Genre: RPG
Publisher: HD Interactive
Developer: SkyFallen Entertainment
Release Date: TBA
I’m a sucker for a good RPG, and Blood Magic looks to be a truly impressive effort. While it’s a bit of a Diablo II clone, it does offer some interesting twists that allow it to stand on its own.
The game takes place in the realm of the Absolute, where the immortal Modo has been stripped of his powers and sent to live on the Earth as a mortal for his crimes in the afterlife. As you can imagine, he’s fairly pissed off about this, and is hell-bent on not only getting his powers back, but destroying the Earth. Your job is to ensure that doesn’t happen.
As you can guess from the title, magic is the central theme to the game. Your primary weapon isn’t swords, but rather magic spells – although you can enchant a sword if you want to hack-n-slash, but the sword is more of a spell than the +5 Sword of Smiting. You can play one of four main characters: the awkward scholar, the baker’s wife, the weird gypsy, or the fat friar. As you progress, you can learn from 12 schools of magic and play with 800+ unique items. You will also be able to combine spells for nearly limitless spell possibilities.
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The graphics are quite amazing. The game will require a pixel-shader compatible video card, and there’s plenty of eye candy to drive the system requirements. The art direction is a cartoony style, but that’s not a dig, as I was happy with the overall “look and feel” of the game. The spell effects were fantastic, especially the ones that summoned another being to do your dirty work. While there isn’t any armor to speak of in the game, as you advance down the different magic paths, your avatar will change to reflect your specialization; they’ll grow thorns, etc.
In addition to the single-player game, Blood Magic will have a multiplayer component. You will be able to play the single-player game co-operatively, and they are also putting in a dueling feature to allow people to compete in 2-person duels, or in large-scale arena combat.
In short, Blood Magic looks like a great story-driven game with fantastic visuals. The short demo we got at E3 was exceptional, and I look forward to checking out the game when it gets released in early 2005.
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