, but it can be odd to see orcs explode into chunks resembling arms, legs and heads without much blood when they are killed by powerful traps. Still, watching the chunks clatter about can be a satisfying reward for having set up effective chokepoints.

GRAPHICS – TRAPS & ITEMS:

Traps have animations and particle effects that are befitting of them. The player can see arrows being loaded into the slots of arrow walls as they reset, spikes retracting from spike traps and the moving contraptions in physical traps. Traps that do not resort to lacerations or blunt trauma have brilliant particle effects that accompany their triggering, followed by clear dimming of their textures as they reset.

Traps do indeed look brilliant, especially when they kill the mobs by the droves. However, it is not likely that the player would have the time to appreciate every bit of their visual designs.

The items are generally less visually impressive than the traps, due to their having relatively dinky-looking primary attacks. In fact, the particle effects for the primary attacks of the Flame Bracers and the Ice Amulet are practically palette swaps of each other.

Their secondary attacks are much more impressive, but because they take so much mana to use, they do not appear on-screen often enough to be appreciated.

Furthermore, the models of some items do not appear on the model of the hero, if there were any models for them at all. The Wind Belt, Flame Bracers, the Ice Amulet and Lightning Ring only appear on the hero's person as particle effects that are surrounding his hands. At the very least, their particle effects are quite easy to differentiate.

Fortunately, the use of the crossbow and the bladestaff is visually apparent, thanks to clear models and the very distinct stance that the hero takes when using either.

GRAPHICS – RIFT FORTRESSES:

The rift fortresses are perhaps the reason for the rather massive disk space requirement that the game has.

As mentioned earlier, every rift fortress is designed very differently from the rest and also happens to look quite different. They do share many assets, such as sets of statues, but they are so detailed that any similarities would be difficult to notice, other than the fact that all of the rift fortresses are made from sturdy wood and cut stones.

Yet, the rift fortresses load surprisingly quickly when it runs on a machine that reaches above the minimum hardware and software requirements.

The start of a defence session on the lower difficulty settings is the best time to check a rift fortress out, examining its layouts and architecture, much of which does look convincingly like they belong to a medieval fantasy fortress.

If the player looks out of the rift fortress at the sky, he/she will always see the forebodingly amethyst sky of the orcs' homeworld. The skybox is rarely seen though, as much of the action occurs fully indoors.

To aid the player in the defence of a rift fortress, there are visual indicators such as small puddles of lava or acid that denote where cauldrons of said fluids will pour their contents on and the sheen that envelopes a trap that can be triggered or sold.

At first, the lava or acid pits seem quite impressive, being bright sources of light; acid pits even have their own gaseous particle effects. However, any sense of awe is struck down when enemies fall into them; there are hardly any particle effects for splashing or any fluid physics.

The only way for the player to know that enemies that fell into them had died is if the player sees the text that pops up when they die (which shows the money that the player has earned), as the pits are deep enough to obscure death animations. They also happen to hide the models of any enemy that has been afflicted with the lava/acid pit bug that has been mentioned earlier.

Problems like these detract from the otherwise impressive visual designs of the rift fortresses.

SOUND EFFECTS & MUSIC:

Most of the sound effects that the player will be listening to are the sounds of the mobs dying in nasty ways.

The shanking of arrows, sudden jutting of spikes, meaty thuds that clockwork maces make when they slam into orcs and other sound effects are designed with discernible aural qualities. They can be delightful to players who love to use traps.

Spells and weapons also have their own distinct sound effects, though they are mainly there for cosmetic purposes, unlike sound effects for traps, which do happen to alert the player that they are being brought into effect.

There are random dinking noises that can be heard when the player hovers the mouse cursor over icons and labels in the various selection screens, though they are so subtle that they are often drowned out by the music.

Chris Rickwood is the composer of the music in Orcs Must Die! Although he has only composed a few distinct tracks for the game, all of them are quite appropriate for the themes of the game. The tracks for when battle commences are ominous yet playful, which fit the gameplay well provided that the player likes slaying orcs as much as the hero does.

The most notable track among them is "Bar Fight", which is a surprisingly catchy blend of electronic, rock and artificial orchestra.

VOICE-OVERS:

The best sound designs in the game are perhaps the voice-overs. They can be entertaining, if the player happens to have a liking for dim-witted characters, of which the game has more than a few.

The poorly educated and brash hero will be providing most of the voice-overs in the game. Granted, he may come across as obnoxious, but considering the characters whose nerves he grates on, such impudence is perhaps quite appropriate. If not, it still makes for a good contrast between him and the other archetypal medieval fantasy characters in the game.

The slightly fatalistic and cynical attitude of the hero's mentor is also quite amusing, which is good, considering that he is the narrator for the game.

The same voice actress voices all of the Weavers in the game, which is not entirely unacceptable as they do appear to be triplets. Each has quips and remarks that portray their different personalities, though their different qualities are of course lost on the hero, who treats all of them in the same slightly juvenile way.

The hero, along with one certain other character, has voice-overs that occur during the defence of a rift fortress. These advance the progression of the story, which makes it all the more a shame that the player will not be able to listen to all of them clearly.

While the player can listen to the voice-overs that occur in the first preparation phase of the defence, he/she would be barely able to listen to the rest, which for whatever reason, play when the player is busy killing the mobs.

Last, but not least, are the mobs' voice-overs. The orcs dominate most of the mobs, so it is fitting that they are the ones providing most of their voice-overs.

The things that they say can be silly, though the humour of quips such as "Can I be the good guy?" and "I am only half-orc!" would only be apparent to people who are familiar with the tropes of medieval fantasy story-telling.

On the other hand, the silliness of their quips does sometimes clash with their brutishness, especially when one considers that they look like they are perpetually yelling (which is likely a deliberate gag by Robot Entertainment); they do not have any lip-synching, by the way.

In contrast, the non-orc mobs do not have much in the way of voice-overs. Most of them merely grunt and pant as they move about, especially the Gnoll Hunters and Kobolds. Ogres, despite their prominent size and ferocity, are surprisingly taciturn.

CONCLUSION:

In Orcs Must Die!, kitting out fortresses with traps is a surprisingly fun endeavour that is made all the more entertaining when orcs and other inhuman things die from them, supplemented by the carnage from the player's deadly attention. The presentation of the story, settings and characters can be off-putting to players who do not like silly takes on medieval fantasy, but for other players, they are light-hearted enough to put the spotlight on the game's titular focus on killing orcs. Unfortunately, bugs that remain to this day mar this otherwise splendid game from Robot Entertainment.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Orcs Must Die! for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Thu, 13 Jun 2013 22:18:10 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/orcs-must-die/user-reviews/812358/platform/pc/ Sat, 08 Jun 2013 03:44:27 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Torchlight for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/torchlight/user-reviews/812191/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 8.0.

INTRO:

Having business interests mix with game development may have removed some game designers' desire to stay at where they were, but fortunately for followers of the kinds of games that they make, they did not leave their passion behind at their last job.

Such is the case for the people at Runic Games, who used their experience and knowledge to create Torchlight, a simply-named fantasy game with surprisingly sophisticated and long-lasting gameplay. Of course, it can be argued that it is neither entirely original nor flawless, but Runic Games has had the wisdom to accommodate any misgivings by making Torchlight to be one of the most modular games around.

PREMISE:

At first glance, Torchlight may seem to have a premise that is rare among fantasy games.

The fictional world that Torchlight is set in happens to have mysterious minerals that are known as Ember, due to the sometimes otherworldly light that they give off. Ember is apparently magical, having many and often unpredictable permutations. Ember apparently can spread into mundane objects too, such as eyeballs and skulls, effectively preserving them for eternity as well as imparting special magical properties onto them.

Due to the often miraculous properties of Ember, it is highly sought after. It just so happens that one particular town, the titular Torchlight, sits on top of a massive and seemingly near endless source of Ember. Unfortunately, it also happens to be one of the most dangerous places in the world, its underground treasure having attracted the attention of more than just civilized humans.

For better or worse, Ember can also affect people as well. Some are especially sensitive to them, and these individuals would find themselves going onto the path of alchemy, witchcraft and wizardry, all of which are careers that make extensive use of Ember.

Unfortunately, Ember also has a tendency to somehow become corrupted, which in turn inexorably poisons what it infiltrates. In the case of affected people, it either maddens them with mutation, or drives them into desperate searches for cures. Even those who are not sickened by it is fascinated by its mutable, highly magical nature, luring them to tamper with Ember in increasingly risky ways.

One of the individuals in the latter group has come to Torchlight to seek the truth behind Ember's fickle nature. He is hardly the first to do so, but his visit apparently has stirred enough trouble that the player characters have decided to come over to investigate.

What would unfold is a tragic tale of treachery and hardship, but it also happens to include clich–d tropes of ancient evil awakening to destroy the world.

PLAYER CHARACTERS:

The player characters are introduced after the overarching plot. There are canonically only three heroes/heroines in Torchlight, but for purposes of gameplay, each of them is considered a class and has been rendered nameless so that players can create characters that have no consequence on the canon of Torchlight.

Although the three classes have different skills and advantages, all of them can be developed so that they are skilled in melee, ranged or magical combat – preferably specializing in only one of these, as hybrid builds tend to be poor. That said, the observant player may notice that specialized builds may resemble certain character archetypes that have been seen in other fantasy action RPGs.

The Destroyer is the archetypal brute of the three. Most of the successful character builds for the Destroyer gives him plenty of health to take some painful hits while he is dishing out damage and/or doing crowd control.

The melee route is perhaps the best for the Destroyer. However, ranged weapons are still useful for him, especially for hitting individual enemies from afar so that they come over to him instead of him over to them. As for his magical capabilities, most of these involve the exuding of auras.

The Vanquisher is the archetypal rogue character. She can be developed into a wholly ranged character or a quick-footed melee one, but in either build, she is not likely to have high health reserves to go with her high damage output.

The Alchemist is the archetypal magician. In just about any successful build for him, he has high mana reserves to sustain his spell-casting. As for the unique spells that he can throw out, many of them are de-buffs and the creation of minions that would take the hurt for him in battle, which is much appreciated, as the Alchemist is typically the frailest of the three classes.

There are four attributes to any player character: Strength, Dexterity, Magic and Defense. These work a lot like the attributes of the same name that have been seen in many, many other fantasy RPGs, so there is nothing surprising to be had.

As to be expected from an action RPG, every level that a player character gains grants a handful of points that he/she can spend on attributes and one point for the improvement of skills. However, there is one more way to gain skill points, as will be described later.

SKILL DESIGNS:

Most of the skills that the three classes have in Torchlight would be familiar to veterans of action RPGs. There are damage-over-time attacks, alpha-strike attacks, de-buffs, auras, buffs, minion-summoning spells and such others that would not seem revolutionary.

There are some skills that are interesting amalgams of tropes though. For example, the Destroyer's (perhaps inaccurately named) Shadow Bowman skill is a hybrid of a buff and a turret; a ghostly form sticks out from his back for some time, chucking javelins at any enemy in range.

Another example is the Vanquisher's Ricochet skill, which has the undocumented effect of penetrating through multiple enemies in a row in addition to its eponymous ricocheting property. Of course, this can be considered a design oversight that perhaps made this skill more powerful than it should be.

Nevertheless, it can be satisfying to learn about the nuances and side benefits of skills and then incorporate them into character builds.

If there is an issue with the designs of skills, it is that the player does not get to see the exact damage that skills would do (which is a design that made it into the sequel). Although most skills do mention how their attributes are calculated, the calculation is left for the player to figure out as it and its results are hidden from view (at least not without the use of mods).

Higher-level skills have increasing mana costs for their usage. This balancing design, which is nothing new, requires the player to think about investing some resources into improving the character's mana reserves.

The prerequisites that the player needs to fulfill in order to be allowed to invest points into skills are the level and attributes of the player character; these are typical but understandable requirements.

Unfortunately, there is no method to reimburse skill points and reset skills in the vanilla version of the game. This feature has to be achieved through the use of mods (though one of these particular mods is made by Runic Games itself).

The three classes have a few skills that are common to all of them. These skills happen to be quite utilitarian, so the fact that all three have them would not be a surprise.

For example, Barter and Treasure Hunter contribute to the accumulation of coin and upgrading of gear, so it is always useful if the player does not want to grind too much for that, though this comes at the opportunity cost of spending skill points into combat skills.

Another example is Pet Mastery, which improves the effectiveness of the player character's pet, which will be described later. The Pet will play a huge role in the gameplay throughout any playthrough, so this passive skill will always be useful.

Interestingly, all three classes can dual-wield and have a passive skill just for that. Even the Alchemist can dual-wield wands, which can be an amusing sight.

FAME:

In addition to the usual system of experience points and levels, there is a second system that can be used to gain more skill points.

This system is called "fame". Fame points are understandably obtained from completing quests and defeating huge variants of monsters that have names of their own. Upon achieving the next rank of Fame, the player character gains a skill point that can be spent freely.

However, the expenditure of this skill point is still limited by the prerequisite of character levels.

SPELLS:

Interestingly, Torchlight's approach to implementing spells is to treat them as tools that cannot be improved without disposing and replacing them outright, in that order.

After obtaining a spell scroll, the player can add the spell that is inscribed in that scroll as an additional skill that the player character can use.

"Learned" spells cannot be improved and any player character can only learn so many. "Learned" spells can be "forgotten", effectively discarding them from use. Having to swap out spells of lower levels for the same spells of higher levels can be annoying, but it is unfortunately a necessity.

At least the spells are mostly useful. They are categorized into three types, according to their practical usage: Offensive, Defensive and Charm.

Offensive spells do as they are named for: harm enemies, either directly or indirectly. These include the likes of fireballs and bolts of frost, but also include combat buffs such as Dervish, which increases the attack speeds of player characters. The Offensive spell that players may appreciate the most is Silence, as it prevents enemies from using their special abilities and also happens to hobble their A.I. scripts.

Defensive spells are mainly buffs that impart protection on the player character or otherwise make the player character more durable in other ways. Defensive spells include all the healing spells and buffs to resistances. Some others are more peculiar, such as summoning a creature that actively heals the player character and his/her companions.

Charm spells encompass spells that summon monsters to serve the player temporarily, or charm an enemy or two into fighting on the player's side. Charm spells also include utilitarian spells, such as a spell that identifies unknown items and a spell that creates Town Portals.

Unlike skills, spells have cool-down times that prevent the player from spamming them. This is understandable, because utilitarian spells such as Self-Healing may render other tools, such as Healing Potions in this case, obsolete if they do not have cool-down times.

ADORNMENTS:

There are no less than eight types of pieces of clothing that the player character can wear.

Most of them would be familiar to veterans of RPGs. There are slots for chest armor, footwear, belts, gloves, and headwear, as well as jewellery, of which a character can only wear two rings and a necklace.

Interestingly, shoulder plates are a category of items of their own, separated from chest armor. This is a rare design in RPGs. In Torchlight, this makes gear builds a bit more sophisticated.

WEAPONS (& SHIELDS)

There are quite a number of weapons in the game, though most of these are mainstays of the fantasy RPG genre, so the player should not be expecting anything that is convincingly refreshing.

However, it is worth noting here that there are weapon types that can be paired together as they deal the same kind of damage; one of them would be the single-handed variant, while the other is the two-handed counterpart. This is the case for axes and polearms, maces and staves and pistols and rifles

As for swords, there are both single-handed and two-handed variants.

Among these weapons, the firearms and the wands are perhaps the most interesting of the otherwise typical arsenal of Torchlight. Pistols are short-ranged weapons that pack quite a punch, whereas rifles are practically more powerful but slower versions of bows. Wands are magical pistols, but most of them tend to be oriented towards one type of elemental damage.

In lieu of dual-wielding, the player may choose to use a shield together with a weapon. Every shield has a chance to block incoming attacks that the player could not dodge. Blocked attacks have their damage greatly reduced, or have their damage negated altogether. In addition, shields improve the player character's defence ratings. Such designs for shields are nothing new, of course.

Although a player character may dual-wield weapons, only the one in the right-hand is used for skills that make use of the player's equipped weapons. There are exceptions, such as the Destroyer's very first skill which visibly has him hitting targets with both weapons if he is dual-wielding, but such exceptions are far and few in between.

POTIONS:

Being a fantasy RPG, that there are red potions that represent healing potions and blue potions that represent mana-restoring potions in Torchlight is typical. As the player progresses in the main dungeon, the merchants in the town of Torchlight will make available stronger grades of such potions, commensurate with the increasing challenge.

There are other more special potions to be bought from the merchants, though these only appear later. There are potions that increase chances for critical attacks and armor temporarily, which are useful for tough fights, and a potion for increasing chances of getting better loot.

There are a few other even more special potions with lucrative effects that are rewards from completing quests, so they will not be mentioned here for fear of spoilers.

The duration of the temporary effects of potions is not clear, however, which makes potions more difficult to use than they should be.

FISH & FISHING:

One of the most amusing aspects of gameplay in Torchlight concerns fishing. Throughout dungeon levels that have water and at certain spots in the town of Torchlight, there are fishing spots that are represented by foamy wakes on the surfaces of water.

The player can have his/her character cast a line into a fishing spot to start a quick-time event mini-game, which may not please players who do not like reflex/timing-based, button-pressing gameplay. In fact, the game can sometimes be an annoying tease with the fishing mini-game. Fortunately, for them, fishing is an entirely optional part of the game.

Anyway, if the player can successfully press the button at the right time, he/she gets to reel in a catch; otherwise, he/she comes out empty-handed and has wasted his/her time.

Fish are usually items that are generally given to the player character's pet to alter its form; this will be described further later. For such fish, they conveniently go into a different tab of slots that are reserved just for them. Such a handy design reinforces the notion that fishing is a completely optional endeavour.

There are also fish that act like potions – powerful ones too. For example, the Bearded Fish grants a 25% bonus to armor rating for five minutes when consumed. However, perhaps for purposes of gameplay balance, they occupy regular inventory slots.

Certain very rare fish grants permanent bonuses to the player character's statistics when he/she consumes it (instead of the pet). However, getting such fish is often a matter of luck, though fishing spots in the dungeons seem to give a better chance than the ones in town.

A fishing spot can be fished as many times as the player likes, which can result in some gameplay imbalance if the player has been exceedingly lucky.

GEMS:

Much like so many other fantasy action RPGs, Torchlight has a system of sockets in items and items that go into said sockets. Understandably, most of these are various forms of Ember, or morbid Ember-imbued trinkets like eyeballs and skulls. Typically enough, they are called "gems" in-game.

The gems in Torchlight grant the usual benefits that can be expected from gems in fantasy action RPGs when they are inserted into sockets. The types of benefits are in turn typically associated with colours. For example, the blue colour of the Cold-Ember means that it grants protection against icy harm when placed into gear pieces that are worn or bonus icy damage when placed into weapons.

There is a person in town that can combine pairs of gems of the same grade and type into a gem of a higher grade. The same person can also break down quartets of vendor trash of the same rarity into gems, though the player may want to sell them to obtain gold instead when this is more prudent.

In addition to gems of stable types, there is also Chaos Ember, which has many permutations that have their own names. Chaos Ember gems cannot be combined in any way, but they often have benefits that regular gems do not offer.

Gems that have been inserted into sockets of items cannot be removed easily, as expected. However, there are two particular characters in town that allow the retrieval of gems at the cost of the items that they were inserted into or the removal of every gem in an item to free up its sockets. These are explained in-game as the fees that the (none-too-shady) pair charges.

Although gem-removing or socket-clearing conveniences are not unheard of before Torchlight's debut, they are still rare in fantasy action RPGs, so their inclusion in Torchlight is quite appreciated.

There is a feature in the game that allows players to abuse the use of high-grade gems, as will be described later.

ENCHANTING:

Magical items that the player finds do not have their properties set in stone. They can be somehow improved further by having them "enchanted".

There is an enchanter in town that can infuse magical equipment with more properties, improve existing ones or add sockets; which action that he performs is a matter of luck. He might also do nothing at all, wasting the player's time and money.

Worse, he could fumble and completely eliminate all properties from a magical item and render it mundane; this is a mishap that the game calls "disenchantment", but he will not reimburse the fee that the player paid for his service.

An item of a rarer grade requires higher fees to be enchanted. In addition, every item that has been enchanted will be given a counter that represents the probability of disenchantment; this counter increases by 2% every time the item has been successfully enchanted with positive results.

This makes improving an item a risky proposition, but the observant player may realize that once the player is rolling in gold and does not have anything desirable to spend it on, enchanting items is the only worthwhile activity to sink gold in.

The player may also come across enchanting shrines when romping through the dungeons. These shiny golden edifices can perform one enchantment attempt for free. It does halve the probability of disenchantment, but not completely, so bad luck can still occur.

PET:

The player character starts the game with an animal companion, who will almost always be around to help perform useful things. The choices of animals are purely cosmetic, though it has to be noted here that only the cat (which strongly resembles a lynx) and the dog (which strongly resembles a wolf-hound) are available by default for players who purchased the downloadable versions of the game.

The pet expectedly lingers around the player character, changing positions now and then to depict restlessness. This is not an issue most of the time, but the pet can unwittingly walk into traps and hazards and injure itself if there are levels with these things.

The pet can engage in battle, though it is strictly only a melee combatant that cannot even win battles on its own. At best, they serve as a distraction against enemies, while the player character deals most of the damage.

It has its own health bar, so it can take damage. However, instead of being slain if it loses all of its health, the pet runs about at high speed all over the place, while a disembodied narrator informs the player that the pet is "fleeing".

The pet will regenerate health quickly in this state but will not engage in battle. It can still be injured in this state, but it can never die, though any health that has been regenerated will be reduced, further prolonging its cowardice. The player can force it back into action by healing it, either by using healing spells or dropping healing potions into its part of the user interface until its health breaches the 75% point.

The pet also has a mana bar, which it will use to cast any of the two spells that the player can have it learn by expending spell scrolls on it. However, it will decide on its own when to cast spells; the player cannot direct the pet to cast spells. Fortunately, most of the A.I. scripts that control its spell-casting are quite modest, though most players would have preferred that they were more sophisticated.

In the case of buffing spells, it will always attempt to maintain them and re-apply them whenever they expire, even if it is in town. If the pet has offensive spells, it opens battle with the casting of one spell on its target, but then engages it in melee combat and will only cast another when switching targets. If the pet has crowd control spells, it uses it periodically in combat, even if against single targets. If it has healing spells, it will cast healing spells as long as it or the player character is injured.

The pet also has an inventory system of its own, which is partially modified from the player character's own system. It can wear two rings and a necklace, but nothing other than these, for apparent reasons (though one would wonder how it wears rings).

As mentioned earlier, the pet can be fed fish (including the dog). Fish items generally alter its form to that of a creature that is seen in the dungeons.

While it is in this other form, it gains that creature's capabilities, but with much greater speed so as to match the player character's own speed. The pet will also use the default attack of this creature in place of its regular melee attacks. However, if the player had changed it to a particularly slow creature type, like a Troll, it would always be playing catch-up with the player character.

The size of the fish that is fed to the pet determines the duration of the transformation. The bigger the fish, the longer-lasting it would be. The biggest grade of fish happens to permanently convert the pet to the associated creature, which is not a decision to be made lightly as the change cannot be easily reversed. (To reverse it, the pet has to be fed another fish of the same type and grade again.)

The Pet can be set to three different behavioural modes. Defensive is the default one, and perhaps the best as the pet will attack any enemy that has attacked the pet or player character or if the player character has started attacking an enemy that has come uncomfortably close. The aggressive behaviour, like similar modes in most other action RPGs, has the pet drawing more trouble than the player would want; passive simply turns the pet into a walking trunk.

As a fighting companion, the Pet is at best decently reliable. However, the most notable talent that it has is taking whatever loot that it is carrying back to town – somehow – and selling them off. This is handiest in dungeons that disallow the creation of Town Portals (as will be described later). On the other hand, perhaps to prevent the player from taking this feature for granted, the pet takes time to perform its errands, which is usually more than a minute. If the player had been utilizing the pet as a tank in his/her tactics, this can be a problem.

LEVELS & DENIZENS:

An action RPG would not be fun if it does not have variety in its level designs to provide a fun enough experience. Fortunately, Torchlight would not disappoint – if an issue with the map system that would be described later are discounted.

All of the levels in the game occur underground, though not all of them would have an indoors feel. They are separated into tiers with their own architectural themes.

At first, there are the Ember mines that Torchlight's working population has uncovered. The player will encounter some human miners here and there, hacking away at seams of Ember despite the mines having already been infiltrated by many hostile creatures and predators, such as spiders and the bat-like Varkolyn. Ratlins also mine the Ember, but they would turn their pickaxes on any surface dwellers that encroach.

There may be a lost opportunity to make use of the machinery in the mines. There are cranes that are hoisting platforms and more than a few mine carts that could have been used for some puzzles or as combat aid, but among the mining paraphernalia, only the explosives can be used and all they do is just reveal hidden rooms – a mechanism that is also present in other forms in the other tiers of the dungeons levels.

Being a fantasy RPG, Torchlight has the obligatory tombs that are filled with undead. If there is anything peculiar about Torchlight's take on the abodes of the restless dead, they are quite cavernous, and apparently more designed towards purposes of archiving than entombing cadavers. These are the levels that introduce the player to levers and hidden rooms, as well as bridges that have to be activated via switches.

One would wonder how Runic Games can incorporate aesthetic variety into its levels when all of them are set underground. Apparently, it still can, by taking inspiration from fiction like Journey to the Center of the Earth. The player will be visiting the ruins of civilizations that once existed under the sky for reasons that will not be told here for fear of spoilers. However, it can be said here that the magical and mineral nature of Ember makes for a fantastic excuse.

Of course, said ruins of civilizations have to be populated by either savages that are degenerated descendants of their ancestors or unimaginably ancient but deluded survivors, both of which are irreconcilably hostile.

The other strata of the dungeons would not be described here, as such mentions would be spoilers. It should suffice to say that they are functionally sound and that they introduce surprises at a rate that should be pleasantly manageable to most.

Levels that had been explored earlier in the main dungeon eventually reset, changing its maps, treasures and distribution of mobs. This means that a player can return to these levels to plough through them with a relatively overpowered character, if only to farm some more experience points. The game does apply a penalty to the experience gains if the level difference between the player character and the mobs of enemies is too vast though.

The main dungeon has a system of waypoints that allows the player to re-enter certain levels. However, there is little reason to backtrack, considering the progress-saving system that the game has, which will be described later.

If there is a complaint with the designs of the denizens of the dungeon levels, it is that there is a lost opportunity to introduce an ecosystem of sorts that have them fighting each other. Torchlight, like so many other action RPGs before it, has everything and everyone that are not NPCs or player characters in the dungeons being united in their desire to murder the player character and his/her pet.

PHASE & QUEST DUNGEONS:

The levels in the main dungeon are not the only ones to be had. Throughout the main dungeon, the player may discover creatures whose models are translucent yet colourful; they are called "Phase Beasts". When slain, they create portals into "bonus dungeons" that are separate from the main dungeon.

The only hints that the player has about what these levels would be like are the archetype of creature that the Phase Beasts are and their level.

These "phase dungeons", for lack of a better word to describe them, often starts the player character a bit too close to a massive mob that is led by a boss creature. This can be a very unpleasant surprise, which detracts from the fun that the player can have from these dungeons. Town portals also cannot be created in these dungeons.

However, phase dungeons tend to be very short and filled with a disproportionately higher amount of loot (and monsters), so they can be lucrative to skilled players that are short on time.

The entry portals of phase dungeons happen to be two-way and will persist until the player reaches their terminating portals. This allows a player to backtrack to get more supplies and perhaps even try the phase dungeon later when his/her player character is more powerful. However, the portals will disappear if the main dungeon level that they are in resets.

Quest dungeons are created by one particular NPC by the (perhaps appropriate) name of "Hatch". He sends the player on a quest to retrieve some MacGufiin, which is usually located in a dungeon with a few levels to it. Like the phase dungeon, town portals cannot be created in it, but the entry portal remains until the player completes the quest to retrieve the objective. Quest dungeons are tamer affairs than phase dungeons.

Another NPC in the town gives fetch quests that when completed, reward the player with "mysterious maps". These create portals to specially designed dungeons that have puzzles in them that take a little brainpower to solve. The rewards for coming up with the solutions are, of course, mobs of powerful monsters. However, there are more lucrative rewards at the end that are worth the player's time.

PORTAL MAP DUNGEONS:

There are also dungeons that can be generated using maps that create portals that lead into randomly generated dungeons. These are generally only available through a certain vendor and are often a bit expensive.

Every portal map has a range of levels and level theme. The level theme will give the player a general idea of what dangers to expect, while the range of levels determine the levels of the enemies that the player would face.

Generally, it is best to go with portal maps that has the player character's level falling within their range. If this is the case, the quality of the level and the level of the enemies will match the player character's, thus making for a suitable challenge.

However, the game does not inform the player of the consequences of using portal maps with mismatching levels. A player that is not aware of these are likely to learn about them in unpleasant ways.

If the player uses a supposedly under-levelled portal map, he/she will discover that the enemies in the dungeon that it creates are of the same level as the player character anyway. More importantly, the loot is not of matching quality. This discourages attempts to exploit lower-levelled portal maps.

If the player uses a portal map with higher level ranges, he/she can of course expect that the enemies in the dungeon that it creates to be far more powerful. Unfortunately, the quality of the loot only matches the current level of the player character. Again, such non-commensurate rewards discourage attempts to exploit these portal maps.

Like the previous kinds of special dungeons, portal dungeons disallow the player from creating Town Portals.

SHADOW VAULT:

After finishing the main plot of the game, the player gains access to an alternative dungeon that can be accessed by any player character afterwards, which is interesting as end-game content tends to be reserved for player characters that have completed the main game in other action RPGs.

This alternative dungeon, called the "Shadow Vault", works much like the main dungeon, e.g. Town Portals can be created in them. However, the similarity ends here.

The dungeon is practically endless. Each level is also randomly generated and does not follow any system of tiers. The Shadow Vault also does not have a waypoint system. Most importantly, upon generation, any level in the Shadow Vault will have its denizens and loot equivalent in level to the player character.

All these traits mean that even if the player has gone through hundreds of levels through the Shadow Vault, his/her progress is merely in the form of a number. Any previous levels will have been left behind for a long time and will be removed from the player character's save-file, only to be re-generated if the player chooses to play through them again, which will be an experience that is not different from going any deeper into the Shadow Vault.

However, romps through the Shadow Vault are the most reliable way for the player to increase the level of the player character to sheer numbers, if the player is inclined to do so. Although the player can use the portal maps too, the convenience of being able to create Town Portals in the Shadow Vault makes the Shadow Vault the wiser choice.

ENEMY DESIGNS:

At first, most of the enemies that the player would fight appear to be push-overs. Then, nastier ones start to appear among them.

These more special enemies would not be a surprise to veterans of action RPGs, because they happen to be familiar archetypes of enemies. There are huge, slow-moving brutes that are best engaged at range or kited, mages that resurrect enemies, healers that restore the health of allies, enemies that breathe fire or worse and plenty of spell-casters, some of which have annoying de-buffs.

Most enemies can be lured over away from other groups with ranged attacks, but if they happen to be in tight bunches, the player could lure entire bunches instead, which can be undesirable. Still, drawing aggro in such a manner is still a viable divide-and-conquer tactic.

However, quite a sizable proportion of enemies in this game is not already in the levels that they would spawn into. More often than not, the player will run into ambushes and traps that inject quite a lot of enemies into the level, sometimes in the immediate area. Other traps actually spawn them farther away, but inexorably moving down a chokepoint that the player character must pass through.

Overall, the types of enemies in Torchlight are quite well-designed and balanced – perhaps except for one.

DARK ZEALOTS:

This review might not have described any particular monster in significant detail for reasons of brevity and fear of spoilers, but one of them has to be mentioned for the unfortunate reason that it was dubiously designed.

The Dark Zealots are the females of a certain race of affably evil humanoids that are encountered late into the game. As spellcasters and summoners, they already have many abilities that can be quite troublesome. However, their most powerful and most contentious attacks are their lightning bolts.

Although purist players of the game have argued that these attacks can be avoided or prepared against, they are seen by detractors as devastatingly overpowered, even at the easiest difficulty settings.

Their version history has to be mentioned here. Initially, the Dark Zealot's red lightning bolts inflicted damage in the early versions of the game. A later patch introduced a bug to them, causing them to fail. A yet later patch returned their damage-inflicting properties, but the bolts did far more damage than they initially had.

Unfortunately, this was the very last patch for Torchlight, before Runic Games practically switched their efforts over to working on the sequel and left technical support to the modding community.

Applying a community mod would pare down the lethality of the Dark Zealot's lightning bolts, but it would not take away the figurative bad taste in the mouth that suggested that Runic Games has practically lost interest in its very first game.

(In fact, after the release of the sequel, Runic Games announced that it would be leaving the Torchlight franchise on the shelf.)

THE TOWN & STASHES:

The obligatory town of action RPGs in Torchlight has the usual obligatory NPCs that sell items and such. There are not any designs that are worth noting because they are refreshing.

However, a few peculiarities have to be mentioned here. The NPCs are distributed throughout the sizable town, usually at believable locations, such as the blacksmith who stands outside his metalworking shop. On the other hand, as to be expected of vendor NPCs, they stand about waiting for their only customers, the player characters.

Also, there is not any NPC that repairs things, which is understandable considering that there is no system of durability, which in hindsight, is little more than gold-sinking anti-inflation designs in RPGs. This can be pleasant to players who are tired of such bothersome mechanics.

Perhaps the most common reason for the player to return to the Town from the dungeons is to access and store things in the two stashes that are available to a player character.

The more important stash is the one that is shared by all player characters. This allows the player to store particularly powerful pieces of gear that a player character no longer uses for the other player characters to use.

However, the shared stash can be abused to give fledgling characters an imbalanced edge. To be specific, gems are the only items in the game that can be used without any prerequisites: they can be inserted into any socket on an item of any level. Thus, unscrupulous players may be able to accumulate and improve gems so as to make them available to low-level characters.

HOTKEY BAR:

Torchlight's system for the hotkey bar, which is a user interface design that is quite common in decent action RPGs in the present day, can take a bit getting used to. Instead of the usual drag-&-drop or assigning system that requires the player to bring up the inventory screen/tab, the player needs to left-click on a hotkey slot to bring up a window that shows the icons of the skills, spells and items that can be assigned to the slot. In order to use the assigned thing without using the keyboard, the player merely has to right-click on the slot.

If the player does not like to muck around with the inventory screen when assigning things to hotkeys, this system can seem very convenient.

However, although the window does show the tooltip descriptions of the things that the player can assign to a slot, it does not show the amount left for consumable items that can be assigned to hotkeys; the player has to bring up the inventory screen for that.

PROGRESS-SAVING & HARDCORE SETTING:

Each player character has a save-file. It records his/her rise through the character levels, gathering of loot and progress through the various dungeons. For better or worse, it is not located in the installation directory of the game, but rather in the system partition. This location is also used for mods, which will be described later. Anyway, this save-file is updated whenever the player exits a game session with the player character.

This save-file is what the hardcore difficulty option will interact with. If the player has picked the hardcore option when picking the difficulty settings for a new player character, then he/she will have to be careful enough to prevent the player character from dying, which is permanent. The save-file will be altered so as to make the player character unusable, thus causing the player to lose any progress that he/she has made and any gear that is on the player character's person.

There is not much of any reward for having played the game with the Hardcore option turned on, other than bragging rights.

DIFFICULTY SETTINGS:

As part of the creation of a player character, the player can select the difficulty setting for the challenges ahead. Outside of dubious means to alter save-files, this is an irreversible decision. The player can also turn on the Hardcore option, which has been described earlier, during this screen. If he/she does not, death is but a mere inconvenience to player characters that have been slain, who can be resurrected for fees.

The difficulty settings would not have any effects that seem refreshing; they do the usual alteration of the ratios of damage inflicted and damage incurred by the player character, adjustments of the health ratings of monsters and such. Regardless, they still affect the level of challenge of the game in understandable ways.

RETIRING CHARACTERS:

There is a minor but very peculiar feature of Torchlight that makes it different from many other action RPGs. In fact, it is a rather rare feature, if it had been featured in any other action RPG at all.

Characters that have achieved level 30 or higher will notice that a new NPC has appeared in town. This is the person that allows the player character to "retire", effectively rendering the player character unusable.

The benefit to this is that the player can pick one item – either a piece of armor or a weapon - to be anointed into an "heirloom" item. The name of the player character to be retired is appended to the name for the item, while its statistics are slightly improved. The level pre-requisite for the item is increased slightly as well.

This heirloom item will appear in the inventory of the next player character to be created and can be in turn handed down to the next character again if this one is retired too.

WRITING:

Despite its deceptively cartoonish artstyle, Torchlight actually has a brooding storyline, if its backstory does not suggest already.

Although the player characters' names are inconsequential and there is not a single story-centric decision that the player can make in Torchlight, Runic Games has created a backstory for each of them and did not hesitate to mention this with a voiced-over monologue every time the player creates a new character for a new playthrough.

Each class has his/her own motivation for having come to Torchlight, and it so happens that this motivation fits quite well with the rampage that they will commit as they travel deeper into the dungeons underneath Torchlight. For example, the Destroyer is a fatalistic person that ever seeks battle, whereas the Alchemist certainly does not hide his intention to study the Ember.

Most of the NPCs in the town may have names and personalities of their own, but they have little more significance to the story than being mere vendors. This is a bit of a lost opportunity, as some of them appear to be not human, yet there is little if any backstory on their races.

The antagonists and supporting characters are the ones who get the bulk of the writing effort, and they happen to be very few. Syl, who is a skilled student of the magical arts, will be the one providing most of the direction for the story and guidance for the player characters. Her personal reservations about having to go against someone that she had respect for make up half of the emotional drama in the game.

The other half is provided by one of the narrators of the game, who also happens to be a deuteragonist. His monologues, which are made via journal entries, show his descent from a wise academician to a megalomaniacal villain as he pries the terrible secrets underneath Torchlight.

Unfortunately, the climax can seem a bit clich–d to people who are experienced with action RPGs. There can only be so many ancient evils to be stopped before they start to become stale.

The labels for the items in the game may use words that only players with trivial knowledge of the Metal and Middle Ages would recognize. To cite some examples, there is a type of belts that is called the "balteus" (a belt that is designed to hold a sword), and a type of footwear that is called the "solleret" (overlapping metal plates for the feet). Fortunately, the game does mention the category of items that they belong to, so players without said knowledge would not be too left out.

MODS & MULTIPLAYER:

Runic Games has intended Torchlight to be a single-player game, with an MMO version to be made later – though plans for that have been cancelled. Despite the various promotional art for the game that shows the three player characters together, the vanilla version of the game is single-player only.

However, Runic Games has designed their game to be quite modular, allowing for many modifications – provided that interested modders learn about how to make use of the data files. Runic Games also appears to provide technical support when they can, though players will have to make use of their forums.

One of these mods happen to include a multiplayer tool that allows players to set up host sessions. However, as mods are not part and parcel of the product that is vanilla Torchlight, they will not be elaborated any further.

GRAPHICS - ITEMS:

The game makes use of color-coding for the icons of the items, specifically their backgrounds. This is usually convenient, but a problem may arise if the player character does not meet the prerequisites to use items. The backgrounds of these items appear to absorb a hue of red from the bottom, sometimes in odd and often non-uniform color mixes. Eventually, the player would learn that items with messy-looking background colors cannot be used by his/her player character.

The models for weapons and armor pieces resemble the artwork on their icons. There are several noticeable templates of models for these items, but various clusters of polygons on them have so many permutations such that not one magical item would look like another. Regular items can look like each other of course.

This variation in the models for weapons and armor means that not one player character would look like another, barring sheer chance or outright duplication of player characters. This is handy in multiplayer mods, in which players may use characters of the same class.

Another consequence is that it is not uncommon for a player character to have gear pieces with visual themes that mismatch with each other, thus resulting in silly appearances. In particular, the separation of shoulder plates from chest armor adds to the amusingly unsightly permutations of gear that player characters can sport. This is not necessarily bad of course, depending on the beholder.

There are different sets of inventory icons and in-game models for armor pieces for the different classes. For example, a player that is rolling a Destroyer may see a breastplate as having rather wide torso regions, whereas the Vanquisher would see an armored corset. These differences are just for cosmetic effect of course, but they are a nice little touch.

GRAPHICS – GEM GRADES:

There are several grades of gems, and these grades can be examined through their tooltips. However, the visual indicators for grades are terribly inadequate.

Every pair of subsequent grades shares the same icon. The next icon in the progression of grades is not any better either, as the differences are so little. All of the icons for the different grades are also of the same size.

This can make sorting out gems quite a chore. Mods with much bigger icons for the gems solve this issue, but it is still a wonder how Runic Games has not realized this problem when implementing the artwork for the icons of gems.

GRAPHICS – SPELL ICONS:

There was a system to associate colours for three (now-defunct) categories of spells. This colour system can be seen in the motifs at two of the corners of the icon for a spell. These motifs can be difficult to see, as the icons are quite small and the artwork in the center of the icons captures the attention of the viewer more than the motifs do.

This is perhaps just as well, as this colour system no longer applies in the final build of the game. If the player wants to be informed of the categorization of spells, he/she will need to look at the tooltip that appears when he/she places the mouse cursor over a spell icon. The motifs may be the remains of an overhaul during the development of this game.

CHARACTER MODELS:

The models for characters and monsters are perhaps the least impressive elements in the game's graphical designs. They are composed of noticeably edgy polygons, with features such as faces simply being static textures that were draped over said polygons.

Runic Games has invested effort into creating many models of monsters and the animations for them, but the myriad of models suffer from the same dated look. Speaking of animations, what animations there are happen to be simple-looking and far from impressive, but are adequate and believable enough.

PARTICLE EFFECTS & TEXT-BASED VISUAL AIDS:

Expectedly for a game of its time, most of the particle effects in Torchlight are invested in the spells and skills that the player will see in the game.

Generally, skills often have swirls of colour and shockwaves accompanying their use; they may also apply brilliant decals on the ground and walls, in the case of the Destroyer's pounding attacks. The use of spells is accompanied by bursts of color, sparks and/or magical dust spraying about, so there is a visual contrast between spells and skills. This is of not much use when the player is playing alone, but it might be handy in multiplayer mods where players need to keep track of each other.

If the player lands attacks on enemies with resistances or defences that greatly reduce the damage that the attacks could have inflicted, the text "Glancing Blow!" appears on top of said enemies. The game will explain that Glancing Blows are practically hits made with underpowered weapons, so it is a none-too-subtle hint that it is in the player's interest to obtain better weapons.

Similarly, the text "Critical Hit!" appears whenever the player character gets lucky with an attack. This visual indicator is only there for embellishment of course.

GRAPHICS - LEVELS:

The effect of the edgy polygons are less noticeable in the designs of the environments in the game, if only because edges are expected from them.

That said, they have plenty of edges indeed. To cite some examples, the mines of Torchlight have plenty of mineral seams and deposits jutting out from exposed earth. The archives/catacombs that are underneath the mines make use of edges to portray their bookshelves and tombs.

The level of detail in the dungeons of Torchlight is bolstered further with the inclusion of doodads, such as candles, tables and other objects as thematically appropriate.

In fact, one can argue that the dungeons of Torchlight are the best-looking things in the game.

The environments in the dungeons can obstruct the player's view of the action, so, fortunately, there are precautions that Runic Games has taken to allay this issue. They are not comprehensive, however.

Models that are behind obstacles appear as coloured silhouettes. For the player character and allies (including the pet), they are coloured light blue, whereas enemies are coloured red. This is handy if the player wants to know where they are relative to each other.

However, models for environmental objects and area boundaries that can block the movement of player characters are not coloured at all, which can make navigation a slight nuisance if walls in the foreground are blocking the view of the player's path. The player can rotate the camera of course, but this is still a hassle.

MAP DISPLAY:

Unfortunately, even though it would appear that Runic Games has picked up on a lot of good designs that had been seen in other action RPGs, it was not aware of each and every one of them. One of these that the developer does not know of is a dedicated map screen.

Therefore, the player has to resort to either the mini-map or the translucent map overlay to navigate around the current level, both of which does not show the full map of said level in high contrast. At least they can be toggled about quickly, but they are still nowhere near a full-screen map.

Again, it is left to modders to compensate for Runic Games' oversight.

LIGHTING & SHADOWING:

The lighting and shadowing effects in this game are nothing impressive. They have been designed with DirectX 9.0 graphics after all, which are already dated by the time of this game. Most of the lighting effects in the game are static, and shadows are really little more than texture-shading blobs that follow models around.

SOUND DESIGNS:

The sounds that the player will listen to the most are the sounds of combat, namely those that are associated with the methods that the player characters use to dish out the hurt. Meaty strikes accompany the Destroyer's heavy-handed attacks, loud discharges follow the Vanquisher's gunshots and the Alchemist has an aurally interesting blend of the usual noises associated with spell-casting and the hissing and clanking of steampunk technology.

Enemies also have sound effects of their own, which make it easier to know which ones are attacking if the player is not looking directly at them.

Most of the non-repeating voice-overs in the game are provided by Syl and her wayward mentor, which practically makes them the most fleshed-out characters in the game. Most of the other voice-overs in the game are there for informative purposes, such as the utterances that player characters make, or cosmetic reasons, such as the greetings and well-wishing that NPCs in the town make.

Most of the music in Torchlight is forlorn, ominous or a mixture of both. It would be familiar to people that have played the Diablo titles and other action RPGs with similar grimness. The music may clash aesthetically with the cartoonish visuals of the game in the eyes of some, however.

CONCLUSION:

Torchlight does not exactly do anything that is refreshingly new. However, what it does do is taking many splendid elements that had been seen in other action RPGs and combining them into a package that is almost thoroughly pleasant to play with. There are minor hiccups and lost opportunities to make the game even better, which is unfortunate, but Runic Games' decision to make the game highly modular did allow for many fan-made solutions.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Torchlight for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Sat, 08 Jun 2013 03:44:27 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/torchlight/user-reviews/812191/platform/pc/ Mon, 03 Jun 2013 01:35:52 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Metro 2033 for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/metro-2033/user-reviews/812001/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 8.0.

INTRO:

Although Metro 2033 was a vaunted novel, not everyone would have been pleased by the news that a shooter title would be made from it; after all, Metro 2033 came about at a time when the likes of Half-Life 2 has already upped the ante on story-telling and gameplay in sci-fi shooters.

The game would have to contend with other known shooters of Ukrainian-make such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and the fact that it is a Ukrainian-made game (which had the dubious reputation for the tendency to be unreliable products at the time). To pile on the scepticism further, there had been terribly few games that are based on novels that were unanimously considered fun.

Fortunately, tight designs and high production values made Metro 2033 quite the atmospheric interactive story, and a few peculiar game mechanics made it stand out from its peers in the sci-fi shooter league. Yet, Metro 2033 would not be flawless in everyone's eyes.

STORY DESIGNS:

Metro 2033 was marketed as a video game adaptation of Dmitry Glukhovsky's novel, but unlike so many other game adaptations from other media, the author of the source material is deeply involved in the production of the game.

Therefore, it would not be a surprise to some that it would follow the storyline in the novel. However, there are many changes and additions here and there to have the storyline fit the video game. On the other hand, only fans of the novel would be able to make comparisons readily, and certainly not all of them are expected to like the changes.

Anyway, the story is about Artyom, who is seemingly just another young man that is living in post-apocalyptic Moscow's metro stations, which have since been converted into underground settlements. Recently, the livelihood of the metro dwellers have taken a turn for the worse, due to the purported threat of a new breed of humanoids that have superhuman powers.

After the visit of a certain person that Artyom looks up to, he goes upon a quest to investigate the alleged threat. This quest is evidently fraught with many perils, half of which are supernatural and inhuman, the other half all-too-human and depressing reminders about the darker side of human nature.

Much of the game's experience is story-driven, which can give rise to an impression that the game is all-too-linear. Indeed, the game essentially shuffles the player from one scripted event to another with action sequences in between. However, even the action sequences are quite story-heavy, provided that the player is willing to pay attention and not run off looking around corners, nooks and crannies.

PLAYER CHARACTER:

The capabilities of the player character would not be raising any eyebrows; they may even suggest that 4A Games is devoid of ideas for the game as a first-person shooter.

Artyom has regenerating health and is not affected much by deteriorating health – qualities that would not make him much different from the player characters in the many, many present-day shooter titles.

For purposes of survival and defence, he can carry a few guns on his person. He also has knives (including a large one) for when shooting is not prudent, some medical kits for unbelievably convenient healing and a few makeshift grenades. Again, these designs are not new or refreshing.

Artyom can sprint for short bursts of speed, jump over small obstacles and crouch to lower his profile and stabilize his aim. These are crucial capabilities, but again, these are nothing revolutionary.

Fortunately, the gear that he has to use is far more interesting than the abilities that he has as yet another typical shooter-game protagonist.

FLASHLIGHT & NIGHT-VISION:

Artyom's flashlight is a piece of gear that he will be using a lot. Moscow's metro network (which is simply called the "Metro" in-game) may have be vast and extensively, but the nuclear apocalypse has made certain that electricity supplies to the lighting system in the Metro have been rendered unreliable.

There are kerosene lamps, torches and even luminescent fungi and algae lighting up the Metro, but only electrical lights provide reliable lighting, and the portable head- or chest-mounted flashlights happen to be some of them.

However, in the case of Artyom's own flashlight, it is powered by an electrical charger that has to be pumped frequently to keep its lighting at reliable levels of illumination. Having to remember to pump the charger often so as to ease navigation through dark tunnels and other crannies is a pervasive gameplay element that certainly makes Metro 2033 different from many other shooter titles that trivialize portable light sources.

Light sources such as the flashlight cast light that can be seen by enemies. The night-vision goggles, which offer another way to see in the dark, do not. However, night-vision obliterates a lot of visual contrast by tinting everything green, in addition to being unsuitable in areas with light sources. The goggles are also not available by default.

The goggles happen to share the same power pack as the flashlight, though the effect of diminishing charge is not so pronounced on the goggles as it is on the flashlight.

Although Metro 2033 may not trivialize portable light sources, having to check and pump the charger frequently can seem a hassle, especially considering that NPCs do not appear to have to bother with this problem if they have flashlights or night-vision goggles of their own.

KNIVES:

Artyom's trench knife is his weapon of last resort, or when the threat upon him is too small to warrant elimination via bullets. Artyom has a fast rate of slashes that can overwhelm most individual targets, but the knife is really only there for people who are stingy about the expenditure of ammunition, or ironically for those that are trigger-happy and have terrible aim.

Sharpened and balanced pieces of metal pass for throwing knives in the Metro, but skill in their use is apparently valued as kills with these are quite silent. In fact, a hit with a throwing knife on an unsuspecting enemy usually kills him/it outright. Moreover, throwing knives can be retrieved after use.

Throwing knives show how believable the consequences of impact locations are. For example, if the knives hit the armored sections of an enemy human's gear, such as his helmet or pauldron, they bounce off harmlessly. There are some convenient contrivances, such as hits on the backs of enemies being outright fatal; this design comes into play at harder difficulty settings when preserving ammunition is desirable.

However, throwing knives also happen to highlight technical issues with the collision detection scripts in the game. Although throwing knives may harm their targets, they sometimes do not stick into them and instead fall off, often into objects in the environment, thus becoming irretrievable.

THE REVOLVER:

Perhaps not surprisingly, the only sidearms that have managed to survive the apocalypse are revolvers, of which Artyom has one. It has only six rounds in its chamber, which means it is poor for heated fights, but at least Artyom wisely uses speedloaders instead of loading rounds one-by-one.

THE BASTARD:

Being of the carbine-&-rifle category of weapons, the Bastard gun sits in the third slot of Artyom's portable arsenal. Discounting the tutorial, it is the first primary weapon that the player would come across in the game. As its name suggests, it is a custom-made firearm with a none-too-proud backstory.

Yet, incidentally, this is a favoured weapon among characters in the Metro 2033 fiction (for its ease-of-availability) and among hardcore fans of the game for practical reasons, some of which would be mentioned later.

One of the practical reasons is that the Bastard gun is easier to reload when it has completely gone through a magazine than when it has not. This is a very rare weapon design in the shooter genre.

However, the Bastard gun has a lot of weaknesses, such as poor accuracy, that discourage its use, which is a shame as it is perhaps one of the most interesting weapons in Metro 2033.

OTHER CARBINES & RIFLES:

It is more than likely that the player will ditch the Bastard gun for something else.

One of these is expectedly the Kalash rifle. In Metro 2033, it happens to have lasted through the post-apocalypse and the collapse of pre-apocalypse society. Anyway, if the player has had any experience with any recent shooter titles, the Kalash works just like any other Kalashnikov rifle seen in other games.

Next, there is the VSV, which is an automatic sniper rifle. Its range and damage is useful for medium- and long-range engagements. However, encounters with inhuman enemies would reveal its weaknesses, chiefly its low rate of fire, thus mandating a replacement if the player is expecting fights with monsters instead of people.

Last, but not least, is the completely fictional Kalash 2012, which is a straight upgrade of the Kalash. One of its variants, which are available late into the game, is practically the best rifle in the game.

Carbines and rifles, including the Bastard gun, are the only weapons in Metro 2033 that can use military-grade rounds instead of the dirty regular rounds; military-grade rounds will be elaborated later, as they are a significant element of the game.

SHOTGUNS:

Any shotgun sits in the fourth slot of the player's arsenal. There are a few types of shotguns in the game, all of which are interestingly made from scrap.

The Automatic Shotgun, a.k.a. the Uboinik, has a substantial rate of fire for a shotgun due to its chambering mechanism, but reloading is a hassle as every shell has to be loaded by hand. Yet, it is also the only weapon that Artyom can use that can have a bayonet attachment, which can be desirable to some players.

The Duplet appears to be Metro 2033's take on the double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun that has been seen in many other shooter titles.

There is one other shotgun, but it comes with a free DLC pack that will be described later.

PECULIAR WEAPONS:

Metro 2033 has a few strange but entertaining weapons that further differentiates it from other shooter titles. Two of these are the Helsing and the Tihar.

Both weapons are pneumatically powered. Although many gun enthusiasts would question the viability of such weapons, they are nevertheless lethal yet almost-silent weapons. The Helsing is a rotary crossbow with re-usable (but very expensive) bolts, whereas the Tihar launches ball bearings that can be surprisingly painful.

However, as a trade-off for the advantage of stealth, both of them have to regularly hand-pumped to maintain their pressure, especially so for the Tihar, which can waste ball bearings if it has little pressure left. Both weapons can be over-pumped until they hiss, which is a noise that can be heard by enemies that are very close.

WEAPON UPGRADES/VARIANTS:

As the player progresses in the game, he/she would find variants of the weapons mentioned above. These variants have permanent attachments that are usually straight upgrades over vanilla variants. These variants either have to be obtained via buying them at populated metro stations or picking them off corpses or caches.

Most of the attachments are useful, such as suppressors that reduce recoil and noise in return for an acceptable fall-off in damage. Laser sights are also practically a must-have in Ranger difficulty, which will be described later.

However, the scope is a double-edged sword. Although the scope allows sniping work, its lens is so dirty that this is very difficult to do. The developers may have deliberately designed it to be so in order to portray the loss of skill to maintain them among the survivors of the nuclear war, but this drawback only serves to reduce the utility of scopes in-game.

It is worth noting here that the Revolver has the greatest number of attachments of all weapons, which is perhaps appropriate as the player is stuck with it throughout the entire game.

GRENADES:

Pipe-bombs pass for grenades in Metro 2033. However, despite their crudeness, they are still the most powerful weapons, albeit the riskiest too.

There are two variants of grenades; either is as powerful as the other. However, the variant with nails embedded in its caps is nastier, because it happens to stab into a soft target and stays on it if it lands.

For better or worse, grenades are just as easy to find as guns, because just about every human combatant in the game has a grenade or two. If the player can kill them quickly before they use their grenades, he/she would not be left wanting for resupplies of explosives. However, unlit grenades that are lying around can be detonated by explosions.

Interestingly, if the player makes the mistake of having Artyom holding a grenade when he is being shot at or when he is ironically caught in an explosion, the grenade in his hand may well go off, killing him instantly. This means that grenades are best used only when he is behind cover.

AMMUNITION:

In Metro 2033's post-apocalyptic society underneath the ruins of nuked Moscow, ammunition is the only accepted currency that also, tragically enough, happens to be all-too-practical.

As the knowledge and technology to manufacture reliable military-grade munitions is long gone, military-grade rounds are especially valued over the recycled and poorly hand-loaded munitions that the dwellers of the Metro produces. There just so happen to be kiosks that are situated in the population centers of the Metro network that act as both armories and currency exchange. There are also hawkers who sell wares in exchange for military-grade rounds.

It is this backstory to ammunition that makes the Metro 2033 novel so depressing yet attractive. More importantly, it has made Metro 2033 thematically different from many other shooter titles, which often treat ammunition as nothing more than basic supplies for player characters.

However, gameplay-wise, the consequences of this story setting may not be felt so deeply, depending on the player's playstyle and choices of difficulty settings.

If a player has been prudent or outright stingy in using ammunition, he/she would not have much opportunity to empathise with this aspect of the story. A trigger-happy player, on the other hand, would be quite starved for ammunition and may even have wasted the military-grade rounds that could have been used to purchase other ammunition.

The Ranger difficulty settings that came with the DLC pack would have particularly emphasized this setting, but they have issues of disbelief, as will be described later.

Furthermore, depending on the player's preference for certain weapons, some types of ammunition may never see use. For example, players who prefer using shotgun shells may have to forgo on using ball bearings and vice versa, because their associated weapons compete for the same weapon slot.

In difficulty settings other than the Ranger ones, stingy/thrifty players may also find themselves accumulating a lot more military-grade rounds and other ammunition than they would need. There are only so many things that the player would desire and want to buy with military-grade rounds in the markets of the Metro.

As mentioned earlier, only carbines and rifles can use military-grade rounds. Swapping to them from the default "dirty rounds" is as simple as holding down the reload button. Military-grade rounds are much more powerful than the dirty rounds, though prudent players would learn that the dirty rounds work just as well as if they practice more finesse than resorting to spamming these precious rounds in tough fights. However, military-grade rounds are far more needed in Ranger difficulty settings, as will be described later.

As a side note, it is worth noting here that the player would never find ammunition for the DShk heavy machineguns in Metro 2033; neither can the player pilfer them off machinegun emplacements. There may be a lost opportunity in the game to feature these particularly precious munitions in more prominent manners.

OTHER GEAR:

In addition to the guns and munitions that Artyom carries around, there is the gear that he wears on his person or which he somehow always has despite his current situation.

By default, Artyom starts with a serviceable leather vest, which is also seen on many other characters. However, in a couple of points in the game, the player can have him donning one of two other suits.

One is practically little more than a tailored suit of darkly colored fabric that has almost no folds. This suit is of course intended for sneaking around. In fact, the player can move quietly past an enemy guard that is just a few feet away in the darkness and he would not even notice.

The other suit is built for combat. Consisting of layers of tough fabric and metal studs, this is probably the go-to for combat-inclined players who may appreciate the damage reduction bonuses that the suit imparts.

Among these pieces of gear, the most important (though not most useful) are his wristwatch and his journal. Incidentally, these are the most sci-fi and most unbelievable items in the game, though using them is hardly easy.

The wristwatch is associated with a few very significant aspects of the gameplay, so it will be mentioned later where relevant. The same will also be said of filters and gas masks.

Medkits are practically a package of syringes with questionable substances. The use of a syringe forces Artyom's health to completely replenish in an instant, though not without some side effects that will be mentioned later.

The journal would seem to be an ordinary book. Artyom seems to write and erase notes on the notepad on its front cover off-screen, an occurrence that is denoted by scribbling and tearing noises that can be heard whenever the player gains a new mission objective. He even has a lighter to bring to the journal, in case the player finds it hard to read the journal when he brings it up. Indeed, the journal is certainly a lot more believable than the screens or text-drops that other shooter titles tend to use.

What is not ordinary about the journal is the compass that is built into it. Instead of always pointing north, it seems to be always pointing towards where Artyom needs to go to. This can be explained away as just the visual representation of mission pointers that had been seen in so many other games, but this still causes disbelief.

The player can bring up the journal to help him/her navigate around the game's maps, but there is a swapping animation that have to be performed to switch over to Artyom's weapon, which can be undesirable when trouble looms.

STEALTH:

Considering 4A Games' portfolio, one would be sceptical about how the developer would implement the theme of the value of discretion in the novel. However, although the stealth elements of Metro 2033 would never achieve the calibre of those in well-known stealth/sneaking games, they are still functional and more importantly, provide alternative, bullet-saving ways to complete levels with.

Sound and sight are the main ways that enemies use to detect intruders, so it is in the player's interest to get the right equipment, e.g. stealth gear, night-vision goggles and suppressed weapons.

If the player wants to creep around in the dark without night-vision goggles, Artyom's watch happens to have visual indicators that inform the player how much light is falling on him. However, which of the several coloured lights on his watch are these is not immediately apparent to the player; the player has to learn this on his/her own. In addition, the player has to bring up his watch, which can obscure some of the screen.

Speaking of visual obstructions, the player needs as little of these as possible, as there are traps such as rigged bells and broken glass that can give away Artyom's presence - among other much more harmful traps that will be described later.

If the player opts to use the night-vision goggles, he/she will have to put up with the slight tunnel vision. However, the goggles have a much more convenient visual indicator of the amount of light falling on Artyom.

These stealth elements apply as long as the immediate group of enemies has not been tipped off to Artyom's presence and whereabouts. Once they have, they become alarmed and much better at spotting Artyom, even if he is sitting in pitch darkness.

However, in some scenarios, the player can have Artyom running behind obstacles out of the sight of human enemies, and proceed to slip away from them. Human enemies can be reliably given the slip this way, and eventually lose any knowledge of Artyom's whereabouts, unless they hear or see a commotion. On the other hand, they will never lose their state of alarm, so any advantage of surprise from ambushing them again will be lost quickly.

Most of the game has the next group of enemies quite far away from the previous one to know what has happened to the latter, so that the next group is not aware of Artyom's presence is a believable scenario. However, even if the next group should be within earshot of the player's tussle with the previous group, it is still unaware of Artyom's presence, which can cause some disbelief.

The stealth gameplay elements do not apply when fighting inhuman enemies. Most of the monsters in this game are well aware of the whereabouts of Artyom, so any attempts at stealth would be woefully wasted. However, there are certain monsters with territorial behaviour, such as the Lurkers, which the player may be able to exploit to get past them without using too much ammunition.

ENEMIES:

There are plenty of enemies that the player has to go through or bypass, as to be expected of a shooter title.

Nosalises are feral creatures that are impossible to escape from as they are very fast. They can also pounce from afar and immediately transition into wild slashing. One other type of mutant, which looks lankier and more bestial, is designed in almost the same manner, but its pounce, if it connects, tends to result in unpleasant quick-time events, which will be described later.

There is one type of mutant that is diminutive, but it often hunt in groups and uses a network of tunnels to ambush the player character. Their appearances from the openings of the small tunnels are not mere spawning of models; they actually travel through them, if the player bothers to observe and listen to their scuttling.

One of the mutants happens to be flight-capable and will have players looking at the sky when on the surface, watching out for their winged forms. Their dives are not scripted events; once the player has alerted them to Artyom's presence, they will keep swooping and diving at him until Artyom gets under cover. Their dives not only hurt a lot, but also shifts Artyom's model a bit, possibly causing him to drop into hazardous places.

There are more mutants, but describing them would be to mention spoilers. It should suffice to say that these would be the culmination of the mutant mayhem that the player has endured before their appearance in the game.

Fighting mutants often has little reward, as all of them take bullets but give nothing back. Human enemies, however, are worth fighting, if only because the player can loot their corpses later. On the other hand, all of them are armed, so being shot at from afar is always a possibility when fighting them.

Human enemies will flank whenever they can, but they are slow at moving from cover to cover and will always insist on staying behind a piece of cover. Such cautious behaviour may seem refreshing to players that are tired of gung-ho enemies that charge around corners (which is often the case in many other shooter titles), but such behaviour makes the human enemies in Metro 2033 easier to ambush than one would think.

More often than not, the player would slip from cover to cover and find them looking at the wrong direction. They will eventually spot Artyom, but not before the player has killed one or two for their lack of vigilance. Fortunately, switching to higher difficulty settings appear to make them more responsive to ambushes, but the same cautious behaviour remains.

Certain conventions for the shooting of human enemies in the shooter game genre are suspended in Metro 2033. Firstly, hitting them in the head may not immediately kill them; shots to the face do, but most enemies have helmets and even full-faced ones that actually protect them from headshots. Secondly, hits on their body do not inflict the same amount of damage; bits of armor on them do absorb a lot of the impact from hits.

By default, enemies will not use their night-vision goggles until they are put into a state of alarm, which is convenient if the player is resorting to stealth to get past them. However, they will always use their headlights if they have these, so the player will have to look out for the beams of light emanating from them.

The graphical and audio designs of the enemies of Metro 2033 also contribute to the challenges that they pose. However, they also cause their combat performance in negative ways, even at higher difficulty settings. This will be elaborated later.

ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS & TRAPS:

Being set in a post-apocalyptic Moscow, there are plenty of hazards that the player has to contend with. However, the environments in Metro 2033 may not be as similar to other fictional post-apocalyptic environments as one would think.

For one, areas with deadly radiation are surprisingly sparse, despite the game being set in post-apocalyptic Moscow. That said, when Artyom gets too near these hotspots (as depicted by the ominous crackling of a Geiger counter that is somewhere on his person), the player may discover that instead of using a sophisticated system of radiation poisoning such as those seen in other games with nuclear post-apocalyptic settings, the effects of radiation hazards are represented as mere damage inflicted on Artyom's health, which can be disappointingly simple.

The most pervasive environmental hazard is the very surface of Moscow itself. The game mentions that the air on the surface somehow asphyxiates normal humans, which is a danger that can be managed by wearing gas masks with filters. The lasting durations of the currently used filter is depicted via Artyom's wristwatch, which he adjusts every time he uses a filter.

Doubts on the believability of the harmful surface air aside, romps on the hazardous surface can be quite tense. The gas mask that Artyom has to wear has its own separate health rating and can be separately damaged. As it takes damage, it imparts penalties on the durations of the filters that are attached to the mask. Eventually, it fails altogether once it has taken too much damage, possibly dooming Artyom and forcing the player to restart from a previous checkpoint or restart the level altogether.

Although the player may be able to hoard a lot of filters for Artyom to use, these filters are not exactly all reliable – the consequence of this is implemented via a luck-based system that determines how long a filter can last, for better or worse. Generally, all filters will last for at least four to five minutes, but for any filter to have any duration that is further than that is a matter of luck.

Sometimes, for certain levels such as the last few, the game does apply contrivances that conveniently make the durations longer, if only for the sake of the game's pacing.

There is a distressing number of traps that the player has to disarm or work around in the levels of Metro 2033. Some of these are non-lethal but still inconveniencing, such as tripwires that ring bells and broken glass that crunch surprisingly loudly when stepped on.

Others are much more dangerous, such as primitive traps that send a hunk of spiky junk slamming into complacent explorers and tripwires that trigger the fuses for grenades and gas cans. There are also traps that trigger rigged fire-arms, but these are fewer compared to the explosive sort.

A scant few of these are duds (it is impossible to tell which are duds without trial-and-error), but generally, most are still operational.

Other hazards in the game include spiked barricades, which appear early in the game and will injure Artyom if the player is not wise enough to realize that staying near sharp things are bad for health.

Then, there are fall hazards; some of these are depicted as ominously dark and foggy chasms that cannot be illuminated in any way, but most are falls from great heights, which can occur if the player is not cautious about having Artyom step on obviously precarious platforms.

CHECKPOINT SYSTEM:

For better or worse, the Steam version of Metro 2033 uses a checkpoint system to record the player's progress, much like the Xbox 360 version does. There is only one auto-save slot for these checkpoints; if the player wants to replay any moment in a previous level, he/she has to replay the level from the start up to that point.

QUICK-TIME EVENTS & ON-RAILS SEQUENCES:

Unfortunately, the developer has decided that there should be sequences where the player has to mash away on a button to save Artyom's life. Some of these are mandated sequences, usually when the game has scripted an event such that Artyom is caught in a precarious situation. Others are more avoidable, namely shooting monsters down before they manage to pounce on Artyom.

In either case, mashing away at a button can be an annoying experience that contrasts with the rest of the game's gameplay, which is far more sophisticated in comparison.

Other contrived gameplay sequences that the developer has included are some on-rails sequences, in which Artyom is stuck on a moving platform and have to shoot away at enemies like he is a human turret.

In one particular sequence, he is actually controlling a turret that is armed with a heavy machinegun, but again, not everyone would like the restriction on freedom of movement. Furthermore, the player has to worry about the slow turning rate of the turret, in addition to the usual worries about overheating the machinegun.

DIFFICULTY SETTINGS:

Unlike so many other shooter titles, Metro 2033 does not have straightforward designs for its difficulty settings. This is not a compliment, however, as the labels for these settings can seem misleading.

The "Easy" setting grants the player much more generous rewards from raiding supply caches and looting corpses; it also makes mutants weaker and reduces the awareness of enemies. All of these are designs that make the "Easy" label understandable.

What is not understandable is that it makes every human character, including Artyom, much tougher to kill. They can take a lot of rounds to be taken down, which makes combat a slog.

"Normal" is a typical setting that is best used by newcomers to the game and the shooter genre.

The "Hardcore" setting would be the go-to for experienced players, considering the scarcer finds for ammunition in it. However, it compensates by increasing the damage output of fire-arms, which inadvertently makes the game easier for players with remarkable aim and twitch reflexes.

The free Ranger Pack for the Steam version of the game adds two more difficulty settings, as will be described shortly. Unfortunately, they are not without problems either.

RANGER PACK – OVERVIEW:

A few months after the official launch of the Steam version of the game, the Ranger Pack was made available as a free DLC package for said version. Considering what it adds to the game, this is a much appreciated addition of value (especially when contrasted with the small fee that customers of the Xbox 360 version have to pay to get it).

ADDITIONAL WEAPONS:

The Ranger Pack inserts two weapons into the game at various points in the story.

One of these is the Heavy Automatic Shotgun, which is practically a heavy machinegun that has been converted to fire shotgun shells instead.

As its rugged appearance would suggest, it is a very powerful weapon that perhaps makes better use of shotgun shells compared to the other two shotguns, which cannot achieve its damage output. It does have drawbacks, such as lower damage-per-shot and long reload animations.

The Volt Driver is another weapon that is introduced by the Ranger Pack. It is the Metro franchise's own take on the sci-fi railgun seen in sci-fi shooters. In-game, it is practically the electrical version of the Tihar gun, but it also has a melee attack that shocks anyone that gets too close and a laser sight for easier aiming.

There can be gameplay balance issues that arise from where in the story that the Volt Driver is inserted. It can be retrieved quite early in the game, which can make the next few chapters far easier than they should be.

RANGER DIFFICULTY:

The two ranger difficulty settings are perhaps the main draw of the Ranger Pack, as they make Artyom's journey all the more challenging.

Most of the already-sparse visual aids that the player has are removed, such as the targeting crosshair that shows the spread of the currently wielded gun. This makes laser sights more valuable, but it also highlights a gap in the A.I. designs of enemies, who cannot perceive the red dot.

In Ranger Hardcore, the visual indicators for gear can only be called up by bringing up Artyom's journal or wristwatch, which is best only done in quieter moments.

The durability of human characters, including Artyom, are severely diminished, making firefights very short and brutal. Inhuman enemies are unaffected, making them all the more dangerous in Ranger difficulties.

The most prominent characteristic of the Ranger difficulty settings is the severely reduced amounts of ammunition that can be pilfered from corpses and supply caches. This makes military-grade rounds much more valuable, as the player will need them to buy spare ammo for weapons other than the carbines and rifles.

However, this can require a suspension of belief. It would be difficult to rationalize how the armed enemies in this game could fire away at Artyom seemingly endlessly but when they are dead and the player goes over to pilfer stuff off them, he/she only gets one or two usable rounds from them.

This gives the impression that the otherwise believable challenges offered by the Ranger difficulty options have been offset by less believable, artificially-imposed ones.

GRAPHICS – GENERAL STATEMENTS:

The Steam version of Metro 2033 can be argued to be the game that utilized DirectX 9 graphics to its best. Although it has the usual flaws of DirectX 9 graphics, such as not very adequate rounding of edges for polygons and many models that clip into each other, it has so much detail in its environments and models that one would wonder how the developer managed to optimize the game for smooth performance on so many machines.

Granted, one can argue that 4A Games had time to iron out flaws after the launch of the Xbox 360 version of the game, but it would seem to be time well-spent.

ENVIRONMENT DESIGNS:

There are a lot of grey and drab textures that are used to decorate the many, many polygons in the environments on the surface of Moscow, but this is quite appropriate as it accentuates the nuclear winter that has befallen the former city. The layer of dust and snow on the ground may be quite static and unappealing, but there are plenty of particle effects on-screen to simulate the fall of said precipitation.

The forlorn and dangerous surface is contrasted by the claustrophobic and dark tunnels of the underground; there are more ominous places, but the majority of environments in the game are these. The tunnels looks especially decrepit and dirty, especially the narrower tunnels which may well have been sewer pipes.

Darkness in Metro 2033 is indeed absolute darkness, making sources of illumination especially valuable.

Speaking of illumination, a lot of normal mapping is used to simulate the lighting of surfaces with textures; close examination will reveal this graphical trickery. However, to give the developer some credit, a lot of normal mapping patterns can appear on the same screen without issues of technical performance; this can be particularly experienced very late into the game, where there are many more types of textures to be seen than in earlier levels.

For the levels located on the surface, there are brilliant flare effects from the sun, especially when the player is looking out of the windows.

Perhaps the most brilliant levels in Metro 2033 are those that feature human habitation in the Metro network. These population centers resemble squatter ghettos and are visibly unsanitary, but the game would not hesitate to inform the player that this is all the shelter that the humans in Moscow have left. The most poignant of such levels is perhaps the very first one, where humans are shown rearing pigs, the only farm animals that survived.

Unfortunately, these population centers tend to have many places that are simply walled off, limiting exploration and thus any potential for more immersion into the sad-but-hardy societies of post-apocalyptic Moscow.

MODELS:

Plenty of effort has also been invested into the creation of human character models, as would be apparent from the amount of details on them. Almost every piece of gear is represented on them with their own models. The Rangers, in particular, are often seen heavily equipped with so much gear, almost to the point of silliness.

Yet, the game ultimately does have a limited variety of models and will eventually reuse and recycle them in multiple places. However, this would only be apparent upon close observation. The aforementioned darkness and lighting effects help to disguise this.

Artyom does have several character models for his presentation within the game world, but as of yet, there has not been any official confirmation by the developer of how his face looks like. What there is to be seen are attempts by players to have Artyom's model appear on-screen during in-game cutscenes where the camera takes a third-person perspective.

Ultimately, the details of his models are unimportant, as much of the game occurs with the camera taking the first-person perspective. On the other hand, the developer has gone to great lengths to simulate movements of his head, especially in a cutscene where Artyom communicates with another character with nods.

There are several mutant monsters in the game, but differentiating from a glance can be a bit difficult as most of their models are coloured in shades of grey. However, the player will eventually learn how to recognize them using their gaits, postures and silhouettes. After all, the game will throw quite a sizable number of them at the player.

The guns in Metro 2033 have been described as having been made from scrap, and they certainly look so. They are ballistic Frankenstein monsters, having details such as exposed magazines, gas chambers and other parts that gun enthusiasts would recognize – and be aghast at.

Speaking of whom, the guns in Metro 2033 have drawn remarks from gun enthusiasts about the viability of their scrap-built designs. Their animations in particular have been scrutinized; this will be elaborated later.

Questions of believability aside, they do emphasize the limited resources and need for firearms in Moscow's post-apocalyptic society, which have to contend with monsters on a near-daily basis.

For gameplay purposes, military-grade rounds have models that look very clean and shiny despite their backstory suggesting that they should already be quite old. Despite being shinier than common ammunition, most of these precious rounds appear in-game as small, easily overlooked clips. There are entire magazines of them, but they tend to appear only in scripted events and in supply caches that occur very, very late into the game.

VISUAL & AUDIO DESIGNS OF GUNS:

The scrap-built aesthetics of the guns are complemented with animations and noises which further emphasize their crudeness. These are not so exaggerated as to be comical, but they have enough variety in sliding, locking, chattering and such other mechanical motions so that they are convincing products of resource-strapped and none-too-skilled gunsmiths.

Most of these designs can be experienced via the first-person camera, e.g. when Artyom is firing his guns.

The Bastard gun would be easily the most iconic weapon of Metro 2033 due to its visual designs. The most visually notable part of this odd weapon is its magazine, which is almost completely exposed such that the rounds can be counted. This is very convenient in Ranger difficulty settings.

Being a freak of a fire-arm, the Bastard gun has its own unique animations that make it seem more special than it is, if it is compared with the firearms that have been seen in so many other shooters that feature believable guns.

However, gun enthusiasts have also noticed some dubious animations that make the Bastard gun less believable, such as doubts over how it ejects spent cartridges from its rack-like magazine.

Moreover, its other animations and graphical effects only highlight how unreliable the Bastard gun is. For example, there is a set of animations that is used when it overheats and Artyom tries to cool it; although they are impressive to look at for the first time, it will not be pleasant to look at when the player is under pressure from enemies.

Such shortcomings prevented the Bastard gun from becoming a pervasive trademark of the Metro franchise, unfortunately.

The same could be said for the Automatic Shotgun, but not for reasons that are its faults.

The Automatic Shotgun has an interesting revolving mechanism for its reloading process. The shells are practically exposed, mounted on partially-open rings that rotate as the gun fires. The player can see each shell being spent and its casing ejected, as well as Artyom manually mounting new shells onto the rings. Of course, such animations, which reflect well on the efforts by the developer to design and animate these hand-made guns, are best examined in the more peaceful moments of the game.

However, as there are other weapons that compete for the same slot as the Automatic Shotgun, there are very few opportunities to appreciate its visual designs. The same can also be said about the Duplet.

For weapons that have to be manually charged, there are sets of first-person camera animations that show Artyom pumping their compressors and dynamos. Dials handily show the player's progress, and for weapons that have overcharged states, Artyom visibly strains with audible grunts when pumping them past acceptable pressures.

The scrap-built and home-made weapons have the advantage of having the rounds that they have left in their magazines being visible without the need for icons. Also, for throwing knives, he holds out the remaining knives in his other hand.

There are animations for when Artyom is idle while holding something. Most of the time, he just examines them and turns them around in his hands, showing that the first-person models of the weapons are fully designed and there had not been lazy cutting of corners. There is also some silliness to be had, such as when Artyom accidentally breaks off a few parts from shoddy weapons, like the Bastard gun, and puts them back.

ANIMATIONS & AUDIO DESIGNS OF ENEMIES:

When combat occurs, the player gets to see and hear the design efforts that the developer has invested into making enemies seem believable. However, the observant player may also notice design oversights that unwittingly made enemies easier to defeat than they should be.

Mutants are relentless creatures; once they have discovered Artyom's presence, they may do one of two things.

They may run after him, which is an unsettling sight, especially if the player is illuminating them as they scamper down dark tunnels. They are almost silent, if not for the crunching of debris underneath their claws and feet; this makes them difficult to detect if the player is not already looking at them.

Alternatively, some monsters may stalk him by making use of tunnels or holes that create openings between two floors. If the player is vigilant, the player can see them scuttling along the tunnels or in the other floor, which shows how intelligent their A.I. designs are. Eventually, they will climb out to move towards Artyom; this is a mostly silent action, but if the player had been looking at them, this climbing animation renders them vulnerable to attack.

When they do attack, they will always utter growls, howls or yelps. By the time the unsuspecting player hears these (usually when they are looking at corpses or loot), it is already too late and the player can expect to take a hit or two. This makes the game quite suspenseful when Artyom is moving through monster-infested places.

However, when the player is actively fighting them off, he/she may notice the weaknesses that they have which arise from their animations.

Certain enemies pounce forward; if their pounces fail to land, they have to perform recovery animations that render them quite vulnerable to retaliatory fire.

If they perform slashing or mauling animations from a crouching or standing position, they are rooted to the spot. Anything stupid enough to be in front of them is hit outright, as is anything adjacent to them in the case of wide arcs of attack. However, if the player has Artyom backing away, they still have to complete said animations, which also render them vulnerable.

Most mutants have turning animations that would seem slow when compared to how fast their running or flying animations are. This makes individual mutants a lot easier to fight in close combat than one would think. They do compensate by having wide arcs to their attacks, but as long as the player kites them while keeping in mind their surroundings to prevent being cornered (which is a sure death), monsters on their lonesome can be despatched quite efficiently.

Human enemies have very believable animations when they are engaged in battle, but these are also their weaknesses in combat.

They have lengthy animations for ducking behind cover, which give the player a couple of seconds to put a round or two into their heads or shoulders. They also have lengthy animations for getting out of cover, which make them vulnerable to ambush; the only exception is when they have noticed an incoming grenade, for which they have diving animations to get out of the way.

Almost all enemies, except very tough mutants (which appear late into the game), have animations for when they are staggered by sustained gunfire. Sometimes, they may even get knocked over, which is also an indication that they are getting very weak; in the case of humans, they may limp when near-death.

Although such animations makes them very believably mortal, which in turn makes for impressive aesthetics, these animations also make them easier to kill as they cannot fire in these states. More often than not, they would turn into ragdolls before they can complete their animations if the player had continued to fire on them.

Speaking of ragdolls, after having seen so many well-done animations for the models in this game, that enemies go limp when they die and have their models turned into contorted ragdolls can be a disappointment.

ICONS & OTHER VISUAL INDICATORS:

The icons for types of munitions may be a bit difficult to differentiate for people who are not gun enthusiasts because they tend to use the bases of cartridges for the visual designs; only ball bearings and bolts have very unique-looking icons. Fortunately, this is a minor issue, as there are other visual indicators when the player is looting these types of munitions.

For example, when picking rounds off corpses, the icons that are associated with the type of rounds that the player is about to retrieve would appear under the aiming cursor (if any). When perusing exchange kiosks, there is always a view of the models for the rounds on-screen.

Most importantly, the icon for the military-grade rounds has a nimbus of light around it.

Artyom's lighter is mostly there for cosmetic purposes. It does have some neat lighting, but it is not always needed to read the high-contrast notepad on the front of Artyom's journal. There are some other objects on Artyom's person that are only there to look pretty, such as the timer on his wristwatch that follows the computer clock in the player's machine.

GRAPHICAL ISSUES:

For better or worse, the developer has decided that Artyom's state of health should be depicted via changes in the visual display of the first-person camera. The edges of the screen turn redder as he takes damage, and the red tint gets closer to the middle of the screen too. This can obscure the screen when a clear screen matters most to the player, such as when trying to spot enemies that are attempting to flank Artyom.

Using a health syringe to wipe away the red does not immediately help the player either. The screen will warp to Artyom's rapid heartbeat for a couple of moments, which is a drastic change that can be disorienting.

The developer has designed many convincing animations for the movement of the human body (much of which are likely motion-captured), but have not done enough for facial animations. The faces for human characters in Metro 2033 are creepily rigid, often only showing movement for blinking and lip-synching.

The consequences of these lopsided efforts at animation can be seen in one segment of the game where Artyom is accompanied by an enigmatic man. The otherwise splendid animations for his superstitious habits are marred by lack of facial animations and awkward positioning of his head.

Unlike other shooter titles, guns that have had their magazines or chambers emptied for spare ammo do not disappear; they stay behind, just in case the player needs to swap for more useful guns.

This would not have been an issue if not for the developer's failure to include appropriate models of guns that have their magazines pilfered for all weapons. While there are such models for weapons like the vanilla Kalash and the Bastard gun, other weapons such as the Uboinik and the variants of the standard guns lack these.

This is a minor issue if the player is a person who casually loots corpses and stashes and moves on without looking back, but for more anal-retentive players, this lack of models can be an annoyance.

VOICE-OVERS, SUBTITLES & WRITING:

Of all the sound assets in the game, the player will be listening to voice-overs the most.

The game has two sets of voice-overs, one in Russian and the other in English. Both voice-overs draw from the same surprisingly limited cast, though it is not entirely clear whether a character is voiced by the same person in both versions.

For those who are not versed in one or the other language, it is better to just set the game to use the voice-overs with the more familiar language. This is because the game lacks many subtitles for many conversations, especially those in the inhabited Metro stations. Players who use the other set of voice-overs anyway would be left out of many otherwise interesting pieces of dialogue.

Unfortunately for English-centric players, the English set of voice-overs has certain exclamations in Russian that just could not be translated over to English, and even their subtitles remain in Cyrillic.

For the most part, the descriptions for things in the game – usually imparted via dialogue or monologue – are technically correct. However, there are minor factual errors anyway, such as the Bastard gun being referred to as a submachinegun by an armory caretaker when it is more of a carbine. This can irk people with trivial knowledge about the things seen in Metro 2033.

There will not be many memorable quotes to be heard in Metro 2033, at least not from the main characters, most of whom are taciturn. In fact, the few memorable ones there are have to be gleaned from the conversations among strangers in the Metro stations. In particular, there is a macabre remark about the ammunition-based economy that can be heard from an unimportant, unnamed NPC.

There are attempts to create memorable characters, but the results can be seen as mixed. For example, Ulman is a character that is intended for comic relief, but his tendency to make jokes even when the situation is grave can be grating.

One of the most prominent characters appears in the early parts of the game, highlighting how the harsh life of post-apocalyptic Moscow has turned the best survivors into hard-bitten cynics as well as foolhardy risk-takers. On the other hand, there may be some complaints about the consistency of the portrayal of this character.

In the novels and according to some other characters in the game, he is suspected to be a dishonourable scoundrel. Yet, he conveniently hands Artyom quite a lot of supplies and military-grade rounds at opportune moments. Of course, it can be argued that these bouts of unexpected generosity would seem practical from the perspective of gameplay as he and Artyom will be getting into nasty situations.

A particular character with his peculiar superstitions and enigmatic but tough personality would have been memorable, but as mentioned earlier, his screen-time is marred with rigid facial animations that ruin the impact of the scenes that involve him.

Artyom himself seems to be a compromise between the completely silent protagonist and a person with self-conflicts. Most of his character design can only be experienced through his monologues (presumably his journal entries) that play during loading screens; he otherwise keeps his mouth shut even when people are addressing him and asking questions. Granted, he is not the only character that refuses to talk more than he should in the game, so his character designs are not in stark contrast with those of other characters in the game.

SOUND EFFECTS & MUSIC:

Although the developer has created a set of different sound effects for each monster, they would eventually lose their appeal because every type of monster will recur many times throughout the game. Some of these sounds are also recycled for variants of the same genus of monsters, the Nosalises being a particular example.

Eventually, the player would likely appreciate them just for the fact that they indicate that monsters are nearby.

The other sound effects, such as the moaning of a breeze as it passes down tunnels or the howling of winds on the surface are at least more understandable, and they also happen to add to the atmosphere of the game.

Being a shooter title, most of the sound effects that the player hears are of course gunfire. Most of the guns sound as they should, being facsimiles of gun archetypes that had been seen in so many shooters after all.

However, the pneumatic guns and the Volt Driver can be entertaining. Of course, their discharge is quite silent, but listening to a near inaudible thump followed by a louder thump hitting someone that is quite surprised at being killed by a ball bearing can be satisfying, or in the case of the Helsing, the thud of its bolt shanking someone.

The loudest noises are of course explosions, which leave Artyom's ears ringing. There are also other loud noises in the game, usually for ominous occurrences such as the creaking of rickety platforms under Artyom's weight.

There is not much music to be listened to in this game. What there is are mainly forlorn guitar tracks, and if not these, ominous tunes that often play during suspenseful cutscenes or dire situations where the player cannot do much but have Artyom run away from something that he cannot fight.

CONCLUSION:

Metro 2033 can be seen as another trans-media cashing-in or another title to jump on the bandwagon of post-apocalyptic stories.

However, it does have qualities that differentiate it from other games that try to do either of the above, and many more that certainly makes it stand out from among so many first-person shooter titles. Chief of these qualities are a great atmosphere and gear that works refreshingly differently from those seen in other shooters.

On the other hand, some of these qualities are diminished by many minor flaws that could have been easily overlooked if not for their effects on gameplay and immersion of the game.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Metro 2033 for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Mon, 03 Jun 2013 01:35:52 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/metro-2033/user-reviews/812001/platform/pc/ Thu, 30 May 2013 20:57:24 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Star Wars: Empire at War for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/star-wars-empire-at-war/user-reviews/811901/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 7.5.

INTRO:

It can be difficult to argue which subgenre of strategy games that Empire at War is best placed in. If it is an RTS game, then Empire at War has hardly any revolutionary RTS gameplay. In fact, it may have balance issues as a consequence of the developer's attempts to utilize the Star Wars canon. If it is a 4X (explore, expand, exploit and exterminate) game, then its complexity pales in comparison with much more sophisticated 4X franchises.

If Empire at War is to be given the benefit of the doubt, it can be considered as somewhere between the two subgenres, though this is not necessarily a compliment. Yet, if there is anything praise-worthy, it is that it is one of the most decent strategy games that bear the Star Wars brand in a long, long time.

PREMISE:

The game's backstory is an almost copy-paste adaptation of the events in the first two Star Wars movies. It focuses on the strategic maneuvers of the Empire and the Rebellion as well as the battles between them.

In campaign mode, the Rebellion's campaign is practically the series of events as seen in the movies, minus Luke Skywalker and friends' adventures. The Empire's campaign is more disconnected from Star Wars canon, depicting the Empire's crushing of upstart revolutions at any cost.

There are also story elements that would be familiar to fans of Star Wars Expanded Universe, as well as deviations from the canon depending on how the player plays the game. However, most of the story in the Campaign mode is believable or at least excusable, discounting the guffaws for when the player deliberately blows up many planets with the Death Star.

GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW:

The game has three main strata of gameplay. One stratum concerns its 4X gameplay; it has two competing players trying to take control of the known galaxy by consolidating gains and cordoning the opposition, eventually culminating in the elimination of the latter.

One stratum of gameplay concerns battles in space. Space in Empire at War is little more than a simplified 2D plane, but it has enough designs to make space warfare in Empire at War believable and as sophisticated as the battles in other competently done – albeit not space-based - RTS titles.

The last and unfortunately least stratum of gameplay involve battles on land. They are very underwhelming and may even seem to under-represent the struggle for the control of worlds, mainly due to the small maps and the under-utilization of some its own features.

THE 4X GAMEPLAY:

Empire at War's 4X gameplay would hardly impress 4X strategy game veterans.

There is the usual colossal cluster of celestial bodies (e.g. planets, asteroid clusters and artificial ones such as massive space stations) that represent the known galaxy, but the player should not be expecting to micro-manage them like the colonies in more sophisticated 4X games.

In other words, the "exploration" and "exploit" bits in Empire At War's 4X gameplay are heavily simplified. There would not be anything like discovering new races and such as the galaxy in Empire at War is strictly based on canon. Of course, one can argue that Empire at War never promised these gameplay elements in the first place.

On the other hand, the simple gameplay allows the game to be played in real-time without much of a fuss. In fact, matches in the 4X realm of Empire at War can be ferocious as the opposing players furiously move and use assets in an attempt to outpace each other.

There are two game modes that make use of this stratum of gameplay: the non-canonical Galactic Conquest mode (hereby referred to as just "Conquest" mode), and the story-oriented Campaign mode.

The story campaigns are highly scripted and are mainly intended for single-player experiences, but Conquest mode can be played in both single-player and multiplayer. A session in Conquest mode can be played with one of a few different winning conditions.

One of these is the usual winning condition of completely annihilating the opposition. The other two can have issues of gameplay imbalance, as will be described later when relevant.

GALACTIC MAP:

The galactic map and the player's progress in dominating it are prominent elements of the aforementioned game mode.

As mentioned earlier, the galactic map is composed of planets, complexes of space stations and clusters of asteroids that may be known to Star Wars enthusiasts; these objects make up the nodes that is the network that is the galactic map. In-game, every node in this network is called a "planet", though a couple of nodes are not even planets at all.

The nodes are connected to each other via bilateral lines. Thus, the conquest of a node cannot be achieved without having already conquered some adjacent ones. As any node can produce units if they have the correct facilities to do so, isolated nodes that remain under the control of the enemy are still threats.

In the campaign mode, only a handful of nodes in the galactic map are available for play depending on the point in the story; this happens to shoehorn the player into making progress according to the canon of the movies, but such a limitation would be understandable in such story-oriented gameplay.

PLANETS & INCOME:

All nodes have the same fundamental designs. Each node can support a number of facilities on its surface, if there is any, and a number of facilities in orbit around it; the number of facilities that a node can support varies from node to node. A node can also support the presence of armies and/or armadas, which are represented as stacks of chips with icons. Finally, nodes are the main source of income for the player.

Said income is of course in the form of galactic credits, the canonical currency in Star Wars. These particular credits can only be spent in the 4X segment of the game; they are not transferable to any other types of gameplay. These credits can be spent on building more facilities on the nodes, making them more valuable and useful. Otherwise, they are spent on requisitioning more units for the player's armies and armadas.

The income that a node offers depends on its canon in Star Wars history. For example, in Star Wars canon, the planet of Tatooine has been described as having little to offer to those that rule it, so it has very low income by default. In contrast, Coruscant canonically has vibrant trade, so it has generally high income.

Certain other nodes have special benefits that are conferred to the owning player. For example, Bothawui has a spy network that shows the movement of opposing fleets, which is certainly very convenient. Some nodes have benefits that only one faction can benefit from, such as Bestine, which grant 20% discounts to the creation of Acclamator cruisers (though the canonical reason for this is not immediately clear).

Each node has four slots that can be occupied by stacks of units, be they surface units or space vessels. The three slots "above" a node are for stacks of units that are in orbit; if they are space vessels, they will participate in space battles on that node. The fourth slot is only for a stack of surface units, which when stationed there, becomes the defenders of the surface of the node.

There are a couple of nodes with missing surface slots; these are usually clusters of asteroids or gas giants that cannot conceivably have solid surfaces. This means that surface facilities cannot be built on them at all, though this setback is compensated with a capacity for higher level space stations (more on these later).

When adjacent nodes that are under the control of a player manage to connect to each other, they gain bonuses to their incomes, ostensibly due to the trade that occurs between them. This is a consideration to acknowledge when deciding which node to take next.

POPULATION CAPS:

Empire at War imposes a limit on the number of units that the player can have, which is not a new but quite understandable gameplay-balancing design. However, the factors that go into determining this limit may not be so conducive to gameplay balance.

In the Conquest and Campaign modes, surface units and space units share the same population cap. The player can have mixtures of both at any proportion according to his/her needs (or whims). The nodes under the player's control determine the cap on the units that the player can have.

Different nodes contribute different amounts to the cap, depending on their canonical backstory. For example, Kuat is known for its expansive shipyards that can support entire fleets, so it contributes a lot to the population cap.

A node's contribution to the population cap can be improved by building space stations on it. The designs of the space stations are elaborated later.

SPACE STATIONS:

A space station starts as a measly level 1 establishment that is barely capable of defending itself, though it does prevent cheap attacks in Conquest mode.

Fortunately, it can be upgraded to become more powerful and versatile. The first upgrade to level 2 is quite affordable, but any upgrade after that, up to the maximum of level 5, can be significantly more expensive. In addition, not every node can support a high level space station.

For example, Kuat's canonical history as a shipyard means it can have a level 5 space station, but Dagobah, with its lack of any useful resources, has no reason to have any space station with a level higher than 2. This limitation may seem restrictive, but it is conducive to gameplay balance.

It is likely in the player's interest to create high-level space stations to fortify the front line with, as well as to provide rendezvous locations to concentrate reinforcements in and shelter them from punitive attacks. However, it has to be mentioned here that space stations only protect their own nodes – they will not assist in the defence of adjacent nodes, at least not directly.

Anyway, a higher level space station can build more kinds of space vessels, assuming that they have been unlocked through research. However, in the Conquest and Campaign modes, only the space stations on certain special planets that are known for their ship-building capabilities can build the most massive of ships, namely the Mon Calamari cruisers and the Star Destroyers.

A higher level space station also has more defensive capabilities, such as having hangars that churn out strike-craft regularly and hyperspace beacons that call in lower-class capital ships for additional firepower.

Taking on a high-level space station is certainly daunting, but there happens to be units that are capable of busting space stations, as will be mentioned later.

SURFACE FACILITIES:

Surface facilities provide more versatility to a node than a space station can – which means that nodes such as Bespin and the Vergesso Asteroids would have limited usefulness, as they do not have any surface.

Different nodes have different capacities for surface facilities; the reasons for these differences are usually understandable. For example, the massive asteroid that is Kessel does not have many stable locations, so it has a very low capacity for surface facilities.

There are mines that can be placed on a planet to improve its income. There is not any factor that determines how efficient these mines are, so the player can plonk them down on any node as long as there are slots left.

There are also factories and barracks that allow the production of surface units. They also play a role in surface battles in Conquest and Campaign mode, as will be described later.

For nodes on the frontline, defensive facilities such as shield generators and turbo-lasers may be handy.

Shield generators create force fields around bases on the surface, protecting them from incoming fire, whether it is from the surface or space. The shield generators are rendered useless if hostile ground forces manage to get under the shield, which they can do without much of a problem as the shields do not fry them upon contact.

Turbo-lasers are the most powerful and long-ranged turrets in surface battles, but they cannot be easily replaced if they are destroyed; in fact, in Conquest or Campaign mode, they are permanently lost if they are destroyed. More importantly, they are powered by power plants that can be separately targeted and destroyed, upon which the turbo-lasers are rendered useless. Turbo-lasers also have minimum firing distances, so they cannot be expected to hold down territory by themselves.

Then, there is the Magna-pulse cannon emplacement, which is practically a super-weapon that is used in surface battles (to borrow an RTS jargon that was pervasive in the past decade).

There are also surface facilities that play a role in orbital battles. The Imperials have the Hypervelocity Gun, whereas the Rebellion has the Ion Cannon. Their presence on the surface essentially unlocks super-weapon abilities. The Hypervelocity Gun is a weapon that simply severely damages its target, whereas the Ion Cannon disables a ship for an uncomfortably long time.

Having more than one of these on a planet does not grant more uses of the super-weapon abilities, but they do reduce the cool-down time on the abilities.

Finally, there are surface facilities that produce units. In Conquest mode, they do more than just unlock units for production, as will be described later.

INTERSTELLAR RECONNAISSANCE:

The player can readily see the assets on nodes that are under his/her control as well as the forces that are stationed on it, among other details such as income levels. However, the player cannot do the same for nodes that are under the enemy's control.

To obtain information on the enemy's holdings, the player must send recon units over to them. These recon units are expendable, because they are spent as soon as the player sends them over to enemy-controlled nodes. The revelation will not last forever either; eventually, the player will lose access to information on enemy-held nodes that had been visited by recon units earlier.

In the case of the Rebellion player, they get a single but re-usable reconnaissance unit that gives them a significant edge early in a Conquest session. However, the Empire player can still attempt to outdo the former with quantity instead of quality later. This can lead to an uncomfortable shifting of balance in reconnaissance abilities as the match progresses.

INTERSTELLAR INVASIONS & TRANSPORTATION:

A node cannot be taken over by any means other than force; there is no diplomatic option at all, though this is keeping in line with the source material.

Before the player can invade or transport units about, the player has to create them and form them into stacks of chips. Creating, combining and splitting stacks is fortunately quite easy to perform, though the real-time nature of the 4X gameplay in Empire at War means that the player may either want to pause the game when playing in single-player or hurry up when in multiplayer.

Invading enemy-held nodes is as simple as moving a stack of units onto it. However, on the flip-side, a stack of units cannot be moved onto an enemy-held node without being considered as attacking it.

If a stack of units is moved onto an enemy node with a space station or defending armadas, a space battle automatically commences. However, the invading player can choose to retreat before the battle starts in earnest, though he/she would have wasted his/her time.

However, unless the node does not have any surface at all, it cannot be conquered by simply having its orbital defences swept away; a ground force is needed to complete the conquest. Otherwise, while awaiting the arrival of said ground force, the forces in orbit are considered as blockades on the node.

Blockades prevent the node from rebuilding its orbital facilities and remitting its income to its owner. However, blockades do not prevent the building of surface facilities and the raising of ground forces, so the owning player can still attempt to resist any attempts by the enemy to completely conquer the node.

As stacks cannot be moved about enemy nodes without being considered as invading them, the nodes at the rear of a player's territory would be quite safe and can be vacated of any defensive forces so these can be sent to the frontlines instead. However, this only applies to the Rebellion player; the Imperial player has to contend with a sneaky ability that the Rebellion has, which will be described later.

Consequently, if a player has been forced behind chokepoints that the enemy is quick to fortify, he/she has little way to progress other than to attack these chokepoints outright. Fortunately, the galactic map has very few viable chokepoints, which help make matches fluid and perhaps even amusing when the player has managed to take away nodes that the enemy has failed to guard.

Space and surface battles have to be fought to conquer a node, but in Conquest mode, or the Campaign mode when critical (story-based) missions are not involved, the player can opt to have the game automatically resolve the battle. This is more useful if the odds are in the player's favour, but as with so many other auto-resolution features before it, Empire At War's is often inefficient in deciding losses.

In the Conquest or Campaign mode, the player can unwittingly have surface units participate in space battles by including them in the stack of units in the orbit of a node when it is attacked. Therefore, it is in the player's interest to ensure that surface units remain on surfaces while awaiting shipment to other nodes.

REBELLION RAIDS:

Generally, the invading player must clear orbital defences before making a ground attack, but the Rebellion can perform "raids" that bypass orbital defences. If the Rebellion can create a small stack of ground units (usually no more than 3), it can move this stack (which is conveniently marked with a star icon) into enemy-held nodes without provoking a space battle; the Empire player is not able to see this stack at all. This stack can then be used to attack the surface.

Of course, the catch here is that the Rebellion player only has these three units to work with. He/She may obtain help from rebellious natives, but if he/she loses these three units, he/she is immediately defeated. Moreover, the defending player may have orbital support, which can make the raid more difficult.

On the other hand, there are no limits on the composition of the raiders. There can be artillery and heavy tanks in the raiding party, which can cause some disbelief as these huge vehicles would have been terrifically difficult to smuggle. This can become a balance issue as the Rebellion player can shuffle a powerful raiding party about to frustrate the Empire player.

Furthermore, if the raid is successful, any space station on that node is immediately removed, as the Empire player is considered to have lost control of the planet and by extent, its assets, which includes the space station.

Raids are intended to balance against the Empire's generally better starting conditions in Conquest mode, but this means that the Imperial player must spend some of his/her resources to plan and deploy defensive garrisons. This may seem fair to some players, but it also means that the Imperial player cannot have much flexibility in utilizing his/her greater resources without having to deal with devastating raids.

PIRATES:

In the Conquest and Campaign modes, the player may come across forces that are not aligned with either the Rebellion or Empire. The game refers to them as "pirates", fittingly or not.

They have some special units and even space stations of their own, though these are generally pathetic compared to the more advanced hardware that the two established factions use.

In campaign mode, they serve as small-fry antagonists. In Conquest mode, they occupy initially unaligned nodes, thus acting as barriers that slow down the players' progress. However, once they have been dealt with, they never return in any way.

THE DEATH STAR:

As seen in the movies, the Death Star busts planets to bits and converts them into near-useless clusters of asteroids, regardless of canonical consequences. That it can blow up other planets in addition to Alderaan can cause a bit of disbelief in Star Wars purists, but for purposes of gameplay, it is a very entertaining and potent scorched-earth weapon.

In fact, one particular permutation of Conquest mode has the Empire gaining the Death Star very early on, but the Imperial player will outright lose if it is successfully engaged and eliminated by the Red Squadron.

On the other hand, there is no other way to destroy the Death Star other than to have Luke and his (mostly doomed) buddies hit its embarrassing weak spot. Even if its escort fleet is annihilated, the Death Star can still survive and retreat into allied territory.

SPACE BATTLES - OVERVIEW:

Space battles are perhaps the most exciting part of Empire at War. They are also the more sophisticated of the two types of battles to be experienced in the game.

For the majority of a space battle, the participating players will be moving space vessels about and trying to destroy each other's armadas. Each player has access to a hyperspace zone where new units or reinforcements would arrive in. In the Campaign or Conquest modes, the defender tends to have larger landing zones, which can make attacking harder than it should be.

In the Campaign or Conquest modes, the arriving units are drawn from a limited pool of reinforcements (depending on how many units that the player has in the stack that he/she has used to invade a node), but in skirmish space battles, the arriving units are units that the player has requisitioned.

Space battles have their own unit caps. This prevents players from bringing overwhelming armadas into a battle in Conquest or Campaign mode immediately from the start.

Generally, a player wins when he/she has depleted all of the enemy's reinforcements and destroyed the enemy's space station, if any; the latter task can be daunting, as mentioned earlier.

There are buoys in space that can be controlled and fortified by converting them into turrets. At best, these act as a first-line of defence and at worst, an early alarm; they are not powerful enough to stop anything more than hostile probing. The locations of these buoys are also fixed and they are rarely concentrated in any one area.

It also has to be noted here that turrets are not built instantly and are vulnerable to attacks while they are being built.

Fighting and maneuvering are not the only things to do. Some maps in space have already-built edifices, such as mining facilities, that can be taken over to yield some credits that can be used during this space battle. However, the credits cannot be transferred over into the 4X segment of the game.

Some maps have special regions such as nebulae or asteroid fields that allow for flanking opportunities. For example, nebulae can hide ships from any form of detection, but also prevent these ships from looking out of the nebulae.

In some maps, especially the ones in the campaign mode, there may be landing zones located in sneaky locations, such as in blind spots that a space station's vast viewing range cannot cover. These can make space battles very interesting.

HARD-POINTS:

One of the most interesting aspects of space battles is that space vessels that are larger than a corvette have locations on them that can be separately damaged from their main hull. These locations are called "hard-points" in-game.

For example, frigates have engines that are large enough to be destroyed, but have few other vulnerable hard-points. In contrast, massive capital ships like Star Destroyers have many more hard-points to represent their greater amounts of hardware.

These hard-points are tied to the durability of the ships. By default, ships with hard-points do not take hits to their hulls, even if it looks like they are. Instead, these hits damage the nearest hard-points, the damage being distributed if the hits are not spot-on. Spot-on hits on hard-points generally damage these exclusively, thus leading to a faster knock-out of these devices.

Although space vessels can be directed to fire at a specific hard-point on a targeted enemy ship, they will only manage to fire half or more but not all of their weaponry at said hard-point; the rest of their firepower would hit other hitpoints, or even other ships. However, there are units with special abilities that can circumvent these limitations; these are typically one-of-a-kind "hero" units.

Ships with hard-points appear to have health bars, but these are actually just rough estimates of the states of their hardpoints. Damaged hard-points may be repaired by space stations or repair buoys if they are still functional; this appears to replenish the aforementioned health bars.

However, destroyed hard-points cannot be returned to operational status; the reduction to the health bars is permanent. This also means that a ship becomes weaker and lousier at combat as more of its hard-points are blown out. Once a ship has all of its hard-points destroyed, it is immediately destroyed.

Space stations have the most hard-points compared to any other space vessels in the game, especially if they have been upgraded to massive level 5 space stations. Of these hard-points, the shield generator is the biggest and toughest, followed by the hangar, which will continuously produce strike-craft until it is destroyed. Understandably, to the attacker, these are the most troublesome hard-points on the space station and so will draw the most fire.

SQUADRONS:

Strike-craft, namely fighters and bombers, always move about in squadrons. As these squadron units take more damage, they lose members and thus combat strength. Individual members in squadrons can be repaired, but any losses are permanent.

Squadron units are very vulnerable to anti-fighter weaponry, such as the laser batteries on Corvettes. However, their small sizes and nimbleness allow them to move past hazards that would have been dangerous to other space vessels, such as asteroid fields. Squadron units are also generally nimble enough to dodge any weapons-fire other than anti-fighter weaponry and the attention of other strike-craft.

SHIELDS (FOR SPACE VESSELS):

Most space vessels have shields that prevent incoming fire from damaging their hulls, as long as they are still intact. Shields that have been depleted but not completely drained will eventually recharge. Completely drained shields will not return until after around a dozen uncomfortable seconds, but when they do, they return at around a third of their capacities.

In the case of strike-craft and corvettes, their shields will always recharge as their shield generators are integrated into them; however, their shields are nowhere near as powerful as those of bigger ships.

For bigger vessels, their shield generators have exposed parts due to engineering considerations and thus these can be destroyed separately. If the generators are taken out, the ships will never again regain their shielding.

Not all weapons-fire are blocked by shields; torpedoes and missiles happen to go through them completely. However, torpedoes are very slow and cannot chase strike-craft at all, while missiles are quite weak.

IMPERIAL SPACE UNITS:

The Imperials do not have dedicated strike-craft units; instead, their strike-craft are launched from the hangars of their capital ships. This is in line with Star Wars canon, as TIE fighters and bombers generally do not have hyperspace-jumping capabilities during the timeline of the movies and have to depend on their motherships for interstellar transport.

Capital ships have limited but still many reserves of TIE strike-craft, but only a few squadrons can be active per capital ship at a time. The capital ships can launch new TIE strike-craft to replenish the ones that are lost, but the player can still lose them faster than they can be replenished. Eventually, if the battle is particularly heated, the capital ships will lose all of their strike-craft reserves. However, they can lose their strike-craft reserves altogether if their hangars are destroyed.

TIE strike-craft can be ordered around like other squadron-based units, even far away from their mothership. However, if their motherships are taken out, they will die off one-by-one for no reason.

Imperial cruisers have a predilection for a large number of energy weaponry, especially turbo-lasers. This means that even the most ungainly of them can still hope to hit much smaller craft, though they are still terribly inefficient at doing so.

However, because they use a lot of energy-based weaponry, these Imperial vessels generally have to go through the shields of opposing ships before being able to hit anything their hulls. This can be a problem as the Rebellion has some ships that are designed to soak a lot of shield-busting weapons-fire. Therefore, TIE Bombers are especially valuable for the Imperial player.

For all their impressively-sized ships, the Imperials have only a couple of corvette-class ships, neither of which are effective against capital ships or even other corvettes. The Tartan Patrol Cruiser provides early-match deterrence against raids by early-match Rebellion vessels, but is practically outgunned later in the match.

REBELLION SPACE UNITS:

It is worth noting here that many of the Rebellion ships that are seen in this game actually made their debut in this game, and not any other media based on Star Wars – not even Expanded Universe. In fact, a few of these would never be mentioned outside of official canon that is dedicated to the ships in Star Wars fiction.

The most prominent of these is the Assault Frigate Mk. II, which is not featured in any Star Wars medium outside of Empire at War. This can give rise to the suspicion that it has been made up just to fill holes in the strategic composition of the Rebellion armada.

However, RTS veterans may still appreciate the inclusion of the barely canonical space ships. Returning to the example of the Assault Frigate Mk. II, it is a much-needed filler in between the Nebulon-B frigate (which is its figurative little brother) and the Rebellion's cruisers.

Temporarily boosting the strength of their shields is a common ability among the big Rebellion ships, which can pose a problem to Imperial players. Crafty Rebellion players will make use of this ability to stall any attempts by the Imperial player to concentrate firepower on a single target.

The Rebellion has two combat-oriented corvettes that complement each other quite well; they can even threaten individual Imperial cruisers when massed. When the tables are turned against them, they can always power up their engines to escape.

Such a special ability can give the Rebellion quite an unfair advantage in mobility, but this is perhaps a deliberate design that is in line with the source material.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES ON SPACE BATTLES:

Both sides have access to a unit that is specifically made to battle space stations and punish players who bunch their ships together. Any side has a different name and model for this unit, but either side's version of it is practically identical to its counterpart; they have even the same statistics.

Anyway, this unit fires slow-moving but long-ranged missiles that are devastating against capital ships and static space objects. Its special ability is even more devastating; within a short time, it can launch an astonishingly thick barrage of missiles that can wreck tightly packed fleets that are far away.

This unit is practically a hard counter against space stations, which are otherwise devastating against any fleet that attempts to fight them on their own terms.

SURFACE BATTLES - OVERVIEW:

Surface battles would seem more boring than space battles, because surface battles do not give its participants the same freedom of movement as space battles would. However, it does have a few redeeming designs, at least in Conquest or Campaign mode.

In Conquest mode, a node cannot be conquered without successfully winning the land battle for it (if the node has a surface). In Campaign mode, a node can be conquered by successfully completing the story-based mission that is associated with it. However, in both cases, the player has to move a stack of surface units onto the surface slot of a node.

In these two modes, the players cannot build any new buildings onto the map, or rebuild any existing buildings that had been destroyed.

In Conquest mode, the existing buildings are actually representations of the surface facilities that the owning player has built on the node that is being attacked. The attacking player can destroy the surface facilities by destroying those buildings.

In addition, surface facilities that allow the creation of surface units happen to act as automatic dispensers of garrison units that can be used by the defending player like any other units. This certainly makes them more interesting and useful than they would be in land battles of the Skirmish mode.

Speaking of those, in skirmish land battles, these buildings are a lot more mundane. They have to be built and used like the base buildings that have been seen in so many other RTS titles, e.g. they produce units and such in return for fees of credits.

Certain maps have weather effects that can affect surface battles. For example, Nal Hutta has a lot of rain that reduces the accuracy of any units that use laser weaponry. Therefore, weather is an important consideration when fielding units for a surface battle in any game mode.

Some maps have special terrain features such as dense forests that block the progress of vehicles or bogs that disallow the movement of any units other than those that can hover. However, the maps for surface battles are so small that the effects of these terrain features on the participants' progress through the map are quite limited.

In fact, it would appear that a lot of the official maps make use of chokepoints more often than any other known map designs.

In Conquest mode, and some missions in Campaign mode, the player can provide ground forces with off-map support by having bombers or cruisers in orbit when they conduct ground missions. For example, having a Y-Wing squadron in orbit gives the Rebellion player access to bombing runs that can be periodically called down. Having any more Y-Wing squadrons would not do much of anything however. In addition, the target for these off-map strikes must not be shrouded in the fog-of-war.

Surface battles have their own unit caps, depending on the conditions of the map. To fill up this unit cap, the player (regardless of whether he/she is the defender or the attacker, and regardless of any mode for that matter) has to land reinforcements at landing zones. Each player starts with one that is always in his/her control, but can capture more and deny these from the enemy. However, in Campaign mode, landing zones are often disabled in favour of highly scripted scenarios.

Some maps in surface battles have buildings that periodically spawn squads of indigenous people. If they are canonically aligned with either faction (usually the Rebellion), they automatically come under the control of that faction without adding to the unit cap. However, If the natives are aligned to neither side, they are hostile towards either. Examples of these include the Hutts on Nal Hutta.

In some maps, these natives can tilt the battle unfairly in the favour of one particular player. An example of such an occurrence is a surface battle on Kashyyyk in Conquest mode, in which the Wookiees can be a bit too powerful an addition to the Rebel player's army.

SHIELDS (IN SURFACE BATTLES):

There are two kinds of shields that the player will see in surface battles: mobile personal shields that some units have, and massive but not entirely impermeable shields that are created by base shield generators.

Personal shielding is usually exclusive to certain vehicles, such as the Rebel T2-B and Imperial 2-M Repulsor Tanks. Giving shields to these two units can seem to be a design mistake, because they already have the advantage of splendid mobility; having rechargeable shields makes them a bit too effective at hit-and-run attacks.

Base shield generator mainly protects a base from energy-based weapons, but they will not stop enemies from simply moving into the shields; by default, they also cannot stop missiles and bombs, at least until they are upgraded. The edges of the shield can still be used as defensive lines, but unless these are located at narrow chokepoints, fast enemies can still rush past them.

However, one particular disadvantage of shield generators can seem to make them far less useful than they seem. For whatever strange reason, the power plant for the shield generator is often placed outside of the base shielding in many maps. This forces the player to divide defensive efforts between protecting the power plant and the main base itself, which can seem to be an unacceptable trade-off for the protection that is provided by the shielding.

BUILD POINTS:

In any surface map, there are peculiar tiles that resemble sockets. These can be captured by any infantry unit that comes near them.

After these tiles have been captured, small structures can be built on them to solidify the player's control. The most common structures are laser turrets and missile turrets, which are effective against infantry and vehicles respectively, as well as AA turrets.

There are other special devices that can be built in lieu of the turrets. The Gravity Control Generator is one of them, and it is practically a hard-counter against hovering vehicles. Another notable device is the Bacta Tank, which may look silly sitting in the middle of the battlefield as it is a device that is more at home in medical bays.

Turrets and devices that are built on these points cannot win battles on their own though; at best, they are expendable, only to be built when it is expedient to have fall-back points.

REBELLION SURFACE UNITS:

Some of the Rebellion surface units, such as the Rebel soldiers with their silly-looking headgear, would be immediately recognizable to Star Wars fans.

However, there are many units that have been designed just to fulfill tactical roles in the ranks of the Rebellion's army, thus making their debut in Star Wars canon in this very game. The T2-B hover-tank is a notable example, as it happens to be have been designed to stall the advance of Stormtroopers.

Some of these units have backstory that explains their presence away as successors of units that had debuted in earlier Star Wars RTS titles. Some examples are the T4-B heavy tank and MPTL-2a self-propelled artillery. The significance of their inclusion would be lost on other players, but players who have experienced earlier Star Wars RTS titles and have an interest in their canon may be pleased by the homage.

Speaking of the MPTL-2a artillery unit, it may be a bit overpowered as it comes with droids that can help it spot targets if other units could not. Of course, the droids are very easily despatched, but its Imperial counterpart does not have the luxury of having convenient aid from spotters.

The most entertaining units that the Rebellion has are the Speeders, which are the T-47 airspeeders as seen in the movies. At first glance, they may seem overpowered; they can zoom in and out of the map to make strafing runs against their targets with near impunity. They are also hard-counters against AT-AT walkers, which can do nothing as the Speeders tie them up.

AA units and buildings can reliably hit them, but to deal with them quickly enough, the Speeders have to be caught while trying to tie up an AT-AT; otherwise, their constant zooming about makes them very difficult to destroy, even with AA fire.

IMPERIAL SURFACE UNITS:

More so than the Rebellion's surface units, most of the Imperials' surface units would be familiar to Star Wars fans.

The much joked-about Stormtroopers are the core of the Imperial player's ground forces, for better or worse; there are few other foot-soldiers that the Imperial player has. Functionally-speaking, they are no more different than the Rebellion's soldiers.

However, the Imperial does have access to a very early-match scout unit, which is the Scout Trooper. Having a hover-bike gives this soldier astonishing speed that players who frequently perform reconnaissance would appreciate.

What the Imperials lack in infantry variety, they make up with vehicles. A couple of these are infamously known Imperial hardware, such as the AT-ST and AT-AT walkers.

As seen in the movies, the AT-ST is a mobile anti-infantry weapons platform, while the AT-AT is an armored personnel carrier and heavy armour rolled into one. The AT-AT has a reserve of three squads of Stormtroopers, which can be handy when securing objectives and building points.

The other Imperial vehicles are less iconic, but otherwise fulfill important roles. There are the aforementioned 2-M hover-tanks and the AT-AA walkers, which also have the ability to mess with the guidance system of missiles, though this ability is of questionable canonical relevance.

For artillery work, there is the SPMA-AT, which does not appear in any other Star Wars medium other than being referred to as a more practical variant of a certain vehicle seen in the less well-received trilogy of the Star Wars movies.

The most entertaining yet disappointing Imperial vehicle is the TIE Mauler. It is practically a land vehicle that is built using the famous Twin Ion Engine technology. It is a unit that is quite difficult to use effectively, as it is a fast but weak light vehicle that also happens to be able to run over enemy infantry and self-destruct in a spectacular manner.

RESEARCH:

In the Conquest or Campaign mode, though mainly Conquest mode, the Empire and the Rebellion start with units that are low on their tech trees. They have different ways to unlock the upper branches their tech tree.

For the Imperials, researching should be a simple activity, as there do not seem to be many prerequisites other than fees to be paid. However, for the Rebels, they depend on units that have to be sent into enemy territory to supposedly "steal" technology. This is practically a pre-requisite for the undertaking of research projects, which may seem to put the Rebels at a disadvantage in moving up their tech tree.

HEROES - OVERVIEW:

Considering the designs of units that have been mentioned earlier, one would already have doubts about the gameplay balance in Empire at War's battles. Unfortunately, the "hero" units may well reinforce these doubts further. However, they are undeniably entertaining.

In the Campaign mode, named hero units are generally used to advance the storyline. They are more of a bother than a hindrance as they are used for some objectives of very aged designs, namely those that require that they survive missions.

In Conquest mode, they are more useful and easier to work with. This is because they are made available as soon as the player has fulfilled the necessary prerequisites; in fact, the player starts with one hero unit right away. Moreover, losing named heroes in battle is not a permanent setback; they will return eventually, though some return faster than others (who happen to be more powerful). Some named heroes also have different variants for space battles and surface battles, such as Darth Vader.

Heroes that lack variants for space battles may be attached to the biggest capital ships that the player has, if they are involved in space battles. For example, Mon Mothma would be attached to the biggest Rebellion ship, even if it is a hero unit.

However, if there are no capital ships, they appear as transport vessels, which are especially vulnerable.

Having such heroes in space battles is risky, of course, as the player may well lose the hero together with the ship if it is singled-out and destroyed. However, their presence may impart bonuses to the fleet, such as in the case of Mon Mothma.

In one-off battles, they are purchased like any other unit, but they are of course very expensive. This is especially so for Force-using heroes, who can generally blow through infantry, deflect all small-arms fire and shake buildings to bits.

IMPERIAL HEROES:

The Imperials may seem to have an unfair advantage when it comes to Heroes; they have more hero units that are powerful combat units than the Rebels do.

In Conquest mode, the Imperial player starts with Emperor Palpatine, which is perhaps not a good design decision as he is terrifically devastating against early-match units.

However, considering that Palpatine can also be held back to speed up the development of the player's holdings, the player may have to make some difficult decisions on whether to risk him in early-match conquering of territory or having him stay put to match the efforts of the Rebellion player, who will certainly use their starting hero unit (i.e. Mon Mothma) in this manner.

Darth Vader expectedly makes an appearance in the game. In ground battles, he is an outrageous melee powerhouse. In surface battles, he appears in his experimental TIE fighter and is escorted by more mundane TIE fighters that he can replenish periodically. He is a lot less powerful in this form, but his squadron can blow through pesky X-Wings efficiently in the long-term – perhaps too much so.

Boba Fett, who is another popular villain/anti-hero, appears in Empire at War too. However, he is better balanced than most Imperial heroes, though his ship's anti-strike-craft bombs would practically mandate opposing players to send either the Red Squadron or Millennium Falcon to eliminate him.

General Veers, who is not as well-known as the other Imperial characters, commands a practically overpowered prototype AT-AT. That it is immune to the tow-cable attacks of Speeders pretty much requires the Rebellion to send a lot of Plex Missile Soldiers to kill it, which is not easy considering that it can maintain two units of Stormtroopers indefinitely.

(This problem was later addressed by a patch that makes Veers' AT-AT as vulnerable to tow-cables as the others.)

Captain Piett's personalized Star Destroyer is also a regular unit that has been given a boost in statistics, but instead of being a powerhouse with tremendous durability, it is intended to be used against individual, hard targets – namely heroic Rebellion ships.

As if Boba Fett is not enough, the Empire player gets another commando-like hero unit in the form of Mara Jade.

Finally, there is Grand Moff Tarkin, but he is only available in the campaign mode. However, this is perhaps for the better, as the benefits that he can confer to the Imperial player is just too much for the gameplay balance of any other game mode.

REBELLION HEROES:

In Conquest mode, the Rebellion player starts with Mon Mothma. Being a person that is strong in character but not in body, she is not a combat unit at all. In space battles, however, she acts as an upgrade for the biggest vessel, imparting defensive bonuses to the entire fleet.

Perhaps for the worse, she appears in ground battles as her own unit – which enemies may well target for elimination. This can be a problem, as Mon Mothma is practically useless, especially when compared to the dreadfully tough Palpatine. In fact, the Rebellion player would be at a disadvantage in Conquest matches with the "kill-the-leader" winning condition.

C3-PO and R2-D2 are unlocked very early in Conquest mode and can be used to perform free reconnaissance for the Rebellion player. The duo is also needed to "steal" technology, i.e. start research projects. Unfortunately, in actual battles, they are quite useless – utterly so in space battles, in fact. In surface battles, the duo may have abilities that seem useful, but are in fact quite difficult and even impractical to utilize.

In contrast, the duo that is Chewbacca and Han Solo can seem utterly overpowered. Both of them, when on foot, go through Stormtroopers like they are scythes through wheat. Each of them has risky anti-vehicle powers, but the benefits are worth the risk; Han Solo can disable vehicles for an astonishingly long time, and Chewbacca can outright hijack any vehicle, including even AT-AT's.

They are just as obscenely powerful in space; the Millennium Falcon is easily the most durability non-capital ship in the game, packing tremendous shields and thick hull; it also has a special ability that gives it temporary invulnerability too. If unchallenged by overwhelming numbers, Slave One or Darth Vader, it can eventually destroy any individual regular ships on its own.

The Correlian corvettes may already be quite overpowered against their Imperial counterpart due to their special ability. However, the inclusion of the Sundered Heart in the game can bolster this advantage a bit too far; the very first mission in the Rebellion campaign may well show this.

As mentioned earlier, combat ships cannot concentrate all of their firepower on a single target by default. The Rebellion hero unit that is Admiral Ackbar's flagship, Home One, circumvents this limitation with its special ability that forces all Rebellion ships in the vicinity to fire on a single target until it cracks or until the significant duration of this power lapses.

The Red Squadron is perhaps the most well-balanced Rebellion hero unit, as it is designed as a precision-strike unit that cannot win fights on its own – unless the enemy is composed of just TIE strike-craft, in which case the Red Squadron goes through them very quickly.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is also well-balanced, because he does not have an offensive special ability to bolster his already impressive Jedi combat prowess further. Instead, his special abilities heal infantry units and grant protection to critically important units, which would have the player considering whether to hold him back to support battle groups or have him spearheading assaults.

Kyle Katarn makes a cameo appearance as another Rebellion hero unit that is fortunately well-balanced. However, he is quite mundane, as he has yet to accept his destiny as a Jedi Master in this game.

OTHER HEROES:

Both the Empire and Rebellion have access to lesser, unnamed hero units, which are generally only available in Conquest mode. Unlike named heroes, they must always be obtained by paying recruitment fees.

The Fleet Commander is practically an upgrade to a capital ship, much like Mon Mothma as have been described earlier. The Field Commander is an actual unit that appears in surface battles, acting as a map-wide buff to associated forces.

Then, there are Smugglers, which can be placed on enemy-held nodes to leech income from them, though they are easily removed by named heroes. Finally, there are expendable bounty hunters, which can eliminate unnamed heroes outright or incapacitate named ones temporarily, though the player has to pay for both the recruitment fees and the bounties (which can be steep for named heroes).

A.I. SCRIPTS:

Unfortunately, the A.I. for computer-controlled opponents is one of the weakest designs of Empire at War.

Firstly, the A.I. does not see any further than the front-lines. It tends to focus its efforts on nodes on the front-line, and is incapable of making sneak attacks behind the front-lines by exploiting holes in the space defences of adjacent nodes.

The A.I. is also similarly rigid in surface battles. It will always attempt to remove anything it encounters in its way and will not make any effort to bypass defences even if it is prudent to do so, e.g. have fast vehicles simply bypassing infantry to do hit-and-run attacks on buildings.

The A.I. is at its worst in the Campaign mode. Enemies tend to be single-minded, making them quite easy to smash if the player has brought along many reinforcements or a variety of units to make use of the game's rock-scissors-paper system. If not for artificially imposed challenges such as the need to keep hero units alive, the Campaign mode would have been quite easy as a consequence of the A.I.'s shortfalls.

Playing as the Rebellion against an A.I.-controlled Empire is particularly easier than playing as the Empire against the Rebellion. This is because the A.I. tends to be woefully unprepared for Raids in either Campaign or Conquest mode. It does learn from its mistake of leaving nodes open without garrisons, but it will always make this mistake at least once in any session. Merely taking one particularly important planet via a raid can break the A.I.'s back.

SKIRMISHES:

If the player does not like the 4X stratum of the gameplay, then he/she can choose to play one-off land battles and surface battles. In-game, they are called "skirmishes", which would not be a surprise to RTS veterans.

In these game modes, the facilities that the player build in the Conquest or Campaign mode are simplified into nothing more than the buildings that one would build in generic RTS titles. However, the player has little control over their placements; they appear to come into existence at fixed locations.

This is especially the case for the space station in skirmish space battles: these always appear in the corners of the map.

Unfortunately, skirmish battles also highlight the lack of sophistication in the gameplay designs of Empire at War, especially for surface battles, when compared to those for more established RTS titles.

As had been mentioned already, the space battles in Empire at War occur on simplified 2-D planes, which are a far cry from full six-axis 3-D space.

Surface battles in Empire at War have very few practical aerial units; there are only the Rebellion's Landspeeders. This means that terrain-based chokepoints in maps have far more strategic importance than they deserve. Moreover, there is not much in the way of terrain topography to be factored into tactical considerations.

Some heroes are also not available in certain skirmish battles; for example, Palpatine is not available in one-off space battles. This is a lost opportunity to make one-off battles more sophisticated, e.g. Palpatine could have been implemented as a special upgrade to an individual ship.

MISCELLANEOUS COMPLAINTS:

As mentioned earlier, credits are the resources that are used in the 4X, land-based RTS and space-battling gameplay strata in Empire at War. Although the player will eventually realize that the credits that are gained in any one stratum cannot be transferred to another stratum of gameplay in Conquest or Campaign mode, the game could have been better off if it informed the player of this in the tutorial.

Some surface units happen to have the useless ability of "Hunt for Enemies". This is practically the toggling of search-and-destroy A.I. scripts, and these are not very smart at doing what they do. This ability may give the impression that the developer has run out of ideas for the special abilities that these units would have.

GRAPHICS - OVERVIEW:

For a game of its time, Empire at War might have looked impressive. However, that is because the game uses camera distances and angles that hide the fact that the graphical designs of the game were nothing revolutionary for its time.

The game mainly uses pre-rendered graphics and icons for its 4X gameplay. They may seem simple, but they are otherwise adequate for visual clarity.

There are not any special models that depict the facilities that have been built on a node. Instead, there are only silhouettes of their actual in-game models to look at.

The nodes in the galactic map are represented by static icons with colours that change as they change ownership, so the player can gauge his/her progress in conquering the galaxy with a mere glance. As most of the planets look quite similar to each other (e.g. almost all of them are near-spherical), the game includes text labels under them for convenience of recognition.

In battles, bars for health and shields appear above the models of units. For the bigger units, they can be quite easy to see. For units with small models such as infantry and strike-craft, the developer has opted for an aggregated health bar, which is a wise design.

GRAPHICS – SPACE BATTLES:

Although Empire at War might not have utilized state-of-the-art graphics at the time, it did make clever use of camera perspectives, plenty of particle effects and model transitions for its space battles. As a result, space battles appear convincingly hectic and impressive.

Frigates, cruisers and capital ships have their textures and model parts replaced with nastier-looking ones as they take damage, while any hardpoints on them that have been destroyed billow smoke and fiery gases into space.

They certainly look more convincingly stricken as they get closer and closer to destruction, upon which their models shatter apart in spectacularly catastrophic manners, accompanied by plenty of blue particle effects. Afterwards, their model parts become part of the skybox for the map, simulating pieces of debris that are falling down onto the celestial body in the background.

Unfortunately, there are far fewer model transitions for strike-craft and corvettes as they take damage. Hard-points also do not have transitions in their models before they are destroyed, thus requiring the player to hover the mouse cursor over them, or at least the ship that they belong to, to look at their individual health bars.

Most of the particle effects that the player would see in space battles are those for weapons-fire. Opposing ships exchange a lot of turbo-laser pulses and plasma bolts with each other, while the ominous blobs of red that are proton torpedoes slowly but inexorably move towards their target.

However, incoming missiles can be difficult to spot, as they lack particle effects that are as gaudy as those for other weapons-fire.

To simulate boundless space, the models of ships can appear to move under or above each other, though this is just clever visual trickery. Besides, the relative positions of ships are unimportant, as ships can damage each other as long as they are within range of each other.

GRAPHICS – SURFACE BATTLES:

The graphical designs for the maps that are used in surface battles will be the first thing that the player sees, and unfortunately they can be disappointing.

Although the graphical assets for the environments are convincingly based on objects and scenery that have been seen in Star Wars media, they lack the vibrancy of the latter.

Even on the highest graphical settings, textures look drab and the edges in the polygons of models are all too clear when examined closely. This would not have been a complaint if the game sticks with the default camera settings for normal gameplay, but it uses other camera perspectives for in-game cutscenes, which highlight the inadequate graphical designs for cinematic moments.

Despite having a theme of violent conflict, Star Wars has always tried to be family-friendly. Unfortunately, while this worked for the movies, it would not work in the surface battles of Empire at War.

Having infantry models simply keel over when they die, even when they are hit with powerful ordnance, can be underwhelming. The absence of blood and gore where it is expected, such as when TIE Maulers run over infantry, can also cause disbelief.

Vehicles do blow up with gratuitous explosions, but these pale in comparison with the dramatic demise of space vessels.

The maps for surface battles could have been more impressive if they had been bigger. The official maps are woefully small, often to the point of disbelief. Maps often resort to using hills or dense forests to wall off their borders, if they are not outright located on an island surround by oceans.

SOUNDS:

For better or worse, most of the game's sound designs are adapted from the original trilogy of Star Wars movies.

This is most apparent in the intro for the game, which has the usual oblique scrolling text and John Williams' scores accompanying it. Then, there are the various sound clips for blaster-fire, turbo-lasers and the X-Wings' screeching, among other sound effects that would be familiar to followers of the Star Wars movies (and its games).

All of these would sound like a lot of fan-service to those who are enamoured with Star Wars, but to others who are not outright fawning fans, they may seem like a lot of recycled or slightly tweaked audio. They may even suspect that the composer for the game, Frank Klepacki, has been lazy.

The voice-overs are mostly performed using voice-talents other than the actors and actresses of the movies. For example, Tom Kane, who worked on many Star Wars media except the original movies, voiced C3-PO, and much of his voice-overs had been run through a synthesizer. However, some of the original movie's cast, such as Temuera Morrison, did provide voice-overs.

Again, the voice-overs are there for purposes of fan-service, as the writing for their lines are nothing short of campy, albeit flavoured with the Star Wars brand. Still, they are at least quite convincing in their portrayal of the canonical characters.

CONCLUSION:

Empire at War may yet be one more game that exploits the Star Wars brand to sell. As a strategy game, its constituent parts of gameplay can hardly be considered as revolutionary and at best, just competent, discounting the many questionable designs, especially for units, that affect gameplay balance.

However, the Conquest and Campaign modes meld these gameplay elements into a surprisingly more than decent package, and its space battles are some of the best portrayals of the interstellar warfare in Star Wars fiction.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Star Wars: Empire at War for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Thu, 30 May 2013 20:57:24 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/star-wars-empire-at-war/user-reviews/811901/platform/pc/ Fri, 24 May 2013 22:12:29 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: Slums for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-slums/user-reviews/811695/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 7.0.

INTRO:

Platforms that are suspended or floating in mid-air have always been quite a bizarre yet entrancing sight. It would appear that someone in Coffee Stain Studios has been captivated by them too, and has inspired the creation of the map Slums.

Unfortunately, it has not inspired said person enough to make this map free instead of being behind a paywall. However, this map does provide an experience that is different enough to earn its worth.

MAP DESIGNS:

Despite its name, the Slums map does not have the defence grid being situated on decrepit buildings. Instead, it is composed of platforms that are located on different heights but which are connected to each other with two-way teleporters.

The connections are not linear; a platform is at least connected to two others via the two-way teleporters.

At first glance, this could seemingly lead to many permutations of defence layouts. However, at higher difficulty settings, the player can only win by planning a route for the aliens that go through all the platforms with cells.

One of the platforms is not populated with any cells, which make it visually distinct from the rest. This platform is mostly for eye-candy, unfortunately, because it is one of the lowest platforms in the map and will not be walked upon by the Lumes.

Like its sibling in Map Pack 1, which is the Cavern map, the Slums map has jumping pads that let players get around without the use of Televators. Moreover, these are directed upwards in order to help the player reach the higher platforms.

In fact, the player must consider practising the use of the jumping pads on higher difficulties, so that blocks can be freed up for the placement of defences instead of Televators.

That said, winning strategies may require the player to populate the defence grid with as many short-ranged but hard-hitting towers as possible. This is because the platforms are visually isolated from each other, making sniping difficult and coverage by long-ranged towers hard to plan.

Furthermore, the platforms are not large enough to be conducive to strategies that have the player character hopping from platform to platform while shooting away. In fact, such strategies may end in failure, as the player will be expending time on getting the player character to move about instead of accumulating damage on the Lumes.

Incidentally, such a map design makes Slums easier to play in multiplayer, where each player can assign himself/herself to one platform in order to attack the Lumes that escaped the players on the previous platforms.

One of the platforms happens to be isolated from the rest, in that it will not be walked upon by any of the Lumes in any way. This small platform is the best spot for placing Anti-Air towers, as the waves of flying aliens happen to move over and around it.

Alternatively, Violators can be placed over this platform and they can cover many other platforms. However, as Violators were still premium DLC for Sanctum when this map debuted, the map might have seemed that it is giving players with the Violator too much of an advantage, but forgoing Anti-Air towers for Violators entirely can be a costly mistake.

COMPLAINT:

There is one significant complaint about this map. Some of the squares on the platforms are not plated, preventing defences from being built on them. The presence of these useless cells greatly reduces the number of permutations in the layout of the defences that the player can have.

AESTHETIC DESIGNS:

The eponymous slums are just there for eye-candy, which is a bit of a disappointment as the confines of the slums could have made for an interesting but perhaps uncomfortable close-quarters-oriented map. Furthermore, the slums are actually quite far away, and shrouded in the oppressively grey fog that surrounds the map.

It can even be argued that the Slums is the least pretty of Sanctum's map, due to said fog obscuring and blurring the view of the human settlements that can be seen behind the core. Much of what the player will be looking at, other than the defence grid itself, is a looming pair of natural edifices with alien plant growth all over it. While they are impressive, they have been seen before in earlier maps.

There is a slightly different celebratory scene of dancing Lumes to be watched if the player is defeated in this map. One particular Walker fails in its amusing attempt to practice a new dancing move.

CONCLUSION:

The Slums may mislead with its title as the map is not even set in rundown areas as all. Fortunately, its map designs do deliver on its goal, which is a focus on tower-based defensive plans over the running-and-gunning that often works in other maps.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: Slums for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Fri, 24 May 2013 22:12:29 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-slums/user-reviews/811695/platform/pc/ Fri, 24 May 2013 07:59:33 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: Cavern for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-cavern/user-reviews/811670/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 7.5.

INTRO:

As Coffee Stain Studios could not do much with the player character's arsenal and the designs of the Lumes in Sanctum without breaking its gameplay balance, the most dependable way for the developer to keep up the semblance that it has been creating additional content for the game is to create new maps. The Cavern map, which is part of the "Map Pack 1" DLC package for the Steam version of the game, is one such map.

Fortunately, rather than giving an impression that it is just a filler in between more consequential pieces of additional content, Cavern offers a unique enough experience to be a worthwhile piece of DLC.

MAP DESIGNS:

Cavern is a series of narrow platforms that are connected to each other via a series of two-way teleporters and bridges. The Lumes can use both, which can come as a surprise to those who had thought that teleporters can only be used by humans.

Anyway, the narrow platforms can be a problem to players who rely on towers to defeat the Lumes. The player can create unbroken rows of towers, but this gives the Lumes straight lines to move along, which is far from ideal because there are quite many Chargers and Runners to deal with in the waves. If the player wants turns and corners in the aliens' path, then he/she will have few cells for the erection of towers.

It is also worth noting here that the cells are not immediately adjacent to each other. There are small gaps in between them, which provide relatively safe passageways for the player character to run on without colliding with the Lumes. The gaps also happen to improve the Slowfields' side effect of causing the Lumes to cluster, which may be desirable if the player prefers inflicting splash damage on many Lumes over shooting individual ones.

The narrow platforms are arranged in ascending order, though there is a sizable gulf in between the first three and the last two platforms. The player can very easily snipe Lumes from higher platforms.

If the player needs to chase down Lumes that have gotten past the player character onto the higher platforms, he/she has an additional way of getting up onto them, other than the usual teleporting.

In this map, there are slanted objects with gaudy blue lights that may well be familiar to people that have played fast-paced sci-fi shooters like Quake 3 Arena; the player can have the player character jumping onto these and be rebounded onto a higher platform. The player can adjust the trajectory of the jump in mid-air, which is a physical nuance that is common to games that run on the Unreal engine.

It can take some practice to land properly on target. For sessions with this map on higher difficulties, using them is a must if the player wants to damage the Lumes as much as possible, which is not possible if there are blocks that are used up by Televators.

The last but not least map design is the absence of any flying alien from the waves. In fact, the Anti-Air tower is disabled in this map. This can seem odd at first, as the map is spacious enough to accommodate them. However, considering the lack of space to place towers on the narrow platforms, this omission is not entirely without reason.

AESTHETIC DESIGNS:

Cavern, as its name suggests, is set in a cavern – a huge one, in fact. Blue luminescent water lies at the bottom of the map, forming a (somewhat) natural out-of-bounds barrier.

There are convenient rock formations that cut off the view of the oceans that are beyond the map, but the skybox that is used for the map is otherwise very convincing in giving the impression that the cavern is formed by oceanic tides. The ceilings are also quite a sight to look at, though there is little reason to do so beyond appreciating the eye-candy.

The two-way teleporters in the map have different models and particle effects than those for the Televators, which are handy visual differences. However, their inclusion in the map happens to exacerbate a minor issue that has been in Sanctum for a long time; the paths that the Lumes would take are not highlighted in the Combat Phase.

Unless the player has memorized which two-way teleporter goes to which other teleporter via the Building Phases, it can be a bit difficult to keep in mind which way the Lumes are going as they move through the two-way teleporters. The same complaint can also be made about the jumping pads.

OTHER CONCERNS:

It has to be noted here that for players that prefer strategies that focus on inflicting as much damage as possible on the Lumes, they will have to use the Killing Floor to compensate for the lack of space for rows of towers.

This is not an issue now as the Killing Floor is included with the main game package at this time of writing. However, when this map debuted, the Killing Floor was still premium DLC. This might have caused players who like damage-heavy strategies but who refuse to buy the Killing Floor DLC to feel like that they have been left out when they were playing this map.

CONCLUSION:

This map's narrow platforms and two-way teleporters make for a great challenge in planning defences, though they may require some getting used-to as they are not featured in the original maps at all. Still, the different experience that Cavern offers, which is almost like first-person platforming, does make this premium-only map quite worthwhile.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: Cavern for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Fri, 24 May 2013 07:59:33 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-cavern/user-reviews/811670/platform/pc/ Fri, 24 May 2013 02:07:06 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: Aftershock for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-aftershock/user-reviews/811661/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 7.5.

INTRO:

It is undeniable that Coffee Stain Studios had thought of adding new content for Sanctum long after its launch, but for better or worse, it has decided that some of this content has to be placed and remain behind a pay-wall. One of these pieces of additional content is the map Aftershock, which for the Steam version of the game is part of the "Map Pack 1" premium DLC package.

Aftershock would be quite the departure from many maps in Sanctum before it, in that it challenges the player with a noticeable lack of building space, or more precisely, lack of conveniently large spaces.

MAP DESIGNS:

As its name would suggest, Aftershock is a mess of a map. The defence grid is composed of a lot of broken and dishevelled platforms, as if it had been subjected to an earthquake. This is thematically appropriate of course.

The state of the defence grid can make the planning of defences quite challenging. There is not enough space to create elaborate turns to slow down the Lumes, which can be a problem as the waves happen to include a lot more Chargers and Runners than most other maps.

If the player could devise turns and corners in the plans for the defences anyway, there can be some cells that cannot apply short-ranged but high damage output on the waves.

Some cells are placed far above the rest, giving any tower on it a high vantage point but at the cost of not being able to see what is immediately below it. These cells will end up being only suitable for Anti-Air and Violator towers, or perches for players who have no problems with not being able to hit the weak points of the Lumes, which are not easy to see from a greater height.

These raised cells also become visual obstacles, blocking the lines of sight of the player and most other defences.

Most importantly, the haphazard state of the defence grid does not make it easy for the player character to jump from block to block. Some of the detritus such as large piping can be perched upon, but they are not as comfortable as the blocks.

The aliens still come from visually obscured, off-limits regions of the map, and they are still as dumb as ever. However, there may be one particular Lume that observant players may notice, though it is not part of any of the waves.

This Lume can barely be seen roaming around in the distance, deep in the subterranean caves. It is a gigantic one, and whenever it appears, the entire level shakes, becoming a minor frustration when the player attempts to aim and shoot.

Working around these problems may be a refreshing challenge to players that are already tired of the other, gentler maps. Of course, to some other players, they may seem forced, though to argue that they are cheap would be difficult.

AESTHETIC DESIGNS:

Aftershock is purported by some parties to be the wrecked version of Mine, which is one of the original set of maps. However, it looks very drastically different, more so than Aftermath is when it is compared to its alleged original, Bridge.

For one, the hasty construction of a makeshift defence grid is even more haphazard than those seen in Aftermath. The haphazardness actually affects the gameplay, as mentioned earlier. That such designs are not merely cosmetic can be refreshing to some players.

Much of the subterranean regions seen in Aftershock is better lit than those seen in Mine, and they happen to have more details too, such as gigantic stalagmites and stalactites.

The aforementioned gigantic Lume is not easy to observe, since it is so far away. On the other hand, as with the Easter Eggs with many other DLC-only maps, these give interesting hints on what to expect from the sequel to Sanctum.

CONCLUSION:

Aftershock is different from many other maps as it has a low amount of space to implement the usual plans that players have for their defensive layouts. This can be a refreshing change for some players, especially those who do not rely on defences a lot, though to others, it can be quite an uncomfortable shake-up. Nevertheless, it would be difficult for one to see the map designs as cheap.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: Aftershock for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Fri, 24 May 2013 02:07:06 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-aftershock/user-reviews/811661/platform/pc/ Thu, 23 May 2013 02:03:12 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: Aftermath for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-aftermath/user-reviews/811624/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 7.0.

INTRO:

In vanilla Sanctum, the original maps have different layouts compared to each other, though there were only a handful of them. For better or worse, Coffee Stain Studios has decided that some of the maps that would come later are to be placed behind a pay-wall. Aftermath is one of them.

Initially a stand-alone package, Aftermath has since been packaged with a few others into a single map pack, which remains premium-only at this time of writing. Aftermath has some designs that make it very different from other maps that came before it, but it has perhaps highlighted how easy the game can be if the player has devised tight lines of defences.

MAP DESIGN:

There had been maps with noticeable verticality in their designs before Aftermath, such as Mine. However, their verticality would pale in comparison with Aftermath's.

There are three distinct segments for the defence grid, with one of them being a distinct slope that is in between the other two. The segment with the slope can be a challenge to move about on, as the angle of the slope can make jumping more difficult.

These segments are connected together with make-shift bridges that the player cannot build on, but do otherwise conveniently funnel the aliens into narrow paths.

The highest segment is substantially higher than the lowest segment, and the view of the latter from the former is blocked by many obstacles, the most prominent of which is a large crane.

There are also cells located on overhangs and other isolated places. Of these, the ones near the core would be quite useless unless fitted with the long-range Violator because they are so far removed from the rest of the defence grid. They can be used as last-ditch defences, but they are too far away from the core to be of much use.

The other oddly-placed cells are far more useful, especially when used to handle the waves of flying aliens, as they happen to be in the way of the aliens.

It is worth noting here that Aftermath is actually an expanded version of Bridge, which is one of the original maps. However, this backstory is not mentioned much at all, at least not in the game proper; instead, the description of the map has to be obtained from other official sources.

COMPLAINTS:

The first two segments of the grid, which are pieces of broken bridges, are where the player's defences would be most efficient. The highest segment is obstructed by many objects and has the lowest ratio of number of cells against area, despite being the largest of the three. If the aliens manage to leak into the highest segment, the player may well be in trouble.

That said, on lower difficulty settings, e.g. anything lower than Hard, the first two segments are perhaps all that the player needs. If the player is very diligent in having the player character jump and teleport around to personally apply pressure on the aliens, he/she only needs to fortify these two segments, in addition to the oddly placed cells.

If the player wants a more frantic experience with the map and see action in the half of the map that is closer to the core, he/she may want to play Aftermath on Hard or Insane.

If the player has the wisdom to pepper the first two segments and a bit of the highest segment with Anti-Air and Violator towers, the rather dense waves of flying aliens can be dealt with quite handily on virtually all difficulty settings. Having the player character handle them is quite difficult due to awkward firing angles and the large crane that blocks the player's view of one of the turns that the waves would take.

AESTHETICS:

As mentioned earlier, this map is actually based on an original map, which is the Bridge. However, the titular bridge has been wrecked, allowing the player a closer look at the canyons on which the humans' installation is built on and across.

The player can see a lot more of the jungles that grows on the faces of the canyons, as well as the foreboding mist that hangs below. The aliens always emerge from visually obscured regions of the map, coming into view from the convincingly thick foliage of the jungles.

The wreckage and the hasty attempts to create a makeshift defence grid also look quite convincing, what with the exposed wiring and structural supports and of course the cumbersome presence of the crane. On the other hand, such scenery would have one wondering how the dumb aliens could have wrought this, if one is to discount the possibility that the defenders may have been too desperate or overzealous in preventing the aliens from overloading the core.

There is not much in the way of new audio to listen to, though the voice-over for the notification A.I. has been disabled for this map. This is perhaps not a surprise, as this map is directed at veterans of the original package of Sanctum, who may have had enough of the notifications.

CONCLUSION:

Aftermath works its splendid wreck-filled scenery into its map designs quite well, but the crane may have been too big an obstruction. The map design also allows for defensive layouts that can easily handle the waves of aliens on difficulty settings that are not Hard or Insane, thus giving an impression of a skewed distribution of challenge.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: Aftermath for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Thu, 23 May 2013 02:03:12 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-aftermath/user-reviews/811624/platform/pc/ Wed, 22 May 2013 00:59:02 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: Killing Floor for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-killing-floor/user-reviews/811595/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 7.0.

INTRO:

Sanctum debuted with a few floor-based defences to deal with the waves of aliens, but none of them actually inflicted any damage on the aliens. The formerly premium-only DLC that is the Killing Floor would fix this, though it is not fantastic enough to supplant the other floor-based defences, which is fortunate.

GAMEPLAY DESIGNS:

The Killing Floor, as its name would suggest already, is a defence option that is placed onto a cell to replace its flooring. When an alien moves over it, it will trigger its armament after a heartbeat. This almost invisible delay allows the player to bunch up the aliens so that a lot of them move over the Killing Floor just before it discharges.

Thus, the Killing Floor might endear itself to players that happen to have a penchant for herding the aliens into tight clusters.

There are some unwitting oversights on Coffee Stain's part that may have made the Killing Floor unintentionally devastating against specific aliens. For one, the Killing Floor's damage application ignores any armor that an alien, such as the Hoverer, may have. On the other hand, it cannot hit the weak points of the aliens, which may not please players who resort to finesse-heavy strategies.

The Killing Floor's deliberately-implemented disadvantages are that it takes a while to recharge itself and obviously cannot harm any alien that has stepped away from it.

Therefore, the Killing Floor is more than likely to get into the list of defence options of players that have picked maps with circuitous routes to play. They would often be placed at where aliens have to move through more than once.

However, as the Killing Floor is a defence that merely inflicts damage, it may not be favoured by those who prefer having ground-bound aliens afflicted with debuffs.

AESTHETIC DESIGNS:

The Killing Floor, amusingly, looks like a huge sci-fi kitchen stove, and it certainly looks to work like one (albeit in exaggerated manners).

However, like the other floor-based defences, it does not have different models for different levels of upgrades. Instead, the differences lie in their lighting. Fortunately, like the other floor-based defences, differentiating between different levels of upgrades for the Killing Floor can be done with just a glance.

Sound-wise, it has a satisfying whoosh to its discharge, though it is very difficult to hear over the din of gunfire from other defences and the dying moans of the aliens.

CONCLUSION:

The Killing Floor fills the role of a floor-set trap quite well. However, in hindsight, it should have been in Sanctum for free from the beginning, considering that there is no other defence option that is like it.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: Killing Floor for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Wed, 22 May 2013 00:59:02 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-killing-floor/user-reviews/811595/platform/pc/ Tue, 21 May 2013 21:07:18 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: Yogscave for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-yogscave/user-reviews/811590/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 6.0.

INTRO:

Coffee Stain Studios started on its path of game development after having won recognition from Epic Games in a certain event. Since then, it would appear that it has attracted the attention of certain other parties with considerably high profiles. One of them is the Yogscast crew of prolific YouTube users.

This led to collaboration between Coffee Stain and Yogscast, in the form of one of Coffee Stain's optional maps for Sanctum. However, it would appear that other than a particularly nasty creature and Easter egg that are unique to this map, Yogscast's two most prominent members would be providing most of the entertainment to be had from this (notably free) content update.

MAP DESIGN:

This is the main weakness of the Yogscave map.

That said, it is located in what appears to be a sinkhole cave, so the high rocky walls surrounding it are understandable barriers to movement and lines of fire.

What is less acceptable is the shape of the defense grid. It is a simple L-shape, with the core at the end of the longer part of the "L". There are plenty of cells for the player to create an elaborate maze to delay the progress of ground-bound aliens, and the player certainly should, as there are plenty of aliens to deal with.

There may be a little fun to be had from creating said maze, but once the player has done so, there would not be much more fun to be had from beating the map. The aliens would come en masse, and they are still as stupid and numerous as ever.

In fact, one may have an impression that Coffee Stain had jammed many aliens into the many waves to simply increase the challenge. This impression is reinforced by the appearance of waves with flying aliens; they practically would inundate the sinkhole if the player does not have the wisdom to build Anti-Air towers.

As a side note, the map's file name is still "Below", the original name that Coffee Stain had for it. This naming oversight gives a strong impression that Coffee Stain is not putting much effort into designing the map and is relying on the popularity of Yogscast to bolster the allure of this map.

A NEW ALIEN:

Just for Yogscave, Coffee Stain Studios has designed a new alien that bears a passing resemblance to a certain iconic creature in Minecraft, which the Yogscast plays a lot of. It is certainly a creepy creature, though fans of Sanctum may realize that it is actually just a variant of a certain alien that debuted in one of Sanctum's earlier DLC packages – one that remained premium-only, it should be noted.

NARRATION:

Only two of the Yogscast crew contributed to the voice-overs: Simon Lane and Lewis Brindley. Of course, they are perhaps the most prominent members of the Yogscast (being practically the founders). As to be expected from the two of them, they have a lot of witty commentary, which includes pokes at the aliens' glowing weak spots and their lack of intelligence at taking offensive measures.

They also have some words of encouragement for the player, but these would sound hollow coming from the two of them, who are after all known for making less-than-sincere compliments. (These are also of course pre-recorded.)

They also attempt to create some backstory of sorts for the Yogscave scenario, which, as was perhaps expected, involved Jaffa Cakes (named "Joffo Cakes" in the game as a work-around for the trademarked product). There is a lot of whining and bawling about the aliens going after the Joffo Cakes, though the significance of this would only be clear if the player could locate the Easter egg in the map.

Unfortunately, their commentary can be difficult to listen to if it is made during the Combat Phase. Unless the player deliberately toned down the volume of the sound effects, it would be difficult to hear them over the din of gunfire.

CONCLUSION:

The Yogscave DLC (which is free on Steam but not immediately included in the main game package) is good for those who like the Yogscast crew's brand of humor, or more precisely Lane and Brindley's witty remarks. However, other people who have played Sanctum may consider the voice-overs to be inadequate at compensating for the simply-designed map. The new alien and Easter egg could have made this DLC convincingly worthwhile for everyone, if their entertainment value is not so short and little.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: Yogscave for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Tue, 21 May 2013 21:07:18 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-yogscave/user-reviews/811590/platform/pc/ Mon, 20 May 2013 21:33:12 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: Violator for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-violator/user-reviews/811544/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 8.0.

INTRO:

Several months after the official launch of Sanctum, Coffee Stain Studios decided to supplement their revenue by offering premium additional content for the game. One of these packages is the Violator.

Compared to the other once-premium DLC that offers defences, the Violator is perhaps the most useful. However, it is not so good as to have been "pay-to-win" DLC, fortunately.

GAMEPLAY DESIGNS:

The Violator is practically a floating railgun platform. It is not the first floating platform to be seen in Sanctum, but it floats far higher than the rest.

This gives it a very high vantage point, allowing it to look over rows of blocks, especially those that are near and beneath it. This is just as well, because the Violator has a tremendously long range.

These advantages make the Violator a viable inclusion in most lists of defences that the player would devise. Wise players are likely to place it in the middle of mazes, thus always giving the Violator a target to shoot at throughout the Combat Phase.

Being a sci-fi railgun, the Violator's shots arrive at its target in an instant. This makes the Violator terrifically devastating against targets with tricky movement patterns, such as the Glider and the Dodger.

All of these advantages strongly suggest that the Violator is just overpowered; in fact, it can be seen as a straight upgrade to the Scatter Laser. However, it has quite a lot of drawbacks that affect its performance and even that of the player.

Firstly, the railgun platform of the Violator is huge. It can be an issue in maps that have flying aliens coming in from high altitudes. The map Bridge, in particular, can be made more difficult to play if the player has placed Violators such that they obstruct the player's view of the Spore Pods that come from behind the hills.

Secondly, the Violator is more expensive to upgrade than most defences. Its damage increases tremendously with each upgrade; this may seem desirable, but the Violator has a tendency to overkill its target due to the simple targeting A.I. of defences in Sanctum. The Violator will continue to fire at the same target until it dies, even if its killing shot inflicts more than ample damage.

Finally, the Violator can only ever apply damage on a single target. Considering that the Lumes tend to come in waves of large numbers, the Violator can be at a disadvantage if the player's other defences could not whittle them down to manageable numbers.

COMPLAINTS:

Unfortunately, the usefulness of the Violator had indirectly highlighted a consequence of the implementation of premium DLC that affects the multiplayer experience in Sanctum.

Players who had refused to buy the Violator DLC would not be able to help their team-mates that had bought it to upgrade any Violators that the latter players had built.

There was also a lost opportunity to promote the DLC to those who had not bought it. The game could have allowed players to pick the Violator as one of their building options when they join a session with players that have the DLC, but it did not.

AESTHETIC DESIGNS:

As mentioned a few times already, the Violator is a huge railgun. It is indeed very impressive looking, and even more impressive to look at when it gets into action. It has plenty of recoil animation, and the particle effects of its discharge are brilliant.

Its sound designs are just as impressive, and are perhaps of use to the player too. Considering the Violator's long range, its loud shots would tip the player off to the encroachment of Lumes that are not immediately in the player's view.

The models for its different levels of upgrades are not too different from each other though, so the player may have to look at the block that the Violator is built on to determine its level of upgrade. This is just as well, because looking up to examine the Violator can be time-consuming.

CONCLUSION:

The Violator is perhaps the best of the formerly premium-only defences. Its many advantages could have placed its gameplay balance into question, but it has enough setbacks to make it a convincingly appropriate addition to the defences in Sanctum.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: Violator for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Mon, 20 May 2013 21:33:12 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-violator/user-reviews/811544/platform/pc/ Mon, 20 May 2013 19:11:23 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: Penetrator for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-penetrator/user-reviews/811538/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 6.5.

INTRO:

After having filled the holes in its once barely complete game, Coffee Stain Studios proceeded to design premium additional content for Sanctum. Some of these additional content pieces are in the form of defences. The Penetrator happens to be one of them, and it appears to have been designed for players who give much thought into the designs of their mazes.

The Penetrator would be made free later with many other previously premium DLC, which may not please players who had paid for it. Yet even though it is freely included in the latest build of Sanctum now, it may not be as preferable as the other defences due to problems that are not of its own fault.

DESIGNS:

As its name suggests, the Penetrator can punch through multiple aliens in a row, damaging all of them equally. It also has decent reach with its energy beam, thus potentially giving it very high first strike damage output.

These advantages make the Penetrator suitable at looking down corridors. Before its debut, there was not any defence option that can strike all the aliens in one corridor.

However, it has some deliberate weaknesses for purposes of balancing. It is a defence that is built into a block, so it cannot fire at airborne targets and has very limited firing angles. It also has slow firing rates.

COMPLAINTS:

Unfortunately, attempting to utilize the Penetrator by placing it at the most optimal locations in a maze will not hide a perennial issue with the targeting scripts of defences in Sanctum.

The Penetrator will hit the first alien that comes into range and proceeds to track it and fire on it. It will continue to do so even if its beam is being wasted on a few aliens instead of being spent on the other aliens behind them that are coming down the corridor that the Penetrator is supposed to cover.

The player can compensate for this flaw by having the Penetrator firing in the same direction as the direction that the aliens would take to move down the corridor, i.e. it has to fire on aliens that are running away from it. However, it would have been a lot more useful if it had special A.I. scripts that force it to fire shots such that it hits as many aliens as possible.

AESTHETIC DESIGNS:

The Penetrator has more sophisticated models for its different levels of upgrades than most of the defences that came before it, especially the Gatling. This makes differentiating between Penetrators of different levels quite easy, assuming that the player is on the same level as the Penetrator.

However, that the Penetrator is built into a block means that the player would not be able to see its models if he/she prefers having the player character hopping around on the top of blocks.

The Penetrator has its own special sound effect, which is appropriately a zing that accompanies its energy discharges. However, it is not loud and distinct enough to pick out from among the sound effects of other defences.

CONCLUSION:

The Penetrator would have been a balanced and interesting addition to the selection of defences in Sanctum, but the game's own A.I. scripts for the targeting priorities of defences make it difficult to utilize efficiently. That the Penetrator started as premium DLC may have made it seemed like a waste of money then. It may be part of the game proper now, but the aforementioned deficiency still makes it difficult to pick over more reliable defences.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: Penetrator for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Mon, 20 May 2013 19:11:23 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-penetrator/user-reviews/811538/platform/pc/ Mon, 20 May 2013 00:56:48 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: X-Mas Carnage for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-x-mas-carnage/user-reviews/811513/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 6.5.

INTRO:

Sanctum was the game that gave indie developer Coffee Stain Studios its first major break. After a less-than-ideal launch of the game where it debuted with only the barest essentials, Coffee Stain Studios appears to have managed to get by well enough to produce free content updates for its customers.

X'mas Carnage is one such free content update, featuring Sanctum being seen from a festive perspective. There would not have been much to complain about this free update, except for a couple of problems; one of them causes visual discomfort, while the other is far, far from contributing to the festive atmosphere.

CHRISTMAS THEMES:

The content update makes use of the commercial variant of Christmas, which is perhaps appropriate for an addition to the commercial product that is Sanctum.

The player can expect a lot of snow and festive objects in the new map that this content update offers. Blocks are replaced with large gift-wrapped boxes and the core is replaced with a Christmas tree.

There are no new weapons or defences to be had, no new aliens to be killed and not even festive variations of these, unfortunately.

THE VISUALS:

After having started a session with the Christmas map, the player is greeted by the sight of the festive tree and the presents around its base. In the background, brightly white snow glitters – and glitter it certainly does, a lot.

Switching to the teleportation screen can be a sharp pain in the eyes when the player does so for the first time, especially if he/she is able to run the game with all of its figurative bells and whistles. Furthermore, all those snowflakes that will move across the camera can obscure the view of the defence grid, making it even more uncomfortable to examine.

The cells that the player can build on retain their white plating, which makes for terrible contrast with the rest of the map.

It is only after the defence grid has been populated with blocks and defences that the teleportation screen becomes more comfortable to look at.

It has to be noted here that defences that are built into blocks will revert the blocks' alternate models back to their original ones, which is a disappointing oversight on the developer's part in applying festive themes to the buildings.

THE CIRCUIT:

Similar to the Glade map, the aliens come in from two opposing sides of the map's edges. They have circuitous routes that give the player or players quite a lot of time to deal with them.

However, there are segments in the defence grid that the player cannot build defences on, which is perhaps an acceptable challenge considering the routes that the aliens have to take.

There are plenty of cells that the aliens will not move on, and of these, there are two large clusters. The observant player will eventually learn which defences are best built on these, especially after knowing that the flying aliens have very short routes from the edges of the map to the tree.

THE AUDIO:

The sound effects and voice-overs are unchanged, but there is a new music track. It is a re-mix of Jingle Bells, so it is not included in the OST album of the game.

The re-mixed Jingle Bells tunes can be very catchy to listen to. For a while, the player might be entertained by the electronic beats, at least until the singing starts.

It is not entirely clear who provided the singing; the popular opinion among the fans of Sanctum is that they are the Swedish staff of Coffee Stain Studios itself.

However, whoever they are, they are awful at singing the refrains for Jingle Bells. At first, their awfulness may be amusing at first, but the track will loop over and over, for both phases of each wave. Eventually, it may grate on the nerves of even the most tolerant players.

Gustav Tivander tried his best to apply special audio effects to their singing, but it would have been difficult to improve what is already awful.

By the last wave, the player would likely be all-too-eager to quit the map, if he/she did not have the wisdom to disable the music. This is unfortunate, as there is a slightly different victory scene to be looked at when the player wins.

CONCLUSION:

The ludicrousness of having the visual designs of a map in Sanctum subjected to Christmas decorations would have been quite the entertaining treat if not for the missteps in applying lighting effects to the snow and snowflakes. Worst of all, the terrible singing in the otherwise splendid electronic rendering of Jingle Bells can make slogging through the waves in this map quite unbearable.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum: X-Mas Carnage for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Mon, 20 May 2013 00:56:48 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-x-mas-carnage/user-reviews/811513/platform/pc/ Sun, 19 May 2013 07:56:33 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum (2011) for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-2011/user-reviews/811486/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 7.5.

INTRO:

Most tower defense games have the player plonking down buildings to funnel and massacre waves of creeps in various ways, usually with the help of a convenient camera view that gives a good view of the map.

However, it is rare indeed for a tower defense game to have the player build things and fight off waves almost completely from a first-person perspective.

Sanctum is one such title to take this risk. The result is a fun hybrid of tower defense and first-person shooting, but it has many problems in its designs that still persist even two years after its debut.

Furthermore, it was a long time before its content updates became convincingly value-adding. Before that, they started out as much too late and then later ones came with price tags, before Coffee Stain finally decided to release new content for free.

PREMISE & CHARACTERS:

Most of the backstory and story-telling of the game is only available through marketing blurbs and other official promotional materials. The game itself will not be divulging much on the story at all.

In fact, if a player jumps into the game without doing research on it, he/she would be bewildered by the reedy-looking badass girl with oversized gear and weird-looking aliens moving in conga lines towards a shiny giant silvery bubble.

The only character that would mention anything remotely related to the story is the A.I., which notifies the player of what to do. Yet, that is not saying much about the effort, if any, that was invested by Coffee Stain Studios into making the story matter in regards to the gameplay.

Anyway, according to sources outside of the game proper, the story is about a colony of humans that are trying to protect the precious energy cores of their establishments from being overloaded by dumb but determined aliens.

In fact, the humans would seem to be doing quite a terrible job at protecting them, because they had not thought of removing the routes towards the cores and isolating them entirely. Perhaps one could argue that this oversight was deliberate in order to bait the aliens out to be murdered en masse, but such an argument would only strengthen some players' impressions that the story is just an excuse to have the player murdering stupid aliens.

The player character is Autumn Skye, a hot-headed and sadistic soldier. Although she is one of few characters in the game that has legible voice-overs, her significance to the almost non-existent story is little more than the person that would be killing lots of aliens.

GAMEPLAY – OVERVIEW:

The player takes control of a heavily equipped soldier that has to prevent enemies from running into an energy core by shooting them with weapons and more importantly, creating a maze to delay their progress and funnel them into killing zones that are watched over by nasty automated weapons.

All of this has to be done via a first-person camera, which is definitely far from the norm in tower defense games. However, wise game design decisions on Coffee Stain's part made this easier to do than one would think. Of these, The most important of these is the separating of the gameplay into building and combat phases, which will be described later.

The game can be played with limited numbers of waves of enemies with predictable composition, or with increasingly diverse and numerous waves, in both single-player and multiplayer. The single-player and multiplayer experiences can be quite different from each other, but these differences are not always positive.

Generally, completing waves gives the player money, though there are game mode options that give money through killing enemies or even remove any source of income. Anyway, this money is needed to erect buildings and upgrade them, as well as improve any weapons that the player has equipped.

PLAYER CHARACTER:

If the player has played shooter titles that have been made with the Unreal Engine before, he/she would be quite familiar with how the player character moves around. By default, she runs instead of walking, and has no believable limitations of stamina.

However, jumping may be a problem, because the game designers have never deigned fit to give the player a view of the player character's model in first-person mode, e.g. the player cannot see the player character's feet when looking down. This would not have been an issue if there is not much peering over edges, but there is a lot of this that has to be done when shooting at aliens.

The player character is practically immortal and can never be taken out of combat. She has no health meter whatsoever, not that there is a need for one as there is not one enemy that can attack the player.

She can fall out of the map boundaries, an occurrence which essentially sends the player to the teleportation screen, which will be described later.

DEFENSE GRID & ENEMY MOVEMENT:

The region around or close to the core is called the "defense grid", which is appropriate considering its function. The grid is composed of square cells, most of which can support the placement of buildings.

Cells that can support buildings generally have off-white plating on them to indicate that they can be built on. In some maps, some cells have other visual characteristics such as being placed on top of cubic rocks.

The waves of aliens will move through the grid, always along paths that are at right angles to each other; they do not move in a diagonal manner. This behaviour can be used against them by creating mazes that force them to traverse the length of the grid a few times over before reaching the core, and/or forcing them to make many turns, which is devastating against certain aliens.

WEAPONS:

Being partly a first-person shooter, Sanctum arms the player character with up to three weapons. Some of these weapons would be familiar to veterans of first-person shooters, though they have been designed to better suit tower defense gameplay.

For one, all of the weapons have unlimited ammunition. Some weapons may have what appear to be magazines, but once these run out, the weapon is merely taken out of action for a while in order for the magazine to be refilled. This is the case for weapons like the Shotgun and Sniper rifle.

If a weapon does not have a magazine, it has an overheating system. This is the case for the Assault gun and Tesla gun, both of which are rapid-fire weapons with no downtime beyond the times when they overheat.

A crafty player will eventually figure out how to juggle weapons around to maintain the damage output of the player character.

All weapons can be upgraded to become even more powerful at what they do. In the case of magazine-based weapons, their magazines are expanded, which leads to higher damage output. However, weapons with overheating systems do not appear to heat up slower or cool down faster.

Most of the weapons in the current build of the game are quite reliable at what they do, thanks to each of them having two firing modes. For example, the Assault Gun's primary mode has rapid-fire that is effective at close-to-medium ranges, whereas its secondary mode hurls grenades that are effective against clusters of enemies, though they generate a lot of heat.

However, the restriction of just three weapons can hinder the player from utilizing these weapons effectively. On higher difficulty settings, the player would be hard-pressed to use anything other than the most reliable combos of weapons.

These tend to include the Assault Gun, which is valued for its two very different firing modes, the Sniper Rifle, which has a long reach that is difficult to forgo, and the Freeze Gun, which has the side effect of causing enemies to clump as different aliens move at different speeds due to the slowing aura of its rounds. If the player wants to take up any other guns, he/she will have to forgo these dependable mainstays.

BUILDING, SELLING & UPGRADING BUILDINGS:

The abovementioned actions can only be performed in the "Building Phases" of any session. In any of these phases, the player character raises her arm with the massive gauntlet, indicating that the phase is active.

In this phase, the player can place buildings on suitable cells in the grid. Knowing which cells are suitable is easy, thanks to context-sensitive scripts; the player only needs to look at cells and see if there is a blue hologram that appears on them to know if they can build something there.

At launch, there was a problem with the Building Phase: the player could not see the paths of the aliens. This was not conducive to the planning of mazes. It was corrected, but only months later. This can be argued as a case of "better late than never", but less forgiving players would argue that the game could have been better off with this feature in the first place.

Fortunately, at least the game already had in place a mechanism to prevent the player from completely blocking off the path of the aliens. It may seem silly that this cannot be done if one considers the backstory, but then the game is a tower defence title after all.

Before the player can build any sophisticated defences, he/she must populate the defence grid with blocks. Blocks are essential, so it is not a surprise that blocks are always included in the player's list of building options. Blocks are needed to block the path of the aliens (of course), as well as to be used as foundations for other buildings.

Yet, considering that blocks are the only foundations around for any other building that needs a block, it would have been a lot more convenient if the player can build more sophisticated buildings immediately onto an empty cell by including the block into the costs. In most game modes, this is not an issue as Building Phases do not end until prompted by all players, but in some game modes, it ends on a timer.

The player can sell off buildings that are no longer needed, though this is not a decision to be done lightly as they are not sold off at their original value. The only exception is blocks, which is convenient as planning a maze is a lot easier if erroneously placed blocks can be removed without any loss.

It is worth noting there that weapon upgrades cannot be reversed to free up funds, which contrasts with the benefits of selling buildings.

The process of building, selling and upgrading is not instantaneous. Any of these actions, when started, initiates a progress bar, which is filled up as the player's money is syphoned away in real-time to fund the action. If the player runs out of money, it stalls.

The significance of the non-instantaneous nature of the actions of building and upgrading buildings can be seen in multiplayer, as will be described later. However, in single-player, it is pointless. One can argue that the wait is short, but as the player will be building, upgrading and selling things a lot, the waiting times can accumulate to quite a lot.

TELEPORTATION:

To help the player character get around the map, there is a system of teleportation that sends the player character to specific locations, usually in the defence grid. A tap of a button brings up the teleportation screen, which shows a convenient bird's eye view of the defense grid, though not the entire map and certainly not where the aliens come out from.

By default, there is one irremovable teleporter in the map, so that the player character can always return to the map if she falls out of it, or moves out of the boundaries of the operation area. Speaking of boundaries, holographic fences flash warnings whenever the player gets too near the edges of the operation area.

It should be noted here that for the case of the player character falling out of the map, the game does not immediately remove the model of the player character. Instead, the player can see that the icon for the player character's location continues to fall, apparently without any limit on descent. This can cause a technical problem if the player dallies too long before teleporting the player character back into the defense grid.

Anyway, the player can set up more teleporters in the game. These teleporters also double as lifts, which is handy if the player prefers having the player character jump onto the blocks instead of using the teleportation screen, which can take a while to use. However, these devices take up space that could have been used for other buildings, so their deployment should not be taken lightly.

TYPES OF DEFENCES:

Firstly, it has to be said here that none of the defences can stop the aliens from strolling towards the core without killing them outright. There are defences that can stall them, but there is no way to permanently cause them to stop in their tracks.

That said, the variety of defences that the player can use in single-player is dependent on his/her progress through the maps; each subsequent map unlocks more buildings for use, as well as weapons.

Initially, the player only has weak but cheap buildings such as the Gatling and the Scatter Laser. The former is short-ranged and has very limited firing angles but has considerable damage output if it can draw a bead to its target for a consistently long period of time, whereas the latter has long-range and has no restriction on firing angles but has relatively poor damage output.

Most of the other defences that have to be placed on blocks are designed around such specifications, though some of them are specialists, such as the Anti-Air tower that can only attack aerial targets but does tremendous damage against them.

Eventually, the player is introduced to defences that apply de-buffs on aliens. Among these are defences that allow the aliens to pass over them but afflict them with maladies, such as the always-dependable Slowfield. There is also another defensive option that turns blocks into crystals that amplify the strength of gunfire that passes through them, which players who prefer finesse-driven strategies would appreciate.

All of the defences require a clear line of sight to the aliens in order to fire. This is a major difference from many other tower defense games, which often have defences firing as soon as the waves come into their range, regardless of any possible obstructions. This is an important consideration, as many of the defences have limited firing angles.

Some of them are positioned on the top of blocks so that they have an advantage of height, but their perspective is still ultimately limited. In addition, defences that are placed on top of blocks have hitboxes that can obstruct lines of fire, including the player character's.

There is a lost opportunity to make the defences more versatile. Some defences are placed within blocks, while others are placed on them, and some others hover above the blocks. The game could have allowed the player to utilize all three kinds of defences on the same block, which could have made for more interesting build strategies.

ENEMIES:

As mentioned earlier, the aliens are mostly dim-witted creatures, but some of them have capabilities that make them harder to kill outright; these are gradually introduced as the player progresses through the maps for the first time.

The first wave in any map is always composed of mooks that depend on numbers to get to the core. Later, there are aliens with actual talents, such as Chargers, which can run very quickly down straight lines. However, these other aliens are balanced against the vanilla grunts by having disadvantages, such as being large targets or being slower than most other aliens.

All of the ground-bound aliens have glowing weak points that apparently gave them their names – "Lumes". These weak points are usually their eyes (or what are thought to be their eyes), though some other aliens have weak spots on their backs instead of the front. Hitting these weak points directly score significantly more damage against them, thus making the Sniper Rifle near-indispensable (much to the detriment of the other weapons).

It should be noted here that explosive munitions do not appear to damage weak points as direct shots with other munitions would, unless they directly hit the weak points of course. Yet, the very large hitboxes for explosive munitions make this difficult to achieve, as they are likely to hit some other part of the aliens instead.

Aliens with weak points are nothing new in video games, but Sanctum does have one such alien that is particularly interesting: the Soaker. As its name suggests, it is a damage sponge. However, the nuance here is that the more hits that it take, the more damage it will take from the next hits. Watching its huge weak point grow even bigger from sustained punishment can be very amusing.

Then, there are flying enemies. These are of course not restricted by any mazes that the player devises, but as a consequence they do not benefit from any cover. There are also dedicated anti-air defences that are devastating against them, as mentioned earlier.

CONTENT UPDATES:

Although Coffee Stain Studios loves its game and is committed to building on it as much as possible, this developer is not very good at making value-added decisions for its content additions.

The first few content updates were sorely needed to fill in strategic gaps in the player's arsenal. Some of them are also actual game modes that were promised but did not make it into the launch version. For the first half-year and so since the game's launch, Coffee Stain would be filling in holes in the game's designs.

To cite an example, there is the Kairos tower that was only introduced many months after the release of the game to fill in the absence of a defence that can slow down aerial units. A few more examples include the Rex, which is a rocket launcher, and the Shotgun, which is self-explanatory; both of them are weapons that should have been in the game in the first place as they fulfill significant tactical niches.

Then, after that, there were the premium DLCs that offer additional defences that are balanced against the existing ones. They certainly were not so powerful as to give the contentious impression that the player is "paying to win"; however, it can also be argued that these DLCs should have been free in the first place, since they do not have more tactical worth than existing defences.

Eventually, these premium DLCs were made free, but only for new customers and existing customers who did not purchase them. Existing players who bought the DLC were not given any more compensation than a "thank-you" for having monetarily supported Coffee Stain.

Finally, after this stint of premium-then-free DLCs, any further content updates were thankfully free-of-charge. However, a few of them appear to have the involvement of certain parties other than Coffee Stain itself; this is the case for the Yogscave update, from which the game benefited from the exposure provided by the Yogscast team.

If there is any convincing value to be had from gear-related content updates, it is to be found in multiplayer, where players can equip different gear and building options. In single-player, they are not versatile enough to replace reliable staples.

Unfortunately, some maps remain premium DLCs even to this day.

CHECKPOINT SAVING:

The game uses a system of checkpoints to record the player's progress in single-player sessions. At certain waves, the game makes a checkpoint-save that allows the player to continue playing later if he/she chooses to quit. There can only ever be one game-save, however.

One can consider that these periodic checkpoint saves contribute to the challenge of the game, but another player may consider this additional challenge to be artificial.

In the case of the computer version of Sanctum, which can only be ever played on Steam, the default method of storing checkpoint saves have been changed from a localized save to a game-save on Steam Cloud. This is handy for people who play on-the-go, but for anyone else, especially those who make back-ups of game-saves, this may not be a pleasing change.

GAME MODES:

The Standard game mode, in which the player fends off finite numbers of waves with predictable compositions, is the default one, and the only one available at launch. It is worth noting here that the compositions of the waves in single-player are set in stone.

The Survival mode, and its Turbo modifier, was introduced later to mix things up with waves of randomized compositions and provide game sessions with no end. Survival mode was later enhanced with more variants, such as Bounty, which has money being granted from killing aliens instead of clearing waves.

MULTIPLAYER:

Co-op multiplayer had been in the launch version of the game, but it was very limited in features. In the aforementioned half-year period, the multiplayer experience in Sanctum was expanded with more features, such as allowing up to five players in a session, depending on the map. Yet, the game could have been better if they had these features in the first place.

Anyway, multiplayer involves the creation of matches over Steamworks (which is the only platform that the game's computer version runs on). The host's player character is always Autumn Skye, while the others are copies of her, except that their heads are obscured by helmets and their color schemes are different. All players must protect the same core, though they can go about building, upgrading and selling things on their own.

The aliens appear to become tougher as the numbers of players increases, which is an appropriate increase in challenge. However, if the players are skilled and experienced enough, they probably would not notice the increase in the difficulty of the waves.

The most notably pleasant feature in multiplayer is that players with similar building options can finish each other's building/upgrading process, if their team-mates do not have enough funds to do so. However, there is a lost opportunity to make multiplayer more fun by lifting this restriction. Without it, players could have been encouraged to have more diverse load-outs.

COMPLAINTS ABOUT MULTIPLAYER:

Unfortunately, Sanctum's multiplayer is not guaranteed to be all fun, mainly because it is not immune to certain malaises that often afflict games with multiplayer modes.

Gate-crashing players can join any non-private session and annoy the other players by selling off defences and blocks; there is no way to force the griefers to give up the money that they can gain either, much less any way to recoup the losses from selling. Having the hosting player kick out these griefers does not return any lost money either and the griefers can simply return and continue their shenanigans.

It has been two years since the debut of the game and there is still not any insurance mechanism against griefing.

Yet, ironically, Coffee Stain Studios has the selective wisdom to foresee an exploit where players might join a match to spend all their starting money, quit and rejoin again. The developer has devised a solution to have sessions "remembering" players that have joined and spent their credits, yet they could not come up with a solution to prevent griefing.

Players in a session are not able to view each other's lists of building options and weapons. This could have minimized the need to communicate and inform each other of their building strategies.

There is not any voting system or voice-communication support either. Considering that most other competently designed games with multiplayer have these features, that Sanctum does not have them would give the impression that it still has a long way to catch up with the current trends of user-friendly features.

Another minor annoyance is that text messages that players make are automatically enunciated out loud by an automated narrator, at least by default. It can be disabled, fortunately, but if the developer had intended this to be a substitute for actual voice-communication, then it is doing a less-than-decent job.

MODELS:

The designs that went into the player character's model can be considered as quite rare in games nowadays. The player character is practically a waif, having a slim build instead of the usual athletic or stereotypically buxom body figure for most female humanoid characters that are seen in games.

The waif-like body figure happens to contrast in deliberately comical ways with the player character's gear, which are stupendously oversized. There is no explanation for this, but then the game has sci-fi settings, so any excuse, if there is any that was given, would not change the impression that this was the result of mere artistic expression.

As mentioned earlier, the player does not get to see the player character's model when using the first-person camera. This would not have been an issue, except that the player needs to look over edges of blocks often. Being able to see the player character's feet would have been handy, as the hitbox for the player character is not shown.

The defences have their own models, including different models for each level of upgrade. The differences in the numbers and placements of polygons between the models for defences of different levels are quite subtle. Fortunately, they have distinctly different color schemes, which make differentiating them with a glance quite easy.

The Lumes have impressively intimidating models, but these would have been more convincing if not for their animations that will be described later. However, from looking at their models, one would wonder whether they have been intended to have offensive capabilities. For example, the Walkers' large arms could have been used for purposes of old-fashioned mauling.

(Indeed, in the sequel, the Lumes would be able to attack. This may reinforce the suspicion that the first Sanctum game was a halfway-there project.)

The aliens also have the dubious distinction of having the only models in the game that can break apart into gory chunks when hit with particularly powerful shots, albeit these are orange instead of blood-red.

The least impressive models are those for other humans in the game, namely the technicians, who always walk around in bulky, silly Hazmat suits.

TEXTURES:

The game uses the Unreal Development Kit, which means that slow texture applications may occur for some people. This is an unfortunate setback if it does occur, as the game has some well-detailed textures, especially those for weapons, the player character and defences.

Moreover, the game has to re-apply textures for weapons and the player character's gauntlet whenever she brings them up in first-person view. This can be hideous to look at.

Fortunately, the textures for the environments seen in the map are quite stable, which allows the player to appreciate the splendid sci-fi artwork that went into the game. There are even more impressive textures to be seen in the areas with Easter Eggs.

The textures for the aliens have varying quality. The Walkers have some of the blandest textures in the game, whereas other aliens, such as the Hoverers, have far more intricate textures and clearer bump mapping as well.

LIGHTING & PARTICLE EFFECTS:

Coffee Stain Studios has a predilection for HDR lighting, bloom and normal mapping. The launch version of the game and the first set of maps would not show this, but one map in particular in the content updates does, though this matter would be explained in other reviews.

Anyway, the readily available maps in Sanctum have satisfactory application of lighting, resulting in some breath-taking sights. Particularly noteworthy examples are the Mine map with its subterranean features and the Arc map with its canyon vistas.

Weapons-fire have little lighting effects, which is perhaps appropriate as it would have been difficult to see what the player is shooting at if there had been lighting effects. However, there are particle effects for when the player hits the aliens: splashes of orange blood denote that the player has hit someplace soft, whereas sparks are emitted where the player did not.

The Lumes, appropriately, are walking sources of lighting. All of their weak spots glow with significant contrast. They may also have other sources of lighting that indicate their other capabilities; for example, the aptly named Tanks have glowing chevrons on their torsos and backs that show the state of their rechargeable shields.

The core also has varying lighting effects in addition to sizes to indicate its state. As more Lumes walk into it and overload it, it grows bigger and its colour becomes more sickly; eventually, the player is rewarded with a bright explosion when it critically overloads.

ANIMATIONS:

Most of the animations that the player would see are those for the aliens and defences, especially in single-player. The environments in the maps of the game are mostly static.

The Lumes may look menacing, but their animations reinforce the impression that they are none-too-bright. Walkers look like they are strolling, Hoverers flit daintily and Tanks waddle, to name a few examples. However, they still look amusing.

What are unintentionally amusing are their ragdoll animations when they die. Due to their weird shapes, the aliens' ragdoll corpses can be thrown around in hilarious manners, twitching all the way.

The defences mostly have recoil animations as they fire their weapons, though they also have lighting and particle effects that accompany their discharges to make them look more impressive.

The player character has some postures for the firing of weapons, as well as recoil animations. There is no lip-synching to be seen from human characters with actual faces however, at least not clearly. The reloading animations for weapons with magazines are disappointingly sparse as well.

The best animations to be seen in the game are probably the victory dances that the humans have when they win, and those for the aliens if the player fails. In the case of the former, the player gets to see the player characters performing silly dances while a few aliens mope in the background, whereas for the latter, the oddly shaped aliens perform even sillier cha-cha dances while wearing dapper hats.

OTHER GRAPHICAL DESIGNS:

For a game with considerable lighting, the shadows in Sanctum are surprisingly difficult to notice. They are indeed there, but they tend to be noticeable only during the Building Phase, and not when the waves come.

Numbers pop up whenever the player scores hits on the aliens, denoting the amount of damage inflicted on them. These are usually handy, except that the numbers become bigger as the damage that is dealt increases. This can obscure the life bars that float above the aliens, especially in the case of the Soakers.

VOICE-OVERS:

As mentioned earlier, there are very few characters with legible voice-overs in the game.

The only voice-over that the player would appreciate is that for the A.I. that informs the player of important occurrences and warns about impending disaster. That this is a very heavily synthesized voice-over would not be saying much of anything good about the other voice-overs.

Autumn Skye's voice-overs, in particular, can seem quite useless for anything other than purposes of entertainment. Skye will utter creepy laughs and hoots whenever a large number of aliens die in a short period of time, or when the player scores multiple one-hit kills in a row. She will also cuss whenever she gets slammed about by the indifferent aliens, but otherwise there is nothing substantial to be had from her utterances.

If there are any worthwhile voice-overs, they are those that are associated with the Easter eggs in the game. These shed a bit more light on the backstory and give hints on what to expect from the sequel, Sanctum 2.

SOUND EFFECTS:

Most of the sound effects that the player will be hearing in the game are gunfire. In fact, the din can overwhelm most other sounds, such as the moans of dying aliens, if the player has created a heavily armed maze.

There are some ambient sounds that can be heard during the Building Phase, such as the humming of the core and sometimes the wind. This makes the Building Phase quite a contrast in audio when compared to the Combat Phase.

The sound effects that the player would appreciate the most are those that indicate when a round has just started or just ended. There are also sound effects for the countdown before the game makes a checkpoint-save, which is handy if the player wants to revert to an earlier checkpoint before the game overwrites it.

MUSIC:

Perhaps the most convincingly good aspect of Sanctum is its music, which is composed by Gustav Tivander.

There are two sets of soundtracks: one for the Building Phase, and one for the Combat Phase. Both sets are predominantly electronic, as is usually the case for music in indie games such as Sanctum.

The tracks for the Building Phase are noticeably more peaceful and slower than those for the Combat Phase, which is appropriate, except when the game mode that has been chosen for play restricts the time that is given to the player(s) to build things.

The tracks for the Combat Phase are appropriately upbeat, though they are better appreciated outside of the game as the din of gunfire can easily drown out the music.

There are also tracks for the occasions of victory and defeat, which accentuate the silliness of these scenes.

It is also worth noting here that close to a year after the launch of the game, the game's official soundtrack was given to owners of the game's licenses for free, which is pleasant, though it could have been done earlier.

CONCLUSION:

As a game that claims to change the tower defence formula with the introduction of first-person shooter elements, Sanctum certainly did held up to its promise. However, it was released practically unfinished with only the most essential features but not many of the other, promised ones, and its launch was then followed by premium DLCs that in hindsight was not worth the cost. It took more than a year before Sanctum started to show its value, but by then, the game may have already soured for those who are looking for a bang for their buck.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Sanctum (2011) for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Sun, 19 May 2013 07:56:33 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/sanctum-2011/user-reviews/811486/platform/pc/ Thu, 16 May 2013 00:55:31 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Beneath a Steel Sky for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/beneath-a-steel-sky/user-reviews/811363/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 7.5.

INTRO:

During this game's time, there was a lot of competition in the adventure game genre (which was then strong) to create stories that are not only riveting but also believable. The spiritual predecessor of Beneath a Steel Sky, Lure of the Temptress, was once such attempt, with its use of an engine that seemingly has NPCs going about daily routines.

Beneath a Steel Sky attempts to build on its predecessor by making better use of the Virtual Theatre game engine, but it also unwittingly highlighted issues that the game engine has and which unfortunately affects gameplay too.

These issues detract from the game's story, which is a shame, as it was one of the better stories to be had in computer games at the time.

PREMISE:

Beneath a Steel Sky takes places in a fictional future, when corporations rule in relatively safe cities where individual freedoms are heavily curtailed. The price of true freedom is a life in the dangerous wastelands, known in-universe as "The Gap" for the chasms and canyons that run through them.

With this backstory, one would have expected that the game might have both urban and wild environments. However, there is only the former, which makes for a wasted opportunity. On the other hand, the very title of the game would have generated expectations that the game would be completely set in (supposedly) civilized regions of the game's sci-fi world.

Anyway, the game's introduction sequence tells the tale of Robert Foster, an orphan and the only survivor of a certain vehicular accident. Foster grew up in the Gap, under the tutelage and protection of human tribals who eke out a living in the hostile wastelands.

However, this ended one day when his mentor and adoptive parent received an ominous vision of Robert Foster being forcibly taken away from his home to a place with the titular description. This does happen, together with a tragedy/atrocity.

The game properly starts when Foster experiences yet another vehicular accident, to which he makes a remark that would allude to the mild wit in the writing of the game.

Eventually, he would be caught up in a conspiracy concerning the livelihood of an entire city, as well as revelations about his past.

CONSEQUENCES OF LACK OF WISDOM:

For players with more sense of curiosity than one of wisdom, the game would impart a very early and harsh lesson on the need to think carefully about Robert Foster's well-being.

(During this game's time, there were unforgiving puzzles in some adventure games, so said harsh lesson would not be a surprise to those who had experienced the adventure games of this era.)

There are obvious visual cues and verbal warnings (usually uttered by Foster himself) whenever he enters an area with hazards and dangers, so it is the player's fault if he/she gets Foster killed. For example, very large symbols that denote radiation hazards adorn a certain area in the game, so if the player fails to get Foster sufficient protection from radiation before entering the next adjacent area, he dies an agonizing death.

On the other hand, some players may want to get him killed anyway, if only to watch the animations. That the player can make a game-save at any time makes this convenient to do. There are indeed different animations for each possible fatal scenario in the game, though few of them are terribly gory (though all of them are painful for Robert Foster).

If there is a disappointment to be had with the risk and occurrence of Robert Foster's death in this game, it is that the game-over screen is generic and does not show the aftermath of Foster's painful deaths. Of course, this disappointment would only occur for people who get a kick from watching fictional protagonists die.

Although there are decisions that can lead to Foster's death and a straight game-over, there are no decisions that can result in a hung game.

ROBOT COMPANION:

Robert Foster is not always alone. He has created a robotic companion, simply named Joey.

Joey is, however, not always operational, due to amusingly perennial mishaps that cause him to lose body after robotic body. In fact, one of the first few puzzles in the game requires the player to find a new shell for Joey, which in its least physical form is a mere circuit board that contains its personality and memories.

Joey is a surprisingly advanced AI, being capable of discovering and making use of the features to be found in its latest body. The most important features however are analytical tools that let Joey investigate an object that Robert Foster shows it and inform him of its properties.

Showing things to Joey is an important part of many solutions to puzzles. This happens to be mentioned to the player very early on and several times again afterwards via Robert Foster's outspoken praise for his indispensable friend.

In addition, Joey is often a witty robot, making pokes at Foster's occasional lack of wisdom. The player may also be amused at Joey's remarks about its current body.

However, Joey's personal regard for its existence as a companion of Robert Foster is quite inconsistent throughout the game. At first, there is the impression that it is frustrated with Robert Foster, and sometime later, Joey is a resolute companion.

On the other hand, this may have been a deliberate character design, as an observant player may notice that Joey's personality changes with each transfer to a new shell.

MOVEMENT WITH VIRTUAL THEATRE:

In the marketing blurbs for the game, the capabilities of Virtual Theatre, which is the engine that powers the game, were mentioned a lot. It is touted as allowing NPCs to perform believable routines, instead of being rooted on the spot as NPCs in adventure games tend to be.

Some NPCs may be moving to-and-fro a couple of different places, doing different routines at either end. The distance may span across several areas, or occur within the same area where Foster encountered them for the first time.

That is not to say that there are no static NPCs. There are NPCs that stay rooted to a spot, but not without good reason.

Still, there are familiarities that the version of Virtual Theatre that is used for Beneath a Steel Sky has with other engines for adventure games at the time. For one, mouse-clicks have Robert Foster moving about in the areas of the game. This is of course expected of a player-controlled character.

His sprite can collide with boundaries in the environments of the game, but generally, he will calculate the shortest non-diagonal path towards the destination when this happens. This usually does not result in a pathfinding problem.

The same cannot be said when he walks into the paths of other characters that also happen to be moving about. These NPCs may also collide with other NPCs that also happen to be moving about, especially Foster's robotic companion.

When this happens, the game will force the A.I. scripts for the colliding characters to reconsider their paths, usually around each other. The collision of sprites is still manageable when there are at most only two sprites that are moving around, but where there are more, such as three (which are usually Robert Foster, Joey and an NPC), this can become an annoyance.

JOEY'S MOVEMENT:

Joey attempts to stay close to Foster most of the time when it is active. If it is close enough, it mills about, giving it a semblance of independence in its character. As much as the player would appreciate this little touch, this behaviour of Joey's can result in it getting in the way of other characters, though Joey will move away to make space.

However, that is not the only problem with Joey's sprite. Joey moves very slowly when compared to human/humanoid characters, and especially so when compared to Robert Foster, whose sprite is conveniently the fastest in the game. The player could end up leaving Joey far behind and have to wait for Joey to scoot over.

By default, Foster will call for Joey to come over when he has to use an elevator. The player will have to wait for Joey to get into the elevator, which can take an annoyingly long time if he is not close by.

If the player has left Joey far, far behind when Foster is using an elevator, Foster simply moves on. This may have been a bug or an intentional work-around to prevent Joey from stalling the game. Regardless, if the player needs Joey for a solution, he/she may need to backtrack to get Joey in the elevator together with Foster, which can be a hassle.

The game designers have noticed this issue and have devised a solution, but it only works with the first body that Joey gets in the course of the story. The first body allows Joey to rejoin with Foster wherever he is, with a strong excuse for this convenience. However, the other bodies do not have this feature.

Joey will not follow Foster into every place. Where Joey would not go to is not immediately clear. However, if the player has both Joey and Foster in the same screen as Foster walks into an area that Joey would not go into, Joey would utter a monologue stating that it would not follow, but without giving very good reasons for these lapses in its loyalty to Foster.

PUZZLE DESIGNS & STORY PROGRESS:

Most puzzles in the game can be solved via observation and logical decisions, which makes for a pleasantly fair challenge. There are a few pixel-hunting moments, however.

Some puzzles have solutions that only long-time veterans of adventure games would know. For example, one of the puzzles has a solution that involves some knowledge of lock-picking. Although some veterans of the adventure game genre may know this, the average person is not expected to, unless he/she happens to be an avid lock enthusiast.

Sometimes, it can be difficult to know where to go to next in order to progress in the story. The only reliable method to progress is to check places that the player has gone to in order to see if there had been any changes, and then investigate these changes to see if there is any event that can be triggered to progress in the game.

Some of these events seem more interesting than the rest. For example, there is a ghastly discovery that the player would discover when checking out a slightly creepy place that is filled with dummies; this discovery gives a strong impression that things are happening out of the player's control, which makes for convincing suspense.

A few other events do seem somewhat frivolous though. For example, there is one point in the game where the player must get involved in a silly and almost inconsequential court case just to progress.

INVENTORY & ITEMS:

Robert Foster has a trench-coat that he almost always wears. How he came across it is never explained in the game, though he and many other characters do make remarks on it.

Anyway, the coat is surprisingly roomy. It is where Foster keeps most of the items that he can nick, though he of course cannot carry around very large objects.

Accessing his inventory involves moving the mouse cursor to the top of the screen, which causes a tab to drop down, showing a row of icons that depict the items that Foster has. This was not anything new during the time of Beneath a Steel Sky, but it is still a lot more convenient than bringing up a dedicated inventory screen.

Anyway, not all items that the player finds are useful. Some of them are red herrings, though they are not without some entertainment value. They will be removed in one way or another, and whenever it happens, it is usually a slightly witty occurrence.

Bringing the cursor over an item in the inventory and selecting it will bring up a text description of the object, possibly provided by Foster. However, for more information, the player may want to show it to Joey, as mentioned earlier. For objects that are on-screen and in the environment, only Foster will provide the description when it is examined.

Foster's and Joey's descriptions of objects are mostly helpful, but the relevance of certain information may not be immediately apparent to every person. For example, there is one object that Foster would describe as having a "safety device". Players who are versed in mechanical tools would know what it does in the context of the function of the object that Foster describes, but other players would be wondering what it meant.

Some of Foster's descriptions of objects happen to be tongue-in-cheek pokes at technology that were prevalent during the game's time. For example, there is a poke at VCR machines and their dubious reliability and lack of user-friendliness.

VIRTUAL WORLD:

There is a segment in the game where Foster takes a trip into a land of abstracts. There would not be a mention of this segment in this review if not for changes in the gameplay during this segment.

The changes in the gameplay mainly involve the use of Foster's inventory and how he – or rather his avatar - moves about the aforementioned abstract landscape.

In this segment, Foster has an entirely different set of items and the inventory system works differently. There is no tutorial for this segment in the manual of the game and there is no text description of said items either, so the player will have to fiddle around and figure out what does what.

However, this is a quick learning process, and one which may endear itself to people who remember the debut of the first few Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) on the computer platform. For other people, this would unfortunately seem to be a lapse in the user-friendliness of the game.

Foster's movement in this abstract landscape is also greatly limited, especially in one area where he can only move about in a grid.

The journey into and through this landscape is used in interesting ways to help Foster progress in his quest to discover the truth, though to describe more would be to invite more spoilers than is necessary for this review.

GRAPHICS:

Being a game made in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the game had limited graphics technology to work with.

Most of the visuals in the game are actually scans of concept artwork that the game designers had made. These include most of the backgrounds as well as the comic-book-like cutscenes.

However, these otherwise lovingly-done artwork contrasts greatly with the sprites in the game in terms of aesthetics. All of the sprites are made of clusters of pixels with lower resolution than the background, making the simplicity of the sprites look all too noticeable. This seems even more so if the sprites are in the foreground, such as in the very first scenario of the game where it starts with Foster's sprite being closer to the viewer than it would be in any other scenario.

There are also small objects, such as switches and metal pads that sometimes have poor visual contrast with the rest of the background, thus leading to pixel-hunting. This is even more of a problem if the player is playing in windowed mode (which can be done if the player is playing the GOG version of the game).

On the other hand, the sprites are still detailed enough to express exaggerated emotions, namely pain (of which Foster tends to suffer a lot).

There is no apparent attempt at splitting the story into chapters, but there are significant visual changes in the scenery as the player progresses in the game. For example, the game starts with industrial complexes and skyscrapers to depict the stranglehold of corporations on the economy, and then progresses to a much more comfortable-looking stratum of living quarters that while adequate for purposes of livelihood, are very wanting for space.

WRITING:

According to revelations by the game designers a long time after the release of the game, the writing for Beneath a Steel Sky was the result of a compromise between two lead designers who had differences over the seriousness and wit of the dialogues in the game.

The result is that there are scenes that are deadly serious, interspersed with light-hearted moments. Most of the latter involve conversations between Foster and Joey, which help express the personalities of both characters.

The other characters in the game are less memorable, but only because they do not get as much screen-time as Foster and Joey. That is not to say that they are not without character, but some of their personalities can seem heavily stereotypical.

For example, security officers in particular are often depicted as incompetent, abusive and indifferent. Perhaps this was deliberate, in order to project the dystopian settings of the game. Unfortunately, this made it harder to appreciate their other characteristics, such as the thick accents of the security officers.

There are plenty of optional dialogue lines that highlight the mostly believable and sometimes funny writing for the game. The ones that are not funny still manage to add some character to the fictional people that are in the game, even if they turn out to be quite unimportant.

For example, there is a dialogue with one certain character about his finely-laminated clipboard, which would have seemed inconsequential to most players if they did not notice that there are few other clipboards to be seen in the game.

There may be some minor holes in the story-writing. For example, after having tricked a certain character that works in a factory into believing that Foster is a safety inspector, Foster can ask many questions that more than suggest that he is not who he claims to be. Another example is that a certain character would update the authorization details on an ID card that Foster has stolen without knowing that said ID is stolen.

Of course, one can argue that in any of these cases, the other person is not much brighter than Foster is, but that would mean that a lot of characters in Beneath a Steel Sky are rather witless.

VOICE-OVERS:

Most of the voice-overs in the game are decent, but unfortunately the less-decent ones include that of Foster's. Sometimes, his voice actor delivers lines with enough inflection in his enunciations to sound convincing, but at other times, he is just reading from the script, especially during less tense moments.

The biggest complaint about the voice-overs is that they frequently mismatch with the subtitles. Another major complaint is that the game sometimes fails to fetch the sound clips for voice-overs.

Even when it does, the game takes a while to fetch the sound clips that make up consecutive dialogue lines, resulting in awkward pauses from characters.

MUSIC:

Dave Cummins, who is one of the writers for the game, is also the main composer of the music in Beneath a Steel Sky.

For the most part, his tracks have catchy tunes, such as one that plays in a dingy exclusive club. However, some of the tracks are out of place with the themes of the game, such as a cheery soundtrack for screens where the backdrops are depressively dull.

Yet, there are tracks that sound very appropriate for the occasion. The most memorable one happens to play in the aforementioned virtual landscape.

SOUND EFFECTS:

There can only be a few sources of sounds in any one screen. This usually includes the music, a voice-over and a periodic ambient sound, which may or may not be present. These ambient sounds are usually associated with machines, such as the (useless) machine press that appears early in the game. They can be grating and repetitive, though to give the game the benefit of the doubt, the game did have limited audio technology to work with during its time.

OTHER COMPLAINTS:

Sometimes, temporary freezes may occur when the game attempts to fetch files and code for the story to progress.

Another complaint is that if NPCs are performing animations when the player wants Foster to talk to them, the player has to wait for them to complete the animations. This is understandable if they are doing work at the time, but not when the NPCs are doing something as frivolous as just looking at the floor.

CONCLUSION:

Beneath a Steel Sky has a lot of potential, but perhaps wasted some of it due to mistakes in its technical designs and voice-overs. Still, its flaws are not too significant as to overshadow its finer moments and its messages about the possible dangers in a futuristic world.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Beneath a Steel Sky for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Thu, 16 May 2013 00:55:31 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/beneath-a-steel-sky/user-reviews/811363/platform/pc/ Mon, 13 May 2013 23:03:58 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/prince-of-persia-the-two-thrones/user-reviews/811279/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 7.5.

INTRO:

The first title in the rebooted Prince of Persia franchise had a fairy-tale vibe to it, in addition to surprisingly satisfactory platforming gameplay for most people. The second one had more of the latter, but throws away the fairy-tale vibe for a much grittier, darker and edgier story-telling, which did not sit well with some people.

The final entry in the saga of the officially unnamed Prince of Persia (despite the now-forgotten mention of his name in the end of Sands of Time) seeks to link the sudden and drastic change in the narrative from the first title to the second. It also adds some new gameplay elements, though they will not please players who despise quick-time events (hereby shorted to QTEs, for short).

PREMISE:

Since his angry and bitter journey as seen in the second game, the Prince has calmed down and gained a new lady friend. She happens to be none other than the person that he sought in the previous game to end his troubles with his destiny.

However, his return home would be an unpleasant surprise, as a villain that he had defeated before turned out to be still around because of the Prince's chronological shenanigans. The malicious Sands of Time are released once more, plunging his homeland into chaos. The Prince has to once again embark on an adventure to right things wrong.

Unfortunately, as the name of the game and its cover would suggest already, he has to contend with a personal issue that has manifested itself in nasty ways that threaten his sanctity of mind and self.

MOVEMENT & PLATFORMING:

The Prince remains an agile and skilled warrior as ever. Most, if not all, of his acrobatic feats that had been seen in the previous games can be repeated in The Two Thrones. These include running across short stretches of walls, swinging from pole to pole and a lot of climbing and hopping. The controls for these methods of movement are as similar and reliable as those in the previous games, which is fortunate.

There is definitely plenty of platforming to be done in The Two Thrones, though compared to the previous games, their sequences tend to seem shorter in comparison and many fights – or QTE sequences – occupy the segments between these platforming moments.

The mortal Prince's platforming challenges can be completed with enough patience, but for the Dark Prince's, his ever-dwindling health is a concern that makes his platforming quite tense.

Furthermore, the Dark Prince has to make use of his whip-like chains instead of the dagger, which make for a change from the usual stabbing of recesses in walls and other actions with the Dagger of Time. However, these would not seem refreshingly new to those who have played platforming games where the protagonist uses chains for swinging about and pulling things around.

As for the mortal Prince's platforming sequences, they are similar to those in previous games, if not better due to the better graphics that The Two Thrones has compared to its predecessors. The Prince is still a convincingly and entertainingly agile member of royalty, leaping across gaps, running across walls effortlessly and perhaps ripping pieces of tapestry and long curtains along the way, as well as pulling and hitting the occasional switches.

On the other hand, there may be some contrivances in the platforming. For example, there appears to be fixtures on walls that appear to be there just for the Prince to stab the indestructible Dagger of Time into and hang from like it is a piton. Another example is a pressure plate on the wall that has to be activated via wall-running, which is odd as pressure plates are usually more convenient to depress when on the ground.

In fact, an observant player may have the impression that the levels have been designed simply to fulfill the game's promise of platfoming sequences, yet their locations and designs go against the backstory and locale of the game. After all, the game is set in a fictional version of ancient Persia, a city that is not exactly designed for people with astounding alacrity.

Another contrivance is that the palaces in The Two Thrones are heavily laden with traps. Although there were palaces with traps in the previous games, the first game explained them away with substantial story-based excuses and the second game was set in a foreboding place. In The Two Thrones, it would be hard to believe that the Prince grew up in such a spectacularly deadly and precarious place.

Anyway, as in the previous games, traps do not always immediately kill the Prince, though some particularly painful ones do, as do fall hazards. The player can always rewind time to undo a goof-up, if there are still sand charges in the Dagger of Time.

In some locations in the levels of the game, there are prompts that appear on-screen that informs the player of the opportunity to change the view over to cameras that have been designed just for these locales. These cameras tend to be looking at objects or fixtures of interest, so they can be handy sometimes.

Not as handy are blocks that the Prince has to push around to reach things; blocks have been around in games with platforming elements for a long time, but they are still the hassle that they were. The Two Thrones attempts to disguise them as particularly large baskets, but has perhaps made them look absurd because hollow baskets would not be the first thing that people have in mind when trying create a stable, make-shift ladder to a higher platform.

COMBAT - GENERAL DETAILS:

In fights, the Prince can perform combos from a standing position; some of these are effective against individual enemies and some others are meant for when he is surrounded. Like in the previous games, he still can vault over most enemies to deliver strikes from where they do not expect. The Prince can still use the environment for an advantage in combat, such as jumping off walls and using the momentum for a strike on an opponent's head, or even hit multiple enemies if the Prince is armed with a secondary weapon.

One of the combos that are available to the Prince is particularly notable for its convenience. This combo has him giving a target a very hard kick that hurtles him/her/it across the air. This is of course very useful where there are fall hazards or other environmental dangers around.

The Prince is always armed with the Dagger of Time, but unlike the first game, he does need it to finish off enemies in order to regain sand charges. Instead, sand charges are released by enemies and automatically absorbed by the Dagger. Therefore, the Dagger of Time is now mainly used as a weapon.

COMBAT – THE MORTAL PRINCE:

However, the dagger is sometimes not enough. Therefore, the Prince in his mortal form can retrieve secondary weapons from the environment. These other weapons can be dual-wielded together with the dagger to perform longer combos that have much greater effect on enemies, but wielding a secondary weapon prevents the Prince from using combos that kick or toss enemies around.

Most of the other weapons in the game do not have the Dagger of Time's legendary durability. Almost all secondary weapons will eventually break from use. In addition, they have to be retrieved from enemies that had them or from weapon racks. In the case of the former source of secondary weapons, they may already be a bit damaged. The remaining durability of the secondary weapon is shown on-screen, conveniently.

They are damaged even faster if the player uses their 'charge-up' attacks, though these are worthwhile as they are convenient methods for slaying certain enemies. The Prince does need some time to gather the strength necessary to perform these attacks, however.

Lastly, the Prince can toss secondary weapons at enemies, which is a handy way of getting rid of secondary weapons that are about to break.

COMBAT – THE DARK PRINCE:

Some time into the story, the other Prince rears its ugly head. After this, the Prince may turn into a darker form of himself, simply called the Dark Prince.

The Dark Prince gains a wicked whip that he uses in lieu of any secondary weapon, though its ability to hit many enemies in short order more than compensates the loss of choice. The Dark Prince also has entirely different sets of combos, some of which has massive area effect and some others that are designed to punish a single target.

There are some attempts to make the Dark Prince feel somewhat refreshing, such as his ability to use conveniently placed poles to make swinging attacks that render him hard to be hit and attack in a wide radius, but the player could ultimately make do with a few conveniently powerful combos.

Players cannot opt to forgo combat when playing as the Dark Prince. His well-being is forever being eroded by the curse within him, and the player must keep his health up by killing enemies and absorbing sand, which is the main way to heal the Dark Prince.

Q.T.E.'S:

Throughout the game, there are many moments where the player must perform what the game calls "speed-kills". Technically, these involve the Prince ambushing enemies and taking advantage of their surprise to hit them repeatedly until they die.

Enemies are not always immediately aware of the Prince's presence, especially since they tend to forget to look up or down. Speed-kills can be performed either from above or just under a ledge that enemies happen to pass but fail to look over, but can only be initiated if the target is facing away from the Prince and when a certain visual cue appears on-screen (as will be described later).

However, speed-kills are not an automatic success, due to the implementation of what can be considered quick-time events (QTEs) (though this term was not pervasively used back then to describe such gameplay). As the player watches the Prince dashing towards or dropping onto his victims in cinematic ways, the player must enter inputs at correct moments in order to get the Prince to land strikes; otherwise, he fumbles and he loses his advantage of surprise.

Of course, one can argue that most of these QTEs are not the usual, frustrating "press-X-to-not-die" sorts, but still, not everyone would appreciate having to press buttons to get the Prince to do things right when the game could have handed full control of the Prince to them anyway.

One can also argue that completing a QTE sequence successfully prevents any enemy reinforcement from coming to the fray, but this benefit could have been implemented anyway if the QTEs had been replaced with competently designed stealth-sneaking gameplay.

If there is any consolation from fumbling a QTE, the player does not need to complete the entirety of a QTE sequence to defeat enemies. Any hits that the Prince has landed before the player fumbled will be damaged anyway, which helps shorten the fight that would ensue afterwards. Furthermore, if there are multiple enemies close to each other, a single sequence is enough to eliminate all of them, though the QTE sequence tends to be longer.

Also, the power to rewind time can be used during any point of these QTE sequences; the player can even choose to end the rewind a few convenient seconds before an input prompt.

HEALTH SYSTEM:

Not to break from the tradition set by its two predecessors, the mortal Prince still replenishes his health by drinking fresh water, simply enough. These sources of fresh water also serve as manual save-points and checkpoints. The player can have the Prince back-track to replenish health, provided that he can get back to them with some platforming.

The Dark Prince, however, cannot be healed by water at all; the reason for this would be explained through the progress of the story. Instead, he has to heal by absorbing sand, which is obtained either from killing enemies or releasing them from jars.

The maximum health capacity of the Dark Prince is however dependent on that for the mortal form of the Prince. Like the previous titles in the Sands of Time sub-franchise, the Prince has to find health upgrades at hidden places in the levels of the game.

Finding them does not immediately result in health upgrades, either. The player is given the challenge of traversing through particularly dangerous corridors towards a brilliant light before these are granted. These corridors are short though, and the player can always retry, though any sand charges that had been spent cannot be regained.

SAND CHARGES, REWINDING & SAND POWERS:

Like the two previous games, The Two Thrones keeps logs of processing instructions to facilitate the execution of the game's time-rewinding feature. With a tap of a button, the player can expend a sand charge and rewind time for around ten seconds, which are usually more than enough to undo any embarrassing mistake. The Dagger of Time can only hold so many charges, but the player can replenish them by killing enemies that have been warped by the Sands of Time and releasing sand that is trapped in pottery and chests.

Like the previous titles, the reservoir capacity of the Dagger of Time can be upgraded to hold more charges; up to six charges can be stored, if the player is diligent enough to pursue them. However, unlike the previous titles, these upgrades are not sought from hidden objects, secret puzzle rooms, or mere grinding. Instead, they are obtained from locating special edifices that are guarded by special and particularly troublesome enemies that can summon reinforcements from the same edifices.

These edifices are associated with the Sands of Time and are often located where the Prince needs to go, so there is no need to hunt around for hidden places so much. They may grant one reward from several types, and one of these happens to be reservoir upgrades.

They may also grant what the game calls "Sand Credits", but these are actually less valuable than one would expect when encountering them for the first time. This will be elaborated later.

These edifices may also grant powers other than rewinding time. However, followers of the Sands of Time series would not be strangers to these, many of which are recycled from previous games.

Of these, one of the most useful powers slows down time, allowing the Prince to gain the upper hand against enemies. However, it is more than likely to see use in the platforming segments than during fights.

TUTORIALS:

Like its predecessors, The Two Thrones has its tutorial segments in the first level of the game, as well as whenever a new power is introduced to the Prince any time later on in the story.

In the case of The Two Thrones, the tutorials may be better justified, story-wise, because the Prince has been away at sea for quite a while, though there is unfortunately no witty remark from him or anyone else about this.

The tutorial segments typically have on-screen text and icons that appear on-screen to tell the player what to do, in addition to sudden loss of control over the Prince and the panning of the camera over to objects/locations of interest.

ENEMIES & THEIR AWARENESS:

To veterans of the rebooted series of Prince of Persia, the enemies in The Two Thrones may seem similar to those in the second title than the first one, in that they are certainly sentient.

The first few enemies are barbaric grunts that are not much of a challenge to a careful player. However, eventually the player will face enemies that are tougher as well as more skilled; they do more damage, take more damage and are much better at blocking attacks. These more challenging enemies tend to resemble variants of earlier enemies, though the visual differences are not too few that they would appear to be palette swaps.

Like the previous games, enemies that are affected by the maliciously magical Sands of Time are capable of undoing the damage that has been inflicted on them through battle, if given enough time to recuperate.

It is worth noting here that The Two Thrones may have borrowed some elements from stealth-sneaking titles, with those from the Splinter Cell franchise being particular suspects. These elements went into the designs of the sense of awareness of enemies.

Enemies are not immediately aware of the Prince's presence, as had been mentioned earlier, and which is certainly different from what was in the previous games. They need direct line of sight to the prince, so hiding behind pillars and other high-enough obstacles would prevent enemies from noticing the Prince.

However, this system of line-of-sight only highlights the halfway-there, almost seemingly reluctant implementation of sneaking. The camera is always positioned above and behind the prince, so the player cannot see beyond whatever the prince is hiding behind, especially if it is a wall.

Although there is a button for slower movement if the player wants to have some control over the Prince's sneaking, this is not of much use because there is little incentive to move more slowly. The Prince's lowered posture is also of little more use than for cosmetic effect as there are few waist-high obstacles in the game that can hide him.

He may be able to move around in a quieter manner using this slower movement option, but then enemies do not have much of anything in the way of hearing anyway. They can hear the Prince if he makes overt noises like hitting walls with weapons or crashing into vases, but otherwise would not even hear him running about several feet away as long as he doesn't bump into anything.

Speaking of smashing vases, some of the Sands of Time have settled in vases, jars and other pottery, as mentioned earlier. The player may want to hold back on his/her eagerness to regain sand charges from breaking them, lest he/she tip off enemies to the presence of the Prince.

In some scenarios, there are enemies that are particularly sensitive or averse to certain objects in the environment. For example, there are enemies that are used to living in the dark, and are therefore averse to beams of direct sunlight. However, these aversions only manifest when the player has managed to lure enemies into them – they do not even seem to avoid them in the first place, which does not give a good impression of their A.I. scripting.

Sometime into the game, there will be enemies that are conveniently marked with red tints and veins; these denote that they are capable of summoning reinforcements, given the chance. It is in the player's interest to prioritize them for elimination, but this would have been more convenient if the player could have used more convincingly stealth-oriented techniques to remove them than resorting to the "speed-kill" QTEs.

ABOUT A LESS-THAN-SPLENDID HOMAGE TO BEN-HUR:

A certain scenario in the game has to be mentioned here, but to avoid mentioning too many spoilers while projecting a good guess at what this scenario is about, a reference to a certain classic movie has been included.

In this scenario, the Prince has to control a certain horse-drawn vehicle to make a get-away. This would have made for a refreshing change from the usual platforming and fighting, except that this scenario often requires a lot of trial and error as the player would not be able to see what is ahead easily and the vehicle is moving absurdly fast for a horse-drawn vehicle.

These scenarios are a lot easier if the player went into them with a fully loaded Dagger of Time, but if he/she did not, he/she would discover that a small mistake can lead to a fatal crash that immediately forces a rewind. Furthermore, he/she would have to fend off enemies on foot that can somehow start on an absurdly fast sprint to jump onto the vehicle and maul away at the Prince. There are also other absurdly fast horse-drawn vehicles that will attempt to force the Prince's vehicle into an obstacle.

These scenarios can seem too much for players who are used to the rest of the gameplay in The Two Thrones.

BOSSES:

There are a few different bosses to fight, and each one happens to provide a different experience. However, each experience is not necessarily a good one.

The first one would not endear to people who despise QTEs, because it has to be completed via performing more than a few "speed-kills". Attempting to do anything other than that is terrifically difficult due to the near-solid defensive measures that this boss has.

In another, the player has to do a lot of platforming to reach a boss that is dawdling for time, which can be annoying. That it ends with a button-mashing QTE makes it even less palatable.

In some fights, the player will have to get the Prince to advantageous locations to start a QTE sequence, and quickly too, as the bosses tend to have attacks that punish players who dawdle or fumble.

Moreover, in the launch version of the game, there was a design oversight in one of the QTE sequences of a particular boss fight that resulted in mismatching visual prompts and period of reception of input.

Worst of all, fumbling a QTE sequence in any boss fight causes said boss to heal some of its health, which is a punishment that can seem very punitive and frustrating.

For better or worse, these boss fights have no goons or mooks running around to be killed to regain sand; in fact, there is no way to regain health either. The player enters them with whatever sand charges that he/she has accrued and whatever level of health that he/she has conserved. There may be pottery that can be smashed for some sand, but more often than not, there is little aid that can be found in the boss fight areas.

Some players may appreciate the lack of any convenient replenishment, but others would find this disadvantage of attrition to be too punishing.

Still, if challenge is what the player is looking for in the bosses, then most of them would satisfy, with one particular boss fight being memorable for its difficulty and the fact that there are two enemies to deal with instead of just one.

The final one is also quite memorable, as it has to be played a bit differently from how the previous segments are played and its difficulty steeply contrasts with those of other boss fights.

DIFFICULTY SETTINGS:

Changing the difficulty settings for a new playthrough does not do much beyond the usual changes to the ratio of damage that enemies inflict on the player character to the damage that they can take before they die. There is little other reward for putting up with the greater (but typical) challenge, other than some bragging rights.

CHARACTER DESIGNS:

The Prince in The Two Thrones could have been described as somewhere in between the na–ve but earnest Prince seen in Sands of Time and the bitterly angry one in Warrior Within, but the earnest Prince is very much gone – at least for most of the game, though to elaborate more is to mention spoilers.

Instead, the Prince in The Two Thrones is quite remorseful and afraid, which is perhaps appropriate considering how much trouble he has caused and the new trouble that comes after he has undone the previous disaster with the power of the Sands of Time. His uncertainty and insecurity is preyed upon by his darker and more cynical self, often with snide comments and sometimes amusing remarks.

It is this relationship between the two halves of the Prince that is the core of the story in The Two Thrones. Unfortunately, it overshadows everything else, which seems insignificant in comparison.

For one, certain important characters that had appeared in previous games return only to be removed quickly; certain others return only to be turned into something else entirely. These two cases occur early in the story and become the basis for the Prince's quest to right things wrong yet again.

Perhaps the most disappointing character is that of a certain character that returns from the first entry in the Sands of Time trilogy. Considering the chemistry that she had with the Prince in the first entry, her infrequent presence by the Prince's side in the third game would be a displeasing contrast to those who remember the first game fondly.

CONCEPT ARTWORK:

Throughout the game, the player can find what the game clumsily refers to as "Sand Credits". To the unknowing player, he/she may think that it can be used to purchase more powers and improvements to the powers of the Dagger of Time or something similar. Instead, the amount of the credits is little more than a counter of progress to unlocking galleries of concept artwork.

It could be just an issue of naming, but this caused confusion in some players, as well as quite a bit of disappointment later when they realized said "Sand Credits" are far from what they expected to be.

VOICE-OVERS:

The enemies in the game are composed of both inhuman and humanoid enemies. The inhuman ones typically growl and snarl, which is not much of a surprise, but each type of humanoid enemies has its own sets of insults and challenges to throw the Prince's way. These would not have been much of a surprise, if not for the occasional retort from the Prince, which helps to make confrontations with these enemies much more convincing.

The Prince, especially his Dark Prince alter-ego, also has some remarks about particularly challenging platforming sequences. There is also a remark about how many trap-filled rooms that he has to go through, though this would underscore the aforementioned contrivances of the game at platforming.

Although the Prince may have become a jaded and worry-filled person, his sometimes humorous wit, which was generally absent in Warrior of Within, has returned. Much of it will be spent on making retorts against his dark self, which is a lot more cynical.

As for the alter-ego that is the Dark Prince, his snide remarks are not too frequent as to be grating and he is more helpful than not. He also has some amusingly cynical remarks, especially for when he finds the mortal Prince in his moments of emotional weakness. The Dark Prince is definitely callous, but perhaps appropriately so for such a character.

A certain member of another line of royalty returns from the first game. Although she still sounds like the sprightly girl that she was, that she is not always at her Prince's side to make witty remarks only makes the bitterness at having her life being ruined stand out more. This would not be an issue to some people, but it will be to those who remember her conversations with the Prince and their progression.

The other important characters have so little screen-time that their voice-overs are almost forgettable.

CHARACTER MODELS:

Perhaps harking back to an amusingly silly trope in the first game in the Sands of Time trilogy, The Two Thrones has multiple models for the Prince, to simulate the rigours of his dangerous travails. The Prince starts out otherwise well-clothed, eventually becoming half-naked and showing off his highly athletic build, as well as more than a few scars and minor injuries.

Although some characters may be returning characters from previous games, including the Prince, their models in the game are so different that they can seem barely recognizable. The most immediately recognizable of them is fortunately the Prince, thanks to his lanky short hair and beard, but everyone else is only recognizable because the Prince happens to either think aloud or speak their names when he saw them for the first time in the game, or refers to them by name when he is narrating the story.

For example, a certain princess from the first game returns in The Two Thrones, but is barely recognizable as she is garbed in entirely different clothing; her facial features are also different in this game. If not for the Prince's monologue which identifies her by name, it would not have been possible for even followers of the franchise to immediately recognize her (unless they have watched the various promotional videos and followed the development of the game).

The other characters, however, at least have very unique-looking models to make them almost immediately distinguishable whenever they appear on-screen.

Perhaps due to unwillingness to let go of the violent undertones of Warrior Within, the designers of Two Thrones have implemented animations of decapitations for some of the humanoid models in the game, though the Prince does not have any. The decapitations are not too gory though; instead of gore, there is a mixture of some blood and a lot of sparkly sand spilling out of the wounds.

PARTICLE EFFECTS:

Speaking of sparkly sands, there are a lot of particle effects in this game and most of them are associated with the Sands of Time, which always appear as magical gusts of sparkling beige-colored dust.

The best particle effects in the game are reserved for the Dark Prince's emergences. Plenty of smoke, ash and swirling tendrils of ominous black accompany the Prince's transformation, which is further accentuated with cinematic camera angles.

ANIMATIONS:

Although the QTEs can be annoying to some, they are accompanied by entertaining animations. For example, the speed-kills performed with the mortal form of the Prince are deadly athletic feats; it can be a joy to watch the Prince stab and slash enemies repeatedly with the Dagger of Time. Speed-kills that are performed with the Dark Prince often involve a lot of strangulation with his chain-whip, as well as the occasional decapitation.

The best animations in the game of course belong to the athletic Prince. He is still as entertaining to look at as he was in the previous games when he negotiated the various obstacles in his way. His animations for regular combat are just as flashy, such as the animations that are used for when he vaults over enemies and staggers them.

Most of the animations that the player would be looking at are those for the contraptions and traps that riddle the levels though. Most of them move in convincingly foreboding and worrisome ways, with the wicked-looking saws being of particularly noteworthy mention.

LIGHTING:

Like the previous games, The Two Thrones has a lot of textures that also happen to be light sources. These are often associated with creatures and people that have been affected by the Sands of Time.

The Two Thrones, however, has the advantage of having access to bloom technology, which it uses copiously for said textures. Unfortunately, this also means that the skeins on mutated creatures and infected people can be too brilliant to look at comfortably, which is a shame, as the skeins are artfully stylized, especially those on the Dark Prince.

Another considerable lighting to be seen in the game is rays of sunlight shining into indoor areas, but although these look pretty, their contribution to the shadowing and blooming effects in the game are minimal.

OTHER GRAPHICAL DESIGNS:

The prompts for the aforementioned speed-kill QTEs are fortunately not mere icons and texts appearing on-screen to tell the player which button to press. Instead, the edges of the screen are subjected to motion-blur whenever a speed-kill sequence can be performed. Pressing any attack button initiates the QTEs. The motion-blur effect is also used for the input prompts during QTE sequences, in addition to dramatic camera pans and zooms.

SOUND EFFECTS:

Most of the sound effects have been recycled from previous games, though this should not be an issue to fans as they were already satisfactorily appropriate. Of course, this would mean that they would be listening to noises that are already familiar to them already, such as the clashing of metal, tapping of feet on walls and, perhaps most familiarly of all, the otherworldly noise that accompanies the rewinding of time.

Any new sound effects to be heard in this game that has not been heard before earlier in the Sands of Time trilogy would be associated with the Dark Prince. The clinking of chains in particular is pervasive in his moments within the game.

MUSIC:

The musical tracks in the game typically have stereotypical Middle Eastern vibes, though this does not necessarily mean that they are any less pleasant to listen to for that. They are, however, a lot less refreshing to listen now that the Sands of Time series has progressed to its third entry with Stuart Chatwood still involved in the designs of the music.

Anyway, most of them would elicit a sense of ominous suspense and wonderment, themes of which had been quite prevalent in the series for a long while but which are nonetheless very appropriate.

If there is any significant difference that the tracks in The Two Thrones have when compared to their predecessors, it is that they have more vocals in their composition. This is likely due to the involvement of Inon Zur, who has been known for such decisions in musical composition in many other games.

CONCLUSION:

The Two Thrones can be argued as being essentially more of the same that has been seen in earlier games in the Sands of Time trilogy, though it does attempt to include more variety in the gameplay experience. Unfortunately, not all of said variety is as worthwhile as the primary gameplay of platforming and combat.

Aesthetics-wise, The Two Thrones may not seem artistically more sophisticated than its predecessors. However, the camera-work in The Two Thrones is the best to be seen in the Sands of Time trilogy, though this came at the price of possibly-annoying QTE sequences.

The story designs attempt to return to mix the best elements of the stories in the first and second titles, but they are nowhere near as interesting as the testy relationship between the Prince and his darker self, which is fortunately the best executed element of the game.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Mon, 13 May 2013 23:03:58 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/prince-of-persia-the-two-thrones/user-reviews/811279/platform/pc/ Thu, 09 May 2013 02:23:28 -0700 Gelugon_baat reviewed Eufloria for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/eufloria/user-reviews/811139/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 7.0.

INTRO:

With a name like "Eufloria" and abstract visuals, this game would have given the first impression that it is a game that one plays to relax and unwind. In fact, its first level, which has the player seeding asteroids with life, would suggest so to the unsuspecting player.

However, Eufloria is hardly a relaxing game. More observant players would notice how deeply its presentation and ambience contrasts with its fast-paced and sometimes unforgiving gameplay. The contrast can even seem insulting, in the eyes of the more cynical.

PREMISE:

This apparently single-player-only game has a story that is set in some fictional universe where space is rendered down into a 2-D abstract plane. The only celestial bodies to be found are so-called "asteroids", which appear as grey circles with black outlines.

Seemingly, the only lifeforms to be found are semi-sentient plants. These plants are also represented in abstract manners, being presented with shapes that have silhouettes resembling the things that they are named after.

Anyway, these plants have the same goal: colonizing the asteroids, for that is what they were made for in the eyes of the mysterious "Growers", at least according to the tales given by the character known as the "Mother Trees". However, they are still split into warring factions that are not inclined to share a sector of asteroids with others, thus leading to conflict.

It is one of these factions that the player takes control of. It has ventured out from its long-isolated homeworld in search of the Growers and other plants, but only to discover that the universe is quite a hostile place.

There is a story in the game if the player wants to follow it, but to do so, the player will have to put up with quite a lot of repetition of mission objectives; this will be elaborated later. However, if the player is expecting epic story-telling, he/she would be disappointed.

SEEDLINGS & PLANTING TREES:

If the player starts his/her time with the main game mode, which is also the story mode, the player will be introduced to the seedlings first. These flight-capable creatures are the main units that the player uses to achieve victory.

However, unlike the usual designs for controlling units in other RTS games, the seedlings cannot be directly selected. Instead, they have to be controlled via selecting the asteroid that they are on. After selecting an asteroid, the player either has to make several mouse-clicks, hold down buttons or a combination of the two to direct a specific number of seedlings elsewhere.

Such controls can seem clumsy. One can argue that this was to overcome the consequences of the idle behaviour of seedlings, which is that they orbit around the asteroid that they are on. This issue could have been avoided if the seedlings stay still for the purpose of direct selection, though arguably they would have looked very dull and boring if they had been this way.

Being seedlings, they can be directed to plant themselves on asteroids and turn into trees. Interestingly, the player needs a handful of seedlings to grow a tree, but only one of them turns into that. This was likely intended for both purposes of gameplay balance and aesthetic presentation (which will be described later).

Another issue with planting trees is that where the trees are planted is a matter that depends on the densities of flocks of seedlings around an asteroid; the densest flock will form the next tree. As the player has little control over the movement of the seedlings, where trees are planted is a random occurrence.

The seedlings' seemingly benign appearance belies their other role, which is to act as fighter planes. For what are supposed to be plants, they can fire lasers out of their tips at opposing seedlings and plants, eventually obliterating them if the latter are injured enough. Damaged seedlings can eventually heal, but this takes a long while.

The first occurrence of this can be quite a shock for the unsuspecting player; people that knew little about the game would not have expected such a revelation in the nature of the seedlings.

CONQUERING ASTEROIDS:

Seedlings are needed to conquer enemy-controlled asteroids. The seedlings that the player has committed to attacking an enemy-controlled asteroid will savagely fire lasers away at opposing seedlings and any trees that may be in the way.

However, there may be a problem with how the seedlings wrest control of the asteroids.

To do this, they must destroy at least one of the trees. As the player cannot directly control and command seedlings, they cannot be directed to concentrate their attention on a single tree. Moreover, trees may be randomly scattered about an asteroid, which complicates the conquest of an asteroid further.

Another problem is revealed when the seedlings have finally taken down an enemy tree. Most of the player's seedlings on that asteroid will converge on the base of the tree in an attempt to infiltrate its root. Unfortunately, the game has restrictions on the rate of infiltration, so even if the player has dozens or even hundreds of seedlings attacking an asteroid, only a handful can enter the root whereas the rest bounce off the asteroid uselessly.

This would not have been a significant problem if not for the fact that seedlings that are trying to enter the root will not do anything else, including attacking any enemy seedlings or defensive trees. Meanwhile, only a very small proportion of the invading swarm would focus on eliminating any remaining defenders. This hole in their A.I. design can result in unacceptable losses, especially if there are defensive trees (more on these later).

Anyway, once the seedlings manage to get into a root, they will travel towards the core of the asteroid and kill themselves so as to deplete the core energy of the asteroid. Depleting the core energy of an asteroid causes ownership of said asteroid to revert to the owner of the invading seedlings.

However, the conqueror does not get to exploit the asteroid immediately, due to balancing measures that will be described later.

TREES:

Trees that are created by seedlings are not immediately useful to the player. They start off small, producing whatever they make at a rate that would not help the player recoup the costs of having planted them in a short time.

However, given enough time, trees grow taller and generate more branches, which in turn lead to a faster rate of production for whatever they create. Time appears to be the main factor of growth, but the percentage of core energy of the asteroid also appears to play a role. This means that a newly conquered asteroid is not very productive at either creating new units or nurturing newly planted trees.

Damage that an immature tree has sustained will slow down its growth, though it will eventually heal if left alone long enough (higher percentages of core energy also lets it heal faster).

Eventually, a tree will reach maturity and no longer has increasing productivity. This is perhaps for the better, as otherwise, players with a predilection for turtling strategies would have an unfair advantage.

There are a couple of types of trees that can be planted. The main tree is the Dyson tree, which creates seedlings as well as another plant form that will be described later. The other tree is the Defensive tree, which creates bomb-like seedlings that pursue enemies and explode for great effect, especially against clusters of seedlings.

These trees can be enhanced with Flowers, which will be described later as they are late-stage units.

Any trees that have been destroyed will leave their roots behind, which can be used by invaders to attack their asteroid core. Even if the invasion had been fended off before the asteroid can be taken over, the roots will remain for a long while; there is no way to manually seal or destroy the root.

Any tree that has been planted on an asteroid cannot be replaced; this is a design that the game does not emphasize, unfortunately. Therefore, once the player learns of this, he/she may want to consider his/her choice of trees carefully.

There is also another issue concerning trees, specifically trees that had been destroyed in the process of conquering asteroids. Once seedlings have successfully used a root to take over an asteroid, a tree of a certain type (more on types of trees later) grows out of the root. It is uncertain which tree it would be, though it tends to be a Dyson tree. This can result in undesirable ratios of certain types of trees against the other types.

ASTEROIDS & TRAVELLING RANGE:

The size of an asteroid generally determines the amount of core energy that it has; a larger asteroid tends to have more core energy. The larger an asteroid is, the longer the roots that the trees on it have; this means that invading seedlings will take a longer time to reach its core.

The size of an asteroid also determines the capabilities of units that are created on it. Generally, the larger an asteroid is, the more powerful the units that are created from it are.

Units can only launch themselves at another asteroid from an asteroid that is aligned to their side. However, the size of the asteroid also determines the distance that they can travel from it. Generally, the bigger the asteroid is, the longer the distance that they can travel.

(This can seem odd to people who know something about gravitational pulls and how the mass of celestial bodies affects the launch of objects from them.)

This means that if the player is not careful, he/she can have seedlings and other units stranded on the destination asteroid without being able to return. This can happen when the player has them moving from a substantially larger asteroid to a smaller one. They can return, but they may have to take routes across other asteroids.

However, there is a nuance about the limitations on travelling range that can overcome said limitation in a clever way, though the game does not inform the player about it. A seedling can move from one player-owned asteroid to another asteroid within the overall travelling range of its faction even if the launching asteroid cannot provide the range; the seedling does so by flying straight at a third asteroid within said overall travelling range and bouncing off it to reach the destination asteroid.

This third asteroid can be any other faction's asteroid or even one that has not been colonized yet. (This knowledge is crucial in one of the levels late into the story mode.)

It is worth noting here that the size of an asteroid does not determine how many seedlings and other things can orbit around it. This means that even small asteroids can have dense clouds of seedlings swarming over them. However, if there are more than 40 seedlings on an asteroid, any Dyson trees on that asteroid will not produce any more seedlings.

Clever players would know that such small asteroids can be exploited as rendezvous points to amass seedlings. After all, small asteroids produce lousy units, so sending seedlings over to them and suppressing their trees would not be an issue.

However, that there is a limit on the number of seedlings that an asteroid can have orbiting it before its seedling production shuts down means that the player has to have seedlings amassing elsewhere so their parent trees can continue creating new ones. This would not have been a problem if not for the lack of automated rendezvous commands like those that are found in present-day RTS games.

The number of trees that an asteroid can support apparently depends on scenario conditions; there is no other factor. In some levels, the scenario is such that the asteroids are described as "fertile", i.e. being able to support many trees. In some others, they can only support a few.

CAMERA ZOOM DISTANCE & MAP VIEW:

The player can zoom out to get a wider view of the map, but the zoom level is initially limited by the greatest distance between any two asteroids that the player controls. This can be a bit annoying because each level is procedurally generated, so the placement of asteroids is random. Having unfettered zoom could have helped the player plan his/her expansion (usually towards large asteroids), but there is no such convenience.

This would not have been a serious problem and could have been rationalized as a game-balancing control, except that the A.I.-controlled factions tend not to be subjected to these limitations and can appear to already know where the locations of the best asteroids are. That they can be observed going on uncannily convenient paths towards lucrative asteroids, assuming that the player does not stop them, strongly suggest this.

In addition, the player cannot see what is on an asteroid and what is around it until he/she has sent a seedling to visit said asteroid. The real-time view of the asteroid is permanently available afterwards, but the player will not be able to see incoming invasions until they are upon him/her, if he/she has not scouted out nearby asteroids too.

Again, this is an issue, as A.I.-controlled factions sometimes appear to be able to know when a nearby asteroid is vulnerable to invasion, even if the player knows that they have not sent seedlings to check it out yet. These computer-controlled factions do send scouts periodically, but that they sometimes send it towards asteroids that they have already visited or even owned earlier strongly suggests that this is just a farcical scripted behaviour intended to put up the pretence of them doing reconnaissance.

Then, there is a scenario that occurs almost at the end of the story mode where enemy factions are practically blind to the player's presence until he/she scouts out their territory; even if they send scouts over, they appear to be oblivious to what their scouts have discovered.

This goes against many RTS principles that scouting early is to the player's benefit and the player should kill scouts before they discover the player's position; in the case of this scenario, the already-established enemy factions would know where the player is if the player scouted early and would mount devastating early-stage attacks. Players who persevere would find out, perhaps much to their chagrin, that turtling is the only way to win in this scenario.

UNIT STATISTICS:

There are three statistics that govern the performance of a unit: energy, strength and speed. Energy determines how much punishment they can take before they are obliterated, strength converts to their damage output and speed influences how fast they move about.

It is worth noting here that when attempting to conquer an asteroid, energy is just as important as strength. This is because the damage that a seedling can inflict on the core energy of the asteroid is dependent on its remaining hitpoints.

A unit can have any combination of statistics. This happens to alter its appearance too, as will be elaborated later. For now, it should suffice to say that this is not exactly a handy visual aid because their statistic-dependent visual features can only be seen with a close camera zoom, which is not a prudent way to play the game with.

With a far-out zoom, the only way to select seedlings is to double-click on an asteroid and pick a type of seedling from the menu that comes up. The menu lists seedlings according to the statistics that they are particularly loaded with.

However, this is ultimately of little use to the experienced player, who will know that sending a mixture of seedlings, or high numbers of seedlings, are more useful than sending seedlings with a particular focus on a statistic. After all, there is no rock-paper-scissors system to Eufloria's battles.

FLOWERS & LASER MINES:

In addition to the quintessential seedlings, there are other kinds of units, though these are only introduced later into the story mode of the game.

Dyson trees that have being around longer than others may produce flowers, which can be placed next to any tree, including their parent tree, to enhance its production. However, beyond the factor of the age of the tree, the production of flowers is quite random; it is possible that an old Dyson tree would never produce a flower at all, though it can only produce one flower in its lifetime if it does, that is for certain.

Flowers are very vulnerable units and are easy to be destroyed, whether they are still floating around or have taken residence under a tree. However, they are not prioritized by invading seedlings, so they tend to be untouched during a battle.

Sticking flowers next to Dyson trees adds their statistics (which are obtained from their parent trees) to the seedlings that it creates, turning them into what the game calls "enhanced seedlings". Therefore, it may be in the player's interest to consider very carefully where to plant flowers.

Planting flowers next to Defensive trees makes them create what the game simply calls "Laser Mines". There is a limit of one laser mine to each tree, for good reasons that will be explained shortly.

Laser mines are practically offense-oriented seedlings. They are considerably tougher than seedlings that originate from the same asteroids, but are generally slower and larger targets. Their role is to zap enemy seedlings, which they do with four continuously firing laser beams.

Indeed, a powerful enough laser mine can clear a dozen or more seedlings from an asteroid without much return fire, though flocks of seedlings can be too much for any laser mine as it lacks area-effect weaponry. However, the destruction of laser mines also happens to immediately obliterate seedlings in the radius of explosion, so a handful of laser mines may be more cost effective when used against defending swarms of seedlings.

If there is a serious problem with laser mines, it is that they do not attack trees when they are sent after an enemy-controlled asteroid. It can be distressing for an inexperienced player to learn this the hard way, after having watched a laser mine doing nothing while an enemy-owned defensive tree sends bomb after bomb after it.

The game does not immediately deploy laser mines and flowers. The player has to "pluck" them off their parent trees by clicking on them. This would have been a hassle, if not for the fact that seedlings cannot specifically target flowers and laser mines that are still on their parent trees.

GAME MODES:

By default, the story mode of Eufloria, called the "main game" in-game, is the only one available. However, the latest build of the game (which is already a few years old by the time of this writing) allows the player to manually unlock other modes.

This is not recommended, because these other modes and the gameplay in them tend to be introduced via the story mode. Jumping into them before unlocking them through the course of the story mode can result in confusion and frustration.

Unfortunately, the story mode can be considered as the blandest mode in the game. This is due to frequently occurring objectives of the same kind, with the most tiresome of them being the need to conquer every asteroid in a map. This contrasts greatly with the interesting and challenging starting conditions of some of the levels in the story mode.

For example, there is one level where the player starts with only a couple of handfuls of seedlings and only two asteroids, and have to fend off possible attacks by warring factions that have already established themselves. The player must decide quickly where to relocate and entrench himself/herself before being caught in the inevitable crossfire. Unfortunately, once the player has solidified a strong beachhead, the usual, rote chore of conquering each and every asteroid begins anew again.

In comparison, the other game modes may seem more immediately interesting, though they are not without problems. There is the oddly-named "Arena mode", which consists of several levels that can be played in any order. Each level has its own objectives, which tend to be more interesting than those in the story mode.

Unfortunately, Arena mode would also highlight an issue with the user-friendliness of Eufloria: the game does not have any tool that allows the player to review the objectives in any level. There is only a textbox at the start of every level that mentions the objectives, but it is up to the player to keep the objectives in mind, which is hardly convenient.

In the story mode of Eufloria, the player will be introduced to a faction of plants that are called by the player's faction as the "Grey Sickness". They would seem to be no different from other factions, except that they do not appear to be able to create new trees and they are quite unpredictable. They will be a recurring enemy throughout the story mode, but to mention more would be to mention spoilers.

The only significant individual character in the story mode is the aforementioned Mother Tree. This character briefs the player on the objectives. As the story progresses, an observant player may notice that the Mother Tree becomes more severe as the player's faction encounters more and more hostile factions of plants.

After finishing the story mode, the player is introduced to the newly unlocked "Dark Matter" game mode. This is practically the entire story mode all over again, but with cosmetic changes such as a very dark background instead of the default grey one and gameplay changes such as the enemy being predominantly the Grey Sickness. This mode can seem to have little more value than a mod of the story mode, which can be disappointing to some.

GRAPHICS:

At first glance, the aesthetics of the game strongly suggest that it is a relaxing game. This is portrayed via visuals such as a handful of seedlings planting themselves into an asteroid "head"-first, one of them quickly growing into a tree while the rest turns into grass foliage around it. The tree creates a single root that curves its way to the core of the asteroid, and then it grows in real-time.

Meanwhile, new seedlings sprout and grow from the tips of its branches, further reinforcing the abstract visuals of the tree. Trees grow in real-time. If the player is willing to spend some precious time to look at them, the changes in size are slow enough to be subtle.


However, this serene imagery is cast away when the seedlings engage in combat. They flit about, firing lasers out of their tips and obliterating each other. Their demise is accompanied by particle effects that resemble leaves being incinerated (in an abstract manner of course).

The appearances of the seedlings depend on their statistics. Greater energy results in larger rear regions for the seedlings, which can look quite silly if their two other statistics are not as great. Meanwhile, having greater strength gives seedlings greater tips, which can also look silly. Higher speed results in larger wings (which may also be their leaves) for the seedlings, which is a lot less silly to look at.

On the other hand, the player would not be looking at seedlings this close. To be able to command them effectively and wage war against the other factions of plants, the player will need to have a far-out zoom to be able to see what is going in the map. Speaking of maps, there is no mini-map to help the player keep track of the situation.

When using a far-out zoom, seedlings are rendered as coloured motes, with no visual indicator of their statistics. This may have been for the better, as the player may need to move around hundreds of seedlings without too many visual indicators clogging up the screen.

Similarly, the sprites for trees are replaced with symbols, which are convenient if the player wants to examine what colonized asteroids have with just a glance. However, as the placement of trees on an asteroid is random, the symbols sometimes overlap, making it difficult to differentiate trees if the player is using a far-out zoom.

There are visual indicators for enhanced seedlings; these appear as coloured auras around said seedlings. This can make the clouds of seedlings seem even denser than they are; this can be a problem. Fortunately, selecting an asteroid shows the number of player-owned seedlings and the number of enemy seedlings orbiting around it.

Asteroids are dull when they have yet to be colonized, but when they are, they glow with a soothing aura. Trees that are on them have pulses of coloured energy going up into them, representing the energy that they are drawing from the asteroid.

The laser mines and flowers would seem clumsy compared to the graceful seedlings, which at least have some animations. They just float around, seemingly looking even clumsier than when they collide with and bounce off asteroids before regaining control over their paths.

The limitations of the abstract artstyle can be seen when the player considers the limited colour schemes for things in the game. This would not have been an issue if not for the need to recognize seedlings of different factions from their colour.

As the game uses the main colour of the colour scheme of any faction and due to the random assignment of colours to factions in the story mode, recognizing seedlings of different factions can be occasionally difficult, as their main colors may well seem similar to the chromatically inexperienced eye. The game does allow the player to pick his/her own colour scheme from a significant selection, but there is no guarantee that the other randomized factions would have colour schemes with significant contrast.

SOUNDS:

There would not be much of anything exciting to be heard from Eufloria. In fact, except for a few sound clips that are associated with battle, its sound designs are just as serene as its visuals.

Most of the important occurrences in the game are accompanied by chimes or artificial flute tunes. For example, a distinct chime plays whenever the player obtains another asteroid, through either colonization or conquest. However, this also happens to occur for when other factions obtain asteroids too, though the chime is slightly subdued for such occurrences.

When battle commences, the player can listen to the teeny noises of seedlings firing their lasers and the brief rumble that accompanies the obliteration of a seedling. Laser mines have different noises for their multiple laser beams, which announce their presence among seedlings.

However, all of these sounds cannot be heard when the player zooms far out, which would be most of the time. This is perhaps for the better, as the noises from battles on multiple asteroids can be overwhelming. On the other hand, this also means that most of these sounds would have been wasted.

The music consists of a handful of tracks. Most of them are serene-sounding, but are not particularly memorable, especially if the player has listened to the music of far higher-profile indie games of Eufloria's time. There is not a single track that is appropriate for battles, unfortunately.


OTHER COMPLAINTS:

Considering the real-time strategy gameplay of Eufloria, that the game lacks any form of multiplayer is a wasted opportunity. On the other hand, the player is not likely to find a willing participant for multiplayer matches if there was multiplayer anyway; the game was so under-promoted by its maker that it is very much obscure.

The lack of multiplayer options perhaps also highlights another potential problem with the game; playing it can make one feel lonesome, especially if one considers the themes of isolation in its story.

The mismatch between the game's serene aesthetics and RTS gameplay has already been mentioned. However, it also has to be mentioned here that despite the sometimes frantic gameplay, the serene visuals and audio can lull some people to sleep – from which they may awaken to find that the battlefront has collapsed and they have lost a few asteroids. There is no audio warning for when the situation gets worse.

CONCLUSION:

To unsuspecting people, Eufloria's RTS gameplay would not have been immediately apparent because of its abstract artstyle, serene visuals and lulling audio. This gives an impression that the game-maker may not have made up their minds about what the game would be early in its development. As for its RTS gameplay, it is just decent, but it has issues about user-friendliness that while minor, could not be easily dismissed.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"Gelugon_baat reviewed Eufloria for the PC..." was posted by Gelugon_baat on Thu, 09 May 2013 02:23:28 -0700
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