Archive for the ‘RPG’ Category

Eschalon Book 1 Review

Action, Adventure, RPG | Posted by Meg
Jul 24 2010

Eschalon

Download EschalonBuy Eschalon

Looking for an exciting adventure in the medieval woods of fantasyland? Try playing Eschalon Book 1, an old time RPG, epic Mac game in the style of Wizardry, Ultima and Might & Magic. This game will draw you into their incredible world of monsters, mysteries and action.

The game begins with you awakening in a destroyed home somewhere in the woods. You have no memory of who you are, where you are , what is happening, and what happened to you to be in this state of confusion. In fact, you don’t even know there’s a current war going on all around you so you start looking around and walking to find and click on objects and notes to discover what happened.

Notes found from an unknown benefactor reveals that your situation is not accidental and you may have caused it on yourself? But, why? Your quest for answers will take you across many lands, down dark dungeons, up against enemies and combating missions assigned to you from various people or from  notes from your benefactor; some of which will take you away from your main quest and branch out into sub quests.

To play this game you click on items such as barrels, buckets, chests, wells to collect your inventory of  torches, ropes, potions, weapons, shields, and special rings. You also need to acquire points to get experience so you can level up to be a stronger person. Of course, there is the ever important red health potion you drink to regain your strength. To fight monsters and evil things you must continuously click to beat them off. Some of you may not like this form of fighting but get used to it because there are a lot of enemies and monsters to conquer.

You will need strategy, skill, magic and the right weapon to win in this game. So customizing the right character and skills are important. There are many options to choose from and it can get very confusing at the beginning.  Keep at it and you will figure everything out.  Your decisions will differ your play each time so you can get a lot of use out of this one game.

My main complaint about Eschalon book 1 is there are no female characters to choose from the list of male warriors. In addition, setting up the game and following the story line is somewhat confusing but by starting the play, you get the main gist and feel of the game. Otherwise, the game is your typical RPG story set in medieval times, finding needed items, and traveling through many different lands fighting dozens of monsters and enemies.

Anyone who is into RPG will enjoy the many hours it takes to play this fun game. You can’t go wrong with it so try playing Eschalon Book 1 and search for answers while experiencing action and adventure when you have a few hours to kill.

Features of Eschalon 1:
-Hours of game play
-Dozens of monsters
-Main and sub quests
-Hundreds of items

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Tags: , , , , ,
No Comments »

Kivi’s Underworld Review

Action, Adventure, RPG | Posted by survivorbuff
Jul 09 2010

kivi-1

Download Kivi's UnderworldBuy Kivi's Underworld

Come with Kivi the Lumen on a wild adventure to save his world from foreign and dangerous enemies. Kivi’s Underworld is an addicting game about a young warrior trying to save his race of Lumen people from the dreaded dark elves. He needs to leave his underground safe haven to rebuild the lost city of Defiance through dark tunnels and treacherous paths to bring peace and harmony to his people.

The story begins with Kivi, a young Lumen warrior, leading a disastrous and deadly mining expedition, and unfolding uncharted territories to uncover a mythical (or so they thought) race of dark elves. Kivi is the lone survivor who makes it back to his home only to find that no one will believe him about the elves. He is in a fight of his life and must do so alone. He needs to recruit Lumens and fight off the elves with limited lives and powers.

Kivi fights many enemies along his journey, including skeletons and zombies with fire mage, disguises and power-ups found along the way. Fighting in the game is very straightforward; you simply click on an enemy to perform a standard attack or right click to perform a special maneuver. To perform special attacks you must have mana which is regenerated as you walk around the game board or picked up from killing enemies. As you walk in the game and break open crates and barrels you will find magic power-ups to help you bash through crowds of enemies or avoid them through secret passageways. The range of extras can go from power strikes to bolts of lightning. There are lots of monsters, deadly traps, secrets to uncover and many different characters to choose from including different races of people with numerous story lines.

This slash and bash mac game is a follow up to Depth of Peril and reminds me of World of Warcraft and Runescape. This game has endless possibilities and hours of fun waiting for casual players with its ease of learning the moves or for the seasoned gamers looking for a high difficulty level to challenge their experience. The only negatives I found was the repetitiousness of the play and the sound and voice qualities. I give this game 4 out of 5 stars for its fast pace, exciting gameplay and interesting story lines.

Features of Kivi Underworld:

-Over 20 characters with different storylines
-Magical power-ups
-Lots of monsters, zombies and skeletons
-Deadly traps
-4 difficulty levels
-Great graphics
-Maps
-Easy to learn

Rating: ★★★★☆

Tags: , , , , ,
6 Comments »

Styrateg Review

Adventure, RPG | Posted by musicaltrack
Jul 05 2010

strateg

Styrateg is a science fiction role player game that takes place in an ancient alternate world. In this world there are demons and other subhuman monsters that inhabit the world. It is your job as a knight to help the king vanquish these monsters and try to return the kingdom to its prior state. Choose one of four different starting characters: Beranus the skilled warrior, Clath the elvish huntress, Madame Ogg the intelligent sorceress, or Theodorick the helpful monk. Each is strong in their own way, but also have weaknesses.

The game opens when you receive a letter from an old friend in a distant kingdom. There has been a terrible plague in the country and it has infected and mutated many of the citizens. Currently the king is fighting a war against evil magic and terrible creatures. The city of Cannachdun was overtaken by the horrible disease which has turned many of the people into “cruel unholy animals who feed on the flesh of their neighbors.” No one has been able to figure out how or why this has been happening but it is your duty to help out your friend.

After reading this letter, you must go to the kingdom and find out the troubles that are plaguing the rest. The controls are easy, it is a point-and-click engine with controls on the side to determine which skill you plan on using. For example you can attack or heal depending on your skill set as well as many other options that become available as the game progresses. The game has more than sixty different quests to accomplish, and when you combine that with the different starting characters, the game provides for countless hours of gameplay.

I do like RPGs but would not classify myself as someone who plays a lot of them. This game reminded me of an old Final Fantasy, because it had a strong fantasy atmosphere. I like that idea of games like this and for me, story is one of the most important things when playing an RPG. The controls were sometimes a little confusing, as I wanted to enter a building and the character would not be able to. I also did not like how it operated in turns even when you weren’t in battle. This became a little bit of a hassle when you had more than one character in your posse and had to move them over great distances, individually. Styrateg was a solid game, but could use a little bit of a tune up. I would give the game three out of five stars.

Features of Styrateg:
- An excellent RPG
- More than 60 quests through 20 unique levels
- Countless magical items
- Strong Fantasy Atmosphere

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Tags: , , , ,
No Comments »

Great Adventures-Lost in Mountains

Adventure, Hidden Object/I Spy, Puzzle, RPG, Seek and Find, Sim | Posted by Meg
Jun 07 2010



Great Adventures – Lost in Mountains is an indescribable kind of Mac game. It incorporates a little of each genre of play. It touches a little on sim, rpg, puzzles, hidden objects and more.

The play begins with you selecting 2 characters, one a male and the other female. These 2 are a brother and sister team driving to a deserted hotel in a snowy isolated location high atop a mountain. Due to the snow storm the hotel is evacuated except for their father, the prominent Professor Burns. He calls Nancy to come quickly and rescue him, but before he could give her more information, the line goes dead. Once at the location, Nancy and Paul find the entire place deserted except for a lone dog, Sam. This is where the fun begins. You move your cursor around the grounds to find a key to enter the hotel. You need to look for things to use during your search and items for the health of Paul and Nancy. Food, rest and fun are needed to keep the characters going and searching for their father. For food, you can click on your character and drag them to the refrigerator to replenish, and they will go to the couch to rest when needed. Collecting the fish, lanterns, firewood will increase their fun scale.

There are other objects you find that need to be combined in order to use them. In order to turn on the TV, you need to find the remote control, but when you find the item, it’s out of batteries so you need to find those as well. You can combine them by clicking on both or by using the combine button at the top left. Some of the objects are locked in chests, behind safes or doors. In order to open these things you must find the item you’ll need to open them like keys, gears and other tools.

At the beginning of each level, you will be given objectives, goals or tasks to complete. These will be listed at the upper left corner to remind you of what you need to do. If you should get stuck, you can click on the hint bone at the lower left to get Sam to take you to what needs to be done and what to use from the inventory at the bottom center of the screen. The constant barking is annoying, but if you need the help, it’s there.

Throughout the entire game, you have many mini puzzles to complete. Most of the mini games are simple and should not be much of a challenge for anyone, but if you want to skip it, wait until the skip button fills up and exit the game. The mini games are trivia questions like what does the A on ABC stand for, spin the wheel to reveal a picture and other puzzles.

Each of your people will have their own skills that are needed in the game. Paul is more mechanical and strong while Nancy is a scientist and nimble. There are many entrances too small for Paul to fit through, but nimble Nancy easily fits through the gap. An annoying factor of this game is that once, Nancy squeezes through a crawl space, you have the option like in a rpg to decide whether she should enter or not. That part is okay, but in reverse when you need her at another location, you cannot click and drag her but you must answer another question whether to enter or not again. Since the game is a top-down view, you assume once she is in a spot, you can drag her out easily but that is not the case in this game.

Another irritating thing I found is the game will not let you string tasks together like picking up bones, lanterns, butterflies, etc. together. Once you click on your person and then on the object, you must wait until the task is completed before going on to another object. Other than those small annoyances, this game is fun to do solving puzzles and finding all your clues. The artwork is cute and colorful. It won’t stress you out (except maybe Sam’s barking) and the play is simple to complete for a relaxing time. I think since the game is fairly short, kids will be able to enjoy Great Adventures – Lost in Mountains as well.

Features of Great Adventures – Lost in Mountains:
-Many Objects to Find
-Over 15 Mini Games
-Mysterious Plot

Rating: ★★★½☆

Tags: , , , , ,
No Comments »

Harvest: Massive Encounter Review

Action, Adventure, RPG | Posted by musicaltrack
Jun 05 2010

Harvest Massive Encounter

Now usually I do not play these type of games, but Harvest: Massive Encounter caught my eye and I decided to give it a try. My initial reaction to the game is that it reminded me a lot of the Starcraft or Diablo series. Although I have never really played these games, I know the idea is to create an army or civilization that is sustainable and able to survive enemy attacks. Harvest: Massive Encounter is the same objective, but instead of building battleships, you build defense turrents and missile silos to protect your harvesting. What you are looking to obtain are minerals in the rocks, that serve as money so you can expand your society. However, these harvesters need energy to run, so solar paneled units and orbs that pass the power are built to give the rest of the colony energy. Once these begin to run, you begin to get more and more money to expand to other rock formations nearby.

But just doing that would be way too easy (not to mention boring) so there are aliens that come to attack your humble harvesters. This is where you build defense mechanisms that work to prevent the spaceships from destroying valuable equiptment. The first level is pretty basic, but other levels include all kinds of wars and upgrades that are impossible to describe without experiencing the game firsthand. As the levels progress there are more and more things to build and aliens to avoid. In the opening screen, you choose from three different worlds, each with its own challenges and interesting features, like a water world or an ice land. There are also different challenges within each level, like Normal mode (which is self explanitory), Wave (where you avoid 10 different waves of enemies), Insane (where you build a base deep in enemy territory), Rush (where you build a base in a mineral rich area that is on the brink of war) and Creative (no aliens, only harvesting).

Although the makers of the game market is as, “Easy to Learn, Impossible to Master” I think it should really be seen as, “(Not so) Easy to Learn, Impossible to Master.” This may just be my bias against these types of games but I was not interested by the concept. I mean I usually enjoy games like SimCity and Rollercoaster Tycoon, but this game didn’t make sense to me. The sci-fi story was pretty cool, but other than that, it was not really worth my time. Maybe I just didn’t give it enough of a chance, but Massive Encounter didn’t really appeal to me. I would like to say that this game was fun and challenging, but I didn’t think it was. I would give Harvest: Massive Encounter one and a half out of five stars.

Features of Harvest: Massive Encounter
-Control Massive Number of Units
-Uniques Strategy Play
-Energy Webs
-3 Planets to Explore

Rating: ★½☆☆☆

Tags: , , , ,
No Comments »