Hammerwatch

The game with a heart of gold and a severe fun deficit.

Oh boy, it's Sly's first negative review that isn't a joke game.  It's also an indie title.  It's about to get controversial up in here.  Except not really because most people seem to correctly think it's mediocre.

Hammerwatch plays much like Gauntlet, only better in some ways and worse in all of them.  You play as one of four classes, all of which are terrible except the warlock.  I really don't know why you'd pick anyone but the warlock.  Each class has a basic attack and a special move that takes MP.  You unlock more abilities as the game progresses, assuming you have the patience to get that far which I only marginally did.  The warlock starts with a poison dagger which does AoE damage whenever you poison an enemy and a lightning ball thing that chain lightnings around wherever it detonates.  Compare that to the paladin whose basic attack is the same but lacking the AoE and his special is a charge that is only really useful for escapes.  Be the warlock.

See, the problem with Hammerwatch is that it was designed for four people to play at a time.  Unlike Gauntlet, single player mode is not at all balanced and ends up being a slog as you cautiously progress through the game avoiding ever taking damage.  You do not regenerate health and you have finite lives.  Once you lose all your lives, the game is over.  And yes, I mean over.  The only way to heal yourself is to collect healing items that drop from destructibles such as crates and barrels and the occasional enemy.  This makes the game virtually impossible for the paladin because about five minutes into the game you encounter enemies that have a ranged attack that both poisons and slows you.  Oh, and they come in giant groups.  And they have a refire rate of about two seconds.  I don't know what the hell they were thinking with that.

The paladin squares off against some vermin.

Luckily killing enemies is absolutely pointless as they only rarely drop anything and they give no experience as far as I could tell.  I cleared out the first two levels and had nothing to show for it but one less life, so it seems the best way to proceed is to just ignore enemies if you can.  Fun, right?  Again like in Gauntlet the way to proceed is by collecting keys scattered around the level which open...walls.  You know what, just assume everything that applies to Gauntlet applies here, including enemy spawners. 

What's unique to this game, compared to Gauntlet anyway, is that there are shops all over the place.  This game dumps gold coins absolutely everywhere, which is good because everything costs way too much.  100% clearing the first floor will allow you to unlock combos with a bit of change left over.  It's all a bit unsatisfying.  When a room full of gold coins gets you 10% of the way toward a very slight upgrade you kind of stop caring about gold.  And since there's no experience you don't care about killing things either.  Or doing anything really.  I don't really know what the point of doing anything except sprinting to the next level is.

I can praise a couple aspects of the game.  It's mighty fun annihilating enormous groups of enemies with a chain lightning or...fire hands.  Even if it doesn't actually accomplish anything, it's still satisfying to do, like doing one of those 80s movie sweeps across a piano.  It also comes with an extremely rosy-cheeked and robust level editor if you're into that.  Finally, playing multiplayer turns the game from a stupidly slow dungeon crawl - and I do mean crawl - to four people steamrolling everything in sight, which is fun in its own way.

Torching large groups has its charms.

I want to like this game.  Not just because I spent (a very small amount of) money on it, but because I like Gauntlet and Diablo and all the other games this game kind of blends together.  But really, if you take Diablo and remove levels, equipment, and useful currency, what are you left with?  Not a lot is what.  What they could have done is to make this game more like Gauntlet by making levels shorter, enemies less threatening, and...uh...there you go I guess.  The game is now Gauntlet but with a better engine and more varied gameplay.  Wouldn't that be grand?   Well too bad because instead you're getting The Play Multiplayer Or Die Game, and even then it's just like ehhhhh. 

Current Price: $10
Verdict: NO SALE

And that about sums it up.  This game is ehhhh.  If I had to choose between Awesome Possum and this I would pick this because it doesn't actually make my life worse while I'm playing it.  It just doesn't make it better either.  I paid about $3.50 due to the sale and, well, I got a good couple hours out of it until I gave up on the notion of it ever being enjoyable, so I guess I'd say it was worth that price.  If you really want to play Gauntlet 2013, buy it on sale or get a four pack and some friends.  If you're looking for a unique and engaging Action RPG with rewarding gameplay, buy it never.  Get Diablo instead.  Or hell, just play Path Of Exile for free.  There's your free plug, Grinding Gear.  You're welcome.