The Dwarves

Amusing game with an interesting storyline.

Pro's: Though personally unimpressed by the novel, I really enjoy this game for 2 big reasons: 1) Story moves briskly and feels deep 2) No grinding!!! You don't get to customize your characters or personalize their weapons and armor to their class, but you also don't have to grind to level up equipment and skills either. The graphics are good, the art is fantastic and the other production values such as acting, animations and hardware requirements are very competent. Con's: 1) The mechanics feel experimental. Combat is a challenge but an interesting one without feeling like drudgery. However, you have to pause all the time, so it's basically a turn-based combat system with RTS functionality. Perhaps if they added an option to auto-pause every 2-3 seconds it would feel less clunky. 2) Your options are limited. You don't get to pick weapons, armor or class. You have very few options to work with in battle. The characters as warriors don't feel like they are YOURS nor do they feel like they are YOURS in the storyline. The Devs are obviously trying to make "REAL" options but in practice you often get railroaded into dialogues so you don't even have control over your character's personality. When you do get a choice during dialogues that has an impact, there is usually a "right" answer that the dev's want you to pick and penalize you if you don't. Overall, if the Dev's can make the same improvements by the time they get to The Dwarves 2 that Creative Assemblies pulled off in taking Shogun Total War to Shogun II Total War - this has the potential to be one of the greatest games ever.

Recommendation for this game from my side. I finished the game yesterday. Found some minor issues which will most likely be fixed by the next patch (I am using version 1.1.2). No showstopper/ larger issues found. Without having read the books I was sometimes confused about the whole background of the story, esp. the relationships between the different dwarf "houses". Although it became clearer by the end of the game some sort of introduction/ manual would be very useful. I liked the different characters very much. You have to play every character differently to avoid their weaknesses and to make use of their specific abilities. Basically the game is divided into a story and a combat part. Playing both parts is much fun. At the end of the game combats become more frequent - a little bit too much for my taste, I missed some "relaxing" in between. For combat it is sometimes unclear how to achieve the mission goal, mainly because graphical overview is missing.

Aparently there is no way to rebind controls and no screen showing you what they are. After some searching on the internet, I can find no list of controls there either. I will come back and edit my review later if I can get into this game...