=== PC Game Review -- Dungeon Siege - Action RPG - 7/10 ===

What Are We Reviewing?
This is a game dear to my heart as one of the older games I got myself into back in my younger years. This game is the original Dungeon Siege developed by Gas Powered Games back in 2002. So keep in mind that I'm reviewing a game from a while ago by how it holds up (in my opinion) by today's standards on today's technology.


Gameplay:
As an action RPG game, you start as a tiny character and build your way up through combat and experience gaining great power and equipment along the way. Dungeon Siege differentiates itself from games like Diablo by having a party system of up to 8 characters. Each character can level up in different skills including Melee, Ranged, Combat Magic, and Nature Magic. In this game, the way experience works is that experiences is gained each time an enemy is hit by the character, so in theory... a single character would have tons more experience than a party of 8 due to being the only character hitting all the targets would generate much more experience on one character. Unfortunately other than the spells which I believe have a max scaling to their skill level, melee and ranged attacks seem to be unaffected by the skill level.

It is certainly possible that one could beat the game as a single character without a party... though I'd think that would be quite the challenge even for the seasoned veteran of these types of games. I personally enjoy doing fun challenges in games, but even I think that would be an insane thing to try to do.

The game can be paused and unpaused at any time and commands can be issued in either state. Most of the commands required outside of having the right weapon or spell equipped is only to move the characters around to avoid damage rather than standing and fighting strong monsters or getting hit by projectiles. This starts off pretty nice, but I found it started to get rather tedious as the game went on with 8 characters in the party.


Graphics:
As you can see, the graphics are a little older and boxy. Seeing as the game came out in 2002, I would say the boxy 3D models with the ability to turn the camera 360° at any time... that's completely reasonable compared to the iconic Diablo II (2000).

I will however say that some of the enemies are difficult to see through all the vegetation and some of the effects can be difficult to catch as well with all that's going on. For the most part I'm quite happy with the look of the game all things considered.


Sound:
I have no complaints about the sound design of Dungeon Siege. There's good feedback on actions being taken and nothing seems very out of place. The only complaint I have is that sometimes that sound bugs out a bit with repeating of earlier played sounds when going back along the path you came for some... unknown reason.


Replayability:
Would I call this game replayable? Sure... if you wanted to try different compositions of groups, whether that be in numbers or types, then yes I would say this game is replayable to some degree. For most people however, this game is a play once and you're done sort of thing.


SUMMARY:
Dungeon Siege seems to run just fine on Windows 10 and is still a fun experience to play through as it was so many years ago. Compared to the newer games out there these days, it's getting a little bit older and is certainly showing its age, but other than that, it's still a pretty good experience and for the low price of only $7.79, it's really not a bad buy to keep a person entertained for many hours of gameplay.

My score for Dungeon Siege at this point of it's life will be 7/10 as it was a well-made game and is still good to this day.

~ DaemonVirus

=== PC Game Review -- Rogue's Tale - Turn-Based Dungeon Crawler - 2/10 ===

What Are We Reviewing?
Now I do like RPG and rogue-like games, and I also like when games are difficult and don't hold your hand, so today we're going to review Rogue's Tale. This is another game that I really tried to like because I do enjoy these types of games, though you'll soon see just how frustrating a game like this could really be.

Released March 28, 2014 and currently available in on Steam for $5.69 CAD, Rogue's Tale is a turn-based dungeon crawler which is meant to give you the experience of playing one of those good old RPG games which used to use the ASCII graphics and more often than not killed you before you got anywhere interesting; that's the same experience when playing this game.

As seen above you get to create your character each time you play and can even start with bonuses IF YOU'VE UNLOCKED THEM though grueling play after dying and dying and dying again.

Of course there is an easy mode where things hurt less and you can sell items without identifying them first, but you aren't able to unlock some things... and why would I want to play easy mode anyways?

Gameplay:
So the idea behind the game is that you're thrown into a randomized dungeon to explore for items and experience until you reach the bottom at which point you can leave and "reset" the dungeon which creates a new one to explore. There are various creatures throughout the dungeon, some of which are happy to live their own lives and some of which will attack on sight. There are also other adventurers and traps which you'll come across and more often than not you'll see one of the following screens:

There really isn't much to say about the gameplay of Rogue's Tale because you just can't get very far into it unless you get lucky and find all the right things for a successful run to get further than the first dungeon. In the time I've put into Rogue's Tale so far, I've only had one run which has been able to make it past the first dungeon... at which point I almost immediately died in the next dungeon.

I actually can't believe it, but I have less to say about Rogue's Tale than I had to say about Mall Empire. Even though it was a buggy game, there was at least some gameplay to get through.

Graphics:
I find the artwork and aesthetics of Rogue's Tale to be very nice. I do like the design and detail that has been put into the things that are seen, though I do find the information presented to be somewhat clunky. There's a lot of stats on the screen and not much to tell you what exactly does what... or why?

Replayability:
As much as I love being destroyed again and again in a game, I at least like to see some progress. Let me give you an idea of just how much progress I achieved throughout playing this game: 0 / 148 achievements. The top achievement is for reaching level 7; only 37.4% of players have ever reached level 7.

So while I would absolutely say the replayability of this game is HUGE, seeing at you enter a different dungeon every time you play and everything is different every time... I think it's the type of replayability that's actually... bad. Of course you want your game to be replayable to keep players wanting to come back and play it more, but we again come to the problem where if there's not progress into the game, then playing it again and again isn't fun anymore, it's just tiresome.

SUMMARY:
While Rogue's Tale isn't an expensive game, I still expect it to be a game worth playing in exchange for my money. I can't talk enough about how the gameplay is lacking for me. I'm sure there are others out there who love this sort of thing (hence why there are quite a few games of this type), but there are certainly better options than Rogue's Tale.

While I didn't enjoy the gameplay of Rogue's Tale, it is a working game that doesn't seem to be filled with bugs making an unplayable game. I'm giving Rogue's Tale 2/10 because I just can't stand bashing my brains against the same thing over and over hoping something different will happen; but it works and there IS a deeper game to be found in here... somewhere.

~ DaemonVirus

Hammerwatch With The Wife

Hey everyone, this video is a little late as it was made back in December, but it's definitely better late than never... right? Carley agreed to play some Hammerwatch with me for not the first time, believe it or not. We've had fun with this game before and I definitely look forward to continuing to play this again in the future.

~ DaemonVirus


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=== Games With The Wife To Be ===

     Recently I've been playing games with the wife to be. We've always enjoyed playing board games together and sometimes things like Mario and State of Decay because who doesn't love Mario and zombies? The unfortunate part is that we've always found it quite difficult to find two-player games that we both enjoy. In comes Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance on the Play Station 2. I've known for a while now that Carley has been interested in Dungeons & Dragons, but we just haven't had the time to run an adventure together. So one night I decided to suggest playing a new game and the next thing I know... she's asking to play "just until the next save point."

     Something I learned from this experience is that it's good to ask to try new things with your partner. You may be surprised to find that they enjoy doing some of these new things, or they may in fact be quite interested in something you like which even they never new about! I've also learned to be much more patient with my partner and that I also need to give new things a try... not just her. I've always been set in my ways where I like to do the same sort of thing every time; I even tend to order the same thing at each restaurant I go to. Now I'm trying to do things that are a little bit out of my comfort zone. We started spending time outside together recently building a snow fort! But that's a story for another time.

     So now we're looking for a new two-player game to play because we've beaten Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and I don't have the second game currently. Amazingly there don't seem to be a lot of great games like this on consoles these days. I'm sure if we keep looking we'll find something somewhere... or maybe I'll just finally get her to join me in playing some games on the PC. ;)

     I've always been a PC person because I enjoy the wide breadth of games available and I much prefer the accuracy of a mouse and keyboard vs a controller. I pretty much can't find a comfortable control scheme when using a controller in pretty much any case ever. The worst part about this... is that pretty much everybody I've ever known has been way more into consoles than PC. As unfortunate as that is, I will remain primarily a PC user searching throughout the land for some people of the same mind as myself to join me.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Diehard Dungeon - Game Review - Rogue-like 6/10

     You enter a small hallway with a chest in the center of the room. You open the chest to find you have zero to three slot machine rolls which dictates what extra skills you may have when going in to the dungeon just beyond the door at the end of the hall. You approach the door and notice you seem to have a pet chest following you; picking up anything of value for you nearby. Determined to escape with your life, you enter the Diehard Dungeon.

     I've been meaning to review this game for some time now; I've been putting it off because I've wanted to complete all the achievements. Unfortunately, some of the achievements require a lot of grinding and good luck to get certain combinations of things in a level to even allow you to progress on these grinding achievements. Now, achievements don't make or break a game. They just provide goals to give reasons to play a game again and again even if the game isn't actually very good.

     Diehard Dungeon isn't a TERRIBLE game; it's good. Just... good. I don't find it to be a great game. I think part of that is because I'm a mouse-and-keyboard type of gamer and the controls seem to be a little better suited for a controller. So the controls seem to be a little bit clunky to me, but they're still workable. You're bound to have difficulties early on until you get the hang of things and then for the most part, you should be able to avoid everything and win nearly every time... depending on the items you get. At no point are you guaranteed to get an item. Every time to find a chest, you may get up to three rolls, or you may get zero. Once you find out how many rolls you get, it becomes like a jackpot machine. You have to match three of the same picture to get an item, but there's no skill to it at all; you get whatever the roll decides to give you. Then there are tokens that you randomly get throughout the game either by winning or picking up hearts when at full health, or by randomly being dropped during battle with the enemies.

     You have two options for combat; you may swing your sword which can be charged up for a circular attack, or you may shoot your gun which knocks enemies back, then explodes with another knock-back. The combat works, though in my opinion it can be a little dry. There are times when using your sword is obviously better, but using your gun is so much safer in nearly every situation so long as you're able to dodge properly. There are some traps on each floor which you have to avoid which are either pressure plates that shoot arrows or javelins at you, or spinning blades that randomly roam around the room (which sometimes also shoot arrows at you).

     This game isn't bad. I just don't think it's great. The achievements kept me playing longer than I had wanted to because I was determined to complete them all, but now I've lost interest and think it's time to move on. If you like rogue-like games, this one may interest you, but for me this game will be getting 6/10 for rogue-like games.

Have a great day everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa