Legend of Grimrock - So Old School

You want to ride on this bus? Are you BADASS enough?

So, a while back I mentioned that I would not be buying any new games in 2012.  This was a lie.  Well, at the time it was true, but in retrospect my desire to buy new games was greater than my resolve to finish the pile of unplayed games in my collection.  I should have seen this coming, but I have a mental disorder that causes me to buy games I don't need. I've been trying to be good about it though, and so far have only been buying games using proceeds from old games that I sold on half.com (where you really ought to be selling games, by the way) and my amazon rewards from my credit card.  My latest acquisition was Legend of Grimrock, which I paid $12 for and has been worth every penny so far.

Legend of Grimrock  is a modern take on old school dungeon crawlers in the vein of Ultima Underworld, Dungeon Master, and Eye of the Beholder.  If you've played and enjoyed any of those games, you should run off to the Grimrock site or Steam and just pickup your copy now. You won't regret it.  If don't know what any of those games are, they're basically first person grid-based RPGs where you navigate a dungeon one tile at a time, explore, avoid traps, solve puzzles, and fight monsters all in real time.  Your 4-man (or woman, insectoid, minotaur, or lizard-man) party is represented by little portraits in the lower right hand corner.  You never see them, but you'll become deeply attached to them as you scavenge equipment from the dungeon and level them up in one of three classes: fighter, mage, and rogue.



I'm only on the 2nd floor of the dungeon right now, but this game has really brought to the forefront a bunch of thoughts that have been swirling around in the back of my head.

1)  You don't need to re-invent the wheel, you just gotta make a good one.  Originality is nice, but taking an existing concept and refining the hell out of it can be just as good.

2) The PC is going to change how we value games.  As time goes on, the $60 console game is looking less and less appealing.  Some of these less expensive PC games might not have all the bells and whistles of your average console title, but they play just as well or even better depending on what genre of game you favor.

3)  The success of western RPGs (Fallout 3, Skyrim, Mass Effect, etc.)  is wrecking the genre a bit.  What do all of those games have in common? They're all too EASY.  It's nice when a game like Grimrock comes around and beats the stuffing out of you a little.

Anyway, that's all.  It's hot tonight and the laptop is starting to melt my nether regions.