This is HARDLY the 10/10 god tier return to form RPG that the user reviews are calling it. Those people are either diehard Obsidian fanboys or desperate RPG fans wanting to put over classic-style RPGs. Pillars of Eternity is more like a high budget Spiderweb Software game, without the unique settings those have and PARTS of the Infinity Engine games in it. Its focus is sidequesting/combat, and in the latter the game is mostly fine. The new Endurance system cuts out aggravation from oldschool design, and the classes all have abilities compared to some from older games just autoattacking. Spells are a bit hard to make out in larger brawls and combat’s fast pace, but it’s fine and there's useful speed options in and out of combat. Everything outside of the combat though is too damn simple and played safe. The overall game design is WAY too convenient and player friendly. The quests rarely last longer than 5/10 minutes (including walking) and often tell you exactly how and when to do things, with occasional decisions that seldom affect anything. The dialogue trees, while wordy, are simply laid out, and lack failure states outside of you (Attack) options. The Personality system is pointless, it just spawns flavor text in interactions. The 8 companions are down from BG2’s 17, and are nowhere near as interesting or involved/disruptive as them. The dungeons feel too small most of the time. The worldbuilding is horrendously paced, and very much lies in the “just read the codex” mentality. Race lineup is a bunch of human lookalikes, and nonplayable races pretty much all reskinned D&D assets. In 2015. Could go on. PoE is a far cry from the crushing worthlessness of Wasteland 2. But those looking to scratch the CRPG itch would find more satisfaction with their earlier Neverwinter Nights 2 which has more of the feel and philosophy of the old games than Eternity does. It MIGHT’VE scratched up to 4 stars here if not for the unforgivable amount of bugs and setting uncreativity.
This is HARDLY the 10/10 god tier return to form RPG that the user reviews are calling it. Those people are either diehard Obsidian fanboys or desperate RPG fans wanting to put over classic-style RPGs. Pillars of Eternity is more like a high budget Spiderweb Software game, without the unique settings those have and PARTS of the Infinity Engine games in it. Its focus is sidequesting/combat, and in the latter the game is mostly fine. The new Endurance system cuts out aggravation from oldschool design, and the classes all have abilities compared to some from older games just autoattacking. Spells are a bit hard to make out in larger brawls and combat’s fast pace, but it’s fine and there's useful speed options in and out of combat. Everything outside of the combat though is too damn simple and played safe. The overall game design is WAY too convenient and player friendly. The quests rarely last longer than 5/10 minutes (including walking) and often tell you exactly how and when to do things, with occasional decisions that seldom affect anything. The dialogue trees, while wordy, are simply laid out, and lack failure states outside of you (Attack) options. The Personality system is pointless, it just spawns flavor text in interactions. The 8 companions are down from BG2’s 17, and are nowhere near as interesting or involved/disruptive as them. The dungeons feel too small most of the time. The worldbuilding is horrendously paced, and very much lies in the “just read the codex” mentality. Race lineup is a bunch of human lookalikes, and nonplayable races pretty much all reskinned D&D assets. In 2015. Could go on. PoE is a far cry from the crushing worthlessness of Wasteland 2. But those looking to scratch the CRPG itch would find more satisfaction with their earlier Neverwinter Nights 2 which has more of the feel and philosophy of the old games than Eternity does. It MIGHT’VE scratched up to 4 stars here if not for the unforgivable amount of bugs and setting uncreativity.
There’s not a whole lot to be said about FEAR other then it’s a fun action-packed FPS where you’re rarely bored. It’s got solid and flowing shooting action, neat story, bullet timing, and is near constantly throwing combat and/or jump scares at you (and the latter isn't as repetitive or predicable as games like Dead Space or Doom 3). I’d stick with just playing the first game, even if the others show up on GOG. I know FEAR 2 has its fans, and it’s not nearly as bad or disrespectful as the third game, but I had too many issues with it to recommend it. Best to do what one should do with Condemned or Mass Effect 1 and pretend it bombed and never got a sequel.
I have no idea why GOG dragged it's ass on accepting this game into it's portfolio. Whatever the reason it wasn't justified, cause now steam had plenty of time to take most of it's sales. Damn shame. Avernum is a remake of a remake of a classic dungeon crawler RPG (then called Exile), and aside from a few issues of having more pigeonholing aspects (namely the starting dungeon, which rubs me the wrong way since it adds a Irenicus's Dungeon onto what once was just a small friendly fort with a portal in the middle) it is a remake that fully justifies it's existence. The huge and for the most part open world that you can explore and dozens of dungeons to delve are still there, but now on top of much nicer visuals there's strategy elements to spice the gameplay up. Positioning and abilities play an important part now if you don't want to get shredded by the hordes of enemies you'll face. And it seems like the dev was really pushing to make everything in it more memorable, the locations and characters and so on. In the face of overproduced and restrictive modern rpgs that overfocus on bad writing/characters, and soddy weaksauce kickstarted rpgs that leave no impression on the player (looking at you Wasteland 2 and Dead Man's Switch), the Spiderweb games stand as a nice alternative that feels better then it's screenshots and bargain bin price implies. Definitely a must try.
This upgrade only gives you novels, one of them unreleased. This adds nothing to actual game. If you want Bard's Tale, then buy Bard's Tale.
I’m sorry to report that the faith and money of the RPG fans who funded this has resulted in a glorified bargain bin RPG. Visuals? Ugly, 2005-esc. Clearly had little effort put into them. There are ways to make a game look good without triple-A graphics you know. Gameplay? There’s no real tactics beyond go behind cover and occasionally use Ambush (Oversight) to shoot at things that move.Enemies have the same braindead bullrushing or cover plinking tactics, be it elite soldiers or giant flies. RPG mechanics? The dialogue system is wretched. It uses some of the most soulless and charmless dialogue I’ve seen in ages. Choices and consequences are meh, sometimes you’ll get a meaningful result but most of the time you don’t notice. Story? Shockingly derivative, with tons of locations and assets and antagonists lifted from the previous game. This does not feel like a sequel that needed to be made. Occasionally you meet an interesting character or two, but the majority of locations are just quest hubs that you go to, do all the sidequests (which often don’t give you motivation to do them beyond “It exists”), and then never return to again. You don't care about anything. And on top of those the game fails at very basic things like descriptions saying stats do things they don’t do, or overhanging background scenery blocking the cursor from clicking on things. These devs are supposed to be industry/RPG veterans, yet this game reeks of amateur mistakes and design decisions. If you see this game for like fifteen dollars it might be worth picking it, it’s not AWFUL or hopelessly broken just bland uninspired and uninvolving. But really, there are so many better games out there. The oldschool RPGs the KS namedropped are SO much better than this, and for newer titles theres the Witchers, Expeditions Conquistador, Divinity, Spiderweb games, it goes on. And people, please… overrating crap like this will not save or restore the RPG genre. It just won’t. Praise actually good games.
