When Dave Lombardo left the world infamous Slayer, everyone wondered where such a drumming legend would go off to.
After all, how to you follow up being in one of the most awesomely evil thrash metal bands of all time?
Well, Grip Inc is one good way. Capturing the savage groove essence of bands like Sepultura with the same unbridled raw
aggression, Grip Inc is a Thrash fan's wet dream. Brooding great guitar work, nasty gritty vicious vocals by a singer who later committed
suicide, and, of course, one of the all time greats in metal drumming, Dave Lombardo. Not so good for driving. It'll
probably make you start seeing point values on people (old ladies in walkers are 100 points by the way). That said, it is good for a game like Heretic where running
down enemies no-holds-barred is par for the course. Enjoy, and have a wickedly metal new year!
After the fantastically deep Ultima Underworld 1 and 2,
Warren Spector getting fully caught up in his new System Shock series,
and Ultima designer Richard Gariott's involvement with the advent of the new MMORPG craze, no one was around to carry
the bright torch into a new game. French company Arcane Studios took it upon themselves and decided to take on that responsibility. Unable to secure the rights to an actual
Ultima license, they went and developed the awesome spiritual successor under the title Arx Fatalis.
All the good parts of Ultima Underworld now coupled with a decent
3D engine, Arx is a fantastic straightforward kicakss-quality RPG with no bullshit or nonsensical fluff. Just what the world needs more of.
This sounds complex, and, frankly it is. At first... Let's just say that RTFM wouldn't hurt. There's a lot of subtlety and nuances to this game that make
it stand out to a staggering degree. But, trust me when I say it quickly becomes intuitive by a few levels in. Like
an old leather glove that fits to your hand just right. There's really nothing that needs altering in this game. The
formula is simply perfect. It's major critical failure at the time it was released was just that it was way too
much game for the PC's of the time to handle. Back in 1994 it came on CD-Rom, incorporated reflections, shadows, a
destructible environment, dynamic music that changed based on what you were doing seamlessly. It came packaged with
a pair of red/blue 3D glasses for a stereoscopic views that's only since been added to modern games and movies.
And it actually fucking works! Not stopping there, they also had a "Magic Eye" stereogram mode, if you can even
see those, much less view them in real-time 3D during a fast-paced game. And none of this says anything about the
wailing awesome gameplay. Wailing awesomeness that only people with a couple thousand dollar PC could even play respectably which
doesn't really lend to market saturation.
You start out with literally no spells. You quickly grab the ones contained in red jars throughout the level
that allow you to possess mana, create a castle, and shoot a fireball. New spells are released by flying over certain
parts of the level, encouraging exploration. The downside? This also tends to release traps and other monsters.
But more to kill I say! Meanwhile, each level typically contains villages that can also be possessed adding to your
overall mana pool. As your mana pool increases, your castle reaches capacity and must be expanded up to level 7
to store more. The villages prosper if left alone and expand, eventually getting an archer army to protect it.
Attack them and the archers come after you and you're tagged as "the bad guy". Your castle has balloons that go to
collect possessed mana in the world. Normally mana is gold to show it's neutral. As you posses it, it turns to your
wizard's color, and assuming your castle is not full, they'll go very nicely pick it up for you. Not to say
they'll succeed. If they get destroyed along the way by monsters or bastard enemy wizards, then they drop their mana
ball to be possessed by the aforementioned douches.
And, honestly, if there's ever been a game with enemy AI that makes you want to crush it into the ground, it's
this game. For the fact that the enemy wizard AI can and will do exactly the same devious sort of shit
that you would. And it will piss you off when it does! And killing them is no small feat either. As long as
any wizard has a castle, any death causes them to respawn at the center of it. So, killing them is this process of
attacking their castle, taking it down a level, causing all the excess mana to spill out onto the ground, you frantically
flying around to posses it, the enemy scumbag doing the same, and repeat. This is, of course, until you piss off the
enemy AI enough and he declares vendetta on your ass, and comes after you to do the same exact thing. It sounds
tedious, but it is oh-so-satisfying when you finally grind a wizard down to nothing and pulverize him with a Meteor
spell right in the smacker, and the game reporting that he has died. It is seriously an accomplishment.
These are the main parts of the game, but it's not everything either. The game has so many small details that add to
it, like forests which burn down due to fire spreading, touchy villagers who will quickly refute you mana if you
even so much as accidently attack them during a heated firefight that lobs a stray fireball into their midst,
triggers that open up new spells and enemies as you fly around. And, when the game says "World Restored, Press
Space To Continue", you're maybe a third done with the level in actuality. There's tons more to do, and the good
stuff, new spells and enemies, typically only open up far beyond the point where it tells you you're done, so don't
tap that key too quickly!
It's all a dizzying array of things to take into account simultaneously. It's pretty much a strategy game played in
action format and the closest thing done similar to it to this day is the great game Sacrifice. But it becomes immersive fast, with you jolting after looking at the clock and finding you
just spent 3 to 5 hours in a row playing this fantastic game, it's now 4am, and calling into work sick is a veritable certainty. Of course, that time will be well utlilized to play more (duh!).
Simply innovative in every possible way. Not to be missed!
A technical note or two :
- This game works best in DosBox with the sound settings of Sound : Soundblaster / Music : Soundblaster Compatible.
- In the game hit R to switch to high-res, and F4-F7 to turn the various options on.
Ah, Black Metal. It comes in so many flavors; all dark and vicious. Of the more melodic sort enters Netherbird.
Hailing from Sweden, they add that Swedish Death Metal quality to black metal ala Dimmu Borgir, producing a
necrotic black-feathered offspring that's just as good and arguably better. And, wisely, the band was nice enough to just flat-out give all their albums
away, figuring people would just loot them anyways. So, enjoy, free-of-charge (as usual), this awesome death-harbinger in bird form.
Links : Netherbird blog (includes albums in both MP3 and WAV formats)
In the early days of computer RPG's, prior to the advent of 3D rendered landscapes along the lines of Morrowind,
Oblivion, and Arx Fatalis, there were, of course, the standard 2D representations that the Ultima series made
famous. As the programmers got more inventive, they started to peak holes into 3D views. Not with their fingers,
that doesn't actually work unless you're one of those Dim Mak masters. But let me tell you, they faked it pretty well. The hitch? You only got to move in
orthogonal (90 degree) increments.
Now, this sounds pretty restrictive, but these guys worked veritable wonders with it. For your lack of ability to move how
you want, you got some damn good puzzles and hella-fun stories to play through. And the gameplay value has yet to
really be topped. This started with the legendary series Dungeon Master. It later was copied by Westwood studios
for it's series of Dungeons and Dragons RPGs titled Eye of the Beholder, The Might and Magic : World of Xeen,
the amazing Lands of Lore series, peaking with the utterly orgasmic Wizardry series, and ended with the pathetically lackluster Stonekeep; living proof that
improving graphics does not at all improve actual gameplay. The gameplay was compelling enough on it's own that
Dungeons and Dragons PC game company even made a random game creator called Dungeon Hack. Capable of creating some devious
and simultaneously fun dungeons for a random night, no plot even needed.
In the "Huh, what?" virtually-unknown category came contenders Captive, Xenomorph, Anvil of Dawn, and even
a dip into the Terminator franchise with the game Terminator 2029, which is known to chew up seasoned players and
spit them out ala cartoon chewing up a box of nails and shooting them out machine-gun style. Even the well-known
Warhammer series adopted this style of gameplay with the also bitchin-tough Space Hulk, combining it with a timestop
strategic gameplay, where you could give your guys orders to carry out. This is of course, before the AI comes in,
raining gailforce on your parade and forcing you to reconsider your strategy. All in a great day of knuckle-biting
fun!
Even Raven Software of famed Heretic and Hexen series got their start by copying the Dungeon Master formula via Black Crypt.
This style of gameplay is popular enough to this day that one guy even extended the Dungeon Master series named directly Dungeon Master Java, replete with
level editor. And there's the nice iPhone RPG simply titled The Quest.
Both great with gobs of fun to be had. Even Minecraft directly borrowed from this game lineage, and it's creator Notch indirectly admits it. So, have yourself a nice chill night with any of these fine entries into the RPG
Hall of Fame. Once you do, you'll start to find the errand-boy spoonfed standard-faire of modern RPGs downright insulting.
