The Cursed: Unfair Trappers

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The next fight is really unfair, as it is against a band of thieves who have booby-trapped the arena. They cleverly stay at range with bows which makes them troublesome to deal with too.

Bows are really strong in Baldur's Gate.

It takes all manner of wands to win this fight, including some monster summoning ones just to serve as meat shields. On the plus side, the next two "difficult" battles are not really harder, since it's just a portal summoning Ogre Mage (killing the mob summoning portals first) and a band of well armed Thayan adventurers afterwards.

This completes another "tier" which both delights and frustrates Baeloth, who orders Najim to conjure up a 40,000 gold coin reward. Again, this is spent rather quickly on the even better magical gear now available at the shops.

Insight: I struggled severely with that thief fight, until I found you could replay any previous fight and get the EXP and minor gold reward. I basically farmed the ankheg battle until the party was ready both in level and gear.

The Cursed: Hold the Wands

[Part of the Cursed story line]

After the necromancer is a difficult fight against an ogre mage and his ogre buddies. Catharina's wands of fear and fireball win the round for the team here, and back at the cells she discovers Ghorlak the beholder, trapped by Baeloth's antimagic field, who takes an interest in becoming the teams "coach" for upcoming fights.

Baeloth fields a proper adventuring party in the next round, but being human they are all susceptible to Elisabeth's hold person spell which makes them easy pickings and moves the gladiators up to the next "tier".

Their reward is 25,000 gold which is quickly spent on the new magic items now available from the stores. Party Girl is the MVP in the next two fights with her magic bow, taking down the majority of the rabid ankhegs that burrow into the arena and a spider summoning druid. Catharina still has to fireball (wand) said spiders into ash though.

Area of effect is handy after you get used to the radius!

Insight: Wands are plentiful, cast pretty fast, and don't get interrupted by taking hits (I think). Because of this its almost always better to use a wand of fireball (or any wand spell) than memorizing and casting the spell yourself.

The Cursed: On the Tabletop

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Party Girl makes the mistake of insulting Baeloth after their previous victory so he places a geas on her to dance seductively on the merchant tables outside combat.

Insight: This is actually a bug where your party members can get stuck in furniture - while you can work through it in the Black Pits, having it happen in the main game of Baldur's gate requires a reload so have multiple saves just in case!

The next round the team faces a hobgoblin horde, and because they didn't notice one of them was a mage early - they take severe damage from casted lightning bolts bouncing around the arena. Fortunately Lu Lingqi still wins that round for them with her berserk rage.

Stinky hobgoblin mage!

They don't make the same mistake in the following round against a skeleton summoning necromancer, burning down the necro which shatters all his summons.

The Cursed: The Bloodsport Begins

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Gifted with 2,500g conjured by Najim the genie on Baeloth's instructions - the team got to know each other and their new accommodations. A small set of cells leading to a merchant hub where they could purchase pretty much anything.

The one room market is suprisingly well stocked.

 

The merchants were mostly slaves to Baeloth too - even Najim who the drow had somehow put a geas on. Indeed only one cruel Rakshasa was there by choice as he quite enjoyed the bloodsport.

Soon it was time to fight again - this time against diseased gibberlings, then healthy gibberlings (Baeloth has a sense of humor), followed by a random group of people abducted from a tavern. Needless to say, these were all easy fights.

Insight: It's often prudent to take down the "support" enemies first (mages, clerics, and archers). You want to remove anything with low HP or that adds HP to your enemies ASAP.

The Cursed: Baeloth's Welcome

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Sir Erland came to in a strange, circular arena of the Black Pits with the most basic of weapons available to him. With him were five women, equally equipped, who looked like they had been through hell. Little did he know that Party Girl, Yuria of Londor, Lu Lingqi, Elizabeth and Catharina were veteran survivors of the Darkest Dungeon.

Before any introductions could be made, a swarm of tasloi portalled into the opposite end of the arena and attacked with crude spears but they were easily cut down by the six disoriented but very competent gladiators.

"Congratulations," came the booming voice of a genie who appeared before them. "You have passed the qualification round. Meet your new master..."

Equal parts cool and scary...

"Hello!" came a shrill, campy voice from behind the menacing djinn. It was a drow mage with a large grin. "I am Baeloth the entertainer, and you are my new toys! I'm sure the crowd is going to loooove you. Come, let us show you around. You need to eat, sleep and prepare for the games ahead! This is going to be fun!"

Insight: In Baldur's Gate, tasloi always appear in numbers but they are just experience fodder for the party and rate low on the threat scale.

Assassins Creed Chronicles: China

Platforming like the Prince of Persia!

Shao Jun, a disciple of Ezio Auditore, is out for revenge as the Templars have slaughtered almost all her other Assassin comrades. This is the first in the series that is a platformer and it pulls it off rather well.

Guards have viewing cones to help you hide.

Apart from extra equipment there are also animus fragments for those that like to explore but that is risky business as Jun is much more fragile than the other protagonists in the series. Not only do the bad guys hit hard but her life bar is pretty low and combat can be a clunky affair.

That said it is still quite enjoyable and a worthy addition to the Assassin's Creed series and I give this 2.5 rope darts to the head out of 5. If you like platformers or Assassin's Creed, you will probably enjoy this. If you want a "better" stealth platformer then I recommend Mark of the Ninja instead.

Insight: Slide/Jump kills are very handy once you learn them. Till then, hanging ledge whistle followed by rope dart to a curious guard is a handy autokill.

Pandemic: Fall of Rome

The virus is barbarians!

For those who don't know, Pandemic has become a series of good, cooperative games that usually involve researching (and stopping) the spread of various diseases across the game board map. In Fall of Rome, the "diseases" are barbarian tribes who are marching their way into Roman territory and the players (Romans) must prevent this invasion by allying and/or eliminating all of them.

While there are many similar concepts from the other Pandemic series here, such as card matching to then cure/ally with a disease/tribe, there are new ones too - the most obvious one being the recruiting of legions and the dice rolling battles which is fast and enjoyable.

The components are pretty too!

Also the event cards now have a "stronger" optional effect in exchange for corrupting Rome a little more, bringing everyone closer to defeat. This makes for some great strategy on top of the "which tribes will we ally and which will we just kill?" question.

Yes you can win by wiping them all out, but good luck with that. :P All up this is a very enjoyable take on the series and currently my favorite one because of the fighting! I give it 5 out of 5 and highly recommend it! :)

Insight: Defending the front with forts and legions is a good way to keep the hordes at bay.