Such a mindblowing blending of story (lore / writing), puzzles, humour and level design that Talos principle can confidently stand next to Portal 2 - one of the best games ever made. That is all you need to know about this masterpiece. Don't spoil yourself, don't google anything more about it. Go in blind and you will be rewarded with emotional rollercoaster like no other (that ending!). 100% recommended.
Graphics, story, characters, atmosphere, music. These things are amongst the best I've ever experienced in any game and they are the reason why you will never forget your first playthrough. In fact, they are so great that I give this game 5 stars, despite a few things that would send lesser RPG straight into dumpster. When it comes to actual gameplay, the game really suffers. The heart of any RPG - the levelling system and skill tree are heavily flawed. The combat is boring and movement is clunky (especially on horse that likes to get stuck in various rocks and trees). It's a shame, because Witcher 3 had the potential to really be the king amongst games. Now it "only" stand next to the best. Oh, and special mention regarding main character: Never thought this might happen, but Geralt dethroned JC Denton in the "top most likeable / badass / sarcastic / cool" list.
Think Settlers game: In order to make bread, you need Grain farm to produce grain, then Mill for flour and finally Bakery for bread. Factorio took this simple concept of making bread and added fifty additional steps into it. Problem is, that there is simply no point in this. You just build things for the sake of building things. And most of them are nothing more but a pretty picture in your inventory. I am sorry, I know that this is still an early access game and there will be additional content, but I just didn't have fun. Playing Factorio feels more like going to work than having good relaxing time with a game.
Let's start with positives: When it comes to city builders, I dare to say that you won't find a better game where you pimp out your economy and slowly create a giant living village with dozens of buildings and hundreds of citizens walking around. Perhaps only Settlers 3/4 come close to what you might expect here. You construct the entire town, placing down adjacent buildings (farm - mill - bakery) and connect them with roads. All produced goods are manually transported around by carriers, which creates feel of big, living city. Also, every building is "showing" you it's production (you see baker actually bake the bread, or pig farmer feed the pigs etc.). It's very detailed and fun, once you construct a big town, whatching the screen tickles all the right spots. I still can't give it a 5 star rating though. The combat is where this game falls on it's face. The base game is almost unplayable (unit pathfinding is probably the worst I've seen in any game). If you use "KaM Remake" mod it will fix a lot of problems, but even then - you CANNOT control your units when they engage with enemy forces, so the outcome of most battles is only about luck and who brought more troops.
Out of all games in this genre I've played (Sacred series, Diablo series, PoE, Titan quest), this one is the best. Well, if you include DLCs. The gameplay is exactly what you might expect from similar games - kill things, level up, get items, kill more things. And Grim Dawn polished this concept into perfection. You can choose any playstyle you like (summoning minions, casting spells, using swords etc.) and the game will give you almost infinite options for it. Story is very Half-life ish. Nothing is in your face, you have to put together pieces of events from notes and conversations. Or you can just ignore it completely. Replayability is through the roof. The only downside is necessity of having DLCs. Not like the base game lacks content, but overall experience is far more polished with them.
Search for "Lonely Moon" track on Youtube. And now imagine listening to this while you walk into the Fallen city and meet the last human resistance against terrifying, ustoppable enemy. But not all hope is lost. Our hero has arrived and the Aetherials'd better watch themselves. Seriously, this expansion includes moments that you wont't forget easily. The entire Malmouth is massive and the feel is just astonishing. Everything burns with green flames, there are huge building-size mutants roaming the streets and humans are desperately trying to survive. Together with 2 more masteries, 2 new acts, tons of items and polished game mechanics, this is a must-have for every GD player out there.
Forgotten Gods DLC's problem that it comes after the epic masterpiece that was Ashes of Malmouth. It is of course a very well done expansion full of content and new game mechanics, but there are some things that I do not like. First of all, the overall "feel" was like a visit at McDonald's. While Malmouth and the base game created sad and depressing world that felt believable, Forgotten Gods comes with colorful alien realms, exploding volcanoes and giant flashy explosions (final boss fight feels like japanesse anime). To me, it all felt out of place. Next thing is a story that has almost nothing to do with previous events. You can start Forgotten Gods anytime after you finish Act 1 so this whole thing is like a giant side-quest, similar to Hidden Path.
At the beginning it was just like other addictive, lootfest-RPG's: "One more level and Im going to sleep. One more dungeon and Im turning it off. One more quest and Im done for today." However, the more you play, the more repetitive and meaningless it gets. What is the point of collecting and selling all that loot when you're sitting on 10 million gold and there is nothing you can buy for it? Why exploring the world when you encounter the same enemies, same camps, same patherns? If you saw one of them, you saw them all. The game offers good replayability in choosing character with different masteries (you can choose 2 out of 8, with every mastery having different set of active and passive abilities, combining them as you like), but honestly I dont see myself going for another run. Titan Quest could have been a blast back in 2006 when it came out, but nowadays there are too many RPG's that do the same thing better.
