I know the game is controversial. For obvious reasons. There's probably a lot more I could say about it in a longer analysis, but for the purposes of whether or not I recommend it here on GOG yes I absolutely do. First, yes, the game has problems on consoles. If you're going to play this, in it's current state, you should have a decent PC. If you do, then you'll probably notice only minimal bugs, and the game will look and perform exceptionally. I never really encountered any game breaking bugs, with one exception in an early mission of the game, which I had to reload for, but was a minor inconvenience. Second, some people are disappointed with the amount of content in the game, which seems odd to me, because there is quite a lot of content in the game, and a great deal of it is beautiful, scripted questlines, however, I will admit I was hoping for more content that did not focus on combat quite as much. Although it is technically possible to complete the game without killing NPCs, the game is very much combat focused. I wish there were more non-combat activities and alternatives for some of the quests. Also, I do wish there were more customization options. Although you can customize your character pretty significantly in terms of abilities, I wish there were more cosmetic options, both for your character and your equipment/vehicles/apartment, etc. However, I optimistically think that this will be a priority for CDProjekt Red when DLC comes out. All that said, the game blows me away with the freedom of choice with the abilities your character can have, with how cool and immersive Night City is, and with the strength of the writing and the acting present in the game (Keanu Reeves notwithstanding.) It's been said before, but the greatest strength of this game is the city itself. Every section of it feels unique but still cohesive with the whole. If you're playing this on a decent computer that can fully realize it, exploring this game is a remarkable experience.
For a small indie game that came out five years ago it sure is hard to get this shit working.
I was really enjoying this game for the first 4 or 5 missions. I'm not a Dungeon Keeper afficianado and I know this game is supposed to be a spiritual successor to that. But from what I've heard this still isn't quite what that series was. Overall I really like the Dungeon Building and defending aspects, but the story missions force you to split your attention between that and a simple Warcraft RTS interface when you send units onto the surface. I could have completely done without the surface combat elements and if the game had just had more focus on the dungeon-crafting aspects I would have been much happier with it. There is a tutorial but it's not very good at explaining some of the more basic things to a newcomer like me. And the interface is tought to navigate at times. Overall I did enjoy my time playing it but feels like the dungeon master aspects need more depth and more focus on what the game really wants to be.
This game is a really ambitious project by Larian Studios, the makers of the Divinity series. The game takes place in a few different parts. The main gameplay is an RTS/Tower Defense game where you also have the option to transform into a dragon and directly attack the enemy army. Although it's hard to figure out how to do both simultaneously, I really liked this part of the game. There is also a turn-based war-game on a strategy board in your main keep where you decide where to move troops and which nations to attack. There's also boosts and effects that can be applied there as well. Finally, the game also has a bit of a relationship simulator between you and your advisors as you make political decisions that can curry favor with the various nations or piss them off. Although it seemed a little simplistic this was really well executed, and all the characters had decent writing and unique personalities. However, the game only has a barebones tutorial for the RTS and dragon controls, and no tutorial whatsoever for the war-room and diplomacy portions of the game. However, the reason I'm not giving this game a higher score, is because I repeatedly kept having game crashes during a certain battle. I'm not sure if this game just isn't optimized for modern machines or what, but the stuttering framerate and issues with simple combat was just awful. Also, as has been said in other reviews, there's no option to save during an RTS battle, so if you're spending a lot of time on one and the game crashes you're out of luck. If a better, optimized, version of this game comes out at some point I would absoltely recommend it. As of right now though, No.
This is another game I got from a random grab-bag thing that GOG was doing for a holiday event a while ago. Over the course of me playing various older games on GOG and Steam, I've started to realize a couple things about myself as a gamer. I don't think the graphics or visuals of older or indie games really bother me. A game can have a really compelling visual aesthetic from any era, and in any artistic medium. There are a lot of older games that hold up well visually and mechanically. However, there are a lot of little conveniences that are baked into most modern games that I take for granted now, and not having those built into older games does really bug me. Serpent in the Staglands is a modern game. It's an independent project by an incredibly small team and I applaud their efforts. This one seems to have flown completely under the radar for most people. It's hard to find any buzz about it anywhere online. The game is meant to be reminiscent of very old cRPGs. Not just in the visual style but in the mechanics as well. The game does not hold your hand or explain things at all. All record keeping must be done by hand in the game. It's very easy to miss things or to make choices that can completely screw you over mechanically. I thought I was better equipped to handle that sort of thing. But maybe I'm spoiled by modern games, or maybe I just have less patience for games as I get older, but it's not the sort of thing I really want to deal with nowadays. For the really hardcore cRPG enthusiast though, you may want to check this out.
I was hesitant about this game despite all of the good press surrounding it just because it looked somewhat bare and experimental and they're asking for a $40 price tag. Now after having played the game I can say that it is absolutely worth that $40 price tag and I 100% recommend this game. You may know the premise is that your character wakes up with complete amnesia but then is told you are a cop investigating a murder in a seedy city. The setting is somewhat fantastical with some supernatural elements and some sci-fi elements and a fictional convergence between various European cultures. The gameplay seems like a top-down cRPG but there is no combat per se, the interaction with the game world is limited to movement, dialogue, and interacting with the main characters skills and inventory. The game is driven forward almost entirely by its writing involing dialogue with other characters as well as dialogue within your character's mind as all of your skills and 'thoughts' can manifest as voices in your head that tell you what to do (which can be good or bad). The skill points you allocate can help you use these skills in various challenges while interacting with the gameworld but even if your points are low in something you can still attempt regardless. There is also the 'thought cabinet' which houses thoughts your character can have about themselves are the world that can affect skills or other aspects of gameplay. It works like a second inventory and can have some surprising effects depending on what you choose. I don't want to spoil much about the game but it can go in wildly different directions based on what you choose. The game world seemed small to me at first but there's an incredible amount of depth to it. I found it immersive and this has to be one of the only games I can think of that actually taught me something and got me thinking about how our thoughts and perceptions of ourselves can impact our sense of identity. This game really is a masterpiece.
Ok I know it's unfair to compare this game to BioShock. They're different kinds of games that are doing very different kinds of things that happen to share an underwater setting. However, I don't think it's as strange to compare them as you might think. Besides the obvious aesthetic similarities, both games are 1st person with heavy horror elements about a wrecked underwater structure with all sorts of mad science going on. And although I won't get into spoiler territory, there are actually some similarities between the themese presented in both games stories. Here's the thing though, if I was going to compare these two games, BioShock delivers on pretty much all of it better than SOMA. Better aesthetics, better horror, better storytelling. This is a horror game from the makers of the Amnesia series, and I've never played the Amnesia games, but from what I've seen online, I feel like this game doesn't really deliver as well on the horror elements you might be expecting. I never really felt like the monsters that chase you were that scary, either in appearance or in what they could do. For the most part they're just an annoying hindrance rather than a terrifying foe, as the majority of the gameplay revolves around stumbling around the various areas trying to figure out what button to press or where to go to progress the story, with the monsters and having to stealth past them just being an obstacle to that. Storytelling wise I think the game is playing with some cool ideas, but they're executed poorly. (This is the intro to the game so I don't feel like it's a spoiler) you're given a medical brain scan and then wake up on a sunken underwater lab, so I felt pretty confident about how the story was going to go after that. Overall, if you're a fan of the genre you might enjoy it, but honestly I feel like I could've done with a miss on this one.
I don't know what it is about naval exploration/combat games but I always end up enoying them more than I expect. Something about the age of sail is inherently interesting to me I guess. Moreso than the idea of space exploration for some reason. The premise of Sunless Sea is that you are a sea captain in an odd alternate reality where London is transported underground to a surreall vaguely steampunk fantasy setting, with a large underground sea to explore. The game has a reputation for being very trial and error oriented, but I had about 5 and a half hours of gameplay before I experienced my first death. Granted that death was surprising and seemed somewhat unfair, so that fits within the reputation of the game world. The game is interesting in that it is very barebones when it comes to gameplay but there is an absurd amount of quality writing and storytelling in here that really makes the experience. Sail around the Unterzee, discover new places and things, and become a capable captain in this bizarre interpretation of the age of sail/steam. I love the concept and the setting. There is very little to interact with in terms of gameplay but there is quite a lot of depth in terms of story interactions here. I didn't really get into the DLC content that much but this game is definitely meant for the story mindedplayer over anything else and I think that's wonderful. I talked to other players who didn't enjoy this game that much and so I was wonderfully surprised when I eneded up enjoying it immensely and plan on continuing to play it in the future.
This isn't really my genre but for a lot of people the space pilot sim is a huge draw. I appreciate how cool the game is for those kind of people so I'm leaving it a higher review, but for me it's hard to follow story wise and I find the combat to be a bit seizure-inducing.
This is of a certain genre of games that I know is very popular with certain kinds of gamers but that I perosnally find kinda boring. You have a spaceship and you are able to pilot around the galaxy and acquire resources in whichever way you see fit. You can complete deliveries, go mining, collect bounties or just blast away at other ships. It's pretty bare bones but manages to effectively hit all the necessary key points for a space simulation game, and seeing this actually kind of makes me wonder why people are so obsessively interested in games like Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous when this is effectively doing the same type of game with just a fraction of the resources. I'm not familiar with the game 'Freelancer' but I know from a lot of people that that is their favorite game and are always looking for a spiritual successor to it. From what I know of it, this looks like it could effectively be that game. Although I find this style of gameplay kind of boring I didn't have anything to complain about with it mechanically. The only thing is that combat, while easy enough to understand, and functional, could get a little muddled at times. I just felt like the combat never really had a sense of impact. I was always just checking against bars and meters to see what had happened. I never really felt like it was happening to my own ship or the opponents. That said though although it's not really my type of game personally I know that for certain gamers this must be amazing.
