If you're not familiar with DSA /"The Dark Eye" basically it's Germany's answer to Dungeons and Dragons. Overall it tends to be a bit darker and more "low fantasy". It's in the same ballpark as "The Witcher" setting, especially the first game. This game is in that DSA/Dark Eye setting and kind of plays a lot like Risen 1, Gothic 3, The Witcher 2 or Dragon Age 2 or one of the ps3/x360 era console rpgs except with less of a budget and more repetitive scenario design. Play it with a controller. It's a console game. Combat is well done and similar to the Fable games or The Witcher series. The game's decent if you like the modern European console RPGs, but not a must play. The characters are interesting and pretty likeable except for the fact that the two main characters are brother and sister and openly and repeatedly express romantic feelings for each other which, frankly, I think is incredibly odd and for some people will be uncomfortable for a variety of reasons, so fair warning. Incidentally, your other "romance" option looks like she sleeps on park benches so if you like that aspect of these games, that's not there. My biggest problem with the game is bugs and saving. There's some weird sound glitches. It has a console style save system so if it crashes, you'll be re-doing a segment. I gave up after I couldn't continue for some reason and couldn't reset my save. Apparently I was very near the end of the game and just watched a video of the ending on youtube. The last chapter or so seems to be rushed. Worth it at about 5$ or so IMO if you played most of these games already and the story content doesn't bother you. If you haven't already, play all The Witcher games first. They occupy a similar niche and are much better at it. If you like "The Dark Eye"/DSA try the Drakensang games, they're excellent and play kind of like Neverwinter Nights.
If you : -played Max Payne 1 or 2 (not the trash third one) and liked it -watched Hard-boiled or The Killer or any vintage John Woo movie with Chow Yun-fat and liked it You'll LOVE this. It's no surprise John Woo films and what he called "gun-fu" *heavily* inspired the Max Payne games (and The Matrix). Well I guess Woo saw MP and made his own game (he actually co-owned the game studio that made this, Tiger Hill). And this game, Stranglehold was among the best slowtime shooters ever made. Unfortunately, Stranglehold and its ilk shared the fate of a bunch of hard rock bands when grunge came out, slowtime shooters were out and co-op cover shooters were in with Gears of War in late 2006. So, one of the best examples of the slowtime genre has been largely forgotten. GOG to the rescue! Stranglehold has a lot going for it. Awesome cinematic story, very good gameplay. This has a better storyline, acting, cinematics and more mind-blowing set-pieces than Max Payne (though Max Payne 2 is pretty close), but Max Payne had better gunplay w/tighter controls, a grittier film noir vibe and originated this style. Short but sweet. Around 6-7 hours. This is one of those games like Sacred or PoE, that was a better diablo than the next actual, canonical diablo game. This is a better Max Payne than the 3rd Max Payne game. They should have hired these people to do MP3. This is basically what Max Payne 3 should have been instead of some weird, awful cover shooter. Wet for X360 was good too if you like the slowtime shooter genre. Highly Recommended.
Some people have compared this to Diablo 3 because it's an ARPG. I really like Diablo 3, but It's not like the Diablo series (or Torchlight or other Diablo-styled games) or the more recent open world/sandbox ARPG variant (like Grim Dawn and Sacred). If you played Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance for PS2, this plays pretty similarly to something like that (especially the darker second one). First off, It plays really well with a controller. Then, there's the central hub, large linear areas/levels with good design and not much backtracking, typical ARPG light RPG elements with leveling and loot (but without metagaming and loot grind that's now part and parcel to ARPG's of the Diablo strain), a cohesive story campaign, Just lots of fun. "Classes" are more about your weapon than which of the three types of Victor Vran player you select. Combat's great. Strong voice acting talent, too. Recommended.
The mechanics of this are quite good and reminiscent of Dungeon Siege, but the thing that stands out is unlike most ARPGs there's actually a very good story driving the gameplay along with real moral choices.
I picked this game up again because I honestly have no idea where my disc copy of NWN diamond is and this was on-sale for $6. Sometimes, nostalgia gets the best of our judgment. Not here. The graphics have not aged well and seem a bit blocky today, but the gameplay is still smooth as silk and after I decided to play for an hour or so the evening I had purchased it, I later noticed the sun had come up. Needless to say, it's still as every bit as enthralling as it's ever been. Here's Why - I easily have 1000+ hours in this game. Like no other game before or since, NWN translated DnD to video games in a way that retained the essence of what made tabletop so much fun, but in pure, distilled video game form. NWN was a re-invention, not an adaptation. The (50-100h+) vanilla main campaign of NWN1, while much maligned for reasons that entirely elude me is actually quite good - and full of a number of the kind of offbeat and memorable characters of the kind that made bioware popular (including the hilariously psychotic Grimgnaw). NWN expansions are longer than most other entire games at 20-30 hours+ (and there are 2 major ones here and several "premium modules" smaller "DLC" usually 4-10 hours). HotU, one of the expansions is simply amazing. NWN1 also legitimately makes it so pretty much every class is viable and none really break the game like the way you can easily break BGII with a dual/multi class. So you can actually role play as your class rather than meta-game (though you can do that too). You can choose who you want for your party. If you don't want a thief, don't take one. The game is all about choice. Real-time combat and the DnD DM/campaign and modding experience are where NWN especially shines. Its modding toolset is probably the best ever made, Because of that many, many people have contributed modules to the game. All different sorts - long, short, action, role-play, fantasy, mystery. Single-player, multi-player, entire persistent worlds. Highest Recommendation.
