Monkey-Shines

I recently started trying to finish up Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords (CotW) in anticipation of the release of Puzzle Quest: Galactrix.  I’ve been looking forward to Galactrix (Galactrix) since they announced it, but now I’m not so sure it’s as highly anticipated as it was.  In finishing up CotW, I remembered why I stopped playing in the first place.  The fact that upper level characters always seemed to get exactly what they needed, long cascades , and extra turns.

It seems that in creating a difficulty curve for CotW, Infinite Interactive decided to give the computer the advantage by allowing it to influence the outcome of the AI moves.  In essence, the computer cheats.  Instead of giving higher level NPC’s enhanced stats to compensate for the player improving, they allow the game to cheat.  All but the final boss do the same amount of damage as the first rat you encounter.  The final boss however has the benefit of improved stats, much higher hit points, AND it still cheats.

This has some battles coming down to luck, and leaves the player feeling frustrated when the computer gets turn after turn of good moves and then they are left with turns that don’t give them anything they can actually use.

I’m disappointed that more time wasn’t spent in designing the NPC’s so that cheating isn’t necessary.  I’ve heard that the PC version of Galactrix suffers from the same problems although the game has been designed to alleviate it a bit.  It doesn’t remove the cheating but allows the players more tools to combat it.  That’s not much better, and now I’m not sure if I want to give my money to a company that feels it is okay to cheat the customer.