I was absolutely in shock when the news was posted on Facebook. This is literally the last game I ever expected to get released from Blizzard. Let me get this out of the way first, because some jerks on here don't understand what a review is. This game is absolutely a 5/5. There is a special place in Hell for people who give this game a lower score, simply because they feel the price is too high. Please, for all that is holy GOG, start editing these reviews. Is this game worth $9.99? Yes, yes it is. What are you getting for this price? Three completely unique characters. Randomized quests and dungeons, so you will never play the game the same twice. Even today, that's rare in video games. This offers hundreds of hours of gameplay. If you get bored, just download one of the dozens of mods available. This is arguably tied with Diablo 2 for being the best in the franchise. It is definitely the most graphic and scariest compared to the sequel, and certainly better than Diablo 3 by far. The voice acting is superb for its age, and is still impressive today. The story is intricate and fascinating. The dark Gothic style helps to outweigh the admittedly relatively dated graphics. The monsters are unique and terrifying in a way that not even the sequels could match. Compared to the sequels, terrain and positioning is much more important, i.e strategic choke holds such as doorways and rivers. Again, even Diablo 2 didn't have as much focus on this. The Butcher is still one of the scariest bosses in video game history. He was almost comedic in Diablo 3: "Vegetables bad, meat good!" I'm not even kidding. I was laughing my ass off while fighting him, instead of being terrified out of my wits. Buy this game. Period. It is absolutely worth the price tag, and is one of Blizzard's greatest accomplishments. Buy this game, if only to learn why people are so disappointed in Blizzard's later works. You won't regret it.
I haven't purchased this game yet. I don't even have the specs for it. But I'm posting a 5 star review, if only to cancel out the trolls who have given this game an illegitimate one star review, just because Korean gamers had to wait two lousy days for it to be out in their language. TWO...DAYS. Not years, or months, or weeks, TWO...DAYS. News flash: NOT EVERYBODY SPEAKS KOREAN, nobody gives a shit about your complaints. North American gamers waiting for Final Fantasy games often need to wait anywhere from a 1 1/2 to 2 years for an English translation, and in the case of FF V needed to wait more than a decade. Good Old Games really needs to clean up their review system, so that good games do not get bad scores they don't deserve. If you are going to give a one star review, make it for a legitimate reason. Critic bombing a game just because you have to wait a little longer than the rest of the world makes you look like a spoiled, entitled, whiny, petulant, child who must have everything right now. I really hope the moderators read this post, and clean up their faulty system. If I hadn't taken the time to read the real reviews, I might have assumed that from a 4.5 star game opposed to the 5 stars that Witcher 2 got, that the game was worse in comparison. Grow up, people. The review section of the website is not the place to air your grievances. Take it up in the forums, or with customer service. Good Old Games should have a system where those who abuse the review system are suspended or prohibited from posting reviews, as it can affect the sales of a game. That's my two cents.
That's the only thing this game's got in its favour is its absolutely bombastic soundtrack. Everything else is either A: identical to the original, or B: a significant downgrade from the original. Little innovation, less customization, flat and lifeless characters, and bar none the worst designed levels I have ever experienced in a video game, no joke. The game's difficulty assumes you have beaten Hotline Miami 1, and found it too easy. Every level is an exercise in frustration, and you will have the feeling of 'Thank God, it's over' instead of 'YEAAAH! I'm a badass!' If you are a newcomer to the series, get Hotline Miami 1 instead. The Shift key on your keyboard is going to be your best friend and worst enemy both. Stopping every five seconds to scroll around the map to make sure you don't get killed by an invisible gunman for the 10th time gets old immediately, yet it is your only way to victory. I am a huge fan of the original and that's why it is so painful for me to give its sequel a poor review, but I just can't like this game, and I can't recommend it to anybody. Maybe if some patches come out to reduce some of the difficulty, and/or eliminate some more of the game-breaking bugs it would change my mind, but this game in its current state is best left ignored until the much-vaunted level editor comes out. That way, at least you can play your own levels or someone else's rendition of this game. The developers stated that you could recreate HM1 or make an HM3. I hope that's true, because I can't stand these badly designed levels. I have to give this game one star, because it has almost nothing going for it. The controls are wonky, the AI is buggy, the levels are bloated, the characters are completely forgettable, and the graphics are pretty much identical. My advice? Go on YouTube, download the soundtrack, and listen to it while playing HM1, or just imagining playing a much better game. My first and biggest personal disappointment of 2015.
This one of my favourite Bioware games, ranking right up there with Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Jade Empire. Want to know what would happen if Baldur's Gate 2 and Star Wars had a baby? Well, wonder no more! It takes D&D rules and applies it brilliantly to Star Wars. The twist 3/4's through is ranks right up there with "No, I am your father." This is an amazing game, written by the demi god Drew Kapryshyn, who also essentially wrote Mass Effect, and was smart enough to get out before the abomination known as Mass Effect 3 was released. BUT...$12.50 is a goddamn insult. I bought this on Steam for $2.50, and full price was $9.99, and it is no different from this release. If it came with better bonus features like behind the scenes interviews, soundtracks, or even avatars, I could justify the expense. Sure, you could say "Oh, but this is DRM free!" True, but is it worth the 20% markup? That's for you to decide. I'm not going to be one of those douches who gives a good game a bad review because I don't agree with the price. It's a great game, buy it. Just know there are cheaper alternatives out there. Interested to hear GoG's excuse for the increased price. Caveat emptor.
Like Neverwinter Nights, Torchlight is a game that is greatly enhanced by modding support. There are vast range of mods available, ranging from annoyance-eliminating (all items are identified) to game-changing (a mod that adds more than a DOZEN NEW CLASSES). Lots of people have called this game a Diablo clone, and they are not wrong. But the level of randomization in this game is even greater than Diablo's. The only thing Diablo's maps randomized was the layout: you are still going to go through the cathedral, to the catacombs, the caves, then finally Hell itself. BUT, where Torchlight diverges are the scrolls that port you to random dungeons that are suited to your character level. The graphics, even by today's standards, are impressive. In fact, I was playing this game on my laptop at my college, and a passerby stopped and asked me 'Is that Diablo 3?'. He was wrong, but he was also right. When a larger game developer starts imitating a smaller game developer, you know they must be doing something right. If it weren't for the mods, this game would like get a lower score. It was a brilliant move on the developers part to allow modding, thus ensuring that people will continue to play for years to come, just like NWN. As for gameplay, I throughly enjoyed it. My favourite aspects of the game are ranged combat. It offered complex options that none of the Diablo games from 1 - 3. Dual wielding with two ranged weapons is something that is something is not often offered, even in later games like WoW. As for Diablo 3, the only character that can dual wield ranged weapons effectively is the Demon Hunter, and that is with only one class of weapon. In Torchlight, you could have a pistol in one hand, and a wand in the other. At the end of the day, if you were to ask me I prefered Torchlight or Diablo 3, I go with Torchlight, every time. No DRM, no online-only requirement, and best of all, no accounts that got locked multiple times due to 'suspicious behaviour', i.e, I didn't play the game for months because it sucks, and now I want back in, but I can't. With Torchlight 2 out on Steam, you could own 2 great games with hundreds of hours of replayable gameplay for half the cost of Diablo 3 alone. You simply can't go wrong. Blizzard, go to the corner, think about what you did, and take this game with you. With luck, Starcraft 2's expansions will treat us far better than Diablo 3 ever did.
It is true what people are saying; it is almost as hard as Super Meat Boy. You are going to die; a lot. But even death is a learning experience. This isn't a game, it's a ballet. Requires the most precise movement and speed like a dancer. This game is a beatiful, bloody, and brutal dance of death. If you are turned off by games that are punishingly difficult, don't buy this. But if you want a game that truly tests your intellect and reflexes to the minute, you are going to love this. The feeling of satisfaction you get from beating a level that was kicking your ass for 30 minutes solid is positively sublime. For 10 bucks, you could do a lot worse.
I respect what the creators tried to do here. They tried to go down the Planescape path, and in that regard, it works. There is a lot of dialogue, and investigating. You're going to spend a lot of time talking with people, and the fact the game keeps notes for you is a HUGE help. I love investigating and putting together the different pieces of the story. I love how everything, at least in Act 1, is interconnected. Can't speak for the rest of the game as I haven't gotten past Act 1. So what don't I like? The combat. There is no polite way to say this: they screwed up royally. It's not the difficulty, it's the way the handle things. Any form of combat uses up stamina, whether you are a thief or a priest. When you are out of stamina, you can't do anything. You can barely move, AND you can't fight. Stamina regenerates slowly, and only when you are standing still. I often ran out of stamina mid-fight, and actually had to stand still and wait for stamina to recharge AS I'M UNDER ATTACK. Baldur's Gate series was never that hard, nor was Planescape's that asinine. Oh but wait, it gets better. Everytime you get hit, you lose stamina. So you can very realistically get into a situation where you die before you can even get a shot off. Of course that can happen in an RPG, but it's the fact they kill you slowly and can't do anything about it that makes it even more frustrating than getting one-shotted by a creature you have no chance against. So why in the world would I give it 4/5? Because of what they did right. The story, while fictional, is somewhat grounded in history. If it were taking place at a real point in time, it would be in the era of Tomas de Torquemada, who I named my character after. His name was associated with torture, but he actually brought reforms. You can't just randomly arrested people and burn them with no evidence. You need at least 3 different witnesses to a crime to arrest someone, and torture is to be considered a last resort. If you are the type of person who doesn't mind a LOT of heavy reading, if you like using logic to put pieces of a puzzle together, then you are going to like this game. If you want to play a game that balances story telling with balanced combat, however, go play Baldur's Gate II or Planescape or any of the other 'old school' RPGs. My memory might be a little screwed up, but I NEVER thought old-school meant frustrating.
I remember when i saw clips of this game on youtube, I laughed what i considered to be hilariously bad voice acting. I couldn't understand why this game was so popular. Then, I bought the game when it was on special. Without a doubt, BEST 5 BUCKS I EVER SPENT. A lot of people are talking about the choices you are forced to make in this game, and they are right. Choices absolutely do matter in this game, and sometimes in ways you don't expect. You will also be in situations where there does not seem to be a morally correct answer. Classic example: some gravediggers/murders are hiding in a cemetary. You chase them down, but before you get a chance to kill them, they tell you they've trapped some civilians in the nearby crypt. Do you expend the time and energy to kill them, knowing that the civilians will die in the mean time? Or do you rescue the civilians, but let the murderers escape? What it boils down to is: what do YOU consider to be the least morally objectionable? Unlike the game mentioned in the title, despite the parts that are not so great (won't go into them, because everybody else has already covered that), it still has a better ending than Mass Effect 3. Why? BECAUSE YOUR CHOICES ACTUALLY MATTER. I consider it to be hilariously ironic that CD Projekt took BioWare's own engine, and made a better video game than they did. This is just the game you need to buy/replay if you need to wash the awful taste and stink of ME3's atrocious ending out of your mouth. Buy this game: the flaws in this game do not overshadow the fantastic parts of this game.
