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Mar 5th, 2014 at 23:01:58 - Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction (PC) |
Diablo II: Lord of Destruction is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). However, for this game review, I chose to play the single player mode so that I was not required to patch the game up to the latest version. For this game, you create a character and choose between seven different classes. You must use this character to fight through the various quests in a linear storyline, leveling up and gaining new skills and stats along the way. There is pretty much no end to this game. If you die, you are resurrected back at town. If you beat all of the quests, you can continue to play at any point of the game to kill monsters to get better equipment. Each class of character has three different skilltrees that a player may put points into. Upon leveling up, the character must choose which skilltree to spend the point in and choose which skill to spend the point on. For example, the Sorceress class has Lightning Skills, Ice Skills, and Fire Skills.
Game Mechanics: This game is played with mouse and keyboard. You must click on the screen to move the character, and hotkeys exist on the keyboard which will bring up various menus or use certain items within the game. You have a health bar, which means if it is emptied, you will die. After you die, you drop your items, but you are revived in town and can go pick up your body wherever you died at and regain all of your items. This allows you to keep on questing. There is also a mana bar that keeps track of how many mana points you have to cast spells. Diablo II has alot of replayability because of the different classes you can pick and because of the fact that you are always looking for better equipment. The type of MMORPG that this is referring to, which is also the type that Diablo II: Lord of Destruction is, is a Dungeon Crawler.
First Play: For my first playthrough, I decided to play as a sorceress. I named my sorceress Sorceress because you can give your character any name you want. I began in the main town and talked to the NPCs to get my first quest. After that, I went out into the wilderness to begin fighting. I fought my way into the den that contained my first quest. After killing everything in the den and leveling up a few times, I put a skill into each one of my skill trees. I gained a fire bolt attack, a lightning bolt attack, and an ice bolt attack. Each of these skills became level one. Upon working my way through the den and turning in my first quest, I decided to fight my way to the next area. My skills were doing an okay amount of damage, killing the enemies in a few hits. I also put all of my gained stat points into Energy to allow me to cast more spells. I found a few pieces of equipment, but I did not equip them because I did not have enough Strength. This playthrough took me about 10 - 15 minutes.
Second Play: For my second playthrough, I chose to create a Druid, one of the classes added in the expansion pack for Diablo II. I set out with my Druid to complete the first quest in the same way I did with my Sorceress. However, when I gained a few levels on my Druid, I put my skill points into the same skill on the same skilltree. After completing my first quest, I had my fire skill at level 4. This skill was doing a decent amount of damage for the place I was at. After I traveled to the next area, I used my level 4 skill on the enemies there, and it killed them in one hit. This strategy of putting skills all into one skill to get a stronger skill worked better than spreading out my skill points into different skilltrees. Also, I conserved my stat points until I needed them. I was able to add in any Strength that I needed to equip any armor I found before I put the rest of my stats in Vitality for more health and Energy for more mana. This playthrough took me about 10 - 15 minutes.
Overall review: Overall, I would say that I cannot think of any weaknesses that this game has. Diablo II: Lord of Destruction is a very addicting and very well-designed game. This game went on to be played by many for many, many years after its release, all the way into the 2010s. The amount of customization to your character allow for a fun experience every time a new character is created. You can choose the order of your skills differently and your stats each time you make a new character. Also, the maps for the game are randomly created, allowing for a different experience each time you play. These are major strengths of the game. Of course, the multiplayer aspect of the game is also a major strength, as that allowed you to fight alongside people and trade gear with them. The multiplayer also allowed for player versus player play. However, I did not play the multiplayer for this review. The dungeon crawler aspect of this game allows it for tons of replayability. The game does not end simply when you beat the game. There is always fun in loading a new game (where all enemies are brought back to life) and rekilling old boss enemies to get their loot. There is definitely strategy to how you play this game, and that makes it successful as well. I would give this game a perfect rating because it did everything perfectly, and it has the highest replayability factor out of any game I have ever played.
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Feb 10th, 2014 at 22:15:53 - Quarriors! (Other) |
Quarriors! is a dice building game that is played with dice and cards. Each player starts with dice that can be rolled for Quiddity, which are basically spending points, or even rolled as pawns, which function as basic monsters. A player rolls six dice out of their bag on their turn, and they spend any Quiddity that they've rolled on monsters or spells. If a player purchases a monster or a spell, they will add the die for that monster or that spell to their dice pile. Once a player has rolled all of their dice, they put them all back into the bag and roll them again. The point of the game is to roll monsters along with Quiddity and spend Quiddity to summon out the monsters. The monsters, when summoned, immediately attack all other monsters (they have an Attack and Defense stat), and if a monster survives until the beginning of the players next turn, they score the player points. After a certain point limit has been reached, that player wins the game.
Game Mechanics: The game has aspects of both Strategy and Luck. There is luck involved in that you may not get good dice rolls and be able to buy anything useful or be able to summon any monsters to score. There is an element of strategy in that the things that you buy will influence what you are able to roll and what monsters you are able to play. Each monster has its own stats and abilities, so there is alot of customization to the game. Also, there are different types of monsters and spells that can be drawn and put into play, so the game is different with each playthrough. There is an element of Diplomacy because everyone is interacting with each other throughout the game. Using the Quiddity that you roll in certain ways each turn shows an element of Resource Management.
First Play: With the first play, I had to learn and get used to the rules of the game. My friend went first and showed me how a turn progresses, and then I went. I noticed that buying monsters was a big part of the game, so I rolled my dice and used my points to buy a monster that strengthened other monsters summoned with it. Of course, I could not play the monster that turn because I had to set it aside and wait until I exhausted my bag of dice and refilled my bag, so that ended my turn. My friends went for a particular monster that, when it scored, could be switched out for any die in another player's used dice pile. As the game progressed, the strongest monster, a dragon, and the best spell, a spell that automatically added points to the player's points pool, were being bought. This got crazy, as player's started plotting to steal other player's dice with the thief monster. One player stole the point-adding spell from another player after scoring with the thief. I picked up that this thief was good and eventually got one for myself. There was one particular monster that had high defense, and everyone got one, so they were pretty much surviving every time they were summoned out and scoring points for the players. I did not have one, and I found my monsters being destroyed every time I summoned them out. I would summon my monsters, but players would summon monsters out after me and destroy mine. Eventually, the player to my right summoned out two of the dragons and one weaker monster in one turn. I summoned some monsters after him, but the dragons had an ability that said Level 2 and lower monsters could not attack a player with dragons out. My monster dice rolled to be levels 2, 2, and 1, so none of them could attack that player. The player after me rolled his dice but was not able to successfully summon out any monsters because his monster dice landed on Quiddity instead of the monster. The final player was hoping to use his spell to gain points and win before the beginning of the next player's turn, but he did not roll the right dice to score. When the player to my right's turn came back around, he won. This game took probably about forty minutes.
Second Play: The cards were shuffled and re-selected, and there was another dragon monster that simply destroyed all Level 1 monsters on the field when summoned. There was also a wizard that, when it successfully scored, reduced the price of all dice by 2 Quiddity. Noticing that the defensive monsters scored almost every time, I started the game out with a few good rolls and bought a Wizard on my first turn and then a defensive monster on my second turn. I was able to buy another defensive monster and summon out my wizard. My wizard scored, and on the same turn I rolled 6 Quiddity. The wizards costed 8 Quiddity, but because of the wizard's ability, I was able to purchase another wizard. Another one of the players had been rolling the pawn type monster and playing it every turn, slowing gaining one point each time his turn came back around. He started then buying and summoning out the defensive monsters, which made it through to his next turn because their defense was so high. When I rolled my defensive monsters, they landed on Quiddity instead of the monster side that allowed me to summon it, so I was not able to summon as many monsters as I anticipated. In just a few short turns, the player that was also strategizing with the defensive monsters won the game by slowly but surely summoning out a monster every turn and scoring each time it came back around to his turn. I had a good strategy going that game, but I did not roll the monsters when I needed them.
Game Strengths: This is a really good game because it has strong elements of both strategy and luck. The strategy makes the game fun because your choices affect what you can do on your turn. The luck makes it fun because you never know what you're going to roll on your turn. The game also has a high replayability factor because there are three different versions of each monster, and there are different spells, so each playthrough is played with a unique set of monsters and spells.
Game Weaknesses: The only weakness I can think of is that maybe, because of the luck element, a player may have repeatedly bad dice rolls and have a bad time playing the game because of it.
This entry has been edited 2 times. It was last edited on Feb 10th, 2014 at 22:21:16.
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CMorrison has been with GameLog for 10 years, 9 months, and 11 days |
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