These Thumbs Were Made for Gaming: Darkest Dungeon

After hearing about the game on some podcasts and having my friend, Larry suggest it to me, I finally downloaded Darkest Dungeon. I really don't feel like the game was hyped enough; to be honest, had I known about it when it was on Kickstarter I would have definitely backed it. I'm actually playing this thing full time now and haven't looked at Diablo 3 since I installed it. The art is dark and gritty but vibrant and crisp at the same time which makes for some amazing graphic displays. I was always a sucker for a simple yet catchy art style such as the one used in Castle Crashers. The sound effects, especially the narrator, are great as well. I can't leave it like that; the narrator is fucking awesome. You will hear him throughout your journeys into the dungeon and I don't think a better voice could have been chosen to match the game. You'll see what I mean. ;)

Darkest Dungeon is simple and complex at the same time; the combat system is fairly simple but the management aspects make the game complex. Prior to beginning a quest (going into the dungeon), you choose a team of up to 4 characters from a roster you build and provision them for their journey. Things that are important to grab are food and torches. Unlike many games that feature torches as items, Darkest Dungeon has made the torch as an item super important and you always want them on hand. When you're in a dungeon and you see that torch supply start to run low you will instantly start to shit yourself about it. It is a welcome mechanic.

Light plays a big part in this game. On the top of the screen is a torch meter that keeps track of how bright your light is burning. As the lights get dimmer, your characters will actually become "afraid" and stress out. Some creatures become stronger in the dark as well. Respect the torch!

Combat is simple but effective. Each member has a choice of 4 different abilities in combat and the whole combat system can be manipulated via mouse-clicks or keystrokes. This choice of abilities can be customized when not in a dungeon so you can tailor a character to how you want them to play. I suggest having at least 1-2 members per team who have access to an ability that damages multiple targets. Keeping combat short and sweet is key because healing outside of combat is close to a non-entity unless you are camping.

While in the dungeon, the characters will be subject to becoming stressed from their environment which can lead to having a slight mental breakdown to a full-blown heart attack (yes, your character actually has a heart attack and dies). Stressed characters will develop a temporary stress related ailment when they reach their break point. You will see them become anything from Abusive to Fearful to just downright Irrational. These ailments can be removed through the various stress relieving activities available at the Estate. If a character dies, they are gone forever. Death can be a terrible blow to your character pool, however recovering a character from near heart attack levels of stress can be not only expensive but time consuming.

The game features elements of team management in the form of your Estate. Much like Rogue Legacy's "Tower of Upgrades," Darkest Dungeon features the Estate which has a few buildings that do things like upgrade armor and weapons, reduce the stress level of your characters or allow you to recruit new characters. When a character goes for some stress relief they will be at the very least out of commission for one mission. That being said, relying on a single "A Team" is not a great idea but not putting money into upgrading characters is also bad because progression will be very hard otherwise. Another interesting aspect of this game.

All and all, I am enjoying the shit out of this title and highly suggest it. I can keep typing or you can just get on Steam and download it. I suggest the latter. It's worth the money, just get it.

The Killer B Hive Vlog 2

Two announcements:

1. Next weekend May 15, 16 and possibly 17 I will be streaming games once again with Brian (aka "Corvus") and our friend Larry (aka "Bytemeh"). I plan on getting started on Friday afternoon; so, check that out.

2. In the Vlog, I say that it won't turn into Drunken Quarriors again... however, this is too lofty a promise to make and I am taking that one back. >;-)

Enjoy!

Fury of the Storm: Heroes of the Storm

I finally got sick of playing Worlds of Warcraft after getting back into it for Warlords of Draenor (which partially explains the level of neglect of my blogging habits). I think the game development world will be hard pressed to make another MMO that could possibly be better; however, that does not change the fact that I believe that WoW is starting to get tired. This expansion has been amazing but my attention span has been stolen by another game from Blizzard: Heroes of the Storm!

Heroes is a MOBA style game; I know, I know, "another MOBA" you say but Heroes has changed some concepts for the better on this one. Everyone shares XP in this game so your team levels together making even the group fight shy laner useful to his team. There is no backing to upgrade, meaning when you level up you get skills to choose from which is how you develop your build and playstyle of each individual character. Another thing that is nice is last hitting is not a thing because there is no gold to be worried about; this makes early team ganks and lane switches easier and viable.

The characters include some of your previous wow favorites like Thrall or Jim Raynor and also include some new faces (based on non-character units). As well as having a player level, each character gains levels independently which unlocks skins tints, abilities and mount tints. Oh snap, forgot to mention mounts!

Another cool element is that all characters can mount up (or a similar equivalent) and move faster. I like this addition because it speeds things up a bit... well literally speeds things up. A game of Heroes lasts roughly 25 minutes which is good in my opinion.

Heroes also features six different maps all with a different mechanic to help you push the lanes. These mechanics are based around small objectives that lead to team fights which adds to the fun. Many times, games are filled with team fights from the beginning and are very fast paced. The varying maps make the game less droning than most MOBAs which feature 1 map.

All in all, I am super pleased with how this game is going so far, even in it's Beta form. Currently you can buy into the Beta for $40 which also unlocks 3 characters, a skin for each and a couple different cosmetic mount choices. Totally worth the scratch; I highly suggest it. Message me for a friend request!

For builds and guides, I use: www.heroesfire.com

These Thumbs Were Made For Gaming: Hyrule Warriors

Let's go back roughly one month ago. While playing some League of Legends with some good friends, I was informed about a game called Hyrule Warriors. I went to look it up and ended up watching video after video about it. It looked awesome! It was like Dynasty Warriors but with Zelda characters instead. It also had all my favorite button mashing, room clearing, mindless bullshit that I love.

Now, bring it on back to today. I got a copy and have been glued to it all afternoon. I am a huge fan of the Dynasty Warriors franchise and Zelda isn't too shabby either. Needless to say, I'm really digging this title. It plays like Dynasty Warriors except, dare I say, faster and with more in each map to keep you from going comatose. I'm going to put the disclaimer out there that this game may not be for everyone. It can get monotonous. However they have put in a cool crafting/powerup tree for every character that makes adding more attacks keep things interesting. The other thing I noticed is that in "Story Mode" you play as all the different characters rather than just watching Gan Ning's ass for 7-8 stages. I'm about 13 stages into story mode so far and it doesn't seem like the story is close to an ending yet. The story itself is alright to say the least, but I'm more in it to kill swathes of baddies lone wolf style.

The graphics are pretty good for WiiU and I have yet to experience the good ole' "too many soldiers on the screen" lag or "there's too many people on the screen, I'll just disappear till you kill someone" trickery that Dynasty Warriors players have grown to disdain. I don't expect anyone to pop this in and say "I'm so amped about these graphics that I'm going to wrestle a giant squid;" but they are better than bearable. I think the real showstopper for the Audio/Visual department in this title is the music.

Take all of your favorite Zelda tunes from over the years, call up the studio band that did the rockin' signature Dynasty Warrior soundtracks and WA-BAM! You get one of the most kick-ass Zelda music lineups yet. I'm super pleased with tunes.

All in all, the experience has been pretty damn good. It almost seems like the characters of Hyrule are better suited for this type of game than ancient Chinese men. I can't vouch for replay value as of yet but I'm at least not dreading the purchase. I guess one big downside is that it is on WiiU and that would necessitate buying one; hey, can't win 'em all. If you have the system, like Dynasty Warriors and Zelda then I would ask why you haven't gotten it yet. Otherwise, I wouldn't give you the "Dude, its totally worth buying WiiU for."