Champions of Norrath

[AkinaSS]

So anybody picked this game up yet? Read in the GameSpot reviews that there are some noticeable bugs, so i was hoping those of you guys who already bought it could verify whether the bugs are serious enough to affect the gameplay.

I plan to buy it this weekend, received some coupons in the mail from BestBuy advertising their 10% off 4 day sale.

[Rutiger]

I've played for about 3 hours and haven't experienced the bugs I've heard about. So at least so far they certainly haven't ruined the game for me.

[Captain Garak]

This is another game that seems to be getting pretty favorable word-of-mouth. I'm wondering if it's worth it to purchase it just for the single-player experience.

Comments to this effect would be most welcome....

[Captain Garak]

Actually, I could probably figure this out for myself, since I just discovered that a demo of the game is included in the March 2004 issue of the Official Playstation Magazine. However, since I rely heavily on strategy guides, cheats and hints, I would prefer it if someone else would provide me with my opinion... ;D

[dtcarson]

The game was theoretically 'built' for singleplayer, or same-machine multiplayer, and the online component was somewhat 'tacked on' just to provide a P2P game matching service. Haven't played it yet, but the general opinion seems to be something like 10 to 1 favoring CoN over BG:DA2 [if you played that.]

[Captain Garak]

No, I haven't played either of the games in the Baldur's Gate series, but I did read a review in OPSM that seemed to indicate that CoN is better than either BG title. Of course, I was most interested in getting the unbiased opinions of my Culdcept Forum bretheren....

Thanks for the feedback, dtcarson!

[AkinaSS]

Hopped over to Frys yesterday after believeing in a rumor about CoN being on sale for $40 until 2/12. Lies...but it did come w/ a calender. Its hard to walk away empty handed, so i ended up buying CoN, R-Type: Final and Otogi: MoD for the XBox. The games' pretty hard single player. Yet to try online though cause i don't have the network adaptor and need to get a few friends over for multi-tap experience.

[AkinaSS]

I'm now at chapter 2, and so far a bug i've encountered is the background sometimes not loading fast enough when you run back and forth. The screen will be blacked out for a couple of seconds. One of the goblin caves also had 2 save points next to each other...weird.

This game is like a toned down version of Diablo 2 for the PC, which had me hooked for months playing online. I would rate this game as better than the original Diablo but not as good as D2. For a butt kicking good time, have your friends over for 3 or 4 player action. I think that playing w/ your friends beside you is more fun than w/ strangers online given the known bug of if one player teleports to the town, all players will be dragged along. In the early game when you're poor, you'll want to pick up everything and sell em if its poorer than what you've equiped. You'll be teleporting to the town frequently since the carrying capacity is so small and spending valuable points on endurance to have that weight limit raised is just not a great option. If you're a ranger like me, running outta arrows sucks. This frustration is common to Diablo and BG: DA too.

I'm still having fun though, its been too long since D2...

[dtcarson]

We're playing two-player, same PS2. Female barbarian and male cleric. So far it's pretty fun, definitely more challenging than either BG DA. You MUST use block. The monsters are a little more intelligent too; they block a lot, and you have to use a little more strategy [well, okay, I just run behind them and hit them.]
We've each died probably about 8 times--we just keep running into monsters and whacking them, like in BG, which doesn't work.
I'm finding, in general, better stuff as spoils than I'm finding in the store. Although I did just drop 15k on a dwarven hammer. But after upping Endurance a couple points, so I can carry more, on the next trip I sold about 10k worth of stuff, so it seems to be reasonably generous with money so far.
I have noticed some tilesets not loading, but mostly when we died/loaded/died/loaded at a boss, so we may have confused the machine. Nothing that makes it unplayable.
It's a dungeon crawl, for sure, but fun. Story is there just to have one, but the NPC's you run into do have some personality.
Haven't run into any game or enjoyment-killing bugs [well, not gameplay bugs that is ]
I like the Checkpoint feature--when everyone playing dies, you automatically restart at the last Checkpoint, of course, without anything you gained in the interim, but it's better than having to Load a game each time. And the transporters, like in Diablo 2, are helpful also--there aren't too many of them, one per area, but they're a nice addition to save on Gate Scrolls.
I'm not *too* enamored of the Cleric's skill sets yet, but maybe I'm just not that far into it. But also, I generally play magi/offensive spellcasters, but wanted to do something a little different this time.
It is fun, and seems to have more 'body' than the BG: DA games. I haven't gone online, I don't really play over the net [plus I need a 25 foot network cable ; )], so I can't comment on that, but same-machine multiplayer is fun.

[AkinaSS]

1/2 way through chapter 3 single player and noticed a couple more bugs. I have now been hung up at the loading screen twice. Once was after i got slain, and the 2nd was when i created a "mule" character to transfer all those rare equipment that i didn't want to sell, but was getting too heavy to lug around. Decided to listen to the boring intro speech for a change and it wouldn't load right after he finished! I suspect this is random cause i did it again and this time no problems.

I also noticed that the items you transfer are actually duplicated simply by quiting the game w/ your original character w/o saving. Lastly, the chapter 2 final boss is a joke compared to chapter 1. He simply stood there powering up or whatever for a few seconds, allowing me to cast my critical hit spell and just keep hacking away. His HP was next to nothing before he broke out of the trance and struck back, all i had to do was back away and fire a couple of arrows to put an end to him.

I have to agree w/ the GS reviewer that it is anybody's guess how such obvious bugs manage to pass the QA. That said, the graphics here is awesome.

Although i understand this is for the teen rating, i am not too pleased about the lack of blood. Sex: check, violence: check, blood: no! You can have a female character running around thumping goblins in only her undies, decapitate bugs and have it dissolving in its own juices, have a goblin looking like a porcupine with your arrows, but you won't see a single drop of blood from a dark elf, orc and goblin etc when you hack or bludgeon them to death. What's the deal w/ that? This is a hack and slash game for gosh sake!

[dtcarson]

Re: blood--
you may have noticed already, but in the Options, menu, 'blood' defaults to 'Off.' I changed it to On, and haven't noticed a big difference, but you may want to check that.

[AkinaSS]

Thanks! You're right i had the blood turned off. I did notice a difference especially after slaying bigger enemies. Still the bosses continue to be a joke.

[ExMortis]

I'm only marginally enjoying this game, even with two or three players. Any given map only has one or two types of enemy, and for the most part they're either bugs or some demihuman (nothing yet like the gelatinous cubes or displacer beasts from BGDA1). No dwarf PC. Way too much time spent with inventory, there shouldn't even BE a skill to increase your carrying capacity but there is, and it's always extremely tempting to waste a point on it. The "block" function feels really tacked on, as the fighting system hasn't evolved past "press XXXXXXXXXXXXX"... all blocking seems to do is allow enemies to piss off the Ranger. The quests in chapter 2 are intensely inane.

And yeah, it's a bit buggy. We just quit playing tonight because the game locked up.