Untold Legends Reviews

[Rolf N]

The first Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance comes pretty close, IMO. It's not as complex as Diablo 2, but it had some damn good 2-player gameplay.

The question I ask myself all the time is: do we really need another Diablo 2? If a game came out that was like Diablo 2 but "better", would we want to play it?

Yes! All of us!
I have tried Dungeon Siege, Sacred, BGDA, Titan Quest, heck even Restricted Area, and none of these clear attempts at competing with Diablo 2 have managed to surpass it.

I know I'd be buying something as mundane as a graphically overhauled Diablo 2 at full price.

IMO, dungeon crawling is a style of gameplay that is great the first or second time, but gets VERY stale after that.

The thing is that Diablo 2 does more than just dungeon crawling, unlike e.g. Dark Alliance 2. It's a deep, challenging, and in places even strategic game with tight controls and excellent progression.

 

[Zassk]

Long time lurker, newish poster.

My speculation is that SOE re-used the Everquest 2 graphics engine (which cost them several million dollars to make in 2001-2004) to quickly make a PS3 game in the space of a year or so. Sony needed another launch game, and SOE needed to leverage the expensive graphics engine they had built. This is just my theory, but it would explain Untold Legends' shoddy performance, generic graphics, and repetitive gameplay.

As a long-time player of Everquest 2, the screenshots of Untold Legends have always looked exactly like Everquest 2 to me (particularly the color palette, specular bump mapping, and flora system). I suspect the art team was even the same between the two games.

 

[ban25]

Champions of Norrath owned ... but there may be hope with the Dungeon Siege and D&D games coming to the PSP at least.

As for Untold Legends, I'm sure it's crap, but I'm also sure that 1up.com isn't making it onto my 'reliable reviewers' list.

Dungeon Siege for PSP is great! I miss being able to create my own character, but the graphics are quite good and it maintains the feel and atmosphere of Dungeon Siege. In fact, I'd say it's worth it just for the music from both DS1 & 2.

 

[ban25]

Yes! All of us!
I have tried Dungeon Siege, Sacred, BGDA, Titan Quest, heck even Restricted Area, and none of these clear attempts at competing with Diablo 2 have managed to surpass it.

I know I'd be buying something as mundane as a graphically overhauled Diablo 2 at full price.
The thing is that Diablo 2 does more than just dungeon crawling, unlike e.g. Dark Alliance 2. It's a deep, challenging, and in places even strategic game with tight controls and excellent progression.

The good news is that there are some great games out there and more on the way, even though Untold Legends isn't one of them. I highly recommend Justice League Heroes, especially if you enjoyed Freedom Force. It won't last nearly as long as D2X (heck, I still play it), but it's great fun for 15-20 hours or so.

Titan Quest has great graphics and I love the historical/mythological setting of the game. On the other hand, the online play is a little weak and it doesn't seem to offer the replayability of some others (currently on my third play-through of DS2).

 

[Planet]

There's definitely room for next-gen dungeon crawlers IMO, and I'm eager to see SnowBlind Studios next effort (assuming it is in this vein, which seems likely).

Amazes me that no one has mentioned Hellgate: London yet - that one is the real Diablo 3, even though Blizzard seems to be finally working on a game with that title. But most every developer of Diablo 2 has moved over to Flagship.

Looks really promising to me, with the often negleted but IMHO essential feature of random map generation, extreme diversity of weapons, nice selection of monsters, massive bosses, nice 3D graphics and they are even looking into console versions (or at least spin-offs). That game could make me finally upgrade my dated PC, when no console version is in sight.

 

[ban25]

It's interesting how few games have implemented random level generation as seen in D2. Titan Quest, Dungeon Siege, Sacred, etc. all have static levels. Even Champions of Norrath, which did have a handful of random dungeons (three, I think, in the whole game), was mostly static.

Random level layouts and monster placement, along with good multiplayer, go a long way towards extending the life of a game. It's why D2 is so popular even today.

Of course, I'm a sucker for these games and when something with even part of the equation comes along, I immediately pick it up and proceed to play the hell out of it. If you're looking a good single-player console dungeon crawler with random maps, check out the Dark Cloud series.

And oh, have you read the latest Hellgate comic?

Amazes me that no one has mentioned Hellgate: London yet - that one is the real Diablo 3, even though Blizzard seems to be finally working on a game with that title. But most every developer of Diablo 2 has moved over to Flagship.

 

[Planet]

No, but i noticed somewhere that something like that exists, and that it covers the pre game story. The game itself would be enough for me, though, i don't usually spend a lot of money (or, actually, any) on promotional byproducts...