It's 2023 and the game still has glitches, as in: * certain scenes play twice simultaneously with a delay of about 5-10 seconds, all characters doubled * in at least one place, objects refuse to disappear from their place when picked up * it's really hard to interract with certain characters because the reticule would not appear unless you are standing in an overly specific spot Fortunately, those are just annoyances and none is a game-breaker. I love the Borderlands-like graphic style. The story is deep and touching and poses some important philosophical questions. The 3D is clumsy at times but really well done. All in all, it's a solid game. I'm only deducting a third of a star for the glitches and two thirds for keeping the Mac version exclusive to Apple Arcade.
I would've give it 5 starts, but it so happened that I played Grim Dawn first. As GD uses an improved version of the TQ engine, both games look and feel quite similarly. But without some of the polish and quality of life additions of GD, TQ feels somewhat rough and unfinished. Still, it is a very decent game. The only thing that bugs me is the inventory dimensions. Many item combinations won't fit its height of 5 slots leaving precious inventory space empty.
Probably the best way so far to kill your mouse, imho better than Grim Dawn (full disclosure: that's my first game in the series) Pros: + Solid gameplay + Beautiful graphics + Deep story and well-developed and fun characters + Many many hidden popular and not so popular culture references + Optional tower defense minigame Cons: - Minor pathfinding issues, but nothing game-breaking - Sometimes the bosses aggro your companion exclusively and the combat becomes too easy - Lady Katarina could be real pain in the a** sometimes (or, should that actually be on the pros list?) - Might need a new mouse afterwards
I absolutely love the open world of Cyberpunk 2077. The city is amazing. The attention to detail and the fact that there are no loading screens on area transitions is mindblowing. And it looks gorgeous on RTX 3080 with all the graphics gimmicks on. But... ... it's riddled with bugs, as if the QA team tested it for a day at max (I know that's not the case, it just feels that way). Some bugs are funny. Some are not. Save often! ... some aspects of the gameplay feel rushed. For example, one can indiscriminately kill random gang members on the streets and it doesn't seem to affect their attitute towards V. It gives street creds and levels up, sure, but it feels nothing like an RPG. ... the way the game proceeds after the end of the story is just lazy. Not going to spoil it, so finish the game and see for yourself. CDPR did much better with The Witcher 3. All in all, it's a love it or hate it kind of game. I tend more to the former, but YMMV.
This was the first game that I've ever pre-ordered, fooled by the promises that it will be the spiritual successor of PS:T and the hype developer update videos. What I got instead was a half-baked game with bad clunky interface, bad pathfinding, and lots of breaking bugs. Back in 2017, I couldn't even play the game till the end - got too frustrated with the numerous bugs and simply gave up. Foolishly, I decided to give it another chance. One would expect that in the span of three years a host of patches would've been released to fix at least the most obvious bugs. And one couldn't be more wrong. Nothing has been fixed and it seems that the developers have moved onto something else just a couple of months after the release. Anyway, here is a list of some of the game's pros and cons: Pros: + You can die even before the tutorial has began :) + Good story; + Quality voices. Unfortunately, only a handful of interactions are voiced. Very incoherent choice of what to voice; + Beautifully drawn scenes. Cons: - Buggy interface: when you look at things, the text bubbles often appear partially or completely outside the current viewport; - Bad pathfinding: characters often get stuck and need manual rerouting; - Bad interface: characters disappear behind obstacles, even in combat; - Bad interface: worst implementation ever of turn-based combat that punishes every misclick; - Broken content: had to manually modify the XML in one resource file (following some guy's explanations on Steam) to complete an early side quest; - Unbalanced: you find yourself outnumbered in practically every crisis, possibly as punishment for not talking your way out of it; - Small scenes. Compared to games like PS:T, BG, and PoE, this one feels like a 10x5-piece puzzle for small kids In conclusion, four stars for the story and the beautiful scenery minus two stars for still charging the original GOG preorder price while never fixing even the most obvious outstanding problems.
This game could have been a true gem if not for the extreme amount of bugs that ruins it. The worst part is that the amount of bugs increases gradually the further you are into the gameplay. It takes Jedi-like concentration and anger suppression powers to keep playing. I don't know, perhaps it's part of the game philosophy that the player should grow together with their game character... GUI bugs - check. Control issues - check. Missing cutscenes with important story information - check. Characters getting stuck - check. Dialog paths repeating over and over again - check. Game state management issues - check. Once my party got reduced down to the main character only and I had to fight a whole army of mercenaries and depleted the entire stash of grenades just to find out at the end that it was *not* a solo mission and that I could've added the missing party members back - facepalm. The story is otherwise great.
This game is not really an RPG but rather akin to an interactive comic book with RPG-style combat. The story is completely linear. The only choices to be made are the composition of the party--only two characters can accompany the protagonist at a time--and the skills to develop in each character. There is no inventory besides the collection of masks found. There are a couple of labyrinths to navigate through, but most levels progress in a strictly predefined fashion. Exploration is very limited, though it totally pays off in terms of game lore, which is scattered and sometimes hidden all around the game world. Interaction points are obvious. The game offers a New Game+ mode with more boss fights, but the replayability factor seems to be low. In other words, if you are looking for yet another Baldur's Gate, this is not the right game for you. On the other hand, if you want a break from overly complex RPGs and are looking for a captivating story with many unexpected twists, really well-developed characters, tons of lore to read through, detailed comic art style graphics with beautiful backdrops that don't require a high-end GPU, satisfying--and at times challenging--combat, and incredible music, look no further than Masquerada and grant yourself hours of pure enjoyment. One complex part of the game is the party AI, which allows for some detailed configuration. That supposedly reduces combat micromanagement, but I never tweaked it and it was all fine. The rest of the game mechanics are very simple--you just move around, interact with marked areas, and collect masks (weapons), lore items, and weapon upgrades. A word of caution: The Windows version has a bug in the mask inventory, which displays black most of the time though it still respons to mouse clicks. The macOS verison is not affected.
A vouchier for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt came together with my NVIDIA GTX 970 card. I hesitated initially as I am (or at least was) not really a gamer, but finally downloaded the game right before the promotion expired. What followed was a breathtaking sleepless journey through a story so personal that I almost shedded a tear at several plot twists. I've been literally glued to the monitor for hundreds of hours, playing and replaying each and every possible side quest I was able to uncover. I also eagerly read the entire Witcher saga and can only say that the game was made by people, who not only loved the source material, but also their audience. TW3 is not just a game but a marvelous piece of interactive story-telling art. Many still compare TW3 with Skyrim and Baldur's Gate and complain how shallow the character- and story-building element is in comparison to the latter games. I don't subscribe to that view. The story in TW3 is so intense that now Skyrim with its blank slate style seems really dull, and not only because of its older graphics engine (I tried playing the special version with high-quality textures to basically the same effect). As to BG, it is a game from a different era, following different gameplay and storytelling rules, and thus targeted to different kind of players (BG is basically an automated dungeon master). The two games are actually complement to each other and can be easily enjoyed separately for double total pleasure. And now, because I happen to own the game and all the expansions, CDPR also gave me the GOTY edition. Not really much to gain, but neverthelss a great little and much appreciated gift! Thank you guys!
I wrote a lengthy review, but after submitting it, it was gone. Which is disappointing. But not the game - it is simply amazing. The grand finale. It almost feels like a completely new game, with stronger and harder to fight monsters, insane abilities gained through the mutations system, and a fairy-tale setting. I just dislike the new GUI - too standard and too console-friendly. For example, the starred items are no longer quick-sorted at the beginning of the inventory list and scouring for such items is no fun. Anyway, the GUI doesn't stand in the way, therefore a full 5-star rating.
