This is the game that seduced me to the dark side of the Force. The various parts of the game didn't stand out by themselves. They were just good enough to keep me going easily along the plot. By the end I turned from the way of the Jedi. I was never a fan of the Jedi, of course, but the extraordinary thing about this game's writing is how subtly and insidiously my fall came about. I was deeply moved at the end. As a third-person adventure RPG, this game works great, just as KOTOR works great. The third person view gives you a more visceral sense of action, while the pausable, mixed real time/turn based combat still lets you manage you and your companions easily. There are the expected dialogue choices that let you make the story yours. There are different skills that let you open locks, hack computers, influence characters, and all that good open-ended stuff. The characters are a little less interesting than I hoped, but I only cared about one anyway. The game is like ramen. Not nearly as impressive as ten course French cuisine. You hardly even notice it as you eat. But after you are done, you look back and think, "that was pretty damn good!" Yet you can't quite put your finger on why it was good. Unless you are like me and realize you unconsciously turned to the dark side and you are not even sure it counts as the dark side.
"Yeah, I know... but you can't say you haven't missed my sparkling repartee just a little." Even more than Heart of the Tiger, The Price of Freedom is an interactive movie experience. I always thought the flight simulation in IV is a little too... touchy. A little too augmented reality. What a movie experience though. You don't know Mark Hamill fully as an actor unless you have played, or at least watched, Wing Commander III and IV. The other actor that I have to give credit to is Tom Wilson. Maniac completes Blair. You have to see them on screen to appreciate it.
The catharsis at the end is the only reason I give it three stars and not two. I almost stopped playing midway because Rufus' attitude and antics make Home Simpson look like Ned Flanders. The script writers took it too far. However, after Rufus' nadir at the middle of the game, he returns to form toward the end, ironically thanks to his nemesis Cletus and Argus. It says something that I liked Cletus and Argus more for most of the game. The puzzles, luckily, have gotten better since the second game. The standard puzzles got a little better but still not the same quality as the original Deponia. The inventory puzzles, though, are quite a bit more clever than before. There are also a few nifty what I call situational puzzles: tackling problems by interacting with the environment in logical ways that is not strictly inventory based. The game is fun for the brain for the most part. It's also painful for the heart for the most part. Much of the game is not even ha-ha funny anymore, unlike the first two. However, if you reach the part of the game where Rufus makes you sick, you have to finish. Get a guide to rush through it if you have to. Otherwise you won't reach the catharsis at the end and have the series end on a positive feeling. That would be a shame.
What you came for isn't that relevant. This game is about Goal. Many reviewers said the first Deponia game was a love story at its heart. I didn't feel it. Goal just felt like a suitcase I was lugging around because it contained a valuable key. This one, though, really ingratiated Goal to me. Several additional characters also feel more fleshed out, though my memory might be biased because I played Goodbye Deponia already. The rest of the game was a blur. Unfortunately I felt the puzzle quality decreased, both the inventory based puzzles and especially the non-inventory ones. I can only remember one non-inventory based puzzle, even though I spent more time with this game than the first one. It doesn't matter though because Goal is the only thing that matters on Deponia. I think Rufus feels the same.
If you don't find Rufus' antics funny, this game isn't for you. I think I enjoyed it because Rufus reminds me of Homer Simpson. Surprisingly, Rufus can be even more crass, but it's not so bad in this first game. The inventory based puzzles are mostly logical within the whackiness of this game. The actual puzzles are good, with decent number and variety. I liked the crisp cartoon graphics. The music and voice acting were also above par in my experience. But you can see the presentation for yourself on YouTube. I would say if you enjoy the game up to the first song with the game title, you will enjoy the rest of the game.
(4 stars if on sale) There is not much strategy to be had against the AI. Build a few gun towers and let the AI suicide against your defenses until it runs out of pilots. Tactically, the AI is quite good. It can kite. It defends bio-metals fields with turrets. It adjusts its build queue to counter your forces, I think. Tactical superority almost never overcomes strategic deficiency though, and that is true here. On the other hand, piloting tanks is a joy. They handle fluidly for the most part with just the right amount of inertia to be realistically annoying. You can outfit a variety of weapons on your tanks, though you likely will only use a few on your own tank. Else the micromanagement becomes too burdensome. Therein lies the problem with this game. Combining vehicle simulation and RTT is only cool on paper. It's hard to manage a whole battlefield when you can only see a short distance in front of you, but you have to if you want any chance of winning. To be fair, Battlezone does this better than most. It has several clever features, like a robust waypoint system and a satellite view where you can issue orders from overhead. And these are well integrated into the game. Many players criticize the redux for its difficulty. I did too at first. Then I realized. Riding your tank into battle is cool for a little bit, but it gets old fast. If you don't have a challenging environment that forces you to try different things, even more players might give up before they've even seen half of one campaign. That's what the game is for most people: a rare experience.
This game hails from an era when actors, granted talented actors, took their jobs in a video game more seriously than some actors treat their movie roles today. The flight model is also surprisingly player friendly yet satisfying. My advice is to watch some videos fo the game, see if you like the in-game cutscenes, and buy the game here if you do. You miss out on the point of the game if you don't like the cutscenes, but you don't get the same investment in the in-game movies if you don't play for them.
I don't necessarily recommend this series for younger gamers. It's from a time long gone. EGA, even VGA graphic can be painful on the eyes now. That said, if you know a post-2000 series that lets you import the same character across five games, please send me a message to let me know. By the end of QG5, I would never forget the name Erasmus. And I never did.
4 stars from me, -1 for no online MP. This game is not for everyone, not even all RTS gamers. The learning curve is fairly steep; only the first mission in each campaign serves as sort of a tutorial. There is a separate tutorial feature where you can watch/read game mechanics and try it out on a map without AI; it's the only time I've ever seen this feature in a game, and it's pretty unique. The huge scale of the battles, while the best thing in the world for some players, will make this game too difficult to play for others. I had trouble keeping up with even the first mission. When on sale, maybe buy to see what all the buzz is about. If not on sale, know what you are getting into.
