Legend of Grimrock harkens back to my early days of Might and Magic games, which likely puts me a little younger than a lot of you old gog'ers :) Nevertheless, Almost Human nails the vibe with creepy dungeons, tough monsters, and some gnarly puzzles. While holding true to some of the amazing elements of the old school fantasy action adventure games, the developers have updated it not only with some snazzy graphics, but real-time combat. There are both advantages and drawbacks to this real-time system. Against single enemies it is relatively easy to exploit the grid system and essentially dance around them as they try to orient themselves to attack. However, once there are multiple enemies (in addition to more complex abilities at their disposal, i.e. a gaseous attack that lingers in the area for a few rounds) each battle quickly becomes a fight for your life. The puzzles start out pretty simple with many hidden switches, pressure plates, and pitfalls, but quickly ramp up in complexity. Unfortunately, however, while complexity does increase, the types of puzzles remain relatively similar. Adding in some fantastic itemization, surprisingly deep character customization (for what it is) and the eventual possibility of user created and randomized dungeons, this game could easily get a long shelf life for many of us old-school gamers.
