Since it released, in mid-December, I've been playing Elite on and off. This is a hugely impressive game; on one hand there isn't a huge amount of content and it can feel a bit aimless, but on the other it is apparent Frontier Development have built an engine and the core mechanics so solidly that it is ready for content to be layered on in the coming years. They have better multiplayer support coming, along with co-operative missions, next month! I think this will be when the game really starts to take form.
Elite is 1-to-1 scale to the milky way, a sandbox game where it's up to each player to decide what they want to do, whether that is to trade, pirate, hunt bounties or mine. There is also a political level to the game where you have to consider which faction you're being good to and whether it's going to have repercussions on you when you go to their enemies systems. The trade and political system is very deep, still needs a little work, but it's basically there.
On the whole I feel Elite feel very polished, but dying for better multiplayer support, which is something I'm hoping to no longer being saying in a few weeks. To be honest, with the quality of the patches and release so far, I am almost certain this will be rectified in the next update in early March. I can't wait for it!
Another game I had been playing more before and around xmas is Gauntlet. It's a top down hack'n'slash dungeon crawler, built for multiplayer - you can play single player, but that gets a bit tedious pretty quickly. Fighting as a warrior, valkyrie, archer or wizard, you battle through hordes of enemies, collecting as much treasure as you can.
The only way to play is with friends and despite the game sometimes feeling a little repetitive, the challenge level is high enough and the mechanics are well designed that it feels satisfying whenever you play it!
I recommend playing gauntlet with a beer and at least 2 other friends online.
So, apart from Elite and Gauntlet I have fiddled with a few other games, Blood Bowl: Chaos Edition, Empire: Total War, Xcom: Enemy Unknown, all of which are fantastic. I don't feel I have enough time to really get the most out of them, but hope to delve deeper into them over the coming year.
I'm looking forward to the Homeworld re-mastered edition coming in a week! This is a fantastic multiplayer game and I hope a friend of mine gets it so we can relive some great Homeworld memories.
No comments:
Post a Comment