Baldur's Gate 3

Yes it's not cheap and it is a large download and you do seem to have to set up a Larian account but you get game play which is, to me, a hybrid of BG and POE (pillars of eternity) plus environments that you can interact with. This is the first time I have done something the same way as I would have in a pen and paper D&D game: sneak up on a guard, push him over the ledge, then shoot the rope holding something heavy hanging above the other targets, taking them out. Yes it seems like a set piece has been set up, like an old school dungeon but it was great! One crash so far, the cinematics are interesting, some polishing is needed, but this does not break the game, I have seen worst things in finished games and it may even get fixed in time. Yes, it is not another game in the style of BG 1&2, which some people do seem to want (Beamdog's Siege of Dragonspear was the last thing I saw like that) but after a little time I am getting used to the controls. You have a choice, wait for the finished game and spend your money or wait and don't! You can shoot the rope or don't! Just shoot the rope!

After 24h of gameplay the only thing that I can say is... magnificent! This future game appears to have the potential to become the largest cRPG in History. The characters seem well developed as well as the main story and the game world. The gameplay mechanics are fun (I would just remove the possibility of camping inside a dungeon). Finally, it would be very interesting if in the final version of the game, programmers included clothing and accessories in addition to the armors. Even the introduction of mini games for the use of tools and crafting and the possibility of customizing your base camp would make the gameplay even more satisfying than is already is.

First of all it's not Baldurs Gate it's DoS... It's not possible to create a custom party, except with a cumbersome multiplayer method... The beginning setting is really too bombastic by showing Mind Flayers, Dragons, Cambions which means boss and elite mobs became common... It's not possible to select all Partymembers in the most common way by clicking and dragging the mouse to create a selection box... Turnbased feels like a super crapy "9th Level Timestop Spell Sequence" for every NPC in every battle encounter (You can't sneak with several chars behind different mobs and kill them at the same time like in good old BG)... The overview is confusing, especially for ranged attacks (tried to shoot down something from the ceiling but camera could not show it/zooming in. It plays like sand in gears at all... The German Translation is good but by special terms mostly names unfortunately consists of "Denglish" (mixed German and English words) so far, for instant Bane = Tyrannos in German, but is still called Bane (research prob of Larian)...

Having seen a lot of reviews from the angry or dissatisfied saying "THIS IS DIVINITY ORIGINAL SIN!!!", I was expecting to be disappointed with even the early access version of BG3, despite falling into the camp of reviewers who (after a bit of struggle with the writing and the fields of environmental effects) enjoyed D:OS. There is perhaps a bit of the D:OS narrative approach here, and I don't just mean the fact that it seems to replicate the first act of D:OS (but with mind flayers!). However, they are clearly implementing 5th edition D&D, which I've spent a few hours playing in the last year or two including dice rolls, advantage/disadvantage, character classes and spells. Tutorial entries explain most of what's happening under the hood. I don't even think they do too badly with the characters so far. I think there's a tendency with these RPGs for most players to play the proverbial goody two-shoes (with an angry minority wanting to play as chaotic evil). In the current early access version, you have the D&D alignment system, but character motivation and behaviour has a bit more depth than simply "evil = cackling villain; good = paragon of virtue". I've got 14 hours on this so far, so maybe this changes. In any case, this is certainly "Larian does D&D", but I'm still looking forward to being able to play the full game.

No matter what the others are saying here in their early access reviews, I'm playing the release version and I'm having a blast. Can recommend it for everybody that like role playing games.