Digital dungeoneering ranks alongside nail
biting, nose picking and kicking jellyfish into
groups of old people in the “it shouldn’t feel
so good” activity stakes. The premise is
always the same. You enter mazes, slay
creatures, find objects, gain experience points
and skills and go onto the next area. Repeat
until end credits where you will be told that
there is no one left in need of a kicking until
the sequel. One such game of this genre is
Sony Online Entertainment’s Champions Of
Norrath. Indeed, only Untold Legend’s press
release seems ballsy enough to say that SOE
haven’t simply made a portable version
of the that particular Everquest adventure
because that’s what this looks like, plays like
and mostly feels like.
Smaller randomly generated dungeons
make for petite quests separated by a
20-25 second loading times and a reliance
on using a combination of shoulder buttons
to drink potions adds a previously unheard
of cumbersome element to the genre
making this very much a lesser cousin, but
leveling-up your character is no
less appealing.
Imagine Publishing Ltd, Richmond House, 33 Richmond Hill, Bournemouth, Dorset, BH2 6EZ
Registered company 5374037 (England) : VAT No 864 6042 18
Directors: Damian Butt, Steven Boyd, Mark Kendrick, Alistair Ramsay, Harry Dhand, Andrew Hartley, Sam Watkinson