Spiders and Focus Home Interactive announce The Technomancer

Earlier today, Spiders and Focus Home Interactive announced that they were making a new sci-fi themed RPG called The Technomancer for PS4, Xbox One and PC.  It is slated for a 2016 release.  The press release touts that there will be four skill trees, three fighting styles, dynamic conversation choices and crafting.

Since it takes place on Mars, and features technomancy, it's probably in the same story world as Mars: War Logs.  It also sounds like it takes a lot of those systems, since it had three skill trees, conversation choices and crafting.  I did like Mars: War Logs, and other Focus/Spiders games like Faery and Bound by Flame.  They are fun and unique, but they have uneven difficulty.  Even so, I'm looking forward to the game next year.  Here's two screenshots they sent over:

Mars: War Logs (XBLA) Review

The world of Mars in Mars: War Logs is a dystopian, steam punk-like future.  Buildings are run down, poor people lay down in the street and the military is in control.  Of course the atmosphere has a red tint to it, this is Mars after all.  I think it does a good job of looking realistic while still being fantastical.  The character animations are fine.  There is the occasional clipping, strange camera angles during conversations, and even a few environmental glitches.  That last part is probably my nitpicking from my game tester days.  Either way, the game looks like what you would expect from a sci-fi RPG set on Mars.

Some of the dialog and voices have been redone for the console release.  I'm not sure what exact lines were redone, but there is a part near the beginning that I suspect is.  Early on, Roy is talking to a fat prisoner and several of the fat prisoner's lines are odd, as if they are out of order.  Most of the voices in the game are fine, but there are a few voices that are flat on the delivery.  There is a fair amount of swearing, especially in the beginning, so I definitely didn't play it around my kids.

Most of the time, you will be running around solving quests and fighting.  There are many fights throughout the game, and they can get tricky.  The face buttons will attack, guard break, block and dodge roll.  The Left Bumper will pull up your skill wheel so you can use an ability or give orders to your teammate.  The remaining shoulder buttons can be mapped to three of the skills you would like quick access to.  It works well, and the only complaint I have is that sometimes the button presses are remembered or queued up in some way.  For example, if I'm mashing dodge to try and avoid a group of enemies all swinging at me, sometimes I'll roll twice.  Also, I've had Roy do an extra attack when I don't intend him to do so.

It wouldn't be an issue, but the fights can get really hard.  Enemies frequently outnumber you, even with another character helping you, and they can hit really hard.  The enemy AI is also smart enough to block and sidestep frequently if you go all out an attack them relentlessly.  There's even a few that you cannot hurt by attacking their front, and you have to roll behind them to damage them.  I like that you can't just smash your way through guys, but it's annoying when they keep dodging or blocking and they have so little health and you just want them dead so you can focus on the other three people trying to kill you.  The best ways to make the fights easier to deal with is sticking and moving (attacking once or twice and then dodging away) and taking advantage of status attacks.  Blinding, stunning and wounding an enemy makes them easy pickings, and can definitely make the difference between survival and reloading.

At the end of the first chapter, you will gain access to Technomancy abilities.  Basically, it is the game's version of magic and allows you to use abilities that harness electricity.  You get some damaging attacks, a shield and a weapon power up.  They can be pretty helpful to use, especially the weapon power-up.  The only real downside is that they take a fair amount of Fluid, the game's version of MP, and the start-up time.  In the middle of a fight, the enemy might not let you have the few seconds you need to use the fancy abilities, which can make them less than desirable to use.

Soldier tries to dodge nail gun; gets hammered.

While fights in Mars: War Logs can be pretty hard, crafting good equipment can make it easier.  I like the crafting system, as you basically add a component into a weapon or armor's available slots.  It adds a good amount of customization, since the part you put in will change the bonuses the weapon has.  You can increase the weapon power, defense power, crit rate and more, or combinations of them.  Crafting supplies are plentiful, so there's no reason not to put in what you want or need and make the fights easier.  Old or unnecessary weapons and armor can be broken down into more components, or a chance at getting back some of the ones put into it.  Even better, you rarely have to buy them, as I've received most of them from quests.  It's not a hard system to learn, so do it early...it really helps you survive.

There are three skill trees - Combat, Renegade and Techomancy - and many skills in each where you can place skill points.  The only real restriction (besides having to beat the first chapter for one of them) is having to put a certain amount of points into a tree to unlock higher tier skills.  It makes sense, and you have a lot of freedom when building your character, which I am always a fan of.  Many of the skills are useful too, like increasing your critical rate after a roll or increasing the size of your blinding "dirt throw" ability.  Early in the game, you can quickly get a few levels which allows you to jump right in and actually play around with making Roy play how you want him to.

There's also feat points that are obtained when gaining levels.  These allow you to choose other skills, such as increased experience from kills and unlocking better crafting options.  To set these apart, most skills have to be unlocked before they can be purchased.  For example, looting bodies will unlock the option to buy feats that increase the chances you will find things on your kills.

Mars: War Logs has 3 chapters and several main and side quests to complete in each chapter.  I'm pretty meticulous about getting and completing the side quests before advancing the plot, and it took me about 5-6 hours per chapter.  Admittedly, there are a few quests I missed.  Besides some morality choices, there are two different factions you can join at the end of chapter 2, which will affect the third chapter and the ending.  Add in the different ways you can approach fights because of the skill trees, and that equals some decent replayability.

There are a few achievements that you can get really early, like using a skill point and making a piece of equipment.  There are several obtained for completion on the harder difficulties and one for each faction.  The hardest is probably beating it on the hardest difficulty setting, considering the fights can be hard on just the "normal" setting.  Completing all of the side quests can be the most time consuming, because some side quests can be easily missed and will require another playthrough.

Besides the tough fights, Mars: War Logs was a fun game.  Heck, even the fights were sometimes fun when they went my way.  Taking advantage of status ailments is definitely key to making them easier.  There's lots of different ways to build your character and different options to make your equipment better.  The different factions and even romance options make for some nice extra things to do, but they come pretty late.  One run through the game is about 15 or so hours, which is pretty decent for $15.  There were several points where I found myself playing a little bit more instead of going to bed, and it was fairly easy for me to get sucked into the world, punishing combat and all.

Some New News

Capcom has now said that about a month after Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate releases, they will patch in the ability for US players to play with EU players.  That's awesome, and frankly, should have been there in the first place.  Now I can walk both Marcus Shadow and Chriz the Mole through the game....oh, joy.  It's also funny that Japanese players can still only play with Japanese players.  Capcom Japan basically stated a year or so ago that they don't want Japanese players playing with other people.  I guess they just want to keep the illusion that Japanese players are a lot better than others.  It's not true, so you wouldn't want to shatter that bubble I suppose.  Oh well, at least it's a step in the right direction.

Also, Focus Interactive and Spiders are close to releasing their new action RPG Mars War Logs for XBLA, PSN and PC.  They also released a new trailer showing the combat, and it's surely I game I want to try.  I'm hoping to review that, so keep an eye out for that.  In addition, they announced a new, full release game called Bound by Flame.  Another action RPG, this time a more fantasy setting (Mars War Logs is futuristic, obviously).  Again, sounds pretty good to me, so I'm adding that to my radar.  I really like player action RPGs, so here's hoping they are both lots of fun!

I have a new review coming in a few days, but here is something to tide you over.  It's not game related, but my wife and I saw some more movies on Netflix recently.  Tales of an Ancient Empire with Kevin Sorbo and Against the Dark with Steven Seagal.  Don't see them, either of them.  They are bad.  Against the Dark is a little better, but seriously, avoid both of them.  Now, back to invading all those territories...

A Few Quick Notes

I finished playing the Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning DLCs (Dead Kel and Teeth of Naros) and I really liked them.  Well worth the asking price if you do all the quests there, and even better if you can snag them on sale (which I did a few weeks ago).  At first I though Dead Kel was a bigger area than Naros with less quests, but more quests open up as you do the main story of it and several open up after the keep is completed (probably the coolest house in the game).  Naros was great as well, although a little predictable.  Of course, I do really like floating cities, so that could explain it.

Thankfully I might be getting a part time job for the Christmas season.  This will be great, since we might be able to go from losing $400+ a month to losing...well, hopefully nothing, but we will see.  Don't worry, I will still be a S@HD Gamer!

Last and certainly not least, I'm happy that a European RPG called "Of Orcs and Men" will be coming out in the US.  The trailers look really cool, and the game looks fun.  Also note that I loved Two Worlds 2, Divinity II, Risen and Arcania, and it looks like it will fit right in.  As much as I'd love an Xbox 360 physical disk version, US seems to only be getting PC digital and PSN releases.  I'm ok with that, and we'll see if I can get a review copy of that!  Wouldn't that be sweet?  Trick question, of course it would.

Realms of Ancient War Review

As an avid RPG and Action-RPG player, I'm always on the lookout for new games in the genre.  So when I heard about about Realms of Ancient War, I knew I wanted to check it out.  I dragged along my "Player 2" for all the hacking, slashing and dungeons we could handle.

Let's start with the graphics, since you will likely see the game first.  The graphics are good.  The style is a little more dark and gritty (think Sacred 2), as opposed to the more cartoon-y style of Torchlight and Arkadian Warriors.  And I do mean dark.  I had to turn up the brightness a few clicks so I could see everything.  The environments are very detailed and unique.  They aren't randomly generated, and that shows with how nice they look.  There's lots of little details that I like, too.  For example, in the desert there are scorpions that roam the sands (sometimes too many, though) and flies buzzing around corpses.  Lastly, the armor that you can wear in the game looks cool, but several pieces look the same on all three characters.

The best way I can describe the sound is average.  The music fits, but isn't memorable.  Voice acting in the game is average as well.  While it isn't the greatest you have ever heard, it gets the job done and the voices fit.  One problem, however, is that there isn't a noise when your weapon hits the enemy.  This can lead to confusion on whether or not you hit an enemy.  It also lessens the impact of an attack, making the combat less visceral.

Now we get to what I think is the best part of the game.  Each skill/attack is custom mapped to a face button on the controller, and a flick of the right stick shifts the palette to another 4 skills.  The part that really stands out to me is the "Focus" skills.  Once purchased, these will be linked to the prerequisite skill and activated by holding down the corresponding button.  This will not affect the cool down of the the prerequisite skill, so you effectively get more attacks attached to the limited face buttons.  I really like this idea!  Plus, I got to annoy my wife by always yelling "Hadoken!" when using the Focus skill for the Mage's fireball attack.

You might be wondering why I said "cool down" earlier.  All skills in the game require mana and have a cool down.  I understand your hesitation, since I had it too when I learned about it, but it is actually pulled off really well in this game.  While melee and ranged attacks take mana and have a cooldown, they take very little and are ready instantly so it's not an issue.  Mana regeneration is also really high because all skills take it, meaning I actually use my skills instead of hoarding my MP.  And with the hordes of enemies you have to fight, you will need to use all the skills you can.

Of course, not all is perfect in this realm either.  A mini map would have been really useful, as would a dodge or block maneuver.  With how quickly you can get trapped and/or die, this would have literally been a life saver.  Since the skill palette swap is mapped to the right analog stick, there is no camera control.  This wasn't as bad as I thought, since I would've only liked to rotate the camera in a few instances.  Also, the experience gain seems very random.  You cut through hordes of enemies for seemingly little experience, only to level up when you least expect it.  Last but not least, I would like the skill descriptions to have actual numbers instead of vague wording.  What can I say?  After playing RPGs for years, I like my numbers.

Each stage takes about 30 minutes your first time through, if you are looking for all chests and whatnot.  Length-wise, the game is good.  It doesn't drag out and it's not over in an hour, leaving me feeling that the length was about right.  If you are interested in the achievements, your time will triple since you have to beat the game with all 3 heroes for one of them.  The rest of them aren't very hard or lengthy, which can be good news if you are a gamerscore hunter.

Lastly I'll talk about the co-op.  I had lots of fun with it.  This style of game is always more fun with another player, and this is no exception.  If you have a buddy to play with, I would say it's worth the $15.  With two people to battle the hordes of monsters, the game is made easier.  Death isn't as strict, since if the other player can survive for five seconds, the dead player will resurrect instead of just paying a lifestone and heading to the checkpoint.  Unfortunately in that situation, the camera will keep the dead player in view, so you can get trapped while trying to live those precious few seconds.

While a lot more fun, the co-op is not perfect.  For whatever reason, there is no online play, so if you don't have a buddy nearby, that may be a deal breaker.  If you can only play this game solo, definitely check out the demo first or wait for a sale.  Also, the second player isn't saved, so they lose any loot/money that they carried when you end the game.  There is a workaround, but it would have been better to just have another save of that character, or to just use any other character's save.  So while online co-op would have been nice, at least there is couch co-op, which unfortunately most companies forget about.  Some of us actually have someone in our house to play with!

To end here I'll leave you with a story.  To try out the co-op, I enlisted the help of my wife.  We've gone through lots of two player games over the years, so I knew she would want to try it out with me.  When we started out, she lamented the camera controls, the only saving after a level, and that it didn't save the second player.  The longer we played, the less she mentioned them.  The next day when she came home from work, she had a big smile on her face while asking, "So, are we going to play again?"  I wasn't the only one who really liked the co-op it seems.