Beyond Divinity

Beyond Divinity has launched, and it's already on sale for $29.99.

"Our goal was to create a truly stunning game with a flexible gameworld, new characters, and new storylines to complement and expand upon," said Mark Skauffer, CEO of Larian Studios. "With the addition of 3D character models, detailed character models, highly detailed environments, a huge world to explore, and a cast of equally varied characters, Beyond Divinity will be one of the most exciting titles of the year."

Shigeru Miyamoto, executive producer for the original Legend of Zelda, will return to his post, apparently for reprising the role of the game's main antagonist in the new sequel. In addition, all six of the original original BG&E characters are returning, in addition to a few new ones.

And in case you don't know, Larian is developing the sequel to its 1998 hit, Legend of Grimrock. So there you have it, new players will be flocking to the game.

In light of the tremendous response to the original Legend of Grimrock, and all of the new details revealed so far, we were interested to get our hands on an up-close-and-personal look at what Larian is up to.

"We do have lots of things to talk about. The most significant one is the improvements to the types of items we've implemented and the behaviors we have to make them better," explained Laurent Fischer, director of marketing for the original game.

As for the new controls, we were told the game would support the same button-mashing and hack-and-slash play as the original. They are a huge improvement over the original Legend of Grimrock, and we got to see a bit more of it.

The combat in Legend of Grimrock, according to Fischer, is as polished as it is deep. In terms of timing and the way you manage your character's morale, for instance, it's really simple: You need to strike at the right time to make sure you don't attack or you'll miss. The timing is important, because each encounter will require you to be using both the right and left trigger.

Speaking of which, you'll be able to send characters to work, which is actually pretty important because many of the more-realistic role-playing games require you to be using both the left and right trigger buttons simultaneously. For instance, in Dragon's Dogma, we went to a town where a local girl named Priscilla had disappeared and was looking for a way to find out what happened. The simple mechanic of commanding Priscilla to attack, then clicking on the right trigger, was implemented in a nice feature that lets you check out the town and its surrounding area. It's also a little strange that the world of Arx will only be accessible from the C button, because a lot of the towns are essentially devoid of people. Arx has more and more NPCs in it, but it seems that you'll need to chat to make things easier and less of a pain for the townsfolk.

Even though you're in Arx, the land is designed to offer a diverse experience that'll offer a good variety of different towns. You can choose to visit a woman named Briny or a woman named Gwen, but the majority of Arx is full of rabbits and will start being rude to you once you get close to him. Instead of taking up residence in their village, they'll congregate in the center of the town. Since most towns are much smaller and have fewer inhabitants, the sole residents of Arx will be taking up residence in villages in their own areas.

Of course, Arx is the best place to have the outdoorsy visuals on display, and you can really get the best out of the game with Arx's world-building. You can upgrade your equipment by collecting animal materials, including materials that you can make yourself, and you can even use the game's potions, mana stones, and food items to produce your very own potions and other useful items, such as extra health potions. Though you start out with little knowledge of the world, you will gain access to certain items through experience.

If you've ever wanted to know how to acquire the ore, experience, and arrows, you'll be pleased to know that Arx has plenty of them. Unfortunately, many of them are also rare and difficult to find, and many of them will require you to solve puzzles or avoid combat. The solution to the puzzles is as simple as tossing a bucket of salt at them, because your character won't have any mana stones to rely on in order to level up your character. You can also catch fish by dropping them into water or by pressing the jump button on the PS2 pad. Your character will have a limited supply of experience orbs when you reel in his goods, so you'll need to use up the orbs to your full potential.