The Independent Indie Review

Technical Difficulties

2011-04-27T04:26:00.000-07:00

Windows 7 crashed on me and after 12 hours of attempting to resurrect the partition i had to surrender and reinstall windows 7. (My backups were also lost!!!)

As such i have been unable to play Sanctum; as my system has just only become operational once again.

I shall continue my review tommorow, however

Sanctum - Day 3 - Towers

2011-04-25T23:43:00.000-07:00

Today i would like to cover the tower types so far i have encountered in this game:

Gateling: High fire rate but low damage. Large range
Scatter laser: A medium damage laser. It changes target every 2 secounds, hence its name. Large range.
Lightning tower: High damage, but very slow and limited range. These towers are essential though against all of the bigger types of enemy.
Anti-Ait: Slow firing but heavy hitting against air targets.

All towers are upgradeable of course

I'd like to add ive run through the first map, mine, by only upgrading my towers. I barely survived the level. Next run ill try upgrading the weapons.

Chasing after your targets is essential

Tommorow i will cover the different enemy types.

Sanctum - Day 2

2011-04-24T21:33:00.000-07:00

Today i thought i'd talk about my first impression of the game, which is smooth, reasonable graphics, no bugs or crashing (*cough* magicka *cough*).

There are 3 different tower types and three different guns your chrachter can have.

Sniper rifle: Pretty self explanitary. High damage but long reload
Assault gun: A machine gun, low damage tohugh but can sustain fire
Freeze gun: Can slow enemies or, using the alternate fire button. freeze anemies in an area for say 3 seconds. LOOOONG reload time though.

The controls are fairly simple, standard FPS controls. WSAD keys to move, space to jump, left click to buy towers and fire your weapons,

Here is a demo video made by the producers of the game.

Tommorow ill talk a bit more about the towers in the game,

Sanctum - Day 1 - Introduction

2011-04-24T01:46:00.000-07:00

So the game ill be playing this week: is:

I'd like to point out this game is based on the full Unreal engine. It started life as a mod for unreal.

A description of the game, courtesy of its developer:

"Sanctum is a first person shooter tower defense where you take the role as Skye, an elite soldier sent out to protect her home town, Elysion One, from hordes of mysterious alien creatures.

To succeed you have to construct and upgrade defensive structures.

What makes Sanctum unique from other tower defenses is that when the havoc starts, you jump right into the action with your own weapons and play a key role in the defense. Sanctum has taken the best features from first person shooters and tower defense games to create something totally unique."

First person shooter + Tower defense? Hopefully you can see why im skeptical. But i look forward to the coming days for it to prove me wrong.

BRING IT ON!

Magicka - Conclusion - Day 7

2011-04-22T23:44:00.000-07:00

Well what can i say.

Its been an interesting 7 days with magicka, trying out the possible spell combinations but i feel id seen verything the game had to offer by day 4.

Concept: Well, i cant say ive seen a beat-em-up style game where you must quickly combine spells to kill enemies, and where said spells are the only keyboard controls you have, and can do so with up to 3 other people online. A

Implementation: Buggy as hell and an unoptimized engine. I understand you only have two programmers in your design team but my point still stands that you shoudnt release DLC until you have fixed your base game. The game is also plagued by graphical lag for no apparent reason. Although not the worst engine ive seen, it needed alot more work before its release. The UI is clean and easy, but its brought down hard by the engine and bugs.The fact that the charachters talk like the swedish chef from the muppets is fairly funny. D+

The bottom line: A fun game, when its not crashing. Needs alot more bug-fixing and then it would be a indie gem. In its current state i woudnt pay more than $7 for it.

Magicka - Day 6

2011-04-22T02:49:00.000-07:00

On this final day of Playing through magicka (I personally thought id seen all that is to be seen a few days ago),

I thought i'd like to talk about the DLC avaliable for this game:

Magicka VIETNAM is obviously a parody of DLC for Battlefield bad company 2.

Also, it dosn't offer much for the $5 the developers want for the game All you get is a differet playable mage (instead of sword he carries an M60), you get a new last stand mode (really just a jungle map with retextured enemies) and a *SINGLE* new "mission" (maybe 10 minutes worth) where you fight retextured enemies in a jungle setting, blowing up radio towers and the like

Now, i didnt pay the $5 for it as i bought the Magicka Bundle for $7 but IMO i certainley woudnt pay $5 for maybe 10 minutes worth of content.

Also, the game its based on is incredibly buggy. Maybe the developers should be concentrating on fixing the bugs in thier original game before releasing any DLC.

Obvious grab for cash, thats what it is.

Magicka - Day 5

2011-04-20T22:47:00.000-07:00

I'd like to elaborate a little more on the controls for this game, and the spells

Those tiny coloured blobs in the bottom left of the screen are the only keyboard controls for the game.

They are all the spells for the game. the keys used are QWER ASDF, ( for quick typing i would imagine)

Q - Water - Sprays ahead of you

W - Healing - Is a healing beam (or can cast on self for heal)

E - Shield - Can create a shield around you, or use on self for a personal shield

R - Ice - Sprays ice infront of you. Freezes enemies

A - lightning - Is like a lightning bolt. It can arc between foes

S - Arcane (opposite of life) - Is a beam weapon, but unlike heal ray its a DEATH ray

D - Earth - Is a projectile (boulder)

F - Fire - like water, but fire. sets enemies on fire

You can combine these spells for awesome results.

For example, DDFF would make a flaming boulder projectile. SSRR would make an ice beam, AARR makes lightning that arcs between foes and freezes them.

The possibilites are mind boggling. But again combining spells is your only method of attacking! So you must be quick as the game otherwise plays as a screen by screen beat em up.!

Magicka - Day 4

2011-04-19T16:55:00.000-07:00

More single-player action and more lag.

This particular guy was hard for me to beat, his only weak point is his head and he is very fast moving.

Also whats up with all these references in the steam achievements?

So, in order:

Shoop-da-woop

The second one is a joke as there are no side quests in the game

DBZ

Ghostbusters

Harry Potter

Who's idea was it to put these references in? "It'd be sooooo cooool guys if we made references in our achievements for our game"

Bah humbug

Magicka - Day 3

2011-04-18T19:00:00.000-07:00

So last night i was playing Multiplayer with three other guys and one particular guy was raging over a whole lot of team killing going on. As i discovered, its very easy to die in this game but you can be revived at anytime by combining the life and electric spell.

Another thing i noticed about this game is all the charachters talk like the swedish chef from the muppets

Also i did notice alot more of the graphical lag, but no more crashes, which was ok at least.

Magicka - Day 2

2011-04-17T18:20:00.000-07:00

Ok, so today i tested the multiplayer aspect of this game.

There isn't a shortage of people to paly online with; thats really good considering this game only cost $7 US.
However, i did experience the game crashing whilst loading or joining games and i have noticed graphical lag. I dont understand why, as my machine is more than powerful enough for this game.

The multiplayer options for this game are to play through the campaign or do to a last stand mode, where you fight waves of enemies.

I must say combining spells is fun, from lightning that freezes your enemy to creating landmines

Magicka - Day 1

2011-04-17T05:15:00.000-07:00

The game i have picked for my very first review is...

A description courtesy of its creators, Arrowhead Studios:

"Magicka is a satirical action-adventure game set in a rich fantasy world based on Norse mythology. The player assumes the role of a wizard from a sacred order tasked with stopping an evil sorcerer who has thrown the world into turmoil, his foul creations besieging the forces of good.

Players will be able to combine the elements to cast spells, wreaking havoc and devastation on the minions of darkness. They will also be able to team up with friends and fight their way through the campaign, or test their skills in the magickal arts through other challenging modes.

In Magicka, up to four players take on a grand adventure to save their world from certain doom using a fully dynamic spell system. The adventure mode takes the players across three different levels, ranging from the lush forests of mountain valleys to the frozen halls of the Mountain King where wits and creative thinking are the keys to victory"

Sounds interesting, Doesn't it?

After spending the past hour with Magicka, i can say that the controls take some getting used to; you control your charachters movt using the mouse, you have to press and hold left click to walk and steer him with the mouse. You must quickly combile your spells using the keyboard keys as the enemies attack fast so must know the controls well.

Each individual level of the game consists of 3-4 screens and then you fight a boss. Kinda reminds me of streets of rage for some reason.

In concluding my first post on the game i can say that whilst fun, the controls take a bit to master and the game engine seems to be a bit chunky