Dungeon Crawler Mis-genre-ing

Like all things I seem to really enjoy, Dungeon Crawling is one of those niche genres that doesn't have wide appeal but does have an insanely dedicated following of fans.  I'm almost certain that in the past on this blog I've gushed, at length, about how much I love this style of game but for this post I'm here to complain about something that really chaps my ass which is the misgenre-ing (if that's even a word) of games in this genre.

A dungeon crawler is typically an offshoot of the RPG genre that revolves around an individual or group of people navigating a big maze, solving puzzles, killing monsters and surviving with what little resources they have all usually in first person.  Famous titles in this genre include Dungeon Master (Pictured above), Shin Megami Tensei, Legend of Grimrock, Etrian Odyssey and many more.  The real interesting part about this genre is that a large number of titles will require or ask the player if they want to draw their own maps.  Back in the day if you wanted to effectively navigate these dungeons you'd have to break out some square paper and get drawing.  More modern titles have an automap but, for example, Grimrock will ask the player if they would like to turn the map off or Etrian Odyssey actively forces you to draw your own map on the bottom screen of the DS.

You know what isn't a dungeon crawler though? Diablo, Zelda, any of those roguelikes on Steam.  Diablo is the one that comes up most of all whenever I go looking for dungeon crawl recommendations.  I don't have a problem with Diablo, it's a good game, but Diablo is an action RPG loot fest, extremely far removed from the style of game I'm usually looking for.

The reason this gets my back up is because dungeon crawling is an extremely niche genre and it's been mislabeled so much that now, finding a traditional style dungeon crawl is extremely difficult.  If you go on Steam and type in "dungeon crawl", you get a mix of classic RPGs and rougelikes with the occasional actual dungeon crawl peppered in there.  If I wanted a fucking roguelike, I'd search for fucking roguelikes, but I want a goddamn dungeon crawl.

Still, despite seemingly no one know what a proper dungeon crawl is, all is not lost.  There's a website dedicated to enthusiasts of the genre

http://www.dungeoncrawlers.org/

Not a hack and slash or action adventure in sight.  It's dungeon crawling heaven in there, from old to new, so go check it out.

Big Collections Can Be A Problem

I love going video game shopping, it's great.  Doesn't matter if it's for the latest titles or retro stuff, I could spend hours perusing games, admiring their box/cartridge art and discovering new things. 

So not only do I love playing video games but I also love collecting them and because I've been gaming since the age of 4, my collection has grown to a pretty sizable number.  This is great because I now have so much to choose from.  When I want to play a game I have a great deal of genres and games from across the ages to pick from.  However, a big collection does come with a few problems.

The first is having TOO much choice.  If I'm not feeling anything specific, let's say I just want to play AN RPG, then it sometimes becomes stupidly hard to pick.  I can spend hours looking through all my games or scrolling up and down my steam list and have a really hard time just finding one to settle on.  I've had quite a fair few lazy weekends or days off work consumed by just scanning my collection looking for that one thing to play.  Then eventually when I do find the game I want to play, I've spent so much time deciding that I don't have all that much time left in my day to actually play it.  It's a terrible feeling and I've had to make a habit out of planning what to play next in advance.

The second problem is repeat buying.  I've had a few times where I've come back from the game shop with a "new" game only to find that I already owned it.  I did this about 3 or 4 times in the UK with Diablo and I nearly did it the other day with Arc the Lad on PS1.  I buy things, shelf them and then forget that I own them.

The final problem is the never ending backlog but I've touched on this a few times already so I don't think I need to say much more about that one.

The good news is that my stupid purchasing habits means I'm about to update the prize page! Hooray!

Beating a Dead Horse

Semi recently, the new Thief game came out on basically every system ever and PC.  I've been hearing quite mixed things about the new Thief since it's launch.  Generally speaking, all the gaming "news" sites have been giving it a good writeup, while every single old school Thief fan I've spoken to on the subject says it's a little bit shit.

Now, I've not played Thief yet, so this post is not commenting on the quality of that game but this is the most recent example of what I'm about to talk about so don't freak out if you really like the game, I'm not slagging it off (yet)

Now just in case you weren't aware, Thief (the original) was an old as fuck first person PC game released in 1998 created by Looking Glass Studio.  2 Years later it got a sequel that was quite well received and then another one popped up in 2004 which I didn't play but it I've not heard many complaints about it so it can't be that bad.

Then 2014 rolls along, it's been 10 years since the last Thief game and then BAM! New Thief game for everyone to enjoy.  Except it's not everyone who's enjoying it, is it? 

No, for all the old school Thief fans, by the sounds of things, they've been left in the dust and the game has been severely dumbed down in order to appeal to a mass market and now there is a group of players who are upset that a series they held so fondly has been fucked in the ass.

Except I haven't played Thief, so let me take another example that is more relevant to my experiences.

Silent Hill: Book of Memories is a little bit of a different category since it's not so much a reboot or a remake but rather just an absolute beating of an already very dead and very rotten horse.

For in uninformed, Silent Hill's 1-3 and to a lesser extent 4 are some of the best horror games ever made ever.  Once the original team stopped making the games and the series was over, a bunch of western teams jumped in to try and carry things on and squeeze every last dollar out of the series they possibly could. 

Book of Memories was the most stand out offensive game that ever came out though and can you guess why?  It's because it wasn't survival horror! It was a fucking Diablo style dungeon crawl and a terrible one at that.

There is absolutely ZERO reason why that game had to be called Silent Hill.  In fact, it probably would have worked in its favour to not have been called Silent Hill because even though it's not very good, people would have been a lot kinder to it if it wasn't going around spitting on everything that came before it.

It's the same with Thief, why did it have to be called Thief?!  Once you throw that name on it, all the fans of the old games are going to come into it comparing it to the originals, and then when it doesn't match up (and it never does) you end up just feeling disappointed and betrayed.

If you just called the game "Sneaky Twats Stealing Adventure" and put "Inspired by Thief" on the box, then people wouldn't be so harsh on it.  But no, all the greedy fucks that populate the games industry nowadays just want to push whatever shitty games they can by banking on brand recognition.

Basically what I'm trying to say with this post is stop "remaking" or "rebooting" things and try to use some of that actual creativity that I know is kicking around in that cesspit of an industry somewhere.  Use the old classics as inspiration for your project, but there is ZERO reason to shit all over the legacy of long standing classics just so you can make a quick buck.

Path of Exile Open Beta

I have a rather limited experience with Diablo 3, and the game was fine really, I had fun with what I played but it didn't really feel like Diablo anymore.  Diablo 3 was no more Diablo to me than something like Torchlight is Diablo. 

Anyway, this thing is also not Diablo, but it bares a closer resemblance to it than Diablo 3 did.  This, is Path of Exile, a game that has just recently gone into open beta.  Path of Exile is a free to play MMORPG and to sum up the whole game in very simple terms, it's fucking Diablo.

It's a little bit more than that.  While there are a lot of things that players who enjoy the Diablo series will like with this game, it does do things to stand out on its own.  While the game is free to play, everything you need to enjoy the game and be efficient in combat and stuff can be found within the game.  Dropping money on this game will not give you an advantage, it will just get you cosmetic stuff and some boosts.

The gameplay itself is pretty simple.  You go through acts, with out without friends, beat bosses and get loot.  The endgame is made up of "maps" which are usable items that create portals to areas, so party up and get your clicking finger ready for those.  Right now there are 3 acts in the main game, with the third added just recently and I'd imagine more to come.

What really blows every ones mind when they think of this game though, is the passive skill tree.

This thing is fucking nuts.  It's a big grid of over 1000 passive buffs, and every time you level up you can move one step.  Fans of the Final Fantasy 10 sphere grid will know exactly how this shit works, and if you go on the website you can play around with it and make yourself a build.  It's pretty good but its sort of intimidating and really you just have to take it as you go.

Finally, the last thing I really like about this game is, no currency.  This may sound weird, as selling items nets you "orbs" and identify scrolls.  You can then use these to buy other items, or use them on your own equipment to improve them.  The only reason I really like this system so much is because the in game chat is completely devoid of gold selling bots spamming rates.

Anyway, give it a go, especially if you were unhappy with Diablo 3.  It's fuckin' free, what have you got to lose?