Got this game for free during one of the GOG giveaways. I'm not really huge on the 4x genre but I do play Civ so some of the base mechanics were fairly familiar to me. It's a pretty typical representation of the genre, with my favorite variation within it being the goofy alien leaders you can meet and interact with. They're pretty well animated and voiced, so it's actually a treat to see those. I like them better than the leaders in Civ games. The game's tutorial is pretty bare bones. It's basically just a standard battle-map set up with pop-up tips, and they don't explain some mechanics, like invading planets. Or if they do I wasn't sure how to activate it. The game does everything pretty well, but nothing really extraordinarily. I can't really say anything bad about it though, as I got it for free and I felt like that was fine for it's value. Maybe the game shouldn't retail for $30 as is, but on sale or as a giveaway it can be a fun diversion for fans of the genre.
Let me start off by saying that this game is short, real short. I beat it in 4 hours and honestly even if I had gone back and tried to find all the collectibles it still likely would have only been 7 hours max. With that said though, I could definitely see this game having a lot of replayability for those who are looking for it. There are multiple endings, lots of secrets and a great deal of variable dialogue. This game does dialogue trees in a really great way, because you have to respond quickly most of the time since the text basically just vanishes after popping up, meaning that most of the time your responses are off the cuff what you're thinking of, rather than plotting out dialogue choices. This also means you really have to pay attention to the story and dialogue if you want to be involved in it at all. The voice acting is pretty good, and the writing's pretty solid as well, and has a lot of depth to the dialogue, the characters and the way the story builds over the course of your playthrough. There is however, like has been said, very little gameplay in the traditional sense. The game play is mostly just walking and talking with some very light puzzle mechanics. The game is quite charming though, and I was definitely engaged for the 4 hours it took me to beat it this evening. Overall, it gets my recommendation if you're looking for a decent chunk of story in a laid back casual setting, or if you're just looking for an engaging piece for a short period of time, with the option for replayability afterwards.
It's a turn based tactical RPG set in a fairly generic fantasy universe. This game series seems to get a lot of love on here and from other classic gamers but I'm not sure why. Maybe I just don't understand the nostalgia but there's really not much there in terms of story or setting, and the game doesn't tell you what you need to do in-game, which, maybe it's my fault for coming at this from a modern perspective, but I don't want to read a 90 page manual to understand how to play the game. I'm not rating this lower, because I fully understand that this just isn't my cup of tea and it'll likely appeal to other types of gamers, but that's just my two cents.
It's a turn based tactical RPG set in a fairly generic fantasy universe. This game series seems to get a lot of love on here and from other classic gamers but I'm not sure why. Maybe I just don't understand the nostalgia but there's really not much there in terms of story or setting, and the game doesn't tell you what you need to do in-game, which, maybe it's my fault for coming at this from a modern perspective, but I don't want to read a 90 page manual to understand how to play the game. I'm not rating this lower, because I fully understand that this just isn't my cup of tea and it'll likely appeal to other types of gamers, but that's just my two cents.
I booted this up because I got it for free and wanted to see what it was like. It loaded fun, unlike some other 90s games I've tried on this computer, and I honestly found it much easier to understand the controls than I was expecting. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, this game is a precursor to things like the Civilization series, which I play regularly on Steam. This game though, while the controls aren't too difficult, did seem a little wonky in some other ways. The mouse movement moves the map camera so quickly I have to be very careful in order to focus on what I'm trying to see. Also, animations happen so quickly I couldn't actually tell what was going on or what information was supposed to be conveyed. I only did a couple short compaigns, but the game isn't great at telling you what your objective is, and so even though I was winning battles, I lost fairly quickly, and I'm not sure why. Overall though, not as bad as I expected, especially compared to some other things from this era that I've tried.
You know how ocasionally with a book, video game, or any work of art, you can tell that the artist was really shooting for the stars and going all out to create something big and ambitious, even if they ended up falling short of the mark due to limited resources, or just a miscommunicated message? That's kinda what I think happened with Vampire the Masquerade. I think they were really shooting for the stars, with trying to bring the freedom of a Tabletop RPG to life but ended up falling short due to lack of time and money. Now, the game still has it's highlights, and it's developed a huge fan following over the years, but I know that for a long time this game was not well thought of, due to how buggy and unfinished it was at launch. Getting this game through GOG however, means it will come pre-installed with the unofficial patch, which fixes like 90% of the problems in the game, and it ran beautifully on my PC. There were however, still a couple bugs here and there, but nothing game-breaking. u You're given a huge amount of freeedom in this game but it might be more limited than you'd expect. Your biggest choice is which faction in the game you wish to support, although functionally they're all the same right up until the endgame. Also, you are given character creation but can't alter your character's appearance beyond the presets. Also, although many of the missions give you an impressive amount of freedom in how you complete things, near the end of the game, it's almost soley combat focused, which was disappointing. Overall, it's a great story, which offers a lot of player freedom, but the game obviously couldn't live up to it's creator's expectations, and has been patched and repaired by a dedicated fan community ever since, which in itself is kinda beautiful but also disappointing. As I'm writing this, there is a sequel on the horizon after a decade. So now is a great time to check out the original.
Well, the big thing about this game that everyone says is that it's short. It is. You can do a single playthrough in 3 hours, maybe more, maybe less. If that doesn't sound like it's worth it to you for $15, I'm sorry, but there is actually a really great experience to be had here. It's got a very good flow to it. Although I stuck around for a little while on certain puzzles, I never felt like I was really getting held up or stopped at any point. The gameplay just focuses around simple platforming, simple puzzles, and simple combat, all based around a slingshot. The real highlight here isn't just the story, but the overall feel of the game. The dark story is complimented with ocassional bits of whimsical humor, and the art, music and voice acting, highlights this tone perfectly. There is some replay value with new stuff you can unlock with New Game Plus, but overall this game is really just if you think a really great 3-4 hour experience is worth your money. If you agree that it is, then I definitely reccomend this game.
Neutral review. I have no nostalgia tied to this game, and I can't figure out how to get it to run on my computer.
So, this is a good example of that particular type of point and click adventure game where you have a long list of actions to choose from, and you can collect a huge inventory of somewhat useless items, but the base of the game still comes down to figuring out the obscure solutions to some puzzles and particular dialogue path choices. If you're not into that type of game, this won't be for you. But if you like that sort of thing, this is a really charming period piece in gaming history. The voice acting is admittedly terrible, and at first I thought the story and art style were incredibly generic, but things take a good turn later in the story and things get much more interesting and inventive. If you're ok with adventure games, give it a shot. Especially if you received it for free from GOG.
More of a neutral review than an actual review. The game seems poorly optimized. I'm not sure what I should be playing this on, but it doesn't seem to run well and the control scheme seems fucked with no option to change it in game. It looks really charming and after reading the reviews on here, apparently a lot of people love it, so I feel bad leaving a review like this, but after messing around with it for a little while, I just don't think I can play this.
