I tried two new games on Sunday.
Quest of Dungeons is a turn-based rogue-like dungeon crawl. If you like that kind of thing, you will probably like this kind of thing. I did not see anything to distinguish it from others except for its adjustable difficulty. Based on the global Steam achievements, most players had the same thought as me and said, “take the archer class.” The game might be a bit more strategic without the ability to kill most enemies without taking any damage. I did not feel motivated to play through at higher difficulty, although I could be convinced if the different difficulties mean something other than “everything has x% more hit points” or “health potions no longer drop, good luck lol.” But then, I’m not a fan of the genre, so feel free to weigh in with your expertise. It is in the current Humble Bundle, if you’re interested.
Scribblenauts Unmasked is the latest Scribblenauts game, this time crossing over with DC Comics. I like Scribblenauts games, despite the difficulty’s seeming tuned to the vocabulary of a small child. This has a bit more of a story arc than Scribblenauts Unlimited, with the bonus of more “random events” you can have appear on maps for some variety. Of course, you can still solve almost all problems either very directly (apply the adjective “clean” to the dirty thing) or with your favorite few words (“flying,” “bazooka,” and “fire-breathing” do wonders for me). Either the developers recognized those or pick up how often I use them, which was pretty cool when a flying, fireproof, fire-breathing enemy appeared for a boss fight. The game encourages variety by cutting points for re-using words on a map and with challenges like “no weapons” or “no flying,” so the same answer could be worth half or double points.
I can’t go quite so far as to recommend Scribblenauts Unmasked because it does not seem to bring much to the table. If you want a bit more Scribblenauts, absolutely, get it. This is a retread of things you know, plus some comic book stuff. It’s a lot of comic book stuff, so you have more than a page of Robins from the various editions of Batman. Comic book folks would like it mostly for the range of things included like C-list DC villains (Kite Man!) and more than 100 Green Lanterns, although New 52 is the order of the day, which might be less thrilling.
A couple of “meh” games. They’re not bad, I just do not see a lot to recommend them when there are better games. But if you’ve already played the better games of those types, go for it.
: Zubon