Beta Impressions: Mythos

Flagship Studios’ second project after Hellgate: London is Mythos, a three-quarter view action-RPG much akin to the original hack-and-slasher DiabloDiablo reviews. I recently had the chance to spend a few weeks with the game, and came away with somewhat mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I played Diablo and all of its direct offspring for more hours than I care to admit to in the presence of polite company. There’s something very gratifying about slaughtering hordes of undead, goblinoids, demons, and all manner of other creatures in the eternal quest for shinier shinies. On the other, no other game in the genre has managed to captivate me like the Diablo games did. Not Dungeon Siege, not Titan QuestTitan Quest reviews, not any of the other action RPGs that take the Diablo formula and transpose it to a different setting.

Given all this, I realised from the beginning that Mythos has a huge Damocles Sword hanging over its head. It is made by some of the same people that made Diablo back in the day, and that is very noticeable. A lot of elements can only be described as direct transpositions. Despite the heritage and the similarities, however, it isn’t Diablo. Not by far.

A little background, in case you haven’t been fervently following the development of the game: Mythos was originally intended as a prototype of the network code which was going to be used for Hellgate: London. As such, the game is very solid, even for a beta build. I didn’t encounter any technical problems connecting to the server, lag was minimal, and what few tech-related issues I had with the game are most certainly due to my rig’s long history of video card malfunctions. There is very little I could find at fault on the technical side of things, if anything at all. But I get ahead of myself.

After installing the client and logging in, I was greeted with the character creation screen, a minimalistic, efficient affair, vaguely reminiscent of the King Kong of the current era of online entertainment. Nevertheless, I’m not one to fault a car manufacturer for using round wheels. If it works, it works.

Fidgeting around with the various options for character creation, I discovered four races and three classes. The races are Cyclops, Satyr, Gremlins, and Humans. Other than the Gremlins – which are not of the scaly, green skinned variety with a penchant for wanton mayhem, but rather seem to be offshoots of the halfling/hobbit evolutionary chain – the races are pretty much self-explanatory. Cyclopses are large, one eyed brutes, Satyr are willowy and have horns, like the Elves in the latest Magic: The Gathering block sets, and humans are basic Homo Sapiens. The choice of race doesn’t affect what classes are available – this is strictly ARAC territory, and it seems wise, with three classes to choose from – and neither does it affect your character’s starting stats, other than to grant a 20% damage bonus to damage inflicted to one of the basic enemy types.

Pages: 1 2 3 4