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Affilliation
There’s fraggin’, and then there’s puzzle fraggin’
The past week was filled with rave reviews on Left 4 Dead. Since I already got myself a steam account last week, and since I’m assuming you’ll need Steam anyway to play Valve games, I was considering purchasing Left 4 Dead online so I can finally get my feet wet with multiplayer FPSs.
Two things gave me pause:
- My PC is a bit on the old side (around 4 years now).
- FPSs aren’t friendly to lag. Half a second delay could get my ass handed to me.
I wish the L4D demo was still available so I could test it on my system, but alas, I can’t find it. The game currently retails at around US$50, so if I’m gonna fork out the dough, I better make sure I can play it immediately. I do have plans on upgrading my PC, but I’m waiting for Starcraft 2 to come out before I do it.
Fortunately for me, a nice little option came along.
Last week, gog.com started adding Unreal and Unreal Tournament stuff. I remember Unreal Tournament as the first shooter I really liked because it wasn’t as frantic as Quake was, and it was the 1st shooter that didn’t make me dizzy after prolonged hours of play. Delighted at the prospect of a shooter my system could handle, I decided that the cheap price is acceptable even if the ‘net multiplayer doesn’t work. I can accept US$10 for just fragging a few bots when I’m in the mood. If my ‘net connection can handle the lag, then the ‘net play would be a welcome bonus.
So I made the purchase and started the download. 2 gig don’t download all that fast, though, and I had to redo the download due to a silly thing I did. So while waiting, I decided to check-out what the other digital distribution sites had to offer.
I ended up being intrigued by the new stuff Greenhouse had. Hitherland was added a week or so ago, but the demo was available only recently. Puzzlegeddon was the new game, and it already had a demo available. I downloaded both.
I installed the Puzzlegeddon demo and played a few rounds. I wasn’t expecting much, but it ended up engaging me for quite a few rounds!
Puzzlegeddon’s core mechanic is basically sliding blocks in a square grid to make sets of at least 5 of the same color. The cool thing is that this core mechanic is used as a means to fuel a competitive game between 2-6 players! Making sets fills a meter of that color. The meter is used for various special effects like attack, defense, buffs, and disruptions. Also, you can select among several avatars which give you special bonuses like more powerful attacks, more efficient meter filling when chains are made, etc.
[pic above] A game against 5 bots. Me (12 o’clock, the castle) and Bit Bot decide to simultaneously fire missiles at Probot Hector. The wormhole above Probot Hector is an interrupt I cast, and the ephemeral flexing arms is due to a buff I cast.
One thing that bothers me a tad, and it’s not the gameplay. For some reason, Puzzlegeddon take a while to load, and it eats-up q big chunk of resources. Given the game, I was expecting it to be snappy, but it actually takes longer to load than OtRSPoD:E2! This has nothing to do with gameplay, though, and hopefully an update comes along to speed this part along. In terms of multiplayer, the lobbies aren’t that full right now, but if others like the game too, this will probably fix itself.
The whole concept, along with the fun and quirky art, and the possibility of multiplayer just gave me a nice warm feeling, enough to get me to purchase the thing!
And so, I now have two new competitive games, a nice old game where I shoot people, and a nice new puzzle game where I shoot people! 
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