• Now Available - A Valley Without Wind 2
    5 replies, posted
[url]http://store.steampowered.com/news/9968/[/url]
About the only thing they've improved over the first game are the graphics. They decided to take a massive leap backwards in literally everything else. You control just about everything via keyboard, they've eliminated mouse control for pretty much everything for whatever reason and as such it feels incredibly clunky to play.
[QUOTE=The_Marine;39634450]About the only thing they've improved over the first game are the graphics. They decided to take a massive leap backwards in literally everything else. You control just about everything via keyboard, they've eliminated mouse control for pretty much everything for whatever reason and as such it feels incredibly clunky to play.[/QUOTE] From what I've read the goal was to make it more Metroid-esque, meaning 8-directional aiming and movement. I haven't played it yet so I don't know how it turned out, though. The first one felt like they had a bunch of ideas that sounded cool, but totally failed to consider how the game would actually come together. I thought that they might get it on their second go, but... In general, as much as I respect Arcen for being a brave indie studio with an incredibly good record of post-release support, they don't really understand game design. AI War gets more bloated and incomprehensible with every expansion and I'm not sure they ever even had a solid design document for AVWW1.
I understood what they were going for but they went about it the completely wrong way. It really doesn't play at all like a good platformer should, it worked so much better with mouse aiming. But, alas... they really have no clue what they want to do with the game, it's almost depressing. I still feel ripped off even though I got it for free. AI War is still pretty great though, imo, don't see where the bloat and incomprehension comes from.
I'm a fan of both honestly. Valley 1 is a very unique beast in regards to its design, but greatly suffers later on. The 'new game+' aspect of it, and it being never ending did hurt the game in the long run. Valley 2 has a bit more focus to it, what with the absolutely huge cast of monsters available now (In comparison to the original.). There are basically two 'modes' of the game, action and strategic. To me, both feel solid enough, with the overhead being a game in itself, and the action stages being decent romps in their own regard. As for the new art style...? Eh... It's alright, I can't help but think that the studio doing the art should work more on the run/walk animations of the player characters a bit... Some of them look QUITE stiff. Honestly, I'd say give it a shot. Arcen always has had a unique way of doing demos, and these games are no different. Give either one a go, you get both anyway.
I got it for free for owning Valley 1 which is really nice. I found the first title to be very interesting and unique, might install the second one after all.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.