Of mice and din

Ah, the blooms of spring . . .  time for some new games to keep us indoors. Right now, we’re suffering some awful pollen. I don’t even have allergies, but I’m feeling like I have one of those anime big heads.

So, you enjoyed Diablo II, and after 9 years and 11 months, you’re looking for something new but similar. All those clones in the past never held up, eh? Well, you might want to try Din’s Curse. I’m acquainted with the creators Steven and Delilah through friends and was invited to a werewolf party for her birthday. But I’m not being biased when I say this is a wonderful game. It will feel very, very familiar to Diablo fans–look and sound familiar, too. Its graphics will look dated, although if you zoom in, you’ll see an improvement. But you’re not going to play zoomed in.

What’s so good about the game? In short, it’s dynamic. If an NPC gives you a quest to save the town, you better hop to it because the bad things will happen if you don’t. I saw it early in my first dungeon–the monsters were fighting each other. And the world, dungeons, and many things in the world are dynamically generated. Without your fancy high def graphics, the game world feels alive. Yes, some NPCs stand there waiting to hand out quests, but things still happen based on your actions or your inaction.

Also I like the story setup because, even though you still have to save towns and innocents, there’s a personal motivation–you were selfish and destructive in a former life, and you won’t know peace until you build your reputation by acting heroically and selflessly. I’d like to see more reminders of that in the game, but still I find it enough of a twist to be interesting.

If you like hack n slash, then try the demo because I think you’ll get hooked. I’m not going to do a full review because I don’t think I’ve experienced enough of the game yet. And I think it’s a mistake to judge it too early because I think it has some depth. You won’t find much at metacritic, but here are a few reviews and previews.

• Gamezone (8.0) — ‘The developers have clearly focused on the core gameplay, and the final product is one that is brimming with replay value. Din’s Curse strikes a remarkable balance between playability and depth, offering just about everything you’d want from a class-based RPG.’
• Gamersinfo –’Din’s Curse has a lot of elements in common with Soldak’s previous games, but it also introduces quite a bit of new gameplay and a lot of surprises. For fans of the action-RPG genre, the different style of gameplay and tricky enemy AI attempts to keep the genre fresh; the class combinations also could easily keep some people occupied for quite some time.’
• RPGWatch – ‘What really sets Din’s Curse apart is the dynamic world and events. For starters, it’s a very interactive world with chests, stashes, barrels, doors, switches, traps, altars, secret plans and more. Chests are often trapped, doors are sometimes stuck (and need to forced open), barrels are often explosive or full of acid. With a bit of care, you can use many of these to your own advantage – such as luring mobs near the explosive barrels and setting them off with an arrow. Discovering secret plans will yield a quest or information about an uprising. Then there are the dynamic events. The dungeons are always in motion as the monsters battle each other. ‘
• Gamer Daily News — ‘Soldak isn’t about cutting edge graphics and requiring overclocking and three graphics cards. They’re about fast-paced fun with a retro tinge. They’re about old school chic and hardcore dungeon crawling. ‘