Sunday 11 March 2012

Magicka: Space Marine Part 1

Welcome back to Co-op Conundrum, where we strive to spruce up your humdrum run of the mill co-op with something edgier, that's basically the same thing but more interesting to talk about; today we'll be looking at the Co-op Mage Murder Simulator "Magicka".

What is Magicka?

The Developers describe Magicka like so:

"Magicka is a satirical action-adventure game set in a rich fantasy world based on Norse mythology. The player assumes the role of a wizard from a sacred order tasked with stopping an evil sorcerer who has thrown the world into turmoil, his foul creations besieging the forces of good.

Players will be able to combine the elements to cast spells, wreaking havoc and devastation on the minions of darkness. They will also be able to team up with friends and fight their way through the campaign, or test their skills in the magickal arts through other challenging modes.

In Magicka, up to four players take on a grand adventure to save their world from certain doom using a fully dynamic spell system. The adventure mode takes the players across three different levels, ranging from the lush forests of mountain valleys to the frozen halls of the Mountain King where wits and creative thinking are the keys to victory."


If you're still confused but want to know more, I advise checking out their Steam Page or the Official Site, both of which are filled with information and screenshots.

What's the Challenge?

Ok so, every now and again the Magicka Developers have released free (and priced) DLC, alot of which comes in the form of robes you can give to your wizard in order to change their default gear and appearence.

Some of these Robes however, do much more than that and actually change the way your character reacts to certain elements, how quickly they move and other things that change the way you'd approach problems within the game (Take for instance the Cyber Robe, any wizard wearing that will pretty much be vaporised by almost any attack involving the Arcane Element).

Now there are plenty of interesting Robes out there but perhaps none of them have such a changing effect on the game as the Space Marine Robes (The Party Robes also change the way you play the game, but this mostly involves the use of all Three Robes, something I may talk about later).

The Space Marine Robes change the following:

- You are Armoured, and take less damage from conventional sources
- You are immune to being Panicked
- You are immune to Poison
- You are resistant to Fire and Cold
- You are weak to Arcane and Lightning
- You are immune to Life but have innate regeneration, meaning the only way to heal yourself is to stay out of combat momentarily.

Considering you're given a Gun and the ability to Charge on top of all that you essentially become a walking Tank, but you're massively hindered by your immunity to Life. This essentially turns Magicka into a bizarre parody of a modern Third Person Cover Based Shooter.

So here's the challenge: see how far you and your buddies can get through the game without the ability to heal, relying entirely on the fact that as long as you're not the one being hit, you can regenerate your health back.


What will You need?

2-4x Copies of Magicka (Can be purchased through normal Retail or through Steam)

2-4x Players

A basic knowledge of the game helps as your regular ability to use magick is somewhat hindered by the lack of a heal function.


So, those are the rules and we're stickin' to em. Come back later to hear how me and Lambdafish got on with the "Space Marine!" Challenge!

Wednesday 1 February 2012

Dungeon Defenders: 1 + 1 = 4 Part 1

Welcome to the Co-op conundrum, where we take your regular old co-op, and try to mix it up a bit in ways actually supported by a game's mechanics.

This time we'll be talking about Dungeon Defenders, I'll be laying out the way we'll be mixing it up, the later on you'll see another post detailing our experience and how it relates to our normal play.

For those of you who haven't heard of Dungeon Defenders, I urge you to go check it out on Steam, but if you don't want to I'll give you the summary here.

"Dungeon Defenders is a Tower Defence styled game in which you play as one of four (now five, but you have to buy the fifth) heroes, each one with their own unique towers and abilities. The twist? Unlike a regular Tower Defence, your hero will be right in the thick of things, able to directly attack enemies and having to run around the battlefield placing defences. The game is co-operative and can be played with up to four people (though you can also play it alone.)."

Now, normally when most people play Dungeon Defenders they tend to stick to the one hero, meaning if you were playing with four people you'd be using all four heroes, lending you the greatest variety in strategy.

The Game does however, give you the ability to own multiple heroes and switch between them in combat, and Lambdafish and I personally prefer to play this game two-player, so we're going to see what happens when we try using all four classes with just the two of us.

For the adventurous of lonely of you, you could also try this Solo, controlling all four classes alone.

Incidentally, when doing tests for this idea we noticed you could actually have all four heroes on the field at once if you have a controller hooked up to each PC with Local Co-op Support. (Which we're not doing as I don't own a controller, something I should fix.)

So, those are the rules of play, feel free to try it out on your own or come back later to hear how me and Lambda got on trying things this way.

What you'll need:
2x Players
Maybe 2x Controllers if you're feeling bold
Very good co-ordination

Feel free to post any comments or your own experiences playing this game co-op below, and if you'd like to here more from me you can follow me on Twitter @SeriousSalmaras.