Hoard and Tetris

If you're actually following what I type about, you'll remember that I downloaded demos for both Hoard and Tetris a while back. I finally got around to playing them and I'm all set to post my thoughts. Tetris is up first.

Tetris is, well, Tetris. There's really not a lot to say. Tetris is the king of puzzle games for a reason. The gameplay is very simple, yet it can get really complex. You drop down blocks of different shapes in hopes of creating an entire row. Once the row in complete is disappears, the line then vanishes and you score points. No other puzzle game as knocked Tetris off of it's throne. Sure some people will claim that a different game deserves the title and maybe they'll place Tetris at second or third place. But Tetris will always be on someone else's list and the rest of the list will change drastically from person to person. Tetris is just that well known. Heck, Tetris is what the original Gameboy launched with. It truly defined portable gaming as the "easy to pick up, easy to put down" system. So Tetris is on my list to uprade to full product at some point. In the meantime you should watch this.

So next up is Hoard. You play a dragon and your goal is to burn down surrounding villages to collect gold. The dragon with the most gold wins. Simply put: Hoard is good. There's no other way to really put it. It's not great, but it's good. It has that easy to pick up and easy to put down feel going for it. Hoard is really meant to be played in short sessions since it plays more like a puzzle game then an adventure game, action game, or RPG. Your dragon can level up in various categories, but it's always the race against the clock and your opponents. Plus your dragon's levels will reset with every map.

The more gold your dragon collects and the longer he stays alive will give you multiplier bonuses and these are keys to success. It's worth it to go out of your way to kill your opponent from time to time just to keep their multiplier down. Plus the game is designed for some good ol' fashioned griefing. This is another game that I would easily purchase and add to my collection. Well, maybe if it goes on sale or something.

But Hoard always feels like it's missing something. I really think it's the dragons and their abilities. All the dragons feel the same and when you level them up their attacks and actions don't really change. Sure you can breathe fire for longer, but why can't I shoot a meteor or something. Just a little something that could add to the variety. There's definitely some untapped potential in here. Which is a shame since Hoard could easily have been great, instead of just good.