yo i'm 35 years old, played postal 2 when i was 12 and my search for blood didn't end there - i guess you can imagine that it got some weight if i say "i'm seriously impressed. impressed by the sheer amount of blood in this game. and i love the cruelty!" be warned that it takes roundabout 5 1/2 hours (if you try to collect everything) to get through the introduction of the story (you can save & quit plenty of times, no worries), before you actually get some freedoms. i count that as a "positive", as it promises truckloads of lore to explore & things to do. not that "skeleton-worked silver mines" and "human slaves w/o clothes" wouldn't do so on it's own! ;)
so, i was a big gothic fan back then, grew up with it, was super glad when risen came out after the horrible gothic 3 & 4, but back then i lost every motivation when it would've been time to get to the endboss. now, well over 10 years later, i thought to myself "modern games are so bad, i dislike them so much, i think i should've appreciated risen more, back then - i'll give the series a second try." and i lost motivation again, around the same progress point, for the same reasons, which i then remembered. chapters 1+2 are very fun, that's why i don't give only 1 star. i cleared the game for real, i collected all permanent buff potion plants (and so on), spending 96h. the whole game feels as if it was set up to become way bigger, but somehow the devs lost their motivation halfway through. once you arrive in chapter 3, you'll notice a difference in progress, a difference in treasure chest lockpick combinations, a difference in loot (e.g. there's barely a lvl3-chest without a open-lock-scroll inside so that you don't need to reproduce them and thus in return the devs didn't have to make up content where you'd get more - and blank scrolls are a truly rare material, as if they'd been forgotten). i also came to realize that i could've gotten through most of the game without spending a single skillpoint. around the end of chapter 2, you get so thick mana "+MAX MANA" rings & amulets, that, along with the 20 perma buff plants (which, lets face it, you put 2 into DEX-pots, 8 into MaxMana-pots and 10 into STR-pots, so you can already use every item ingame (given that you make use of amulets/rings for the useless bow) and will end up with 170-240 mana), you don't need skillpoints for anything but axe-combat lvl4 and fireball lvl10. doing so you'll swing the mightiest weapon ingame on max skill, but use it probably almost only for the endboss, because everything else dies in fire(balls). frost doesn't deal dmg, missiles are too needy. save your lifetime, skip this game.
idk why, but this game is as much fun as 20 years ago. the graphics manage to stay nearly up to date, as in such a submarine world it's no surprise to see rather "steelplate"-quadratic construction parts on buildings - and gameplaywise, i wouldn't know of anything comparable that'd be allowing those smooth maneuvers. some helpful controls that the game doesn't explain to you: 2x forward = booster 2x reverse = engine off/on rightclick = switch launched torpedo type a proper resolution is 1200x768 and my logitech M705 mouse seems a bit too hightech, had to put X & Y viewing controls down to 4% each (toggle X/Y with left/right keys when "setting name" is selected) and, if the game tells you to bring EMP weaponry to a mission, it will crash if you don't bring the empactor. no need to reset the graphic & control settings as supposed by the game then, just equip the thing. seriously, get this game, it's great! quick action, nice story, harper throwing his combo-insults around is already worth buying it xD i think about buying a joystick just to play this game next time, so you folks might wanna get one before!
playing this nowadays in my mid-30's, i realize why i wasn't capable of beating the addon's campaign when i was a kid x'D are you somewhat bored by the modern strategy games, by their AI simply playing like AI's do, by the games somewhat not being as difficult as games in the past when you really had to use ur brain and weren't taken by the hand? go grab this one. you'll love it. you'll see the ai defending environmental trash if it's the reason why the ai can mass it's troops up near your base. and you'll see the outcome of PLAIN EVIL DEVS doing campaign maps. they haven't just thrown a insane AI against you that won't allow any difficulty settings, no no, they put you in the worst possible strategic places and the ai in absolute dreamspots, with paths so narrow that your units can barely walk them. sounds like a pain in the ass? i promise, it isn't. you'll be sitting there thinking "there must be a way, something that i'm overseeing, cuz what i tried so far hasn't worked out yet" - and then, when you're laying in your bed, the game won't let go of you, pulling you back to your pc because you finally believe to have found the answer. just to find out next day that you just had to try so much harder what you tried at first, because THAT's the way. skill. nothing but raw strategic skill. you can use the numpad +/- keys to speed up or slow down the game, up to a complete halt, during which, because it's not a pause per se, you're still allowed to micromanage all your stuff. if you love micromanagement, but online RTS pvp is too fast for you whilst the pve of modern games doesn't really challenge you, here's your best shot. oh and i just love that i can send a row of knights riding along enemy lines and the knights will hit with their giant swords without having to stop their motion for battle, that really makes it fun^^ PS: i recommend 1200x800 solution. that's a fair compromise between "identifying things" and "not ordering around a clump of pixels".
