Review - Heretic Kingdoms 8/10

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My full review is here:
http://www.gamechronicles.com/reviews/pc/heretickingdoms/inquisition.htm

I consider this to probably be the best RPG to come out in 2005 so far (not
counting Dungeon Lords, which I am reviewing now). That's not saying a
whole lot, since there's not much competition. But if you like action/RPG,
or if your twitch skills aren't totally lacking, I recommend at least
trying the demo for this one.

I'm not overly enthusiastic about my review this time, I had to rush it and
didn't have time to explain a whole lot. Plus I'm miffed that none of the
pics I sent in revealed my character's name: Bimbo Chyx. I get a sick and
twisted satisfaction of hearing "Bimbo Chyx, thank you for saving us!"

Demo is here:
http://www.gamershell.com/download_7167.shtml

--

Knight37 - http://knightgames.blogspot.com

Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer.

 

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> Wrt games released in 2005 I'd rate Guild Wars considerably above it
-
> combat, graphics, and even story are better, plus it's much longer.

I played GW beta and decided it wasn't worth buying. YMMV, of course,
but especially for a single player RPG fan I consider Heretic Kingdoms
to be the better game. Graphically GW trumps it, but that's about the
only thing better about it. The single player gameplay in GW is just
not as fun, IMHO.

 

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Thusly Knight37 <knight37m@email.com> Spake Unto All:

>My full review is here:
>http://www.gamechronicles.com/reviews/pc/heretickingdoms/inquisition.htm
>
>I consider this to probably be the best RPG to come out in 2005 so far (not
>counting Dungeon Lords, which I am reviewing now). That's not saying a
>whole lot, since there's not much competition.

It came out in 2004 here, but it is a nice, if a bit short, game, yes.

Wrt games released in 2005 I'd rate Guild Wars considerably above it -
combat, graphics, and even story are better, plus it's much longer.

--
A True Hero: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/magazine/03ALI.html

 

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Thusly "knight37m@gmail.com" <knight37m@gmail.com> Spake Unto All:

>> Wrt games released in 2005 I'd rate Guild Wars considerably above it

>I played GW beta and decided it wasn't worth buying. YMMV, of course,
>but especially for a single player RPG fan I consider Heretic Kingdoms
>to be the better game.

OK. I disagree, but fair enough.


--
A True Hero: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/magazine/03ALI.html

 

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"Mean_Chlorine" <mike_noren2002@NOSPAMyahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:m2sm815hdaj9tilpdml9i35o5upilfm867@4ax.com...
> Thusly "knight37m@gmail.com" <knight37m@gmail.com> Spake Unto All:
>
>>> Wrt games released in 2005 I'd rate Guild Wars considerably above it
>
>>I played GW beta and decided it wasn't worth buying. YMMV, of course,
>>but especially for a single player RPG fan I consider Heretic Kingdoms
>>to be the better game.
>
> OK. I disagree, but fair enough.
>

You pussy, be more assertive and hostile.

 

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Thusly "Grackle" <nobody@lalaland.ca> Spake Unto All:

>>>> Wrt games released in 2005 I'd rate Guild Wars considerably above it
>>
>>>I played GW beta and decided it wasn't worth buying. YMMV, of course,
>>>but especially for a single player RPG fan I consider Heretic Kingdoms
>>>to be the better game.
>>
>> OK. I disagree, but fair enough.
>
>You pussy, be more assertive and hostile.

I would've if he'd said Dungeon Lords, but Heretic Kingdoms really is
a quite nice game. It's also very short, which means you finish it
before you bore of it, which is not the case with the enormously big
GW. Compared side by side GW is, IMO, the better game, but after
something like 100 hours of gameplay I'm starting to tire.

I definitely made a mistake taking a fighter/mesmer as my first
character, fighters have almost no damage-dealing skills, and the only
serious damage mesmer skill I have is Chaos Storm, meaning every
fricking battle takes for ever, and soloing is quite difficult at
higher levels, as my henchmen kept dying. For kicks I tried a
necromancer/elementalist, got to level 12 in two evenings, and only
needed henchmen in the missions.

I suspect that a necro/monk is the most uber soloing build, both
dealing serious damage and stealing life, plus being able to heal.

--
A True Hero: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/magazine/03ALI.html

 

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"Mean_Chlorine" <mike_noren2002@NOSPAMyahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:kvgo815s1v5hvnsdud1gmvmd9ahc349v6e@4ax.com...
> Thusly "Grackle" <nobody@lalaland.ca> Spake Unto All:
>
>>>>> Wrt games released in 2005 I'd rate Guild Wars considerably above it
>>>
>>>>I played GW beta and decided it wasn't worth buying. YMMV, of course,
>>>>but especially for a single player RPG fan I consider Heretic Kingdoms
>>>>to be the better game.
>>>
>>> OK. I disagree, but fair enough.
>>
>>You pussy, be more assertive and hostile.
>
> I would've if he'd said Dungeon Lords, but Heretic Kingdoms really is
> a quite nice game. It's also very short, which means you finish it
> before you bore of it, which is not the case with the enormously big
> GW. Compared side by side GW is, IMO, the better game, but after
> something like 100 hours of gameplay I'm starting to tire.
>
> I definitely made a mistake taking a fighter/mesmer as my first
> character, fighters have almost no damage-dealing skills, and the only
> serious damage mesmer skill I have is Chaos Storm, meaning every
> fricking battle takes for ever, and soloing is quite difficult at
> higher levels, as my henchmen kept dying. For kicks I tried a
> necromancer/elementalist, got to level 12 in two evenings, and only
> needed henchmen in the missions.
>
> I suspect that a necro/monk is the most uber soloing build, both
> dealing serious damage and stealing life, plus being able to heal.
>
> --
> A True Hero: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/03/magazine/03ALI.html

I didn't even want to try Guild Wars -- the instance thing really turned me
off. I'm sticking to offline rpging for now, at a very casual pace. As for
Heretic, it looks like it belongs in the late 90s, and well, I never liked
the 90s all that much.

 

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"Grackle" <nobody@lalaland.ca> once tried to test me with:

> As for Heretic, it looks like it belongs in the late 90s, and well,
> I never liked the 90s all that much.

The graphics are better than most late 90's titles. But they just aren't on
a Guild Wars level. Or even Gothic's level. But the gameplay is good, I
enjoyed it quite a bit. It was immersion breaking at times when you think
you should be able to run through something an those "invisible barriers"
prevented it, but even GW has this flaw as well.

I'd say if you've played all the "mostly mentioned" games around here (PST,
FO, D2, MW, BG1/2, NWN, Gothics, yadda, yadda) you could do worse than play
through Heretic Kingdoms (or Kult, whatever you want to call it).

--

Knight37 - http://knightgames.blogspot.com

Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer.

 

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Thusly "Grackle" <nobody@lalaland.ca> Spake Unto All:

>I didn't even want to try Guild Wars -- the instance thing really turned me
>off.

Yeah, I understand a lot of people feel that way, but I really don't
get it - you *want* competing players during the quests? You *want* to
wait in line to kill bosses? You *want* to kill named bosses more than
once?

I just don't see why one'd want competing players during quests.
You've got your team, you've got enemies - why do you want other teams
there too?

--
Fun Fact of the Day: In exit polls at the election 2004 the percentage of American
voters citing moral and ethical values as their prime concern was 22 percent,
continuing a trend of *decreasing* perceived importance of morals: In the 2000
election 35 percent cited morals & ethical values as their prime concern, and in
1996 a whopping 40%, almost twice as many as in 2004.
(Bet you hadn't gotten that impression from the press, had you?)

 

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Thusly Knight37 <knight37m@email.com> Spake Unto All:

>I'd say if you've played all the "mostly mentioned" games around here (PST,
>FO, D2, MW, BG1/2, NWN, Gothics, yadda, yadda) you could do worse than play
>through Heretic Kingdoms (or Kult, whatever you want to call it).

Hell yes.
It's an amusing lightweight RPG, well worth playing but not an all
time great.


--
Fun Fact of the Day: In exit polls at the election 2004 the percentage of American
voters citing moral and ethical values as their prime concern was 22 percent,
continuing a trend of *decreasing* perceived importance of morals: In the 2000
election 35 percent cited morals & ethical values as their prime concern, and in
1996 a whopping 40%, almost twice as many as in 2004.
(Bet you hadn't gotten that impression from the press, had you?)

 

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"Mean_Chlorine" <mike_noren2002@NOSPAMyahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:g9ar811bo6tei8nrphmc4nc6cj8ne9guhf@4ax.com...
> Thusly "Grackle" <nobody@lalaland.ca> Spake Unto All:
>
>>I didn't even want to try Guild Wars -- the instance thing really turned
>>me
>>off.
>
> Yeah, I understand a lot of people feel that way, but I really don't
> get it - you *want* competing players during the quests? You *want* to
> wait in line to kill bosses? You *want* to kill named bosses more than
> once?
>
> I just don't see why one'd want competing players during quests.
> You've got your team, you've got enemies - why do you want other teams
> there too?
>

It's the immersion factor that's compromised. The crowds in a true
multiplayer game pull you into the world. And like in the real world, you
sometimes have to take a number, circle for a parking spot, wait in line.
It's creepy and isolating to enter a busy downtown street and have only your
tiny group of five buddies roaming about. Lots of parking spots to be sure,
but you don't believe you're in a real environment anymore, start to wonder
if maybe it's a movie set...

 

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Knight37 wrote:
> My full review is here:
> http://www.gamechronicles.com/reviews/pc/heretickingdoms/inquisition.htm
>
> I consider this to probably be the best RPG to come out in 2005 so far (not
> counting Dungeon Lords, which I am reviewing now). That's not saying a
> whole lot, since there's not much competition. But if you like action/RPG,
> or if your twitch skills aren't totally lacking, I recommend at least
> trying the demo for this one.
>
> I'm not overly enthusiastic about my review this time, I had to rush it and
> didn't have time to explain a whole lot. Plus I'm miffed that none of the
> pics I sent in revealed my character's name: Bimbo Chyx. I get a sick and
> twisted satisfaction of hearing "Bimbo Chyx, thank you for saving us!"
>
> Demo is here:
> http://www.gamershell.com/download_7167.shtml
>

Do you happen to know what kind of copy protection this game uses?
I'm avoiding anything with StarForce.

 

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Thusly "Grackle" <nobody@lalaland.ca> Spake Unto All:

>> I just don't see why one'd want competing players during quests.
>> You've got your team, you've got enemies - why do you want other teams
>> there too?
>
>It's the immersion factor that's compromised. The crowds in a true
>multiplayer game pull you into the world. And like in the real world, you
>sometimes have to take a number, circle for a parking spot, wait in line.
>It's creepy and isolating to enter a busy downtown street and have only your
>tiny group of five buddies roaming about. Lots of parking spots to be sure,
>but you don't believe you're in a real environment anymore, start to wonder
>if maybe it's a movie set...

LOL!

Yeah, in The Real World, whenever I go to kill the Lord of Penultimate
Evil, I always have to wait in line while other people kill him, wait
for him to respawn, then kill him. And return to kill him again, to
get more stuff free.

I can't think of a worse immersion BREAKER than having to wait in line
to slay evil.


--
Fun Fact of the Day: In exit polls at the election 2004 the percentage of American
voters citing moral and ethical values as their prime concern was 22 percent,
continuing a trend of *decreasing* perceived importance of morals: In the 2000
election 35 percent cited morals & ethical values as their prime concern, and in
1996 a whopping 40%, almost twice as many as in 2004.
(Bet you hadn't gotten that impression from the press, had you?)

 

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"Mean_Chlorine" <mike_noren2002@NOSPAMyahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:5dqt81hccruviursu7uc0mevim0of7fen1@4ax.com...
> Thusly "Grackle" <nobody@lalaland.ca> Spake Unto All:
>
>>> I just don't see why one'd want competing players during quests.
>>> You've got your team, you've got enemies - why do you want other teams
>>> there too?
>>
>>It's the immersion factor that's compromised. The crowds in a true
>>multiplayer game pull you into the world. And like in the real world, you
>>sometimes have to take a number, circle for a parking spot, wait in line.
>>It's creepy and isolating to enter a busy downtown street and have only
>>your
>>tiny group of five buddies roaming about. Lots of parking spots to be
>>sure,
>>but you don't believe you're in a real environment anymore, start to
>>wonder
>>if maybe it's a movie set...
>
> LOL!
>
> Yeah, in The Real World, whenever I go to kill the Lord of Penultimate
> Evil, I always have to wait in line while other people kill him, wait
> for him to respawn, then kill him. And return to kill him again, to
> get more stuff free.
>
> I can't think of a worse immersion BREAKER than having to wait in line
> to slay evil.
>
>

That's only because the online world is too small. What we need is a truly
massive online world, where the land area far outweighs the population.
Then you can go to a remote desert cavern to slay the Grey Kangaroo of Doom
and receive your prize without waiting in line (not a problem to slay the
monster only once, since like in WoW, your entire group receives a copy of
the quest item).

 

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Thusly "Grackle" <nobody@lalaland.ca> Spake Unto All:

>What we need is a truly
>massive online world, where the land area far outweighs the population.

I'll drink to that. And the death of the "every server is an island"
approach, to give us a truly massive online world.


--
"I've seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus"
- Maj. Elizabeth Rouse, coroner, about one of the prisoners beaten to death
by american guards at Bagram Prison. Apparently this particular prisoner was
innocent; it was just his bad luck that he made funny noises when beaten.

 

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In article <ssiu81pr7b6kj3topmd522mc70kgppdift@4ax.com>, mike_noren2002
@NOSPAMyahoo.co.uk says...
> Thusly "Grackle" <nobody@lalaland.ca> Spake Unto All:
>
> >What we need is a truly
> >massive online world, where the land area far outweighs the population.
>
> I'll drink to that. And the death of the "every server is an island"
> approach, to give us a truly massive online world.

If you increase the land area by a factor of 100, you can have either
of those things.

To get both, you must increase it by a factor of 10000.

It ain't gonna happen, until AI is good enough to generate esserntially
all quests and terrain for each player. It might not be desirable,
even then.

- Gerry Quinn

 

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mrlg said "Do you happen to know what kind of copy protection this game
uses?
I'm avoiding anything with StarForce"

Sorry I do not know. The copy I had was a press copy that didn't have
any protection whatsoever. Once I installed it I didn't even need the
CD any longer.

 

[jwb]

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<knight37m@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1116950445.870847.302590@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> mrlg said "Do you happen to know what kind of copy protection this game
> uses?
> I'm avoiding anything with StarForce"
>
> Sorry I do not know. The copy I had was a press copy that didn't have
> any protection whatsoever. Once I installed it I didn't even need the
> CD any longer.

To be honest, I find that practice a bit underhanded by the gaming
companies. Send reviewers a copy of what we will buy in stores. Because a
review should be a review of everything - installation and running it
included.

 

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Mean_Chlorine wrote:
> Thusly "Grackle" <nobody@lalaland.ca> Spake Unto All:
>
> >> I just don't see why one'd want competing players during quests.
> >> You've got your team, you've got enemies - why do you want other teams
> >> there too?
> >
> >It's the immersion factor that's compromised. The crowds in a true
> >multiplayer game pull you into the world. And like in the real world, you
> >sometimes have to take a number, circle for a parking spot, wait in line.
> >It's creepy and isolating to enter a busy downtown street and have only your
> >tiny group of five buddies roaming about. Lots of parking spots to be sure,
> >but you don't believe you're in a real environment anymore, start to wonder
> >if maybe it's a movie set...
>
> LOL!
>
> Yeah, in The Real World, whenever I go to kill the Lord of Penultimate
> Evil, I always have to wait in line while other people kill him, wait
> for him to respawn, then kill him. And return to kill him again, to
> get more stuff free.
>
> I can't think of a worse immersion BREAKER than having to wait in line
> to slay evil.

Reminds me of Lineage 2 beta. There's some goblin or some such that
every man and his dog has to kill for a level 10 class quest, when I
went over there there was about 20 people standing in a neat orderly
queue - I mean you don't see queues that polite even among old ladies
at bus stops. It was kind of funny actually, given it's a full pvp
everywhere game.

Of course after about 5 minutes of waiting someone new walked up and
moved to the front of the queue, then was promptly smashed into
oblivion by most of the people in the queue, who then went meekly back
to their previous spots.

After about 10 minutes of waiting I logged off and deleted the game,
but that incident still sticks with me as one of my most bizarre MMO
experiences.

 

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"JWB" <jwb3333_spamtrap_@excite.com> once tried to test me with:

> To be honest, I find that practice a bit underhanded by the gaming
> companies. Send reviewers a copy of what we will buy in stores.
> Because a review should be a review of everything - installation and
> running it included.

In their defense, game companies often send out copies to reviewers before
they even send the gold disc off to the presses (or at the same time)
because they want the reviews coming in about the same time as the game
hits the shelves. But in my case, they could probably have sent the actual
box because I didn't get it until it'd been out a while.

--

Knight37 - http://knightgames.blogspot.com

Once a Gamer, Always a Gamer.

 

[nostromo]

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Thus spake "Velk" <velkarath@gmail.com>, 24 May 2005 22:21:13 -0700, Anno
Domini:

>> I can't think of a worse immersion BREAKER than having to wait in line
>> to slay evil.
>
>Reminds me of Lineage 2 beta. There's some goblin or some such that
>every man and his dog has to kill for a level 10 class quest, when I
>went over there there was about 20 people standing in a neat orderly
>queue - I mean you don't see queues that polite even among old ladies
>at bus stops. It was kind of funny actually, given it's a full pvp
>everywhere game.
>
>Of course after about 5 minutes of waiting someone new walked up and
>moved to the front of the queue, then was promptly smashed into
>oblivion by most of the people in the queue, who then went meekly back
>to their previous spots.
>
>After about 10 minutes of waiting I logged off and deleted the game,
>but that incident still sticks with me as one of my most bizarre MMO
>experiences.

LMAO! This *almost* makes me want to try it just to go break up some queues
with a 30+ lvl char >;-)

--
A killfile is a friend for life.

Replace 'spamfree' with the other word for 'maze' to reply via email.

 

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"Velk" <velkarath@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1116998473.480435.69120@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>
> Reminds me of Lineage 2 beta. There's some goblin or some such that
> every man and his dog has to kill for a level 10 class quest, when I
> went over there there was about 20 people standing in a neat orderly
> queue - I mean you don't see queues that polite even among old ladies
> at bus stops. It was kind of funny actually, given it's a full pvp
> everywhere game.
>
> Of course after about 5 minutes of waiting someone new walked up and
> moved to the front of the queue, then was promptly smashed into
> oblivion by most of the people in the queue, who then went meekly back
> to their previous spots.
>
> After about 10 minutes of waiting I logged off and deleted the game,
> but that incident still sticks with me as one of my most bizarre MMO
> experiences.
>

Now that's realism!