an OK game to pass few hours however it is pretty shallow and cannot scale. It offers some challenge while you struggle to buy first trucks but after that you have to manually control all trucks, the UI is poor for that. Contracts offer no variety. My game hit some sort of bug and crashed every time one contract is fulfilled. or probably it happened because I had to many trucks and contracts. Anyway by that time game overstayed its welcome so I just moved on. Works on Linux with wine (dxvk, dotnet 4.8) out of the box.
I can already see how PB fanboys will downvote my review right into Beliar ream, as if doing that makes mediocre game any better. If you're new to Gothic and other games from Piranha Bytes, I'd suggest to start with Gothic 1, continue with Gothic 2 NOTR, Archolos (free mod +100 hours of playing) and then, if you developed much unconditional love to PB, try their worst selection: Gothic 3, Risen and step-kid Arcania what are my complaints? why such low rating? - old annoying mechanics carried over, I can't take it no more: screen shaking like in older Gothics, can't find free bed without being lectured and booted by peasants (and can't have own bed, like in Gothic 3), annoying weather (constant storms, flickers) - visually unpleasing. bad LOD, everything blurred to the point of nausea. together with storms, being wandering in a swamp in green mist, I can't recall any other game with such ugly visuals. probably Witcher 1. I'll take old choppy Gothic 1's looks over this travesty. - combat resembles Gothic 3 (in its stupidity and complexity), going melee is suicidal. as in every PB game it screws you with auto-lock on enemy. when you fight 4 critters they tend to surround you. 1 critter moves aside, game catches it and 3 remaining critters can freely attack you from behind. dodge needs double tap on direction key (folks, you don't mind doing double tap with a stick, right?) parry needs you to tap your shield key right when enemy attacks you. that's a mockery because if you're late you will be kicked in the nuts and will suffer big health loss. but if you keep shield weapon pressed and attack when there's an opening, you'll be fine. archery and magic aren't viable for controller (no aim assist) and that's a drawback since Gothic 3. G1 and G2 had nice system where you can stick projectiles and magic. - questing, world is tiny and on rails. you have no freedom and have to spend the beginning in bogs, fighting tough enemies or you won't progress in the game.
old classic, still holds up. Had to reboot my PC few times because game started to hog 100% CPU (no idea how it can do it, haven't seen such hog in years). Had to use hex editor to correct disposition for quest NPCs (imp in particular). I know the issue with imp is old and supposed to be fixed but not in my case. Once had to reload older save because main quest NPC stuck in his coffin and failed to finish his move properly. Save scummed my way thru the game because I had no other choice. I needed to survive and I played dagger class. Ended up as summoner and magic damage dealer because daggers suck and it's impossible to find even decent one without save scumming. Playing a mage would be same pain. Best staff I saw does miserable damage and there are no means to enchant your damage output except for class skills or good drops. If you want to breeze thru the game go for warrior with axe, game gives many good axes or swords, not so many daggers, bows, staves or anything else. Music is godly in this game and it's included in mp3 format in download section. Despite the flaws this game kept me engaged and it was fun. I liked how you can find old ruined house and furnish it, moving items, combining them to create new one isn't a part of RPG genre but it feels natural and well thought. You might ask why I'm giving 5 stars while there are technical issues and balance flaws. Because Larian haven't abandoned the game and they tried to support it, issued patches and have helped people with bugged saves. One star out of 5 goes for ongoing support and efforts to preserve this gem.
I have no idea who are these people who praised CDPR for their "great games" and what are these "games" because this one is clearly isn't that great (and I played all games in the Witcher series), I'd say it is one of the worst experiences I ever had with action-rpg game. One hour of gameplay and it already got on my nerves. Why 1 star? 1. Ridiculously small font and no settings to correct that. I literally can't read anything on small PC screen I have, and my eyes isn't that great. had to use mod to fix that. 2. Controls and UI in general are meant to work with controller and it works better (especially in fights, no input lag on controller). I can manage playing with controller but there are no auto save button, no way to assign it from settings. some other useful commands are also missing. On the other hand when played with controller you pick up dropped loot with simple X. on kb-mouse you would need to press pick up button and then click on screen popup to actually collect it. I can't believe CDPR had no skills to code it in 1 click. such lazy attitude! 3. Stupid quick time events everywhere. I'm more than 1 hour into the game and I still can't get out of one nasty opening scripted crap where I should mash button fast, or else I will be attacked. I already repelled more than 20 waves and still I can't mash fast enough? Look, if I'll want to play insane clicker games it won't have "RPG" and "best game evah" tag. 4. UI, inventory is user-unfriendly and it feels like they made it intentionally that bad. I can't effectively check and compare what my char is wearing because inventory bag and character doll are awful. 5. Game mechanics with potions to drink between battles is a joke. I've been assaulted for more than 20 times and I can't drink a fkng potion? If you have this game in your library - let it rot, if you're looking to purchase it, don't be a victim of hype, you'll get better games for a dollar.
the game is old but good (if you enjoyed Morrowind, Oblivion, Gothic and similar old titles). you can try to role play any class but eventually you will finish game as melee character because magic and archery is not very viable end game. game has robust potion making system, you can improve your stats by brewing nice perma boosts. Equipment is easy to find, nice way to upgrade it. As a result if you invested in alchemy and have decent upgraded melee weapon(s) you can proceed naked because you'll be able to tank with all these perma boosts. There are still hard enemies end game, but you can run away from them. performance isn't great, some choppiness during fights, open world has to be read from hdd and it adds 1-2 seconds freezes when you run from area to area. had no crashes or game breaking issues. Linux port is broken and unusable. I had to play Windows version in wine (which strangely enough had better performance than on Windows 7 on same hardware, visually less choppy). developer published working beta version for Linux on steam, but it's not available in gog downloads yet. when questioned about availability for gog developer said to ask TopWare or on gog forums. clearly they won't upload that beta to gog so if you're Linux user and expect this game to be playable - don't keep your hopes high or be prepared to use wine. gog should remove Linux tag from this game because it's a lie.
Kalypso studio, publisher of Tropico games. Do they always publish worthy games? NO. In this case we have failed attempt to create successor to Dungeon Keeper. Developers used Unity engine to deliver this game and it shows. Awful controls, complete inability of developers to create simple interactions with your units. In addition your units are so stupid that will disregard your command to move away and will die in battle. You research spells but they do almost no damage and clicking on spell icon usually does not work. after you click it 4-5 times maybe it will fire, or maybe not. Sending your troops outside is the most infuriating task. You have to grab every critter, drag it to the cave exit, hold it over exit so it will get highlighted, drop your unit and it will appear outside (on the ground map) and you will be switched from cave view. click on your cave map to return to it, grab next unit... oh wait, the first unit already died because of the attack of human patrols. How someone can create such lame game? How developers would expect people to enjoy such controls in RTS game? I give it 2 out of 5 only for an attempt to create dungeon game. But we have to be honest here, this game is a big let down. There's not a single sane RTS/RPG/Action game created in crippled Unity because of its bad controls. When developers pick Unity for their new game they already have to be aware what kind of turd they're going to create.
This game looks simple and does not have any depth, as someone already pointed out it can be good mobile port to kill time. Biggest flaw of this game is randomly generated luck for your character. Usually you have to restart it for 5-10 times till it actually provides you with some survival kit to start out. Example: you start your game with empty pockets, first 3 floors are completely empty (no weapon, medkits or food) but it has one enemy whom you have to fight bare handed and good luck to win that battle because next enemy is right around the corner. Having such setup means you die. Another flaw of this game is very strange crafting/leveling system. It offers some decent food recipes but weapon crafting bloated with schematics you'll never use (because you won't be able to level up to have required attributes and because it takes a lot of crafting for it - more likely you won't find all materials and if you do it can be taken away from you because game "needs to repair electricity" on some floors or something and it takes crafting materials up to generators and you will need many of materials to craft that generator). Because of such flaws game feels like mobile port and gets boring/irritating very fast. It took me 2 evenings to beat it on normal mode and try some runs on hard. Consider it as an amusement for 1-2 evenings if you're into survival games but be warned, it is not very deep or balanced game. Played Linux port from offline installer (which is older than steam version btw, steam updated their game to 1.1.20 in 2017, gog game is 1.1.19 in 21019), no issues found.
I should say I'm no stranger to Enlight Software games, I own full pack of their games on steam and had Restaurant Empire 2 CD till it got scratched and stopped to work, then repurchased RE2 on steam to have that game. Why I had to purchase RE1 if it is worse than RE2? The answer is simple and might help you're Linux user like me. RE2 does not work on Linux (via Proton or wine) and barely can be lauched from Windows 7 (depending on your hardware you might need to replace some files for video renderer in game folder). RE1 on gog does not have this issue and perfectly playable from wine prefix on Linux. Thats one main reason why I purchased it. Now about the game itself. I started to play from RE2 years ago and that game still is my fav for restaurant sim (especially in sandbox mode). RE1 is basically first part of RE2 with worse graphics. If you're after sandbox experience like myself that should be OK to play RE1 instead of RE2. Sure this game has alot of micro management for recipes, chefs and you can even add to its volume by imposing own rules for chefs (for example chef can cook only recipe they know, another chef can cook unknown recipe only if they supervised by chef who mastered that recipe), or by starting game with no money and one small venue (build and demolish at the beginning of the game to deplete your starting cash), or by hiring only cheapest available personnel (chefs only under 20 y.o. so they know almost no recipes). there's many rules you can impose and make your game more fun because its sandbox is where it truly shines by giving you the power to experiment and have fun. I strongly recommend this game to everyone who is into sims and who loves challenges.
I will review as a person who haven't played this game in early 2000s there fore no nostalgic glasses. Konung 1 is broken mess that won't run on Windows 7 unless you play original Russian version or if you want to play English you have to fix encoding in music tracks otherwise game will crash in couple of minutes. I picked Russian version to save time, to hear/read original story line. Too bad you can't un-read that nonsense they call a story. Or maybe it's not just the story but the style of writing, stupid jokes and poor command of native language. That was the worst thing in this game. Next to Russian literacy comes Russian masochism in form of boring, grindy gameplay with static respawn herbs, static respawn critters, static everything. Enemies gained power too fast compared to hero party and fight mechanics for your squad are the worst - you literally have no control over your squad in fight (and that can lead to rapid deaths). I haven't finished it, dropped half way thru because I started to feel too bored to continue. Then I desided to load Konung 2 and it greeted me with all hated things from Konung 1, moreover, it managed to kill my hero in the strating town after I spent 15 minutes trying to find an exit and then to find man who have to let me out. Character really crawls in this game. Same visuals, same lacking mechanics. Konung 2 feels like dlc for Konung 1 rather than new game. Purchase if you're Russian and this game is your type of entertainment. Do not purchase if you value your time and enjoyed real classic RPGs like Diablo 1/2, Titan Quest, Sacred, and do not purchase if you're looking for squad based RPG - this part is not working well.
If you ever played OpenTTD don't play Locomotion after it. You will be frustrated with controls, UI, economy just like I did. There's no way to group your vehicles, no way to clone vehicle with orders, no way to build rails and roads with your mouse (awful thing, took me 1 hour to connect 4 train stations with single rail and couple of junctions in the middle, not to mention signs - I would achieve the same in OpenTTD in 5 minutes). Once I connected it I realized I've lost alot of money because it won't pause (loss and restart). Next time I tried to connect same with truck routes, after 30 minutes it was done... just to learn that 1 truck hauls 5t of Ore and I'm in loss again. Definitely not recommended if you're used to play big OpenTTD maps with 1000 trains, you won't live THAT long to build all of your tracks :)
