PixlBit

I got my rental this weekend, The Dwarves, and played it on XBO. This is an interesting game but the battle system annoyed me after a while. Then I played Borderlands 2 where heard a Shakespeare soliloquy and shot fire balls that would've made old Ironsides turn and run. 

In The Dwarves, you fight a battle, then explore a living space and then start a main mission where you go to a world map and move your character like a play piece on a board game. As you move, events take place which are narrated by a voice actor. If there's a battle to be had, or an area to explore, the game switches to a top down view ala Diablo.

The battle system is in real time. You move freely but fighting is done automatically when you are next to an enemy except for when your special becomes available. Then you can select it and execute it. Eventually, you get other characters you can switch to at any time. I had three. I found myself losing battles fairly often because I couldn't keep my health up. Maybe I should've bought more healing potions, but I got a little bit tired of dashing around trying not to get surrounded, which you do almost all the time.

I liked the story, which is based on The Dwarves by Markus Heitz. I also liked the basic design of the game with it's overmap strategy and top down exploration and battling. It's a little bit more about story and strategy and less about action. I yawned as a joke to Mark as he was shooting away in Borderlands 2. I don't mind a more strategic approach though, I just wish the action sequences worked better. I felt like I couldn't keep enemies away from me long enough to heal up, so I stopped after about three hours. It's sort of a shame because I wanted to hear the rest of the story, but gameplay is king in this video game world. That's what makes or breaks it. 

Then I went back to Borderlands 2 and started mopping up more side missions. Instead of moving from DLC to DLC in order of release, I just started following the main page of quests and going from top to bottom. This meant I was going to many different areas of the game. I went from the main game for one quest, to the Mr. Torgue DLC, to SIr Hammerlock's DLC and finally to the Tiny Tina fantasy DLC. This was pretty fun. I noticed the enemies were lower level for the main game missions and higher level for the last DLC, Tiny Tina. Interesting. I'm going for the complete side quest achievements. I might not get them though because the main game and each DLC have one mission against a super boss that seems to require four players to beat it. But maybe Mark and I can do it. 

Then I heard yet another interesting bit of speech since I've always got the sound sliders set to emphasize the dialog. One of the enemies started saying the first lines of Shakespeare's Hamlet soliloquy, "Oh That This Too Solid Flesh Would Melt". It's funny, and I've heard that one line many times, but I stopped for a moment to listen around a corner so the enemy wouldn't be interupted, and wouldn't you know, he spoke the entire soliloquy. This is a 31 line poem, way longer than anything else any enemy says, or so I've found. I was cracking up. I love the writing and voice work in this game, lots of funny stuff to be found. 

I also changed the way I choose equipment. I used the backpack list to determine if something was better. It seems to orgainize by rarity and then by some unknown element that I hope is overall effectiveness (it's not by level or the simple damage stat). By doing this, I've gotten to use different weapons than I normally would. Right now, it's two SMGs, one with slag damage, the other with shock; a rocket launcher with explosive damage, which I only pull out to get a kill to revive me during second wind; and a shotgun with so much fire damage that its shot looks more like firey cannon balls - great balls of fire! It was just another way to simplify the never ending dilema of choosing equipment. So far it's worked fine. 

I'm also staying on True Vault Hunter difficulty because on Normal I wouldn't level at all. I'm going to try and clear every mission in this mode even if I beat the main game again and unlock Ultimate Vault Hunter. But, as Mark mentioned today, I'll eventually have to use that mode if I want to get to the level cap of 70. Right now though, I'm just trying to clear every mission and find every location in the game. Fun stuff. I love doing missions and exploring. 

Ye old goodye.