Yeah literally. Just one dollar. That is all this expansion is worth. A dollar. Activision's lootboxes contain greater value than Tales from the Tiers What you're paying for are text boxes describing short inconsequential random encounters that are all uninteresting, un challenging, and un rewarding - and that should have been part of the base game anyway. This sorry excuse for an "expansion" offers nothing of value. I mean I cannot justify charging a cent for this on principle, but if it absolutely has to be paid for it can be worth no more than a buck.
THIS REVIEW COMES COURTESY OF A SHAMELESS OBSIDIAN FANBOY (who bought Bastard's Wound from GOG after I swore I'd never buy anything from them again and knowing full well this expansion is a scam) My conclusion? NO. Reason? This is content that could have, even should have been included in the base game. This "expansion" consists of Barik and Verse loyalty quests - which are positively alright but should not be sold at extra cost - and the Bastard's Wound scenario which offers nothing unique and is a rehash of another Old Walls dungeon run only more tedious. Gating Barik and Verse's loyalty missions behind paid content reeks of EA levels of crooked dipshittery. Fans of Sirin will be disappointed to know that the poor girl is doomed to wear that helmet forever. Story-wise BW is nothing remarkable. BW's scenario is ripe for exploration under Tyranny's premise but does nothing with it. Available choices are glaringly formulaic - almost childish in their obviousness and simplicity - and one-note compared to the base game's robust offerings. It features no interesting characters, not much in the way of intriguing conflict and the whole thing is over like real freaking quick - crookedly quick for the asking price. There are also woefully few side quests and some of them are straight up broken and cannot be completed. Not that they're terribly interesting anyway. This expansion is a scam. You're getting virtually nothing for a price that should be included in the base game. I paid for this with hard earned money and rewarded bad behavior. Don't be like me. I feel dirty.
Judging by their name Failbetter games are a collection of idiot trolls. Think of something - literally anything - you could waste your time doing and whatever it is it's time better spent than a second's worth of attention wasted on Sunless Sea. It's time you're never getting back. Sunless Sea isn't challenging. It's 90% figuring out the correct order to do things so you have a perfect chance at passing rng challenges and so you don't run out of resources... and 10% luck. There is no skill and no thought involved. The dolts at Failbetter tell you you're going to fail a lot and ya know what? That's not okay, especially since there's no real benefit to doing so like they claim. Do you really want to spend hours with such mind numbing tedium only to suddenly have it all lost through no fault of your own? And it is godawful tedium too! The movement speed is an absolute joke. Forward progress is slow and - actually there is no progress. If you're lucky and discover the exploits that actually allow you to grind out resources in the most infurriatingly tedious way conceivable until you're actually able to afford better ships and upgrades, then congratulations you suck at life! No seriously, all you're really getting are some higher stats so you can have a better chance at... what, exactly? This "game" has no point. No objectives that make sense and never pay off. Whatever passes for a narrative here amounts to nothing more than ZOMG RANDOMZ!! and shallow inane attempts at what I can only guess is supposed to be humor. Sunless Sea is a glorified browser game. It's not worth playing at any price because it's not even worth anyone's time. If it shows up for free, give it a hard pass.
PoEII is sloppy, like so much of Obsidian's work. As usual, the game is built on outstanding foundations. But the rest of it is a crumbling mess of bugs, shoddy design, and general laziness. CONS: The world of PoE is an intriguing fantasy, but it stops there b/c the rest of the narrative is so dull. Characters are largely uninteresting, with few exceptions. <3 Sarefen! Some of em have interesting stuff going on but nothing remarkable. The main quest is pathetically short and uninspired. The rest of the game is padded out with numerous side quests and encounters that are awfully drab. A veritable cornucopia of bugs and glitches and performance issues assault every moment of the experience. And the difficulty is absurdly unbalanced b/c Obsidian couldn't be arsed to do proper design. Combat is either stupidly hard or it literally plays itself and is almost always an incomprehensible mess. Ship combat is laughably pathetic. It plays out in prose and is mechanically thin and poorly thought out. The soundtrack is repetitive and obnoxious. Only four companions at a time. Leveling happens too fast. Useless tacked on pets PROS: The robust class system offers an endless combo of builds to play with. VO is outstanding. Obsidian certainly didn't skimp on their talented voice cast. Listening to some of these characters is a delight! Deadfire has no business looking this gorgeous (when it's running well). Lots of unique scripted encounters that play out in numerous ways based on your skills. The game reacts to your role in surprising ways. Interface is solidly designed and robust, though not always responsive. All in all Deadfire would be an enjoyable experience if Obsidian had given more than a fart. As it stands the design is sloppy, narrative and progression is bland and bugs are an incessant nuisance. Deadfire is not one of Obsidian's "flawed masterpieces." It's a fumble.
Tyranny has all the signs of a game that was rushed in the 11th hour. A staggering concept to deliver more story and character choices than any RPG to date - and it does so effectively at that - in a morally ambiguous scenario that casts you as the "bad guy" in the quintessential crapsack world. The roleplay potential here is astounding. The meat and potatoes of this rich interactive story takes place in the 2nd act, with the 1st acting as a mere prologue and the 3rd being practically nonexistent. T isn't "short" it just has a stunted finale. Tyranny delivers an original fantasy setting in a way that's entertaining to explore, with a cast of very well written characters whose allegiances and dispositions will change dramatically based on choices. T offers some unique mechanics that are left largely unexplored due to the compressed time. Also left unexplored are essential character quests that are withheld for the overpriced DLC, with one character clearly set up for an arc and abandoned entirely. Character progression is skills based, with skills that improve the more you train them. While this lends plenty of versatility, it can end up with a party of homogeneous characters where defined roles don't matter. There is also a three companion party limit, which is at least one less than it should be. Once you start improving your spells, combat becomes a breeze regardless of difficulty. The game is built to reward repeat NG+playthroughs so you can explore all the different permutations of the plot. The branching story also doesn't always allow for a comprehensive understanding of all plot elements because it can sometimes leave essential exposition in other story branches that you aren't currently following. TL;DR Tyranny is a well written, mechanically solid RPG masterwork that doesn't allow itself the time to shine that it desperately deserves.
New Vegas is one of if not the best contemporary RPGs. I hesitate to use the term "modern" to describe it since this game is fast approaching ancient, but it's certainly superior to most any RPG that has come since. It is undoubtedly superior to its adjacent entries in the Fallout series. Nobody does writing and scenario design quite like Obsidian... software engineering? Not so much. New Vegas is a SEVERELY unstable program. Bugs and glitches are utterly rampant and crashes are frequent and at times constant. Since I started play I have had a crash approx every nine minutes. Even the monumental work fans have put into patching this dumpster fire of a program hasn't been able to alleviate the stability issues. And mark my words, mod patches are mandatory. New Vegas is utterly ridden. I cannot stress enough just how much trouble you will have getting this thing to run. If you can tolerate the constant hassle you will be witness to one of the finest RPG experiences of the century... provided the frustration doesn't make you wish for a nuclear winter. 5/5 if it weren't for the instability.
I expect better, given how much this game hyped itself up on its pedigree. As a post apocalyptic rpg adventure the game works, which is about as much as can be said for it. As an RPG, it is somewhat lacking. Character build options are quite versatile, but every character is still going to boil down to some combination of melee fighter/ranged fighter/talker/medic/thief/engineer. There are woefully few opportunities for role play within the story. There are few ways to express your character, even in dialog. The story itself is solid if rather uninteresting. Characters are awfully flat if they're given any personality at all. Scenario design is creative but every situation plays out about as you'd expect. Quest design is horribly inane. The skill system is inane pass/fail savescumming of the highest caliber. It's ridiculous how many loot crates are randomly trapped. For how much of a hassle it can be just to open a box, there's never any remarkable loot inside. Mostly junk items for sale. Combat encounters are simple and get repetitive after a while. This game is ugly. This game would be ugly in 2005. The graphics are absolutely atrocious. Animations are pretty slick though. Sound fx are delightfully pleasant. Everything from the creaking of leather travel packs to the snap of a firearm reloading to the UI sfx are pretty nuanced. The UI is functional and aesthetically appropriate, especially for immersion. If you play it, Wasteland 2 is a discount game. I got it for free as part of GoG's Deadfire deal. I feel like I paid too much for it.
I expect better, given how much this game hyped itself up on its pedigree. As a post apocalyptic rpg adventure the game works, which is about as much as can be said for it. As an RPG, it is somewhat lacking. Character build options are quite versatile, but every character is still going to boil down to some combination of melee fighter/ranged fighter/talker/medic/thief/engineer. There are woefully few opportunities for role play within the story. There are few ways to express your character, even in dialog. The story itself is solid if rather uninteresting. Characters are awfully flat if they're given any personality at all. Scenario design is creative but every situation plays out about as you'd expect. Quest design is horribly inane. The skill system is inane pass/fail savescumming of the highest caliber. It's ridiculous how many loot crates are randomly trapped. For how much of a hassle it can be just to open a box, there's never any remarkable loot inside. Mostly junk items for sale. Combat encounters are simple and get repetitive after a while. This game is ugly. This game would be ugly in 2005. The graphics are absolutely atrocious. The gameplay updates the Director's Cut adds are negligible and should have been in the base game anyway. The graphical updates make the game look better, but it still looks like turd. And for that, it's inexcusable how poorly the game runs on such fugly visuals. Animations are pretty slick though. Sound fx are delightfully pleasant. Everything from the creaking of leather travel packs to the snap of a firearm reloading to the UI sfx are pretty nuanced. The UI is functional and aesthetically appropriate, especially for immersion. If you play it, Wasteland 2 is a discount game. I got it for free as part of GoG's Deadfire deal. I feel like I paid too much for it.
Banished is good, just don't expect much. It's a nice, solid little timewaster that is engaging for a while but its longevity leaves something to be desired. Every game will play the same, the random seed maps don't change the experience at all really. After your first few years the game stops being a survival sim and turns into a simplistic resource management sim. The Construction and Management Simulation isn't very deep or complex. As a city builder, it doesn't offer much creativity because buildings are all the same both visually and funcitonally. Once you're up and running, the objective is really just to copy/paste buildings all over the map until you've run out of map and achieved max population. A playthrough will go through various states (hunter/gather > trade > agriculture) which is about as much variety as the game offers, other than mod support which is extensive and mods are easy to integrate. Mechanically, the game is shallow but sound with precision balance and solid design. Everything about Banished works well, it just doesn't offer a whole lot. The simplistic graphics are rather charming actually. Everything about Banished just screams "cathartic." Expect a solid, simplistic, low key experience that is entertaining for a while.
Everything about this game is slow and underwhelming. Movement is slow. Attacking is slow. Leveling is slow and mundane. I've never been so bored when leveling up and at no moment did I ever anticipate the next level. Nothing really changes when you level up and allocate skill and attribute points. Nothing really changes when you get new items or equipment. Every mob is mundane with the same movements and attacks. They drop mostly trash that you can't take with you because inventory is idiotically tiny. The game plays the same regardless of what mastery you choose. There are no real limitations on weapons or ways to specialize aside from the usual min stat reqs and some slight advantages some classes get with certain weapons. Item crafting is useless busywork. All masteries are not created equal. Some are OP, especially in certain combinations. Warrior rogue and the IT mastery Dream are stupidly OP. Hunter and Nature are worthless. Specific combinations like War/Earth put the game on Easy Mode. THE GAME DOES NOT LET YOU RESPEC MASTERIES. So if you don't like what you chose, tough luck. And the trainer I used couldn't find the directory and broked my game. Story is background noise. Characters are dull and voice acting is dumb and irritating. Fights with classic greek monsters (medusa, cyclopse, etc.) are just as mundane as every other fight with no lead in and no story context. Game is dull. Boring. Pointless click sim. Can't even call it a proper loot/expee treadmill.
