Tag Archives: Game Reviews

Diablo 3, a month later.

  June 5, 2012 - 12:14 pm | Diablo 3, Game Reviews, MMO, Wall of Text
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-=Author’s note=- If you have not played the game yet, or are unsure about purchasing it, please read to the end – I have 3 keys to give away.

-=Author’s note 2=- All the guest passes are already given away, but feel free to continue commenting. I’m also working on a prize within the next month or so, drawn from a random person who “Likes” the MisGuilded Facebook page.

It’s almost a month since Diablo 3′s original release, so I thought I’d share my experience so far, as well as a bit more insight to those that haven’t purchased it yet. I had taken 3 weeks off work to concentrate solely on D3, but unfortunately a wedding and a few birthdays got in the way of me getting to the level cap in the top percentage. Oh, and an early warning – this review contains no screenshots and is the longest game review on this site.

Anyway – my experiences: On first installation I was greeted with, as could be expected from a Blizzard title, a patch download. Thankfully this was nowhere close to the size of your average pre-expansion WoW patch, so I was quickly up and playing. After a few “The server is busy” errors I was in and heading in to New Tristram. For fans of Diablo 2, the first thing you notice is how well the game feels. Instead of reinventing everything, they stuck to the original formula where they could. The playstyle is immediately identifiable as Diablo, something that they could have gotten wrong so easily.

The main differences come with how health is regenerated. Instead of the original usage of belts with tons of health potions of your choice that can be used as rapidly as you can press buttons, there is a single “quick heal” button with the currently selected health potion. This is further hampered by the fact that, like the way they changed WoW in early Burning Crusade, there is a cooldown on the potions. No more spamming potions while facing a difficult boss. This, along with other changes I’ll be going over a bit later, are all part of the push toward more e-sport orientation – the PVP balancing element. Thankfully the health potions are supplemented with health globes that are periodically dropped by creatures as you kill or damage them. These are not inventory items; instead you run across them and they heal you for a certain amount. This has its own pros and cons, mostly in the fact that you usually accidentally pick three or four up at the wrong time as you’re fighting a big creature.

The skills have also been simplified – gone is the old skill tree, to be replaced by a set of skills for each class, with runes unlocked as you level up. These runes change the way each skill behaves – some will grant you additional health on usage, others will change the area of damage or the amount of damage, or add a stun effect or the duration of the ability. This change also makes sense from a balancing point of view. With less skills to worry about, Blizzard can tweak them to perfection for use in PVP, or nerf (as they so love to do) skills that are too popular and  cause the PVE gameplay to be too easy.

Another new addition is that, along with your left and right-click abilities, you now also have four skills that are assigned to the buttons 1-4 on your keyboard, a selection previously reserved for all those extra health potions.

A fourth difficulty, Inferno, was also added. This is a super Hell difficulty, and definitely adds replayability to the game. Compared to Inferno, Normal, Nightmare and even Hell seems like a cakewalk. My Diablo-killing gear in Hell was not even close to the level that was needed to defeat the first pack of rare mobs I encountered in Inferno. And this is where the Auction House and new crafting abilities come into play.

The blacksmith allows you to craft new items, but the only problem is that the gear is crafted with random properties. The chances of crafting a piece of gear that will actually suit your character perfectly is small. You might craft a new two-handed mace for your barbarian, only for it to appear with +80 to Intelligence and +3 to Dexterity. Not exactly what you need. Instead, why not go to the Auction House, set the stats that you’d like and the price you’re willing to pay and see if you get any results. Gearing just became easier.

And a good thing too. With a level cap of 60 which is reached about halfway through hell if you’ve just been playing through without extra grinding, skills and personal growth stops way before the challenges of Inferno. Once you’ve chosen the ultimate killing combination of skills, the only growth is through gear, gear and more gear.

The world, characters and story are all stunningly done. There was a big uproar in the development stages that Blizzard was making Diablo 3 too colourful, but the end product really came out nicely. The colours suit the different environments – bright where it should be and dark (and I mean REALLY dark in some places) where it fits. Fog and weather effects further immerse you in this world, and the new companions add their banter to the tedium of grinding away at mobs.

A lot of the current players of Diablo 3 are people who recieved the game free with their annual pass for World of Warcraft, I’m not one of those. These same players are also for the most part the ones that will easily drop the game to return to WoW, especially considering the numerous errors the servers have been having over the last week, making the game totally unplayable even in single-player mode. Personally, I can see myself (and my significant other, who up to now has shown no interest in gaming) playing this for a long time, so the little bit of problems that there were will in no way put me off. Speaking of which, if you haven’t got a copy of Diablo 3 yet and wish to try it out, I have 3 guest passes available, which will let you experience the first half of Act 1. Leave a comment below and I’ll mail a key to you – first come, first serve.

Pros:

  • Blizzard kept as true as they could to Diablo 3′s predecessors.
  • Advanced crafting and auction house.
  • Easy multiplayer interaction with RealId and friends integration
  • Superb world and story.

Cons:

  • No offline single player or LAN multiplayer – if the server’s down, you can’t play.
  • A little too much focus on the upcoming PVP events.
  • Limited skills to go with the level 60 cap, I miss the old skill tree.
  • Teething problems with login and world servers.

Final score: 4.5 our of 5 stars – this game will definitely be played for years to come, as Diablo 2 was and still is. Oh, and there is no cow level ;)

Driver: San Francisco play review.

  December 1, 2011 - 3:40 pm | Game Reviews, Other games, Racing Games
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I was a big fan of the original Driver. I played it when it was first released, as well as the second installment, which was a bit of a disappointment. While waiting for Driv3r I even resurrected an old PC to play the original again. Driv3r hit the markets and got my attention for a full 30 minutes before nausea and horror made me uninstall it in a hurry. I skipped Parallel Lines purely because I did not want to live through the torture again.

Then Driver: San Francisco came out and, against my better judgement, I got it.

Once you start with the actual game you immediately begin to realise that everything’s not quite what it seems. Things get even stranger when you realise that you’re not quite who or what you think you are. Then the crows arrive and things get really freaky. The story is well put together, something rare in what’s essentially just a driving game. The storyline evolves well as you play through, with nice features like “Previously on Driver: San Francisco” when you load a saved game. It really lets you feel like you’re watching a story instead of playing it.

The game’s starting (and for the rest of the game for that matter) cutscenes are well done. It really gives you insight into what’s going on, with a bit of mystery, grit and WTF thrown in. Graphically it’s superb, with that 70′s movie feel to it. The city itself is well laid out, with a good mixture of obstacles, interesting pieces of road and the occasional off-road adventure. Driving through the city you can clearly see the transition between beachfront property, dense urban areas, slums and countryside. The buildings, road width, traffic density and vehicle types all zone really well.

Also new to the game franchise is properly licensed cars, with a stunning array of 140 vehicles to unlock and purchase – including trucks, beetles, class B rally, vans, supercars and everyday runabouts. The handling is exceptional, probably the best I’ve experienced outside of a racing simulator. The cars all handle like you’d expect their real-world counterparts would if you were a pro driver, and the fact that they seem to do awesome slides, jumps and traffic weaves as if by telepathy gives you more time to concentrate on the various scenarios that the game puts you in. The “special abilities” like boost and ram also feel quite intuitive and seems a much better model than having every car fitted with NoS.

Shift mode - it changes everything

Then there’s the feature that makes this title stand out from all the others – the Shift mode. With Shift you can jump from car to car as you drive through the streets, and later even quickly shift to anywhere on the game map. This adds a new dimension to the missions you’ll be doing. While doing a race, will you concentrate on trying to get the best time, beating the opponents with skill and your special abilities, or will you jump into oncoming traffic and try to take out your opponents before they can cross the finish line? Shift really changes the game.

Shift out and you're greeted with a bird's view of the city.

Now for the bad, which isn’t really that bad to be honest. The story is extremely linear. You have no say in the direction, and the story only progresses on the successful completion of your main missions. On the other hand, this is a driving arcade game, so expecting RPG-like choices and outcomes may be a bit too much. The other thing is that the side missions quickly become stale, it’s a basic repetition of about 5 themes. The Driver and Movie side missions are quite fun though.

Since installing this game, I’ve managed to unlock and buy 138 of the 140 cars, and done about 80% of the Driver and Movie missions. I’ve also finished the main storyline, which was long enough to keep you interested without being so long as to bore you. Altogether I honestly enjoyed this game more than any others this year, hence it deserves a full 5 stars and my recommendation for arcade game of the year.

Adventures in Nethack

  November 7, 2011 - 3:43 pm | Bored!, Retro, RPG, Wall of Text
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Basically I’ve gone utterly off 90% of the games that I own, and pretty much not looking forward to anything that’s on the shelves or coming out in the near future. The only thing that gives me a glimmer of hope at this point is Diablo 3, and that’s been set back by another few months again.

So I’ve returned to an old nightmare – Nethack. It’s one of those games that looks utterly simple on the surface yet has so many ways to kill you, so many different items, so many different ways to play that no two games ever pan out the same. I have to admit that I’ve not ever been any good at it. I’ve never ascended, I’ve never seen the Amulet of Yendor. I’ve never even gotten past the Oracle or Dwarf Town. This time is going to be different – and here’s my story:

I started off as a Chaotic Human Barbarian. I figured this would give me the biggest chance of survival. Things were pretty standard at first, with me only finding a Lawful altar and a fountain on level 2. Much to my surprise though, quaffing from the fountain gave me a Djinn, a friendly one at that. One wish later and I had a greased silver Dragon Scale Armor, albeit only +0. This would be my fighting chance! Bravely I ventured forth, clearing level 3 with ease. Sadly my wand of detect hidden doors failed to find the entrance to the Dwarf Mines, but I did manage to find a hidden vault. I let the guard escort me out, but I took note of it for the future. As soon as I find a pickaxe that gold is mine! Considering my axe is corroded, the gold will come in handy when the shop finishes taking inventory.

I descended to level 4, where a swarm of Hill Orcs made quick work of my kitten. With no time to mourn, I retreated to a tunnel and tried to take them one at a time. One of the Hill Orcs happened to have a wand of digging though, wreaking havoc on the room I had entered from. I dispatched of the Orcs (finding a cloak of invisibility in the process) and continued exploring – just to find the ghost of a previous adventurer – more specifically the highest level adventurer I’ve had. I kicked that ghost till he begged for mercy. Now I’m sitting with all his inventory, and boy was he a hoarder. Now to carry everything back up to level 2 to check for cursed items and then equip myself further, and give my hitpoints a time to regenerate.

Part 2 to follow!

In other news: My WoW account that’s been dormant for almost a year got hacked… No idea how – I’ve ignored every email from Blizzard or the hackers pretending to be Blizzard, I didn’t even have WoW on a hard drive that was plugged into my machine. Anyway, got notified about it on Facebook, quickly changed my RealID password, downloaded the MASSIVE patches and logged in. Damage wasn’t too bad, I didn’t have much to start with. The bot did leave me with a ton of ore and much more gold than what I started with, and a 30 day timecard loaded so I didn’t bother reporting it. Right after this, Blizzard sends me a “Hey, we’ve missed you, here’s 7 days free playtime” email, which turned out to be legit.

This was last week. How much have I played? A total of 7 minutes. Yup, the drug has worn off, it’s out of my system. I’m no longer driven by the WoWmachine.

Street Legal Racing: Redline

  July 6, 2011 - 10:46 am | Game Reviews, Invictus, Oldschool, Other games, Racing Games, Retro
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Today’s review is on one of my old pets – you know the one, awesome to play with but it keeps crapping on your carpet and chewing your furniture. Street Legal Racing: Redline is that puppy. It’s the second in the Street Legal series by Invictus (a third is rumoured) and improves greatly on the inadequacies of the first one. Sadly it’s just as buggy as the first, requiring multiple patches almost as large as the game install before it’s anywhere close to being playable.

Back to the game itself: The premise is simple – you’re a newbie racer with a bit of cash in your pocket and you have to race your way to the top. You can afford something from the used-car dealer which you can then repair at a cost and start modifying. Don’t bother looking at the new car lot quite yet, this will be out of your reach for a while. Business as usual then, except that unlike most racers where you buy a car and then have limited upgrades available, Street Legal lets you customise your car to your heart’s content. You’ll be fitting each part yourself, tuning things like intake and exhaust cams, air-fuel mixtures, gear ratios and tyre pressure to your heart’s content. Most of the time is spent in the workshop, fiddling with different combinations of spares to try get that extra millisecond off your quarter mile time. The damage model is great too, hit a kerb at speed and your suspension will buckle, hit a tree and you’ve got some serious repairs to do.

The racing is simple. Exit your garage during the day and you’ll see other racers on your minimap, cruising around waiting for challenges. You agree upon a section of road and the stakes (Sort of like the outrun mode in Need for Speed) and you’re off. At night things heat up a little. You head toward the midnight racing location and then take part in organised 1/4-mile drags against ranked opponents for either cash or pink slips. As the power of your car increases it get’s a little harder to keep it in a straight line, resulting in spectacular crashes (and a huge repair bill) if you get it wrong. Build up your car, and your, prestige and you get to take part in the Race of Champions, a mountain circuit race with a grand prize of a new high-powered car.

The cars are loosely based upon real-world cars, with names like Shimutsibu instead of Mitsubishi, Baiern instead of BMW and Furrano as Ferrari. Each car can take a certain type of engine (4cyl, 6cyl, V8, etc) and a certain drive-train (FWD, RWD, 4WD), which can sometimes be modified to other types with special parts. The mod scene for this game is huge, with much more support than the game got from its actual developers, giving you access to many more cars, parts and accessories for the game. There are even community-made patches that greatly improves upon the playability of the game.

The game is still available to purchase, but you can probably find modded game files on the link above (Not that I condone such a thing of course!). If it wasn’t for the awesome customisation and damage model of this game, it wouldn’t have made any impact whatsoever, but the instability of the game engine (This thing crashes more than the Fins crash Escorts in the snow) stops it from being a true great. It has always been a budget title, being released by Activision Value, so don’t expect Need for Speed graphics and Toca handling. It’s just a fun drag-racing game that will keep you in the garage for hours.

Final verdict: 3 out of 5 MisGuilded Stars – A nice time-waster without being a waste of time.