I didn't look into the game before buying but heard the sequel was good. It's a role-playing game so when it was on discount I bought it. It's intriguiging in the first 1-2 hours. But afterwards I kept thinking: is this is? And they charged almost 20€ for this? Are you kidding me?! With the amount of games out there, lots often on discount, this game is not worth full price. Absolutely not. It's a "nice" game, but no more. The role-playing is effectively non-existant on either the narrative or the gameplay front. It's more of a mechanics-heavy adventure game. At the start there's a ticking-timebomb mechanic (a timer) that creates some tension, but my timer ran out and I thought that that was game over for my entire run. Harsh but fair. I had f***ed up. But as the timer reaches zero, a scene plays in which these Damocles sword situation resolves itself without any input from me. No skill checks, no resource check or anything. You have to pay 1 skill point (I had gathered like 20 at that point) and you are good as new. And with that all tension evaporated. The narrative also isn't fantastic. The writing is thankfully lean, but there is still lots to read, which I don't specifically mind if I'm into it, but the charcters and small stories (there's no real overarching narrative) where shallow. At one point a quest suggest that the MC is really upset with an NPC about an outcome the player couldn't possibly have for seen, with the "victims" of that event the MC had never before seen. Yet the game insisted the MC be angry. As a player, I had zero impact on this event or the consequences. And at the ending that I got, that NPC made a pass at the MC out of nowhere, seemingly due to that tragic event I didn't care about. I left with that and another NPC I didn't care about and the game ended with "you will wake among friends". No, game, no, I won't. I don't care about these people. Credits roll. Main menu. No slides showing your impact or anything. An "experience".
If you want a 3rd person high fantasy RPG, and you haven't played this or Dragon Age Origins, you have missed the leaders of the pack. No game is perfect but there is none more perfect for this genre than this here. Or DA:O, though that, while having aged wonderfully, is still much older.
Playing this in 2024, my experiences with this game after 13 hours were: this is a mission-based shooter with really simplsitic missions. The RPG progression is glacially slow. I'm writing this for people who aren't completionists, and I would say 13 hours is more than enough to inform a purchase decision. The shooting part: good. The RPG mechanics: several systems (skill points ala fallout in categories like hacking and shooting), cybernetic upgrade (e.g. regain stamina faster, faster sprint) and research (e.g. armor more efficient). It's all done through a single resource. However, this is a long-term commitment. At the end of the game my best stat was shooting at 54 (out of 100?), the rest in the 30s and mid 40s, aka basically starting level. I didn't do all the side missions (see missions below) but the ones I did gave unsatisfyingly little reward. The story: cryptically told but easy enough to figure out. Didn't keep me playing. Structure: it is important to understand that this is nothing like your average RPG. There is no real interaction with the environment, and it is structured more like a map-based MMO. You get sent to a map and given a set of quests. Then you free-roam until everything is done. You might stumble upon NPCs from time to time, but these are side-quest triggers or alternate ways of completing a mission. The maps are basically combat arenas and you go around shooting people and pressing buttons. They are also vey thinly populated, with large distances to cover, like an MMO map, only with less stuff in it. Enemies respawn (like in an MMO, can be adjusted in settings). Overall, an unengaging world with respawning enemies, no engaging quests and but good gunplay. It might get better at higher levels but honestly, after arriving in a map that seems to be the climactic battle and being a) underleveled [not that the game tells you that] and b) being spawn-killed over and over, I think I'll just go play Mass Effect instead.
Just to give a little more nuanced feedback, the game is okay, but, IMHO, nothing like a 5/5. At the time of review, I've got about 6,5 hours and the game hasn't really won me over. It's a budget title, but for double the price you can have a lot of AA and AAA level games at a discount all the time. After 6+ hours the game has not won me over. The main issue I have is that all these "creative options" you'd expect from a text-based empire builder/choose-your-own-adventure are simply not all that numerous or deep. The upgrades to your kingdom are ok but nothing really interesting (spend 10k to get +10% farming income). Ok but not outstandingly interesting. Battles are, from what I have seen (and IMHO after 6 hours a player should have seen some of the good stuff), one-dimensional number-vs-number affairs. You as the player have very little influence other than how many dudes you bring to the battle, and who you appointed as your war minister as it were. But your war minister, as all your 4 other ministers, just have 1 stat, So battles actually offer very little agency. And 1 stat per minister(and army unit[battlescore X, that's it]) is indicative of how shallow many of the systems are. And the same goes for the exploration. E.g. in my last run I got to like 60 points of interest and it was almost exclusively "you find gold", "you find [target for attack]" or "you find nothing". If you are expecting mini-quests or choice-driven mini-adventures, I haven't found any so far. I honestly couldn't be asked to do any more of them. They also do not scale with your empire. Finding a knight who joins you is great when you have like 5 in all, but not when you have 163. The throne room court decisions get old very quickly, having the same problems as the points of interest. Someone donates 13 gold. Fantastic. Building 2nd tier baracks is 30k. But there are 108 more guys waiting. It's an experience, and supporting indies is nice. An okay game, no less but no more.
Perhaps this game shares a common ancestry with the original DOOM, but if you associate boomer shooters with fast-paced, visceral combat, DOOM 2016 and others do it so, so much better. The issue is the combination of enemy design and level/encounter design. In D16, you need to move, you cannot really hang back. The game is designed to make that an inefficient and often ineffective tactic. Movement is life. In Prodeus it is actually often the most effective way to play. You turn a corner and there is an enemy. You shoot him once, retreat behind the corner, wait for him to shoot, come back and finish him off. Efficient and saving resources. The enemies cannot really counter this. Their movement is slow, if they move at all. This kills any kind of dynamic and fluent engagement. If there are several enemies, you just hop in and out of cover again and again. It becomes a predictable formula. The devs were very much aware of this circumstance because they use some really tedious methods to break this loop. 1) spawning in enemies around you - including behind you. This forces you to move but it also feels really cheap when you get hit from behind by an enemy that spawned in a location you just passed. 2) Cheapshot enemy locations: open a door? bang, enemy behind it shot you. Drop down a shaft? Bang, 3 melee enemies in melee range. Lastly, the music might be nice but it often ramps up too late, ends too soon or doesn't start at all. E.g. I had the more metal part kickstart when engaging 3 enemies. 10 seconds later it stopped while I was aiming at the last enemy. The engagement wasn't even done yet. In conclusion: it's an ok game, but honestly, if you want the best fast-paced action shooter, there are better options out there. The pixel gore might be nice but honestly it just passed me by while I was playing Prodeus and thinking about how much better shooters like DOOM 2016 or Nightmare Reaper are in this category.
After finishing Bethesda's Starfield after 180 hours, I have to say: Bethesda should be embarrassed. Starfield and CP77 2.0 arrived at roughly the same time for the same price [excluding DLC], and there is no comparison. From the presentation to characters to activities, gun play, world building, story and writing, CP77 simply dominates. Is CP77 the perfect game? No? Is it worth it's full asking price? In my opinion yes, absolutely. But that isn't even necessary as it is on sale from time to time and there's no reason not to wait for a discount to pick it up. If you are interested in immersive action games with a decent and interesting story and good writing and fun open world gameplay, this is a superb pick. And while the initial release was not great, cudos to CDPR for sticking with the game and supporting it even though it would have been very easy to drop the game as a bad memory, as so many other developers and devs have done in the past, cancelling DLC and even support, screwing over customers for the quick buck (see e.g. EA's long, long list of effectively killed studios) Thank you, CDPR, for being a company that I don't mind giving money to as a customer.
I've cleared the game in a little over 47 hours, and I have to say, if you are from a generation that played and loved those old school RPGs for their epic high fantasy stories, and epic story line, you have come to the right place. The mechanics are simple early menu-based 2d battle screens, but with some depth to it. The setting is high fantasy but unique, and it goes some dark places too. The premise is also unexpected and there is quite some lore. Story telling is good, with some minor tonal dissonance at times, but overall highly entertaining. Concerning the H scenes, they are ok, but honestly while there are quite a few, there isn't a "47-hour playthrough" amount. You shouldn't get this game if that is the only thing you are interested in. If you are interested in a novel yet classic, and sometimes quite dark and raw, high fantasy story that includes sexuality, this is a really good game and I am happy I played it.
While many of the lower-scoring reviews are correct in their criticism of the base game, it has to be said that the base game is actually not "the game", more just the engine. The real meat lies in the DLC campaigns. E.g. the Soviet campaigns are incredible - one or two not so good missions and the other 30+ missions excellent. The scenario set-ups and missions, the authentic feel and very good unit balance. The unit balance especially deserves praise at the points costs of the units and their capabilities are designed in a way that makes the player assemble forces over the course of the campaign that are quite organic and "historical". Even late in the campaigns, you will want a balance of units with a significant infantry frontline, artillery, mobile self-propelled guns, only a few tanks since tanks are very good but only in very specific but also essential situations. If you are interested in games like this, Order of Battle is most certainly the best game, easily better than Panzer Corps (which I found ok) because it has more advanced mechanics and better mechanical depth, BUT only if you actually get (buy) additional DLC campaigns because they are the actual game. Again, the Soviet Campaign (3 DLCs, from the Japanese border wars to Berlin) was great for its combined asking price of about 50€.
Just finished the campaign. I'm not a veteran of the old game and for me the game was really good. The story was superbly paced and my cudos to the animation team making the cutscenes quite brilliant. It's all quite believable and had me really hooked. The voice acting was totally fine to really, really good. Combat is a bit stiff, but I makes a lot of sense for the player because you're not a specops Übersoldat, you're a thug, a thug wearing a suit but a thug nontheless. If you want a good gangster game, this one is certainly worth your time.
