05-20-2005, 08:46 PM
Just thought that people who are mostly burnt out on Diablo after all this time (eg, me) might like to hear about a little indie game which I've been trying out.
It's called Fate, and while it's mostly a pure Diablo clone, it gets a lot of things right (for me) which other clones like Sacred didn't. Story is straight out of Angband. One town, one dungeon, random quests, get to the bottom and kill the big baddie. You start off with a pet, a la Nethack, who is a fairly puny minion, but can take your goods back to town for sale, hold some extra items, and be morphed into other monsters with magic fish. Yes, you can go fishing. Skills are a bit of a hybrid between Diablo and Diablo II - You have a bunch of barbarian-style masteries, and 3 different 'schools' of magic, which are essentially another requirement to scribe higher-level scrolls. No classes. Theme and graphics are really quite attractive, and have a bit of a 'cutsey' feel which was a fresh experience after the general tone of Diablo, et al.
Now for the downside. Single player only. It's a WildTangent game, so it loads the wbload.exe file as a TSR for its DRM/registration, and updating duties. Apparently some people/tools label this as spyware. It doesn't seem to be, but I never heard about it before, so check it out if you want. Second, it installs only in the Program Files directory. There is supposed to be a new installer coming out which will fix this, but no timeframe for it. You can just move the directory in the mean time. Finally, it has only 3 unlocks before you have to make contact with the company, a bit like Microsoft's blasted product activation. Should be no problems with it, but still, I know it makes some people edgy (including me!). Supposedly, you can re-install, so long as you install to the same directory the game is in when you register it, and it will still detect the registration. Only a format will require a re-unlock.
I've been playing around with the 3-level demo, and you can find it at the Fate webpage. At $US20, it's a nice bargoon for me, here in Oz, and I'm thinking seriously about plunking down the cash.
The demo/dialup version is under 30MB, with an extended content pack of higher res textures for about 120MB if you have broadband, or are patient.
It's called Fate, and while it's mostly a pure Diablo clone, it gets a lot of things right (for me) which other clones like Sacred didn't. Story is straight out of Angband. One town, one dungeon, random quests, get to the bottom and kill the big baddie. You start off with a pet, a la Nethack, who is a fairly puny minion, but can take your goods back to town for sale, hold some extra items, and be morphed into other monsters with magic fish. Yes, you can go fishing. Skills are a bit of a hybrid between Diablo and Diablo II - You have a bunch of barbarian-style masteries, and 3 different 'schools' of magic, which are essentially another requirement to scribe higher-level scrolls. No classes. Theme and graphics are really quite attractive, and have a bit of a 'cutsey' feel which was a fresh experience after the general tone of Diablo, et al.
Now for the downside. Single player only. It's a WildTangent game, so it loads the wbload.exe file as a TSR for its DRM/registration, and updating duties. Apparently some people/tools label this as spyware. It doesn't seem to be, but I never heard about it before, so check it out if you want. Second, it installs only in the Program Files directory. There is supposed to be a new installer coming out which will fix this, but no timeframe for it. You can just move the directory in the mean time. Finally, it has only 3 unlocks before you have to make contact with the company, a bit like Microsoft's blasted product activation. Should be no problems with it, but still, I know it makes some people edgy (including me!). Supposedly, you can re-install, so long as you install to the same directory the game is in when you register it, and it will still detect the registration. Only a format will require a re-unlock.
I've been playing around with the 3-level demo, and you can find it at the Fate webpage. At $US20, it's a nice bargoon for me, here in Oz, and I'm thinking seriously about plunking down the cash.
The demo/dialup version is under 30MB, with an extended content pack of higher res textures for about 120MB if you have broadband, or are patient.