Action, racing, fighting, shooting, role playing best games for those who looking to find something, not just to waste a time playing tiny flash games.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Hunted: Demon's Forge
The last time inXile graced the world with a console roleplaying was
with The Bard's Tale back in 2004. Since then, the studio has been
quietly working away on a number of mobile games, so it's certainly
interesting to see the company return to full-scale RPGs after making
games like Super Stacker, Super Stacker 2 and Super Stacker Party.
Hunted: The Demon's Forge has nothing to do with stacking, super or otherwise.
Much has been made of Hunted's unique blend of two different
but equally well-worn genres -- roleplaying games and cover-based
shooters. In fact, a popular way of describing the game has been to dub
it Gears of Warcraft, due to its very obvious modeling on two highly successful franchises.
In truth, the game has very little in common with roleplaying games
outside of its aesthetic qualities. There's no leveling up, no
inventory, and very little in the way of loot. While there are a
selection of weapons that appear with increasingly powerful attributes,
characters are restricted to one melee and one ranged weapon at any
time. You also get a shield and one piece of armor. That's it for your
equipment.
So, Hunted is not so much World of Warcraft. The thing is, it's not much like Gears of War
either. While ranged combat with bows is a central focus of the game,
and a cover system is in place, it won't take you long to work out that
using cover is a bad idea. In fact, even manually aiming is a waste of
time as it's far more useful to run-and-gun -- or run-and-bow, as the
case may be. If you're looking for a game that truly mixes shooters and
roleplayers, you actually won't find it here.
That's not to say Hunted is a bad game. In fact, despite failing in its central objective, Hunted is
a surprisingly fun action title that gives you a choice between ranged
warfare and hack n' slash brutality, managing both with respectable
adequacy.
The Demon's Forge stars two antiheroes, Caddoc and E'lara, a
pair of mercenaries who find themselves working for a mysterious woman
on a particularly shady quest. The story is pretty forgettable and your
mileage may vary in terms of whether you find the protagonists charming
or irritating, but it's a relatively inoffensive narrative with a
lighthearted edge to it, in spite of the dark visuals and a handful of
grisly concepts. There's also an intriguing method of getting alternate
endings, something that could have been truly outstanding if the developers had fleshed it out a lot more.
Although both characters are equipped for ranged and personal combat,
Caddoc and E'lara are each suited to a particular role. Caddoc, with
his ability to unleash a powerful physical attack and equip more
powerful hand-to-hand weapons, is the fighter, while E'lara uses a wider
range of bows and unique projectile attacks to provide support from
afar. The two characters compliment each other quite well, though I find
that E'lara is much more fun despite my usual gravitation toward melee
characters. It's not that Hunted's melee combat is particularly
bad, it's just not very well refined. Enemies tend to crowd the player
and it's much more effective, not to mention fun, to circle them and
repeatedly fire arrows (tip: Always use the weaker, "Fast" type bows, as
they are misleadingly more deadly than stronger, slower ones).
As well as general attacks, players will use collected crystals to
enhance a variety of character-specific and general magic attacks.
E'lara can charge her arrows with unique properties, such as ice and
armor-penetrating arrows, while Caddoc gains offensive charges and
whirlwinds. There are three battle spells that either character can use
-- lightning, fireballs and area-of-attack sigils. Each skill and spell
can be further upgraded by using more crystals, with benefits including
greater damage, less mana cost, and wider areas of effect.
Although they don't level up, Caddoc and E'lara can fulfill certain
gameplay objectives to improve their attributes. These requirements are
naturally earned through the course of play -- for example, earning a
certain number of ranged kills can increase the damage done with arrows.
These extras are cool, and the health and mana extensions are very
welcome, but there's not much to the character development that will
dramatically alter the gameplay.
As well as combat, the game serves an occasional puzzle, mostly
centered around the co-operative powers of Caddoc and E'lara. As with so
much in this game, the attempts at brainteasing are shallow at best,
usually consisting of simply "push this wall" or "shoot an arrow here."
The more puzzling elements are often completely voluntary, hidden off
the beaten path and often bestowing optional rewards -- usually a weapon
with a powerful charged attack that, when out of charges, will become
much weaker. Until you unlock a secondary weapon slot, these "rewards"
are pretty worthless, as any player will foresight will keep
a permanently moderate weapon over a temporarily powerful one.
Hunted is a pretty decent game at its core, and the mix of
fighting styles works better than one would expect, especially from a
company that has never been known for action games and has spent over
half a decade working on very small titles. While there's a definite
lack of polish (for instance, players can perform executions on weakened
enemies, but the animations never sync up properly), The Demon's Forge is a fun ride with combat that mostly remains quite tight.
However, Hunted is let down by the fact that it consistently
reinforces one's belief that it could have been so much more. The bare
bones approach to storytelling and character development is surprising,
when a little more depth could have made this game a real keeper.
Nowhere is this more apparent than with the boss fights, most of which
are built up as large, epic encounters, but end up as rather short,
underwhelming, unchallenging fights. Every time Hunted threatens to make a leap from decent to great, it seems to sink back to complacency, afraid to risk aiming above its station.
Playing with an AI partner brings its own set of frustrations, since
your allied character seems intent on making life difficult. It will
steal your kills, frequently stand in the way of your ranged fire, and
run to weapons racks to steal the loot before you. If you accidentally
swap your shield for one you don't want, it'll likely pick up your
superior equipment before you can correct your mistake. The AI is
unhelpful, greedy and selfish ... and in that way, inXile possibly
deserves praise for creating a partner that perfectly mimics a random
Xbox Live partner.
As far as the vaunted two-player option goes, I'm going to tell you
right now that I wasn't able to try it, but that my inability to play
adequately matches the experience players will have. The game does not
feature drop-in/drop-out co-op, something that I would've thought was obligatory
for a campaign-driven game like this. With that in mind, I tried to
find a game over several days, at different times, and came up short.
Usually the game found nobody online, but sometimes I'd get a "game
session full" message. If I had been able to play the game while keeping
it open for a player to drop in, I may have had luck, but no player
should be expected to sit in an empty lobby, hoping that another lost
soul will wander through Hunted's desolate servers at the same
time. I am absolutely baffled that a game so reliant on co-op gameplay
offered such a pathetically lackluster matchmaking system.
The same can be said for Hunted's "Crucible" mode, inXile's
answer to a map making system. To call it a map maker, however, would be
to heap grossly undue praise upon it. In reality, Crucible mode offers
potential level editors a selection of pre-packed arenas in which they
get to control the type and number of enemies, the available weapons,
and various other simplified gameplay modifications, all of which are
unlocked by collecting gold in Adventure mode. The actual potential for
individuality is rather sparse, and players can't even keep their
developed characters from the campaign. Yet again, what could have been an incredible and differentiating option comes up incredibly short.
If I sound harsh, it's because I genuinely like Hunted and
enjoyed the majority of my time with it. However, to see a game do
itself such a disservice and offer so little in comparison to its
significant potential is exasperating. It's obvious that Hunted
was never going to be a triple-A smash hit success, but that doesn't
mean it had to willingly underachieve. Instead of getting a uniquely
special game, players will get a relatively fun little action title with
an overwhelming sense that many things are missing.
I want The Demon's Forge to be a success because I want inXile to make a lot more games and Hunted
to become a series that fulfills its promise. However, I have to be
honest and say that you will miss nothing at all if you choose to ignore
the game. I'd definitely recommend you try it out if you're bored and
looking for a good time waster, but playing Hunted is just not
essential, especially in a period where bigger and better games are
looming on the horizon to snap up your time and money.
A solid experience let down by the fact that it never strives to be more than a solid experience.
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