Well guess what guys? You're about to get my version of PAX, and it's awesome. Coverage of the coolest PAX East games, a couple Bitmob exclusive details on unreleased games, screaming matches with Adam Sessler, Shane Bettenhausen's crazy stories, and my own stupid adventures to top things off.
In this episode I use my charm on a beautiful girl to get my own Puzzle Quest 2 demo station, and share my impressions of the soon to be released sequel to the hyper successful Puzzle Quest franchise.
You can find my previous episodes here:
Chris Davidson vs. PAX East Episode 1
Chris Davidson vs.PAX East Episode 2 Shank Preview!
Chapter 5: I'm The Only One In The World That Gives A Shit About Puzzle Quest 2
When I stopped by the D3 publisher booth, there was no line to play this game. There were two stations set up, and they were both taken. Some dude with a press badge was taking notes while this girl played it for him and failed to accomplish anything. At the other station a super hot girl was playing it by herself. Since the developer was paying attention to the press dude, I decided to help the cute girl and give her a few pointers (I'm a nice guy like that).
I told her that I was a Puzzle Quest expert, and I'd be happy to help show her around the game. She was having some trouble figuring out what to do, so I explained the basic combat system etc. She was really impressed with how awesome I was, and it was clear that after flexing my gaming knowledge, she pretty much wanted me. I offered to let her take me out to dinner, her treat, but she declined. I then told her that if she was trying to make a move on me, she was doing a pretty poor job of it. My ulterior motive was to creep her out and steal her demo station, so mission success!
On a scale from 1 to Awesome, how much do you want to have sex with this guy?
Seriously guys, Puzzle Quest is a fun game. Galactrix had its hiccups, but ultimately I had some fun with that too. That leaves us looking at the third game in the series, Puzzle Quest 2. I'm excited with their new ideas, but ultimately they've managed to innovate without actually innovating, which is just as stupid as it sounds.
"Hey priest guy! The goblin said he was just praying, and he killed those people as a sacrifice to YOUR god. Who's the asshole now? Now if you'll excuse me, I have some real problems to attend to."
Despite being able to enter towns and dungeons, the fact of the matter is that you still have follow a stupid node system. There is still no free roaming, and you're still stuck walking from node to node. To sum it all up, they increased the node density, but they didn't get rid of the nodes altogether. I might be acting a little harsh, but the truth is, this game is still super fun. The combat has been more refined and the leveling system has a bit more depth than the previous titles. It's also easier to do damage with the inclusion of new weapons that you can equip to your character.
Weapons are on a progression system and can evolve, which is a new feature in the series. There are different resources in the game, and finding the required resources will allow you to evolve your weapon at a blacksmith. This is all extra to the already deep character progression system, so it's kind of like leveling two halves of yourself in different ways.
I asked the developer how they are handling minigames this time around, and the answer was fairly expected. There will be 6 kinds of minigames, ranging from extinguishing fires to bashing down doors. Even opening chests is a minigame this time around. These minigames are different puzzle battles that require you to meet special objectives rather than fighting a monster head on. The fire extinguishing minigame equipped a water bucket as your weapon, and required you to match the newly introduced weapon blocks to use it. These weapon blocks are in the shape of gauntlets, and your equipped weapon will require a certain amount of them before it can be used.
Equip the Bucket of Destiny to save the ophans!
The developer also reassured me that they've taken strides to make sure nothing came off as tedious like the warp gates that kept reopening in Galactrix. It's going to be released for $20 on Steam, PSN, and XBLA in Mid May.
I'm going to try and post one of these every day until I run out of shit to say. I haven't even finished my Day 1 coverage, so there's going to be a lot of these. Hope you guys like it!
You can find my subsequent episodes here:
Chris Davidson vs. PAX East Episode 4 Bitmob Meet Up!
Extra Stuff!
I'm a comedian, writer, electrical engineer, and all around terrible person. Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/CasualAlcoholic
Vote Siobhan Magnus on American Idol! She's a close friend of mine and an all around awesome person. http://siobhanmagnus.blogspot.com/
