- Jan 12, 2004
- 11,078
- 11
- 81
-updated 01/14/08- (original post down below)
Ok, I got to spend more time with the game this weekend and the news aint too good.
The AI is basically an abomination. Not since the original Doom have I seen a game with AI this bad. Hell, atleast in Doom, the enemies attacked you. Here, when you're swarmed by enemies (which happens basically all the time), the enemies take turns attacking much in the same way they did in Assassin's Creed. But it so much worse here because you can be standing there doing nothing, litterally not attacking any of the creeps, and they'll also just stand there just performing there looped "stance" animation panting away. It's pretty absurd.
I decided to restart the game as the Elf Princess since she's the fastest character of the bunch and, I'll admit, the game is more enjoyable with her--but it's just really sort of boring. It kind of bums me out to say this because I feel like we havent had a good action RPG in a while and I wanted this to be good. It's just so linear, though. I mean, Diablo is linear as well--but this one is soooooo restricted, you're basically runnings down a hallway (disguised as a path down a field or old ruin) but there is ZERO exploration or side rooms or paths. There is nothing else to do but run down this "hallway" and slash enemies.
----------------------------------------------------------
-original post-
Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom
Release Date: 01/08/08
Platform: X360
Developer: Blueside
Publisher: MS Game Studios
Genre: Action RPG
ESRB: Mature (M)
Website: http://www.kufcod.com/
Box Art: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi.../ad/Circle_of_Doom.jpg
Disclaimer: I've never played a Kingdom Under Fire game--ever. Also, keep in mind that this is a first impression post as I've only played about 2-3 hours of the game. So my feelings toward the game may change later on.
-Story-
If it even really worth mentioning--it's really nothing special. Apparenlty there were these two gods that ruled the universe in shifts. Yes--that's right--they took turns. One was of course, evil, and the other one good. Well the good one, Nigle, got tired of this after watching all his good deeds and good people destroyed everytime time the evil guy took over. So, the evil dude (he has a crazy name that I cannot recall at this time) marched his evil army all over Nigle's world and took over things for good taking a long six heros with it.
So, the game starts out with you able to choose 1 of 5 guys (the 6th must be an unlockable). They range from the good guy Paladin type to the androgynous trenchcoat wearing duel-weilding Katana guy, to the beautiful spry Elf Princess.
I went with the evil equivolent of the Paladin, Regnier
(go the the website and check out the characters--he's cool looking). This guy just looks like a badass. He lost his immortality and is now dealing with that and the mysteries behind the reasons.
-Graphics-
This game is really good looking! Not just technically speaking, but so far I love the chatacter designs (although the monsters, so far, leave my wondering what happened). There have been times, with this game, where I stopped what I was doing just to rotate the camera around so I could check out the details of things. I was seeing all types effects as well; Bloom (but no HDR), AA, ANSIO. Yes, everything is super smooth and just looks great.
one things that really impressed me in sort of a superficial way was the fact that there is deformable terrain. Odd, right? When Regnier was swinging his huge sword around fighting off demons, I noticed that when I hit the side of a rock, tree, or hill--it would tear out a chuck. Well, actually, for the trees and such it would not tear open a tree of smash it down (a la Crysis), it would just swap the texture out with one that looked like the bark had been torn away. But there was something cool about taking on 30 goblins and swinging my rediculously large sword around and admiring the afermath to see gouges in the ground and hill sides. It looked battle worn. I left my mark in the word and it felt good.
Now, there is some tearing but it wasnt bad at all. Infact I really only noticed it once or twice. But all this does come at a cost. The frame rate does drop down at times to a crawl. This, so far, is the worst part of the game for me. It's almost as if the draw distance should have been brought in a little more. But, it's deffinitely not unplayable, to me.
Purbeast0 Factor Scale (1-10, with 10 being horrible tearing and 1 being none): 3
-Gameplay-
So far, the game has been pretty straight forward--almost too straight forward. The levels I've played so far (3 acts I think) have all taken place outdoors with me climbing grassy trails and fighting swarms of goblins (sword and archer types) along with a larger, tougher guy in the middle. It's kind of the the situation with Diablo where you had the swarms of demons and a mini-boss in the middle, but just more common. There have been some branches in the trails but they, so far, always have lead to the same spot eventually. I am looking forward to moving on and getting deeper in to the game because it appears that there is some dungeon crawling as well and I'm interested in checking out the indoor areas. Lets just hope there is more variety as I'm sure there will be.
In the game you have 4 meters. HP, SP, Luck and Experience. All of those should be pretty self explanitory except for the SP part. SP is consumed when using abilities or even when you swing your sword (every weapon/armor has an SP and SP revovery rating (EX: 32 SP to equip, recovers 4.4 SP/sec). So, it's basically a stamana bar. Yes, its a little bit annoying as I really dislike stamina bars.
In the game when you level up, you typically get an allotment of points to distribute to your HP, SP and Luck. Not much to say here.
The game does have an enhancement system called "Synthesis". This is really where the game shines. As you battle it out, the creeps you kill drop a lot of loot. A LOT! This was initally a source of frustration for me until I found out that you can purchase more space in your intentory (more bags). But back to my original point--the loot that you pick up can be used to enhance the weapons you already own. Each weapon you have (and you can bind up to 5 types of attackes, (two weapons and three abilites) has a limited number of enchacements it can have, so you eventually have to move on. But I noticed that one I enhanced the sword (more like a airplane wing its so huge) I started with, it changed shape and design making it look more eeeeeeevil (as in, Dr Eeeeevil--sorry).
The game also has an enchantment system, but I dont know enough about it to speak on it.
When you hit the end of a stage, there is a sort of sancuary area where you can barter with an idol (sumo looking idol) or a grim reaper type fella. This is where you can trade item in for gold and Synthesize tiems. You can also "sleep", and this is where the story and ability progression (so far) takes place. Its this dreamy, surreal state (which participating characters, design, atmosphere vary per character) where an old man tells me of my past in cryptic messages. He also "sells" abilities. I'm kind of dumbing that down for the sake of explination, but you esentially select from a list of abilities (there appears to be a LOT as well) and he will not just give it to you--but tell you that you need to kill 4 red lizard men, 6 blue lizzard men, and 1 yellow tail. Its immediately reminded my of World of Warcraft actually. So, once you fulfill those requirements and come back to him--he grants you the abilitys you've earned. It's different thats for sure, but my initial reaction is that of appeal--I like it.
Also, its really worth mentioning that the game supports co-op and isnt shy about it either. When you begin a game and select a character--a menu pops up asking you if you want a solo game or a co-op game which can be done locally or via Live (I've not tested these out yet). BTW, in co-op the HP and EXP of the enemies increase in proportion to the number of characters in the session AND the chance for items to drop also increase respectively. This is AWESOME because Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance 1 didnt do this at all on both accounts, but BGDA 2 did--but sort of failed at it.
There are 6 acts in the game with each act consisting of 3-6 stages (taken from games webpage).
-Sounds and Music-
The sounds are fine and didnt stick out as horrible or bad like Two Worlds, but arnt necissarily amazing like the ones found in HL2. The music is all over the place. The menu system is filled with this sort of generic rock music that I just couldnt get away from fast enough. But in the game, while running around, its this very soothing and almost melon collie in nature with symphonic tunes. Once you approach some enemies it transitions over to some more rock stuff (but less annoying and stringing guitar like than the menu music), which is easy to ignore because your so focused on fighting the hordes of enemies.
Screenshots:
http://screenshots.teamxbox.co...ire-Circle-of-Doom/p1/
http://kotaku.com/gaming/galle...ots-of-doom-299081.php
So far I would totally recommend this game to anyone with an X360 and loved Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance (or even Action RPGs). Please keep in mind, once again, that I'm only 2-3 hours in to the game.
Ok, I got to spend more time with the game this weekend and the news aint too good.
The AI is basically an abomination. Not since the original Doom have I seen a game with AI this bad. Hell, atleast in Doom, the enemies attacked you. Here, when you're swarmed by enemies (which happens basically all the time), the enemies take turns attacking much in the same way they did in Assassin's Creed. But it so much worse here because you can be standing there doing nothing, litterally not attacking any of the creeps, and they'll also just stand there just performing there looped "stance" animation panting away. It's pretty absurd.
I decided to restart the game as the Elf Princess since she's the fastest character of the bunch and, I'll admit, the game is more enjoyable with her--but it's just really sort of boring. It kind of bums me out to say this because I feel like we havent had a good action RPG in a while and I wanted this to be good. It's just so linear, though. I mean, Diablo is linear as well--but this one is soooooo restricted, you're basically runnings down a hallway (disguised as a path down a field or old ruin) but there is ZERO exploration or side rooms or paths. There is nothing else to do but run down this "hallway" and slash enemies.
----------------------------------------------------------
-original post-
Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom
Release Date: 01/08/08
Platform: X360
Developer: Blueside
Publisher: MS Game Studios
Genre: Action RPG
ESRB: Mature (M)
Website: http://www.kufcod.com/
Box Art: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi.../ad/Circle_of_Doom.jpg
Disclaimer: I've never played a Kingdom Under Fire game--ever. Also, keep in mind that this is a first impression post as I've only played about 2-3 hours of the game. So my feelings toward the game may change later on.
-Story-
If it even really worth mentioning--it's really nothing special. Apparenlty there were these two gods that ruled the universe in shifts. Yes--that's right--they took turns. One was of course, evil, and the other one good. Well the good one, Nigle, got tired of this after watching all his good deeds and good people destroyed everytime time the evil guy took over. So, the evil dude (he has a crazy name that I cannot recall at this time) marched his evil army all over Nigle's world and took over things for good taking a long six heros with it.
So, the game starts out with you able to choose 1 of 5 guys (the 6th must be an unlockable). They range from the good guy Paladin type to the androgynous trenchcoat wearing duel-weilding Katana guy, to the beautiful spry Elf Princess.
I went with the evil equivolent of the Paladin, Regnier
(go the the website and check out the characters--he's cool looking). This guy just looks like a badass. He lost his immortality and is now dealing with that and the mysteries behind the reasons.
-Graphics-
This game is really good looking! Not just technically speaking, but so far I love the chatacter designs (although the monsters, so far, leave my wondering what happened). There have been times, with this game, where I stopped what I was doing just to rotate the camera around so I could check out the details of things. I was seeing all types effects as well; Bloom (but no HDR), AA, ANSIO. Yes, everything is super smooth and just looks great.
one things that really impressed me in sort of a superficial way was the fact that there is deformable terrain. Odd, right? When Regnier was swinging his huge sword around fighting off demons, I noticed that when I hit the side of a rock, tree, or hill--it would tear out a chuck. Well, actually, for the trees and such it would not tear open a tree of smash it down (a la Crysis), it would just swap the texture out with one that looked like the bark had been torn away. But there was something cool about taking on 30 goblins and swinging my rediculously large sword around and admiring the afermath to see gouges in the ground and hill sides. It looked battle worn. I left my mark in the word and it felt good.
Now, there is some tearing but it wasnt bad at all. Infact I really only noticed it once or twice. But all this does come at a cost. The frame rate does drop down at times to a crawl. This, so far, is the worst part of the game for me. It's almost as if the draw distance should have been brought in a little more. But, it's deffinitely not unplayable, to me.
Purbeast0 Factor Scale (1-10, with 10 being horrible tearing and 1 being none): 3
-Gameplay-
So far, the game has been pretty straight forward--almost too straight forward. The levels I've played so far (3 acts I think) have all taken place outdoors with me climbing grassy trails and fighting swarms of goblins (sword and archer types) along with a larger, tougher guy in the middle. It's kind of the the situation with Diablo where you had the swarms of demons and a mini-boss in the middle, but just more common. There have been some branches in the trails but they, so far, always have lead to the same spot eventually. I am looking forward to moving on and getting deeper in to the game because it appears that there is some dungeon crawling as well and I'm interested in checking out the indoor areas. Lets just hope there is more variety as I'm sure there will be.
In the game you have 4 meters. HP, SP, Luck and Experience. All of those should be pretty self explanitory except for the SP part. SP is consumed when using abilities or even when you swing your sword (every weapon/armor has an SP and SP revovery rating (EX: 32 SP to equip, recovers 4.4 SP/sec). So, it's basically a stamana bar. Yes, its a little bit annoying as I really dislike stamina bars.
In the game when you level up, you typically get an allotment of points to distribute to your HP, SP and Luck. Not much to say here.
The game does have an enhancement system called "Synthesis". This is really where the game shines. As you battle it out, the creeps you kill drop a lot of loot. A LOT! This was initally a source of frustration for me until I found out that you can purchase more space in your intentory (more bags). But back to my original point--the loot that you pick up can be used to enhance the weapons you already own. Each weapon you have (and you can bind up to 5 types of attackes, (two weapons and three abilites) has a limited number of enchacements it can have, so you eventually have to move on. But I noticed that one I enhanced the sword (more like a airplane wing its so huge) I started with, it changed shape and design making it look more eeeeeeevil (as in, Dr Eeeeevil--sorry).
The game also has an enchantment system, but I dont know enough about it to speak on it.
When you hit the end of a stage, there is a sort of sancuary area where you can barter with an idol (sumo looking idol) or a grim reaper type fella. This is where you can trade item in for gold and Synthesize tiems. You can also "sleep", and this is where the story and ability progression (so far) takes place. Its this dreamy, surreal state (which participating characters, design, atmosphere vary per character) where an old man tells me of my past in cryptic messages. He also "sells" abilities. I'm kind of dumbing that down for the sake of explination, but you esentially select from a list of abilities (there appears to be a LOT as well) and he will not just give it to you--but tell you that you need to kill 4 red lizard men, 6 blue lizzard men, and 1 yellow tail. Its immediately reminded my of World of Warcraft actually. So, once you fulfill those requirements and come back to him--he grants you the abilitys you've earned. It's different thats for sure, but my initial reaction is that of appeal--I like it.
Also, its really worth mentioning that the game supports co-op and isnt shy about it either. When you begin a game and select a character--a menu pops up asking you if you want a solo game or a co-op game which can be done locally or via Live (I've not tested these out yet). BTW, in co-op the HP and EXP of the enemies increase in proportion to the number of characters in the session AND the chance for items to drop also increase respectively. This is AWESOME because Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance 1 didnt do this at all on both accounts, but BGDA 2 did--but sort of failed at it.
There are 6 acts in the game with each act consisting of 3-6 stages (taken from games webpage).
-Sounds and Music-
The sounds are fine and didnt stick out as horrible or bad like Two Worlds, but arnt necissarily amazing like the ones found in HL2. The music is all over the place. The menu system is filled with this sort of generic rock music that I just couldnt get away from fast enough. But in the game, while running around, its this very soothing and almost melon collie in nature with symphonic tunes. Once you approach some enemies it transitions over to some more rock stuff (but less annoying and stringing guitar like than the menu music), which is easy to ignore because your so focused on fighting the hordes of enemies.
Screenshots:
http://screenshots.teamxbox.co...ire-Circle-of-Doom/p1/
http://kotaku.com/gaming/galle...ots-of-doom-299081.php
So far I would totally recommend this game to anyone with an X360 and loved Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance (or even Action RPGs). Please keep in mind, once again, that I'm only 2-3 hours in to the game.
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