It's a bit clunky. Moving the map by mouse doesn't work properly, waiting for a toon to finish moving or attacking takes too long and can't be skipped, the nosphere view at the beginning of a battle doesn't give enough information, and the battles become boring after a short while. It's hard at the beginning, and then your techprists get powerful much more quickly than the enemies, so it get's a bit casual near the end. I finished it once, and enjoyed the neat details and gritty humor, but I think that's about it for me. Uses way too much ressources for the quality of the graphics
As a big BG fan myself I am quite interested in the game, *but*... This is 2020. Could you please review the game on it's own merits rather than on how exactly like an over 20 year old game it is?! - It does not have handdrawn backgrounds anymore? Eh.. I liked those. They were nifty at the time, but they are not the core of what made BG BG. - BG3 finally moves a tiny bit away from the rac.. sorry, specicist and incredible dumb "good race - evil race" schtick? About ducking time! #notallorcs Isn't the question more whether BG3 has people like Jan Jansen, Minsc and Anomen? How intricate the story is? (And let's face it... storywise BG could have learned quite a bit from PS:T..) Whether we rejoice finding a +1 weapon and run from icewulfs like in BG1, or leave anything below +4 and solo dragons for breakfast like in ToB? (ok, the intro kind of answers that, but you see the point?)
mouse not working, colours all wrong, midi sounds awful, and I'm not 'beta-testing' a 30 year old game or it's crappy dosbox. Waste of money.
The original Diablo was fun at it's time, but most players were happy to switch to Diablo 2 when it came out, and never looked back unless for nostalgia. It did start the whole concept of kill & collect, but pretty much all modern games are much better at it than this 20 year old gem. If you can get it for a buck, give it a shot and see how it all started. But 10$ for a game I thought was abandonware already is.. um.. brave
From the looks of it I figured it to be a darker version of the old Pirates! game. And it is, in it's own right. But for my taste there are way too many different 'resources'. So many it stops being immersive, and more like a board game with the main challenge to remember where to get the exact resources for the current story line. A whole game full of memorize sources and fetch things, strung together with dark steampunk/horror stories. Entertaining, but a far cry from strategy gems like Master of Orion, exploration highlights like Morrowind, text-monsters like Planescape, or steampunk RPGs like Arcanum. I'll keep playing it for the larger story that is - ever so slowly - unfolding, but while I like the world I find the game mechanics a bit tedious. Hmm.. maybe 3,5 stars.. I might have been lucky (or overly careful) so far, but the game seems not quite as hard as most people say. Just very, very slow. Still have my first captain, almost the whole map uncovered, but still the first ship and the first engine...
Gothic is a brilliant game, by far the best in the Gothics series, and still a lot of fun. No other ARPG has such a living world, such love for details, and such a gritty dark vibe, though the Witcher or New Vegas come very close. But.. of course the graphics are outdated, and that is coming from one still using a 840M which barely handles New Vegas on medium settings. The controls are unusual. No bad per se, not even complicated or counterintuitiv, but you might need about half an hour to get used to them. Which, btw, seems to be the reason for at least half of the bad reviews. After an hour tops you should be fluent with the controlls, and it's worth it. Also, the game isn't particulary hard, but it's not Diablo either. Towards the end hack and slash is a viable option, but at the beginning you need to play smart and learn about your environment. Enemies do not scale with your level. So leveling up actually means something, and the more powerful you get the more regions you can travel to without being killed by the first thing you encounter. For me that's a good thing. It also means that in the beginning a lot of things can easily kill you. So, what to do? Well.. you can travel with powerful people. Or if they don't want to, just follow them. You can learn about behavior. Most beasts don't charge at you right away, but go through an intimidation animation. Which, for the fresh inmate, is the cue to run. You can study their favourite foods. A wulf prefers to eat sheep, and should he stumble upon one he likely goes for it, even if he was hunting you before. Lurkers prefer goblin meat... Many ways to go, but yes, for those used to "starter-dungeons", level appropriate enemies, a starter kit with assorted weapons, full set of armor and two dozen potions that might be a letdown. And, as I suspect, the reason for the second half of the bad reviews.
I really can't decide if this is a 4 star game, or deserves 5 stars. It follows pretty much in the general direction of Gothic, minus, unfortunately, the day/night cycle and a few neat details. The statistics are a bit too complex for my taste, but the sheer number of skills allows a much more customized char, and an Diablo-style loot system allows for treasure hunting galore. Just... Enemies do not respawn, and the content of treasure chests depend on your level instead of your location. Which reduces the opportunity for treasure hunting, and makes a daring raid in high level areas moot. So Divinity kind of sits between two chairs. Can't make Pit/Pindle runs like in Diablo, yet the world is not quite as deep as Gothic I. Still.. beats G II and III, has worthwile quests a notch above "kill 20 goblins", feels very polished, has lots of good voice acting... no.. I guess it deserves 5 stars... add a sixt one for the current Chinese new year sales price
Bloodlines is one of the greatest RPGs to date. So one would figure that Redemption is at least a decent game. Unfortunately, there are so many things annoying with this game that you need to be a diehard fan of the bloodline universe to play this game for more than a few hours. The click-where-you-want-to-go works well with Diablos 2D map, but not with Redemptions staircases and pillars. If you click to close, you will crawl to that point. Of course you can prevent that by using the 3rd mouse key or shift, but why make it so complicated? The crawl does not do anything and just makes the ui more annoying. This way your avatar will just stand around stupidly becaus you clicked a wall or yourself instead of walkable ground or an enemy hiding behind you. It helps to reposition the camera, but this kind of struggle against the controlls instead of the enemies just gets pointless quickly. You can replentish your blood by biting lonely struggelers like in bloodlines? Great. Unfortunately the nightguards have x-ray vision and 12/10 hearing and come running form two blocks away if you do. So now one guard is hostile. No problem, right? Kill him and be done with it. Wrong. They are also telepathic beings, and will be hostile forever. All of them. And unless you manually set your entire party to defensive stand, they will attack every human, even beggars and women. Got stuck in some dungeon? Probably missed a small pressure plate on the ground somewhere. Fun! Critical hits do an enormous amount of damage. Sometimes you one-hit-kill an oponent, next time the same kind of opponent takes 30 seconds plus to kill because you barely hit it, and lets you survive with but a drop of blood left. And while the graphics of Bloodlines still hold up, our Redemption hero hobbles through the game like a rabbit in slowmotion. And yes... maybe the quality of writing makes up for it all. Not the quality of writing of the first 5 hours, and not compared to Fallout or Planescape, but... maybe
ToEE is by no means a bad game, but with very little story or character interaction. It is, in short, to Baldurs Gate what Fallout Tactics is to Fallout 1&2. A lot of (tactical) killing, but that's about it. I'd recommend skipping it and going for BG, BG2, Planescape:Torment & Arcanum first. Or Fallout 1&2, which are despite their postapocalyptic wasteland setting more like BG then ToEE. If you prefer story, the occasional alternative solution without killing, and interesting henchmen, that is.
HOMM 4 is bit different from HOMM 3. And since the vast majority of players started with 3, those differences are considered bad. I suggest not to listen too much to the fanboys. Both games are good. But 4 is much more balanced, has slightly better graphics, is much better documented (you can get most info right in the game, while 3 leaves you with much guesswork or internet-searches). I'd say it also plays better, but that might be because I'm used to its UI and mechanics and would be no more valid than the HOMM3-fanboys chant. Besides that, the differences are mostly a question of taste. You like your heroes transparently customizable? Play 4 You're afraid someone might hurt your heroes? Play 3 Like to send lot's of low lvl units around to scout? Play 4 Like surprises, because your cheapest scout party costs as much as a dragon? Play - your guessed it: 3 Prefer heroes that cast spells and/or improve army stats? Play wathever you want. Like heroes that, in addition to that, can sneak past enemy lines, take out small bands by themself? Only 4 has that kind of hero-versatility. I personally prefer HOMM4, it accomodates my playing style. It's more strategic, because scouting is cheaper. More tactic because you can decide wether to attack the hero first to take away the armies boni or neutralize the thread of disrupting spells, or go for the glass-cannons right away. You can combine a few very different heroes into one stack for specific tactics. If, however, you are a die-hard fan of HOMM 1 & 2 and want more of the same - go with 3
