Rimelands: Hammer of Thor [$4.99] is a new tactical turn-based RPG from developers Dicework and Crescent Moon Games (of Ravensword [$3.99/Lite] fame). We previewed a hands-on video of the game about a month ago that explained how the turn-based combat worked as well as showcasing some of the games many items and weapons. With Rimelands now available, we’ve been able to experience these first hand, and came away impressed with how well the different elements of the game come together. The dice-rolling combat mechanic gives it an old school pen-and-paper feel, while the dungeon crawling and loot collection offers plenty to discover in the game. Couple that with an interesting story and top-notch visuals, and Rimelands is one of the best RPG experiences you can have on the iPhone.
Humans have squandered the resources of the world, throwing off the balance of the ecosystem and turning their once beautiful lands into an uninhabitable frozen wasteland. They are forced to move into underground vaults for a thousand years, and when they finally emerge they find that a new race called the Fair Folk have taken over the dominant role above ground. Humans try to reclaim their territory, and war ensues. An uneasy peace is finally reached between the two sides, and they are able to precariously coexist together above ground. This leaves countless underground vaults filled with treasures of the last millennium, ready to be explored and exacted by you, treasure hunter Rose Cristo.
The story in Rimelands sets the stage perfectly for a dungeon crawling adventure. You’ll play the role of Rose as she travels to the many towns and vaults in Rimelands discovering treasures, completing quests, and evolving her character with the multitude of items and abilities available. The game is played from an isometric viewpoint and combat and movement are grid-based. This can take some getting used to as you’re only able to move in four directions rather than being able to move around the world freely. Coming within striking distance of an enemy allows you to engage in the turn-based combat which is a mixture of long-ranged and melee attacks. An interesting dice mechanic determines your offensive and defensive effectiveness, and playing Rimelands feels like an interactive board game where all of the dull pen-and-paper stuff has been automated for you.
An overhead map lets you travel to the towns and vaults that you discover during the game. Quests are obtained by talking with characters around the world much like your typical RPG. There is a main storyline to follow as well as many side quests to pick up and complete. The dungeons in Rimelands are full of dangerous enemies, as well as many unique treasures. Traversing these dungeons feels very Diablo-esque, as there are many rooms to explore and a ton of loot to obtain, although with strategic turn-based combat instead of the hack ‘n slash variety. Making your way through the dungeons is incredibly fun, and I found it hard to stop playing until I was sure I’d explored every nook and cranny of each in order not to miss any lucrative treasure chests.
One of the high points of Rimelands is the extensive variety of items and weapons in the game, as well as the various skill trees for your character. Defeating enemies earns you gold and experience points, and upon leveling up you can choose a new ability from one of three skill trees. Barbarian brings melee effects, Assassin boosts your ranged abilities, and Shaman covers magical abilities. There’s quite a bit of diversity with how you want to build your character, and good reason to play through the game multiple times focusing in different areas each time. An engineering dynamic is in the game as well, allowing you to build different weapons with blueprints that you find. It’s an interesting idea, but not totally necessary due to the many excellent weapons you’re bound to come across in the game anyway.
Graphically Rimelands is a beautiful game. The characters and enemies are fairly detailed, and their animations are excellent. The environments are also very attractive, with snowy terrain when you are in the above ground areas and dark dungeons with nice lighting effects when you go underground. The in-game graphics do have a slightly jagged look to them, but nothing overly detracting. Retina Display support is a possibility down the road, as is a native iPad version, although nothing has been finalized. Rimelands runs just fine in 2x mode on the iPad, and players in our forums are definitely enjoying the game this way. The story is told via static illustrations and text, and by in-game dialogue between characters as well. There isn’t any full motion video or animated cutscenes, but the story is engaging and the illustrated bits look great.
There are plenty of other nuances to Rimelands, and it really is a game with a grand scope. You can expect to get about 8-10 hours out of one playthrough, and there is good incentive to go through multiple times and try out different character builds. Plus, this should only be the first chapter in the Rimelands universe, as more content will be coming down the line via updates as well as planned sequels. Dicework and Crescent Moon have a winner on their hands here, and I’ll be looking forward to seeing more from this series. I don’t typically love turn-based strategy games, but Rimelands had me hooked almost instantly. It’s easy enough to get into whether you enjoy the strategic combat, loot collecting, character leveling, or just want to uncover the story in the unique steampunk universe. For fans of these elements, or any gamer in general, Rimelands: Hammer of Thor is a solid choice.
I look very much forward to playing this on my new iTouch 4G(in route) once its out. :P
Edit the title. It's "Gameloft", not "Gamloft".
Is it just me or have Gameloft gotten lazy with their interface designs? (Control stick, health bars, fire buttons, etc.) The original Hero of Sparta had a cool looking interface, but the sequel's looked like it was still a work in progress. And the interface in this game looks to be marginally worse than the original.
Boy after Citadel, it's all down hill...
My thought exactly.
Well...
1. We still haven't seen an actual game with the Epic engine.
2. These graphics nonetheless are quite improve from their predecessor.
So true! Am not going to buy any FPS till we get a game on the EPIC Unreal engine! Not that i did not enjoy Nova and Zombie infection... but the bar's been raised and I want a game to match!
Comeon guys Epic Citadel does not run on 3G! Gameloft makes games for as much devices as possible.
OMG! CANT WAIT! Its almost like modern warfare hehe.
that snowy map looks sickkkkkkkkkkkkkk
@ Wegmans
>Boy after Citadel, it's all down hill…
I totally agree. I wish all the new games would look like that.
And not only that, I have an iPhone 4 and an iPad. i don't want to buy the game twice again just to play it big in HD and to play it with the gyro on the iPhone.
Please start going universal Gameloft. For all I care make Universal and make them a buck more expensive.
Are you kidding? Gyro issent universal, dude.
Gyro not being universal doesnt stop them having it in the app an letting you use tha same app on the iPad...
Or did the updated NOVA stop working on all other devices? Right no it just didnt use the gyroscope features as a gyroscope wasnt present
I think it's pretty funny that they put in a snow level just to match with MW2.
i think they were just trying to go for a larger range of environments, not to match mw2 exactly. just because it has a snow level doesn't mean they got it from mw2. though i do agree, most of the ideas will come from it.
I know is famous for copying other well known games but Black Pegasus and COD Black ops i gotta say....gameloft start making your own games please
Why? Supply/demand. No one else is coming to the plate as often with serious idevice titles, however, derivative.
Well I'd rather have a company like gameloft who tries to make good games than nothing at all. It's just too bad that Activision doesn't do anything except for COD Zombies. They could easily make a downgraded version of Modern warfare and I'd be happy if the graphics are as good as zombies and controls works like Modern combat. I really hope epic games make GeOW on the iPhone 4 it would be crazy. At least multi.
Step up its multiplayer with at least 4v4, level up system with perks and what not and gamecenter support. This could be big.
You're not getting all that for 6.99. You want console-quality features, then go out and buy a 59.99 console game.
It would cost a fortune for all games to look like Epic Citadel. Then we would be paying a fortune to play them. "Epic Citadel" games are going to sell for 6.99 a piece. Anyone other than Epic will owe royalty fees on that Engine. They owe a percentage of their profits to Apple. And now they will owe another percentage to Epic. The price of games like that are likely to be jacked up, big time.
The Unreal SDK is free.
If you sellin', you be payin' Epic. Free for non-comercial use.
I'm meant to say these games won't sell for 6.99. They will cost more on average. Much more.
They need to make the hands look more realistic
I thought that too. They could've sacrificed a few more polygons to round things off a bit- especially as your hand and gun are the two things on your screen 99% of the time!
The snow screenshot looks really impressive.
eeerrrrmmmmmmmm...mixed feelings...man...epic citadel really turn things off...
@JediMaster
Epic Citadel is not a full game yet. You should be glad that you're getting a full game with these graphics, which are plenty good enough and far above the general App Store standard of 3D graphics.
Ermmmm...you can buy the modern combat game when is out...I can wait for games that build on unreal engine...or we can always play console games...its just matter of opinion & perspective...everyone knows epic citadel is not a full game...but it does put things off...from a consumer point of view...if I am not hard out on it...I'll just wait...I mean if you like it go ahead and buy it when its out...sheesh...
damn!! looks twice as fun than the orifinal!
and i bet that the online gameplay will be better, but hope that they improve to the ironsight of the wepons. Maybe including ACOG sight :P
Just a wish, but will be nice if they do it.
:)
Well...the graphics are an improvement over the original..but the thing i can wait for is multi player...i hope they have more maps this time
I don't want them to improve the sights. Overpowered sights are stupid & lame, especially when it comes to multiplayer. Scope-spamming only leads to excessive camping.
Too true, same goes for noob tubes.
Nice, it should come out before November since it said "this autumn" as I recall.. It would be nice if it comes out very soon like September.. I hope people won't pirate it since sandstorm was awesome, and still is great.
For all those waiting for unreal engine games it's probably going to take a while, for those saying the games will cost too much to develop and we'll be paying 60 dollars for games you honestly have no idea what you're talking about.
There used to be a competition called make something unreal , in which modders had to make the best games they could and in return they would receive a free licence for the engine , small teams of half a dozen people used to knock outer high quality FPS games like Red Orchestra, certainly better than anything on iPhone thus far.
There is no reason why prices will shoot up, becuase the licence is percentage based, so they only pay for what they sell, and if prices went up too far no-one would buy it, it's better to sell lots for a smaller profit than it is to sell none of a larger profit.
Games using engines like the unreal engine will be easier to make than games starting from scratch, it was built with modding in mind.
Hmm…
I am the only one who thinks it looks really good? The draw distance has improved and the characters seem a hell of a lot cleaner.
Should be fun (if they get rid of the three-legged unicorn writing the script, that is).
Just wondering after seeing all the epic citadel comments, is that the main focus of ios game now too? Graphics? You can only play the game with the most impressing graphics?
Have people forgot hwo to play a game because it is just simply fun? It's not like you can say this looks bad...
Well, it depends. It's always a sum of gameplay and technology. You see, FPS have not evolved very much in gameplay, so the graphics have an important role in selling. I did not buy the first Modern Combat because, compared to NOVA, the graphics were shit. This one is interesting, looking forward to it.
I really feel sorry for most of you guys here. You don't enjoy games anymore like Leonick says. You guys simply don't enjoy games. You wait until you get "best graphics than X console" or "X game" and you end up just waiting to be the coolest kid in the block with the coolest device on your backpack with the coolest graphics on the market.
To developers: this public is a waste of time if you ask me. They will NEVER be complete as gamers. Sony may come up with a portable PS3 or some virtual thing you have to stick in your forehead to see the world around you melt and become a game and they wil still go "nahh... I will wait until it's half the price" or "I suggest holding off until X feature comes out" or "I think Epic Citadel 5 looks better, so I will be holding off".
Really boring players compared with the Sega/Nintendo era. People who don't even enjoy a game for god's sake.
You get a great game and all you can talk off is if it looks better than some tech dome some company made? do you really enjoy the game or just the graphics? because it may be a better business model to just come up with tech demos so "gammers" can sit around and drawl on the "possibilities" for 0,99.
Shame and a really waste of capacity.
You know, fun is too personal to argue over it.
OMG A KNIFE!!!!! A KNIFE!!!! IS THERE GONNA BE A THROWING KNIFE??
awsome! they said that you can customise your wepons with accesories! i'm looking for new sights... will be thebest thing that they can do to improve the precision of the shooting (sometimes is hard to aim to your enemies online)
Please, no sniper sights. The iDevices MP games were sooooo fun without fucking campers...
wow looking great!! I am very much interested in the games from GameLoft and this one not a different case. My iPhone is now rich with pretty awesome shooting games like The Expendables Game, Resident Evil etc. My favorite is Expendables in which i can feel the maximum feel of a real action game right on the screen:-))