Just got fired? Lost your girlfriend? Never fear, just pickup one of these turn-based strategy games to fill the void. Oh, and none of the above is applicable, don’t worry, it soon will be.
2D platformers are a dying art, just managing to scrape along with the help of handheld consoles like the PSP and Nintendo DS.
The Playstation 1(PSX) is the last non-handheld console to have repeated decent 2D platformers released and these are the Top 10 of those.
Games on the whole are all pretty weird but we, as gamers, just take this on board without really questioning them. We never wonder where Sonic puts all those rings when he’s quite clearly naked (possibly in his oversized socks?) or indeed why he’s even naked at all!! Nope it’s Sonic, he must have a reason and just hasn’t felt the need to explain himself! The following 5 games will make you think though, as they are just TOO bizarre to sit comfortably with our sense of what’s acceptable, observe:
The weirdness kicks in right from the off in Monster Party, the game starts with a cut scene of the main character, Mark, walking home from a baseball match with his bat over his shoulder. A gargoyle named Bert (as all the famous gargoyles are) spots him and whisks him away to his home planet charging him with killing all the invading monsters with his trusty bat.
It’s the bosses that really steal the show here with one being a giant spider lying on the floor, you enter the room and he shouts “Sorry I’m already dead” and that’s it, you win!! Result!! Others include 2 zombies who dance for 30 seconds then collapse and die, a bouncing shrimp and a huge cat that throws small kittens at you.
Sick of Warcraft, Conan didn’t click? Well these are the top #12 upcoming MMORPGs & MMOFPS.
Aion is a Korean MMORPG from the creators of Lineage, although Korean developed it is planned to have a worldwide release.
Aion’s world has quite a unique fantasy look to it, and is based in somewhat of a dream-like reality.
Almost all of the game’s feature are still cloaked in mystery, although their biggest announced selling feature is that all characters have the ability to fly, and can be involved in aerial combat
What it has going for it
Release Date: Early 2008
Official Site
Darkfall is another fantasy MMORPG, its biggest selling point is that it are trying to blend in real-time strategy elements with the role playing eg, politics, diplomacy, kingdom building.
Combat in Darkfall is intended to be skill based, and hence you wont have to spend hours leveling your skills to be able kill bigger monster.
Another of the game’s features is that apparently you’ll never have to reroll your characters, as your character can be changed to suit how ever you want to play them.
Two cool features they are bringing back from the older RPGs; that there will be no safe zones for PvP and player collision detection is back, meaning it’s possible to block doors with your characters or shield players.
What it has going for it
Released today was the latest episode in the TF2 ‘Meet the’ series Meet the Sniper, sneakily shown in the episode was one of the Pyro’s new weapons.
Albeit briefly but it’s there…
I’ve done the NES RPGs, the SNES RPGs.. the next logical retro step would be the Genesis(aka Mega Drive), thus these are the top Genesis RPGs
A snap taken on the drive home this weekend.
Australian terminology…
Want to relive the glory days of Diablo2? Feel like hacking & slashing? These are the top 6 Diablo Clones.
“You begin as a humble farmer, and as you travel through the world and gain new skills, you can gather a party of up to eight characters to aid you. Dungeon Siege impels the player into one over-the-top battle after the other as the storyline unfolds and a larger plot begins to reveal itself.” – Official Site
Dungeon Siege is Microsoft’s take on Diablo, extremely pretty graphics but not much gaming depth. When released it brought together all the latest and greatest graphic developments and combined them into a seamless world, the musical score was equally impressive with the recruitment of BAFTA Award winnning Jeremy Soule to do the scoring.
Although it’s a decent game the main problem is it feels too simplistic, as when I explored the world all I felt I had to do was click move and loot… strangely for a Hack & Slash style game I didn’t have to click to attack often, instead if any enemy came near my characters it would be auto attacked and auto pursued till it died, and if there was another enemy nearby my characters would automatically go and attack that as well, hence the highlight of the combat system seems to be occasionally pressing ‘H’ to heal when your health gets low.
Curiously though despite the lack of gameplay in Dungeon Siege it still feels like a decent game, and is worth checking out.
There has been a movie based on the game released, but I wouldn’t recommend watching it.
Dungeon Siege 2 is also out, worth a check but nothing really impressive.
Titan Quest is the second to latest Diablo clone released, hence it wouldn’t be wrong to expect it to be able to use all the previously built up Hack & Slash games features and be able to expand upon them… but alas it didn’t.
Titan Quest like Dungeon Siege had outstanding visuals for its time, Titan Quest has also finally done the feature correctly of being able to see every item you equip detailed on your character, monster design is decent and you’ll find nearly all Monster’s are taken from mythology, although compared to D2 monsters they don’t feel as they have much personality(/difference).
NPCs are similar, but they all feel very generic and there is never really any connection between the player and the NPCs except for getting quests.
Although the game has a very strong opening it starts to fall apart just over the midway point(10-15 hours in), mainly because how unbalanced the skills are, some classes it becomes nearly impossible to defeat bosses without spending hours grinding, like if you try being a tank you’ll get into nothing but problems however if you are a ranged class or have a pet you’ll find the game a walk in the park.
Again despite how negative I’ve made it sound, it’s still a darn fun game to play, especially cooperative play with your friends.
This article was originally going to be another top 5 but I couldn’t get the list down to 5, thus these are the top 6 RPGs to be released on the SNES.
Ever felt like having a break from PVP? Getting sick of fragging your buddies? Well this is the all time best Top #10 PC Co-op games.
Genre: Roleplaying
Released: 2007
Max Co-Op Players: 2-5
Co-Op S.Storyline: Yes
Co-Op Ex.Content: No
Offline Co-Op: No
Subscription: Optional
MetaCritic: 70/100
Official Website
Hellgate: London is a cross between Guildwars and Diablo 2 although noticeably more like Diablo 2. Hence it comes as no surpise that this game was created by the same group of developers who created the Diablo series for Blizzard.
The core gameplay is basically the same as Diablo 2; exploring vast randomly generated maps, killing enemies and collecting loot.
Co-op wise, it’s always fun to go demon slaying with your mates.
Genre: FPS-Roleplaying
Released: 1999
Max Co-Op Players: 2-4
Co-Op S.Storyline: Yes
Co-Op Ex.Content: No
Offline Co-Op: Yes
Update Required: Yes
MetaCritic: 92/100
Official Website
System Shock 2 is a very atmospheric, horror themed, role-playing FPS, which is full of startling and just plain creepy moments.
Having a buddy to help watch your back makes this game all the better, in SS2 co-op you can follow the single-player campaign with up to 3 allies. The only drawback is the item count isn’t increased for co-op so you’ll most likely be fighting for who gets the bullets and upgrades.
Genre: Roleplaying
Released: 2000
Max Co-Op Players: 2-6
Co-Op S.Storyline: Yes
Co-Op Ex.Content: No
Offline Co-Op: Yes
Update Required: No
MetaCritic: 95/100
Official Website
Baldur’s Gate 2 is based on the AD&D rule set, it has sold more then 2,000,000 copies and is commonly regarded as one of the best role-playing games of all time.
Co-op in Baldur’s Gate supports up to six players but ideally you wouldn’t want more then 2 or 3, because if the hosts dies it’s game over and you can only walk one 8×8 array away from the rest of the party. Although excluding its two short comings this is a great game to play through with one of the best story lines of all RPGs. As an added advantage if you and your friends have played through Baldur’s Gate 1 you can import your characters and continue playing with them.
