Archive for the ‘Slash and Bash’ Category

Din’s Curse Review

Action, Adventure, RPG, Slash and Bash | Posted by Zeke
May 29 2010


Do you believe in reincarnation? Do you avoid stepping on insects since they could be your relatives back in a lower form to better their next life? Well, Soldak, the developers for the new Mac rpg Din’s Curse, do. The main character comes back to life to redeem his past corrupt and despicable actions.

In the game, Din the all mighty god verbally directs you, the low life who made major mistakes in your prior life, to get you to this indefensible position where you must justify and correct your misdeeds. As crazy as this setup seems, it works. You rally to the defense of your townspeople and fight to the death against the most ferocious of enemies. A terrific feature of this play is if you should die, Din will resurrect you to start again. Check out the descriptions of each bad guy on the website: http://www.soldak.com/Dins-Curse/Monsters.html. Soldak has detailed every little thing in Din’s Curse. The major feature in this game is the randomization of the world. Each town has it’s own set of problems and quests for you to resolve. Each one is a surprise, leading to hours of play time for gamers from novice to hard core. Also you can play as a single player or co-op multiplayer action game.

The game is time dependent and whatever you choose to do will result in either dire consequences or increased reputation. You will be instructed to go and kill Barry the Beast before he starts a revolution. You need to heed the warning and take care of this matter right away. There are other instances where you can put off, but it can be dangerous to do so.

As in most rpg games you must keep track of your health bars on the upper left side of the screen. The stats are available for you to peruse when you get a chance, and choosing the class of your avatar and the skills are important to improve your outcome in situations. From the skill sets you can choose your person to be a warrior, rogue, priest, wizard, ranger, conjurer or create a hybrid from 2 skill trees from any basic class. The only problem with a hybrid is that you are limited to 2 choices and with a template you get 3. You right click to to assign the skills and up and down to change it to one of the other skills. If you think about it, there are a lot of characters you can create and play in all sorts of combinations in randomly created towns.

Every time you begin a new game, the quests and layout changes. Every new character you make starts off in a new town, another dungeon and different monsters to battle. You can set the level for your monster’s strength, but this will increase as you go higher in the dungeon. Start with 0 if you are new to this type of play and higher if you are an expert. The range goes from 0 to 24, but be forewarned there are a lot of enemies who will come at you.

Not only are you battling monsters and enemies, you must also collect your loot in order to advance in the game. I think the best part of Din’s Curse is the story and reading into what you must decide on when told to act and act immediately or something dreadful will occur. Any warnings should be taken seriously or you will suffer for it. Be careful to stop any fights between your enemies or they will gain levels and champion status when they kill other groups. In addition, watch out while you are in the dungeon because enemies can escape to the town and attack the people. If you rush back and save the town, you can keep your reputation, but if you are slow to move, townspeople can be kidnapped or killed and this will cause you to lose reputation. The only upside to killed people is you can search them for loot—morbid.

Completing all quests for a town will save it and earn you a chest full of loot from Din. After the fireworks, you can go back to the dungeon and explore more or start a new town.

There’s a lot to do in this rpg game. Flip a lever to cause an explosion, use a poison trap or make the roof cave in on your enemies. The artwork is retro simple with a little more color than their other rpg Kivi’s Underworld, but it does the job. The play will surpass the background scenery. There’s very little music at the beginning with strange sound effects that create the eerie atmosphere of the dark dungeons. Invisible barriers are troublesome and will block you from moving, but you can make your way in a different direction.

Make your choices wisely because your actions will have impact in this random world of monsters and warriors. You need to pay attention to your surroundings and read the text. There’s so much to do in this game from looking for loot to fighting lots of enemies, including moles who can cause serious damage. Have fun with Din’s Curse. It is intense and full of many different options for hours of playability.

Features of Din’s Curse:
-Randomization
-Lots of Fierce Enemies
-141 Class Combinations

Rating: ★★★★☆

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Avernum 6 Review

Action, Adventure, RPG, Slash and Bash | Posted by Zeke
Apr 23 2010

The final game in this epic fantasy role-playing series is dramatic and intense a play as the previous ones. Find yourself immersed in the subterranean world of Avernum 6 lost in its winding labyrinths.

As you recall from Avernum 5, there are people and others like the Slithzerikai or the lizard people living in the once, desolate caverns of this underground society, if you can call it that. This was once the Empire’s prison where people who rebelled lived in vast cavern-like areas connected by dark, extensive tunnels where life was run by brawn and muscle. Now Avernum and the Empire are at peace, and it is a wild frontier with strong rebels looking for wealth, fame and magical powers.

Of course, all good things must come to an end and blight hits suddenly causing the mushrooms to die off in this underground society. Avernum depends on these mushrooms for nourishment and this supply is gone causing hunger and desperation across this land. Any time there is weakness, unsavory characters will come out and try to destroy the helpless causing famine and warfare to proliferate. Most Slithzerikai are civilized, but a few in the north led by evil warlords gained control over the weak. Avernites fled the useless underground land through a portal to the world above. A select few volunteer to fight the evil.

You are one of the volunteers and start out this game as a private guarding the food supply from giant rats, looters and goblins. As in Avernum 5, you also have control over 3 other people. Unlike 5, you start off with these people instead of choosing them at the beginning. You can move them in sync or separately. In battle, however, each person is controlled individually and you take turns battling the enemy.
The play will take you through a tutorial if you need it. The actions are done by clicking your mouse and some keyboard shortcuts like picking up things and spells. You can use the arrow keys to move your people, but it’s easier if you use your mouse. This is not your usual hack and slash game, and it will take tactics to defeat the many enemies you will encounter. There are large battles with smaller skirmishes in between. The journey through Avernum is dark and dangerous. Most of the areas are in too dark to see until you light it up and continue on your journey. The map is an immense help. There are countless tasks to complete, people to talk to and items to find. The play is full of spells and battle disciplines, but half of the intrigue in this game comes from the writing and story line. It is full of twists and turns, both literally and figuratively, treachery, a little humor and, of course, fighting.

Avernum 6 is for newbies and gamers alike. The difficulty levels are casual, normal, hard and torment. Take your pick if you dare. Although the graphics are simple, the intense story strengthens the play. There’s very little music (only at the beginning) but it is filled with eerie sound effects throughout the dimly lit land. It is an epic tale coming to the end of a great play. I liked Avernum 5 and I like Avernum 6 even though there were small differences. Be sure to block off a lot of time to play this huge Mac game.

Features of Avernum 6:
-Enormous World
-Hours of Adventure
-Final Tale

[rating:4}

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Avernum 5 Review

Action, Adventure, Slash and Bash | Posted by musicaltrack
Mar 31 2010

avernum-5

Avernum 5 is a subterranean RPG adventure epic Mac game for all levels of expertise in gaming. The explicit tutorial and in-game help will introduce the new players to RPG play, and still be challenging enough for hardcore gamers with the battle disciplines and magical spells.

The Empire is prosperous and at the moment a peaceful land ruled by the powerful Empress Prazac who one day is attacked by Dorikas a dissident who escapes to the out lands called Avernum. There you will go underground and find the scrounge of the earth waiting to attack you. There are sickly people living in caves eating lizard meat and fungus. It was once a prison colony full of enemies of the Empire.

This is the land the Empress’ army will send you, a person who has not always been an ideal soldier and in the wrong place at the wrong time. You must prove yourself worthy in this hellish underground or die trying. You must choose your fellow soldiers wisely and for their strengths and weaknesses. There are 3 different races in this world: Human, Nephilum (feline people) and Slithzerikar (lizard people living underground).

The Empire is counting on you and your team, so choose wisely because Dorikas and his band of monsters, bandits, and misfits in the deep recesses of the caves of Avernum will not let you leave easily. Your only help may be the cave dwellers, but they may try to kill you also so beware of your back.

There are hundreds of artifacts to be found including magical spells and weapons. The blessing magic is useful for hard fights. When in combat you can end a characters turn by clicking on him or pressing the space bar. There are lots of keyboard shortcuts to enhance your play. The world map on the left side of the screen will aid you in your strategy.  This game is so large with its epic story line and huge environment to wander and search through the dark cavernous land that it will take you hours of battling foes and finding needed spells and artifacts.

In the beginning you get your sea legs by wandering around the brick passages and exploring the different movements and artifacts to be found there. The movements were quick and fast. The RPG play where you choose your statements affects what happens in the play and changes the story with your choices. You never know what’s right or wrong in this tale.

The fighting in the beginning is a little dull with little action in attacking the stationary enemies but this kind of play is great for anyone new to fighting games.

Avernum 5 is similar to Kivi’s Underworld without the fast paced myriads of attacking zombies in random battles. It has an intense story line, over 50 spells, many unusual encounters with foes and villains. The play to kill the enemies is to click on the bad guys and the movements can be fast and easily handled even for a casual gamer looking to getting into RPG games. Avernum 5 is a good starter game for all those new to the play.

At Org we decided to have our casual gamer, Meg, and experienced player, Trackbum, both try out Avernum 5. Obviously Meg had to read and learn many new things, and she struggled through some of the maneuvering of the soldiers in a straight line. In fact they were running around in circles and was quite funny to watch. It took a while but her soldiers eventually fought courageously through a battle. Meg found the sounds eerie and cave like. She gave the game 3.5 stars.

On the other side of the spectrum, Trackbum sat down without reading anything and knew what to do at every turn. The start of the search was a little boring for him but as the story progressed he got into the play more and more. He knew the sounds were the usual cave noises and was not impressed by them. However he gave Avernum 5 four stars for the battle disciplines and rpg plays.

Rating: ★★★★☆

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