Locks Quest

Review from Cav - Thursday, 06 November 2008 @ 12:25am

Love a challenge? Addicted to Lego as a kid? Own a Nintendo DS? Well maybe you should take a look at Lock’s Quest. THQ and 5TH Cell, the team responsible for Drawn to Life (which I think is one of the best things to hit the DS in a very long time), have done a solid job with this title. It’s building, it’s fighting, it’s strategy. It’s a little bit if everything! I must admit I had a lot of trouble finding a fitting description for this game when updating its details on VURP.

Maybe if we paint the place green, they won't see us...

Lock’s Quest is another of what I like to call an ‘Ode to Orphans’. Lock, like countless other Action/Adventure/RPG leading characters, has no parents. They died trying to be heroic townsfolk instead of responsible parents. With them gone, it’s up to his grandfather to look after him and his sister..... who, once again, like so many other RPG little sisters, goes missing and of course while Lock was meant to be looking after her while Pops was off doing whatever it is that Senior Citizens do in these worlds. Probably at the local public house, squandering money on various gambling exploits. So with his sister Emi gone M.I.A., you’ll never guess what Lock has to do? Would you believe it’s his job to find her? Really? Wow.... never saw that coming. Now when I was growing up, if that happened, I wasn’t off traipsing across the wild blue yonder to find my sister; I was already thinking of the best way to set up my sister’s bedroom with all of Star Wars action figures and turn it into my own personal play room! I could set up my own Cantina complete with Red cordial.... had to be red cordial because mum wasn’t down with me putting blue food dye in my milk.

This Clockwork is doing his best Kane Johnson / Police Station impression

So, generic back story aside, Lock has learnt from his Grandfather the skills of an Archineer – half engineer, half architect. This gives him the ability to create walls, turrets and other defences. These talents are used to fend of an evil army called the Clockwork. The Clockwork were brought to life by an Archineer named Agonius who went bad. THIS WEEK ON WHEN ARCHINEERS GO BAD! No? Okay, well I bet it’s a hit where Lock comes from. Anyway, Agonius has taken up the mantle of Lord Agony and continues to attack the Kingdom. I suppose if it doesn’t work out for him he can throw on a Luchador mask and sign up for some ring time with World Wrestling Entertainment, because that name has 80’s Professional Wrestler all over it. Well, the Clockworks are wreaking havoc all across the Kingdom and it’s up to Lock to use his skill as an Archineer to fend them off. So how exactly do these skills work? Well I’m glad you asked……….. and that’s mostly because 494 words are not nearly enough for a decent game review.

Now I can bag out the storyline until the cows come home as it is awfully generic, but it’s the game play that makes this game. Outside of the general screen roaming and clicking on points of interaction with Lock, the battle sequences are where it’s at. When a battle is initiated, the action takes part on a screen marked out in a grid. Up against a running clock, you must create a solid series of defences to repel the waves of Clockwork, who are out to destroy a target that is specified prior to the build. A majority of the time the Clockwork are after the Kingdom’s greatest commodity called Source, which Lock uses to build his defences. In the beginning, you are given only a small series of walls and turrets to erect. Further pieces are earned when enemies are defeated and you earn ‘junk’, which is the scrap that beaten Clockworks leave behind. During the build stage before any attack, a mini game of sorts can be initiated to gain new pieces to add to you ranks. On one side of the screen you have a picture of your new equipment and the other you have an array of various parts to choose from to help you build your new device. Through use of the stylus, you can select and drag the pieces onto a set of four dots. Each piece must be positioned in the correct place; just having selected the right part isn’t enough. Get it correct and it’s now permanently part of your build set. Not only can turrets be created, but traps and sensors as well. These will also assist in fending off droves of Clockwork. As the game progresses you are also able to upgrade the strength of your structures from wood to stone as alliances are made with those outside the kingdom. One of the most important things to do during the build session is to place a gate in your structure. It’s easy to get caught up in the pressure of a countdown timer. I found myself trapped on many an occasion, without the ability to get out and make repairs to my defences!

Once your build timer expires, the battle begins, which is also done under a timer. During a battle, when the Clockwork attack Lock’s structures, he can run around a repair them. The more damaged sustained, the more in depth the process to fix it. Initially just tapping on the damaged section is enough to initiate repair, with on screen activities to be completed with the stylus if the damage is greater. Lock’s isn’t just a battler by building, he can also go hand to had taking on attackers one on one. Lock learns a variety of hand to hand attack moves as the game goes on. As with repairing heavily damaged defences, melee attacks are performed by executing a sequence on screen with the stylus. Failure to perform this correctly will have you start the process again. These skills have varying effects and it is fair to say that is it rather difficult to change which attack you would like to use during a fight.

Lock still keeps his cool look even though he about to get the crap belted out of him

The action doesn’t only take place on a grided field; you can also man a turret within a town and fend off waves of Clockworks. Well, they don’t exactly come in waves, more like one after the over …. sporadically. Tap where you want to shoot with the stylus and the turret will lob a shot at your enemy. Different enemies react differently to being hit, some go down with one shot, and others take two or three hits. Your turret has a number of hit points, which if course end the mini game when depleted. The turret can be upgrade at the end of each surge of enemies (which spans over one day, the sky darkens as your battle progresses), through the spending of Source. More hit points, repairs, greater artillery or your own ground troops are available to you but you are only able to choose one in each category.

Don’t think that just because this is a DS title that Lock’s Quest will be a walk in the park, as it is far from it. At times Lock has to guard two or three Source Wells at once, so maintaining wells spread across a map becomes quite a task. If you do fail at a map, it’s great to have the option to restructure your defences or just have another go with the ones you have already set.

Pros

A challenge, it actually gets you thinking. Nice use of mini games to change things up occasionally.

Cons

Repetition. Needs more than one save slot for each file. Tasks aren’t always clear.