I played this years ago. It ran fine then. Now, years later it *ALWAYS* crashes during combat, making it impossible to get past the first combat encounter with the wolf. The story of PILLARS... and the world building are great. I also liked that the devs developed a complete rule system of their own. I really hated the combat system though: real-time with pause is the worst combat system ever conceived. Combat in RPGs should always be turn-based. This is like COMMAND & CONQUER, it just doesn't fit with this type of game. If you play the game properly (higher difficulty setting) you will have to pause the game every second anyway to micro-manage your idiots - uh I mean "heroes" - because they will constantly "forget" your orders and run off into certain death (mages). You'll be playing in turn-based anyway! Enemies will always break through your ranks - something you can better counter in turn-based combat but is a painb here - and your magic user will constantly run into melee where they will die in one hit. This is why I *hate* BALDUR'S GATE 1 & 2 as well. At least later games (PILLARS 2, PATHFINDER) allow you tu turn on turn-based mode, albeit it clearly shows that those games were designed for rtwp. No, PILLARS... is nowhere near as great as DIVINITY ORIGINAL SIN 1 & 2 or BALDUR'S GATE 3 (EA). And for some reason the latest version *always* freezes during combat, thus being unplayable. REFUNDED.
Shocker! This DLC is GOOD! After 2 atrocious DLCs I had given up on Owlcat and already regretted buying the season pass. I still regret buying the season pass, but the final DLC is actually quite good (good, not great). The Treasure Of The Midnight Isles is the equivalent of Kingmaker's Beneath the Stolen Lands, meaning it's a rogue-like dungeon. If you don't like this type of experience you will probably not like the standalone part of the DLC. There is a "Story version" of this DLC weaved into the main story, but this ditches the rogue elements and is shorter. The Treasure Of The Midnight Isles seems to be the last DLC which you get with the season pass, apparently there are more DLCs to come which will require purchasing the second season pass, but given the track record (2 complete bombs, 1 good DLC) I won't be buying that one.
After the terrible free addition of the dwarven inventor I was skeptical but the Witch Hunter is the most fun class. Especially dual-wielding guns is fun. WARHAMMER: CHAOSBANE has has some major improvements, including a few added tile sets in the first chapter and some additional enemies (still lacking variety though), but overall I'd say CHAOSBANE is finally a very good hack & slash. Just a pity that the Witch Hunter hides behind a $10 pay wall. It would have been a 5 star DLC if it had been free like the crappy dwarven inventor.
DOOM 64 feels like the "real" DOOM 3 - it still looks very much like the original and HELL ON EARTH and plays like those, just a tad darker. ID's DOOM 3 was an outstanding game - it took cues from SYSTEM SHOCK (lite) but it just wasn't DOOM anymore. Nightdive has brought DOOM 64 to the PC, never thought this would happen (apart from mods) but they did. They added modern controls, modern resolutions and a save/load function which is the only way to play. All these features make this my person favorite in the series. It has the best atmosphere (minus the cheap jump scares of DOOM 3) with better looking enemies. It sure beats the newer DOOM games DOOM 2016 and DOOM "SUPER MARIO" ETERNAL and is a lot cheaper. 5/5 for sure!
What kills the game for me is the terrible combat system (realtime with pause) which plays pretty much like Warcraft. Unfortunately the AI is braindead and has your party members running brainlessly into traps and mages into suicide by trying to melee heavy hitting enemies. You give your party members orders, which they briefly follow before doing something stupid. You're going to be smashing the pause button every couple of seconds to micromanage your dummies anyway, so why WHY realtime??? The ONLY way to go with party based RPGs is turn based. Luckily Baldur's Gate 3 is made by competent developers who realized that making BG 3 the ONLY part of the series to recommend. Yes, the story might be good, the characters might be good, too, but what good is it when the game is garbage?
Yet another Baldur's Gate clone, unfortunately it does not allow for turn based combat and only has the terrible realtime with pause system that was already garbage in Baldur's Gate 1. The 2D graphics are alright but nothing to write home about, character models however are mediocre. Everyone who's played Pillars of Eternity or BG will recognize the HUD and have no problem with the controls. Black Geyser really isn't sufficient nourishment for RPG-starved gamers out there. It anages to be even duller than the mediocre Pathfinder games.
A successor to PLANESCAPE TORMENT? Really? The only two things I found these games have in common are 1) they both have the word torment in their titles and 2) they're more like interactive novels While PLANESCAPE TORMENT (the far superior "Torment" game) is a pure fantasy game, this one mixes fantasy in sci-fi (which I'm not a fan of). TTON ditches the terrible "real time with pause" combat system (which was never good to begin with) and replaces it with an unpolished, equally sucking turn based system. Just like PT the focus is not on combat, so if that's what you're here for, you'll be disappointed. TTON is about reading, reading and more reading. Few lines are actually voiced, so expect to do some serious reading for about 99% of the time. The classes you play as are the equivalent of fighter, rogue and mage (how ingenious!) otherwise expect the same old as in any isometric RPG. In no way does this game live up to PLANESCAPE TORMENT. The setting is replaced by a bland sci-fantasy mix and the game fails to provide PST's captivating macabre atmosphere. Don't waste your time here, read a book instead!
The Good: NOTHING! The Bad: ----- cliff hanger ending - additional content coming requiring a SECOND SEASON PASS -- low level party -- 2 NPCs MUST be in your party and MUST survive - side show cast Bottom Line: Lesson learned: it was the first season pass I bought and it will be the last. It will also be the last item from Owlcat Games for sure. Until now the season pass has not paid off. The DLCs were piss-poor. This second story DLC is the worst. It also comes with a cliffhanger ending - a continuation will follow but you'll have to fork out more $$$ because it is part of a 2nd Season Pass! Well, I'm out!
Pros: + lots of fighting + nicely drawn environments + create a party of 6 (no NPCs) Cons: --- terrible Command & Conquer style passive combat (real time with pause) -- very little voice acting (prepare to read A LOT) - braindead AI - starts at level 1 with mages being near useless (1 spell per rest, 4 hit points) - pathfinding is horrible - Infinity engine's capabilities are very limited (fighting, reading dialogues) Bottom line: The first two BALDUR'S GATE games have to be the most overrated cRPGs of all time. Not only did they introduce a very crappy combat system where combat is mostly automatic and you just interfere by pressing space bar to pause and issue commands which the characters briefly follow before returning to their suicidal behavior (mages with 4 hps will rush into melee combat). Tactical turn-based combat is the only way to go in this type of game (unless it's a solo character game which can get away with DIABLO-style click-to-hit). The pathfinding is atrocious - you need to bring your party to a point at the end of the map, you'd better "lead" them in baby steps to that point or they'll just get lost (or stuck). Wanna leave the area? Prepare to hear "you must gather your party before venturing forth!" - yes, pixel exact placement of all six characters at the exit, one pixel off is a no-go. Due to the game engine's (Infinity, what a joke!) limitations you'll be doing two things is abundance: fighting and talking to NPCs (reading, lots and lots of reading, because only every other sentence is actually dubbed with mediocre voice acting). Enhanced Edition? Well, Beamdog did add higher resolutions, but using them makes everything look washed out and blurred, so don't expect any miracles here. If you intend to get ICEWIND DALE 2 note that that has NOT been "enhanced" and it recycles a lot of areas of ICEWIND 1.
