Majesty 2 – The Royal Feat
I picked up fantasy kingdom sim Majesty 2 a while back, and though I found the tutorial and first few missions fairly easy, I ran into a bit of a brick wall at The Royal Feat. In order to prove my worth to the people of Ardania, I must perform a Royal Feat: that is, kill Rafnir, the oldest and most cunning of dragons! As Rafnir is nearly invulnerable, thanks to various magic, I also have to seek out a witch and do her bidding so that she will remove this protection.
My Sean Connery sound-alike advisor said that Rafnir would attack if he sees my flag.. but I found him marauding through my kingdom on day 2, before any of my buildings were even completed and certainly before I’d set any flags!
On this first visit, Rafnir informed me that he didn’t come here to eat my underfed heroes. Well, as I didn’t have any buildings yet, I didn’t even have any heroes! Before he flew away again, he blasted away the progress I had made on my Ranger’s Guild..
Indie Royale – The St. Patrick’s Day Bundle!
The latest bundle from the Indie Royale is up: The St. Patrick’s Day Bundle, containing Hard Reset, Jolly Rover, Vertex Dispenser and DLC Quest, and bonus game Lair of the Evildoer.
As usual, the bundle is pay-what-you-want with a minimum price; beat the average to knock the price down for others!
Hard Reset is an action shooter by Flying Wild Hog, set in a cyberpunk city with humanity verging on extinction and under attack by machines. The game features over-the-top destruction, loads of weapons, enemies and a plot inspired by the likes of Blade Runner!
Brawsome‘s Jolly Rover is a 2d point-and-click adventure following Gaius James Rover across three tropical islands, facing off pirates, villains, voodoo, love and a lack of loot, while following his dream of starting a circus.
Vertex Dispenser, by brog, is an abstract strategy game with mathematical puzzle elements: the game features a mixture of action and mind-bending challenges, as you collect power-ups and capture territory in the right order to maximise the colour of vertices, defend territory and eradicate enemies.
Going Loud Studios‘ DLC Quest is a platforming action game where you defeat the bad guy, save the world and get the girl.. while taking a swipe at the games industry’s DLC practices!
Bonus game Lair of the Evildoer, also by Going Loud Studios, is an RPG shooter with 20 levels procedurally generated with evil, over 30 types of enemy, 25 weapons with plenty of variation, and a stat-based levelling system. Escape the evil Dr. Odious’ lair any way you want to!
Impressions of each game to follow..
The Indie Royale: The Valentine’s Bundle
Indie Royale’s The Valentine’s Bundle is now out, with five games, and bonus DLC! As usual the bundle is available on a pay what you want scheme, with a minimum price, although you can pay more to unlock the bonus, show your support, and knock down the price for others!
The games are: action fighting game Zeno Clash, by Ace Team, Hoard, a strategy game featuring dragons, by Big Sandwich Games Inc., adventure puzzle game Lume, by StateofPlay, and world premiere PC versions of retro RPG defense games Soulcaster and Soulcaster II, by MagicalTimeBean!
The bonus DLC in this bundle is for HOARD: Dynamite Roll!, which adds nine new maps and extra units, and Flame-Broiled SANDwich which adds a desert continent and remodelled buildings, units and terrain!
For those paying more than the current minimum, there’s also One Life Left’s music compilation, “Music To Play Games By Too“.
We looked at all the games in a bit more detail.. you can read it over here.
Indie Gala 2 – Quick Overview
I grabbed my bundle of shiny new indie games from the Indie Gala 2 yesterday, adding Greed Corp, Roboblitz, Critical Mass, Fortix 2 and Bunch of Heroes to my Steam library, and to my ever-expanding backlog! So on to trying them out, in no particular order..
Fortix 2 is a reverse turret defense game by Nemesys Games, an indie developer from Hungary. The aim of the game is to capture the castle by capturing the land bit by bit, while avoiding the dragons, cannons, and other monsters..
I tried out the Fortix 2 demo a while ago, and found the gameplay rather easy.. maybe too easy. At the time I resisted buying the game in part due to that, but also because of the backlog.. so I was rather glad to see it in the bundle and have a bit more of an excuse to get it 😉
I’m happy to note that the full game includes more difficult enemies, including Blood Bats which travel along the base line, meaning nowhere is safe! Maps start to contain hazards such as bat caves, which when captured release more bats to plague you.. the added challenge was certainly appreciated!
One small niggle, though.. the game takes your name from your Steam profile, with no option for renaming. Ordinarily I wouldn’t care, but with a character limit in place, it trimmed my name to “Sir CoffeeScam”!
Vanguard Games‘ Greed Corp is a turn based strategy, where you need to find the balance between harvesting the land for resources and preserving it. Each hexagon of terrain has a number of layers which collapse as you harvest the land.. these can also be strategically destroyed to throw enemy units and buildings into the abyss!
Combat between walkers is simple.. the larger force on each hexagon wins.. but when it comes to the buildings, you need to look at the layout of the map before doing anything! Harvesters can be built on any land you own, then on each turn they generate resources out of the terrain they are on, as well as those around them. However, this erodes a layer as well..
You can use these to sabotage your enemy by destroying the land under them; when a hexagon falls, any buildings or units on it fall too!
I only took a quick look at this game, playing through the tutorial to see how it all works.. I’ll be coming back to this one later, and maybe trying out the multiplayer: you can take on up to three other players across a range of maps 🙂
Bunch of Heroes was next: a four-player co-op shooter by NGD Studios. Aliens are invading Earth, and summoning a Zombie army to assist them.. and the Bunch of Heroes are our last line of defense! 🙂
There are four playable characters in the Bunch, each with a different special attack: El Comandante, the Cuban Commander, throws exploding cigars, while Jared Joe, the Quarterback, can make a touchdown for his special move. Captain Smith, the Duke, can call in a bombing run to assist him, and Agent Liu, the spy, can set enemies on fire! To use the special attack, you need to kill enemies and pick up the energy they drop.
There are three modes: Campaign, Survival and Timed Mode, with a few different scenarios. Campaign mode consists of simple missions such as clearing enemies from an area, defending a point for a short time, and rescuing cheerleaders. I found the cheerleader rescue rather funny, as you have to sling her over your shoulder and carry her..
Aside from screaming when you pick her up or put her down, the cheerleader dances at intermittent points while not being carried. At one point I died while carrying her, and found it rather funny when she almost instantly started dancing at my corpse’s feet! 😀
The game is designed for four players, and as there are no AI bots, playing by yourself means being somewhat swamped. After trying the first Campaign, I tried out Survival.. my first attempt was rather brief.. 😉
Roboblitz, by Naked Sky Entertainment, is a puzzle platform shooter featuring a little robot technician who lives aboard a Space Cannon Facility. The Facility comes under attack from pirate robots led by the MegaNOAD, and Blitz has to get all systems up and running in order to fire the Space Cannon while fending off attacks from the various invading pirate robots.
You start off with only your grabby arms and a spin attack, which is fine for dealing with the Pirate Scouts, but ineffective on larger enemies. Blitz can also gather collectible Upgradium, which can be used to purchase new weapons: the first of these is the EMP gun, which stuns enemies for a short time, but other weapons are able to destroy them.
I liked the variety of puzzles, spread across different areas which you can access at will, but I found the controls and movement occasionally quite poor.
Blitz’s item handling wasn’t as accurate as I’d have liked, and in getting close enough to pick some items up, I found myself bumping them away instead. More frustrating was the jumping: in particular, I found jumping into one certain pipe in the Coolant Tower was more miss than hit, with a miss causing Blitz to get stuck on the edge, holding on by the arms. After a few misses in the fan room, and having to go back to try again, this annoyed me enough that I decided to move on to the final game in the bundle..
Critical Mass, a 3d action puzzler by Manic Games Studios! There are four modes: Classic, Survival, Meditation and Rush, but the core gameplay is the same in each.. destroy the mass by creating colour combos of four or more blocks. Simple to understand, but difficult to master! 🙂
I tried Classic first, and quickly realised that this has the makings of an addictive game.. winning a level means proceeding to the next, slightly more difficult level, while defeat means retrying the level. In this mode, the camera zooms in during play until the whole structure shakes and destroys itself.. producing a combo pushes the camera back and gives you just a little more time, while Survival ‘rewards’ a combo by throwing more blocks into the fray. Rush mode times your efforts, with the object to clear the mass as quickly as possible, and Meditation is the calm, thoughtful mode where you can aim for the biggest combos on the board, without distraction.
The bundle came with music as well, and I have to note I don’t really listen to game music outside of the games themselves. However, games without music wouldn’t be the same, so it’s good to see some support for indie music too 🙂
King Arthur II: The Role-Playing Wargame
King Arthur II: The Role-Playing Wargame, the turn-based strategy RPG by Neocore Games and Paradox Interactive, has now been released on the PC.
While trying to protect his kingdom, King Arthur suffered a wound which won’t heal and thus became the Maimed King.. and his land is suffering with him. Camelot is in ruins, with the Knights of the Round Table scattered or turned against each other, and monsters roam the lands..
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ-2leHqbE0]
Players take control of a small army of warriors, attempting to uncover the dark forces at work in the lands of ancient Britannia. Gameplay consists of a mixture of strategic and tactical phases, with a large campaign map for strategic actions such as moving armies and completing story-driven quests, and tactical battles taking place when two armies meet. Battles can take place under the direct command of the player, with numerous tactics to choose from, or they can be Auto-Resolved for an instant decision.
The King Arthur II demo, featuring the tutorial and first mission, is available for download here.
A Game of Dwarves
Paradox Interactive have just announced that they are to publish A Game of Dwarves, a strategy game by Zeal Game Studios for PC and PS3.
A dwarven prince is on a quest to reclaim his people’s country, travelling across a continent and unearthing the buried mysteries of the Great War.
The gameplay consists of exploration, building and controlling various dwarven settlements in order to strengthen your clan. Each level starts with a new, uniquely-generated world which you must explore and build your settlement in, with the building options allowing some freedom to design great-looking as well as practical homes for your dwarves.
The dwarves themselves level up as you progress, gaining new skills and becoming stronger warriors or master craftsmen.
As you dig deeper in search of the resources you’ll need to improve your buildings and equipment, you’ll also need to be prepared to defend your settlement from the enemies lurking in the depths..
Castle Empire Online – Open Beta
Ubisoft and Blue Byte‘s browser-based strategy MMO Castle Empire Online (formerly known as The Settlers Online) is now in open beta in Europe, with registration available through either Facebook or Ubisoft’s UPlay system. The game has been available to players in the US, Germany, France and Russia for some time, but is now available in the UK.
In Castle Empire Online, players gather resources, build and expand their city and raise an army.. you can group up with allies and join guilds, and trade.. or simply conquer all who stand in your path!
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a reimagining of the original turn-based strategy originally released in 1993 under the title UFO: Enemy Unknown, by Culture Brain and MicroProse.
In the original game, the player manages X-COM, a secret organisation set up to deal with the threat of extraterrestrial invasion. Through the game, you meet and fight different aliens, learning more about them and their technology, before preparing an assault on the alien’s base. This was followed by a number of sequels and compilation releases, but the original was the most popular and successful, winning IGN’s #1 PC Game of All Time in 2003, 2005 and 2007, as well as high positions in the Best Computer Game of All Time by PC Gamer across several years. The game and X-COM series have a large fanbase, including some of the Firaxis team.. so the new game will have a lot to live up to!
XCOM: Enemy Unknown is a strategy game, and as the commander of X-COM, you are faced with handling the global response to the invasion of Earth: resource management, research and development of new technology, and defense, including management of the soldiers themselves, although Firaxis have said they are removing some elements of micromanagement which they considered tedious and uninteresting.
Another XCOM game is being developed by 2k Marin, developers of BioShock 2. Titled simply XCOM, this is a first person shooter and takes place earlier than any other game in the series, when the aliens are just making their first attacks on Earth. This game was to be published in 2011, but has been delayed.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown is under development by Firaxis Games, published by 2k Games, with release scheduled for late 2012.
The Little Big Bunch
The latest in the line of indie bundles arrived today: the Little Big Bunch, with five indie games on the usual pay what you want scheme, with money being split between developers and Games Aid as you wish.
This one has a minimum price.. something I’m glad of after seeing a guy taunting one of the indie devs on Twitter this afternoon. He was bragging about only having paid 1 cent for the game.. less than a penny.. which would have been bad enough without the taunting!
I already owned one of the games: Mode 7‘s strategy game Frozen Synapse, so this one is going to Tim, and maybe we’ll get to play together at some point 😉
Also in the bundle are two platformers, one with destruction: Explodemon, by Curve Studios, and one with aliens: Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee. Finally there’s New Star Soccer 5, a football career sim, by New Star Games.. which isn’t really my type of game. The one I’m most interested in here is 2d platform shooter Serious Sam Double D, from Mommy’s Best Games, and supported by Croteam through their Serious Sam Indie series.
Serious Sam Double D is via Steam code, while the rest of the games are available via Get Games‘ download system. I have to say I much prefer Steam, knowing that I can download the games as many times as I want, and that updates will be applied as they appear. Get Games’ FAQ says that the number of activations per game vary between publishers.. while I don’t mind if I lose a cheap indie game after a couple of reinstalls, I’d be wary of buying anything I forsee playing over and over again.
The Humble Indie Bundle 4!
The Humble Indie Bundle 4 is now out, with another bunch of games to sit accusingly on my Steam list until I play them 😉
This time we’ve got: Jamestown, a scrolling arcade shooter by Final Form Games, music platformer Bit.Trip Runner by Gaijin Games, Super Meat Boy, the slightly-squicky puzzle by Team Meat, Shank, by Klei Entertainment, and Night Sky by NICALiS, which I already had from a previous bundle.
The bonus games this time were a sci-fi strategy called Gratuitous Space Battles, from Positech Games, and Cave Story+, a 2D platformer by NICALiS, which has been updated slightly from the original for this version.
I’m glad it’s nearly Christmas.. I need more time in the day! 😀