Is it worth it? PoE review

Agreed the game has developers that are not found in today's industry. Everything is about cash but these developers don't care about the cash they simply have an unconditional love for their game which is simply rare in today's big business industry. They need to know how much their efforts are appreciated because they worked hard and deserve it. I also don't want to see the game's community fall off the deep end either like LoL or Dota 2 which is full of a bunch of hardcore arrogant bastards. The more we help other players in game the more likely they are to continue playing and supporting the fantastic developers behind it all. :D

Is it worth it? Very much so in my opinion. When have you ever seen a game of this quality that also happens to be free? Even more wonderful is that it will play on such low spec hardware. I inherited a low power HP pavilion laptop with only an Intel HD chip but the game still plays brilliantly without any discernible slowdown. I also love the interaction I have witnessed online between the developers and the fans (us). There in none of the faceless and nameless corporate feel to the interaction between us and them. The developers want us to love their baby and we do we do we do.

I would not call myself an expert gamer in any way but I have been playing computer and console games for years right back to the early days pre pong. What thirty years or more! Eek! It's nice to find a game like PoE that can still impress a player and keep things fresh and exicting. I keep well away from the intense DPS or whatever they are called debates. All this stuff about builds leaves me cold. I play for fun and not statistics. Nor do I mingle much with the community but it is out there for when I get stuck or like when I got a frame rate overlay that drove me mad for a while. A quick question on the chat panel got m the info I needed. I guess I am old school in that I prefer solo play And PoE gives me that option. I may have to team up to take out the bosses ( from what I have read of them) but based on my interactions with the community I can't see it being much of a chore to do so. With the boss dead we can happily wave goodbye to one another and I can go merrily on my solo way.

Do I have any negatives to report? Well the combat is a bit frustrating at times. I seem to hit thin air a lot of the time. Some kind of optional auto facing would not go amiss. Unless I use shift to stand still I tend to run slightly past my foes a lot of the time. Apart from that though I don't have any other negatives so far. Ah yes, the map overlay. It's looks kind of 16 bit and ropy. I find myself nose to screen at times especially in the nightmare prison levels in Act One. It could do with some kind of opacity settings and maybe, like the games daddy Diablo, the option to send it to one side or another in a smaller version. It could have + or - zoom buttons when I needed to find the exits.

However these are pretty minor gripes and they will most likely be fixed at some point. For a game still in beta things are really polished and the game is enimently playable and enjoyable. I don't even mind the realms going down now and again as we tend to get warnings at least when a reboot is needed. Games in beta are necessarily flakey at times. With a game of this quality I can put up with that.

It's even great to see the massive queues when I log back in after a crash. It shows that I am not alone in my appreciation of this super game which for a jaded old gamer like me is saying something. I have seen it all believe me. Path of Exile is well worth your time and effort. Now I must go I have to find the way out of the Upper Prison. My zombies have absolutely no sense of direction and keep getting lost. Zombies huh? Dehelix out.

press Z