It looks like it could have been a very good game, but I asked for the easy level, and got dumped into a super-hard boss level to start things off, with no tutorial or understanding of what I had available to me. That's just not fun at all. I'm glad I didn't pay full price for this. Don't pay anything--skip it completely.
I left a negative review about the first Witcher game. I stand by what I said there, and I'll let it be read as is. Witcher 2 was made in 2012, and is worse in many important ways. First of all, it took up TWENTY GIGABYTES on my hard drive! I can handle the capacity easily, but I have yet to see another game take up even half that space. While the graphics looked better than Witcher 1 when I eventually saw them, the game decided my system was not up to snuff and dialed everything down to rock bottom. Despite this adjustment, the game was laggy, choppy, and slow to respond. I have newer and more graphics-intensive games that perform BETTER than this one with their settings at medium or higher. I can see why some other reviewers complained about headaches. I could take a meclizine (motion sickness pill) and try to deal with it, except that the terrible performance also affects the gameplay. Motions flail wildly out of control, while the mouse pointer creeps along painfully in menus. THEN I got to the combat scenes--my absolute dealbreaker for Witcher 1. Moving the attack types to the mouse was good, but I have to hit ALT, SPACE, and move my character in some sequence or at the same time to parry and dodge. NO! Because, aside from not wanting to dance my hand awkwardly all over my keyboard just to play a fricking this game, I can't even time anything like that effectively due to the awful lag and jerkiness described above. It's probably yet another of too many games originally meant for controllers that was translated poorly to keyboard. Last but not least, the character takes up way too much space in the view, as other reviewers have described. I can't recommend this or Witcher 1 at all to other PC users. Don't pay more than $3 for this title.
This game surely had more potential in the design process than it demonstrated. For starters, it's a major improvement over its predecessor, "Vampire: The Masquerade--Redemption" (except that it still has a ridiculously cumbersome name), while using similar interesting RPG elements borrowed from the book-based RPG game series. The biggest improvement is the 1st and 3rd person views. Unfortunately, this is undermined by the fact that combat with melee weapons or fists can't occur in 1st person, and gun combat doesn't seem to be possible in 3rd person. Speaking of gun combat, ALL enemies, even humans, take a tremendous amount of ammo to kill, even when using a shotgun; this is utterly ridiculous, and was the ultimate dealbreaker for me. Prior to that, I was putting up with fairly small game areas and a fairly linear way of playing. The graphics were adequate enough to immerse me, and of course I kept its year or release in mind; but I've seen open world games from the same time period done better. It is NOT an open world game. Spells sucked; most of the time, they weren't worth using at all, if I could. Feeding sucked (pun intended). Stealth sucked; I was supposed to be able to sneak up on people, but it failed too often with no clear explanation as to why. Dialogue was great, and the addition of goth music with people dancing hard to it at the Asylum club was also quite cool to see. But pumping five shotgun blasts at close range into non-vampire enemies before they died (not sure if I ever chose a difficulty level) was just too stupid and killed my suspension of disbelief to the point at which I'd had enough. Don't pay more than $3 for this title.
This is a game that has not aged well, but might still be fun for some. While it doesn't suffer from control issues, the point-&-click aspect is undermined by the camera viewing angle set by the mouse and the lack of transparency in some areas with regard to the character position. For example, if an enemy is around the corner shooting arrows at Christof, that enemy can still be obscured by walls or even ceiling until I move the mouse enough to be able to see and click to attack. Also, I encountered many issues in which I could not attack a nearby enemy, or one on stairs at Christof's feet but at a slightly different level (usually lower). The same issue occurred with items. Once I gained a character in my party, that character often got in my way such that I could not attack enemies or pick up items until I moved the camera just right. Many of the reviews here and after this game's original release talk about how the graphics add to the atmospherics. Only one post-release review said the truth, which is that the graphics are actually quite mediocre and non-immersive, especially in outside areas. Finally, despite having upgrade points to spend, I was not able to upgrade my characters at all, and it was unclear why. That said, this seems like it could have been a pretty decent game for its time, in terms of content and character development. It had the potential to be a much better game than it is. I don't think it's worth $6, and I'm definitely glad I got it on sale.
Why is this game considered so good? The controls suck, the voice acting sucks, the characters look stiff and fake, and the fight sequences don't make any sense at all. I spent over an hour fighting enemies that seemed to take forever to die. I'm not even sure how they died when they did--both they and my character were just kinda standing there, and then they just suddenly fell over dead at some point. I got killed by a monster that simply sat on me, but was so ridiculously overpowered that hits from me and the friendly NPCs did nothing. The tutorial popups are clear enough, but the controls don't always yield the intended results. Moving the character around is pretty goofy, too. As relatively new as this game is, I've seen older games with better movement controls, better combat sequences, and much better voice acting and character animation. Don't waste your money on this crap.
I should start by saying that I did not finish the game, and ended up uninstalling it. That decision had nothing to do with the quality of the game, however, and I'll probably come back to it one day. It definitely has some appealing elements to it. I got this and Elven Legacy Collection at the same time; I didn't finish that one, either, but again, for reasons not relevant to the game itself. Give both of them a try and see what you think, dear reader. Dialogue is a bit lacking in spots, but the story is conveyed, even if a bit confusing in spots. The AI will punish you for mistakes, but is otherwise fairly easy to defeat at first, if you're not asleep, inebriated, or otherwise impaired. Make sure to play one of the tutorials first! The games are identical, in terms of mechanics; I wish more game devs did this, or upgraded a core game, instead of completely reinventing their games all the time. Disclaimer: this review is identical to the one I left for Elven Legacy Collection.
I should start by saying that I did not finish the game, and ended up uninstalling it. That decision had nothing to do with the quality of the game, however, and I'll probably come back to it one day. It definitely has some appealing elements to it. I got this and Fantasy Wars at the same time; I didn't finish that one, either, but again, for reasons not relevant to the game itself. Give both of them a try and see what you think, dear reader. Dialogue is a bit lacking in spots, but the story is conveyed, even if a bit confusing in spots. The AI will punish you for mistakes, but is otherwise fairly easy to defeat at first, if you're not asleep, inebriated, or otherwise impaired. Make sure to play one of the tutorials first! The games are identical, in terms of mechanics; I wish more game devs did this, or upgraded a core game, instead of completely reinventing their games all the time. Disclaimer: this review is identical to the one I left for Fantasy Wars.
Having spent time on the Through The Looking Glass (TTLG) forums during the initial days of the development of the 2014 Thief reboot, I read a lot about Thief 3, and did not have my hopes up that it would be a decent sequel. Most of the complaints I read about were related to the removal of the swimming ability, the complete alteration of Garrett's loadout, the relative smallness of the levels and areas, and other things. I decided to try it, anyway. When I finally got my copy on Steam and played it, I found it to be a different enough game that I felt like I was NOT playing a proper sequel to T1 or T2--at least not the same way that T2 was to T1. This was due to the use of an entirely different game engine. T3 definitely had its moments, though. Visually, it was an improvement over the first two--but things like that are not AS important to me as gameplay, and I found myself missing what was missing. It's still WAY better than the reboot, though, and better than many other games I've played for its relative openness. T3 was intended to be more open world, but this was unachievable at the time for the studio. The result was a lot more loading times for smaller levels that made me feel like I might have overlooked too much (again, compared to T1 and T2). There are supposedly mods for this game, or else links to those mods, available through TTLG that open the world up and make it smoother to play, but I haven't tried those, and I doubt they'd work on my Steam copy. In short, if you took my advice as given in the T1 and T2 reviews I left (they're the same review, actually), you can skip this one and live happily ever after. If you DON'T skip this one, don't expect more of the same as what you got in T1 and T2. It truly is like playing a different game that shares the franchise name; but you might still enjoy it. I'm still trying to decide if I liked it enough to play it again. I have no such problems with T1 and T2.
Wanna own a piece of history? Then get Thief 1 and 2, and play them in order. They may look outdated in terms of graphics, but Thief 1 and 2 revolutionized many aspects of gameplay. For starters, they introduced stereo surround sound specifically made to help you pinpoint where enemies are without seeing them. Even without surround sound, though, you will still feel the hair on your neck stand up when you're trying to avoid detection and the zombies and hammer haunts are rattling up behind your or just around the corner...especially if the haunts are searching the are where you carelessly made a noise. The interactivity in this game was on a high level for the time. Master thief Garett could do a lot of things--even swim and dive--whereas many contemporary game heroes were stuck on linear tracks that at most merely tested a player's memory and reflexes. Movement was made to be incredibly smooth, and this combined with the first-person perspective really ramps up the immersion factor--better than many games made to date. He also had plenty of different kinds of tools to help him in his infiltration of spaces, but their supplies are limited, and he has to steal to be able to afford more. Using them sparingly, and knowing when and when not to use them (especially water arrows) is a sign of a veteran Thief player. I'm not going to tell you about the enemies--they're going to have to be a surprise. While Garrett can fight most of them, he's better off sneaking around enemies or knocking them out. Beware, though--some can't be knocked out, and others can't be killed. Garrett isn't tough enough for protracted battles, especially when their friends show up to help kill him. They don't take turns fighting, either. Once you've experienced the end of both, do a web search for Through The Looking Glass (TTLG), and play some custom fan missions. You won't be disappointed! Nothing else needs to be said, except, "Join us...join us...JOIN US NOW!!!"
Wanna own a piece of history? Then get Thief 1 and 2, and play them in order. They may look outdated in terms of graphics, but Thief 1 and 2 revolutionized many aspects of gameplay. For starters, they introduced stereo surround sound specifically made to help you pinpoint where enemies are without seeing them. Even without surround sound, though, you will still feel the hair on your neck stand up when you're trying to avoid detection and the zombies and hammer haunts are rattling up behind your or just around the corner...especially if the haunts are searching the are where you carelessly made a noise. The interactivity in this game was on a high level for the time. Master thief Garett could do a lot of things--even swim and dive--whereas many contemporary game heroes were stuck on linear tracks that at most merely tested a player's memory and reflexes. Movement was made to be incredibly smooth, and this combined with the first-person perspective really ramps up the immersion factor--better than many games made to date. He also had plenty of different kinds of tools to help him in his infiltration of spaces, but their supplies are limited, and he has to steal to be able to afford more. Using them sparingly, and knowing when and when not to use them (especially water arrows) is a sign of a veteran Thief player. I'm not going to tell you about the enemies--they're going to have to be a surprise. While Garrett can fight most of them, he's better off sneaking around enemies or knocking them out. Beware, though--some can't be knocked out, and others can't be killed. Garrett isn't tough enough for protracted battles, especially when their friends show up to help kill him. They don't take turns fighting, either. Once you've experienced the end of both, do a web search for Through The Looking Glass (TTLG), and play some custom fan missions. You won't be disappointed! Nothing else needs to be said, except, "Join us...join us...JOIN US NOW!!!"
