Culdcept Saga - OmiyaSoft - 360

[lesion]

Culdcept. Saga. These words bring to mind the gooey emotions that we all associate with the cepting of culds and long, arching stories thereof. Yeah, does that make any sense? It doesn't matter. I'm here for board games, poker and thorough monster assdicking.  According to people who are not me the only new thing in this game is the "sealed deck" online play mode, so if you're one of those people you can check out my totally exciting screenshot instead of reading the rest of this. You know already.

You get a board that you're supposed to traverse, Monopoly-style, while using Magic-style cards to do Some Other Game-style battle. It's not as derivative as it sounds: instead of players you have cepters, and instead of hotels you have dragons that will angrily violate you.  Everything has stats, effects, land types, spare toothbrushes, etc.  It only becomes too complicated if you've recently suffered from a really sharp smack to the head.

Multiplayer is where the game shines, because singleplayer is full of incredibly dumb in-game cinematics and cheating AI bastard fucks. I also found myself muting the in-game music/voices and opting for my own speed metal or the screams of dying children. Schild and I played one of the vaunted sealed-deck games, which as far as I can tell means "let the (Jewish) wookiee win"--it was still fun though. We laughed and, I'd like to think, bonded a little bit on a spiritual level. Sometimes I want to punch my electronics in the dick.

-

Try it.  Get the demo on Live as it's a good taste of the entire thing.

[schild]

oh good god the screenshot

heh

[Murgos]

Is that a shop or can you actually smash a castle with a monster truck?  And what's with the fat guy in the corner?  Don't they know nerds don't like to be reminded how greasy they are?

[Tannhauser]

Monster trucks crushing castles?  Count me IN.

[Moaner]

Awesome.

I love the game but the single player narrative makes me want to punch kittens.  I loathe my character, especially his girly haircut.  I can only hope the end of the stupid story results in his death.

[Velorath]

Awesome.

I love the game but the single player narrative makes me want to punch kittens.  I loathe my character, especially his girly haircut.  I can only hope the end of the stupid story results in his death.

This begs the question of why you aren't skipping past the cutscenes.

[Mazakiel]

This will probably be the first game in..well, ever, where I'll regularly be skipping cut scenes. 

[schild]

The moment I found out you can literally skip from one battle straight until loading the next by just slamming the start button, well, that's what I started doing. I've heard less than 2 lines of dialogue outside of the battles.

[Moaner]

I didn't skip the cutscenes at first just because I kind of wanted to give the story a chance.  After the 2nd battle though I just started hitting start.

[Rasix]

I didn't skip the cutscenes at first just because I kind of wanted to give the story a chance.  After the 2nd battle though I just started hitting start.

I'm keeping with it out of morbid curiousity. It's keeps getting worse and worse.  I'm at a loss to name a story in a game that's worse than this.  The dialog plus lame as hell protagonist are just heavy hitters.

Fortunately, the game is a blast, even against the stupid computer.  I'm not really getting the cards for the deck I want to play, though.  Could use more (any) red/green for Brontides love.  Kind of liking blue, although it's pretty damn passive at the moment.

[Tairnyn]

I'm really enjoying this game so far. At first it was a bit overwhelming but as I get more comfortable with the options available I relish in the complexity. I was initially put off by the random element introduced by the rolling of dice, but I find it to provide a nice amount of unpredictability as opposed to the more rigid execution structure of MtG. One of the odd design decisions is allowing opponents to see your cards when you're drawing and playing items, only because players who play cards fast (like the CPU) have an advantage by limiting your time to view.

I haven't forayed into the world of online games yet, only because I'm not really happy with my deck. Every time I start to settle on a color I get some killer cards for another element. I'm also still trying to get a feel for a good balance between creatures, items and spells. I have a metric fuckton of items to choose from and it's tricky balancing cost versus the utility of having multi-purpose gear (e.g. +30 / +20 versus +50 / +0)

MtG meets Monopoly is an extremely accurate description and they've engineered both mechanisms very well. The luck in rolling can be frustrating when it doesn't go your way but the amount of influence you have via the cards seems to offset it enough to make strategy the dominant force.

Rent it if you're on the fence, but if you love CCG this is definitely a game worth purchasing.

[schild]

Ahem, Tairnyn, yessssssssssssss.

That's why you play sealed deck games online.

You win cards for your deck AND you get to throw around racial slurs. Win win IMO.

[sidereal]

I've always hated the fact that you can glimpse the CPU deck when they draw but not any other time.  It was like that in the first one, too.  Either don't show it to me and make it an imperfect information game, or let me look at it whenever I want.  I don't want to have to be staring at the screen at a particular time with a good memory for card pictures in a turn-based game. 

[schild]

I just don't look at their deck at all. Not worth the effort.

[sidereal]

Knowing whether or not they have armor makes a big difference

[Tairnyn]

I look for sealed deck games but they didn't seem too common yet. I have seen one so far and it wouldn't let me in.

As for looking at the opponent hand I find I'm *much* more effective when I know what they have up their sleeve, especially when I'm attempting to swipe a level 4/5 land and could risk paying 1k+ if I fail. The other challenge is recognizing and remembering the stats on items that you can't get info on other than the peek at the picture. I agree it would be better to have all or nothing, especially since it adds some pressure to be quick about playing cards to limit opponent's view in games against people.

It's a minor gripe compared to the glorious complexity this game offers, though. Some of the game boards make for some really interesting play, especially those with key choke points.

[MrHat]

So I picked this up.  Had mad fun until my 360 crapped out on me (dust error or some shit, bad disc maybe? I get it on all the games I play after a few hours) right during the 3-way game.  It's good times.

So, as a total CCG noob, wtf is sealed deck? I just played vs. the computer using whatever deck was given to me.  Didn't even check to see new cards or anything.

[Xilren's Twin]

So I picked this up.  Had mad fun until my 360 crapped out on me (dust error or some shit, bad disc maybe? I get it on all the games I play after a few hours) right during the 3-way game.  It's good times.

So, as a total CCG noob, wtf is sealed deck? I just played vs. the computer using whatever deck was given to me.  Didn't even check to see new cards or anything.

Sealed deck is when you get a random set of cards to play with instead of designing your own deck from your pool of cards and using that.  In the single player game you start with an inital deck, but as you win cards you can edit that or make your own based on your choices.  Sealed "levels the playing field"; i.e. it limits the people who have lots of great rares from winning just b/c their card pool is better rather than their play skill.

My SP game is forcing me to play Red/Green; i can't win blue or yellow cards to save my life which is going to make the water land three way interesting...

BTW, i dont recall the PS2 version having the ability to pause and save a game midmatch; something i am using a lot.

[MrHat]

Awesome.  So a sealed deck league would be a new random deck every game?  If so, I'm totally in.  30s decision timer and 8000 win?

[schild]

EIGHT THOUSAND? WHAT?

Why don't we just, you know.

I think that's the right link.

[MrHat]

EIGHT THOUSAND? WHAT?

Why don't we just, you know.

I think that's the right link.

wut?

[schild]

8,000 is a fucking lot of magic points.

[MrHat]

8,000 is a fucking lot of magic points.

4000? I don't care really.  Make it happen.  I'm good for Sunday mornings (EST).

[sidereal]

8,000 is a fucking lot of magic points.

That's what she said

[schild]

5,000 is probably good. You should take your 360 with you home and away.

[MrHat]

5,000 is probably good. You should take your 360 with you home and away.

I would, except it would take like 2 hours to get it out from my entertainment center. So much so that it might be easier/time/money to just buy another 360. 

[schild]

So much so that it might be easier/time/money to just buy another 360.

DO IT. DO IT NOW.

Get it custom painted with a Tator Folk card.

[MrHat]

lol.  Wife would kill me.

I don't like the game THAT much.

[Yegolev]

Damn cheating computer.

[Xilren's Twin]

Damn cheating computer.

Though it's a cheating bastard, i'm schooling the single player game.  It has managed to piss me off twice by managing to delay my certain victory ; i.e. i've got over the magic target, no npc is within 5000 points of the goal, im headed for the castle, get within 4 spaces of it and somehow the npc players manage to kill 1 or 2 my level 4/5 lands with a highly suspcious combination of dice rolling and top decking.  Today I lost 3500 points in one turn, two space from victory.  Had to play for anohter 15 minutes to win again.  Grrrr.

But, I finally won a Kelpie (blue card that forces my opponent to stop in the square it occupies); that I will heavily abuse.  .

The only minor gripes I have is are a) for some reason if you suspend a game you wont win any avatar parts (not that they are important but why do that?) and b) do they npc players have to speak every turn, i mean really, who though that was a good idea?

[Yegolev]

I, uh... the chatter doesn't bother me much since I have been watching the cutscenes.  Those are brutal.

The cheating that happened in the game I was complaining about stopped me from winning twice, pretty much.  It's the Coliseum III, the first one with two opponents and I'm doing my thing but those fuckers just won't land on my shit.  Holy Word I, then she plays a HW6 to counter; OK, I should have paid attention to her hand since I can see it.  I drop a HW1 on the other guy to stop him on a level 4 square and the fucker draws a Haste.  No. Fucking. Way.  Later on, this same asshole who has maybe one level 2 land in his possession decided to improve one to level 5.  Seems weird to me, until I land on it for two consecutive laps and have to sell off all my shit to cover the almost-4000G debt.  Yeah, I'm sure that was just the luck of the COMPUTER DIE.

[Xilren's Twin]

BTW, if anyone is interested, there's a pretty easy method for self grinding new cards.  I'm almost finished the SP game and want to play with a lot of funky card combo's online, so I've started doing this myself.  Basically, created an AI player with all item/spell cards book, and duel him in a 10 round match with 10 sec turn limits.  Just play your first 3 turns and put down several creatures, then go get a sandwich.  Takes about 5 mis to complete a game which on the big maps means 16 cards.

[Yegolev]

Sweet.

[Khaldun]

I like the core game very much, but you guys aren't kidding about the story. It's about the single worst thing of its kind I've seen in a game, and that's saying something.

[Khaldun]

On the subject of cheating AI bastard fucks, as someone who hasn't played this before, can I say that the really fucking annoying thing is that the AI clearly knows whether you've used an item and what item you've used. Basically, if it *can* beat you with a card in its deck, it *will* beat you--it never has to calculate out whether or not it needs to use an item because maybe you won't use one. So it never wastes an item. Conversely, if you have it overpowered unless it uses an item, it will always use one, unless you use one, in which case it won't.

On the other hand, I'm impressed that the AI knows when to play cards like Waste, e.g., it doesn't lay a Waste on you just as you're approaching a castle.