Thoughts on....

[Visca 1st MRB]

Anyone have any feedback on these games? I've bought them over the past steam sale and I am going to start playing them when I get my new mouse and mousepad and also once finals are over. I'd love to get some firsthand comments from yall!

[Mamora BAR]

Kirk could probably weigh in alot of these games. Hes usually good with explaining that stuff lol.

Torchlight 1 was fun. Typical click and kill dungeon crawler. Think of Diablo.

The Witcher 2 is more of a structured rpg. Sort of reminds me of dragonage but has its own unique dark spin on things.

Metro 2033..never herd of it lol

Edited December 3, 2012 by Mamora BAR

[Bryant 1st MRB]

Metro is post apocalyptic game killing mutants and shit. It's fun. But a horror game

[Kirkendall 1st MRB]

Torchlight II is... well yes, it's a lot like Diablo. click-click-click dungeon crawler, still entertaining. A vast improvement upon the original Torchlight if my memory serves. Most primarily, the fact that this one is actually multiplayer, which is essential for a Diablo-esque game. Interestingly enough, one of the main reasons that Runic made Torchlight II is to build experience, because they're reported to be planning a Tochlight MMO. Not much to say about it other than that.

Metro 2033 is a shooter based off of a novel of the same name. The most interesting dynamic introduced in this game was the currency system. Metro 2033 is a post-apocalyptic game, and ammunition is sparse. Therefore, your currency is actually pre-war high quality manufactured ammunition. To avoid shooting away your money, there is still ammunition manufactured during the current nuclear apocalypse, but it's significantly shitty. You'll also need to scavenge a lot. Probably the most important salvage are filters for your mask. The main aim of this game is to be somewhat more "realistic" so you don't have much of a HUD. Rather, you'll have recharging health, and you can tell your damage based on blood splatter on your visor and heart rate. You won't have much a of a map, you'll be pretty dependent on a compass. I played the game on the hardest difficulty, as I am prone to do, so my game experience will have varied from your own. Referring back to the filters, certain areas (especially the surface) will require you to wear a mask at all times. Your wristwatch will tell you the time left on the filter. As long as you have filters to replace yours, you should be fine. Of course, if you get into a fight with some mutants you may find yourself with a broken mask. Again requiring replacement through scavenging or ammo purchase. But you'll have an interesting game with the survival elements mixed into the horror-esque atmosphere.

Witcher II is made by CD Projekt, and they're my favorite Polish game devs. Not that I know many Polish game developers, but CD Projekt takes a strong stance against invasive DRMs. Meaning that they accept there will be pirates of a game, but they're not going to pull an Ubisoft or Blizzard and require you to be online at all times. Don't be confused, typically every game has some amount of DRM, but CD Projekt allows for infinite copies of the game to be installed on infinite number of PCs. The game is still a great success for CD Projekt, even with lax DRM, helping the hypothesis that games free of DRM will still make money and not just be pirated over and over. As a game, if you haven't played the first Witcher, you should know Witcher is much more a Game of Thrones than a Lord of the Rings type fantasy. Sex, cursing, blood, and filth. I do hope you got the Enhanced Version though, it will make it much easier to get involved with the game. Coincidentally, and completely on another tangent, the Polish Prime Minister visited the US a while back, and gifted a copy of the game to President Barack Obama. Evidently, the Poles are proud of it. They have reason to be, it is a pretty in-depth game.

Overall all three games are definitely worth a play, they've all been doing something interesting to the games genre and are good for some fun.

[Kanganis]

I have never played Torchlight or Witcher, but I have played Metro 2033. It is a shooter and it has a great atmosphere that can probably compete with the Stalker Games. It takes place in a post neuclear apocalypse Russian city. The currency as Kirk said was bullets, which happens to be the most interesting thing in the game. Although they made the point that you would have to chose between ammo or money and it would be a a very tough decision I found that most of the time I could just stick with three main weapons through the game and sell all the other ammo for the other weapons that I did not need. Metro is still a cool game with some interesting enemies including, Neo Nazis, Communists, Bandits, and Mutnats. Well actually those are basically all the enemies. The ending was also really good. I suggest you start playing the game now.

[Visca 1st MRB]

Thank you for all the insight! Damn Kirk you done did good. I did get the enhanced version (whatever was on sale during the steam fall sale which I think was the enhanced version)

Any lore that I would need to be up to speed on Torchlight II or Witcher 2?

[Kirkendall 1st MRB]

In Tochlight, the game is named after a mining town built above a rich vein of a substance known as Ember. Ember has the potential to create magic and magical items, hence why many adventurers are being drawn to it. Throughout the first Torchlight, you'd learn that the Ember, while being powerful, also corrupts. It has caused the fall of many before, and now will threaten the entire world if unheeded. In the first game, you enter the town relatively unknown, but a alchemist's assistant hires you to find her mentor. Upon entering the mines, you will encounter Aldric the Alchemist pretty quickly, but alas he has been corrupted by the Ember. You fight your way through a veritable "layer cake" of past civilizations that have fallen due to Ember. Eventually, you will come to the source of the corruption, and you must fight Aldric as well as an ancient creature. I don't want to cause confusion here, so I'll specify. One of the classes you could choose to be in the first Torchlight was also named the Alchemist, and was the mage class for the the game. There was the Destroyer for warrior class, and Vanquisher for rogue. Kinda gives the Alchemist a more trivial name huh? Well, in Torchlight II, he's apparently pissed about his lack of cool name. He takes the Heart of Ordrak, the ancient creature with Aldric, and uses its corruptible power to become strong. He destroys the town of Torchlight and begins to cause general havoc everywhere. Stop him!

As for the Witcher 2, you'll get a look into some Slavic culture. In Slav lore, a vedmak (witcher) is a male version of the female witch. Go figure with such a creative name huh? A witcher doesn't necessarily have to be a bad force, unlike the female counterpart. For example, they treat people and animals, protect humanity and force witches to stop doing evil. In the context of the game, a witcher hunts monsters and evil in the same way a mercenary would. They're basically monster hunters for hire. Except, they are given strong powers through mutagens which allow them to become supernatural themselves. This way, a witcher can practice the magics he hunts. In Witcher 2, you'll play as Geralt of Rivia. To get into the lore of this one, I will say, spoiler warning I will tell you the end of the first game. Highlight the text that will be black if you want to read it. The reason I spoiler this but not Torchlight, is because Torchlight's story is a little less lore-intensive and really less storybased. Anyways, in the first game you are again Geralt and are hired by a king to cure his daughter of an awful disease that transforms her into beast at will. There is a lot going on in this story, and I'm going to skip to the end of it to save from me writing my own novel. Suffice to say, towards the end the king hires you to squash a rebellion headed by the Grand Master. He is the reason some bandits attacked the witcher compound earlier and like I said, there's a lot of different plotlines.

After you kill the Grand Master, the end cutscene has Geralt returning to the king. The king pays Geralt, and Geralt is leaving. Suddenly, the king is attacked by an assassin. Geralt duels and kills the assassin. When he pulls away the mask, the assassin's eyes are vertical, narrow pupils. This is one of the side effects of becoming a witcher.

Hence, the the title and setup for Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.

[Visca 1st MRB]

Awesome thanks Kirk!