Unfortunately, although Grim Dawn attempts to meet standards set by predecessors in it's genre, it fails to achieve a reasonable difficulty curve. Instead of having various mechanisms within the game by which players can learn to overcome various hurdles, the game eschews tactical planning and strategy in favor of 'gotcha', one-shot death, insta-gib rolls of the dice, whereby your character is instantaneously exploded in a manner that precludes any reaction response. This moves the genre of games away from a kind of 'adventure, exploration, looting hack and slash' to an exercise in sadomasochism, whereby randomly your character is lost through no fault of your own and with nothing to learn from it. Just a weighted dice roll to repeat. So it is bizarrely the case that a superior game can be cobbled together using this game's engine, porting another game from a previous, earlier era when games were more finely crafted into it, and creating a better gaming experience than this original game has. I don't think that should be the case, that modern games are clearly inferior to earlier games simply because the developers have to bait their playerbases into maintaining interest through a skinnerbox comprised of massively uneven spikes in difficulty.
I had been enjoying playing this game in Hardcore Veteran, so figured I'd pick up the expansions. The expansions add 'Monster Totems' to the game, which spawn over-leveled enemies with skills, abilities, and damage types that are not at all balanced for the areas or character level you find them. Getting frozen to death at lvl 7 with absolutely no recourse whatsoever to survive is poor game balance, and I regret adding this expansion to my game because it's going to have to make me avoid Hardcore mode, changing the way I was playing the game and making it less enjoyable. Jackass move by devs.
The pheromoneally challenged type that these types of games are created for should have to find these 'digital works' (that aren't video games but instead an excuse for them to revel like swine in their shared mental, behavioral, and psychological health problems) in some kind of boutique specialty shops that don't interfere with the rest of the gaming market.
Games were created by mind controlled sub-humans who identify themselves subconsciously and with every action as subhuman, but will never consciously admit or realize it.
If you think this is a real game, then you are a subhuman pest with no real intelligence and a mere impersonation of consciousness.
The characters, story, and plot in this game are so contrived and nonsensical that the only way a person could believe it's a decent game is if they're under mind control. So I guess the title fits.
Exo-thermal suit? Check. Starship? Check. Laser than can melt anything? Check. Ok, How about a map or a compass? How are you supposed to find locations you've been to already? Why is base location marked out from 15 minutes away on my map, but once I arrive it disappears? Awful, seems the people who designed this game thought they could build artificial worlds when they've never taken two steps out of their mother's basements. YOU CANNOT NAVIGATE ANYWHERE WITHOUT A COMPASS WHICH CAN BE BUILT FROM A MAGNET ON A SWIVEL. Too high tech for NMS.
Playing Observer in VR (through Vorpx) is quite simply put, one of the greatest and most profound gaming experiences of my life. Am I here to tell you that the other reviewers are wrong? Yes, I am. They're not just wrong but dead wrong. Observer is a masterpiece of setting, narrative, and characterization. It toys with Deus Ex Machina concepts that I'm positive fly right over the head of the average player, born and bred on a diet of stuff like 'The Pussy Princess'. If you feed a pig nothing but slop, it's going to complain when you try giving it fine cuisine. Observer is a 10/10, one of the top 10 games I've ever played. If playing in VR, Check out my custom profile on Vorpx cloud titled "Observed" for full G3D graphics tailored for WMR.
Game developers should concentrate on making playable games first and promoting social agenda propaganda second. You're not little lost boys, waiting for Peter Pan to return and take you back to NeverNever Land. Time to grow up.
This game copies everything from FFT except the parts that make the game mechanics functional. 3rd level of the game, enemy pushes one of my Chars off a ledge with an attack. Char takes more damage, is about to die. I move my character to the spot above them, 2 height levels difference, they cannot use a potion on the injured character 2 tile heights below. Enemy moves up to character on ledge, uses special attack and hits Character who tried to use potion and the injured character 2 tiles below simultaneously with the same attack, killing the injured character. 0/10.
