Really nice game that feels like an updated MOO2 with some nice additions like ancient ruins, social perks etc. But - and this is a really big BUT - a rather clunky UI and damn does this game like to crash. It just loves to crash and not just crash-to-desktop. No, no, sometimes it freezes everything and takes the whole system (WIN10) with it. It loves to crash, usually when it should start showing a planetary surface. Boy, does it love to crash then.
The game looked like something right up my alley. Created a character, so far, so good. This really feels right up my alley. Oh damn, it froze. Nevermind, this can happen. Now, I'm almost at the space ship aaaand the game freezes again. Crap. Try to repair the installation and it's working again. Until it's not, freezes and crashes to desktop. Repair the installation again and take graphics down a fes notched although I had chosen the recommended settings and my system is well above the requirements. Crashes again. Okay, I give up. This game looks and feels like something I could have loved playing but I'm not putting up with bad ports. Therefore, I requested a refund.
..or anything in between! Evil has triumphed and you are its emissary. You are given a task in the beginning but how you fulfill it is up to you. This is game does almost everything right: The NPCs are well written, quest can usually be solved multiple in ways, decisions matter, combat is interesting enough not to become a chore, and much more. But the best part is that, if you can live with the consequences you can play it any way you like. The game doesn't tell you that you can't do something. You can try to be a renegade goody two-shoes, a neutral arbitor or a greedy, vile sycophant. I cannot emphasize this enough: the game let's you decide how to reach which goals and this adds an extremely high replay value to Tyranny. If like you like "oldschool" isometric RPGs - like Baldur's Gate but without its moral constraints - you should definitely give this game a try. It's fun to play as a liberator but it's also fun to be evil. Oh, how I wish for a sequel for this underrated gem.
...but not good ones. I "played" this when it was published in 1995 and was just as underwhelmed then as I am now by games like this. A friend of mine, who was a sucker for graphics, bought it the first day it was released and showed it to me. Back then, the game more or less screamed, "Hey, look at my pretty renders! Can you hear your graphics card's sobbing? See my beauty! Yes, I use top notch, state of the art graphics, bow down to me! Never before have you witnessed such pulchritude!" To which I replied, "But what about the gameplay?" Game: "Huh? What do you mean: gameplay?" I: "The gameplay; is there anything beyond the nice graphics?" Game: "You've lost me... look HERE, a breathtaking, full motion cutscene!" I: "You really don't know, what I mean, do you?" Long story short, there really is hardly any game worth playing. The abolutely, utterly unforeseeable story mainly consist of railroading the MC from one pretty background to the next. And even by using the brute force approach to adventure games (trying to use everything in your rather limited inventory with everything or everyone else), you can be done with this game in roughly 30 minutes. Is there anything else worth mentioning? Oh yes, you can die if take a toilet break while visiting and staying at the one screen where even the background music tells you to leave. Really, there was no reason to buy this title then and there certainly isn't one now. Apart from looking at 1995's state of the art graphics. P.S. Humans riding dinosaurs? Whoever gave this title the science tag ought to be shot.
Important notice: FFS patch BEFORE playing! Bought my original copy back in 2004. Wasn't able to find it after moving a few times, bought again on GOG. Do yourself a favour and patch BEFORE playing! I still love this game and I don't even like vampire stuff. Yes, it's flawed. It has massive, without updates even game-breaking, bugs. Yes, it is lacking lots of features that should have been implemented. Do I care? No, since the patches make it playable and the biggest missing feature is the multiplayer which I don't care about at all. Did I mention to patch BEFORE playing? So what is the game like? It's basically an FPS masquerading as an RPG but with quite a nice story about a dysfunctional society of vampires which ends in a flurry of backstabbing. It's based upon White Wolf's RPG of the same name. The graphics are outdated of course, the mechanics can be aggravatingly clunky during close combat but the overall atmosphere of the game is great. The patch! Install it BEFORE playing! You've got many different vampire bloodlines to choose from and I would recommend playing all of them at least once. The story doesn't change dramatically but NPCs' reactions differ based upon to which vampire clan your character belongs. Also, every clan has its own range of vampiric powers in addition to the ones available to all vampires. Seriously, patch BEFORE playing! Overall, I have to say that while it may very well be that I'm speaking out of nostalgia, no other game has ever managed to keep me coming back timt and time again over the course of... wow, it's been 18 years by now! Long story short, if it's on sale and an FPS/RPG with a good story and multiple endings sounds appealing to you, you should give it a try. And do patch BEFORE playing.
First of all, this game is not for you if your penis falls off when you have to play as a female character. Yes, you have to play as a girl - boohoo - get over it. Now for the awesome game: -It's still good looking by 2021 standards. Could be better, could be alot worse. -It responds surprisingly well to PC-controls for a console port. This translates to: Most of the time Aloy does what you want her to do. Sometimes though, she just clings to some rock or tree and refuses to budge until you move her a few millimetres left or right. I've seen far worse ports. -The ingame tutorials do what they are supposed to do. They tell you what you should do but don't hold your hand. The perfect equilibrium between babysitting and Souls. -It is fun to play just running around and hunting machines while trying different tactics. And it feels really rewarding when a new approach suddenly works out and a seemingly invincible opponent becomes just a tough challenge. -The NPCs have well written dialogues overall. -The story is good, at least up to the point I was able to get to. The last point is the reason why I give the game only 3 out of 5 stars: I would have given the otherwise well deserved five stars if it were not for the horrible stability issues. The game sometimes froze for no apparent reason when I was still learning the ropes, i.e. before being made a seeker. After becoming a seeker the game moved on to freezing/crashing regularly after a few minutes playing. When this happens, you have the option to send a crash report, though I seriously doubt anybody cares about that anymore. Why do I doubt this? If you would like to contact support, following the instructions in the crash report just takes down a rabbit hole that ultimately brings you to Sony's support for the PS4 version. Which is exactly as helpful as you'd think owning the PC version. Maybe there is still an official support for PC gamers out there for this game. But if so, they have hidden like ninjas.
