Crawl

A great game to play with your friends, though I have been having fun playing it on my own against the AI - you still have the joy of discovery, and of enjoying the great music, sound, graphics and voice acting. I haven't played this with other people but imagine it would be great fun in the same way that the Amiga game Moonstone is - though Crawl is more manic and continuous (in Moonstone a direct duel between players was a rare and tense affair). Crawl has lovely design, and I can't wait to have a few more gos. One small thing - I was playing on the keyboard, but the game still told me to press A at some points (even though the A key wasn't used, and it meant X). I don't think I could find a controls setting to redefine it either when I first loaded it, so that's the only reason I dropped a star. Controls and easy access to all the options for them are vital where you might be having up to four people using the same PC.

It's a fun game but a little repetitive. And the required processing power list is wrong. It's more like 2.3 ghz required not 1.6 for the minimum.

The amazing thing is how a game alternates between you being the human player and monsters. Whoever is human is constantly assailed by the other three players. When one of them lands a killing hit, the reward is to take over as human. You can only win when in human form. Also, when the human levels up, the monster players get xp to evolve their monsters, eventually getting really strong though ones. It's a dungeon crawler separated to different floors. On each floor there will be a shop with items that don't respawn (until next floor) and a portal to the final boss. These boss portals can only be activated from level 10 an up though. Basically you encounter monsters (other players) and gather money, xp etc. When you feel strong enough, give the boss a go. There are several different final bosses and which one you'll met is chosen on random each game. The player that first beats the boss wins and if five attempts are failed, no one wins. You can choose one of a number of gods to worship, granting you different bonuses and different monsters to play with when you are not the human. I think there are 11 gods in total and a few tweaks added. Lets say total 15 various options. And they play very differently. Not just stat differences like +2 str, -1 speed. Play it with a friend or two or three. Best multiplayer for a long time even though we were only two. Will try three soon. But its great with two players and AI or vs 3 AI.

This game is so interesting and unique in both concept and execution. It's extremely simple and intuitive to learn, since the controls are basically a joystick and two buttons. It feels like an older arcade game, but it looks beautiful and is extremely fun. The systems work to auto-balance the game, so more skilled players are never able to dominate well-coordinated opponents. Great game overall, and one of the classic party games in my lineup.

One of the best games to play in coop. Cheap, a nice art style, many ways you can play and up to 4 players. Love it.