It's out of date to modern Blood Bowl, but, if you're a new player this is a great way to try it out some teams before you fully dedicate. Tabletop play can be very intimidating and if you have players who can't hold back, it can be very frustrating. What makes this version better than Blood Bowl 3? The price. Blood Bowl 3 can be very expensive with all the DLC, if you can grab Blood Bowl 3 for cheaper than this, maybe pick it up? I've never played it. Regarding this game, as a brand new player, it goes through the basics via the campaign, you can setup your own tourneys and friendlies, essentially...it's blood bowl. If you're a pro player, maybe this will be good for trying out new teams with out of date rules, but if you're not interested, this game won't really provide you with much.
I wrote fanfics at school and did a clay model of Twinsen at primary school back in the 90's, so a remake coming out, I was very happy. Seeing some of the changes to Zoe and the new character Luna made me worried but after completing the game, what do I think? Gameplay wise the game is very easy. AI was always dumb and exploitable but the range of attacks has been lowered so you rarely get hit. The map being one big giant map is really cool and there are some new locations and new objectives, not many, but it's there. The temple of Bu has a section completely removed. Movement is fluid and can easily be exploited for speed runs, I skipped an entire part of the temple of bu by just running and jumping. Melee combat is awful, most attacks don't connect or feel good, the sword feels very janky which is a shame. The Ball is by far the best part of combat but also breaks the game because of the range of attacks being very small but yours isn't. It's still fun to play, imho, it's just very very easy. Sounds are a mixed bag, feels very stock sounds at times, then sometimes sounds good. Music never felt as good as the original. Writing was very mixed. The new stuff can be very interesting, the start of the game was my fav part of the game, however there is a heavy focus on them wanting to do LBA 2 more and the story of LBA 1 suffers for that. The "woke" elements can be good, more female characters isn't a bad thing, it makes the world more real and diverse, but not in a bad way, it isn't just the same three models and VA's anymore. No animals. Loved parts of the ending, fighting with Zoe was awesome but ending it with Luna was lame, wanted more of Twinsen and Zoe being a team than the character who I believe is being setup for being the main character for LBA 3 as she doesn't really serve any purpose in the game other than being a damsel. Overal I'm happy to play something LBA related and overal it's good. Won't replace LBA 1 and that's fine.
Might seem a big praise but being a fan of System Shock I was worried that this game might simply be System Shock with a fan mod or a souless cash grab that changes System Shock for a more modern audience. To summarise this game, this is what you think when you think "I wonder what this would look like with a modern engine." done right. Everything is laid out the same, if you love System Shock you will LOVE this game as you go around citadel station admiring how they've made it look like a space station and not just a level that needs your imagination. The lore and voice overs are all redone and I swear that some of the villains have been changed slightly as I don't remember them being explored as much as they are here. Is it Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal levels? No, it's very low key and true to the world of System Shock. What I love about this game is that it doesn't make the original non void. In fact, I would argue you will get more out of this game by playing the original then this one so you can appreciate all of the changes. Are all of the changes better? No, they're just different but in a good way, that is respectful not fanfic. Shodan isn't going to lecture you on politics or enviromental issues, everything is as it was but just slightly expanded enough that it makes you think "Damn, what happened in System Shock 2 again?" This is why this game is so good. It's not only a fantastic survival, adventure, FPS game but it makes you want to not only play the original but the sequals too. It's by far the new standard of remakes moving forward, if I could give this game 10 stars I would. Now at this point in time is it perfect? No, it does crash from time to time, so make sure you save often and don't just rely on quick saves, manually save too. I cannot reduce a star because of that because the game is just too good and I'm a very jadded old gamer.
Gameplay is a mish mash of Wing Commander bar mechanics where you go to a place, talk to people and then go off on a mission only...you don't really fight with them. Missions are a mix of RTS and sort of a third person shooter with RPG mechanics. It's very much like Sacrifice. I will say that towards the end game I found that auto solving fights to be the best bet as I had a massive advantage but the map I played on caused me to lose (That and I suck at RTS) Storywise it's very simple and I would warn players that you have to understand Larians sense of humor going in as it might put you off the game. If you don't like political/religious comedy where everyone is made fun of, then you might not like this game. It's (at least so far) the only game in the series that has had this tone so I will say if you want to get into the divinity series and you don't like political/religious sides being mocked then you can give this pass and miss out on very little lore other than some very minor world building that plays into Divinity 2 and a little bit of imp lore...maybe undead? Nothing as big as the other games mind you.
If I could give it half a star it would be a 4.5 thanks to fans. Please be aware that this game needs a registary edit and a few tweaks to make it run buttery smooth, it is VERY easy to do but it's a shame Larian put more effort in the trailer for the re-release than making the game more stable, as mentioned, the fans pulled through. Gameplay it's a mix between the single character dungeon crawl of Diablo just not as hard, where, in Diablo I always felt like I was close to death and fighting Diablo was a task, in this, it started off very difficult then I killed everything with my five scorpian pets, then launched another 15 on the end boss and I literally didn't need to do anything. Hilarous, yes, but not challenging. There are ways you can "break" the game as anything you can move, you can put it in your inventory so if you could move a bed...it can go in your backpack, intended too or not. Baldurs Gate in the sense that you can pause at any time and give your main character commands, makes combat much easier to manage and a large open world to explore, not Elder Scrolls massive, but still very big. Story wise I would say on it's own it's a bit shallow. There is a lot of things you can find but it's not as deep as Diablo or Baldurs gate with their massive plot lines. But, I would say that timeline wise, this is the third in the Divine series and playing Divinity Original Sin 1 and then this was amazing as there are reacuring characters who can give an illusion of your choices coming over to Divine Divinity, the other is if you play Male Warrior, your character becomes a key part of the lore in Divinity Original sin 2, Beyond Divinity and Divinity 2. It also has a great sense of humor, Lucian is such a likable character imho. So if played as a saga, you'll get a lot out of this game if played by itself, it's fun it's very much living under the shadow of the greats of it's time but it's still a very very good game that I sunk 100 hours in min maxing
