Path of Exile vs Vaporum: Lockdown
Path of Exile
Path of Exile is a game come true for fans of the dungeon-crawling MMO genre, much like Drakensang Online. However, this game has a much more similar theme to the dark and brooding tone set by the Diablo series as opposed to the more lighthearted tone in the Torchlight series. Like most dungeon crawlers, the gameplay in Path of Exile is pretty much a straight-up hack-and-slash but interestingly, the character you play has a variety of passive and active abilities that provide players with the freedom to create whatever build they like. Of course, these builds and the players' skills will be put to the test when they attempt to take on an epic boss which if defeated, will shower their group with plenty of amazing loot.Another interesting aspect in Path of Exile is its robust and thriving player-driven economy. Similar to Diablo 3's albeit failed auction system in some way, players who raid often can sell any loot they don't need on the market rather than a mere AI vendor usually at a marked-up price. Other players who don't have that much time to raid but money aplenty can then spend the necessary amount to buy the stuff they need.
Path of Exile is definitely the sort of free-to-play game fans of Diablo, or any dungeon crawler game really, will love to play. If you happen to be one of them, then what are you waiting for? Try the game now!
Vaporum: Lockdown
Vaporum: Lockdown is a first-person, dungeon crawler featuring old-school grid-based dungeon-crawling gameplay with real-time combat, fun Sokoban-like puzzles, cool steampunk-themed setting, and an intriguing mystery to uncover. In this game, you play as a scientist, Ellie, who’s trapped within a locked-down facility called the Arx Vaporum filled with murderous robots and mutated creatures. Will Ellie be able to escape the place in one piece? What will she discover as she makes her way through Arx Vaporum?In terms of gameplay, you’ll be moving Ellie, the protagonist of the story, one grid at a time. Turning to face a certain direction before you can say turn a corner also requires an extra tap of the keyboard. However, this also means that you can actually move like a crab in this game if you’re sure of the path you’re on. Like most dungeon crawlers, Vaporum: Lockdown comes with devious traps, enemies and puzzles. Traps in this game can be rather easily avoided as long as you got the timing down right.
The interesting part about this game is that combat plays out in real-time here, unlike any other old-school dungeon crawlers we have experienced before. This means that it is entirely possible to loop a sequence of “move and attack” when facing something stationary so you can avoid getting hit at all. However, this also means that more mobile enemies can be trickier to slay – it all boils down to timing really.
There are also fun Sokoban-like puzzles in this game. Most of them involve having you to move crates around to fill holes in the ground, block danger from the path you want to take, or even to serve as paperweights on metal pressure plates. For hardcore treasure seekers, the game even has several hidden compartments that an inquisitive explorer might be able to find, each of these alcoves usually come with some nice rewards. There is a sufficient variety of loot, and you can get better gear as you progress.
Being a prequel of the highly-successful Vaporum, Vaporum: Lockdown definitely does the original game, and the Vaporum universe as a while, proud. Besides the few new features here and there, the gameplay is generally similar to the original title and hence, would be instantly familiar to fans of Vaporum. The storytelling here is great as well, offering so much more lore than before, and of course, the fantastic atmosphere here will pull you right into the fumium-obsessed world that Ellie Teller lives in.