Sunday, September 9, 2012

Legend of Grimrock


I heard about Legend of Grimrock through Internet chatter, and picked up a copy on GOG. There was an equal value Steam sale, but I didn't want to have to be online, since my Internet had flaked out a few times before.

Legend of Grimrock is a RPG dungeon crawler. It’s like Eye of the Beholder, with a heavy emphasis on puzzles. There are a few you can skip and miss out on some neat items, but the majority of the puzzles are mandatory. They're also painfully clever. This is my cup of tea, so I loved the game from the start.

The story takes place entirely in the dungeon on Mount Grimrock. Your group was "forgiven" similar to how Spartans forgive stupid messengers, by kicking them into a pit. This pit just happens to be the start of a dungeon.

The controls of the game are quite easy to pick up, but difficult to do when you have to move, shuffle potions, drink potions, cast a spell, and attack all basically at the same time. The game starts you off against slower and fewer enemies, but it gets crazier and crazier as things progress. There is a quick save/load feature, which you should use extensively.

The graphics are very nice; the enemies have smooth animations and look really good. The lighting looks great, and reacts to changes in the environment. Yes, you will need to carry a light with you, unless you think you can fight enemies in the dark. You'll be swapping your torch for one on the wall quite often, because torches burn out if you hold them for too long. If they're on the wall or in a bag, they're perfectly fine... no risk in putting something on fire into your bags... right next to the explosives...

The sound is very good, and extremely useful. Many times you will hear enemies coming from a direction before you can see them. Also, when you hit switches that open secret walls, you can use the sound direction to find where the secret is. Enemies have unique sounds as well, so you can tell what kind of enemy is coming your way. This can actually be a little unnerving, when you hear them through a wall and they’re nowhere near you...

My party was a Human Fighter (Swords/Armors), Human Rogue (Unarmed Combat/Dodge), Minotaur Rogue (Missile Weapons/Dodge), and Insect Mage (Ice Magic/Spellcraft). I got this build from trolling the Grimrock forums, and picking what worked good for people who had already played the game.

A few tips for some things that weren't clear when I started playing the game.
  1. You can put notes on the map.
  2. You can only heal by resting, or drinking potions.
  3. Dodging is much better than armor (no damage vs. reduced damage)
  4. If you're not using an item or plan to use an item, drop it. There are no vendors in the game and you can only carry so much (bag item limit, and weight limits). I cried a little when I put down an absolutely awesome dagger...
  5. Throwing weapons and missile weapons never miss. Missile weapons will do more damage later on, but you won't find a missile weapon for a few dungeon levels. Missile weapon "ammo" and throwing weapons don't go away; they drop to the ground when the enemy dies.
  6. Your mage can cast any spell their magic level allows. The scrolls in the game are for people who refuse to use the Internet to find out the spell combinations in the game.
  7. Potions work the same way as spells. All you need are the ingredients and the mixer. The speed potion and healing potion were about all I used, but I'm extremely conservative with potions.
  8. Food is important; if you're starving you won't recover health or energy. Make sure you stock up. Later on, there are places where edible enemies spawn infinitely. So don't worry too much about running out.
  9. Make sure you always have a few spare rocks and throwing knives for solving puzzles. And always have a few spare torches for light.
I would highly recommend picking up a copy. I couldn't put this game down once I picked it up. I finished it in 15 hours of playtime, but that included a lot of backtracking and solving every puzzle. Including the one I missed 3 floors back.

Useful links:

Saturday, September 1, 2012

inFamous

So a friend at work reviewed my entire purchased games list. The top of his list was inFamous for PS3. I was surprised I hadn't played it yet, since it came with my PS3 when I first got it. I suppose it's not too mysterious that games sit on my shelves for months or years... but still.

The game is a sandbox third person brawler/shooter with RPG elements. Your powers start out quite simple, giving you the ability to zap things, and will likely wear out your trigger finger if you spend too much time doing that. Progressing the plot will open up new powers and I highly recommend crit-pathing the plot for a while until you get some powers that will spare your trigger finger the pain. Doing the missions and taking out enemies with weak powers is just not fun and might lead you to putting the game down.

The story takes place in a city that's been mostly destroyed by a huge explosion, so it has a bit of a post-apocalyptic feel to it. Your character, Cole, was at the epicenter of the blast, and somehow got electricity super-powers as a result. As you help to restore the city, you are confronted with moral decisions that lean you toward the ambivalent hero, or feared bad-ass. Either way, you're helping the town, but people will either love, or fear you. Going with good deeds gives your powers generally more pacifying qualities, while the evil deeds give you more damaging bonuses. It's quite neat to see the civilians react to your good karma and start cheering for you as well as throwing rocks at thugs. I don't know what they do if they fear you, but I assume they would just stay away from as you run by. The story progresses well, but can get a bit monotonous with repeating the same type of quests. This is alleviated by having cool new powers to blow up enemies with, while doing these quests. Following the story to completion actually surprised me with how good it was.The ending literally blew me away.

The controls of the game are quite easy. Move the stick to run around, jump with X, punch with square, the standard hold L1 to switch to third person shooting view, and press other buttons while in this view to shoot various powers at enemies. The only slight frustration with the controls happened for me, when attempting to jump onto a truck underneath a bridge, and Cole did everything in his spider-monkey powers to grab onto the bridge instead of going under it. For every other situation in the game, this is the ideal behavior.

I do have to mention though, it's easy to accidentally attack a nearby civilian. I had multiple situations where I was shooting and beating the crap out of a thug, and suddenly Cole decided I was targeting a nearby cheering civilian, and decked them in the face. It's all okay though, because you can give downed civilians a healing jolt for an easy 3 experience, and some good karma. So yes, punch civilian in face + healing jolt = net good karma. You will probably also heal a bunch of civilians when the easiest way to take down a bunch of bad guys is lobbing 10 grenades into the crowd.

The graphics were really good. You could occasionally see mip levels popping in when traveling around really fast, but otherwise I never noticed it. The audio and sound effects was good, and the voice acting was quite good. The animation on the character while voice acting wasn't top notch, but it got the job done.



Anyways, if you haven't picked it up yet, and own a PS3, do yourself a favor and pick it up. It's on the greatest hits list, so it should only be $20, and is easily worth double that.