This purpose of this review is to warn any potential buyers that this game does NOT have "full controller support" as it states on both GOG and Steam. If you search the web for controller issues with this game you'll find many discussions where players either cannot get any controller to work (my experience) or limited controller support at best. I have found some references where players using an original Xbox controller (not 360 or One) were able to get the controller to work as expected. Unfortunately my original Xbox controller also has the original proprietary Microsoft plug for the Xbox console, and therefore it can't plug into any port on my PC. The game does provide "support" for keyboard and mouse, BUT it's VERY poor. The mouse camera control is atrocious. This game has action sequences and none of the actions can be mapped to the mouse. They can only be mapped to keys which is very awkward. So this game has the deadly combination of terrible camera with clunky controls. Not good. If you can tolerate the horrible camera and the awkward keyboard controls, then this probably is a game worth playing.
My 4-star rating is assuming developers release a performance patch. Otherwise I'd give it 2 stars. This is an extremely good story-driven horror adventure game. It has an interesting premise and well-done story. Excellent graphics. Great audio & voice acting. Responsive controls. But it desperately needs a performance patch ASAP. Most of the time performance is good (i.e. 50-60 FPS) but it's quite common to see intermittent frame rate drops of 20-30 FPS all over the place in this game. In other words, the game intermittently, but persistently, drops to 30 GPS or less. Not good. The drops in FPS often occur in exactly the same spots when replaying a level. I've tested by stopping and staring at the same spot when a stutter occurs, and the drop in frame rate is usually persistent until I look away. In other words, the 20-30 FPS drop persists until I look away to a different location. I'm not a programmer, but this seems like something that should've been caught during Testing and QA. A stutter here and there is fine, but persistent, easily repeatable stuttering is a sign of poor QA, rushed delivery, or both. My PC has an Intel i5-8400, GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB, 8 GB RAM and Window 10. Well above Minimum Requirements. I confirmed via MSI Afterburner that RAM, CPU and GPU are *not* totally maxed out when these FPS drops occur. On average when stutters occur RAM is 70-75% utilized, CPU is 80-85% and GPU is 85-90%. As a comparison, I run these Unreal 4 games @ 1920x1200 and **consistently** get 60+ FPS: - Senua's Sacrifice - High Settings - Conarium - Very High Settings - Obduction - Very High Settings - Observer - Medium Settings Final comments... No options to remap keyboard or controller and limited options to adjust Graphics. Both inexcusable for a 2020 game based on Unreal 4 engine. This really could be a great game. I hope the developers quickly release a patch to address the poor performance and lack of configuration options in the menus.
I agree with most of the other reviews that this is a really good game, but it's not a great game. It gets 5 stars for: (a) the story (b) voice acting (c) the graphics & sound (d) the controls (e) upgrades at workbenches But serious defects in game design and gameplay cost it 2 stars in my opinion. The following three things nearly killed the game for me: (1) It's not truly an open game world. It's a disguised "rail game". This is the game's biggest flaw. Every single level has many places you can plainly see and should be able to reach, but you can't. Whether it's climbing behind a wall for cover in a village, or climbing a barrel to reach an open 2nd story window in a house, or going off the main trail in forests to use trees and bushes for cover, every single level is full of places that you can plainly see but you can't reach due to artificial, invisible barriers. There's initially the illusion of options, but in reality the game designers give you a very limited (often only one) path through any given level. (2) Monotonous gameplay. This game rehashes the same handful of basic scenarios over and over and over... Although they're packaged in different locations, different number of NPC's to avoid, more/less rats, it's basically the same thing through the whole game. (3) Game needs quick save feature. Yes checkpoints are relatively generous. But if you're going to force players down a very limited number of predetermined paths on each and every level, then at least give the player the choice to do a quick save when needed. It's just plain frustrating to distract and sneak pat the same guard 10 times because the game designers force you on a specific path through each level. If not a quick save, then at least a checkpoint every time an NPC is avoided. It succeeded on story, but failed on stealth and gameplay. Stealth games with great stories that deserve 4-5 stars include Thief, Splinter Cell, Dishonored, Hitman and Metal Gear Solid.
I've played to completion both Fallout 1 & 2, and I thoroughly enjoyed both of them. Slightly prefer Fallout 1 over 2. But the ancient pixelated graphics and clunky controls force me to rate both of them only 3 stars. Update the graphics and controls, and I'd rate them 4 stars. Atom RPG is Fallout 1/2 with great 3D graphics and more intuitive controls. For that I would rate it 4 stars. I'm not an RPG nut that obsesses over stats, skills, crafting, etc. I have no interest in esoteric discussions on pros/con of this skill vs. that skill. I fire up a game, build a character, and if it sucks, I start over. If it doesn't I keep playing. So I can't comment on the "depth" or "complexity" of Atom RPG compared to Fallout 1/2. It's fun to play, and it really scratches the "RPG itch" for me. If you were put off by Fallout's ancient graphics and controls, but you basically enjoyed Fallout, then I highly recommend Atom RPG. Another nice feature is Atom RPG does have some useful cheat codes which ensures frustration level doesn't go through the roof if you don't want to grind until you get a decent character. In fact once I figured out the stats, skills and type of character I wanted to play, I use cheat codes to allow me to fire up a new game, use cheats to buff up my character and get started without the tedium of grinding. Adding the fact that the developers gave the player the choice to bypass grinding results in my rating of 5 stars.
If you've played Syberia 1 or 2, then you've played Syberia 3....except they're much better games. Syberia 3 is stuck in the fixed camera 2.5D world of the 2000's. These type of games were okay fifteen years ago, but not in 2017. Microids should've either stuck with the original 2.5D engine, or done a proper 3D game with full camera control, zoom in/out and full support of both mouse/keyboard and controller. Also using the Unity engine didn't help. Everyone knows Unity is good for quick demos and proof-of-concepts, but not much else...and it really shows in Syberia 3. Syberia 3 looks like it came out around 2010...at best. The gameplay, dialog and puzzles are all circa mid-2000. I really, really wanted to like this game because I so much enjoyed the first two games. Fortunately I did NOT pay full price. $34.99 for this game is ridiculously high. I paid about $10 for it, and that's the maximum it's worth. Honestly $4.99 is a more realistic price. Here's why: Dated graphics; much weaker story compared to previous games; bad use of 3D; bad voice acting or voices that don't match characters; bad lip syncing with spoken words; unable to skip through conversations (first two games supported this); replaced multiple Save Anywhere slots with a single Auto-Save slot; mouse controls less intuitive and more complicated than first 2 games. If you haven't yet played Syberia 1 and 2, then get them. They're easily worth $9.99 each. But save your money and give Syberia 3 a skip.
(DISCLAIMER: If you're not familiar with the 1982 Ridley Scott movie "Blade Runner", look it up on Wikipedia :-D) When I finished SOMA in 2019 I felt exactly like I did when I finished the movie "Blade Runner" in a theater in 1982. In 1982, I had just enjoyed a distinctive movie experience where a unique story was shared and, as the story was told, a hard question was implicitly asked: "What IS a human being?" or more precisely "What makes us human?" But Ridley Scott didn't end the movie by "preaching" an answer. Rather he left it to the viewers to develop their own answers. In the same way Frictional Games delivered a AAA gaming experience that I will always remember. In my opinion, Frictional refined the question to be "Is it possible to capture and transfer the human soul?" or, to ask it another way, "Can science truly quantify what makes us human?" SOMA tells the same story every time, but how it emotionally impacts the player will be greatly determined by the individual player's personal values and beliefs. For example, my son and I have similar but slightly different beliefs. After we both finished the game separately we were chatting about it. Events during the game that were deeply troubling to me didn't impact my son in the same way, and vice-versa. We also differed on how "satisfying" the ending was. (BTW I'm purposely NOT giving specifics to avoid unintentional spoilers to readers of this review). Regarding technical execution, SOMA has DOOM3-era graphics (very, very good, but not great), exceptionally good audio effects and above average good voice acting. My PC contains Intel i5-8400 (6 cores @ 4Ghz), NVIDIA 1050 Ti 4GB, 8GB RAM, Windows 10 Home 64-bit. I ran SOMA at 1900x1200 with Max settings at a steady 60 FPS with Vsync on, and 100+ FPS with Vsync off. Measured using MSI Afterburner. To wrap up, SOMA is a must-play for anyone who loves narrative games. Buy it today at FULL PRICE. It's worth it!!!
Diablo is a must-play game for anyone who enjoys Action RPG's. This is a review of GOG's release of the game. Although GOG lists "high resolution support", IT ONLY SPREADS OUT THE ORIGINAL 640X480 ACROSS A BIGGER SCREEN. It does not truly scale the game to a higher resolution as the free Beelzebub HD Mod (https://www.moddb.com/games/diablo/news/diablo-hd-belzebub) does for the original Diablo. The HD Mod widens your field-of-view as the resolution increases. In addition it supports using the mouse wheel to zoom in/out. Also HD Mod has some gameplay tweaks that are nice like 100% faster walk speed while in town (a HUGE time saver those frequent trips back to town). IF A MODDER CAN SUPPORT THIS FOR FREE, THEN WHY CAN'T GOG DELIVER THIS ON THEIR VERSION??? If you can find the original Diablo on CD, then buy it instead, and download the free HD Mod. It's a simple ZIP file you unpack to the Diablo folder, and then you run BEELZEBUB.EXE instead of DIABLO.EXE. If you can't get the original Diablo, then this is a decent buy, but still a little steep at $9.99. It should be $4.99 at most.
Overall I HIGHLY recommend this game!! I would rate this game 5 stars if the combat wasn't so challenging for a casual gamer like me. I agree with the majority of reviewers who focus on the unique subject matter, artistic beauty, immersive audio, and compelling story of this game. So I won't repeat those here. Instead I'll highlight the combat. The balance between exploration, puzzle solving, story progression and combat is about right. But for a casual gamer like me, I find the combat, even on easy, to be quite challenging. As a comparison, I've played Tomb Raider 2013, Dishonored, Bioshock, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Half Life 1 & 2, Clive Barker's Undying, Painkiller, Serious Sam 1 & 2, Quake 1, 2 and 4, DOOM 3, System Shock 1 & 2 and others. So I'm not an expert, but I can play most games on easy with no frustrations. But I find the combat in Senua's Sacrifice to be quite challenging and sometimes frustrating. I've tried both mouse/keyboard and Xbox gamepad. For exploration and puzzle solving, it's about equal. But for combat, hands-down the gamepad is preferred. I never could configure a keyboard combination that worked as fluidly as the buttons & triggers on the gamepad, but while using the gamepad I missed the precision of the mouse. I ultimately settled for the gamepad. Fortunately I have a simple solution for when the combat gets frustrating. I let my 17 year old son handle the combat, and then I resume the story. Fortunately I don't think Perma-death is really in the game. I've died a LOT of times (I mean A LOT!!), and the death rot has not moved up Senua's arm at all. In summary, GET THIS GAME!! It is truly unique!! If you're a casual gamer, just be prepared. But it's worth it!! Finally a note on performance. My PC has Intel i5-8400 (6 cores up to 4GHz/core), nVidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB, 8GB RAM, Windows 10. I run at 1900x1200 with max settings and consistently maintain 50-60 FPS with the lowest being 40-45 FPS occasionally.
I really, really tried to like Fallout and Fallout 2. I played Fallout 1 over 30 hours and Fallout 2 nearly 12 hours. I all installed recommended mod's, patches, etc. I have no idea why these games are so highly rated. They're terrible by today's standards. They haven't aged well at all. If they could be redone using modern graphics, game mechanics & conventions, then they could be great games. As a comparison, I've played and loved the following RPG's: Ultima I thru 8, Wizardry 6, 7, 8, Baldurs Gate 1 & 2, Icewind Dale 1 & 2, Planescape Torment, Arcanum, Deus Ex 1 & 2, Jade Empire, Dragon Age, Morrowind, Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2, Shadowrun Returns, Shadowrun Dragonfall, Shadowrun Hong Kong, Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2. The Good: - Music and atmosphere - Decent, but not great, stories - Post-apocalyptic setting. Nice break from fantasy / sword & sorcery RPG's. The Bad: - Clunky interface (even for a game from late 90's) - Horrible, extremely grainy graphics (even for a game from the late 90's) - No control of companions in Fallout 1 - Limited control of companions in Fallout 2 - Very poor journal/objectives. Nearly impossible to determine next steps without walkthru - EXTREMELY STEEP difficulty. Die many, many, many times before character levels up to where they can reliably hit/shoot enemies, pick locks, repair equipment, sneak or do anything remotely fun. - Faulty path finding of companions. Often go through dangerous obstacles instead of around them - Poor companion AI. You often take friendly fire in combat from companions - Still buggy. Multiple times had to restart game because quests would not trigger or complete even though all steps specified in walkthrough had been completed. - Poor journal / objectives. Nearly impossible to figure out next steps without walkthru
Neverwinter Nights Diamond is 4.5 star game, but NWN Enhanced Edition is nowhere near being worth $19.99. I own (and love!!) Neverwinter Nights Diamond. If you love Bioware RPG's, you'll love it!!So I was very excited when I saw the NWN Enhanced Edition from Beamdog. I have enhanced editions of BG1, BG2, Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment. All of these enhanced editions are well worth the money!! I tried all the mods for these games, but the Enhanced Editions from Beamdog were superior to the originals with mods (at least for me). But not so for NWN Enhanced Edition. I turned up all the graphic features to the max and could only tell marginal differences to the original Diamond Edition. Also Diamond Edition has twice the frame rate of the Enhanced Edition. This would be forgivable if the EE version looked significantly better than the Diamond Edition, but that's just not the case. I know there are changes in the EE edition that make things easier for gamers who create mods and their own campaigns, but I don't do that. I just play the game. So maybe for these type of gamers the EE edition may be worth it, but this doesn't apply to me. I assume over time Beamdog will improve NWN EE, but as of mid-October 2018 I would highly recommend to *NOT* waste your money on Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition. It's well below what Beamdog normally delivers. Also supposedly the EE edition can use save games from Diamond edition. But by default the EE edition cannot find the old Diamond edition games. Beamdog needs to add an option to load games from the Diamond edition. I mean both are GOG games, so there's no reason Beamdog can't make it as easy as possible to load games from previous versions of NWN.
