Venetica - Gold Edition

Initially, I've played this game a bit, when demo was first released, and then picked it up as a "cover disc" with some videogame magazine, but haven't finished it at that time; now I've completed the GOG release. Good things: -Interesting visual style; even though the game is old, Venice is beautiful, and you get to visit various places (like Africa), -Your character is daughter of Grim Reaper himself, how cool is that? You can talk to dead people, find treasure maps, break into locked chests with the help of ghosts, and if killed - you can come back from the "Twilight World" to deliver deadly blow on your enemy from behind, -There are multiple outcomes and endings, depending on your actions; game has Reputation system and some actions are considered Honorable, while some are Villainous, -Combat can be satisfying, if wonky (more about that below) Bad things: -Game can CTD all of a sudden. It didn't happen to me "all the time", just a couple of times, but you better save often, especially when leaving some room or house and transiting into larger map, -You can perform sequences of hits in a combat, but it's not contextual, meaning Scarlett will NOT auto-target other enemies with her next hit, even when previous enemy is already dead, -When mobbed by enemies, it's easy to get stun-locked, with no way to retaliate. Rolling to avoid hits is also all over the place - Scarlett will often roll right under the swords of enemies, instead of getting away... - Journal and map markers are...not helpful. There's virtually no hand-holding (which is good), but often you will find yourself confused as to what to do next, since the game often won't update markers and journal entries (by design, not because of bugs) - you have to figure out your next step all by yourself, -Game really doesn't like Alt-Tabbing; sometimes you switch to browser to find help on wiki, and when you get back it's all right, but most of the time the game will freeze. Save often. Overall, recommended.

I've played the game from start to finish and I LOVED it. Are there many story-driven RPGs with a woman as a protagonist? Nope. But this is one of them and it is very well worth it. This review should be here just because this game was unfairly bashed by "expert" game journalist of IGN and other "big" websites. Just don't listen to those "experts", give this game a try.

A wonderful little gem for the pittance it costs. I have owned this game for just a few days but already clocked up many more hours than I have spent on many of my bigger title purchases. The gameplay is fun, fluid and enthralling with customisable controls that work perfectly well, whether I use my keyboard and mouse or 360 gamepad. The visuals, while a little dated now (don't exactly stand up to the witcher 3 etc) are still beautiful. The story is pretty cliche but soon whips you into it as you follow the heroin on a furious onslaught of rampant revenge, a benevolent quest to return her dear departed from the dead or take the third option which is.... well I haven't quite worked that one out yet. Either way, there is endless exploration available, numerous hidden secrets to be uncovered, countless battles to engage in and dozens of character defining dialogues to navigate through making it well worth your money if you're into action, adventure roleplaying games. There are a few bugs/glitches i've uncovered where in dialogues characters may randomly repeat a line or two within their speech and the audio doesn't always exactly match the subtitles. The game has also crashed on me once, giving me the chance to leave it alone for a few seconds to write this review. Anyway, none of the glitches I have mentioned have really affected the pleasure I've derived from playing it, so with it being such great value for money too, it easily earns my five stars. Enjoy!

These games were really unique. So Venetica is, surprisingly, the only game which can approach the glory of the first two Gothic titles. Expect a lot of greedy people who want to teach you skills, extremely rare and expensive armor pieces, tons of quests and decisions. Good journey!

Maybe it's a good game, but it's too buggy: PhysX version issue (crash on start), Windows compatibility issues, 4GiB issue (you may find it in Google as 4GB ntcore patch). Too many problems for 2 hours of gameplay, and for now (after 2 hours!), I can't continue because it is still crashing in a place where I could not find a workaround. Such products just must not be sold.