Comments on: Puzzle Quest: Galactrix: Downloadablosity

By: Stromko

Stromko — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 06:55:05 +0000

Worst game I’ve ever bought on Steam, by far. I played the thing for about 3 hours, then I couldn’t stand the tedium anymore. Specifically, the abilities, gear, and characters aren’t as interesting in terms of how they matter / what they do as they were in the first Puzzle Quest.

Though the series got even worse than this with Puzzle Quest: Kingdoms. At least the demo was awful enough to convince me to resolutely not buy it, so that’s a plus. :)

By: Lollerskater

Lollerskater — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:22:02 +0000

Pssst, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix released on Steam. Worldwide. Now.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/23500/

By: Arathain

Arathain — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 05:09:30 +0000

Ah, this’ll be great. Enjoyed the demo lots.

You know, one of the things that impressed me about the original was the script. The plot was deliberately generic fantasy, but your character was agreeably sceptical, and tended to say the sorts of things I would have said in that situation.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:43:13 +0000

I liked the original Puzzle Quest, and really could not stand Galactrix. The hex grid is just too weird, the lack of clock stoppage when getting massive combos while hacking just feels utterly unfair, and the flavor is just not right. Frickin’ space dinosaur pirates.

By: Lucas

Lucas — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:22:43 +0000

Kieron: I maxed out the original PQ demo and never picked up the final game (iirc, the PC release was 6 months late). The generic fantasy story soup didn’t help, and I say that as someone now consumed playing King’s Bounty. Galactrix is more interesting to me, both for the hex grid and scifi setting (generic story aside). I don’t mind lo-fi productions if they really play well, but I’m also not really in the casual audience, so odds are I won’t buy this either, and it’s been on my Amazon wishlist since July!

By: Jochen Scheisse

Jochen Scheisse — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 09:27:22 +0000

Only looked at the article because there was a Dinosaur threatening a girl in the first pic. That probably means I need to get laid.

By: Evil Timmy

Evil Timmy — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 05:53:06 +0000

Really liked this demo, and as the first had me hooked for a ton of oh-just-five-minutes sessions that turned into hours, I can expect all my small slices of free time to be occupied again.

And after a slight learning curve, I really like the hex tile idea. It actually gives you more control, not less. All you have to remember is that whichever way you move the tile you clicked on, that’s the way stuff is going to fall. This gives you at least two directions of choice for every move. And while the AI still seems to have a bit of that crazy luck, I think it’s also more balanced than in PQ; I’ve had a few supernovas myself in four lv5 runs and one battle that took two turns (vs a 53 health/20 shield opponent).

By: UncleSmoothie

UncleSmoothie — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 04:04:42 +0000

Superb demo. I really, really doubt that the AI cheats in the way that some of you think it does. Sometimes the AI gets a lucky cascade, just like you do.

By: UncleSmoothie

UncleSmoothie — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 01:34:15 +0000

Good god I was hoping to get some work done tonight.

By: bansama

bansama — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 01:20:47 +0000

Hmm, seems odd that the PQ AI cheats more against the weaker, moanier players…

Well, I’m not going to agree with that seeing as I was fully capable of completing the game. But I will state that the AI in the DS version is definitely more challenging than that in the PC version. The developers apparently blamed that fact on the team handling the port…

By: mkreku

mkreku — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:29:28 +0000

Does anyone remember Nemesis the Warlock on the Commodore 64? In one screen you had to build a ‘ladder’ using the bodies of killed enemies.. and the bodies weren’t movable from the spot where they died so you really had to time your kills right. Now that’s a puzzle game!!

By: CdrJameson

CdrJameson — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:14:21 +0000

Played it!

Man, you’d better like that hex game, as you’re going to get half-a-dozen barely different flavours of it. Luckily it’s in the compelling zone, albeit only just.

That it doesn’t seem to matter if you lose just chips it back out again, though. You can lose a fight one time, and win easily on the retry using the same tactics. Too random to be satisfying.