Mythos: Review

Mythos is Diablo 2.5 in a nutshell. I could just end the whole review there and you'd still have a pretty good idea of what it has to offer. I heard rumors that Mythos was originally simply a testbed for netcode and possibly some formulas used in HG. If only they had constructed HG of the same quality that Mythos is. I buy all my games and have no problem doing so, but just so you know, the fact that Mythos is a free game will influence this score. Some features:

• Diablo style point-click action
• Awesome skill trees
• Synergies (ftw)
• Free
• Runs well on lower end systems
• Does not eat babies

Most games do not devour the young, but I felt I had to include that after the HG preview.

The point and click is very reminiscent of Diablo of course, it's very smooth and easy to get used to. You left click to attack (if that's what you want it assigned to) and right click for other stuff. You can assign your buttons to hotkeys like D2, with F1-F12 being the hotkeys. I find the ability to hold down the left mouse button to move you were you want to go slightly more helpful in Mythos because the action is more progressive based than stand and fire like D2. They also have a very nice hotbar in case you want to store multiple actions and potions or are simply more used to WoW based systems (newbies :P) and can't deal with left and right clicking.

Quests and such are as simple as WoW, with a question mark over the head of a completion quest NPC and a (!) over those who have a new quest for you. Quests generally give more xp than simply slaughtering an instance and will lead you into areas for your level regardless. A neat new system are the maps. Maps generate a temporary instance "dungeon" for you. They have a boss of some type, a level range of creatures (NOT tailored to you) and occasionally different "tiers" such as epic, which usually requres a group.

The skill system is AMAZING compared to HG. I'm surprised the two teams didn't share notes more often since the Mythos system is clearly FAR superior to that of HG, and anyone telling you different is either trying to win money in a bet that you're an idiot or works on the HG dev team. There are only three classes, possibly with more to come later, but each comes with three completely separate skill areas. All the skills I've seen thus far have very good descriptions of what they do on them and how they work. Putting multiple points into a single skill is helpful while spreading out will leave you somewhat thin in the begining but allows you to diversify later on. You are not required to put multiple points into skills that you will never use because skills simply evolve rather than get replaced. One such example is a downward strike of some type (I can't remember the name offhand) which fires a ground based attack in a straight line for 7 meters (at level 1). When you get more experienced and put points into your class level (ala Titan's Quest) you can upgrade that skill so it has a 20% chance to explode multiple shots when it hits a monster. Later on you can upgrade it so that it can trigger multiple chain reactions, thereby taking down hordes of crowding enemies (very useful). Other times, two different trees will compliment each other, like throwing down a punching dummy that attracts monsters and then throwing a lightning or flame trap right next to it, so mobs run over to your trap and cook themselves instead of having to rely on your running skills to circle strafe the mobs around your traps.

The game is free, which can't be bad. They plan on offering some type of "pay for stuff" system for which non-power gamers may buy some loot and things which all may be earned through normal game play. No special bonuses, just a shortcut for those of us without 100 extra hours to spare (aka full time job). Not going to any subscription based services also garners this game a double thumbs up from me. The game also runs very smoothly on my system (which is no slouch) but I imagine it will run well even on older machines, even up to 5 or more years old. That isn't to say the graphics are bad, rather not, just that they aren't top notch, which doesn't detract from gameplay, and offers quality to ALL consumers, rather than those who can afford $2000 systems.

In short, this is a very simple and casual game to pick up. Don't expect an enrapturing storyline, but do expect to start playing at 4pm and possibly miss a few hours of sleep without even noticing. The game easily garners a 4/5 from me, and will quite possibly earn a 5/5 with a few tweaks of the UI (which appears a little rough and ungainly at the moment). The lack of classes isn't a major concern given the huge number of skill choices, but it would make it easier for me to top out a perfect score with a few more options :)

Hellgate Preview

In the beginning I was pretty gung-ho for the game. It seemed to have everything I was looking for in an action oriented RPG game. That is to say:

• FPS oriented action
• Easily killable crunchy monsters
• Somewhat challenging boss fights
• Lots of random drops
• Ability to upgrade and customize weapons and armor (sockets, yah!)
• Skill Trees

Unfortunately, it failed on a number of other levels. While initially installing the game, I ran into multiple problems simply unpacking the install file. This is not likely to be a problem for CD installers, but they consistently went with some package installer that Nvidia must have wrote up in their spare time by small vermin with short attention spans. In short, I had to use a third party utility to unzip the package from the steel clutches of Nvidia before attempting the install.

The character creation is rather simple, and they give you an idea of what each class does similarly to the D2 style system of showing off a signature move or weapons by each class as you cycle through them. After jumping into the game, you can pretty easily pick up the gist of "click to attack" and quest lines which are better without words. The first few quests force you to click through the random NPC text but later on you are able to simply accept a quest after talking to the NPC without going through a story about how she "accidentally" released a mutated horde of hellspawn demons they were doing god knows what sexual experiments with.

While initially engrossing, the gameplay hits a sour note once you start choosing your skills. What should be one of the most fun parts of the game, choosing skill trees and making builds, turns out to be the most bland. Almost all the skills for non-casters are an utter waste of time. I tested this out thoroughly by playing through the game (to the cap of level 22) in each class. I found I leveled faster by NOT wasting my time attributing skill points and simply concentrating on weapons and upgrades. The only classes this was not possible for is Evokers, Engineers and Summoners being based on their pets or casting abilities more than anything else. Even in these classes (the Engineer and Summoner being two of my favorites) the skill selection was very lackluster and at times outright confusing.

How so? Try this one, "Increases Phase Attack by 120". Yeah, I played for 3 weeks and STILL don't know what that means. The tips tell me if a creature or player is "phased" it takes 50% more damage, but how does that translate to +120 Phase Attack? The skill (a magic missile like spell) does damage but the damage isn't even listed. What the fuck? As of three days ago, no skills had synergies. That means those points you put into low level skills will be fucking wasted in another 10 levels or so. That's ok though, since you don't need skills anyway. A Blademaster gets a skill that does 2x as much damage as normal but swings twice as slow and drains mana. Let me repeat that, "2x damage, 1/2 swing speed". Yeah, that was a brilliant move.

It does have it's positives, such as being more fun than a barrel of monkeys when you're plowing through the crunchy mobs with various ingenious weapons of doom, such as the "wasp" style weapons which fire homing swarms of BEES at your opponents. Others include exploding fire fields, sniper rifles and various types of assault guns. The melee weapons are of a rather standard sort except for the grappler which pulls enemies closer to you (handy for fighting flyers). Upgrading your weapons with various "mods" and finding 5 different types of items from mundane to unique is always a blast as you're constantly upgrading.

There are a few technical issues, such as DX9 crash to desktop problems and blue screens of death. I've been running Vista for 10 months or so solid now and this is the first game to make it BSOD and it managed to do it MULTIPLE times before it was patched. The lag isn't that bad except in terminals (towns) which is somewhat understandable except for the standing bug where occasionally the zone would pull everyone in that area and drop them into one spot for some unknown reason. Except for the BSOD, they weren't game stoppers.

Overall, the game looks like it will be worth playing, but not right now, and certainly not for $10 a month for a few extra character slots and game modes (hardcore) that honestly should be coming with the main game. I'd give a 3/5 in it's current state but I could see that being upped to 4/5 if they manage to make the skill tree interesting like Mythos and fix the technical issues. The $10 a month doesn't exactly entice me so I don't think I could ever give it a 5/5 considering games like Halo are out with multiplayer which most people would trade their left ventricle for and Microsoft doesn't even see fit to charge them a monthly fee for it (the $$ for ALL their online games is a pretty sweet deal in comparison).

Team Fortress 2

Update: I have changed my rating of this game to a 5/5 since I've found out (or has been updated?) that spies are revealed when a Pyro burns them. This is doubly good even on FF servers because Pyro flames don't damage your own team making Pyros the anti-spy.

Rating
5/5 - updated on Oct 26
(4/5)

Pro
-Plays smoothly on most machines
-Animations and voices are amusing and not distracting
-Classes are fairly well balanced
-Gameplay doesn't make for drawn out rounds of stalemates
-Easy to learn, hard to master

Con
(-Some classes don't have equal counter-parts (spy)) - no longer true Oct 26
-Released with the orange box...which you most likely own half of the products you'll be buying to play in beta
-Still a few graphical glitches, such as falling through the world when killed and not always being able to see the "spy haze"
-Autobalance does not take into account skill, just team numbers

Specials
Amusement Award - This game is amusing to me :)
Max Smart - Use your teammates, as sources of soon to be metal material

Summary
Team Fortress 2 is a great workup that the HL community waited almost a decade for. Based on the Source engine, it's heavily modded making it unrecognizable as a HL game. The cartoony cell graphics and overblown charictures make it instantly gratifying. Valve has released TFC2 as a "beta" for those of you who have pre-ordered the orange box. Many people who were going to purchase TFC2 most likely already own half the games on the orange box list, but the price point isn't too bad considering it also comes with HL:EP2 and Portal, two of the most hotly awaited games aside from TFC2 itself.

The game released with 6 maps which are highly refined and balanced for both sides with plans for another package later (unknown whether it will be a pay-package or not). You can jump right in on the action on either side and start playing in the middle of any game in progress. The classes are all very easy to learn, their main weapon is defaulted as the number 1 key and the rest have very self explanatory popups if you need to know what each item your class has does.

Most classes are very easy to start out with, with the possible exception of the spy and the sniper scope bar. The game allows even newer people to contribute without knowing much about the game, as you can pick a soldier or heavy weapons guy and simply fire away at all moving things. This doesn't mean that the game is easy however, there are tricks of the trade for every class, taking them from newbie meat shields, to mastered powerhouses.

I found the game to be enjoyable as most every class except the Pyro personally. They move at a decent speed, but most of the classes you can do anything to are too fast to be burned by your very short range flamethrower, which relegates you to doctor or engineer support most of the time. The Spy was possibly the only slightly overpowered class in the game. They are now able to cloak as well as disguise as the enemy team, can "sap" (read: disable and destroy) engineer toys and instant kill any class no matter their health with a well placed backstab. The problems I find with this is that there is no reliable way to track the spy during their cloak which lasts for up to 10 seconds and they have infinite charges of their "sap" ability, making it nigh impossible for an engineer to defend his gun, and get rid of the spy at the same time, meaning the spy can simply stand next to the engie and sap their items over and over because it's either repair the gun and get backstabbed or shoot the spy and lose all the time and resources you spent setting it up.

Conclusion
Overall, I gave this game a 4/5 since it plays extremly well, is reasonably balanced and a great game for the casual player. It loses a point only for it's problems with auto-balance and overpowered spy. If you really like the spy, add a point. If you don't like FPS games, this might be one of the first you would like, subtract no points.