The Technomancer

I heard that this game lacks good combat but is okay otherwise, sadly, it was the complete opposite for me. While combat itself was neat, i had no motivation to endure it at all. You play as a half-elite half-shunned mutant that can control electricity and work as special forces for the "evil government" that opresses poor innocent "rebels". Or not. Who cares? You run around mostly dead corridor maps and hub areas, talk to weirdly animated npcs and keep smashing things for xp and loot. It seems the actual goal of the game is to become 'cool'. Find coolest gear, slap coolest mods on it and deplete red enemy hp bar faster. Game tries to look 'cool' very hard. Animations, cutscene cameras, combat moves, various equipment you can wear, words characters say, it's all so serious and 'cool' it becomes boring and annoying very quickly. Why open door when you can poweslide it with two hands? Why show two characters talking while moving down the hallway when you can smash shaky camera in their faces? Why give military personnel protective uniforms when they can wear hobo gear from scraps? Maybe im too spoiled by other games, maybe this one wasnt for me.

I'm a huge BioWare/Witcher fan and had been looking for an RPG that was similar. A lot of the reviews of The Technomancer said it wasn't great but if you liked Mass Effect, you'd probably enjoy this game. So I took a chance and picked up this and the prequel Mars: War Logs (because I can't play things out of order). I'm glad I did. I really enjoyed The Technomancer. I loved the characters and the world is so interesting and looks really good. The creature designs are fantastic! I thought the combat was mostly fun, but sometimes finicky and frustrating. There are definitely sloggy/annoying bits like a lot of backtracking, no fast travel within an area, no point respec options, and sometimes nonsensical storylines/dialog/reactions (but I chalk most of that up to time and translation/localization). I would have liked more character development and conversations with everyone, but what I did get I really enjoyed. It's not necessary to play Mars: War Logs first, but if you do, you'll know some more story elements and background. The games are happening pretty much simultaneously in different parts of the world. Overall, if you're hungry for more BioWare-esque RPGs (yes it has romances and yes you can be gay), like space mages, and post-apocalyptic vibes, this is a pretty good option.

I bought this game several years ago when it was around $5 and found it to be a gem of a game. The choices you make will effect the progress of the game. I used a game guide to figure out how the game should be played, i.e. what order the missions should be taken, and found this to be a very fun game. If you happen to do these in a different order, you WILL find the outcome unsatisfying. Maybe the "flaws" some are touting are do to the order the missions need to played out. This was one of the GEMS of games I found on GOG that will always leave me satisfied with the game play.

I've tried every fix/suggestion on getting the game to run. It either locks up during loading or immediately crashes upon launch.

The setting carries this game a lot. Its a very interesting one with in-depth history and expansive lore. Characters and dialogue are cheap and occasionally it seems the animations do not correspond to the dialogue, or the VAs have no idea about the context of their lines. But those moments are not happening often enough to completely ruin the narrative. The combat is, on the other hand, so crappy that I recommend just using a trainer and skipping it entirely. It's somewhere in-between piranhia byte-style rythmic combat system, but without the rythm. Actions seem like they should flow smoothly between each other, but they don't, and in fact each combat encounter is roughly the same - 10 dodges, one strike, rinse and repeat for 5+ minutes. If you skip the combat and focus on the lore and narrative, this game is worth it, IMHO. It's interesting to see how much this studio has improved in Greedfall compared to this game, though I have to admit - the setting of The Technomancer is a lot more interesting than Greedfall's.