Indie Alley is all about the indie game scene, where games are made based on their merit and less on their marketing.
This week’s Indie Alley takes us to the fantasy land of Azgoth in the game Masters of Belial. It can be purchased from the Xbox Live Indie Games for 400 points ($5). In the game creator’s own words:
Masters of Belial is an arena type action RPG that takes place in the ancient fantasy world of Azgoth. The game features three maps, twelve heroes, over sixty spells and a two player cooperative mode on same screen. Players select a hero of their desire and slowly build up in power in their quest for power and domination. Each map is carefully designed to offer a mixture of strategic hero combat along with good old monster hunting.
When you start the game out, you are a ghost with the option of choosing the hero you’d like to play as. If you were too cheap to buy the game and only downloaded the trial, you only get to play as the Angel of Death. That may sound cool, but actually purchasing the game gives you some more choices, including Phantom Assassin, Knight, Sadist Demon, and my hero of choice for the first time around, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Yeah, Horsemen beats Angel of Death any day of the week.
Upon getting into the game, I immediately felt nostalgic for Diablo. I wasn’t a huge fan of the Diablo games themselves, but the controls seemed similar in Masters of Belial. The basic idea for each map is that you’re given a quest to accomplish. You advance through the game by sending your character and accompanying AI out into the map to fight enemies to gain experience and gold, and eventually accomplish the quest. As you gain experience, you add to your skills in fairly standard RPG form, and you can purchase items to help you along the way.
The game seemed really simple, but I was actually quite surprised at the amount of strategy I actually needed to play. It wasn’t just about dungeon rushing. I needed to know when to run in and fight and when to flee with my lunch money and what little dignity I had left.
I have to say this: I cover a lot of indie games, and many times, “indie” is synonymous with “unpolished.” The graphics, the game play, and heck, even the music of Masters of Belial has that feeling of a “big publisher” game. I thoroughly enjoyed playing it. I’d give it 5 stars for its attention to detail, its playability, and its awesome indie game price.
Why are you still reading? Go get the game. Get it now. Go. Seriously, go.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Good to know! The comparison to Diablo seems adequate, because while there are things to love and hate about the game (or other games with a similar style), sometimes playing something with a familiar feeling is just *nice*. And a big-publisher feel? That’s always a find when an Indie game goes beyond expectations. Going to keep this in mind for the next round of Indie shopping.
You should check out Dota for warcraft 3. That’s what this game is based on. Or League of Legends is a good free alternative.