Die By The Sword

Pizza Time's picture

It was brought up just recently over at TGQ forums and I am currently trying to remember just how much of a completely awesome but greatly flawed game it was. It has this completely awesome combat system where you can take the limbs off of the various monsters you kill and even pick up the bits that have fallen off and swing them around for a spell but the same can happen to you so you can get into situations where you are hopping around on one leg trying to kill a pig man who only has one arm but since the controls are a bit unwieldy you only really succeed in tapping him on the shoulder with your blade whilst you hurry to get out of the way of his axe and it descends into a shoulder tapping match.

So you have this hilarious game which is marred by this control scheme where you handle all movement with one hand and your sword with the other (the highest level of mouse sensitivity isn't really sensitive enough) whilst frequently fighting multiple enemies at the same time. There is no auto-face or keys that let you cycle though targets so you are handling strafing and turning often at the same time, moving forwards and backwards helps a lot as does crouching and jumping. There are times when you start a sword swing but have to quickly turn because what you are trying to kill just moved to the side and you frequently end up flailing at thin are whilst you get your legs hacked off by pissed off monsters.

You can see where this is going.

It's really a special kind of trainwreck, an oil shipment stuck behind a passenger car full of clowns. It's a hilarious game but the important parts are the ones that always spill out and end up setting everything on fire. There are only a few people who can get around this and still find the humour in it. And you can totally play as an ogre and bat annoying kobolds off the side of a platform suspended over a medieval blender pit.

SpindleyQ's picture

OK, you totally convinced me

OK, you totally convinced me to drop the $6 on this game. I played through like 10 minutes of tutorial level last night -- it's kind of weird that it defaults to keypad controls for your sword. I mean, I thought the whole point was swinging your sword around like a retard with your mouse. The movement controls kind of remind me of Descent.

Now I've got a coupon for a free Interplay game that I have to pick up within the next ten days. I'm considering either Kingpin or Giants.

Pizza Time's picture

I installed the game again.

I installed the game again. It's got a cave maze! Truly the mark of an action adventure par excellence!

Like all cave mazes it's incredibly confusing, spend about half an hour wandering through similar passageways to find the way out, it's fun. Like the plumbing maze in MDK 2 only no instant death enemies. I kind of wish my sword was more powerful, I got killed by the ogre at the end of it all so I'll have to fall back onto the last autosave point and try again.

Pizza Time's picture

I'd be at the end of the

I'd be at the end of the game by now if it weren't for these damn skeletons.

Hey Spindley, have you got around the difficulty of the game to fully enjoy the combat yet?

I should install the expansion pack after I'm done because it expands the arena mode greatly by adding more characters, some of which have a selection of weapons to choose from, more stages and an ogre hockey mode where teams of up to two ogres bat around a kobold with their clubs. It's the definition of hilarity. You can also play through the new quest as a few characters so you aren't just stuck with Enric.

SpindleyQ's picture

Haven't had much time for

Haven't had much time for it, I'm afraid; when I am getting a chance to play, I'm still mostly focusing on not chopping my own legs off.

SpindleyQ's picture

Update: Spent about twenty

Update: Spent about twenty minutes in advanced tutorial jumping around knocking the heads off of mannequins. Felt pretty good about myself, then got to exactly the same spot that I managed before. I'm able to get past the first kobold ambush with a tiny bit of health left, and then I get strung up by my legs and beat to death with an axe. Fuckers.

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