Yeah that's about it.
The graphics and story is alright. The gameplay however is straight forward. It's like reading a book or watching episodes of a mini TV serie. Simple game, it's not an immersive sim and, to it's defense, does not describe itself so either. I am glad that I tried it. I have also tried Sinking City. These two games share some similarities like the investigation scenes. Both games have their up and downsides. Still a worthwhile try. Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners of the Earth is still the best Lovecraft game that I have tried. If you haven't already you should definately try that one out. If you're really interested in trying out more Lovecraft games I would say this one doesn't hurt to complete at least once.
It's a bit achievement-based as you will see your progress and secrets found in the end of the game. Thus you might look back and try a rerun of the it. It's not a big game, about 4+ hours of interesting gameplay. Most of the puzzles aren't too difficult so they won't stall you too much. There is one potentially-fatal chase scene that I thought was unnecessary to add. Let it rather be a discovery game than a monster-kill game. I am happy that I have tried it. I'm trying to immerse myself in HPL universe, especially the audiobook dramatizations. I highly reccomend these audiobooks for a bus commute or when you're on an airplane and not doing anything else beside sitting and waiting. This game helps your brain with some additional images.
Despite of being one of the best games I have ever played I like to point out one caution for new players. If you are like me, simple, you don't want to have too many cards in your hand at one time. What I mean by this is while you play the main quests, be sure not to overwhelm yourself with the enormous amount of sidequests, contract quests and not to mention treasurehunt quests. Simple ignore the sidequests marks and bulletin boards with sidequests on them, leave them for good or for a later time. Stick to the main quests, do sidequests only every now and then if you feel like it. Know that the main story is the sweetest part of the cake. Don't worry if you miss one sidequest, or two or twenty. The game has a New Game+ function so you could always go again, if you would like, and try to finish all available sidequests with your upgraded character. I hope you will enjoy this magnificent title as much as I did. Hats off for developer CD Project RED. Very good work.
If you have tried and liked System Shock, Deus Ex, Thief or Bioshock then this is a must try. I had my doubts before I tried it. Give it a go and you'll like it as much as I did. It really is a good immersive sim and definately a must on your immersive sim list of games. Nice and understandable story. Good character build up and how you play is up to you. Save or kill everyone. General rule for older games: Before you start playing any old game always remember to update the game and make use of all graphical mods available. Mods for Arx Fatalis: "Arx Libertatis" + "Arx Neuralis". Apply these and your game will surely be more enjoyable. Rule of thumb: Always make use of the manual save function on the in-game menu. I did a mistake on only relying on quick-saves. Near the end of the game all my quick-saves files in-game suddenly dissapeared. The local quick-save files were still available on my file drive though corrupted and not recognized by the game anymore. This was a big bummer for me as I had invested so much time to the game. Non the less I did experianced the ending through a Youtube-video walkthrough of the game. I don't want anyone to experiance such and technical issue, therefore ALWAYS make use of the MANUAL SAVE function while playing a game. Despite the quick-save game disaster still give tihs game a 5/5. It really deserves that in my opinion. A GREAT IMMERSIVE SIM [with some usual old-game technical issues].
I did get stuck bugged twice and had to restart the game both times. The progress that was not saved was lost and I had to go again. Despite the stuck bug not being a huge issue for me the game does not auto save and that was an issue. Do remember to save manually every now and then so you don't have to go and repeat your lost progress.You do not have to go overboard with manual saving, I only got stuck two times, so do relax. You might not even encounter any bugs at all. I'm not really into Point-and-Click adventure. If you're someone unlike me and likes Point-and-Click you should definately try this one out. To be fair to the genre. This title could get 5 stars, however because of the stuck bugs mentioned above I'll leave 4 fair stars behind.
Despite it's numerous flaws and rough edges it packed such a good story that it made me binge the game almost entirely. I especially like that it has a fair insight into the lore of tabletop RPG Vampire: The Masquerade. Very informative. Supposedly the game was originally released unfinished, please handle the game with kid gloves. Still a true masterpiece. TIP: if you get stuck, be it because of a bug or of many wrong decisions, remember that you can cheat your way out via the console. Only once I had to use it for a sticky situation. Enjoy dear kindred!
Despite being old it's fairly fun to play on mobile devices.
Short and simple. Fair price.
The story of the game is interesting. Despite having pretty rough edges the game is fairly completable. If you do run in technical problems you can try the unofficial patch. DCoTE Patcher 1.7
