In part two of my Gameloft hands-on adventure this week, I also got to fiddle around with a preview build of Dungeon Hunter 3. The kindly staff at Gameloft Towers shoved an iPad in my face, launched the game, and left the room, telling me to ‘Get on with it’. I duly obliged.
As with recent Gameloft titles, DH3 will be based on a freemium model with no charge for the initial download and subsequent progression. But if you’re prone to rolling in roomfuls of dollar notes like Scrooge McDuck, the opportunity to level your character up quicker by purchasing gems is available. If like normal people, you go to the work in the morning and pay bills, you’ll have to purchase upgrades with in-game currency and wait 24 hours to access them.
The big difference between this and previous Dungeon Hunter titles is that Dungeon Hunter 3 is now arena based. So that means you’ll be taking one of four character classes (Warlock, Astromancer, Shaman and Trickster) into boxed-in levels teeming with all manner of monsters and over-sized insects, not going on a tour of great football stadiums of the world.
As you can imagine, It’s a dark fantasy universe filled with creatures that would make Tolkien proud. There are four worlds, with four environments each and five difficulty levels per environment. That adds up to 736 something-or-others for those keeping count.
I had a few minutes alone with the Warlock and Astromancer classes. The action is frantic, with enemies popping up from all angles. A quick thumb and judicious use of your special attacks and fairies is necessary to overcome the escalating threat, (yes, I said fairies. I’ll let you discover those on your own). The Warlock’s particular skills included heavy-handed combat with a bloody big battle axe. Slow, but powerful. Mrs Astromancer – you can select both male and female versions of each character – was a lot nippier around the screen and had ranged attacks to fend off foes at a distance, up close however, she was more vulnerable to the advances of lecherous gigantisects. That’s a cool word I just made up.
It’s also looking pretty impressive. Clean, colourful characters, vibrant environments and an interesting range of enemies and bosses are on offer. You can also kit out your character in a multitude of helmets, gauntlets amour and weapons, and upgrade these across three levels. There are apparently thousands of equipment and armour combinations for you to chuck on before heading out to battle. So it’s a bit like a TopShop for virtual warriors.
There’s also good news if you’d like to fairy your mates in the face. (That statement could be taken in a number of ways, but you get what I mean). Multiplayer will also be on its way in one of the first updates, and will enable you to play versus, or co-op, games.
So watch out for this next instalment of Dungeon Hunter hitting the AppStore later this month. If you love hunting, dungeons and the number 3, this could be the game for you.
