Platform | Release Date
X360 | September 7, 2011
Developed by Certain Affinity
Published by Microsoft

The Pitch:

Crimson Alliance is the new action RPG from Certain Affinity! It takes everything we’ve learned about high action from working on shooters like Halo and Call of Duty, and everything we love about the fantasy genre, and wraps it in furious action, with a strong emphasis on cooperative multiplay! Customize and power up your character’s unique attacks and abilities and battle your way through an epic campaign driven story. Up to 4 players can party together cooperatively over Xbox Live! or on the couch. So gather your friends, and get ready to enter the world of Crimson Alliance!

Every year, I make the mistake of raising my hand for a video game that I know nearly nothing about. Someone will give me the smallest hint as to what kind of game it is, and I think to myself: “Eh, I can play this, no problem.” This year it was Crimson Alliance, a pseudo free to play dungeon crawler that has a multiplayer function. Since I didn’t have anyone to play with, I went at it solo – big mistake.

The first of its kind, Crimson Alliance is free to play up to a point where you can play any of the three classes from the free to play download. If you decide that you enjoy the game, you’ve got two different purchase options: 800 MSP, which nets you one class, or 1200 MSP, which grants you all 3, and included in both is the rest of the game and full multiplayer ability. It is an interesting pricing model but I couldn’t imagine why you’d only want to buy one class, specifically if you decide you enjoy the game.

Crimson Alliance heavily relies on you to be part of a full team, whether it be from a couch co-op or via XBL. If you don’t have any pals to play it, you’ll pick your adventurer from Assassin, Wizard or Mercenary, and be whisked away to a wondrous land of dull textures, repetitive monsters and battles. Each character has specific abilities to use, but I can only comment on the one character I played, which is the Wizard. I found myself spending my money on staves that upgraded my main attack – a fireball followed by the freeze, my secondary attack. I had a third attack that allowed me to stun enemies in a small circle around my summoner but because of the small range, it was too hard to use over your other choices.

I spent a majority of the levels running into rooms, being ambushed by monsters, then kiting them around with a freeze and fireball combo. While I had fun with this formula for the first couple of levels, I grew tired of it before I made it passed the first major boss. Even into the second “zone”, the formula didn’t change much and the enemies were the same albeit with a pallet swap. Now I’m at the point where I am bored; the point where I don’t want to try to play the game anymore.

I was trying to figure out why I was growing bored with the game and I think I figured it. Your skills don’t evolve, they just level up. In games like Diablo or Torchlight you get access to a skill tree and other unique abilities, which makes combat a bit more engaging. In Crimson Alliance your characters abilities are completely static, so you can’t think of new and unique combat combos. My level of involvement goes from “just one more level” to “when can I stop and play Gears again?”

I’d love to recommend Crimson Alliance to people because it might be something that’ll hold you over until Diablo III launches. If you don’t have any buddies that want to spend $10 or $15 on the game, then don’t bother with it. You’d be better served buying Torchlight and playing that on the XBLA, or buying a turkey sub and access to the Internet.

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