- with earned skill points assigned,
and reassigned, as you wish.
Basic abilities, like Elessa’s bow
attack or Vollen’s sword stab, restore
energy; while the more powerful
advanced attacks use up energy, so it
becomes a balancing act in the harder
boss levels to retain enough energy
for the attacks that really count. The
various powers are great fun to use,
too. We love the mage’s fireballs,
which can be bounced around
dungeon corridors with the last one
remote-controlled with the left stick.
Each character also has an
Archetype ability. For Bragi the dwarf,
it’s his Chained Axe, a Mortal Kombat^
Scorpion-style chain with an axe on
the end. Tilt the right stick to throw
it, and you’ll launch yourself in that
direction: handy for pulling yourself
out of trouble, or getting into it
quicker. For Elessa the archer, it’s a
deft roll out of the way.
Rather than have to collect and
save up health potions, you have a
magical refilling potion mapped to LB,
which has a cooldown each time it’s
used. There’s also a ‘rage’ meter with
an ultimate mapped to RT called Blood
Lust, acquired by collecting blood orbs
dropped by bigger enemies.
Of course there’s a lot of looting
too. As per Diablo, enemies drop their
trousers all the time – and hats, and
staffs, gloves, swords etc – and, of
course, unlocking chests will also yield
goodies. Constantly changing clothes
becomes a slightly arduous necessity,
as you up your armour values by tiny
increments with gear that’s classified
from common to legendary. Breaking
barrels gives up gold coins, enemies
drop three types of fragments, and
these various currencies can be used
to unlock skills on the God Skill Tree,
which gradually buff your character’s
stats and give you powerful God Skills.
Co-operatively is where a
hack’n’slash game like Chaosbane
really shines, and while at the time
of writing, slightly pre-full release,the online is a little sketchy, we can
confirm local co-op is ace.
Yes, Chaosbane is a Diablo clone.
We know it, publisher Big Ben knows
it, and you’ll recognise it. But we love
Diablo, and every isometric action-RPG
dungeon crawler it inspired, or was
inspired by. From the Gauntlet games,
via the benchmark-setting Diablo III,
to the tragically short-lived Marvel
Heroes Omega, to Path Of Exile. So
if the worst thing we can say about
Chaosbane is that it’s a lot like Diablo,
that’s really not a bad thing. ■chaos crew
aswarhammer’s
establishedbestiary
is extensiveto saythe
least,eko Software
had a lot of monsters
to choosefromwhen
it cameto creating
thegame’schaos
hordes.among the 70
or so types of monster
you’llencounterare
theshocking-pink
horrorsoftzeentch,
thatmultiplywhen
theydie;chaos
Spawn,whichexplode
whentheydie;and
nurglings, tiny
demons that swarm
andpileupontopof
oneanotherand
spin-attackyou.the
artistswereasfaithful
aspossibleto the
warhammer bestiary,
as based on the
game’s figurines.“At any iven
time the ame
throws a lot
of enemies at
you at once”
abovevollen is
the stylishone
of the bunch.
look at that
plumedhat!
lefTif
videogames has
taught us
anything it’s
that fire gets
the job done.oXMverDiCt
a Diablo clone that
still has plenty of
its own character,
and is great in
couch co-op.8
far lefTa rare
moment in a
dungeon when our
screen wasn’t
crammed full of
enemies.More Xbox news at gamesradar.com/oxm the officialxBox magazine 079