Gadgets and Hacks: DemiGod

I was in Target off Steve Reynolds Blvd and I chanced upon a new game titled DemiGod. The artwork on the box was stunning- making it look like a combination of Shadow of the Colossus with a RTS. I decided to wait and do a little research when I had access to a PC.

There are some previews of the game, but no real reviews. It appears that this game is not due for release until April 14th and some stock clerk at Target ignored the ‘do not display until 4/14/09’ on the package and put it on the shelf.

I went to my local target (2 miles away) to see if it may have been a corporate mistake by putting the game out early; no such luck.

I fought an internal battle for a few minutes and eventually made the 25 mile trek out to the Target by Steve Reynolds Blvd.

No- I do not suffer from OCD

</sarcasm>

The EULA allows install on one PC and one laptop and a copy of the disk may be made for archival purposes; looks like the only copy protection on this game is the unique CD key included on the back of the manual. (Protection iD v0.6.2.3 confirms this).

I installed the game and played single player mode for a few hours and it did not prompt me for the key- I assume this is only needed for online play. The game is more like a combination of Warcraft III and Unreal Tournament; capture the flag, destroy the enemy base, hold the gold portals to get gold to buy armor/health potions/etc.

The premise is that you are a demigod aspiring to become a God. To do this, you must battle the other demigods; conveniently set as 3x3, 4x4 or 5x5 players in a forces of light vs. forces of dark scenario. The player picks a demigod from a roster of eight characters- four ‘assassins’ and four ‘generals’. The assassins are more powerful single characters that must do all the fighting/destroying by themselves. The generals can summon and command minions to do their bidding. Both groups can purchase get armor and consumables via gold. As they level, they can expand their skill tree to get new abilities/spells.

The game is played on a series of battlegrounds (maps) that have towers (flags) spaced through out. Some towers are next to resources- gold mines, reinforcement portals, arcane shop, etc. These can be captured by standing on the tower for a few seconds; a status bar appears showing the ownership (forces of good/dark) and it swings to neutral and then to your team. Owning towers give resources to the team; in single player the other three members of your team are computer driven; online this would be other game players.

Single player has a ‘skirmish’ and a ‘tournament’ mode- the later being a chain of battles to achieve God-hood. As you battle through the levels, you gain experience for levels and gold for armor/consumables- so at the end of the stage you can be fairly powerful; this is all reset to 0 on the next stage of the tournament. You retain ‘favor’ points and the single item that is purchased with them but you start over from the beginning on each level (not my idea of fun).

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There are eight maps included with the game; I assume this leaves the option for player created maps:

The graphics are very good and the scenes are beautiful (sometimes it is fun to just run around and look at the details of the maps). In battles where several generals and multiple minions are locked in battle it can get very hard to see exactly what is happening.