Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition and Baldur’s Gate 2 Enhanced Edition Best Sword and Sorcery Character Builds

Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II Enhanced Edition have been out for a while now. Though the “enhancements” that have been offered are not the most compelling (save for the multiplayer lobby perhaps), the game itself still stands the test of time. Being a veteran of the original series myself, I’ve played around with a vast range of character classes and builds. Personally, my favourites are the ones that combine swordplay and sorcery. So, what is the best way to become a spell-slinging swordmaster? Here are a few options!

1. Dual class Kensai / Mage

This one is restricted to humans, and it is truly a devastating approach to combat. Robes don’t count as armor, so a Kensai / Mage can equip a wide range of helpful pieces of equipment in an otherwise useless slot, including the Robe of Vecna and Robe of the Archmagi. Kensai normally have poor AC, but thanks to your mage buffs, you can turn yourself into a monstrous defensive machine. You can also achieve Grand Mastery in a weapon of your choice, giving you an excellent combat advantage over a Multiclass Fighter / Mage too. There are a few good levels at which to switch to mage; 7, 9, and 13 stand out in particular. If you switch at level 7, you gain the first bonus half attack per round from being a level 7 fighter, and you’re sitting at a net +2 to attack and damage from your Kensai bonuses. Holding out until level 9 gives you another attack and damage, as well as better HP overall. Level 13 is the best possible time to switch for your end-game Throne of Bhaal power, giving you the last extra half attack per round, and leaving you with a daunting +4 bonus to attack and damage from your Kensai abilities, but getting yourself to level 14 in mage is going to be a painful process. Personally, I would probably go with the level 7 switch so you gain the one extra half attack, and don’t have to painfully suffer through most of Shadows of Amn.

Pros:

• Excellent combat ability with little impact on overall mage development in the long-term
• Inability to wear armor is barely a disadvantage at all because of your mage buffs

Cons:

• Cannot wear the Elven Chainmail that other Fighter / Mage characters have access to
• Doesn’t learn Fighter High-Level Abilities (no Greater Whirlwind)
• THAC0 tapers off at high levels

2. Multiclass Fighter / Mage (Illusionist)

Multiclass Fighter / Mages are consistently powerful throughout their careers (though their mage levels are fairly useless through the first part of Baldur’s Gate), as they don’t have to dual-class the way humans do. The best thing about Fighter / Mage multiclass characters is that they can pick a race other than human. Gnome Fighter / Mage characters are extremely resilient, thanks to their “shorty” saving throw bonuses (basically, make sure you have 18 Con and your saving throws will always be stellar), not to mention the fact that they’re the only race allowed to be a multiclass specialist mage (illusionist). Although Fighter / Mage is not quite as punchy as Kensai / Mage, I find it far more palatable to play since it is far less “munchkin-y” and far more consistent.

Pros:

• Consistently powerful
• Access to both Mage and Fighter High-Level Abilities
• Good number of High-Level Abilities by the end of the game because you have two classes
• Allows you to pick stronger races than human, such as Gnome for amazing saving throws and Illusionist kit

Cons:

• Can only achieve Specialization (**) in weapons
• Can’t choose a Fighter kit

3. Blade Bard

Blades are a bit of a strange bunch. Some people unequivocally say that they are nothing more than pretenders (they are actors, after all) wishing that they were Fighter / Mages. That isn’t entirely true, but it isn’t entirely false either. Blades can’t put more than a single proficiency point in any weapon, though they can gain up to three in Two-Weapon Style. They don’t get any extra attacks per round as they level, and their THAC0 is almost always going to be worse than a Kensai / Mage or Multiclass Fighter / Mage. Though they can cast mage spells, they’ll generally be casting fewer of them per day, and can’t go above 6th level spells in the vanilla game.

Blades make up for their significant shortcomings through the use of their spin abilities. Starting with 1 use of Offensive Spin and Defensive Spin at 1st level and gaining an additional use every four levels, they eventually have enough that they can use them with relative impunity. Offensive Spin grants the Blade a +2 bonus to attack and damage, grants an additional attack per round and causes all of their attacks to deal maximum damage for the four round duration. The big caveat here is that Offensive Spin doesn’t stack with Haste or even Improved Haste, which is a massive damper on their overall damage output (an unnecessary one, if you ask me). Defensive Spin roots the Blade to a single spot, preventing them from moving (though you can still attack), and improving their Armor Class by 1 per level, to a maximum of 10. Thanks to Defensive Spin and their access to strong buff spells like Blur, Mirror Image, Spirit Armor and Stoneskin, Blades can be your staple tank for particularly hard-hitting enemies throughout BG1 and BG2. Even in BG1, it is relatively easy to get a well-prepared Blade down to nearly -20 AC when in Defensive Spin. In this capacity, no other sword and sorcery character can equal them. Blades also cast spells at their full bard level, meaning that a Blade’s spells will hit harder, and their dispels will be more powerful than the other characters above, or even a pure mage, for that matter, since they level the fastest of any class in the game. Blades still have pretty good lore and pick pocketing ability despite their kit penalties, but this is a pretty situational fringe benefit. The lack of extra attacks per round when leveling and their inability to specialize in weapons is a pretty massive downside, but wielding weapons like Kundane, Belm and the Scarlet Ninja-to can help minimize this disadvantage.

If you do decide to go with a Blade, I highly recommend you download the Rogue Rebalancing Mod (which was recently made compatible with BGEE and BG2EE). The Rogue Rebalancing Mod gives them *** in Two-Weapon Fighting to start with (as per PnP rules), allowing them to spread out their proficiency points into a wide array of weapons. It also tweaks their High-Level Abilities, giving them access to the amazingly strong Whirlwind Attack, which can be combined with Offensive Spin to give a Blade a significant amount of late-game punch. It also fixes their spell progression so that it continues to improve once they’ve reached 20th level, eventually getting them up to 8th level spells. They lose access to the special traps that rogues normally get, but it didn’t really make sense for Bards to throw around masterfully constructed explosive traps anyways.

Overall, Blades are fairly strong, but they can’t quite measure up to the raw combat ability and reliability of a fighter class, though they do have a bunch of neat tricks up their sleeves.

Pros:

• Decent combat and spellcasting ability
• Access to the Use Any Item High-Level Ability
• Can become defensive monsters through buffs and Defensive Spin
• Offensive Spin’s buffs are significant
• High caster level

Cons:

• Cannot gain extra attacks per round through leveling or specialization in weapons
• Limited to only Proficiency (*) in weapons
• Tapers off at high level without the Rogue Rebalancing Mod
• Spellcasting is mediocre and never improves past level 20 without the Rogue Rebalancing Mod

4. Multiclass Fighter / Thief / Mage

This one is a mouthful. The FTM is a consummate jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Their THAC0 is going to be decent, though certainly the worst of the actual fighter types most of the time. Their spellcasting is going to be significantly less effective and improve far more slowly than any of the other options listed here, even compared to the Blade, They also miss out on 9th level spells, as when they hit the level cap they are only able to cast 8th level spells. That being said, there is a special kind of joy in being able to cast Invisibility on yourself with impunity on a character with an impressive backstab multiplier and the weapon-skill of a fighter. This is a character that warriors, clerics and other rogues will despise fighting, since as soon as they close the distance (or perhaps begin targeting you with a spell in the case of some clerics) you’ll vanish, only to pop up behind them and splatter their guts on the floor. Even more-so than with the other builds listed here, your spells should primarily be reserved for buffs, since your caster level is comparatively low, making you a poor blaster mage. Spells like Invisibility, Mislead, Improved Invisibility, Haste and Breach should all make regular appearances on your spell list. If you can load up on a higher caster level mage or bard to throw around Remove Magic for you, you should be all set.

All that said, setting yourself up for backstabs is your primary strength, and later on in Throne of Bhaal some of the more threatening enemies are immune, relegating you to the shameful and loathed role of “crappier Fighter / Mage”. You do get a veritable ton of High-Level Abilities by the end of the game, but none of those will include the juicy 9th level mage spells a single, multi or dual classed mage would get. FTMs are amazing solo characters though, and if you remove the experience cap from the game, they can become a veritable one-person army. The worst thing about playing an FTM is how painfully slow the leveling gets; once you breach the double-digits in all your classes, your leveling slows to a crawl.

Pros:

• Ability to set themselves up for devastating backstabs
• Highly versatile, and great for soloing
• Lots of High Level Abilities, and many strong options to choose from
• With the experience cap removed, they can become monstrously powerful

Cons:

• No 9th level spellcasting
• No mage High-Level Abilities
• Painfully slow leveling
• Can end up lackluster in a larger party late game due to lack of focus

Alright guys, that’s it for now. Get out there and slay some dragons or something.

Cheers,

Uni

Baldur’s gate II: Enhanced Edition Review

Happy holiday season from Uni!

What better way to enjoy the holidays than to revisit a revised classic?

Baldur’s Gate II ate up a lot of my free time when I was a young teenager. I even had a few high school friendships blossom through shared stories and strategies from what certainly hits number one on my list of top ten PC RPGs of all time. The combat system was needlessly opaque (though this was more the fault of AD&D in general), it wasn’t particularly concerned with game balance, and some of the romances were a little shallow, but Baldur’s Gate II started something; it ushered in a new, story and character-driven approach to western RPGs that struck a chord with gamers everywhere. I could go on and on about the sense of scale and scope in this series, the endearing characters that still hold a special place in my heart, the strong voice acting and the daunting, diabolical villains, but this isn’t really about Baldur’s Gate II; we know that’s a good game. The question is, is the Enhanced Edition worthy of your time and money?

One of the biggest draws of BGEE was the prospect of having all the flexibility, kits and features of Baldur’s Gate II in the original game (though to be fair, modders had already accomplished this). Needless to say, Baldur’s Gate II already has all of the features they carried over into BGEE, so what exactly did they add to BGIIEE? Well, frankly, not a lot. The NPCs they added in BGEE make a return, and two out of three are quite strong as party members. They all have their own unique quest lines, and in at least two cases, romance options. The NPC quests include new areas to explore as well. Outside of that, there’s The Black Pits 2, a continuation of the pit fighting mini-game they added in BGEE, but it seems riddled with bugs that make it difficult to play at best. There’s also a ground loot window that you can scroll through to quickly pick up the choice morsels from the ground without tediously clicking individual body piles (my favourite new feature) and the multiplayer functionality has been improved as well. And… well, that’s it, actually. That’s what they want you to pay $25 for.

There are numerous reasons why this is a steep asking price, not the least of which is the fact that the majority of what they added is new NPCs, something which is available in droves of varying quality from the modding community. The loot window is excellent, but certainly not worth $25. The only thing that could redeem it is the multiplayer functionality, which having tested it a few times with friends now, I must say is leaps and bounds better than the original games. Games are now listed in a multiplayer lobby, which your friends can scroll through to find your game. You can set a password to restrict access, as well. It’s fast and it’s fairly easy, though it would be nice if we could use Beamdog user names and passwords and filter games by friend; the only holdups we had were when we couldn’t find the right game in the dozens of others that were up and running.

One of the things that particularly irked me about this enhanced edition is that some of the bugs present in the original game have carried over into the enhanced edition. The Shapeshifter Druid for example would be excellent, if it worked as intended, scaled up properly and were properly coded, but all of the bugs and mistakes that plagued the class have resurfaced here.

“Perhaps it is just really difficult to modify such a unique class,” you might think to yourself. If it is difficult though, modders already figured it out years ago; there’s a mod for the original BG2 that overhauled the Shapeshifter completely. That Beamdog didn’t bother to fix this or some of the other glaring issues with certain classes screams of lazy development and a cash-in mentality, which is what I’ve suspected Beamdog of harboring since the announcement of the first enhanced edition. Clearly, the thing Beamdog is most concerned with enhancing is their account balance.

Gripes aside, Baldur’s Gate II is a fantastic game and terribly fun, it’s just that the original game isn’t so easy to find anymore.

I would recommend Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition to people who don’t mind old-school graphics and who haven’t had the pleasure of playing the original, but veterans may find the offerings lacking here, especially if they don’t have friends who want to join in on the action. Needless to say, I’m having a blast with it, but that’s not really Beamdog’s doing… it was Bioware’s 13 years ago.

Uni

Assassin’s Creed III Review

Assassin’s Creed is a series that I have routinely found enjoyable, but not necessarily earth-shattering. Given that Assassin’s Creed III received somewhat mixed reviews, I didn’t go in expecting much. I actually ended up being pleasantly surprised by this title. While it lacks some of the charm that Assassin’s Creed II boasted, it makes up for a lot of its shortcomings in other ways.

Of the major changes made in Assassin’s Creed III, the combat was one of the things I noticed most quickly. The timing was made more difficult, the controls were overhauled, and your options were made more numerous. Now you can not only counter-kill enemies, but launch quick, surprising attacks to knock foes off balance, throw them off of rooftops, or disarm them entirely. Not only that, but all of your sub-weapons can be used to counter enemies as well, usually with fatal results. Gone are the throwing knives that have made an appearance in every game in the series thus far and the bombs from Revelations, but they have been replaced with other interesting and deadly fare, such as the bow, rope dart, and flintlock pistol. Another interesting combat mechanic is the added ability for your enemies to attack more than one at a time, potentially triggering an impressive cinematic counter-kill that drops both enemies at once. Unfortunately, the same problem that plagued the combat of the previous titles remains in effect here; once you’re used to the timing of the different weapons and the abilities of your foes, you can dispatch them with both extreme ease and extreme prejudice. I occasionally found myself picking fights with groups of six or seven musketeer enemies while completely unarmed, only to beat them all senseless with my bare hands with nary a sweat broken. There are quests and resource-gathering elements to this game that unlock new weapons, but I found myself somewhat disinclined to bother, seeing as I was already a near superhuman killing machine. Even if it is flawed though, the combat is more satisfying than ever; the main protagonist’s combat style is viciously aggressive, and slaughtering a base full of enemies with ruthless efficiency will definitely elicit a few maniacal cackles.

The game begins from the perspective of the soon-to-be-protagonist’s father, which ended up being somewhat of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Haytham’s James Bond-esque confidence, dry wit and ice-cold imperturbability immediately drew me in, but on the other, it set the bar impossibly high for his son. Connor, by contrast, is bitter, overly defensive, naive, and needlessly hostile with people who could otherwise be friends. After the third time a recurring friendly French brother-in-arms is rebuffed by a firm glare when patting Connor on the shoulder affectionately, I couldn’t help but wonder how he could resist the urge to shout “FINE! BE THAT WAY YOU ANTISOCIAL ASSHAT! WHY DON’T YOU JUST GO SIT IN A CORNER LIKE THE POUTY MAN-CHILD YOU ARE AND THINK ABOUT HOW NOBODY LIKES YOU BECAUSE YOU’RE SUCH A ROYAL PRICK.” I assume it’s because he rather prefers remaining un-stabbed. And if there are two things Connor is good at, they’re being an antisocial asshat, and stabbing people. And climbing, I guess, but that doesn’t count for much in the Assassin’s Creed series.

For some reason that is completely beyond me, if you help a former captain repair his damaged vessel, he teaches you to sail it and names you the new captain. While I do question why anybody would do anything nice for Connor, I must admit that the naval combat was extremely fun, and though it is (almost) entirely optional, I exhausted every mission opportunity available to me. Hearing the crunch of splintering wood and watching an explosive gout of flame roar out of a crippled enemy vessel after you unleash the full force of your complement of broadside cannons is just as exhilarating as it sounds. Part of me wishes they had done more with boarding enemy vessels, but I suppose that would have just lead to more of the melee combat I found so stupifyingly easy. The only other complaint I had about the naval combat was that there wasn’t more of it; there are probably a good dozen missions, which for an optional side-game is quite generous, but I still found myself  walking away wanting more.

Hunting is a new addition as well, allowing you to kill and skin animals for raw materials that can be sold or used to craft new items back at your homestead as part of the new trading and economy minigame. Ambushing animals, setting traps and throwing bait down to draw them in can be exciting at first, but the luster doesn’t last. Getting jumped by a pack of wolves or a mountain lion is kind of exciting the first couple of times, but after that, it just gets tiresome. I also quickly realized that hunting in general was entirely unnecessary; just like the entire economic aspect of your homestead in general.

You have the option to help out and recruit settlers to work at your homestead. Some settlers, like lumberjacks for example, will gather raw materials, where others, like the woodworker, might make use of those gathered materials to craft things.The problem is, very few of these items have any practical use; most of them are loaded into caravans and shipped off to a store to sell. As most players of the series know, money is practically superfluous, and AC3 is no exception. The only thing I found myself bothering to spend any significant amount of money on was upgrading my ship, but even after I had bought all of the upgrades, my trousers were filled with more coin than could fit in Santa’s sack.

There were a few strange oversights and glitches here too. Connor can equip a wide array of weapons, including daggers, but these seemed to be afterthoughts. When equipped with a dagger, all of Connor’s combat animations and sounds are the same as when he is wielding a tomahawk, leading to some very perplexing looking fights indeed. Needless to say, when he swung his small dirk at someone’s head, stopped a couple of inches away with a visceral “thwack”, and then ripped the weapon that never touched the foe back out in a spray of blood, I couldn’t help but quirk an eyebrow. Swinging a dagger like that wouldn’t cause significant injury to a pizza box, let alone an armed and angry British soldier, even if he hadn’t been two inches off. I also killed a bear as teenage Connor with hidden blades I hadn’t yet received. The bear attacking you is even a scripted event; they just sort of… expect you to run, and when you don’t the game just says “well, okay, I guess in that case we’ll just let you have all of the skills, agility, musculature and equipment of a fully-trained master assassin, that’s fine.” It strikes me as quite reasonable to have the bear just outright kill teenage Connor of you’re too stupid to run (I kind of expected to die in fact, but I thought it could be fun to see how it turned out); it would have hurt my immersion far less if they had.

My other major criticism of AC3 was that I was never really entirely clear on who my enemies were, or why I was killing them. Yes, yes, Templars and all that nonsense, but the people in the street, the people I stab on a regular basis are either Redcoats or Patriots. Wait wait wait… I’m no American history major, but aren’t they fighting each other? Who’s side am I on here?

“Why, the Patriots, of course!” the game cheerfully tells me.

“Okay, well, why are your patriots trying to shoot me? And why do they show up as big red dots on my map that scream ‘I’m an enemy please stab my kidneys’?”

“Don’t ask questions, just stab kidneys.”

There were times when bandits were openly coercing and threatening shopkeepers in the streets of New York, so of course, being the good samaritan I am I cut them to ribbons… only to receive a volley of musket fire to the back when a group of patriots decides that I have no business cleaning up their newly-liberated streets. Not that they batted an eyelash at the armed thugs shaking down the poor merchant when they passed by a few moments ago. During the main quest Connor’s loyalty to the Patriots tends to fluctuate a little bit, but the way the game treats them outside of missions always remains the same.

There was one other thing I was expecting going into AC3, but I was very glad not to see it. Judging from the advertisements and setting, i expected AC3 to be a love-letter to the founding fathers, and present the American revolution as a self-indulgent, orgiastic, patriotism-inspired smack-down. And, to my great surprise, it wasn’t. Yes, the British are presented in a consistently negative light, but the game doesn’t gloss over the darker stuff the Patriots pulled, either. I remember a scene after Connor helped the Patriots secure their independence and power-base (SPOILER ALERT: The Patriots win), wherein he watches an auctioneer call out for bids on some black slaves he has tied up with him on the auction block. The look of disgust and existential despair on Connor’s face brought out a great deal of sympathy from me, despite how unlikable I found him; these were the people he had called his allies, and he had helped to get to this point. This was on him. The game also nods to the mistreatment and displacement of the American natives, and the sale of their land by President George Washington to make a quick buck. Another little historical tidbit that is frequently mentioned is General George Washington’s utter incompetence as a General; the real man was indeed outmaneuvered by British commanders on multiple occasions. Your assassin IT guy back in modern times even sends you an email outlining how malignantly homosexuals were treated during those days, with penalties including (but not limited to) castration. All of this added up to an honest (if bleak) presentation of the harsh truths surrounding the founding of America.

As for the modern-day story that sets the stage for your gallivanting around in the past, there’s really not a ton of depth to be found. The ending was not nearly as impressive or interesting as it could have been either, seeing as my attention and time was being constantly directed towards the past, and I felt little connection or interest in the modern-day characters.

All in all, Assassin’s Creed III is a fun game, and certainly a worthy addition to the the series, though it is not without its shortcomings. If you’re looking for an excuse to stab people in an exciting and spectacular way, you’ll be glad for this romp through the colonial era. If you’re hoping for a strong plot and interesting characters with gameplay supporting it, you’d probably be better off looking elsewhere. Baldur’s Gate II Enhanced Edition just came out, so if you haven’t played BG II, you should start there.

Keep on truckin’, assassins.

Uni

Magic 2014 – Deck Pack 1 DLC Review

The first deck pack has come out for Magic 2014, and we’ve been given a white bounce deck and a blue black revive deck.

1. Bounce and Boon

This deck focuses on two things: bouncing stuff and… well… giving you boons. The deck concept here was quite interesting, with lots of ways to pull creatures back to your hand, and numerous creatures that provide benefits when they enter play, or when any creature enters play on your side of the board. Unfortunately, though the concept is sound, the deck itself is not.

There are a lot of cards that could have easily been great staples for this deck that it has too few of. Restoration Angels were practically tailor-made for a bounce deck, being an unbelievably good card under normal circumstances, and an absolutely absurdly good one in a deck like this. For some reason, Bounce and Boon brings only a single one to the party, making it impossible to lean on in any significant way. Similarly, you only get a single Blade Splicer, though they fit this deck beautifully. Even Flickerwisps, Whitemane Lions and Attended Knights, cards that by all rights should be linchpins of the deck, don’t hit the four card maximum. Cathars’ Crusade is your only reliable means of killing enemies with this deck, but there’s only a maximum of two and no reliable draw at all, relegating it to a “delay and pray” approach. Confusingly, there are two other global enchantments that buff your creatures, but neither are as good as Cathars’ Crusade. Why not just include two more Cathars’ Crusades? The Samurai deck has four Glory of Warfares, which is a rare global creature buff enchantment, so there’s clearly a precedent to allow it. There is only one card in the whole deck that affords you any kind of draw, and once again, there is only a single one. There are many card’s you’ll wish weren’t wasting space in your card list at all, and far more you’ll wish had made an appearance.

As for specifics on the cards that are conspicuously absent, where are the Goldknight Commanders that Avacyn’s Glory has? Where is the direct creature removal in the form of Path to Exile? Where are the Geist-Honoured Monks? This deck would have greatly benefited from the appearance of any of these cards.

The biggest problem with this deck overall is that almost all of the cards it contains in any significant number are focused on netting you as much life as possible. However, any experienced Magic the Gathering player will tell you that having a high life total doesn’t win you the game; killing your enemy wins you the game, and this deck is rather poor at that. I once played a match against Bounce and Boon that saw my opponent sitting at over 100 life by the end. I still won, because late game, doing over 100 damage with many decks is fairly easy.

Overall, this isn’t the worst deck in the game, but it’s a far cry from Sylvan Might, Deadwalkers, Mind Maze, Dodge and Burn, or it’s deck pack counterpart, Unfinished Business. Perhaps with a few more promo card unlocks, this deck will measure up, assuming they give you access to the right cards.

2. Unfinished Business

This one, in contrast to Bounce and Boon, is a game-changer. Unfinished Business is quite easily capable of getting game-ending creatures onto the board on turn two, three or four, leaving your opponent scrambling to survive if it doesn’t have any creature removal available. In further contrast with Bounce and Boon, Unfinished Business gets a large number of the cards it needs most; three Reanimates, four Exumes, four Putrid Imps, four Accumulated Knowledges, four Hidden Horrors, and if you decide you want them all, three Doomed Necromancers. I was disappointed there weren’t a greater number of truly massive creatures (this deck would love to borrow a few Eldrazi from Chant of the Mul Daya), but I suppose the deck is powerful enough without giving you access to turn two 11/11 creatures with annihilator 2.

With a plethora of ways to get cards into your graveyard, and just as large a number allowing you to pull them out and onto the board from there, there are a number of different directions you could take this deck. You could focus on maximizing card access by taking all of the 8+ available draw spells, make your deck stronger in the mid-game should you fail to get one of your big boys out on turn two or three by adding more reasonably priced creatures, or go for broke with as much revive and self-discard as possible, hoping to wipe people out with something big before they can gain any momentum.

This deck makes cheap, reliable, unrestricted creature removal practically a necessity, and makes the always-valuable Path to Exile all the more appealing.

Conclusion:

All in all, this deck pack is worth having, if for no other reason than to gain access to Unfinished Business. Even Bounce and Boon can be a lot of fun to play, if you happen to get the right draws; using a Flickerwisp to pop a Cloudgoat Ranger in and out when you have a Cathars’ Crusades on the board is a supremely satisfying experience… just maybe not quite as satisfying as a 9/9 flying trampler on turn two.

Have fun out there,

Uni

Terraria Review

I have to admit, it’s rather hard to pitch Terraria to someone who plays Minecraft.

“Check out this game! You build stuff out of blocks, mine minerals to use to make new stuff like weapons and armor, explore caves and fight monsters!”

“So you’re playing Minecraft?”

“No… no this is Terraria.”

“It sounds a lot like Minecraft.”

“Well for one Terraria is actually two-dimensional.”

“…So it’s two-dimensional Minecraft?”

“Er… well… no. There are a lot more monsters than in Minecraft, and there are boss monsters and stuff.”

“Minecraft has boss monsters.”

“Yeah, but… nevermind.”

Speaking for myself, I was skeptical at first. It did essentially sound like a two-dimensional version of Minecraft. However, underneath this exterior lies a game with a wholly unique heart, soul and identity. The differences between these two games are not so much in what you do, but in the emphasis on the things available to you. Where Minecraft is about being creative and building the secret lair you dreamed about when you were twelve, Terraria is about feeding your nostalgia for Super Mario and Zelda. Combat is the primary means of occupying your time and making money, which you can spend to buy items and supplies from merchant NPCs who will move into your town or abode if it boasts enough space to accommodate them.

Combat consists of fast-paced platforming action, and some of the boss fights are extremely challenging. There is an impressive array of weapons and weapon types, from swords, bows tridents, flails and spells to laser pistols, shotguns and sniper rifles. Every weapon behaves differently, and has its own advantages and disadvantages. Bows are generally not as powerful as guns, but are much easier to craft advanced ammunition for. Spells can take out groups of enemies faster than most weapons, but rely on a finite pool of mana. The laser pistol is great, but only if you wear a specific armor set with it, which is less protective than you might want late into the game. It’s testament to the game’s clever balance that I frequently found myself swapping my gear around and trying out different weapons; it was hard to decide which to use, and that’s a very a good sign.

You’ll frequently experience random events, such as a goblin invasion or a blood moon, which will have you fending off hordes of rampaging enemies. During these events is where Terraria really shines; you don’t feel like a builder or miner in these moments, you feel like a dangerous warrior, which makes all the difference in terms of flavour and excitement. Most standard enemies are simple to dispatch with any weapon, but introduce large groups of them, or have a boss event come up for you at random, and you’ll find yourself struggling to survive.

Unlike in Minecraft, there is a definite sense of character growth and advancement in Terraria. From humble beginnings, you can eventually outfit yourself with deadly swords forged on corrupted underworld altars, spells ripped from the dead hands of the vicious demons of hell, or armor forged from a fallen meteorite. You can battle your way through deificly powerful foes, working your way up until you’re fighting the greatest threats that even hell can throw at you. After that… it’s time to start into hard mode! Enemies scale up, new events become available, and new incredibly deadly bosses begin to pop up. Although there isn’t technically an “end” to Terraria, it does have more of an end than Minecraft; once you’ve gathered all the gear that interests you and you’ve slain all of the bosses, there isn’t much left for you here. Indeed, Terraria loses much of its appeal once you’ve equipped yourself with items you’ll never replace. Fundamentally, that’s what makes Terraria so different from Minecraft; there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. After that, well, I guess it’s time to shack up with the village nurse (or perhaps the gunsmith, if you’re into dudes) and retire. That means there can be more of a sense of finality here that’s otherwise hard to find in Minecraft.

All in all, it’s a lot of fun and surprisingly long, just not quite as replayable or creative as its three-dimensional counterpart. If you find the lack of action in Minecraft boring, or feel more like stomping some demons than building a mountain fortress, Terraria is a good place to turn. It’s also a bargain for the price, and you’ll have even more reason to laugh at your movie theater-going friends for calling video games a waste of money.

Have fun out there, and give my regards to the Wall of Flesh.

Cheers,

Uni

Top five PC game villains of all time

5. Arthas  (Warcraft 3)

“You no longer have to sacrifice for your people. You no longer have to bear the weight of your crown. I’ve taken care of everything.”

– Arthas

The thing that made Arthas so special to me is how relatable his fall is. An entire city is plagued, there is no cure, and when the victims succumb to their illness they rise again as the undead, quickly forming an army of corpses that could overrun your kingdom and plunge the world into darkness. What would you do? Arthas knew what to do; he did his best to kill every last one of them before the plague could claim them. This was the beginning of Arthas’ fall, and the moment when he takes his first steps away from his paladin mentor and down a darker path that culminates in his becoming the Lich King. Could I do better? I don’t think I could. His logic was irrefutable, and though it felt wrong to put all of those innocents to the sword… what else could be done? If he hadn’t killed them, the entire kingdom could have fallen. His actions were for the greater good. Arthas continues to tread a fine line between hero and antihero for the rest of the Alliance campaign.

Ultimately, the reason he became the Lich King was that he was willing to give up everything to protect his people; the sword he claimed that gave him the strength to stop the undead apocalypse claimed his soul. For all he is reviled as a heinous monster, everything he did he did for the best of reasons, and with the best of intentions. The road to hell, as they say…

4. Handsome Jack  (Borderlands 2)

“See, I can’t just have some psychopathic murderers getting to the Vault before I do. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cute that you all think you’re the heroes of this little adventure, but — you’re not. You’re bandits. You’re the bad guys. And I…am the goddamn hero. “

– Handsome Jack

Cunning, juvenile, egotistic, delusional, funny and impeccably written, Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2 is everything a villain should be in a not-so-serious but not-completely-un-serious game. His rise to the top of the corporate ladder and takeover of one of the most powerful organizations in the known universe is downright Machiavellian, and some of the plans he executes throughout the course of the game illustrate what a devious mind he has. One of the things so compelling about Jack as a villain is his inability to see himself or his actions as evil. Rather than reveling in evil the way some game villains do, Jack finds ways to justify even his most horrible actions to himself, including his appalling treatment of the people closest to him. Up to the very end, Jack proclaims that he wanted to bring order to a lawless planet; to bring peace through violent takeover. He refers to himself as a hero and the player characters as murderous bandits, and when the score gets personal, becomes all the more convinced of his position of moral superiority.

Jack is definitely leaning towards the ridiculous, but everything in Borderlands is; the thing that differentiates Jack is that I actually saw some of what could have been a real person behind it all. Jack shared numerous traits with real-world dictators, from his moral justifications and lack of concern for human life to his intelligence and ambition. That shadow of reality and the excellent voice acting behind it really helped set the tone for Borderlands 2, and served as a reminder that shades of grey are sometimes the best you can get.

3. Jon Irenicus  (Baldur’s Gate II)

“I… I do not remember your love, Ellesime. I have tried. I have tried to recreate it, to spark it anew in my memory, but it is gone… a hollow, dead thing. For years, I clung to the memory of it. Then the memory of the memory. And then nothing. The Seldarine took that from me, too. I look upon you and feel nothing. I remember nothing but you turning your back on me, along with all the others. Once my thirst for power was everything. And now I hunger only for revenge. And I… WILL… HAVE IT!!”

– Jon Irenicus

Baldur’s Gate II was one of the best games I’ve ever played, and one of the reasons I enjoyed it was the main antagonist, Joneleth Irenicus. Brilliant, unfathomably powerful and boundlessly ambitious, the once-elf now-exile wizard sought to ascend to godhood, only to fail and be cast out, cut off from the source of elven immortality forever. After being cut off, Irenicus was a shell of a man; his emotions were dulled to the point of near non-existence, and his body began aging rapidly. Irenicus did everything in his power to re-awaken his emotions, cloning his lost love and forcing dryads to assume her shape in an effort to feel again, but to no avail. Refusing to give up on his life and wait to die, Irenicus sought other means to obtain the everlasting life he required, eventually settling on the progeny of the dead god Bhaal, attempting to unlock their power, link them, and absorb their souls so as to acquire new life for himself and his sister. Thereafter, he would again attempt to absorb the power of the tree of life, and ascend to godhood.

One of the satisfying things about Irenicus as a villain was how worthy he was; so often in games, you can look at an antagonist and ask “how in the hell did THAT person manage to get this far?” With Jon, even though the game is linear, it feels like you’re losing at a high-stakes game of chess. When he finds himself at a disadvantage, he turns the tables and changes the dynamic of the game. He pushes you one direction, you pull another, and surprise him with a resourceful turn-around. He frequently out-maneuvers you, but that never bothered me; he should be able to out-maneuver you. It makes the final confrontation with him that much more satisfying that you have to work for it.

2. Andrew Ryan  (Bioshock)

“On the surface, I once bought a forest. The parasites claimed that the land belonged to God, and demanded that I establish a public park there. Why? So the rabble could stand slack-jawed under the canopy and pretend that it was paradise *earned*. When Congress moved to nationalize my forest, I burnt it to the ground. God did not plant the seeds of this Arcadia – I did.”

– Andrew Ryan

Andrew Ryan had a vision of Rapture, an underwater utopia where human advancement wouldn’t be limited by the arbitrary prescriptions of a meddling government. His vision was to create the perfect capitalist city, where every man was entitled to the sweat of his brow. Morally ambiguous at the best of times, Ryan is a visionary with boundless ambition and will. He believed that nobody should own anything they did not earn, referring to people who rely on others or their government to look after them as “parasites”. He filled his underwater city with brilliant scientists, inventors, engineers and artists, but this lead to a top-heavy economy that led to widespread discontent among those who were required to perform some of the more menial tasks in Rapture, such as maintenance and food production. His desire for control was ultimately his undoing; in an effort to control the influence of Frank Fontaine, a would-be leader and  rising star in the eyes of the people, he passed a law that would have smugglers executed. This marked the beginning of the end, as his desperation to maintain control of his pet project resulted in him breaking his one rule that there be no rules.

Untested genetic modifications known as plasmids were having markedly negative side effects on users (visions, episodes of psychotic rage, insanity), and because Ryan refused to impose restrictions on scientific research, the city quickly plunged into chaos as more and more people “spliced up” to better protect themselves through the political instability. In the end, Ryan made his own end; in a truly shocking scene, Ryan demonstrates his devotion to his ideals of freedom and choice in a way that the player won’t soon forget.

1. GlaDOS  (Portal)

“There was even going to be a party for you. A big party that all your friends were invited to. I invited your best friend, the Companion Cube. Of course, he couldn’t come because you murdered him. All your other friends couldn’t come, either, because you don’t have any other friends because of how unlikable you are. It says so right here in your personnel file: “Unlikable. Liked by no one. A bitter, unlikable loner, whose passing shall not be mourned. Shall NOT be mourned.” That’s exactly what it says. Very formal. Very official. It also says you were adopted, so that’s funny, too.”

– GlaDOS

What can I say about GlaDOS that hasn’t been said already? She’s a giant robot with psychotic tendencies and an unflinching obsession with science. She also may or may not enjoy baking, singing and singing while she bakes. Most gamers can’t even think about cake without chuckling to themselves, thanks primarily to GlaDOS. The funniest thing about GlaDOS is that when she’s being funny, it’s entirely unintentional on her part. Her comments are usually an attempt to demoralize you, convince you to do what she wants you to do, or communicate information about tests. Some of her insults are shockingly nasty, much like her tests. Though not human per-se, GlaDOS still exhibits some signs of emotion, though she certainly isn’t healthily balanced. The voice acting was extremely well executed, and the whole experience is punctuated by a brilliant, iconic moment at the end that will endear GlaDOS to you forever.

Minecraft: Survival Mode Tips and Tricks

It’s been a long while since I put up a video game-related post (mostly because nothing has really been grabbing me lately), so I decided I might as well put one up for the instant-classic, Minecraft. Having become a fair veteran of the experience myself, I thought I would compile a list of tips and tricks for you to refer to in your blocky adventures!

I played almost exclusively in Survival mode, so that is what I’m going to focus on here.

1. Have a system of navigation when exploring

This is extremely important. It’s often all too easy to get turned around in a massive, interconnected series of caves and corridors, especially in the excitement of grabbing new and rare resources. You need a system of “breadcrumbs” in place so you can easily find your way back to your initial point of entrance.

The best solution? Torches! But of course, that seems obvious. Just follow your torches out, right? Well, what if you have explored multiple branches in a dungeon, and now you’re not sure if you’re following your torches down a previously explored route, or towards the entrance? This is where the trick comes in: pick a wall, and ONLY PUT TORCHES ON THAT WALL when you’re going further in. For myself, it is the left wall. If you’re moving forward, put torches on the left. If you need more light in a large area, embed one or two in the ground. But if there’s a torch going on the wall, it’s on the left. That way, if you need to find your way out, no matter how labyrinthine the cave system, you’ll find your way; just keep the torches on your right.

2. Don’t bring anything you can’t afford to lose

This is another important one. You never know when some mother****ing sh**bag Creeper is going to sneak up behind you and blow his explosive load all over your butt. But all homoerotic innuendos asside (sorry, couldn’t resist), death can and does happen at any time, even when you’re well prepared to deal with enemies. Therein lies one of the problems: the better prepared you are, the more useful and valuable the stuff you’re carrying. So, if you only have one diamond pickaxe, and you already have all the obsidian you need for the time being, don’t bring it with you. Sure, your iron one is going to be a touch slower, but you might want to leave it behind until you’re as well armored as you can be, or you have a few extra diamonds to spare. Which leads to my next tip…

3. Know when to call it quits

Every now and then, you’ll find a cave system so amazing, so full of awesome stuff, that you won’t want to stop digging. It’s a satisfying and thrilling experience… occasionally offset by the rage-inducing frustration of getting nudged into a lava flow and losing all the stuff you just worked so hard to gather. Once you’ve got a full stack of iron and a couple of handfuls of diamonds on-hand, it may be time to think about following your torches to the exit. If you mark the outside entrance of the cave with a large pillar or a few torches, you can always make a return trip. If you die though, there may be no getting back to grab your original stuff at all, let alone the new stuff you just found.

4. Don’t dig straight up or straight down

This one is a common tip that veterans will vigorously nod their heads about. In an unfamiliar cave system, never destroy the block you’re standing on, only the one just next to it. You never know if you’re digging your way into a pitfall or a lava flow, and you need to be able to stop or get out of the way should the worst come to pass.

5. Install some mods

Minecraft is a great game in its own right, but playing Minecraft without mods is like playing Skyrim without mods; it just isn’t right. There are mods out there that add in new furniture items, additional food sources and types, new mobs, new items, new biomes and more. Here are a few of my favourites:

• Food Plus
• Lots O’ Mobs
• Jammy’s Furniture Mod
• Mr. Crayfish’s Furniture Mod

There are lots of other great mods out there, depending on your personal tastes and preferences. Check them out, experiment, and explore!

6. Conserve resources

It might be nice to have six empty buckets sitting around your lair for when you need them, but if your supply of iron is running a little low, you’ll be in a bad spot if you run out right before you need some for a new pickaxe. This is even more important for coal, which you can burn through very quickly if you have a lot of ore to smelt or food to cook; you should always have a moderate to large stack of coal in your inventory, along with spare sticks for when you need new torches.

7. Don’t attack zombie pigmen

This can be tempting when you’re looking for a good source of XP or they keep getting in your way when you’re trying to mine quartz, but for the sake of your potential future blocky progeny, don’t attack zombie pigmen. They usually travel in packs of four or more, and a unique feature of zombie pigmen is that they are always neutral until engaged. When you strike even one however, their hive-mind consciousness decides that you need to die, and then typically, you promptly do. They do a daunting amount of damage even when you’re well armored, and they move faster than you do without sprinting. Compounding that is the fact that they continue to bear a grudge against you even after they’re wiping your lifeless giblets off of their swords, and will happily wait to gank you when you come to retrieve your gear. Considering the XP they drop is not particularly special anyways, and their only other drops are golden swords and gold nuggets, there really isn’t any compelling reason to hunt them. So… let bygones be bygones, and leave them be; they won’t hurt you unless you piss them off.

If you do accidentally initiate a murderous porcine free-for-all, quickly switch the difficulty to peaceful, return to the game, and then reset it to your initial difficulty. This forces the pigmen to temporarily despawn (and thankfully, forget about your little indiscretion).

That’s it for now! Get out there and scratch the itch you’ve had since you stopped playing with LEGO!

Uni

Magic: 2014 Review

Like many fully-gestated nerds, I spent some of my formative teenage years collecting shockingly expensive pieces of plastic-coated cardboard with printed pictures on them. Some played Yu-Gi-Oh, others played with Pokemon cards, but for myself, nothing beat the dark, mature setting and themes of Magic: The Gathering. As I got older though, I realized that paying $12 for a rare card I needed for my squirrel deck (yes, I had a squirrel deck) was a little ridiculous. For a brief time, my friends and I focused more on the deck building, and just used “cards” printed off of the internet on standard printer paper, but that seemed to make it a little too easy to get all the cards you wanted, and before long, we had all moved on to expensive pieces of painted plastic instead (ie. Warhammer).

Wizards of the Coast has been releasing Magic: The Gathering based games for a variety of systems for a while now. Of course, the games are laden with heavy-handed sales pitches trying to get people to pick up the card game (profit margins, anyone?), but have overall been fun experiences in their own right. I recently purchased and began playing the latest release, Magic: 2014 on my PC.

Previous entries have all had the same format: you have access to a couple of starter decks, and you unlock others by playing through the campaign. Every time you win a match, you unlock a new card you can use (or not use) in the winning deck. It could never truly be called “deck building” though; it was more like “deck tweaking”. The fundamental aspects of the deck were fixed, you couldn’t change the amount of land, and you usually ended up with a total of 30 extra cards unlocked (giving you a total of 65 or so to arrange how you want, usually in a 60 card deck). Wizards would occasionally come out with new “deck packs” in the form of DLC, which gave you access to entirely new decks to play with and unlock, usually at $2 a piece or so. The campaign mode looks much the same in the new game, but you can now adjust the number of lands in your deck, which is a massive improvement for those of us who like a deck with less than 40% land. One other interesting change to the campaign mode is that there’s a bit of a story now, and even some voiced dialogue. I didn’t really pay close attention, but it has something to do with Chandra wanting to kill some guy, but to find him you have to go kill some other guys, and blah blah blah… just let me start playing lands and casting spells.

The decks in the new game are good entries overall for the most part, with a couple of exceptions. The most well known characters make a return, but many of their decks have seen serious overhauls. Regrettably though, a few of them, such as Masks of the Dimir, Enter the Dracomancer, and even poster-child Chandra’s burn deck all seem a little underwhelming compared to some of the other options. Nevertheless, the styles and colours are varied and interesting enough to keep things fresh for quite a while.

The new star on the scene in 2014 is the addictive “sealed deck mode”, which is all about deck building through its very core. Much like a real sealed deck tournament, you receive a number of booster packs and use them to create a 40 card deck from scratch. You can even play against other players online to see how your decks stack up, though unfortunately you can’t play 2 vs 2 in this mode (which is my favourite mode, darn it).

The only limiting factor when making decks is the cards you manage to unlock, which depending on individual luck, could leave your deck ranging from stellar to a total flop. This is where the catch comes in… one might think “well… I got pretty unlucky with this draft, so I’ll just delete my deck and start over.” Nope, ‘fraid not! There is no way to delete a deck once it’s created. “Oh but I’m a crafty one, Uni… I’ll just go into the guts of the game and delete the saved decks, then unlock all my boosters again! I’ve outsmarted you, game! Muhahaha!!” Nice try Captain Kirk, but this Kobayashi Maru can’t be reprogrammed; all of your unlocked cards were determined the moment you bought the game. They’re all locked to your personal copy, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. “But… all of my cards were terrible! What am I supposed to do? This isn’t fair to me as a player!” Nope, it’s not, but don’t worry, Wizards will save you unlucky players! You can have up to 20 sealed decks! You just have to shell out $2 per deck. “Wait… I have to pay you more for the game because I’m not very lucky?” No no no… of course not! You just have to pay more for the game if you want to be competitive because you’re not very lucky. It was a crafty marketing ploy, and I’ll admit, it worked on me; so far I’ve bought another $10 worth of decks, and I considered getting more. The process of building a new deck from scratch and trying to combine your cards in interesting ways was one of the major draws of the card game, and for the first time since Microprose’s Magic the Gathering (which is still a great game and very worth playing by the way), you can actually do that in a video game (yeah, yeah, there’s Magic the Gathering: Online, but if I wasn’t going to pay for pieces of cardboard, I’m certainly not going to pay for scraps of code).

Whether unlocking cards for the core decks or experimenting with sealed decks, Magic 2014 has a quite a bit to offer a fan of the card game or the video game series. With a price tag of $9.99 on Steam (without any DLC), it’s a bargain for the volume of entertainment you could derive from it. That’s probably why I’m not so bothered about giving them money to gain access to more sealed decks, which feels like a blatant cash grab. If you’re not ready to dive into the fairly complex rules system and strategy of the Magic: The Gathering game though, this may be one to pass on; it could be an exercise in frustration for the uninitiated, particularly sealed deck mode.

Go gather some magic, fellow planeswalkers.

Uni

Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition Review

Baldur’s Gate was one of the iconic RPGs of my generation. The world was open to exploration however you pleased, the combat was fun, tactical and dynamic, and the story was solid. Of course, to me it’s only the faintest shadow (reference intended) of the glory of its successor, Baldur’s Gate II, but it is still an excellent game nevertheless. When I heard that developer Overhaul Games took it upon themselves to create Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition, I waited anxiously to see the results.

Unfortunately, I was to be somewhat disappointed. That is not to say that Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition is not worth playing, but the original itself was well worth playing, so that’s not exactly high praise. The biggest problem with Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Editon (or B’gee as I’ve taken to calling it), is that it doesn’t quite live up to its name. The “enhancements” are there, and they do make a difference, but a $19.99 difference? I’m not so sure. All of the kits, classes and subraces from Baldur’s Gate II have been carried over to B’GEE, the resolution has been improved, the AI is a touch better, and a few new characters and kits were added, as well as a completely new game mode called The Black Pits.

All of this sounds like a lot, but the problem is that the modding community has already addressed a lot of these issues. Additional characters? Take your pick; there are dozens of character mods, many of them fully voiced and with romances to boot. Added quests? Yep, lots of those too. Baldur’s Gate II kits and races? A particularly dedicated modder managed that. Bug fixes? Yeah, there are plenty of unofficial bug fixes out there courtesy of modders as well.

Which begs the question… what exactly is it that’s so enhanced in this so-called enhanced edition? The multiplayer functionality and stability are definitely better; I’ve had a notoriously difficult time getting BG 1 and BG 2 multiplayer to work, even over a LAN connection. The game runs a lot better on PCs running modern operating systems, which is definitely nice. The three characters they added in are somewhat interesting, but nothing to write home about. Which brings us to the last of the main added features… The Black Pits.

The Black Pits is a sort of fighting pit wherein you engage in a string of battles to win the freedom of you and your fellows. Your party starts off at level 1 and levels very quickly, making this an interesting way to test out new character builds and party configurations. The combats range from laughably easy to somewhat tricky, though they’re never an exercise in frustration, even on the hardest difficulty setting. The story is minimal, but there is still voiced dialogue, and it does a fairly good job of creating a reasonable context for your gladiatorial murder-spree. it doesn’t take more than a few hours to complete, but it was still a fun distraction.

So, the bottom line… should you buy it? Well… in a word, maybe. For me, a die-hard superfan of the Baldur’s Gate series, it was great to have a new excuse to play one of my old favourites, even if it didn’t have all that many more bells and whistles than I remembered. For a stranger to the series addicted to graphical extravaganzas and crystal clear game mechanics, this might be one to take a pass on. Second Edition Dungeons and Dragons mechanics are bafflingly opaque at times, and that aspect of the game has most certainly NOT been enhanced.

Whether you’re playing the enhanced edition or not, Baldur’s Gate is a great game, and great games are worth a bit of money. So if you’re inclined, check it out! And if you’re not… well… don’t. But if you don’t, you’d better be installing the original right now. Unless you’ve already played it, then I’ll forgive you. Maybe.

May your THAC0 be negative, my friends.

Unithralith

Legend of Grimrock Review

Legend of Grimrock is a game that hearkens back to my RPG gaming roots. The first RPG I ever played was Warriors of the Eternal Sun for Sega Genesis. I still remember spending hours rolling stats for my favourite character (the elf, of course) trying to get optimal scores as a socially-awkward twelve year old. The nostalgia I felt tramping about dungeons in first-person perspective, mashing my attack buttons in Legend of Grimrock warmed my otherwise icy and jaded soul.

The premise of Legend of Grimrock is fairly simple; your party of characters were (perhaps unjustly) convicted of some great crime, and rather than have you contribute to the prison overpopulation problem, they chuck you into some massive, diabolical dungeon to die. Of course, their pretense is that you can prove your worth and fight your way out… but nobody ever does. So, hey, easy disposal of criminals. No muss, no fuss. Your team however, is not cut from the same cloth as all those other prisoners; after all, they’re PCs. And so your epic journey begins… crawling through dank dungeon corridors, otherwise naked and scrounging rotting carcasses for their leather pants and feasting on raw snail meat to survive. From these humble beginnings however, your characters slowly take shape and develop their abilities, becoming a powerful force in their own right; plucky and resourceful survivors.

You have four characters in your party; two in the front rank, and two in the back. Melee weapons (with few exceptions) are only usable in the front rank, meaning that having more than two fighters (a melee-only class) in a group is generally a bad idea. Other than that, you’re free to design your party however you want to. You could have your front line consist of dodge-tanking rogues, or heavily armored warriors. You could even have a party entirely of mages, if you felt confident you could keep them out of harm’s way. Combat for classes other than mage is relatively simple; you equip a weapon (or weapons) in a character’s hands, right click it, and they’ll attack with it. Every attack has a cooldown based on the weight of the weapon wielded (a dagger attacks faster than a stone club, for example). Any abilities your weapon-wielders have activate on their own without any input from you. Mages however, are a different story; when mages attack, they bring up a grid of runes which must be selected in the correct combination to fire off a spell. While simple spells can be cast with just a single rune, other more powerful spells require three or more runes to be combined. The spells you can cast are determined by the number of skill ranks you put into different trees, such as fire, ice, or poison. If you don’t have a bunch of ranks in fire, you won’t be hurling fireballs any time soon.

Combat is handled with a grid-based movement system; you can exploit turning corners and kiting enemies around to keep the damage your team takes to a minimum. Rather than try to fight this consequence of grid-based combat however, Legend of Grimrock embraces it, forcing you to use these tactics to keep your team alive. Some combats and enemies can be quite difficult; even a single bite from a spider could prove disastrous if you lack what you need to make an antivenom potion. Combat can end up feeling surprisingly tense, despite it’s relative simplicity. Some enemies are craftier than others, sidestepping in front of you when you expect them to walk forward, or stepping around a corner rather than charging in your direction. Once you’ve gotten used to kiting your enemies around, the sudden emergence of these more advanced enemies can be quite jarring, but in a good way.

At the forefront of Legend of Grimrock are the puzzles. Some require little more than a few moments of consideration, where others require quick reflexes or careful attention to detail. None are so difficult as to make the experience frustrating; even when I didn’t immediately understand how to solve a puzzle, I managed to buckle down and reason my way through it without too much headache. The puzzles were still challenging enough to give a sense of satisfaction at their completion, and the game often rewards your efforts with new equipment or resources. Diligent explorers will receive a vast plethora of rewards for finding secret rooms and hidden switches, or boldly taking the plunge into an ever-tempting pitfall (falling damage never felt so good).

Legend of Grimrock, also offers an “old school mode”, wherein you lose access to the auto-filling map from the default game mode. The game provides a few items to help you, such as a compass, but other than that, navigation and mapping are your responsibility, so break out the graph paper and pencils. Some may find this mode a little bit tedious, but for some players, this is the sort of dungeon-crawling experience that has been missing from modern games.

As old-school dungeon crawlers go, Legend of Grimrock delivers, and is definitely worth a look if you were looking for a new RPG to slake your gaming thirst.

LoG-ging out,

Uni