Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Parabellum: First Impressions

Good:
The linked 'campaign' of branching maps is a neat feature, and I'd love to see other games have something like it. There's plenty of customization options for both your character and weapons. At least for the beta, you start off with a ton of credits to spend.

Bad:
All of those credits you're given aren't worth squat at first. Everything is locked until a certain level, including basic costume components. You start off with a little SMG, and cannot buy any new weapons until you've earned a level or two. Since the more experienced players have access to better weapons, it's a case of the rich getting richer while you grind until you can start buying ANYthing else. Maybe the graphics settings just need to be tweaked, but the game can't decide what texturing to display. After UT3 and the GoW series I'm used to seeing the UT Engine show the basic shapes, and then display the nicer textures. In this game, however, the nicer textures will just revert back randomly. Heck, some objects in the levels I played didn't even have textures at all.

I'll keep playing it to get a good feel for a more formal review, but so far I'm not too impressed.

First Post!

Welcome to Dirt Poor Gamer! My goal with this blog is to provide a resource for computer gaming on an extreme budget: namely, $10 or less. It seems like every week there are new free-to-play games being released, online sales via Steam and Impulse, and random games showing up on the Target clearance endcap. Stay tuned, and there'll be some reviews, first impressions, and whatnot posted.

The Parabellum installer just finished downloading, so that may be the first few entries' topic.

-Laserwulf