Legend of Grimrock: A Pitch-Perfect RPG Rendition, Old-School Style
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Generic Company Place Holder Legend of Grimrock
First-person role playing games on the PC have problems nobody talks about, a surprise given how much gamers complain. For all the wonder and promise of titles like Skyrim, players spend most of their actual game time drunkenly steering horses around trees or aiming arrows at targets using mechanics virtually identical to those found in a space marine bro-dude combat shooter. FPS fans may be fine with this, but role playing game aficionados have been forced to look far afield, dabbling with consoles and handheld devices, to find the innovations and alternatives that were once commonplace in PC RPGs. In an effort to show modern gamers another way to slay a beast, Finnish developer Almost Human Ltd. has gone back to computer gaming's golden age, examined the work of the genre's progenitors, and emerged with their debut title, Legend of Grimrock.
Legend of Grimrock's simplified motion controls allow for other mechanics to take center stage, so you spend less time thinking about avoiding door jambs and more time thinking about party tactics during combat or pondering the environmental puzzles, which are a fiendishly difficult mix of pressure plates, teleporters, switches, hidden buttons, spell attacks, pits and more. Things get tough in this regard, in particular after level 5 or so. You create spells by combining rune symbols into formulas you find or figure out on your own through trial and error, although the character must be still be sufficiently skilled in that school of magic to cast the spells they discover.
Character types are differentiated by both class and race, with humans, insectoids, minotaurs, and saurians each offering their own particular set of advantages and drawbacks, as well as fun portraits that provide personality and help get you attached to your rag-tag band of deep-dungeon survivors. Legend of Grimrock limits classes to a choice of fighter, rogue or mage, although unique skill sets allow for diversification. The game tends to reward specialists over generalists, so pick primary and secondary skills wisely and stick to them.
The only obvious problem here is length. Grimrock is so good that ten dungeon levels just aren't enough. Fortunately, the team at Almost Human Ltd is hard at work on several planned expansions, the first of which is a free level editor that's destined to create a world of user-generated content, and custom portrait packs made by fans are already popping up on modding sites. At just $15 DRM-free and direct from the developers, Legend of Grimrock is the most wholehearted recommendation to role playing fans since Diablo 2. The buzz you're hearing about these guys is only the start. Grimrock is going places.
--Jim Norris
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