Of unimaginative mediocrity. Here is a simple synopsis of this game's plot: Halcyon - a colony of mankind - is gradually diminishing due to malnourishment caused by the ecosystem's averse nature to accept the flora and fauna of earth. The only people meant to solve this problem are asleep on the colony ship Hope but waking them up could either cause severe side-effects on the subjects or further strain the meagre supplies the colony has to offer to its denizens. Furthermore there is no contact to earth and the last earth-bound ship disappeared without a sign. Your character is meant to decide the fate of the colony. There is no right or wrong. Sadly I don't know what's currently going on with obsidian and why their recent games have been such irredeemable snooze fests because it makes no sense to me. People claim it's due to former talent leaving in droves which isn't true. The same people that helped create new Vegas worked on this awful game too. So I'm left dumbfounded as to why the outer worlds even exists. The synopsis paints the picture of a gritty mature themed RPG. One in which you have to constantly make grey choices. But instead it's this odd mix of steampunk, forced humour and bad writing which makes me wonder what the people working on this game did. Did they twiddle their thumps after the brainstorming session? Got bored after building the foundation and let clowns finish the rest for them? Because the result is one of the most tedious games I have played in my life. At least avowed offered somewhat decent gameplay but this game is actually just terrible. The music, the atmosphere, the writing and the gameplay encouraged me to play F:NV again instead of forcing myself through this agonising experience. In the end a sequel - or a spiritual successor - is meant to turn the process of replaying the predecessor into a gruelling experience but playing outer worlds - and failing to finish it once - is akin to rubbing your hands on a cheese grater.
Game compatibility yet for some reason the same fixes needed for this game are not available. As such the launcher won't which in turn won't allow you to change settings and when you ignore said launcher the game starts in 4:3 mode at 30fps, low res and everything set to low Ladies and gentlemen now please pay us 20 quid or 7 quid on sale
Fix it. It shows the precipitous decline of this industry when bg3 receives goty award for merely being better than all the horrendously produced games out there. It's OK at best. Similar to divinity. The plot is an afterthought. Urgency is introduced but forgotten about. The writing is less hit and more miss. The companions are mid at best. Gale takes the crown easily. The rest is written for horny teens. Anyone who has played tyranny or pillars of eternity can see that writing is not larian's strength and never will be. So they try to mask it with production value. Animations range from hilariously bad to pertinent for the situation. Some emotional moments in which the VA is doing her best to deliver oscar worthy performance is ruined because of the accompanying animations. Music is good. Every time I boot up this game I wait and listen to the main theme. Sound design and va is excellent. Too bad larian decided to waste their budget to render characters closeup since the poor animation quality ruins the performance of the sound and va team. Visual fidelity is a mixed bag. Bg3 certainly looks good from afar. Zoom in and you see a conflicting amalgamation of laziness, haste and competence. Characters have detailed textures that are intermingled with some hideous ps3 era textures. Gameplay is what you expect. Turn-based combat is unparalleled in this genre and fun once you get the hang of it. However larian always finds a way to turn it into a drudgery. Used up all those spells in that fight? Too bad go through 3 relatively lengthy loading screens to recover your spells. This is on a 13700/5070ti and WD sn850 btw. Doubt vast majority have a similar setup. Performance is good on my setup but like the aformentioned paragraph I'm on capable rig. I wouldn't expect good performance on older setups. Overall if you are not interested in the gameplay then don't buy this game. The plot is generic. The writing is mid at best and you remain nostalgic.
And this is tale hails from Poland. A mysterious country in eastern Europe. A place proud of it's heritage and proud of their artisans. One such artisan a grumpy old fellow named Sapkowski decides to write a series of novels that will soon capture the attention of reader inland and from shores far away. In fact said tale is captivating that it spawned a slew of media projects So why the 1 star you are asking? Welp unlike most gamers I tend to foster an esoteric hobby of mine which is called reading. I was a kid back then and there I read a captivating story about doomed hero. A white wolf. His skin? The color of bleached skull. His sword? A creation of chaos. His fate? Doomed in a changing world. His profession? That of a mercenary Now here is the confusing part. His name? Elric of Melnibone. Wait a second! Who dared to plagiarize Sapkowski legendary novel? None other than its original creator. An amicable old fellow named Michael Moorecock So? who cares? Sapkowski only copied the character. Did you know that GRRM (a song of ice and fire) has a character called John Snow who owns an albino wolf with red eyes? Yes I do. In fact old boy George and Michael are good friends. GRRM never attempts to lie about the homage he is paying to his friend So what's your point snob? Sapkowski copied all concept from Elric of Melnibone. All of it.
(Played on gamepass) So let me begin by mentioning a few concepts. Raise your hand if you notice any similarities: - Pointy-eared immortal race that is slowly perishing - Pointy-eared dark version of said immortal race that enjoy sadism and are servants of chaos - The symbol of chaos - Magic is frowned upon and considered a tool of chaos - Navigators are an essential resource for space travel - An AI rebellion that led to the consecutive ban of the aforementioned technology - Elite soldiers trained in hostile environments on specific planets Just straight a copy/paste job from lord of the rings, Elric of Melnibone and dune. There is nothing here that would suggest this is different from the source material. Actually let me take it back since that would be a disgusting insult to Tolkien, Moorecock and Herbert. The source material is far better Also the haughty pointy-eared immortal calls humans "monkeigh"? And this subpar universe spawned a huge fandom? I suppose some people need to be left behind in order for humanity to progress
Stardew valley is a dull and repetitive game with menial rewards and a gameplay loop that I assume only certain people might enjoy. By certain people I mean those who want a relaxed physical activity while listening to audiobooks or podcasts. I do that too albeit infrequently since I enjoy reading books but even for that purpose, stardew valley falls short in every aspect. I can either play a paradox game - which is entertaining and fun while listening to audiobooks - or factorio, or rocket league or so many other games in the vast bowels of digital store fronts. Opting stardew valley among so many competitors for the same price is akin to choosing mcdonalds when your girlfriend prepared you delicious meal. It's preposterous. I don't necessarily mind the grind - paradox and factorio is all about that grind - but there are limits to what is acceptable. In stardew, it's excessive and the rewards menial at best. The gameplay loop is mundane and I in all honesty can't fathom who or why someone would like or choose this game. The entire gameplay loop can be summed up as: - wake up - tend your crops and animals - go to town for more seeds and feed - go back to sleep - rinse and repeat That doesn't sound by itself, if the gameplay was engaging however it's janky, clunky and aimed at wasting your time, in order for the devs to justify an arbitrary price. In short quantity over quality. If you like that then so be it. It runs on any old igpu and pc but so do a lot of quality games that are cheaper than this and offer more replay value and engagement. For me stardew valley is a mundane profession, one that's hard to recommend and hard to enjoy. I assume the devs of this game completely missed the irony, otherwise they wouldn't have created a game, centered around a person quitting their lifesapping job, only for the players to end up doing mindless, repetitive and dull tasks ad nauseum. Similar to a lifesapping job in front of your screen...
1. don't create custom characters. Larian's custom characters are better... but wait isn't this an RPG? am I not supposed to create something I like? supposedly I guess because Larian's designers didn't care about what you want. they wanted to show you instead what they wanted. get it? you don't get to roleplay nerd. the designers do that for you. 2. don't expect freedom despite the misleading storepage information. this is a linear, on-rails, turn-based tactical game. 3. don't expect your actions to have meaningful consequences. killed a major character in one act and are confused how they managed to reappear in the next, despite the fact you defiled their corpse and left a puddle of mush behind? tough luck mate. Larian's designers don't like that, so the character you killed, receives anime-style plot armor. man these larian guys are way too infatuated with themselves. uncanny. even a bit egotistical and proud. 4. look up guides. 5. use the giftbag ( community mods that you can active in-game ). it adds a ton of qol that is absolutely necessary to enjoy this game. but hold on. larian's design team is too proud and smug to admit in shortcoming in their own design. so achievements are disabled. keep in mind the devs baked these mods in the game. by now, if you are fortunate enough to have a functional prefrontal cortex, you can tell, I dislike divinity 2. however I dislike smug game-designer far more. I can't stand the lot of them. they are the bane of this industry and the reason so many halfbaked and flawed games exist in the first place. and Larian seems to have no shortage of this plague.
the game is fine. if you are bored out of your mind and want to play something that barely requires any brain-activity, then shadow of war is fine for that. it's mostly a casual game devoid of any challenge and a bland plot that will put anyone who reads classic literature ( myself included ) to sleep. it's lord of the rings in all of it's glorified nonsense. the reason why fantasy has consistently devolved in quality. it all started with tolkien and his focus on worldbuilding in exchange for literally everything else that makes story interesting. did anyone read crime and punishment from dostejewski because elves, dwarves and hundreds upon hundreds of pages of unnecessary exposition existed? no. did howard require 1000 pages to describe the subtle, yet absolutely superfluous and trite difference in races in his books to make conan a more interesting character? again no. I didn't intend to write anything about the plot of this game but lord of the rings is the sole reason why fantasy has become monotonous and bland. gameplay like I mentioned above is ok. it's mostly very easy and because of the dull nature of the mechanics, this game will become incredibly boring, incredibly fast. that's why I never managed to finish it despite starting it on 5 different occasions. now to the main reason why I simply can't recommend the gog version of this game. gog touts that they are different compared to steam, because they care about customer satisfaction and therefore focus on fixing broken games, that are currently available in their vast digital storefront. well on several occasions I discovered that this is blatant misinformation. let's take this game as an example. first of all if you have a monitor that isn't 1080p or 2160p then don't bother buying the gog version because you can't set the resolution to 1440p for example. I got this free from primegaming. so no big deal but since there are no store reviews, I wanted to warn potential consumers.
it's just another amplitude 4x where it looks good on paper but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. every mechanic in this game is halfbaked and conveys the idea that amplitude just wanted to waste your time. keep in mind this is coming from someone who plays paradox grand strategy games... if I say a game is tedious and tests my patience, then by all means it will bore you to sleep if you are not accustomed to the genre. honestly what's the point of playing this compared to stellaris? both are 4x and in space. both will have you invest countless hours staring at your monitor. but playing this game feels like undergoing surgery without anesthetics or deciding to ride a horse in a world where you could have anesthetics and where you could choose a plane. in the end you'll reach your destination nonetheless but why would anyone with a functional frontal lobe opt for the inferior options? you could argue that stellaris is too complex ( which it isn't ) or that you are tired of stellaris. I'd highly suggest you try something else because this game is meant for the absolute most casual players out there. people who come home from their 9to5, tired and looking for a pastime until they go to bed. if you are looking for something that will bore you enough to put you to sleep then by all means get this game. it's more potent than swallowing a melatonin pill. I can assure you that you will sleep soundly. I for example slept like a child today and after playing this game, I'm tired again haha. with that said it's another amplitude game. from endless legend to humankind, their games are incredibly dull and bland. I got this on sale and this is the last time I support these devs.
I think it's a decent game however the controls are abysmal. getting troops into position you want, is akin to herding cats across the street. there is also an issue in which troops randomly refuse to accept your attack order. I'm not talking about skirmishers. just regular infantry that refuses to go into position or attack the enemy I designated for them. as such flanking maneuvers become difficult to pull off but despite my grievances I still believe it's a decent game. I remember buying this ages ago for a few quid and I'm not disappointed.
