Tag Archives: Medieval

Dragon’ Up The Past – Going to War!

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The guys eek their way into the ’90s with an issue stuffed full of articles on the art of war ~

Statler & Waldorf, 20 July 2018

A jam-packed issue with a full set of articles about warfare in fantasy RPG’ing – paladins, heraldry, role-playing soldiers, and leading an empire.  We also get an early look at The Princess Ark, and…  a Donald Trump reference?!


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What’s Gus Playing – The Witcher 3: Blood & Wine

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Which Witcher is Witchier than the Witches of the the Witcher? ~

Lloyd Sabin, 9 July 2018

there are new creatures to slay, dungeons to explore, armor to wear, and the main story itself  is excellent

The Witcher 3 is second only to Skyrim as my favorite action RPG, probably of all time. Having completed the main story line and Hearts of Stone, that leaves only Blood & Wine left for me to enjoy…which makes me kind of depressed. Guess I should enjoy it, relish it, take it into my arms and tell it I love it. Well I did a few days ago when I took my first tentative steps in to the Duchy of Toussaint. This area of the game is as big as some other action RPGs in their entirety, and is more than a little similar to how I imagine Mediterranean France to look.

And of course it’s very Witchery…there are new creatures to slay, dungeons to explore, armor to wear, and the main story itself (I am only a few hours in) is excellent. However I have to say that the balancing of Blood & Wine is not good…there are amped up enemies everywhere and I had to turn the difficulty down many times to advance. The worst example of this is a tiny side story mission called Extreme Cosplay.

Medieval – First Look!

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As the Kickstarter start to arrive, we check out what’s inside ~

Vance Strickland, 23 June 2018

Relaunching an old classic, the new version of Medieval is starting to make its way to Kickstarter backers.  What’s inside the box?

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Big heavy box

What’s Gus Playing? Episode 14

GrogHeads’ own half-height harbinger of horror turns horny ~

Lloyd Sabin, 15 January 2018

It’s cold as balls outside (read: extremely cold) and my driveway is a glacier. Which leads me to think of Vikings and Viking-themed games. In this installment of What’s Gus Playing, I’ll cover some of my time with three Norse-irific titles: Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Vikings: Wolves of Midgard, and Expeditions: Viking.

Expeditions: Viking is just as well produced as Vikings: Wolves of Midgard (probably moreso) but takes its Scandinavian history more to heart, and a bit more seriously.

Full disclosure: I got about half way in to Hellblade and covered it in more detail in the last installment of What’s Gus Playing. It eventually drained me and I had to move on to something else a little lighter to save my sanity, and that was Vikings: Wolves of Midgard. It’s a Diablo-clone, but a well done one set among the myths of the Norse world. Your avatar is customizable to a point, the enemies are varied and numerous and the game runs well, with attractive, bloody graphics and cartoonish violence.

At first the difficulty almost seemed too easy and I was going to bump it up to ‘hard’ until I hit the first boss. I tried to defeat this boss seemingly 100 times and even after LOWERING the difficulty to ‘easy’ I still could not do it, at which point I just shouted ‘f this!’ and moved on to Expeditions: Viking.

Expeditions: Viking is just as well produced as Vikings: Wolves of Midgard (probably moreso) but takes its Scandinavian history more to heart, and a bit more seriously. Like its predecessor, Expeditions: Conquistador, it is a story-based, historically accurate hybrid of tactical wargame and RPG. 

What’s Gus Playing? Episode 13

The bantam-weight banterer of badassery battles in a bygone Britain ~

Lloyd Sabin, 8 January 2018

I obviously try to keep this column as light as possible, but some games are just heavy. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is one such heavy game.

Just be warned – I would not recommend playing for extended periods of time. Hellblade seriously changed my mood, and quickly.

Giving the player the opportunity to play as Senua, a female Celt, in Dark Age Britain, Hellblade is much more than a game of exploration or first person combat. These aspects are there, but Hellblade, first and foremost, is about fear…fear generated through mental illness.

Ninja Theory, the producers of Hellblade, consulted mental illness experts to create the game and state they wanted to make as accurate a portrayal of mental illness as possible, so that those lucky enough to live without it could have some idea of what it’s like. They did a fine job, because Hellblade is terrifying, confusing and infuriating, by design.

I found myself panicking, getting angry and frustrated, and finally having to step away from the game for a breather…about an hour of Hellblade is all I can really do before it becomes too much.

This is not a knock at the game itself – it’s awesome, well-produced, beautiful to look at and takes its content very seriously. Just be prepared to be affected. That’s the best way I can think of to describe it. Hopefully you will be able to see some of what I saw in the screen shots below. I also have to mention the audio design. The sound, maybe even more than the visuals, are the real terror drivers here. Play Hellblade for just an hour and you will see what I mean.