EARLY ACCESS REVIEW Pros: +++ no real time with pause! +++ turn based tactical combat + NPC Shadowheart + open world (take notes, Owlcat) + looks fantastic + so many different ways to solve quests + character generation has so many options for an isometric game + optional weighted dice feature for those are always unlucky + dark and disturbing story Cons: - finally get rid of the level cap - very slow with releasing additional content - some NPCs are lackluster (not Shadowheart) - romances Bottom Line: BALDUR'S GATE 3 has the potential to become the best RPG of all times. Larian has a good track record with DIVINITY ORIGINAL SIN 2 being a masterpiece, so picking this up in Early Access is not as much of a gamble as with other studios. It's got an open world rather than traveling on a map between locations (as in Pathfinder or the original BALDUR'S GATE games). The best part about BG 3 however is that it is NOT realtime with pause! It takes the best of DIVINITY ORIGINAL SIN 2's combat (like elevations, environments, ledges...) and allows for tactical combat that would no be possible in realtime. This is how these games should be made. Unfortunately some of the NPCs are rather weak and uninteresting. It is doubtful that this will be greatly altered however. Hopefully Larian will add some additional NPCs in later chapters. There are a lot of options how to tackle missions outside of combat. You can sneak into a camp instead of fighting through the front door and poison the majority of them. You can snipe them. You can intimidate them or JOIN them. So far, I'm loving it!
Like a previous reviewer said, it's hard to like this after you played LEGEND OF GRIMROCK, especially its sequel. With so many other dungeon crawlers of the 90s being available on GOG, like the EYE OF THE BEHOLDER trilogy, the MIGHT & MAGIC series or STONEKEEP and especially the mentioned before GRIMROCK titles, I can't really recommend HEROES OF MONKEY TAVERN. It's just underwhelming. Not a total disaster, but definitely below average.
This is what we waited for since 2013?! Compared to the 2013/2014 trailers and screenshots THIS is a major let-down THE GOOD: - great creepy atmosphere - enemies look fantastic (especially the skeletons) - 3 lives add a bit of tension WHAT NEEDS WORK: - game mechanics (blocking, magic, random dungeons) - content! Gameplay lasts for 30 mins to an hour max. Check out the WITCHER 3 DLCs for how a GREAT DLC should look! - weapon durability! a few swings and your weapons break. Come on! - hub and menu should have a medieval theme instead of lazily using the DYING LIGHT ones! THE BAD: - simplistic combat (no blocking), heavy attacks require unlocking in skills, no shields or dual wielding - should be accessible from a menu w/o having to play Dying Light at all! - color palette (use less of the bright orange/blue and go back to the original design!) - immersion breaking player character (w r i s t w a t c h, clothes) TECHLAND: GIVE US A REAL HELLRAID STANDALONE GAME AND SCRAP THE UNNECESSARY DYING LIGHT 2 INSTEAD!!! DYING LIGHT: HELLRAID IS A MAJOR SLAP IN THE FACE FOR EVERYBODY WHO HAS BEEN WAITING FOR THIS GAME SINCE 2013! YES, I BOUGHT HELLRAID TWICE, HERE AND ON STEAM, HOPING TECHLAND WILL USE THE FUNDS AND GIVE US THE HELLRAID THAT WE WERE ORIGINALLY PROMISED! CHECK OUT WITCHAVEN TO SEE WHAT HELLRAID IS SUPPOSED TO BE!!!
Dark Quest 1 & 2 bundle is definitely worth the price: for just under $10 you get two games, that are basically turn based hybrids of Diablo and Darkest Dungeon (minus the Darkest Dungeon diffculty). I loved it, especially the second one which improves the visuals and gameplay so much: it's in isometric 3D with the looks of the classic Cadaver game. Combat gets more difficult later in the game and turns into a little puzzle, figuring out which enemy to attack first with which character for maximum efficiency - just like Darkest Dungeon. It's an independent little gem offering quite a lot.
the bad reputation is well deserved. Troika games made 3 games - all filled with bugs and unplayable. No wonder they went out of business. They didn't even bother with patches - leaving that to the community modders. Temple of Elemental Freeze, even with community patches installed will frequently freeze and crash, making it virtually unplayable. It is complete garbage not even worth getting for a cent.
Forget Diablo 1,2,3 (yes also 2!), Torchlight 1 & 2, Path of Exile, GRIM DAWN beats them all. It might not be the best looking of the bunch, but it certainly has the best atmosphere and world design and thus playability. Hack & Slash games have a problem: they get boring fast. Monotonous gameplay is the main culprit here, and this problem only mildly applies to GRIM DAWN: the world is varied and interconnected - one big open world map, seemless like Dungeon Siege - and hand-crafted. I've never been a fan of the randomized maps, with long mazes that don't make any sense but simply attempt to add replayability. Sure, the map of GRIM DAWN remains the same for each playthrough, except some special random dungeons that offer the Diablo-like experience (they are not optional), and some events/optional dungeon entrances are randomized. But since the world is HUGE and truly comes close to a true open world, there is plenty to explore here. I love the dark fantasy/post-apocalypse setting - it's even got GUNS! 19th century guns. The classes are not your stereotypical run-of-the-mill warrior/cleric/mage types, but a little more exotic, plus you get to combine two classes to create a unique dual-class with skills from each class. The skill system is a lot more complex than that of Diablo 1,2 and 3 but it's not overkill like in Path of Exile. I'd say they nailed it, perfectly balanced between complex and simple, just right. I found the loot interesting and every class can use any weapon, the class restrictions of Diablo don't exist here, which is a plus. My occultist/necromancer can use rifles or Claymores or stick to a pistol and a grimoire. Enemy variety is far better than in the other games of this type, ranging from undead to aetherials, specters, bandits, goblins and other monstrosities, there are tons of monsters, excellent! Regions are varied and fit together: you don't get a desert next to a rainforest. DLCs are superb too. GRIM DAWN is a must own!
I put some over 500+ hours into OBLIVION when it first came out and I am truly torn between wanting to damn this game into oblivion and wanting to praise it. First off, the combat is an improvement over the abysmal combat that plagues TES ARENA, DAGGERFALL and MORROWIND. No longer do you have to rely on luck that the imaginary dice actually allow you to hit your enemy when you swing, if your hit visually connects with the enemy - you hit it! Secondly the graphics were really good for the time (except some character models including your own player character). Especially the old ruins filled with some of the best looking zombies and wraiths you will ever see in an RPG of its time add to the incredible atmosphere. The last positive aspect is the huge game world that allows you to play as you want to play. Want to ignore the main quest and just be an assassin? It's possible. King of Thieves? Yes. Mercenary? You got it. What I disliked: The leveling system is broken. You level up by using certain actions that are linked to your attributes. Running and jumping will raise agility, while repairing your armor, smithing and enduring hits will raise your endurance which is directly linked to your maximum hitpoints you gain each level. So basically if you level the wrong attributes (intelligence or speed or agility) instead of endurance it is easy to fall behind your level with your hitpoints. Generic fetch quests. This is something that has plagued all Bethesda and most other open world games. There might be an unlimited amount of quests to do, but they are generic "go to x and fetch x amount of x" quests that get old real fast. The Gates of Oblivion. The game's main quest consists of closing the randomly spawning oblivion gates, where you travel to a mini world and have to find a sigil stone to close the gate. Like SKYRIM's dragons it's fun the first few times but gets annoying fast. Overall there's a lot better open world games out there now.
...but you can't go below 1. Thought the MIGHT & MAGIC series couldn't get worse after the atrocious parts VI (THE MANDATE OF HEAVEN) & VII (FOR BLOOD AND HONOR)? Think again, because DAY OF THE DESTROYER is here, once again using the meanwhile ancient and dust-covered graphics engine that was outdated when they used it for part 6. It recycles the terrible combat system of M&M VI & VII that did not work well for those parts either. It's a mess if you use the standard real-time combat (too fast and unprecise) and it's broken if you use the turn-based system. All in all combat in this combat-focused game is the least fun part. The race/class system has been screwed up with races added to the classes (so instead of a Dark Elven Mage, dark elf is a class of its own and so is mage, for whatever reason). You spend the first half hour of the game just slaughtering seemingly endlessly spawning pirates. After that you are free to roam the world (I quit after the pirate battle because of ABGS - acute bad game syndrome). Get M&M 3-5. Skip the rest.
Buy the MIGHT & MAGIC 6-pack Limited Edition, which contains the rather mediocre M&M 1&2, and the series' best parts 3-5 with the option to enjoy parts 4&5 seamlessly as one great game. And then there's the atrocious turkey Part 6 where the series went to $h!+. MIGHT & MAGIC VII - FOR BLOOD AND HONOR follows that path down the hill as it features the same horrible combat system that works neither as a real-time nor turn-based system, and this is where the game completely falls apart. Nevermind the terribly sterile graphics that were outdated when the 6th part came out - RPG fans have learned to live with poor graphics - but the combat system is just a mess! real-time is way too fast and unprecise. Turn-based is just broken as it kind of functions (well actually it does NOT function) like the pausable real-time combat in the BALDUR'S GATE/ICEWIND DALE series, with the difference that while you pause/unpause you have to manually control the attacks of all 4 party members too. Sometimes less is more. They should have stuck to the block movement and 90 degrees turning with turn-based combat only, which made M&M 3-5 so great.
The MIGHT & MAGIC series has had some ups and downs. While none of them are impressive from a technical point, I loved the combat system of parts 3-5 before they completely ruined it with the successors. MIGHT & MAGIC 1 & 2 are rather mediocre, I give them both a 2.5 out of 5 MIGHT & MAGIC 3, 4 & 5 is where the series really shines. Not graphically though, the world and its inhabitants are way too colorful for my taste, the animations are atrocious and the monsters you fight range from laughable to cute. Seriously, they look like you could name them Fluffy or Cuddle-Buddy, that is before they hit you, because holy moly, do they pack a punch. The sounds are equally unimpressive - with parts 4 & 5 featuring some(!) of the main dialogues being spoken - corny over-acting here, but otherwise it's bare minimum effort here. As for the controls, they are a bit complicated and take some getting used to, with inventory management being the worst offender here. Otherwise MIGHT & MAGIC 3-5 feature a complete 3D open world with towns, dungeons and encounters, way before ELDER SCROLLS ARENA hit the shelves. The games a round based throughout, meaning movement of one square is one turn - enemy movement works the same, so there are no smooth enemy animations. This allows for an excellent combat system (turn-based of course) with the option to use ranged weapons from a distance before switching to melee while the enemies catch up. Parts 4 & 5 forge a big game world together (World of Xeen) that you can experience seemlessly. M&M III is the most difficult game in the series. I give MIGHT & MAGIC 3 a 4 out of 5, M&M 4 a 4 out of 5, M&M 5 a 4 out of 5 and WORLD OF XEEN (4&5 combined) a 5 out of 5. MIGHT & MAGIC 6 however changed the series for the worse. It messed up the combat system (real time, with optional, poorly implemented turn-based option) that completely ruins the experience. Hence I award MIGHT & MAGIC 6: THE MANDATE OF HEAVEN a rockbottom 1 out of 5!
