Currently playing a strange little game called Counter Spell, which is just as hard to search for on Steam as you might expect.
The general gist of it is that it's a FPSRPG with co-op campaign play and a map editor/random map generation. Sounds pretty neat, ah?
Well, it is neat. The parts that are actually developed, that is. There are about three different games here and they're all only partway realized.
The combat is very "late 90's deathmatch" with rapid fire weapons and fast movespeed in chunky brawling environments littered with fat rotating powerups. Bunny hopping is alive and well.
The progression is more of a slow-burn loot machine with trying to fill out all your (19-20, not including weapon slots, of which there are eight and you get the stats from holding four of them at a time) equipment slots with items that have bigger green numbers on them. You unlock your class skills automatically by getting the next one in line every other level, finishing off with the capstone at level 20.
But there are also talent points you start earning later on that can be put into passive buffs or special class-specific actives that help you customize your character a bit more. This system is a little broken at the moment though (and not really in the fun way).
There's the randomized dungeon delving, you can play defense and survival modes against an unending horde of enemies, there's a metric fuckton of consumable items like traps and spell rods, and there's also a mechanic for building your own "wands" (technomagical flintlock pistols) from component parts that can then be used as custom weapons. The wands mechanic is also fairly broken at the moment (in the fun way).
...But there's also a traditional might and magic RPG adventure with better-looking terrain and more NPC interaction/dialogue currently in alpha. Counter Spell is mightily schizophrenic.
Also, everything is butt-ugly. The cities and whatnot aren't that bad, even kinda nostalgic in a way, but the textures are still solidly in the "graphically non-intensive" category. Once you get outside into the rolling hills though, it all falls to shit and you start seeing jagged edges and haphazardly raised terrain everywhere. And the weapons... oh god, I don't even want to think about the weapons.
The AI is also... Odd. It's got some really nice touches, like different behaviors depending on what kind of enemy it is (bats will swoop in from on high to do a hit-and-run, goblins will charge bravely until they get hit once or twice and flee in terror, so on), but the pathfinding is universally ASS. At the very start of the game there's an escort quest to bring someone a whopping total of about 50 meters over to the side. However, that path contains at least two 90 degree turns, and the hostage you're leading just cannot handle right angles right now.
Caster supremacy is also very much alive. Very much. The two mundane classes get some abilities that might actually have been useful, were this not a game that also included wizards. Curiously though, they're probably the classes that will find the most use for wands since the caster classes already have big shooty spells that they're going to want to focus on along with stat sticks.
Then there's character customization. I don't really know what to say. There are some things here, like the ability to determine your resting and combat postures (more games should give you a choice of posture, it can do so much for defining e character's personality), but... well...
Boob slider.
I'm really quite torn on this thing. There's a massive amount of potential, but no real promise that said potential will be realized. It'd probably be great fun with friends, but that goes for a lot of shitty games as well. I dunno. Also, I hate spiders.
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Topic: What are you currently playing? (Read 192278 times)