I was sent a review code for Crimson Alliance yesterday and I spent the evening checking it out. This was actually the second time I played the game. The first time I saw it was down at Comic Con back in July. At the time I had never heard of the game and I walked away thoroughly impressed.
If you haven’t seen Crimson Alliance yet, it is a dungeon crawl that has you killing guys and picking up gold. It’s hard not to compare the game to Torchlight but it’s actually trying to do something different. Crimson Alliance ditches most of the “RPG” mechanics in favor of fast action. For example the mage class has no mana at all. They don’t want you to worry about having enough juice to cast a spell. You just run through the level casting fireballs and blinking around like a maniac.
Loot is handled in a similar way. You will occasionally find a big treasure chest with a picture of your class on it. Inside will be a hot new piece of loot just for you. Again I think the idea is to spend less time fiddling with gear and worrying about stats.
In addition, it’s got multi-player on the same box (Thank You!) as well as via Live. It may not have the depth of a game like Torchlight, but what it lacks in complexity it makes up for in raw fun. When it drops next week, I think you should give it a try.
-Gabe out
