There is literally nothing to complain about here. It's a free upgrade for users who already had it, it comes with the old games that can be used with source ports if you are a new buyer, and you get two new expansions, just like with the Doom and Quake updates.
Luke Scull and Ossian Studios have been keeping the Neverwinter Nights single-player scene alive for literally decades, against all odds, and haven't received a fraction of the money they deserve. The absolute LEAST we can do is give them a paltry $9.00 for a campiagn.
Alot of people are going to be interested in this title due to the release of the sequel being the current flavor of the month in the gaming world, and, to be honest, the first game is superior in many ways. First off, Dragon's Dogma 2 is more a remake than direct sequel. And while it certainly has more dynamic combat and open-world events, that currently comes at the cost of some truly horrendous optimization. If you don't care about graphics (and most people buying the game on GOG won't), you may find trading modern graphics for PS3-era ones with no frame dips whatsoever a great trade-off. Beyond that, the enemy variety (while never a strong suite of the series) is greater here, and it already has it's end-game DLC, and all the microtransaction nonsense already integrated into the game. Again, it depends on what you want. But there is actually very little difference between the two games. Dragon's Dogma is a unique type of ARPG and both games are doing the same thing. It just so happens that this one can be had for $5.00 when on sale, with no anti-cheat and crap optimization taxing your system. Personal choice, no right answer, but Dark Arisen has many points in it's favor over the sequel.
This was, for me, maybe one of 5 or 6 titles that still required me to have Steam installed. Now that it is here, I have alot less reason to have two launchers. It's probably not a coincidence this comes two weeks before Starfield is released. Since Fallout 4 will no longer be the most recent Bethesda open world title, it makes perfect sense for them to finally allow it here. In the end, my rating isn't even so much for the game as having the full single-player Elder Scrolls/Fallout experience in one place DRM-free.
Will the recent (last 5-10 years) smorgasboard of isometic CRPGs in the vein of the Infinity Engine and Fallout that we have seen (Pillars, Pathfinder, Numenera, Wasteland, D:OS), it always struck me as beyond odd that no one seemed to have any interest in making a spiritual successor or clone of the most popular RPG series around, which is The Elder Scrolls. Make no mistake, based on what has been presented so far, Tainted Grail IS that game. It's trying to be The Elder Scrolls every bit as much as PIllars of Eternity was trying to be Baldu'rs Gate. Whether it succeeds or not we won't be able to tell until it's much more fleshed out. But someone is at least making the attempt, and doing a pretty good job thus far. Let's hope it comes into full-bloom.
Take a large cup of the Batman Arkham games, and equally large cup of Assassin's Creed, and plot it down in Middle-Earth. That is the essence of Shadow of Mordor. It is a "clear the map icons" game, but with a twist, in that the Nemesis system for your enemies is constantly shifting the world. Don't let getting mobbed by the first couple Orc packs discourage you. Once you start to get the hang of the flow and rhythm of the game and progression, it becomes quite addicting. Dying only makes things more interesting, as it causes the mobs who killed you to level-up in power and status among the other Orcs. This isn't a ground-breaking title or a masterpiece, but it's really good empty calorie gaming.
The online/multiplayer elements were removed even in the Steam version years ago, which vastly improved the game and made it far more worthwhile. Hard to say why this and Shadow of Mordor weren't released together, but I suspected this one was coming. If you liked the first title, this one is more and bigger, with a much greater fleshing out of the Nemesis system. Don't come for a Tolkien-esque narrative. Nothing here beyond the setting has anyone to do with LoTR cannon or lore. But it can be alot of fun. And with these two games and Skyrim arriving with 30 days of each other, it gives alot of hope for more big budget titles that have been out long enough on the other playform that giving them to GOG opens up the best avenue for more sales.
Take one part Ridley Scott's Alien, mash it up with System Shock and Resident Evil 4, and you get Dead Space. And I will argue forever that Dead Space is BETTER than Resident Evil 4 because of the over the shoulder perspective in lieu of tank controls (which some people may find fine, but I despise). It's pretty telling the the Resident Evil series itslef went to the Dead Space-style when they remade 2 and 3. The Ishimura mining ship is one of the great settings in video games.
The major criticism of Skyrim is that it is "dumbed down". I suppose this was the same criticism Oblivion received after Morrowind, and that Morrowind received after Daggerfall. I suppose this is true in a technical sense. But this game can't be boiled down to the relatively mundane skill-trees and attribute choices. Those are only a small part of a great RPG. Like an Elder Scrolls games, the goal is to give you a massive canvas to live your own fantasy life. This has been true since Arena, and Skyrim does not deviate from this. Join guilds, chop wood, cook, marry, adopt children, live as a vampire or werewolf, complete every quest or murder every NPC you can find. All set to Jeremy Soule's timeless soundtrack, hitting it out of the park for the third time in a row. Skyrim can often be seen as a running joke. The memes, the jank, the way the radiant AI causes NPCs to act. But this is also all part of the reason it still resonates after all these years, we most people reading this review are buying it for the 4th or 5th time (and hopefully the last). There is something about The Elder Scrolls that scratches an itch nothing else can really replicate. The reason they keep selling new versions of Skyrim is because people are drawn to it like few games that have ever been released. And now it's on GOG. Enjoy sinking another 200 hours of your life into it again, everyone.
As a rule, 3D Souls-likes that aren't made directly by the masters at From Software are......lacking to say the least. There is the absolute trash like Lords of the Fallen, really middling efforts like The Surge, and pretty good games on their own merit like Mortal Shell and Hellpoint. Steelrising falls into the later category. It's janky, but it's good. It's the first one of these copy-cats (and that is what they are) to directly try to take it's ques from Bloodborne, substituting cosmic horror for animatronics in the French Revolution. Ultimately, the best Souls-like games are all in the 2D sidescrolling space (Hollow Knight and Blasphemous), but Steelrising is about as good as we've seen in the 3D space. It's still miles away from From Software quality (no one else has hit on that secret sauce), but it's as close as you'll get to scratching that itch.
