2014. nov. 19.

Much water was flowing down on any river of Lordan or even on a gutter of glorious Anor Londo, and this time was filled with as much blood, defeat, victory and experience. And with four playthroughs, which, in the case of Dark Souls, is a really big thing. Chiefly, because one has less and less time for games, especially when they require such deep immersion as Dark Souls. The first try was hard, yes? Did you do it? Did you sweat through the hardest game of all time? (In fact, it is the hardest of the new generations.) Furthermore, do you dare to say it wasn’t so hard? Well, adventurer, there is a New Game+ option for you, in which you can restart the whole game with your achieved levels, acquired skills and items. You are the hero, you are strong, brave and hard to defeat, so let’s go! Then think it over again after the seventh defeat from one of the first opponents in a corner of the first dirty dungeon. Do you really need this? Is this what you wanted? But really, how could a lvl100 hero bleed out in a place where you were the merry butcher earlier? If the answer is yes, then you started Dark Souls for real. Take the whole first playthrough as a tutorial, training, or as an easy walk in the park, because the “Prepare to die” motto just got its meaning. I will never forget the feeling when a stone-hard critter chased me over three areas (when you normally play, it takes several hours to get through an area), it came after me through stairs and ladders, and nothing could stop it. Finally, when I thought I shook my pursuer off, it finished me with one blow from behind. Hello, Dark Souls, hello Death! Well, the point is taken. Dark Souls is hard for the first time, makes you sweat mercilessly. But for the second time, moreover, the third and (God saves us) the fourth time it becames so hard that may be called inhuman. But I wanted this, really, and I do not want to polish myself. I sought this: a meaty, bloody, raw...

2014. nov. 13.

The world of Warhammer 40.000 was made up of incredibly hard, cold and factual elements. Creators of Space Marine got this well, and they spiced the stuff with the marine heroism you can see on numberless pictures painted for the tabletop game. The result is among those very few games to which I tend to give maximal droidscore. Maybe, till now there was no such game in GD’s history. WH40K setting is extremely gothic, cosmic and apocalyptic, desperately dark, fantastic and hopeless in the same time, so in short: it’s not simple. Sometimes it called dystopian science fantasy, and this shows well that it’s not classifiable, so a distinct category was made. The name is telling: We are in the 41st millennium, when humans already populated the galaxy. During doing this it met some things, for example the Ork race spreading like a plague, or the Eldars living on their so-called Craftworlds after they left their home planets which (literally) became the embodiment of the race’s most chaotic nightmare. Anyway, they are not the real problem here, but the warping forces of Chaos and the swarm-like Tyranids are. There are other races too, and every one of them would fill a whole book, so I stick to the basics here. As in countless other settings, human is the average race here. They have high level technology but only some weaker psi abilities, and in spite of maintaining a strict order they always lie under the lure of Chaos. The Emperor’s Children Legion is a fine example here: They was so addicted to the sensations of battle and victory that they fell to Slaanesh, the Chaos god of perverse pleasures. Humankind is a so-called “collector-race” by every means: It mixes Orkish ferocity, Eldar technology and the unpredictability of Chaos. Orks are green-skinned, violent neo-barbarians. They live by wolfish laws and believe war can solve every problem. Although they are in constant war with other races, there are frequent skirmishes even between the allied clans, be it a simple bar brawl, a battle for an area or even a holy war. They practically have no fear of death, and we can hear about artfully wrought ork...

2014. nov. 13.

This fantasy hack & slash was released in 2001, and it became a classic by today. In those days the game’s top graphics held a lot of players spellbound. As I see it today, there are only a few products which are able to give such mood and experience as Severance did. This short article was written in 2005 (and this is why it’s so short) when I bought the game in a “Bestsellers” pack with Colin McRae 2 and Insane. As a big fan of speed I was just flipped at the pictures from Severance on the cover, but I said: “Why not? There is enough room on the shelves and I bought the pack for the racing games.” Soon I thought otherwise. I let the game take a chance on me, and Mr Colin stayed on the shelf till the end of that summer, because I wanted to complete Severance. A lot of people says that don’t be alone when you are playing a horror-fantasy FPS, because you will regret it. And they were true: Thanks to the sound and visual effects sometimes I really kicked the legs of the computer desk, or walking in the damp crypts I found myself squeezing the mouse with sweating hand. But don’t run forward so much! Severance: Blade of Darkness had a big red circle with 18+ inscribed when it get to the shops, marking aggression, violence and scaring content. This rating is correct, although today its old graphics is decreasing its scariness greatly. This is a fantasy action game with FPS or TPS (you can change it) point of view, in which you have to fight yourself through several levels, a heap of opponents and some traps to reach the main villain and save the world, as it is fitting to a good hero. It has a standard story and appearance, but the world and its mood can charm the player easily. You can choose between four characters. There are a dwarf warrior, a barbarian, a knight and an elf-like amazon. Evidently, they are from different races and classes, so they are skilled in different fighting styles, they use different weapons. They are advancing...

Around twenty years ago the determining game of my childhood was born. In 1989 it was released for SEGA consoles at first, and by today it became a real legend. After just one year the hack’n’slash action game, Golden Axe was ported to PC (of course, it was available in Hungary much later). A tiny comment: It was the only game I got to know first in the form of a gaming-room machine. The family was on holidays at Lake Balaton… or in Tokaj? It doesn’t matter: the machine was there everywhere for not the delight of my parents, because I always asked for coins. In that time Golden Axe wasn’t far from the imagination of children, because the barbarian king, Conan, and the Rahan comics were in fashion and have similar setting. The game’s popularity was not surprising, because who didn’t want to be big and strong like a barbarian who hacks the enemy with a huge hatchet or sword?! It was a typical side-scroller action flick and completely lacked of the standard platform elements of that time. It was focused only on the spectacular action. The story was set in a world with common middle-age and Conan trademarks, and you had to kill the main boss of the villains, namely Death Adder. I heard and said the name so many times that it was almost burnt into my mind. I can’t even imagine the beginning of the nineties without this evil death knight. Golden Axe offered three playable characters with different abilities. The dwarf had weak spells but extraordinary damage dealing ability, mincing everyone with his double edged hatchet. The barbarian represented the golden mean with his average spells and sword. The red clothed amazon got numerous fans by her very strong spells and weak weapon. I don’t have to mention what character was chosen by my elder sister and brother – yes, only the dwarf remained for me. Of course, to reach Death Adder you had to decimate his servants first. Several locations waited for the heroes, and every level ended in an epic fight against some boss or a mass of enemies. The game had fantastic combat system – after...

Third episodes are somehow hard to release. Fans had to wait ten years for Fallout 3, and the case of Doom 3 was exactly the same. Diablo III beat them by an extra three years to sharpen the appetite. So we waited thirteen years, and at last the favorite clicking-monsterkiller game os a good many people arrived. Among the several reasons of lateness the most important is that the game was rewritten three times. No wonder, the development started in 2001, and there was a lot of advancement in the technology since then. Not to mention the open secret that the character development system of the second Diablo was worth not heap of crap. The multi-way development opportunities were actually almost one-way at each character, because only the most effective characters could walk through the whole game. Only in the recent years the system was altered such way that skills started to strengthen each other. In spite of this Diablo II was successful enough to make the bed for the third part. The enormousness of the fan base was perfectly indicated by the 6.3 million copies sold on the first week. A must add; it deserved. Because the game was made excellently. From the graphix to the skill system lots of things were rethought and rewritten. It is not boring to replay it on different difficulty levels, because the monsters and the spells can bring new challenges and things to explore. On Normal difficulty you can watch the environment, read the story, but on Nightmare and Hell difficulties you have to be more and more tactical with the skills and the equipment. Relatively to the previous episode, character development was entirely reformed. There is no chance to purchase ability points, which – by the reason mentioned above – had no use anyway, but in exchange we get a level-dependent skill system with a heap of modification runes, and that makes hundreds of combinations to use what you want in the given situation. You can overwrite your choice anytime, so you can adopt to the various situation and will never “botch” your character. Identify and Town Portal spells had vanished, as did the Horradric Cube,...