Since I’ve been on an action RPG kick since Diablo III came out last year, I decided to check out Path of Exile, which is currently in open beta. It is a free-to-play game, which plans to sustain itself through cosmetic microtransactions and, as I quickly found out, through the goodwill of the extremely hardcore ARPG playerbase. This is the game the die hard Diablo II folks probably had in mind. Seriously, if you ever wanted to play a game while simultaneously talking about how much you hated Diablo III, Path of Exile is for you.

So what does this game have to offer? The combat feels pretty good, although it definitely is catered toward ranged characters, at least that was my experience with the few heroes I created. Your class choice doesn’t really matter too much, since all characters share the same, massive skill tree. Seriously, look at this stupid thing. The only difference between character classes is where you start on the tree, so, for example, the ranger starts near a cluster of dexterity and ranged DPS nodes. It’s a hell of a thing, although it comes with a major caveat: it is extremely difficult to respec your character. Currently, the only in-game way to change your build is to remove on node at a time, and you only get a few of points that let you do this through gameplay. Basically, you can tweak, but not totally redo, your character. So plan ahead, and hope that by the time you get to higher levels your build works. If it doesn’t, make a new character. You have a lot of character slots in Path of Exile, they want you to use them (and spend money to buy more).

You might have noticed that the skill tree is entirely passive bonuses. That’s because all skills in Path of Exile come in the form of socketable gems. It’s a pretty neat idea, made even cooler by the ability to link gems together using modifiers called support gems. For example, if I have a fireball skill gem and a multiple projectiles support gem, I can link them together on a piece of my equipment so when I cast the spell, I shoot multiple fireballs. Later in the game, you can chain up to five support gems on on skill gem, making whatever spell that is totally ridiculous. It’s a pretty awesome system that makes hunting for loot that much more exciting, although without any form of trading system currently implemented in-game, it can be pretty frustrating if you’re looking for a particular gem.

Speaking of the economy, Path of Exile doesn’t actually have money in it. Instead, the game works on a barter system. Merchants will sell you gear, but only if you are will to trade consumables, the rarer the purchase, the rarer the consumable. Of course, the reverse is true as well, and bartering actually serves as the game’s version of crafting too, as you can change what you’ll get by combing certain items in a single sale. These consumables are quite useful, from items that let you identify and portal, to ones that let you change the number of sockets on an item or even upgrade its quality. ARPGs are all about the loot, and the feels as true as ever in Path of Exile.

Like I said, Path of Exile is for the hardcore. It’s hardcore mode is actually somewhat forgiving, in that when you die, instead of your character being deleted, it is just demoted to the normal mode. But hardcore is where the action is at, unless a race is going on. Races are special leagues in which players rush toward certain goals for sweet, sweet rewards. It’s just another neat idea in a game full of them.

I still think Torchlight II is the best ARPG on the market, and that Diablo III is way better than people give it credit for. But those cost money. Path of Exile doesn’t, and it certainly hangs up there with those other two. And it’s not even done yet, it’s still just in open beta. What a cool time it is, that so many exciting games are out now in a genre that was basically dead not too long ago.

Nintendo Land

I had this really great plan. After receiving a nice chunk of (Amazon credit) change for mine and Jesus’ birthdays, I was going to save it all. I would use it responsibly over the course of 2013, splurging on choice Blu Rays and video games when I really wanted them, acting like an adult. Then around the end of January I thought to myself, “You know what I miss? Christmas.” So I decided, since the money was in place of gifts anyway, I would just waste it all on one big, dumb purchase. There were a few candidates, but ultimately I went with perhaps the most foolish of all, a Nintendo Wii U.

The Wii U has not had the best launch. Since it came out a couple months ago, there has been little actual buzz about the system. Part of this must have to do with the public’s confusion around the device – many do not even realize it is a new console and not just another Wii add-on. Part of it probably has to do with the lack of new games for the system – so far it’s been a lot of ports, a New Super Mario Bros. game, and ZombiU, a zombie game that’s supposedly all right but it’s zombies who cares anymore. And then there’s Nintendo Land, the game that’s thrown in for free with the deluxe version of the Wii U. Would be worth buying on its own? Can it possibly stand up against the juggernaut that was Wii Sports?

Like Wii Sports, Nintendo Land is a minigame collection designed to show off why this new system is cool. Unlike with the Wii, however, the Wii U experience is not nearly as inherently exciting. The newness just isn’t quite there, since it’s hard to shake the impression that the Wii U is really just Nintendo taking its two previous successes, the DS and the Wii, and putting them in one box. I’ve been drawing on one screen and pointing at stuff with a silly peripheral for a while now. That said, it’s still fun to finally see Nintendo stuff in HD, and there’s enough to Nintendo Land that I can at least be excited to see what Nintendo does with the console in the future.

So you show up as your Mii to the big circular amusement park. You’re greeted by this living television called Monita (Japanese for monitor) who tells you to go play in the 12 attractions the park has, because it’s fun and you can get coins to waist in pachinko. The attractions are Nintendo Land‘s minigames, which are all based on Nintendo franchises, a hook I really appreciated. Sure, archery would probably be fun on its own, but it’s a lot more fun when you’re going through Hyrule dressed as Link shooting moblins.

The games showcase all the different ways the Wii U gamepad can be used. For example, that Zelda minigame has you aiming and shooting entirely on the gamepad’s screen, the Pikmin one has you ordering troops with the stylus, and the Nazo no Murasame Jo one lets you flick shuriken off the gamepad onto the TV screen. I found novelty and some level of enjoyment in all of the attractions, even though the idea of sitting in front of my TV and then holding the gamepad in front of my face took a while to settle in.

Multiplayer reveals the eery vision of the future Nintendo has for the console. That’s maybe a little harsh, most of the cooperative stuff is fun, as the gamepad player performs one set of tasks while the (up to four) players with Wii remotes use the TV. But the competitive stuff all felt pretty weak. It all came down to the remote players chasing the gamepad player around, or vice versa, with the twist being the gamepad player usually having more information. It’s not terrible, but it’s not very exciting either, and I expect Nintendo consoles to be the best for offline multiplayer fun.

Nintendo Land is not going to move consoles like Wii Sports did, but it is a nice showcase for the brave, foolish people who actually bought the system. The Wii U is reportedly not much more powerful than a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, and Sony and Microsoft are probably going to release new consoles by the end of this year. Nintendo has a very short amount of time to turn this thing into a hit and get some third party developers making interesting games for it. If they don’t, expect it to quickly turn into what the Wii turned out to be, a Nintendo-game-playing dust collector.

DmC: Devil May Cry

I have played most of the Devil May Cry franchise. I skipped the second one, because all the people who played it said it was bad, but otherwise I’ve loyally followed the series. I also like developer Ninja Theory, based solely off the terrific Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. So to me, them bringing the franchise back always sounded like a great idea. But for a lot of people, specifically hardcore fans of the franchise, this couldn’t seem worse.

Let us begin with that title. Capcom and Ninja Theory could have called this game simply DmC, to show that while this is still the same franchise, things are going to be different. Although that still doesn’t explain the lowercase M. Or they could have called it Devil May Cry, because it is the norm to call reboots by the name of the franchise. But they went with both, which I cannot explain, and is dumb. Especially because the association with previous Devil May Cry games seems to be the thing most hurting this game.

What we have here is a new Dante. He’s young, has black hair (for now), and kind of acts like a dick. He is still the son of Sparda, a demon, and Eva, who is now an angel instead of a human. He still has a brother named Vergil. He still has a sword called Rebellion and a pair of handguns called Ebony and Ivory. But this is not the Dante of old, who was perpetually spouting one-liners and getting impaled all the time. This is most certainly a new character, and if you can’t get passed that, well, you’re screwed. At least the story still begins when a new, human woman comes into Dante’s life.

The story of DmC is a bit of a liberal fantasy as Dante fights to free humanity from the forces of demonkind who keep mankind oppressed. How do they do that? With energy drinks, cable news and big business, of course. Dante spends most of the game in Limbo, where he can see the true nature of the world, such as the energy drink factory being basically like how Slurm was made in that episode of Futurama, except with a giant, gross demon. There are They Live-esque messages hidden everywhere, which are used somewhat humorously, like when they say “Fuck You Dante.” One memorable boss fight is with a character I believe named Shmill O’Shmeilly.

Fighting feels pretty good. Gone are the variable fighting styles of old, but in is the ability to use a lot of weapons at the same time. By pressing the shoulder buttons, you can change Dante’s sword and guns into angel or demon weapons, meaning you always have four weapons equipped at a time. That alone gives you pretty huge combo potential, which grows even bigger when you factor in the ability to change your equipped weapons on-the-fly using the D-Pad. On normal difficulty this is a pretty easy game, but I still thought it did a great job living up to the stylish action combat spirit of its predecessors.

But some people don’t feel that way. They have a particular vision for the franchise and hate that it’s changed. And that’s fair, I get it. Ninja Theory does not make the best case for their version of these characters, as a lot of the writing is borderline cringe-worthy. But the performances are strong, the combat is fun, and the platforming, a usual weak point of the series, is actually pretty good. I had fun with this game, which was more than I expected, and the reality is, there probably wouldn’t be a Devil May Cry series anymore without it.