Game Analysis - Combat: Fable's Balverines

I was recently thinking about Fable. Specifically about Fable's combat. I've played Fable I and III, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. The games do have their shortcomings, but overall they are entertaining and certainly worth a play. But back to my topic; I realized that the most fun I ever had in either Fable was fighting the Balverines.

Balverines are scary.

Balverines are essentially Fable's version of werewolves. They can turn other people into Balverines with a bite, so they're feared by the common people. They are also incredibly fast and can jump very high. They aren't very durable, though, given that they're so fast and do a lot of damage.

The reason I've always loved fighting Balverines was that they aren't as easy as Fable's other enemies. Most enemies rarely required you to use block to defeat them. Whereas Balverines require you to know how to block, or they will rip you a new one. Their fighting pattern is essentially fall down from the 'trees' and howl. They then circle you a little bit and jump in and try to hit you. If you don't block they will hit you four or five times then jump back and then up into the 'trees'. Then they'll probably howl and drop back down and repeat. They have some other behavior, but that is the most important part. If you fight them correctly, you feel like a badass, which is exactly what you're suppose to feel like while fighting. There is the right amount of blocking and countering and going Ohshitpleasedontripmyfaceoffnicedoggy. The pause after they finish their combo is also vital because if you miss a block you aren't auto-killed because you can't do anything. There is nothing more annoying than fighting an enemy who will continually disable you and eventually kill you while there isn't anything you can do about it. That's just bad combat design.

So there's my two cents about Balverines. If I have any more insights about games I'll post 'em...eventually.

League of Legends: Dominion - First Thoughts

In case you're a League of Legends player and you somehow are living under a rock, or didn't play League yesterday, you won't know that for the majority of yesterday we were able to play Dominion. It was an open beta, but still. Here are some of my first thoughts on Dominion.

Firstly, it's really fun. Dominion is essentially a king of the hill, but with multiple points. Territory KotH, if you will. As your team captures points and holds them the enemy team's nexus health goes down. It also goes down if you kill enemy champions, but not anywhere close to as quickly.

From what I saw, Riot hit the nail on the head with Dominion. It's tons of fun, and it's a lot faster paced that normal League. I think the average time I spent in a game was probably 17-20 minutes, but it didn't feel like that long at all. It's fast paced action almost all the time. You start out at level 3 with around 1,300 gold. You get 3 gold per second, instead of 1. Because of this, you buy items much faster, so the game is overall shorter. You also get gold for capturing or defending points.

If your team controls a point, it acts like a friendly turret, attacking enemy creeps and champions that come in range. But, if an enemy brings down your teams' control on the turret, it turns to neutral (all points start at neutral) and doesn't attack anyone. Then, if a team captures it again, it acts like a friendly turret to their team.