Champions of Regnum (PC) Review

Regnum Online or Champions of Regnum, how it is called now, is a Realm vs Realm focused MMORPG by the Argentinian developer NGD Studios. The Focus of the game is very clearly on the PVP.

The PVE on the other hand is unfortunately seriously lacking. The whole concept of the three realms is actually done pretty well. Syrthis, Ignis und Alsius have relatable motives why they fight each other and the environments of the three realms are quite distinguishable. In Syrthis you will experience some beautiful flora and fauna, Ignis mostly consists of Deserts and rocks and Alsius is the snowy place. Every Realm has a starting/initiation zone, where new players can learn the basics of the game. Then there is the inner realms which are the safe zones for the slightly more experienced players, but they can theoretically also be raided by one of the other realms. The last areas are the warzones, where open PVP takes place. Every realm has two smaller castles and one big stronghold. If one of the factions captures all the castles of one of the others, than they can attack their wall and try to invade the inner realms of the attacked faction. Every realm also got an individual dragon which can assist them during an invasion. The invasions and sieges of the realms are truly the highlight of the game and something you can only experience in a few other games.

The concept of the three realms was implemented well, but the quests are usually extremely basic and by the text-book. The presentation in general is quite lacking. There are no cutscenes at the beginning or during the game whatsoever, no dialogue in the game is actually spoken and most quests are simple fetch-quests. I have heard from some people that after around level 30 you must mostly grind and do daily quests if you want to keep leveling up to the maximum level of 60. (Some people even described it as a "Grind-Hell") You can of course also participate in the realm vs realm battles, but you are probably going to have a tough time before you get at least to level 50. Potentially players could also use Boosters to level up faster, but that's like saying doping is required to improve in a halfway acceptable time. 

The Graphics of the game are also rather simple in comparison to the competition. Nonetheless, I have to praise the game here for improving in this area. Since I first played the game in around 2007/2008 the graphics have become noticeably better. The Developer implemented a new graphic engine in 2009 and PC Graphic Cards have of course also improved significantly since back then. However Regnum is still one of the "uglier" MMO's. Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online are the closest games if comparing the graphic style. Gameplay wise Regnum resembles more something like Dark Age of Camelot or Warhammer Online.

The Soundtrack for the most part is alright and occasionally even quite atmospheric, but there are unfortunately also a few glitches in this area. After I finished combat and put my weapon away I could often hear the fighting soundtrack playing on further 20-30 Seconds and in some areas there was no music or sound effects at all.

These are not the only glitches in the game. I experienced multiple enemies and quests targets being in wrong places and so on.

The world map itself is smaller than in other games, but the world is at least mostly filled with useful things and the warzones are at least some kind of compensation for the rather small map. The environments and the buildings within the game fit the mood of the game and are mostly even quite decent looking.   

Another complaint of mine would be the combat. It is not entirely awful, but it can feel clunky and awkward sometimes. It is pretty slow and unexciting tab target combat system and it just isn't anything to write home about. Since combat is an important aspect of any RPG I felt a bit disappointed.

Two quite unique things about this game are for one, that you can at all time reset the entirety of your skill points, which is quite nice if you may have miss-skilled a little and the other thing is, that practically no mob in this game acts hostile towards the player. I traveled through the starting area, the inner realms and the warzones and enemies only attacked me if I took the Offensive before. Whether you like the last characteristic of course varies from player to player.

What I really didn't like was that there is no ability to swim in this game. When you enter the higher waters you just immediately die without a real drowning animation. Generally you can say, that the game unfortunately doesn't really get the support from the developers it deserves. A lot of the bugs should have been fixed and the PVE been improved, but since a couple of years nothing seems to be happening. There is still a pretty small, but loyal community for this game. For new players I would recommend playing on the Server Ra, since its by far the most populated and active of the three servers. I played characters on each of them and nearly never met anybody on Valhalla or Haven.

On the other hand if you got a couple of friends and you are ready to grind yourself to the high levels, than you could potentially have a lot of fun on that two servers, since you would probably immediately become a powerful group in the warzone.

One cardinal sin I still want to mention is, that you can only buy a mount with real money. For many people that might not be a big issue, but I find it inacceptable.  I can not honestly comment on the issue whether this game is P2W or just pay to convenience in the higher levels after my shorter playtime, but it certainly looks to promote items from the ingame shop.

Pro:

-Realm vs Realm concept is well done

-Lore behind the Realms is interesting

-The Environments are designed quite well

-Soundtrack is decent

Con:

-Seriously lacking PVE/ "Grinding Hell"

-Simple presentation

-Graphics still not impressive

-Combat can feel clunky and weird

- Possible P2W aspects

-Still too many Glitches

(-Relatively small world in comparison to other games)

Result:

There are certain things, that I really like about this game (Realm vs Realm concept, Lore and environments), but the idea of playing through relatively uninteresting PVE on hours upon hours of nonsensical grinding is destroying any kind of motivation to get to the late game for me. And that is a shame, since I can see the potential the game had. At the end of the day I still don't give a lower rating since I can see determined people with friends having a great time in the late game and the battles in the warzones.

5/10

Creative Destruction (PC) Review

Creative Destruction will give you the first impression that it is a Fortnite clone and that is actually pretty accurate. A lot of games get referred to as clones of other successful games, if they only share a couple of smaller similarities. Creative Destruction on the other hand is nearly an identical version of Fortnite, just worse in a couple of aspects. 

It has to be mentioned, that Creative Destruction is first and foremost an 'mobile' game (smartphone game). I will not be talking about this version, since I personally don't like any of these mobile games, which have to be controlled with a touchpad only. (Urgh) The mobile version of Creative Destruction gets good reviews, which is probably why they ported it to the PC. Unfortunately it is not a paticularly well done portation. The steam exclusive version of the game has noticeable technical issues. There for example will appear some unexpected lags and framerate problems (particularly in the beginning minutes of matches), that are very difficult to explain. Creative Destruction is not a especially visually pleasing or High-End PC demanding game, so there should be no excuses for this technical performance. (There are also minor clipping errors and visual glitches during the matches)

The visuals are tolerable, but certainly among the worst of any modern PC games. It is clear that there hasn't been put much effort into improving the mobile graphics with the portation to PC. The game is certainly colourful and you will see some variation of different environments. Needless to say a lot of areas look frighteningly similar to Fortnite and together with the quite similar cartoonish graphic style, creative destruction resembles its inspiration source quite a lot. There are for example also big deserts, ice-regions as well as many green regions of grass and nature in the game. Yes, they are not 1:1 copies of its bigger brother, but the resemblance is undeniable. At least the cities look different, but also more dull in Creative Destruction (Nearly all houses look identical and empty inside). There are some minor highlights like a watch tower, a statue in a park or a tower building, but nothing is really impressive or rememberable in any sense. The map truly differs from Fortnite by offering a mountainous canyon region and a garden full of vines named 'Eden Vines'. 

I don't really want to overemphasize the Rip-Off accusation of Fortnite, but the connection between Creative Destruction and the infamous 'Fortcraft' is kind of interesting. Fortcraft was a mobile BR-game, that was nearly identical to Fortnite (Even much more than Creative Destruction) and also shamelessly stole half of its title. Fortcraft therefore got sued into oblivion and had to close down. Netease, the developer of Fortcraft, is also the developer of Creative Destruction and some of the icons and elements from the UI of Creative Destruction look identical to those of the old Fortcraft game. Very likely Netease simply kept developing the Fortcraft game, changed a few visual elements and minor gameplay elements and rebranded the whole thing as Creative Destruction. I don't really want to take any moral standings, but this kind of practise looks more than just a little bit shady to me.

Another giant similarity to Fortnite is the building system, that is practically a straight out copy of the Epic game. The platforms are a lot uglier and the building process is instantaneously and looks kind of unpolished. I don't know any other BR-game, than these two, that even offers the ability to build platforms and Creative Destruction doesn't even attempt to differentiate itself in the majorities of the gameplay department. 

The building tool/ melee weapon handles differently than in Fortnite. In the Epic game the melee weapons hits the building and trees and destroys them, gathering resources in the process. In Creative Destruction the Destructor simply sucks the material out of the buildings/environments instead of attacking, but also destroying them in the process. The difference may not be that big, but at least the animation did change. A bigger difference is the fact, that you can only collect 1 resource in order to build instead of the 3 different ones, like in Fortnite. 

The weapon selection of Creative Destruction is actually not bad. There are 6 different weapon types featuring Pistols, Shotguns, MGs, Assault Rifles, Sniper Rifles and Special Weapons. The weapon types feature at least two models each, most of them a lot more and the special weapons are fun. They may not always be the most useful, but who can resist a flamethrower or a beehive (Trap that releases deadly bees)? You just shouldn't expect anything out of the ordinary outside the special weapons, they represent all the usual models.

A unique feature of Creative Destruction are the death animations, in which defeated players leave the battlefield with a balloon tied to their arm, transporting them towards the sky. This feature has a nice touch. Another theoretically nice addition is the option to switch between first and third person perspective during a Creative Destruction match. In practise however the game was designed with the third person perspective in mind, which is why I can't recommend playing in the ego perspective.

Something that I really disliked was the lacking customizability of the controls. Once more in theory you can customize all the controls, but in practise multiple keys of my keyboard or mouse were simply refused as alternatives. I understand, that there can be occasional issues, but refusing the arrow buttons as well as multiple others ones is nonsensical, if you give customize options in the first place. At least the other options in the main menu, like visuals, sound etc. are indeed quite customizable. You can switch between different visual filters. This was appreciated. 

Creative Destruction features Solo, Duo and Squad(4 and 5) modes, thus all genre standards are present within the game. Solo matches load very fast, while squad games can at evening take a longer time for matchmaking. At one day I had 4 times in a row a random squad with the same two teammates, that was a bit bizarre and might speak for lower player numbers outside the peak hours. The only thing that really disturbed me was, that before every match there is something like a fashion contest showing off the most flashy skins of the participating players. That just seemed super weird to me. (Probably done in order to promote cosmetics from the itemshop) 

Aside from the real BR-matches, players can also engage in public or private contests on the matchmaking island called 'Land of Wonder'. It is a nice addition, but nothing too exciting, since it is just a small, arena like, island with respawns for some more relaxed combat. More interesting for me where the Tutorial missions, which give a good introduction into the Creative Destruction gameplay and its distinctive features (plus they reward some Star Coins), as well as the Creative Islands, on which every player can create a small map for themselves. Creative Destruction also has a guild features, where players can come together in a community, which probably makes it easier to find a well organized squad. I don't remember seeing a guild feature in any of the other BR-games, which would make it a unique element of CD.    

Like most other BR-games Creative Destruction also features different seasons and a battle pass, which offers ingame currency and different cosmetics. Some BR-games give players the possibility to buy such a battle pass with ingame currency, while others do not. Creative Destruction is part of the later group. Non-paying players get the Standard-Pass, which involves 4 cosmetics during the 100 battle pass levels and some ingame currency of Gold and Star Coins, but none of the Diamonds, that are needed to purchase the Flex Pass (Start at level 18) or the Flex Pass Supreme (Start at level 55). The Flex Pass contains much more skins and also just enough diamonds to afford another Flex Pass. Standard clothes item can be purchased with Gold or Star Coins, but the majority of items and outfits require diamonds (Only obtainable through real money) and some of these outfits are even time-locked... At least there are Login rewards and daily challenges, which make the accumulation of Gold and Star Coins a bit easier, but the game clearly tries to promote the purchase of Diamonds. 

Usually I would give a short overview of the different seasons of the game, but I didn't find much information in my online research. I will therefore try to shortly characterize the previous seasons by analyzing the respective trailers. (All statements without guarantee...) 

Season 1 was the starting point and launched the game. Nothing really special there, with the exception of a Warmobile fun mode and rockets as vehicles. Season 2 seemed to theme little girl toys and the colour pink!? Season 3 was the first with a real theme, called 'Journey to the East'. As the name suggests, it featured Kung Fu fighters and an asian oriental style. Season 3 apperently also included a Halloween and Christmas event. 'Gold Fever' was the name of Season 4, featuring a Wild West Theme and an invasion of the so called 'West Wind Warriors', who traveled to the CD map to search for goldmines. Season 5 on the other hand went to future with 'Apocalypse' and apparently was the first to actually tell a real story. Some miners in the wild west found a magical cube, that allowed the creation of a robot army. The humans mistreated and exploited the robots and that lead to a resistance group of robots, who started a rebellion against the humans called the 'Dark Age' ( I didn't claim it was a good story). In Season 6 the robots having seemingly been defeated and the humans organized a large celebration concert. Season 7 featured a Samurai theme and introduced a couple of new skins, but didn't continue or introduce any story elements. 'Legend of Altar' is the name of Season 8, which is the most current season. It looks like an army of demons or something invaded the CD map and the player characters have to fight them off in a gigantic battle (There is really no information findable what's actually going on and I found no ingame clues or even mentions either).  

At the beginning of Season 3 CD seemed to have done a couple of bigger map changes to bring more variety into the game. The canyon regions were added as well as Windmill, the Watch Tower, the Sky eye and some modifications of the cornfields and Eden Vines. Since this revamp the maps has mostly stayed the same. Creative Destruction seems to have more Seasons per Year than most of its competitors with them only lasting around 2 months each. Season 8 brought the introduction of Altars, that reward players for praying with bonus effects like an increase in damage or life.

Overall I think the developers had some ideas for a storyline in Season 4, 5 and also in 8 again. But there doesn't seem to be any real influence on the gameplay or map and most of the seasons have no connection with the others whatsoever. So I am not really sure, why they even introduced the seasons and made this trailers. (Very likely because they tried to copy Fortnite, and they thought that Skins would seller easier that way.)

Pro:

-Gameplay is unoriginal, but essentially works well

-Good weapon selection (including fun special weapons)

-Different visual filters

-Variety of different game modes

(-Guild Features)

Contra:

-Disappointing 'Mobile' Visuals

-Fortnite Ripoff (Map + Gameplay)

-Performance problems (Lags and clipping errors)

(-Shady Fortcraft History)

(-Lacking Controls Customizability)

Result:

Is Creative Destruction just a game with 'Made in China' quality? The answer is no, but... Creative Destruction is a BR-game with an emphasis on building, an alright map and okayish gameplay. The problem with the game is, that it doesn't really do anything better than the competition, ergo anything over average. The same elements of gameplay are done better by the competition and CD clearly stands in the long shadow of Epics Fortnite. Asides from that, the portation from the mobile devices to the PC wasn't done too well and visually leaves much to be desired. Creative Destruction can definitely be fun, there is just not real reason to play this in 2020, since there are better alternatives.

5.5/10

The Culling (PC) Review

The Culling is one of the older Battle Royale games and last year it seems to have finally come to an end. The gameplay and the idea of The Culling were very reminiscent of the Hunger Games and probably intended to attract viewers of the popular Hunger Games movie franchise. In contrast to a lot of other Battle Royale games only 20 people in comparison to the usual 100 compete in a match. Melee was a big focus of the game and it certainly has a different atmosphere than you experience in most other BR-games. 

As far as I know, there are two different maps, a giant jungle and a prison. There are various buildings, cages etc on the maps and exploring and looting is certainly an important part of every match. Players could choose between playing classic battle royale games and survival mode, which pits you in an arena, where you have to fight robotic enemies in multiple rounds till you die. Optionally player can also participate in an extensive tutorial, that does a good job at teaching the basics of the Culling, or try out weapons and items on a shooting range.

There are different melee weapons in the game, from stones, sticks, axes till pitchforks and so on. There are also bows, blow pipes and even guns and grenades available. These weapons can either be found on the map or crafted with materials. Unnecessary items can be sold at vending machines and at some machines you can even regenerate health points. Sometimes there are gas canons scattered along the map, which can be used to poison other players. Every match has a time limit of 20 minutes. Till the end of every game a fog of poisoned air will make the zone available to the players, smaller and smaller till the final combat near an arena in the middle of the map. 

So far this sounds like most other Battle Royale games. What made the Culling stand out from the rest, was the unique melee combat, which could be quite tactical and most certainly intense. Aside from attacks, which could be charged up, the player could block or push enemies in order to cancel the block of other players. Hitting an enemy, while he blocks, results in the player being stunned for a short time. This combat system worked quite well and was the best part of the game. The controls in general functioned sufficiently and are quite customizable. A feature that I always appreciate. (Too many games claim keys/controls customizability, but lack to fully support it.) The jungle map was also done quite well and enabled player to explore quite a bit and generally got a nice survival atmosphere. The visual presentation of the game is fitting and could be described as alright till good. There might be even prettier games out there, but the Culling certainly doesn't leave a bad visual impression either. 

One of the main reasons for the financial failure of this game was the direction in which this game has been developed. Many players liked the original status of the game, but started to dislike it more with every further update. The dissatisfaction of the players showed itself in constantly dropping player numbers. 

For the longest time The Culling was offered as an early access game till the game got fully released in late 2017. Just a few weeks later the developers announced a stop of further content in order to focus on the upcoming The Culling 2. Culling 2 turned in summer of 2018 into one of the worst launch disasters in the history of videogames and got terminated within a few days. In the following autumn the developers announced plans to refocus on the original Culling game. It was patched back to an earlier status of the game and got released as a f2p game named The Culling:Origins. On the 15th of May 2019 the online game servers have due to lacking numbers of players been permanently shut down. The offline modes on the other hand are supposed to remain usable in the future. What I don't understand why other players can't download the game for offline play anymore. I have the game still installed, so I can consider myself lucky. I know people who wanted to try out the game before it shut down, but Xaviant already deleted the download function one week before the server termination...

Pro:

-Fantastic melee combat

-Great Survival atmosphere

-Good variety of different weapons

Contra:

-Bad Developer

-Online servers shut down

Result:

The game and the fun it provided through its survival atmosphere and the unique combat get a 7/10 from me. Xaviant and their handling of Culling 1 and 2 I would probably rate much, much lower. Maybe the offline-version can still be found somewhere on the internet, even that alone would be worth trying out.

7/10