Game Curmudgeons

Okay, this one is a little odd. Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you. A combined force of Chris Taylor and Brad Wardell (and their respective dev teams of course) have been working on something very unique, and it works very well.

Demigod touts itself as an RTS, the kind you can pick up and play a whole game of in 30 minutes (at least that’s the expectation, the game is being balanced and refined until launch, and knowing Stardock, beyond). It’s a hero based RTS, in some ways. Players control areas, destroy buildings, there’s lots and lots of doods in pre-built bases. But there’s very little reinforcing of what’s already there, or building really. A few characters can lay mines or summon temporary fortifications, but mostly once it’s gone, it’s gone.

But in other ways it’s an action RPG, with players controlling a hero unit and attacking the hordes and other heroes with special powers they gain through experience, earned by killing doods, taking flags, and destroying other hero units. Spells and swords, hacking through hordes.

And to top it off, it’s a musou game (think Dynasty warriors). Players control a massively powerful hero unit that runs around to help the AI doods who do their own things and can turn the tide of battle for them. They use special powers and raw offensive ability (or the ability to reinforce troops or weaken enemy morale), destroy massive groups at once, and are mostly unthreatened by non-hero units unless they’re in large groups.

Gameplay in Demigod is fairly simple to get into, but has plenty of depth and strategy once the matches get going, which doesn’t take long at all. Units start pouring out of spawn portals, demigods rush out toward flags after maybe spending a little money on an upgrade, clashes begin immediately and things get nasty. Demigod is action from the get-go, with only occasional breaks to catch an unwatched flag or retreat to heal. There’s a back and forth feel at points, and it’s easy to get caught in bottlenecks or for a battle to get stuck at a point, but that’s when demigods make the difference. Smart players will flank, use skills properly, and open up new paths by helping to destroy local enemies and allow their forces to push ahead.

Ultimately that’s Demigod‘s current state, a constant back and forth push, and once someone has momentum it can be very hard to stop them, but once it’s lost, breaking that stalemate becomes the challenge again. Since every demigod plays differently, how that’s done is going to be different most of the time and rarely an easy proposition. The maps are well balanced (essentially symmetrical), the game is based on getting 4-12 players together for team matches, and the community, at this point, is pretty friendly. The fact the game is based on teamwork doesn’t hurt, and that it’s only expected to take 30 minutes for a full match seems to cut off rage quits surprisingly well.

So far, I love it. I’m learning new things with each game, and everyone has a style of their own. By putting the focus so specifically on the main units the game plays much smoother than others in the genre. Don’t get me wrong, I love building up a huge base, holding off attacks and facing epic battles, but sometimes I just want to kick some ass. Demigod respects that, and encourages me to do it. It doesn’t have the intellectual satisfaction of pulling off major gambits, winning drawn out tactical battles, but it does have a visceral joy of wrecking tons of enemies, being the epic hero and doing battle with other epic heroes, leading your forces to victory.

While there’s still refinements to be made since the game is in beta, I think it’s going to be well worth the $40 price, especially with the meta-tourmanent for people to participate in, and likely long term rewards like favor items.

To put it simply, if this was the final version, I’d recommend it fully.

For the last few days, I’ve had a fever of 104 degrees. In attempts to kill time between Nyquil induced spells of unconciousness, I’ve played a little Afro Samurai, a little Amped 3, and a ton of Peggle: Dual Shot.

I really like the first two on the list, but I could only play a little at a time due to fever. And yet, if I’m awake, Peggle is always an option. It’s just that good. Hell, I’m playing it as a write this.

Let’s pretend that you’ve never heard of Peggle, haven’t already had it on PC for a year or two, and don’t know what the deal is.

Peggle is a game where you clear a board of pegs. To win players need to hit all the orange pegs, though there’s lots of blue pegs, a few green pegs, and traveling purple pegs as well.

There’s a ball launcher at the top of the screen. You aim, and you fire. Whatever your ball hits lights up and disappears, guided by physics. Simple as that, really.

Green pegs give special effects (an explosion that lights up all nearby pegs, or a guide that shows the angle the ball will take after the first bounce). Purple pegs give bonus points, and five of them result in the ball entering a bonus area where you can rack up a higher score by collecting gems AND earn an extra ball. And players get the shot back automatically just for getting to the bonus underground, which can result in two free shots easily.

It’s hard to describe Peggle beyond that. The concept is very simple, and there’s a multitude of brilliantly designed levels each with unique challenges. The artwork is top notch, with very nicely rendered backgrounds, though the foregrounds are low-resolution, both for the sake of framerate and likely processor power to keep the physics as accurate as possible. The sounds are simple but effective, audio cues indicating when you’ve done something special (as well as text), and clearing a board results in Ode To Joy playing just as ever. The game seems like random chaos at first, but after some practice, the patterns become more and more clear. Soon players will consistently get extra shots and long range hits that seemed impossible when they started.

The writing for the Adventure modes is highly amusing (even moreso for Peggle Nights, which is the sequel to the original and included in Dual Shot), there’s a massive amount of master challenges once Adventure mode is complete, quickplay options, and a duel mode played by passing the DS between two players (sadly no wireless option, but old-school hot seat certainly does the job). The game has an undeniable charm and ease to pick up, with an apparent simplicity that quickly gives way to real depth with practice and mastery. It’s a spectacular game on PC and Xbox Live Arcade, but DS might be the perfect platform for it. Peggle in your pocket, wherein you can go for a challenge wherever you are. On the bus, waiting in line, sitting in a theatre seat 50 minutes early so you don’t get stuck in the very front row for Watchmen, whenever, wherever.

Peggle:Dual Shot gets 5 out of 5. It’s too bad it doesn’t have wireless dueling, but it comes with tons of challenges, a good amount of exclusive levels, and both Peggle games on one cartridge. It’s a hell of a value, even if Marina, my favorite master and the addition to Nights, wasn’t included.

Meridian4 is publishing a new puzzle title, and there’s something interesting about this one. It looks fairly simple, it’s a physics based puzzle game, a weakness of mine, and it’s all about orbs.

Sounds simple, should provide some fun challenges, the basic tenant of any puzzle game, really.

Video here!

Well, it’s been a few years since we’ve done this, hasn’t it? This may or may not be a good thing, if you were as disappointed as I was by the latter titles. Two Thrones as a big improvement over Warrior Within, but it still never made it to the level of the first.

Fortunately, this new prince, with his new slice of Persia, and a new lady, is closer to the first effort than the latter ones.

The core gameplay has remained the same, at least the platforming sections. Wallruns, walljumps, swinging around poles, that sort of thing. There’s some additions now which spice it up a bit, thanks the this Prince’s fancy gauntlet.

Of course, it’s still about running, jumping, climbing trees (well, not so much of that actually), sliding, avoiding traps made of bad guy corruption sauce, and occasionally swording an enemy in the face. The platforming sections are spectacularly well done still, feeling surprisingly open despite the overall linear nature. A large amount is illusion, with several branching options out of a main base branching into four interconnected areas, which themselves connect to four looped areas which are, again, connected to each other. A little effort can get players to most any piece of the world, though there won’t always be something to do there, until you manage to collect the power orbs (an annoying grind, frankly) which give access to new powers for Elika, allowing new movement methods around the world.

There is a certain feeling of awkwardness occasionally during movement, or perhaps it’s a loose sense of timing. Previously you had to be precise with the input, which kept you very focused. Now hitting a button early or late can still result in making the move. It’s almost like there’s a two second window before input is needed in some things, particularly platforms and rings used to extend acrobatic actions, as well as attacks in combat. It makes the same seem to play itself quite often. It just doesn’t flow quite right because of the very loose nature of the timing, and sections can feel like memorization exercises (mostly by unforseen traps) as much as a continuous advance. Combat too suffers, making players memorize attack strings and enemy patterns (not always a bad thing, except when you’re forced to react a certain way to certain enemy status changes to not die – well, not be resurrected shamefully).

Despite the occasionally stuttered feeling, the game manages to be quite fun most of the time, and rarely forces players to backtrack too far. Two major exceptions though, to that. One is the end boss fight. It’s…well, pretty bad. It should have been absolutely amazing, honestly, but it was just slow and repetitive, with a slight miss on the timing resulting in a significant backtrack. There’s also an annoying amount of item collection, in the form of pretty white light orbs. While it’s easy to obtain the first level’s worth, after that it feels like a grind hunting down the orbs.

Of course, I did finish the game, and enjoy doing so, no small part of that due to presentation. The game looks and sounds absolutely beautiful. All my early comments of someone spilling Final Fantasy into it? Revoked. While there’s certainly artistic inspiration, Prince of Persia takes it as its own wonderfully. The characters look great, the worlds are beautiful, and the sound just the same. Excellent voice acting, beautiful music, and great ambient. It might be a better game to watch than to play, honestly. I’ll be looking for a soundtrack on this one and I really hope to see the visual team take over more projects. It takes elements from the previous games and goes somewhere absolutely amazing with them, in the direction they should have gone after Sands of Time. The game is a wonderful relief from the industrial shit brown that became so prevalent in gaming once 3d became standard. It understands that dark setting and tone don’t always mean grey and brown. Of course there is plenty, but it’s never so plain and bland as it is in most cases.

Prince of Persia gets 4 of 5 canes. The gameplay can be lacking, but the bold move of no death penalty absolutely works, and there are moments of pure joy when you get through a new area purely by reflex. And the aesthetics are a standard everyone should be striving for.