As you have probably read and learned – one of my favorite “laid back” games was A Kingdom of Keflings. I loved ALMOST everything about this game with the exception of not being able to prevent losers from breaking up my kingdom if I played it in public and not being able to easily move buildings as I built my kingdom and discovered my layout didn’t work. I heard through the grapevine (Ok, I contacted the makers of the game directly) that they were making a part two. I waited with insane anticipation for it to arrive.
Well my friends, after waiting two long years? IT IS FINALLY HERE! Yes!
World of Keflings was available for download on December 22, 2010 and I have to admit I pounced on it like a fat kid on candy. Having made a pact with my friend in another time zone (who also had been waiting for it in agony) that we would play it together for the first time – meant that I had to sit and wait all day, watching as others in my friends list reported “playing WORLD OF KEFLINGS!” it was crazy torture!
Finally I got to leap into the game and have a good play through and I have to say – it is damn fine!
Basics of the game are the same in that the entire point of the game is to build a land for the Keflings. You are still the giant they adore and worship. You still need to mine the resources, process them and then build structures for the Keflings. Simple, n’est-ce pas?
Ninjabee decided one land in the game just was not enough and instead gave us three lands to build in! The lands are not huge but they are definitely cute! One of the first things I noticed in the lands was “islands” where you could see random goodies such as tools or love – and no way to reach them! “We need a bridge, how do we build one?!”. Naturally to build a bridge you need blueprints! Which means you need to be patient… you must build your way through much of the lands before you are given the blue prints you need to build the bridges to reach the lovely island rewards.
World of Keflings also decided to put more of a story line which was nice – it was funny to hear the little voices and the funny things the Keflings say but at the same time all the cut scenes were annoying as hell! I found myself just skipping through them near the end because to be honest – WOK is not really HARD to figure out without hints from the cut scenes ;) I guess I am a bit impatient but I was not the only one to find the cut scenes tedious.
I will give Ninjabee props however! They fixed some issues that had many players seething in A Kingdom for Keflings. One of which was players coming into lands and destroying the shit you worked so long to build. A huge fix also saw buildings as movable. Most of us in the KFK *first game* hated the fact that as your land required more buildings – you had to move old buildings to make room, rearrange shit to fit better or be more productive – However to MOVE buildings you had to break them down, pull up the blue print, carry the pieces one at a time to the new location, re build yada, yada, yada. It was a huge production that was annoying as hell! NOW you can simply get your avatar in place and PUSH the entire building to where you want it! Sometimes the landscape blocks your building in which case you either need to find another route or break it down anyway but I found you could move the majority of buildings with the new slide function and it saved loads of time with rebuilds!
Several new things were added to WOK that were cute. You can still abuse the sheep and Keflings which if we are being honest is a lot of giggles, it just never gets old but they have better sounds when you punt them ;) Cannons were added – you can make intricate arrangements of cannons (( as well as set them to play notes when they shoot )) and then when you stuff a Kefling in, they shoot through a sequence of cannons that you set up – if you set the notes to the cannons they can even play a song. Several new characters were introduced in WOK – in the separate lands which was nice. You can share collectibles with friends, which is great! AND you can unlock little emoticons! In the first game (kfk) there were a few set emoticons in the game and that was it! In the new game (WOK) you earn them and then just use your D-pad to pop it open and pick an unlocked one to use. WOK has way more emoticons to use and some of them were HILARIOUS! We particularly loved the “Dead” one, the “break dancing” one and the “back flip” one! You will see why if you buy WOK and try them ;)
One downside to WOK is – before release they bragged that not only would you be in the game as your own avatar but any “pets” or “props” you had would be in the game with you! I thought that was pretty rad because they were really the first major game to allow avatars into the game! I Thought for sure they were cutting edge again – with allowing pets/props in! I was pretty stoked to see that only to load the game and see my kitty pet never made it in with me. BOO! As per usual no one wants to take the blame for this issue – Ninjabee is blaming Xbox live and naturally Xbox live is blaming Ninjabee. Somehow I suspect they may never get this function working which sucks as it would have been snazzy… but I guess if you can’t admit your fault you can’t fix your fault. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem ;) ADMIT IT AND FIX IT YOU FUCKERS!
All in all like its predecessor it is a good, well rounded, laid back game. Ok so for you heavy duty gamers who are into nothing but shooting it may seem lame – but for those of you who like to just chill out with buddies and putz around, or who like several different styles of game to play so no matter what mood you are in you have something suited to it? This game is for you. It has addictive qualities and you find yourself getting lost in the game for hours at a time. You will also find yourself wishing (Like me) that the game was much longer (( a good 5 or 6x longer )) but that is the downside to a lot of great games, some just end way too soon.
Thumbs up from me, get ye some points and get WOK!
Game on friends, Game on!
Read Full Post »
JustJayde Games 
