I fell in love with Titan's Quest and played many, many hours. I then stumbled across Grim Dawn during the early release phase on Steam and I really liked it, but I didn't play much because the game wasn't finished. Once it officially launched I played to my heart's content. Constantly trying new build ideas, hoarding items and applying them to unique builds makes the possibilities of the game feel almost endless. When you hit level 50 and you get that first Legendary item to drop and you see the bonuses it provides or when you get a set item and it fits your build perfectly, all you want to do is grind out more and more! I'm not a fan of Steam, I don't like renting my games. I finally picked up a copy of Grim Dawn on GoG. So far between GoG and Steam, I've logged almost 1000 hours in the game. I cannot wait for the next DLC, Fangs of Asterkarn. I've been trying to get a solid cold based build in Grim Dawn, but the skills are lacking. I hear the new DLC is going to fix it and I'm pumped!
The game played okay, I'd argue that the driving controls are overly sensitive and the camera is a bit slow. Some of the default keys are horribly placed, but thankfully you can fix that. Combat was okay and the first 90 minutes into the game seemed good enough to let you believe it could be an enjoyable game. I save my game after getting to Copeland's hangout, go about my day and return to play more the next morning. My saved progress is gone. I have to replay the last mission of finding my bike (again) and then getting to Copeland's hangout (again). Thinking I did something wrong I tried manually loading the most recently saved game, maybe just clicking on CONTINUE in the main menu doesn't load the most recent game. Nope, same thing, still have to redo the last 20-30 minutes to get back to the same spot in the story where I left originally. Did a search online about progress not saving and yep, it's a trash saving system. Your progress does not save unless "You can save the game only if you are near Deacon's motorcycle or next to a bed". This isn't explained anywhere in the game that I recall seeing. Sorry, but I'm not going to play through missions and have to trek my rear all the way back to my bed or my bike (which you don't have at the beginning after you play through the intro part of the game). Nope, I don't have the patience for that. If the save system was better, just based on the first 90 or so minutes I'd say the game is about a 3, maybe 4 star game. Sadly, it's not worth your time unless you're okay with having to find a bed or your bike to actually save your progress. I put in a request for a refund so I've only played about 85 minutes.
I own a physical PC copy of this game. I get it to run just fine on Windows 10 and the disc, no issue there. The issue is, however, how poorly the game even runs for me. 5900x, 32GB RAM, Windows 10, 3080Ti, game installed on SSD According to FRAPS, the main menu I get anywhere from around 20-60fps. In actual game play I get anywhere from 6-20fps. The game is a slideshow. The controls are awful, clearly designed for a gamepad such as the Xbox or PS2 (what the game was initially designed for). The camera is awful, you'll find yourself fighting with the camera more than you will with the actual bad guys. The combat is awful. There is zero feedback that you're actually making contact with bad guys. You just swing, swing, swing, swing, swing, swing and swing some more. I'm not really sure what the story is because after a few hours of trying to play through a slideshow I grew tired of the game and stopped playing. Perhaps the digital version plays better on newer hardware or maybe the console copies play better on the Xbox or PS2. The old physical copy runs like crap on today's hardware. My advise, before you pay for this game, read through reviews and see if anyone makes mention of poor performance because it may just be an issue with the PC physical copy, maybe the digital one works properly? In the end, I would suggest to not get this game.
I've been putting 30 minutes here and there into the game and it's okay, but not something I find nor see myself completeing for several reasons. 1) The humor - is a tad childish at times and I find it grating on my nerves. The banter between the party members gets tiring and loses its charm after the first couple hours of playing. 2) Combat - this has to be one of the more irritating games when it comes to combat. I've already sunk a good 4-5 hours into the game and I don't wish to restart it since I don't find it that entertaining, but I've read you want to sink your skill points into Agility. When playing a normal way (barbarian - increase Strength, Consitution with a couple points scattered to to other stats) you just get decimated or you constantly get misses or critical failures. Sink those points into Agility and you almost never miss and you constantly avoid/dodge attacks. Thankfully I didn't pay for the game and got it free off Epic. I wouldn't have enjoyed spending $40+ to find out it's just a game with okay humor, boring banter and heavily weighted combat based on Agility.
It's hard to put this game into words on the screen for people to read so they have an understanding of how much fun this game is. I've put 300+ hours into this game. I've played through it multiple times and each time I play through or start over, I find something new I had not experienced before. I've restarted the game many times. I've played with my own character creations and I've almost played through all the stories for the origin characters, the last for me is Loshe and so far her story hasn't disappointed. My brother and I are on our third playthrough and we're about half-way through the second act. We've done different approaches in all play throughs. The first time we had restarted the game 4 or 5 times until we found an effective way for training our characters. Our second time playing through we played as unforgiving, evil people and we slaughtered everyone and everything in our way. The current play through we are only playing one character each and we're using the Lone Wolf trait for them, it's been a tough challenge, but it's been great fun, too. There are bugs in the game still, nothing game breaking, but ones you may stumble across. I'd have to say that the most disappointing aspect of the game is the inventory management. It sucks, plain and simple. There are the Gift Bags in the main game menu you can apply to your game (these gift bags disable achievements, just so you know) to give you bonuses and add special features to "spice" up the gameplay. The one I thought would be good would be the inventory bag one....I hate this one, it makes keeping track of my inventory even harder. You also cannot easily sell items you mark for ware, you have to manually find every item you want to sell inside a dozen or so bags. Avoid that gift bag option. The other gift bag option to avoid (if you're playing coop) is Hagglers. This gift bag is buggy with coop. Single players, use it. It'll help with buying and selling.
I found the start of the game kind of charming with the narrator talking and the odd, gibberish creatures made. I also thought the first 8 hours I put into the game was rather entertaining, lots of exploring, combat here and there, crafting all sorts of different weapons and applying skills/bio/psi points as you earn them. However, my enjoyment wore thin and eventually turned into irritation as my time in the game continued. The narrator: I enjoyed it at first, the small bantor he made, but as I got a few hours into the game I grew to lothe the narrator. I also become annoyed at the annoying gibberish noises that the NPCs made. There are zero speaking creatures in the game, it's all narrated. NPCs all mumble and make awful sounds and the narrator talks to you about what they are saying. As you wander around the narrator talks about everything and doesn't stop, even if you turn the option down to limit the narrator's comments. About 3 hours into the game I turned the narrator's volume off, same with the gibberish and I just read subtitles. I found none of the characters likeable and the awkward way they spoke (subtitles) made following any kind of story a chore. Eventually I just clicked my way through everything to save me the headache. Light and dark path seems to play very little of a role in the game, almost like it's an after thought. Don't worry about it. Combat was fun, at first, then it became boring. Melee, psi powers and ranged....melee is the kid no one wants to play with. It can be powerful, but you're spending half the time trying to dodge and get in close to fight. Psi powers are entertianing, but not even required to combat anything. Ranged is OP. Once I hit 8 hours I had crafted extrodianry ranged and melee weapons...I just dodge left/right/backwards and shoot my ranged weapon. I thought the world looked great and it was fun exploring towards the start, but in the end it all became tedious and dull. An okay game, but not one I'd recommend.
