Left 4 Dead: A computer version of Zombies!!! ?
I know it is not a CRPG, but I'm addicted to Left 4 Dead.
Simple, fast, fantastic in cooperative play, and unlike it seems not short-lived. I'm enjoying it so much it reminds me the old times of "really simple but addictive" games. I just want to kill zombies all the time!
I thought it was a fresh idea (as fresh as a zombie themed game can be this days xD)... until I came with a boardgame, Zombies!!!
I've bought it this xmas (and some expansions are on their way) and played a lot with my girlfriend (yep! girls do play geek boardgames too ;)
Instead of writing a lot, I encourage you to read the rules (can be downloaded from the official site) and have a look at some photos I've taken of actual playing it:
The goal of the survivors, being the first to reach the helipad
The city layout is random and changes on each play
Event cards serve to either help you, or be bad with the other players
Reached the mall, just fight a zombie or two and get those bullets and lives
As the game progresses, the city gets usually infested with the horde
Miniatures are great (I've ordered 100 glow-in-the-night zombies :D )
Start to see similarities? Left 4 Dead has removed the event cards (and placed instead the AID, Artificial Intelligence Director), has added special zombies, coop play, fps elements, but overall looks a lot like a computer version of Zombies!!!
Even some terms as "reach the heliport", "horde" and some event card effects are used in both places with exactly the same purpose.
Anyway it was just a rant, each one is great in its field and I love both!
And as an extra, a small 4kb flash "implementation" of Left 4 Dead (thanks Javi!)
Diablo 3 + info about WoW 2nd Expansion
Wow, what a weekend! I went out this friday and just came back few hours ago to find that Diablo III has been finally confirmed to be in development (and looking fantastic), and more info about upcoming Wrath of the Lich King WoW expansion!
Also, I've been playing with the Spore Creature Creator for a while, and I'll probably add a subsection in this blog with both the creatures I design and the selections I made from other people ones (Sporepedia has at the time of writing this post near 1.3 million creatures!!!).
I know it's not an RPG, but I feel this game deserves a space here :)
J2ME RPGs I'm playing
As I don't have enough time right now to play with my Nintendo DS nor the PSP while travelling to work, I've decided to play some small RPGs on my phone.
I'm on my second run on this one. A great conversion of an FPS into a turn-based action-rpg. Very enjoyable and full of secret chambers. Really worth playing.
Using an improved version of the Doom RPG engine, a more "true RPG" game, with more dialogs, quest logs (and more varied quest types), lots of items and multiple weapons and spells.
Playing it reminds me of playing the original Eye of the Beholder games :_)
Note: Images are from the first game, but the second part looks very similar.
This one has just been installed, so I can't give yet a review, but looks as a a promising dungeon crawl semi-rpg.
Playing Roguelikes and other nerd stuff
Apart from lots of other things, like playing again pen-and-paper RPGs or finishing at last some CRPGs, I'm trying some "different" computer RPGs, Roguelikes.
They will probably scare a lot of people for their text-mode graphics (excepting a few ones), but if you've ever enjoyed Diablo or any other action-RPG, you have to try roguelikes...
I'm amazed how complex are them. Anyone is much better than the overall pc action-rpg, and some of them just deserve money investment and graphic artists to become a commercial-like quality game.
Curiously, the last game I've tried is the first one I've read about... Unangband. A fantastic RPG ambiented in Tolkien's world.
A curious set of "remakes" are the following three games:
Diablo RL: Same gameplay as the original Blizzard's game, but in text mode.
Doom RL: This one is quite fun, after having played and finished a few times Doom RPG.
Aliens RL: This is the best of the three for me. I love Aliens films, and this actionRPG is fantastic. The line of sight is quite well done, inventory management is easy... You should try it!
Dwarf Fortress is the last and more complex one of all my recent discoveries. The game is a 2x1: You can build and manage a dwarven fortress like in a strategy game with multiple levels, complex conditions as humidity and hostile civilitzations, or you can play as an adventurer and explore the huge world (almost 20kx20k squares!!!).
Seriously, I've discovered an amazing new world of entertainment... much better than commercial, mindless hack'n slash "RPG"s.
Assassin's Creed
This blog is about RPGs, and apart from exceptions (like Odin Sphere) I usually stick to that... but this is like playing Vampire: The Masquerade, following strictly the rulebook and dice rolls, or enjoying the story, the roleplaying session and forgetting about dice rolls and other "distracting elements".
I'm hooked to Assassin's Creed (in the 360, because the PC version is delayed...). Not because it's roleplaying elements (almost none), but because of it's recreation of the crusades, of the medieval age, and the cities it represents...
You play as Altaïr (in Arabic, "the flying one", very appropiate ;), a member of the Hashhashin which becomes dishonored and degraded and has to make his way up again into the ranks of the sect, by killing nine men (in order to stop the Crusades).
The controls of the character are just fantastic, and very intuitive. You will be doing acrobatics and having fantastic combats with combos, counterattacks and special moves shortly after you start playing.
Our protagonist not only is a master acrobat, who can climb on most surfaces up to the top of any tower, church, guard post... (almost everywhere), he is too a master fighter and assassin, so you can choose to silently kill your enemies (with the hidden knife, with throwing knives) or go for a direct attact with your sword.
The game is themed in three historically represented cities, Acre, Damascus and Jerusalem, plus Masyaf, the home of the Hasshashin. The three cities are really huge, and full of people, buildings, and small details that make you feel really there. Also, the game engine is very powerful and allows to have fabulous panoramic views in which you can see very very far and plan your way, sometimes even without looking at the map (which I love... usually you not only depend of your automap for locating quests but also for getting directions of where your destination is), by guiding yourself with the different buildings.
One of the things that have impressed me much looking the Wikipedia for some info about the game has been how realistic are the ingame cities... Below are real photos of Jerusalem and Masyaf; If you play the game you'll agree with me that the game's representation is quite accurate, while maintaining the fun factor of having a "medieval Spiderman" :)
The game is not perfect, and has it's flaws, like few variety of missions (I'm halfway through the game and I start to feel bored of doing the same 4-5 types of missions over and over...) or not perfect AI (sometimes guards let you do "forbidden things", they do not hear you noisy falling down just behind them,...), but overall is like wathing a good film... you'll enjoy the journey of Altaïr and feel like a true medieval age assassin.... Or quite similar (the game has some surprises I won't spoil ;)
I hope to finish the game this week, because both The Witcher and Mass Effect are awaiting me too...
Update: After having just finished it, decyphered the "messages" and all the ending stuff, if anyone wants to read more about the ending (WARNING: MASSIVE SPOILERS), check out this post. Solves a lot of mysteries and questions... I didn't thought the argument could be so deep, too bad that gameplay gets a bit repetitive :/
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