Tag Archives: Eternal Card Game

Gaming Round-Up: Diablo, BioWare, NextFest, and More

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Grab-bag time.

Diablo IV

My warlock is tormenting by a vision of Lilith in Diablo 4.This has really been the month of Diablo for me, with Diablo IV taking up almost all of my gaming time. I’ve poured my pretty extensive thoughts on the game into some Massively columns that should go up in the coming weeks, but I want to briefly cover it here as well.

As you’ll read over on MOP, I mained a warlock for my first run through the campaign, but now that that’s done, I’m letting my altoholism run wild. I deleted almost all the myriad characters I made during the various trials as I’d put no thought into customizing them and felt no attachment to them, so now I’m making a fresh round of characters. The one exception is a druid, whom I did put some effort into.

I initially skipped the side quests and optional objectives for most zones, so I’ve decided to assign a character to clearing out each remaining zone. I’ve assigned a sorcerer to Kehjistan, a paladin to Hawezar, a necromancer to Nahantu, and of course my druid will do Scosglen. Most likely I’ll save Skovos for when the amazon class releases. I also have a barbarian and a spiritborn I created for reasons I’ve already mostly forgotten, but I don’t plan to play them much, if at all. I will probably make a rogue at some point, too. I want to throw knives at people.

It is a bit crazy how much power disparity there is between classes, at least at low levels. We’re talking “coughing baby versus hydrogen bomb” levels of imbalance here. I’m playing on higher difficulties as is my wont, and my paladin is struggling to survive even basic fights on expert, while my necromancer is just obliterating everything on penitent. If I wanted to I could probably just stop pressing buttons entirely and let my minions deal with everything.

A cutscene featuring my new necromancer in Diablo 4.I maintain very conflicted feelings about Diablo IV, as you’ll see when my columns on it go live, but as I’ve always said, ARPGs are like pizza. Even when they’re bad, they’re still pretty good. There’s a lot of joy to be found in smashing hordes of demons, now as it was in the past.

BioWare’s end

This is of course the big news lately. I feel for the people who’ve lost their jobs, and I hope they find new work quickly, but otherwise I’m surprisingly empty of strong feelings on the closure of what has historically been a favourite studio.

As someone who stayed a cheerleader for BioWare much longer than most — I adored Andromeda, enjoyed Anthem, and didn’t hate Veilguard as much as some — it’s a bit odd to me to see everyone suddenly changing their tune. I’ve seen nothing but pessimism and hate towards BioWare for so long it’s hard not to feel like the current outrage over their closure is a bit hypocritical.

I didn’t have a lot of hope for their future prospects, either. I’m really only excited for more Mass Effect if it’s a continuation of Andromeda, but given the unjust hate towards it, that was never likely. I don’t see how you can continue the Milky Way story without it being a bit of a mess.

All good things, Shepard.Now that we’re getting leaks about what they were planning for the next game, a lot of it does sound promising, but it’s easy to say your game would have been great when it was just an idea in early development. Dragon Age: Dreadwolf sounded amazing too, and look how that turned out.

I certainly wouldn’t be unhappy if the crusade to save BioWare somehow found success, but I think my hope is better put towards other companies continuing their legacy by creating other games in a similar vein. That’s more exciting to me. I was never that attached to Mass Effect as a universe; I just like the way they tell stories. Please be good, Exodus.

SlopFest

I played a few demos in the latest Steam NextFest, or SlopFest as it has been crudely but accurately dubbed by the wider community. Between the wildly inaccurate tags on so many games and the flood of AI garbage, it was pretty painful trying to find anything worth playing.

The most noteworthy demo was that for ArcheAge Chronicles, but that’s going to be the subject of another Massively Overpowered piece, so you’ll have to wait to hear my thoughts on that.

A city devoted to Athena in the Theos: Cities of Myth demo.I also put a decent amount of time into Theos: Cities of Myth, a spiritual successor to the ancient Greece city-builder Zeus: Master of Olympus, which I loved when I was a kid. Theos has that same familiar gameplay loop with some nice quality of life improvements, like being able to set patrol paths yourself, but it did feel a bit low budget for my taste. The lack of voice acting was a big bummer, as the goofy voices were a lot of what made Zeus so charming. Still, I did end up playing the demo for longer than I expected. I put it on my wishlist, but I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to actually buying it.

Next was old school RPG Wyldheart. I wanted to like it, but it just felt too low budget and janky. I only played about twenty minutes of it before I decided it wasn’t for me.

Finally, there was Silberheim Evolving Card Game. Another one I really wanted to like as it has a strong emphasis on story and some lovely card art, but it’s also lacking voice acting, and more importantly it was just fiendishly overcomplicated. I love card games, and learning this one gave me a headache.

Eternal

Speaking of card games, I haven’t talked about Eternal in a while. While I never fully stopped playing, I did scale back drastically. I’ve been very burned out, and it’s a bit stale as the game is in semi-maintenance mode, with only the weekly story chapters for new content. Even as someone who loves video game story, these aren’t exactly riveting, and the new promo cards they offer are usually too niche to be exciting.

A very buffed Icaria the Liberator in Eternal Card Game.

Neuron activation.

I have been having a bit of a resurgence lately. I’ve been trying to build some new decks, though I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas. There’s more I’d like to try, but it’s so hard to earn legendary cards, and I’ve already got most of what I’d want at other rarities.

So far I haven’t had any big hits. The Clockroach deck is strong, but boring. I made a stealth deck that’s moderately fun and moderately effective. I just made an Elysian singleton-ish deck using Archmagister’s Portal and Sacred Tableau that seems kind of neat.

This is old news at this point, but my proudest achievement so far is making a good Elven tribal deck. You might think that would have been one of the first things I tried to do, and you’d be right, but it took a long time and many attempts to make one that’s actually good. There’s a lot of Elf cards in Eternal, but they were never designed with any overarching mechanical identity, so it’s hard to build an all-Elf deck that’s any good.

What I finally settled on was a Shadow/Primal/Time deck that uses relics to buff flyers and unblockables. On paper it seems like the sort of thing that would be way too convoluted to work, but it’s actually proven to be probably my most consistent Gauntlet grinder. Trust in the shadow.

ZeroSpace

Try as I might, I’m struggling to maintain my interest in this. I’m glad they added Xol to co-op, but like everything else about the game, they’re so incredibly unfinished. Posted a bunch of feedback on their reddit if you’re interested.

The Xol commander Anrubic in ZeroSpace.ZeroSpace has good ideas, but their complete inability to prioritize which ideas to focus on will be the death of them. They’ve spread themselves so desperately thin that nothing is even close to finished, let alone polished. What I wouldn’t give for a well-funded, competently managed Blizzard style RTS.

The future

For now I’m still happy grinding away in Diablo IV, but I’m not sure how long that will last or what I’ll do after. I want to play some more New World while I still can. I still play Overwatch Stadium here and there, though that increasingly feels like more a source of frustration than fun. I’m still on the fence on if I’ll buy Age of Empires IV’s Raiders of the North at launch or wait for a sale. Will be back to WoW at some point, but I’m not in a rush for that.

I keep seeing posts about Deadlock popping up on social media, and I’ve seen it often compared to Stadium. It’s starting to intrigue me. It’s got that some magic Overwatch has where every other character I see from it feels like the coolest character I’ve ever seen. Does seem overwhelmingly complicated, though, and I’m not fond of MOBAs (Heroes of the Storm is the exception that proves the rule).

I think I’d like to give Deadlock a try, but I should probably let it cook a bit more first. I’m hoping its rumoured PvE mode comes to pass; that would definitely have my attention.

Gaming Round-Up: Summer Doldrums

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Haven’t done one of these in a while, but I had a lot of things that seemed worth talking about but not worth devoting a whole post to, so let’s do a quick round-up of what I’ve been playing lately.

Exploring Brimstone Sands in New World.(I also considering doing a review of Across the Spider-Verse, but it doesn’t need my help. It’s one of the best movies ever made; if you haven’t seen it, go get on that instead of wasting your time reading about my gaming.)

New World

As you might have surmised from my columns on Massively Overpowered, New World has been my main game for most of the time since it’s launch. I think I’m finally ready to declare it my new “home” MMO, something I haven’t really had since The Secret World went into maintenance mode.

I don’t love New World as much as I did TSW, but it does scratch a lot of the same itches, albeit to a lesser degree, and I’m finding it feels more comfortable and welcoming the more time goes on. As I said in a recent column, it’s not perfect, but it is special.

That said, I have reached a bit of a plateau with it lately. I’ve finished all (solo) quests in every zone, and I’ve got two level-capped characters now. As the raid-focused season two doesn’t have a lot to offer my playstyle, I’m putting the game on the back burner until the fall expansion. I haven’t stopped playing entirely, but I’m giving it less time in favour of other things.

Star Trek: Resurgence

Considering the franchise has traditionally been more about talking than fighting, it’s honestly surprising it took until now for someone to make a Star Trek narrative game. For me, this Telltale-style take on TNG era Trek was an immediate purchase.

Petty officers Diaz and Adsilar in Star Trek: Resurgence.I did see beforehand that reviews were a bit mixed, and having finished it, I can see why. “Mixed” is probably the best description for it.

As a video game, it’s rough. I didn’t encounter many of the reported bugs, but the controls were messy, and the animations more so (what is wrong with the eyebrows of people in this game?!?). You can tell it was done a very strict budget — though you could argue low budget jank just makes it even more of an authentic Star Trek experience.

As an installment of the Star Trek franchise, it’s a lot better, but still imperfect. I loved the first three quarters or so of the game, which were an excellent love-letter to The Next Generation and its more sedate style of story-telling. Nearer the end, though, it starts to fall into the trap of modern Trek: trying way too hard to be epic, shocking, and dramatic. Not every story needs to involve galaxy-ending stakes and heart-breaking tragedies at every turn.

It also felt like a lot of my choices in the story didn’t really matter. This is a criticism that basically every “choices matter” game gets, and I usually feel like people have unrealistic expectations for much their choices should effect the game, but this feels like a particularly egregious example. It’s okay if some outcomes are unavoidable, but don’t give the player numerous opportunities to try to prevent something if none of them are going to have an effect.

Still, I liked it a lot better than any of the modern Trek shows other than Prodigy. I’d probably buy a sequel if they make one.

Dragon Age: Inquisition

My latest Inquisitor Lavellan in Dragon Age: Inquisition.I’ve been thinking about doing another replay of Inquisition more or less since I finished the last one. I had a brief abortive attempt at a Solasmance run aways back, but early on I lost a bunch of progress due to the corrupted save bug, and I got so discouraged I never resumed that run.

The extreme length and grind of the game has always been intimidating, so I finally decided to do something I’ve only done once before (also with a Dragon Age game) and turn to the modding community for help. I installed a bevy of mods to reduce grind and improve quality of life, from infinite crafting mats to faster out of combat movement to a mod that lets you mutli-class.

It’s helped a lot. You can burn through the endless side quests far quicker when you don’t need to bother looting bodies or gathering materials.

Since I don’t think I have two more runs in me, I decided to make this my “canon” playthrough where I make all my favourite choices. This is mostly the same as my first playthrough (Dalish mage, side with mages, romance Sera, befriend Solas, etc.), with the one major difference being I’m going to make Cole more spirit-like this time, which I did on my second playthrough and found I preferred.

I still have somewhat mixed feelings on Inquisition and its overwhelming scale, but it is always lovely to be reunited with your favourite characters whenever you return to an old Bioware game. Sera! Dorian! Solas! How I’ve missed you.

Nextfest demos

Playing the Steam Next Fest demo of En Garde.Another Steam Next Fest is upon us, bringing with it a wave of demos. I don’t like that these demos are often temporary, but it’s a lot better than having no demos at all, which has sadly been the status quo for the gaming world for some time now.

With so many demos, a lot of them are going to be irrelevant to my interests, but a few have caught my eye.

First, there was Jusant, an eccentric climbing simulator from Dontnod. Much as I love Dontnod, I couldn’t get into this one. The controls were far too awkward. Maybe it would work better with a controller, but on a keyboard and mouse, it was borderline unplayable.

Second, there was En Garde, a goofy action game inspired by the likes of Zoro and the Three Musketeers. While I found the humour hit and miss at best, the colourful graphics were appealing, and the gameplay was pretty fun. Will probably get the full version at some point — maybe even right at launch if it’s not too pricey.

Finally, there was the oddly named Gord. Not, as you might expect from the name, a Canadian life sim, but a dark fantasy city-builder loosely based on Slavic history and mythology. This one felt a little slow (yes, even for a city-builder) and a bit rough in places, but I did enjoy the gloomy aesthetic and emphasis on a small group of NPCs rather than a sprawling populace. This feels like a “maybe when it’s on sale” title.

Card games

Sometimes you just need to show the AI who's boss.My obsession with card games continues, albeit at a slowed rate.

Sentinels of the Multiverse and Lord of the Rings LCG remain my favourites. Indeed, despite some significant flaws, I believe LotR LCG has become my gold standard for Lord of the Rings adaptations in the realm of gaming. It does such a good job of expanding the lore while feeling faithful to Tolkien’s vision, and unlike pretty much every LotR video game I’ve ever played, the gameplay actually captures the desperate last stand feel of LotR, as opposed to just being a generic game with a Middle-Earth skin.

My feelings on Arkham Horror and Marvel Champions remain more iffy. I almost sold off my Arkham Horror collection, but I wasn’t quite ready to give up on it, so I just sold some. Maybe I’ll just replay what I have occasionally, maybe I’ll try another full campaign at some point.

As for Marvel… I feel like this meme is already played out, but I still feel the best thing to say is that of all the card games I’ve played, this is one of them. It’s easy and low stress, unlike most of the others, so that keeps it in the rotation for now at least.

On the digital front, I’m still playing Eternal as well, but that’s starting to feel more like a habit than a joy. Partly this is the inevitable consequence of the fact I’ve played about 300 hours of it in less than a year, but also the Gauntlet difficulty does tend to get pretty brutal at the higher levels, and it’s wearing me down.

If I had another option, I’d probably move on, but this is really the only halfway decent digital CCG with robust PvE content. I couldn’t get into Shadowverse or Elder Scrolls Legends. For now, I’ll stick with Eternal.