Give me Deus Ex. This mod lives up to its name. I recommend this mod even for first timers, since it universally improves Deus Ex. No critical, controversial content changes, just improved gameplay (AI, balance, augmentations), many fixes, and the most useful graphics mods that retain the original art style. The creator of this mod also created Unreal Evolution, Quake Combat Plus (an addon for Quake 1.5), Turok 2 Plus, and some smaller projects. Having spoken to him at length, it is clear that he understands game design on a deeper level than the vast majority of modders and even game designers out there, and it shows in all of these must-play mods. The only question is which version of GMDX to use. This is the latest version from the original creator. Do not use GMDXv10 - this is unofficial, unsanctioned, makes many changes that aren't as well thought out. GMDX v9.0.3, GMDXvRSD, and GMDX Augmented Edition are the only ones to consider. The only argument people provide for not using this mod as a first timer is, "It isn't what the developers intended" - a fundamentally flawed argument that ignores the fact that no game comes out exactly the way that is intended, and an argument that falsely assumes game developers are infallible. The fact of the matter is, most gamers are not concerned with what was intended, they just want the best experience and GMDX is exactly that.
This is a fine remaster of Neverwinter Nights, featuring an improved engine and codebase, which makes modding a bit easier. Multiplayer is alive and kicking. I do wish some community improvements were officially integrated, most of all PRC mod. The game also desperately needs Neverwinter Nights 2's quickcast menu. As for Neverwinter Nights itself, it set out to be the most ambitious cRPG of all time, and in many ways it still is, as we now have around a dozen official campaigns, with some being released exclusively for Enhanced Edition (although were available as mods for the original without the new improvements and additions). This is a D&D 3e based game with real-time with pause gameplay. It isn't your typical party-based cRPG, as you can only loosely command another "henchman", or possibly more in mods. The original campaign, Wailing Death, is pretty much universally regarded as weak, so no need to play that. Shadows of Undrentide starts slow and then gets good, Hordes of the Underdark is most peoples' favorite official campaign, mine included. Although my absolute favorite is the Swordflight custom campaign, chapter 2 in particular. I think PRC mod is a must, as it integrates almost all Wizards of the Coast 3e content. With this mod, the scale of NWN is unparalleled: hundreds of classes, hundreds of playable races, thousands of feats, thousands of spells, alternate magic systems from Magic of Incarnum, psionics. You can do things here you can do in no other fantasy cRPG like scrying, more advanced and capable teleportation, unmatched shapeshifting, although it does lack flight. This is by far my most played game of all time, and that'll never change. Unlimited replay value due to the online persistent worlds combined with hundreds of custom campaigns you can play in single player, and many in co-op.
No this isn't the greatest cRPG ever, but it is the best in some regards which automatically makes it special. Most modern cRPGs are weak nostalgia grabs with minimal role-playing and a minuscule spell selection that leaves you only fit for elemental mindless blasting. BG3 is a proper cRPG at least. Strengths: - The most branching, reactive overall plot and quest in any RPG, though not as reactive to race as some others - It has overall the most frequent use of dialogue skills in combat - Tied with KOTOR 2 for most influence you can have over companions - Can speak with animals more than any other, can speak with the dead like in Arcanum - Almost anyone can die at any time, minimal restrictions on how you can act - Features an antagonist with above average dialogue quality (Raphael) - By far the best level design in cRPG history - A cRPG with verticality! Actual 3D design! Due to the level design, jumping, localized teleporting, pseudo-flying - The best enemy AI I've seen in a cRPG, except for when using stealth. Ranged enemies are actually elusive and seek high ground, in melee enemies will shove you to your death. - Almost no limits on how far you can separate your party is a huge win - Lots of physics objects like other Larian games, including breakable doors and movable/breakable containers Weaknesses: - Bugs - FSR 2.2 not delivered on time - Technical disaster, stuttery mess on any PC in late act 2-end - Pathetic and unbalanced spell selection - Mandatory house rules like critical failure/success for skill checks - Dice rolls in foreground = WTF - No true flight, no rope or grapple hooks - Rest abuse is possible - Sneak attacks don't work with flanking - Can't use enchanted arrows with ranged sneak attacks for no reason - Totally broken, exploitable AI when using stealth lets a rogue solo the hardest battles in the game - No cover mechanics - Line of sight issues - Endless inventory and money - Lots of plot but no meaning behind any of it + More
I'm a big fan of F.E.A.R. and Extraction Point, one of the games that succeeds the most at making violence a work of art. F.E.A.R. has all time great AI, physics, particles, and sound design. My utter disappointment in Trepang2 was immediate, trying extrene and very hard difficulty modes, when I saw that the AI is brain-dead like in most modern games and there are fewer destructible physics objects. The enemy AI doesn't hear your gunshots, so you can stand in one safe place and pick them off while they fumble around, sometimes walking towards you backwards oblivions. And fewer physics objects than a 2005 game? It's also funny how this has the same lighting deficiency as F.E.A.R except worse in one way: the issue in both games is no global illumination and no baked ambient lighting, so you'll have a lit room with pitch black spots which just makes no sense. F.E.A.R. needed baked ambient lighting, Trepang2 needs that on lower graphics settings but higher graphics settings needs global illumination. They're using UE4 so they had plenty of options including the optimized NVIDIA RTXGI and RTXDI (the latter improves performance). What's worse about the lighting is not ALL light sources are dynamic shadow casters unlike F.E.A.R., but most are. And what's up with the name? Sea cucumber squared? Did you mean Trepann?
Like other Remedy games, Control is a third person story driven game. For a story driven game however, a huge percentage of play time is spent using its generic third person shooter mechanics: just six different weapons in a 30 hour game with recharging ammo, a very basic weapon upgrade system, the laziest ability tree I've ever seen with the vast majority of abilities just being the same statistical upgrade, inadequate enemy diversity, inadequate weapon diversity, some basic supernatural abilities like telekinesis, flying and floating, the ability to turn enemies to your side, a shield. The level design is generally simplistic from a functional perspective resulting in all combat encounters being wave based shooter. The gameplay is weak and too much of a focus. The game is loosely architected similarly to System Shock in that it takes place in a facility with an elevator connecting the different levels. It should have had similarly excellent survival horror gameplay as System Shock 2 as well, which would've been more thematically appropriate. Now the story: it takes after X-Files and especially SCP. The Federal Bureau of Control (FBC) is a secret government organization that contains paranatural entities. The antagonist is one such entity, the protagonist is fueled by another. World building for FBC is good as you uncover research presentations, research paper, correspondence, and even a puppet show. Some of the scientific language is off, most prominently the use of "dimensions" which don't refer to spatial dimensions but really other worlds or universes. Technobabble needed refinement. A bit too much of the plot lies on a generic idea of "resonance", which is just an unidentified type of energy responsible for all paranormal stuff including the antagonist and part of the protagonist. Remedy really tries in the writing department, but has yet to deliver a masterpiece. Ultimately this is hard game to recommend, being 30 hours of weak gameplay.
This is really not a good game in any way besides its renderer. Cyberpunk 2077 is a vast almost-open world game that drops you into it without any proper exposition or lore. It tries to tell its story by flashing bright lights at you and playing loud music. Terrible world building. There's also nothing to be found in the way of character development. The most it does from a writing perspective is divide classes by their language, with gutter trash having their own lingo. Things are no better when it comes to gameplay. Shooting mechanics are similar to Fallout 4 which is not good: very generic, no depth, damage scales with your level which is bad design (animations/speed/player stats should scale with level instead), weapon design isn't distinct in the slightest. Guns are actually less customziable than in Fallout 4 though. Cyberpunk represents everything wrong with mainstream gaming almost: rushed, awful release, thinks it can tell a story by flashing bright lights and blasting loud music at you and flashing tits at you, gameplay is an afterthought. It also has by far the worst UI I've ever seen. The game is a discombobulated mess. The only reason I've given it 2/5 rather than 1/5 is because it's at least forward thinking with its technology and implements modern technology correctly unlike most games. DLSS, FSR 2, and XeSS are all implemented correctly - not being used with conflicting forms of TAA, being used for dynamic res, and DLAA is present as its own option. It is the second game after Portal to have a fully path traced renderer which is awesome, and CDPR was smart enough to have NVIDIA help implement things correctly. I use it as a tech demo/benchmark.
Hellish Quart can appeal to anyone who is a fan of fighting games, which I'm not. I've never liked the genre. But it can also appeal to anyone interested in historical combat, especially practitioners, since this game is basically a HEMA simulator (Historical European Martial Arts). Not medieval period like some say, but Italian Renaissance period (17th century from what I've seen). Like any fighting game, it has a roster of unique characters with a unique moveset. But all the animations are based on historical techniques, so if you want to see what real sword fighting would be like in a game, this is it. Yes, the only weapons are swords of various kinds: sabers, rapiers, longswords, a basket-hilted "broadsword" or the original "claymore". More to come, but no "greatswords" since the creator believes it'd be overpowered. The whole roster is unarmored, so fights often end very quickly, sometimes with both characters falling. Like any fighting game, it has a side facing perspective. However, there's a first person perspective, and it even supports VR (experimental, not worth using right now). It supports various single player modes vs AI including survival (how many rounds/fights can you survive), an arcade mode that's like a preview of the campaign, and online play. Looks like split screen too but I haven't tried. You can play with blunt or wooden weapons too. The early access period is going great, with arcade mode being a recent 2023 addition. My complaints are as follows: 1. Objects can block the camera, this can't happen in a fighting game and I can't believe it still does. 2. The outdated (non-ray traced) lighting on the stables level makes it difficult to see what's happening from some angles, also unacceptable for a fighting game. Either move the sun position, add lanterns to the play area, and/or add ray tracing to the project but this likely isn't feasible in Unity. I can't wait to see how the game develops from here, but the future is positive.
Everything is open world these days, but many game studios seem to believe that's a measure of quality. Most AAA open world games end up just being a waste of time, little more than generic quest after generic quest, but Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a debut game from a Czech studio that largely gets it right. Let's first address the elephant in the room: the game's mixed reception. Virtually all negative reviews (besides outdates ones that rightfully scored it poorly at launch purely due to bugs) are from people who just want the game to be something else entirely. They don't want a "realistic" game and don't see or appreciate the game's intelligent design in this regard. Just because a game isn't your type, that doesn't mean it's bad. Kingdom Come is an open world RPG in which all aspects of it - from the writing to the role-playing, quest design, combat mechanics, survival mechanics, all of it is intelligently designed to fit together very well. In fact, in order for its gameplay to achieve greater consistency, it needs MORE realism in a few areas, namely horse gameplay which is utterly generic and disappointing. This was one of the strongest RPGs released in the 2010s, in terms of role-playing and writing quality, since RPGs are on a sharp decline. This does not get recognized enough. For an open world game, it never wastes a minute as every single quest is unique and adds to the world and experience in its own unique way. Only a tiny handful of nonlinear games accomplish this, such as Pathologic 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. NLC 7, Planescape: Torment. The combat system is very well designed, with the one issue coming from its lock-on system which has its tradeoffs. Cycling between targets can be clunky, but it works brilliantly for duels. It is a first person combat system designed to mimic real combat as best as possible on keyboard and mouse, and it is mostly very good. Get this game if you want a ~100 hour engrossing RPG and aren't afraid of deep mechanics.
What more is there to say? It is the all time great puzzle-adventure classic in VR. Don't have VR? Then you're still getting by far the best looking version of Myst thanks to modern Unreal Engine 4 visuals. Don't bother with the ray tracing though, it ruins reflections on Channelwood Age. The VR experience is sublime. They already addressed the main shortcoming with this game, which was the awful character models. We have the original FMVs now. Another shortcoming, which is hopefully only temporary, is no Rime Age. I was looking forward to that in VR, hopefully we get to experience it one day. There's also no more day/night cycle. For those new to Myst, this is a short and sweet game that cleverly uses environmental storytelling, never holds your hand for the puzzles, has spectacular, fantastical worlds. It was way ahead of its time.
Here we have another very ambitious cRPG beneath TONS of bugs. What was the point of a beta stage if the game released in a beta state? I had hoped they learned their lesson from Kingmaker, but this seems buggier. Broken AI pathfinding (ironic), camera glitches, HUD glitches, broken items, incomplete buggy levels causing NPCs to be able to walk through solid material sometimes, completely broken line of sight for Charge ability still, potential for an apparent recursion issue in the code at the start of turns, keeps disabling turn-based mode when loading a game even if you had it on before, keeps resetting party formation. It was even worse at launch though, so at least some progress has been made, albeit that progress should have been made during development and the beta stage. Beyond this, we have another grand epic Pathfinder adventure meant to be as faithful to tabletop as the NWN games, which means far more than everything else besides BG3. The result is, along with the NWN games, the deepest, most tactical, and most diverse cRPG gameplay. Bugs aside though, that gameplay could be a lot better. The spell selection of this game is surprisingly weak and tame, BG3 is going to be much better here. For some reason, if a party member fails a skill check, no one else in the party can attempt it. AI is horrendous - they will run right into AoE spells like Grease, they will constantly use invalid tactics that have 0 chance of working. Some enemies cheat too, e.g. I saw a level 1 human wizard cast Magic Missile which resulted in 2 missiles somehow. The game begins with a ~4 hour repetitive dungeon crawl, and the first 20+ hours are spent in the same city so pacing is an even bigger issue here than in Kingmaker. Characters are generic caricatures, voice acting is a mixed bag and dialogue is sometimes too contemporary. Writing isn't a strong point but they did try. Still though, bugs are main reason for my low score. This makes NWN 2 look polished.
