Oblivion vs Risen vs Two Worlds vs Torchlight

Okay, it’s admittedly an odd comparison. To a degree. Some would point out the obvious similarities between Risen, Oblivion and Two Worlds, but scratch their heads at Torchlight being included. For those of you that are curious where I’m going with this, read on.

Of the four games listed above, I’ve played Two Worlds the most out of all of them. Now, that’s completely unfair to Torchlight, I know: I only got it yesterday evening and have only had time enough to log maybe an hour, wandering the mines beneath the title village.

But I’ve had Risen for at least two weeks and Oblivion (on my 360) for far longer than that. So why am I playing Two Worlds so much? It all boils down to the ways that Two Worlds is similar to Torchlight, and dissimilar to the other two games. And in my opinion, in this case, dissimilar = vastly superior. Yeah, so Two Worlds is … unpolished. That’s true. And many would argue the voiceovers to be the work of masochists, intent on forcing you into ripping off both of your own ears, in the style of Van Gogh. And that would sort of also be true. I say ‘sort of’, because if you listen to/play the game long enough, it becomes one of those so truly bad, it’s good sorta things. And I mean TRULY bad. But I really do laugh at the ridiculous things your character says, and the reaches to which the NPCs attempt to stretch the believability of their blacksmith’s tragic flaws. It’s ridiculous, but it’s fun. Hey, when I’m in a cave surrounded by a huge group of grinning skeletons that are all intent on turning me into paste, and my character says “hmmm… looks like my in-laws.” in this awesome gravelly deadpan, I can’t help but laugh.

And that is why I love this game. That and a buncha other stuff I’ll get into in a minute.

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Trine Demo

Trine 2.5D physics platformer

Since everyone else is doing it, I figured I would as well. There’s a Trine demo out! Why should you care? Well, this is a 2.5D physics-based platformer made by the cool guys who did the Shadowgrounds games which I thought were awesome and really should be made for XBLA. (hint, hint)

Anyway, about the Trine demo… get it here. It’s going to be out for the PC on July 3rd, shortly afterwards on PSN, and XBLA at an as-yet-undetermined future date. Check it out in action below.

Preview from Joystiq for PSN here…

New games .. hooray!

Sacred 2 boxartWell, I haven’t posted in a while. Sorry about that. I had a bit of a vacation off to London which was fantastic. Lots of walking, fish n’ chippies, beer, art. Not necessarily in that order.

Anyway, that’s not what this post is about! I’ve recently purchased Sacred 2 for my 360 (have it on PC as well) and thanks to GamersGate’s cheapo weekend (Hooray! – for cheap bastards like me) I got King’s Bounty for $9.99! I’ve been playing both off and on and enjoying them a lot.

I’m finding that KB is quite addictive and very, very polished. I have only found issue so far with a couple things – since the map has so much on it, I find my hero jitters a bit as I move him around… bumping into various things. But that’s not really a big deal. I wish you could auto-resolve battles, especially when you run into the 4th –insert low-level monster here– in a row. That can get kind of dull, but once again, not a game-breaker in the least.

Sacred 2 on the other hand, not so polished. You’d think it would be, considering the number and size of the updates applied to the PC version, but it’s sadly not the case. Still, there’s no comparable action-RPGs on the console (Marvel Ultimate Alliance imo is very diffeerent) so I guess it kinda wins by default. I find the text a bit hard to read on my large-screen 480p TV, but it’s still pretty darn fun.

Check back soon for some reviews on a Photo Organizer app and an MP3 jukebox app… both to appear as ‘Overlooked’ reviews.

Free Realms …. I’m SO done with you. Especially now.

This post has been deleted as it simply caused too much dumb controversy. The gist of it was this: I linked to an article on Massively where they discussed Free Realms being played by adult players. I thought that this was strange since Free Realms is clearly targeted at kids and I posted such.

However, since I tried (and clearly failed) to do it in a tongue-in-cheek, somewhat funny way – and linking to a Penny Arcade comic in the process – I came under fire as seen below in the approved comments. And in other comments I didn’t approve. It was inferred that I was somehow trying to attack Sony, that I was a right-wing narrow-minded crazy. That couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Simply, I was trying to point out that much hubbub was made over regular MMOers playing FR, and it clearly isn’t made for those of us that also play WoW and whatnot (hint: it’s really made for kids). Not that you can’t play FR and have some casual light-hearted fun, knock yourself out. I just find that the intense levels of hype surrounding it, aimed at adult gamers is well… ODD.

Long and short… go about your business – nothing to see here. If you want to play Free Realms, adult gamer, I won’t make fun of you anymore.

The Chronicles of Spellborn goes final

Well, it’s gone final. Because of that, I had to update my review. Man, always causing me work, that game. So there’s 2 good things about this – 1) you can now use reg’lar old credit cards for payment. That effectively negated the calculus needed to subscribe to the damn game and 2) you get 2 weeks for nuttin just for signing up.

Of course, not all is rosy – as of the writing of this article, their site is getting hammered (I presume) and is unavailable. And in Dutch, no less. is back up. However, in the meantime, why don’t you head on over and read my newbie review of the game, so you can discover what to expect from the game.

From Massively.com:

Acclaim has officially launched The Chronicles of Spellborn in North America, and to mark the occasion, premium subscriptions are totally free for people registering before the 7th of May (and for existing accounts). The issue of needing “Acclaim Coins” to purchase subscriptions has been fixed in time for the launch, and when the free subscriptions run out, players will be able to keep them going using their credit cards directly.

via Spellborn launches in the US; subscriptions free for 2 weeks – Massively.

LotRO two-year anniversary… Goodies & cheaper prices!

theoneringSo LotRO is 2. Awwww lookit ‘im! He’s growing so fast. Actually, I’m a bit bummed about the whole $9.99 pricing for Moria and SoA. I just spent $50 for the same package, not 3 weeks ago. Gahhhh! Oh well. It’s a good game and it’s worth it. You all should go spend $50 on it too! Support the wee MMOs!

Anyway, there’s some cool stuff coming down the pike with Book 8, as described on Massively, Dol Guldur, Sauron’s old fortress. Sweet. And they don’t stop there – they’re also adding Mirkwood – of the giant spiders from the Hobbit. Awesome. Head on over to Massively for the full scoop.

Anniversary Bonuses

To help promote LotRO for new players, Turbine is offering a special anniversary pricing plan for all subscriptions of 3 months or more. From April 24th through June 30th, players can choose any multi-month plan (90 days or longer) and lock in a monthly price of $9.99 for as long as they maintain that plan. Plus, the game itself is $9.99 on the company’s e-store through this promotional period.

During the anniversary celebration, monsters throughout Middle-earth will drop special rare items that can be exchanged for a gift box that will reward them with a variety of in-game items to aid in their adventures in Middle-earth. Plus, anyone with an active subscription on June 30th will receive a special in-game gift called the Writ of Passage which provides 20% discounts at stable masters throughout Middle-earth.

via LotRO two-year anniversary: Book 8 details announced – Massively.

First screenshot of Torchlight!

Torchlight is the upcoming singleplayer action-RPG from Runic Games. Runic is the company created from the remnants of Flagship Studios West. The guys that were working on Mythos.

Anyhoo, they’re developing a single-player RPG first, followed by an MMO… which has just been announced to be published by Perfect World Games. This means that it will have worldwide distribution. Very exciting.

Below is one of the first screenshots of the game in action. It looks sweet – especially the enormous boss in the top left. For those of you that like Action RPGs, from the description of it, Torchlight sounds like its going to be essentially Fate 2.0. And that’s a good thing. I can’t wait to see what the MMO is going to be like.

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