The game is very serviceable to fans, so that's good. It has some intense and iconic moments too. I liked how it escalated things as well. I was interested in it because I like deep space movies without pew pew lasers and the original movie as well and it's an OK game at that. Still, there's a few things to be warned before buying: - It has 3 gimmicks: stealth, repetitive puzzles and basic combat. The puzzles are the worst, it's just very easy mini-games that you have to repeat endlessly throughout the game and they get old fast. - The maps are smaller than they'd seem. You have a few areas and you back track to them many times. - It's very glitchy, specially with the sound. This affects both your ability to hear the alien and to understand what the envioremental storytelling is saying (you turn your head a bit and those who were speaking next to you start sounding like they're 3 rooms away). Some sound fx can get stuck playing too until you change areas. - The AI is not that good. The alien is a glorified roomba moving around randomly. He's tethered to you in a way, since he's always around wherever you are even if there's some shit going on in a different part of the area. He doesn't have a patrol pattern but he doesn't make sense either so it's frustrating sometimes because he'll check a room where you are and when he's about to exit he'll spin around and go back to explore the room again. Still, it's easy to lose any respect for the alien specially when you get armed as you can shoo him away (with moderation, ammo against the alien is scarce). He's also supposed to be extra-aware but you can walk by him no problem. Humans on the other hand will shoot you if they see you from another ship that's behind a fog curtain and you're in a room with the lights off under the table. - Get it on discount. And play the game first before considering the DLC. If you LOVE the mechanics then by all means buy the DLC otherwise I wouldn't bother.
If you want to take a look at my "peculiar" video review you can check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZBiaZmZDv4 If you want a short written recomendation: It's an open world third person action game based in the original Mad Max saga. There's some recognizable style from the last movie but I'd say that the focus on Max, his car and the general theme leans more torwards the original concept. It's a must buy if you like action games and specially wastelandish and Mad Max themes. The only thing to be wary about is the fact that this is the kind of game that moving away from the main story can leave you a feeling of emptiness and repetitiveness as this game world is not as "alive" as, let's say, Grand Theft Auto series or even Sleeping Dogs. Either way, a solid purchase.
Good things and bad things: + Easy to get into. No tedious tutorials or unnecessary mechanics. You start the game in the middle of the action, without it being too overwhelming, then learn all the aspects along the way. + Great combination of RTS and RPG. You control a ranger, but you can modify your "class" by choosing the right items, spells and stats when leveling up. Although it's a little bit boring not to go for a spellcaster. There are not many abilities for a more fighter/archer oriented build. + Decent campaign. - The game is very slow and the AI is terrible. Maps are huge and you have to walk around all the time. Missions are extremely easy once you understand how the AI works. - It's easy to abuse the mechanics of the game. The main focus is allowing you to decide if you want to end the missions the way you choose: base building or more focused on the RPG factor and use your hero only. To make this possible your hero is, more often than not, overpowered. Most missions, if not all, are far less problematic done by the hero alone. - Considering the above, the base building aspect of the game is disappointing. You get the hold of it in one mission then you don't care about it. Most units are useless and the game and the game doesn't require any tactics or competing for resources (you have your one spot for resources and that's it, you only have to build around it). - Story seems a little bit lazy. Not only it's a dumbed down rushed version of Warcraft 3, you see tanks and airplanes for no reason at all and then they forget about them. Despite the flaws, worth buying for cheap.
A base builder RTS, like the old classics. The game is entertaining, the mechanics original but the story is really silly and generic, the graphics are ugly and the gameplay frustrating as the game advances. The good thing is that, in the campaign, you can make decissions that will affect your army. The game works like this: - You start building your base surviving enemy raids. Buildings are huge and ugly, you need a tremendous space to complete your base - To build an army you get peasants that spawn from your main building: the hut. One peasant spawns at a time, the spawn rate decreases as you get more population. Then you have to send them to gather resources, building or training. - Each building gives a different training. Shooting range turns the peasant into archers, the dojo into spearmen, etc. You can also combine trainings to get different units. Since only one peasant spawns at a time and you can only train peasants one by one this gets tedious really fast. If you lose half of your army in a skirmish replentishing it back takes you forever as new peasants need to spawn, you have to keep training them, upgrading them in the skills buildings and so on and so forth. - Due to all of the forementioned, building outposts is a nay-nay. You need all 3 basic buildings to train plus the hut to spawn new peasants, plus the skill buildings... - Finally, the AI is stupid. Your armies will often disobey, they'll suicide if you let them be or you'll have to micromanage them one by one and tell them to hold position which sometimes leads them into not even defending. Moving your units will cause these orders to expire and therefore you'll have to order them to stand their ground one by one again. - AS a side note, it's ridiculous how easy it is to missclick, how often units refuse to move to certain spots due to collision range being huge and there's also no unit data or stats.
This is an attempt to dumb down CRPGs and widen the target audience. If you're not much into roleplaying and you're also not very demanding when it comes to story and character developement you might enjoy it. The good things about the game is that they made it very dynamic. You don't get lost walking around looking for things to do or get bored of extremely long and repetitive dungeons. The action is very well delivered and the progress is well paced. Mechanics are simple and easy to learn and the combat is fluid and entertaining. Also, you can start the game very differently depending on the character creation. Now, overall the game seems very lackluster. The design is dull and generic. Armours, weapons, the characters... They look very similar and uninspiring. Usually, in games that supposedly pay attention to cosmetics and graphics you should be excited to get a new good looking armour or weapon. Doesn't happen here. The story is a miscellanea of plagiarism. First of all, the main story is a chopped off version of Neverwinter Nights 2 without any flavour or seasoning. The premise is exactly the same: A big evil is threatening the world and you need to gather forces to destroy it. This time, without any adventures. You go straight to the point: Get all your party members quickly then rush to call for the aid of a bunch of people. One of the missions is a blatant copy of Indiana Jone's lost and the Last Crusade. Puzzles are forced and lazy. They also skip the amazing castle/fortress feature and all you get now is a caravan/camp that doesn't let you do or manage almost anything. The class system is the most simplified aspect of the game as you only get 3 classes (that can specialize into 4 variations each) but only the mage really gives you enough micromanagement to not leave them for the AI. Oh, and the expansions are pathetic, nothing but recycled scenarios with absolutely stupid short stories as opposed to NWN2's whole new campaigns and hours of gameplay.
The whole idea is good but stops there, in the concept. Graphics are decent but monotone, skill system and character development is boring, and the loot and the maps are always the same so lacks the best and most important features of this kind of game and doesn't compensate it with a good story or great gameplay. The only somewhat notable feature is having to "rebuild" your camp but it's a very linear task that's all about spending gold. You have more engaging and epic adventures with better character development and story that are much older than this game and I suggest aiming for those games before trying your luck with this one.
NWN2 was, for me, the breaking point in CRPGs. First of all, in terms of gameplay it was a great game. The character customization was inmense. You could choose between plenty of races, skills, classes that could evolve in multiclass and special classes, great selection of items which could be customized as well and more. The combat was fine, nothing too impressive about the graphics and it was a little bit weak on the writting department but overall a very inmersive adventure with great pace and progress and fun missions and quests. You could also have your own castle with its own development and sidequests that would make the game much more interesting. The strongest point of the game though was the community support. Once you finish your campaign the tools to create content were unrivalred. I miss the times of those custom servers where people made their own roleplaying enviorements with the ability to use different sets of rules from other games like AOIAF, import their own models and interface and much more. I don't think we will ever see a game with such support from the community and this large amount of content creators.
Considering both games were launched the same year it's quite unbelievable that Divinity 2 is so behind in all fields. The game is entertaining and you may like it if you can forgive the numerous flaws of this game. What you can enjoy about this game is that it's quite old school and purely focused on entertaining (which is rare lately). It has a decent leveling system where every stat matters and a wide variety of skills as well as the possibility of turning into a dragon. It also have plenty of features like having your own headquarters which you can improve over the course of the game. It's all a great concept with huge potential but the delivery is rather poor. First of all, the worst part, the combat is clunky and unresponsive. You get stuck everywhere, your combos can get interrupted by terrain or invisible collisions, your summons can block you from using many abilities, sometimes skills don't connect and the enemy have too many undodgeable skills which some of them leave you impaired for way too long leaving you extremely vulnerable to get killed by a boss or a gang of foes. The humor is too childish and cheap, the characters are very cliché like the classic wizard with pajamas and a hat and their personalities are very dull. The pace of the game is painfully slow both in terms of narration and action. There are times when you have to follow a character that's walking like a snail with a very epic song on the background. It takes forever. The controls are awful and frustrating. Controlling the jumping distance is the hardest thing and will often get you on your nerves. The dragon thematic seems forced most of the time and doesn't make you feel like it should, since all ground enemies disappear when you turn so you can't wipe them out, ending up being more a way of transportation than anything else. Overall it's entertaining if you know what you get.
The game is extremely linear and dull. Not challenging or rewarding at all. The campaign is short and unispiring. Most missions are resolved the same way to the point where it becomes almost a clicking simulator. There's a lot of useless stuff like unnecessary rooms, skills and spells you will never use and even creatures. The humor is bland, not too tryhard to be corny but it's just not funny at all. The posession spell is still clunky like Dungeon Keeper 1 and 2 with the difference that the game is so boring at times and easy that you don't need to ever cast it. I see how PvP games might be more interesting if people know strategies to abuse certain mechanics better for the solo campaign is really boring.
