I didn’t write my round-up post last week because of things going on around here that were keeping me busy, causing a lack of gaming. This week hasn’t been much different, I am still very much involved in doing a bunch of stuff around the house, along with needing to get out and take care of errands as well, and things seem to keep piling on. But I’m making progress in the right directions all around, so it’s feeling pretty good. I did manage to get more playing time in this week, though I am still playing less hours than I had been per week in previous months. I had a couple of days where I had longer sessions, but some days where I barely touched the computer. My longest play session occurred on Xmas day, mainly because I had new games to play, part of the Holiday sale going on over on Steam.

Yes, unless you’ve been living under a rock for a number of years, the Steam Winter Sale happens every year. They’ll change the name here and there, they might have little gimmicks (like that weird gem auction thing this year), but we all know that we’re gonna get huge savings at this time of year. My funds were pretty much non-existent though, so I didn’t partake in the sale save for buying myself one small title that was super cheap. More on that later. I was gifted a couple of games though, one from my Dad on Xmas day, and another from my friend and fellow blogger Simcha, who was in the gifting spirit. Aside from the games scored in the sale, I finally got into the Alpha for Heroes of the Storm, and played that a bit. I’m not going to talk about my disappointment with that game today though, I have an impressions post coming for that later. So first up, we’ll talk about the gift from my Dad: Divinity: Original Sin.

I’ve been wanting to pick up the game since it released back in the summer, but sure enough it never went on sale until this month. He basically told me that I could choose any game I wanted for $40 or less, and of the games I have on my Steam wishlist, that title was at the top. I also made an Origin account just to get Dragon Age Inquisition, but thought better of it. I’ll probably get that game on the console, since I have the previous two games there already. Anyway, I picked out Divinity, and got started checking it out. There are a number of class choices you can go with for the main characters, and I really had no idea what I would want or need for a solid team, but upon further research it turns out the classes are flexible and you get followers that can flesh out your party. So I stuck with the Cleric/Knight combo I started with. Both have melee attacks and heals, so I would be relatively safe to start off.

The game plays like the old Bioware/Black Isle titles such as Baldur’s Gate, except when it comes to combat. In combat the game goes turn based, rather than real time with a pause, and I actually prefer this to the old system. Less mistakes to be made. Graphically it’s far superior, the game is beautiful zoomed out, but you can also zoom in and check out the characters and scenery up close. Both are very nice looking.

There are bosses, along with more text dialogue than voice over dialogue. Quests are plentiful, but there is no quest helper, no clickable shiny bits, and no glowy trails. This is old school RPGaming at its finest.

Rather than having blind luck rolls for important dialogue options (such as intimidate or logic) there is a neat little mini game of rock paper scissors that you play with the NPC.

As I said, eventually you get followers, so you will round out your party to four. I ended up with an archer and a mage class for my group, but I haven’t really tested their mettle in battle yet. I’ve spent most of my time so far running around in the town doing various things and figuring stuff out.

Overall I really like this game and I can’t wait to get further along. Of course there were other distractions. Simcha gifted me a copy of Legend of Grimrock, which is basically a new age version of the classic Dungeon Master game. I used to play that back on my Dad’s Atari ST, and have seen various iterations of the game since. This is definitely up-to-date graphically, and the gameplay is basically the same though it does feel like the systems are more polished. It has various puzzles.

Plenty of combat, in a first person style, though you only get the spell effects or action lines of your weapons while the monsters are fully animated.

That’s a big ass spider. Yeah so I managed to make it to the 4th floor before finally taking a break. I decided to roll with the default party because I wanted to get a feel for the game, and really, that’s all there is to it. It’s been fun.

Lastly, I picked up this game called Deep Dungeons of Doom today for a paltry $2.50. It’s a port of a mobile game, yet it still feels pretty deep. Yeah, it’s not going to win any awards and I can see where eventually it would get old but for a quick dungeon crawling experience it’s pretty fun.

This is what you look at most of the time. You have your stats/equipment up top, and your character and whatever you’re fighting down bottom. It’s basically like a rogue-like in that you clear a room and then move on. You attack and block or use your items, but there’s a rhythm to it that gets pretty hypnotic. You have to time your attacks to hit weak spots or get past blocks, and also time your blocks against their attacks. That’s really it, but it’s actually a lot of fun. I’ll report more on this as I have more time with it.

That’s all for this week. How did you do in the Holiday Sale?

#steam #stateofthegame #roundup