This comes from a time when developers started to want to inject story into their FPS's. In the case of Sin, the narrative comes at the expense of fun game play. Weapons feel horrible, movement is sluggish, and there are some horribly designed water levels that will make you want to punch your monitor. All that, and in the end, I couldn't care less about plight Blade and J.C.
If you can untether this game from its Ultima pedigree, Ascension can be enjoyed as an okay 90s action RPG. Much of what is on display here anticipates what would become standard most of the contemporary RPG we so love these days. It has a large open-world with plenty of nooks and crannies and simple third-person action combat (as opposed to the beloved turn-based combat of the earlier entries in the series). There is also a lack of hand holding in the puzzle-based dungeons that many old schoolers might enjoy. Nary a quest arrow to be seen! That said, the game is a glitchy, poorly written mess that does a disservice to its roots. Just forget about the story and think of it as a collection of loosely connected RPG challenges (both in terms of gameplay and just getting the thing to run without crashing) and you might enjoy it like I did.
I've played through both Baldur's Gate 1+2, Icewind Dale 1+2 and Fallout 1+2 and I really wanted to like this game but, unfortunately, after 7 hours or so of playing, it just didn't click with me. The steampunk-ish theme is really not much different than standard fantasy with its swords, bows and magic. As has been mentioned in many of the reviews, the combat is inconsistent at best and, more often than not, just plain excruciating. I'm sure there is more story and characters to discover, but that would require a level of patience that my middle-aged time constraints just can't muster. Also note, the GOG.com version of the game ran *very* poorly on my Windows 10 system. The game would suffer from horrible slowdowns after 20 minutes of so of play, requiring a restart. And don't even think about alt-tabbing out of this one.
Okay, first things first: You can make your character run around in nothing but a pair of tighty-whitey briefs. For that reason alone, buy this game. Still not convinced? Well Nox is a fun, fast-paced action RPG that is just overflowing with detail and humor. Nox is more in the spirit of Guantlet rather than Baldur's Gate. Sure there's a decent story here, but there is no thinking required. Just kill everything! Aside from its jaggy edged sprites and limited video/screen size options, this game has aged remarkably well. The pre-rendered graphics still look lovely and the physics of the world give the environments a nice tactile feel. As far as game-play goes, I especially like the simple keystroke triggered spell system and the overall character control is simple and intuitive. Make sure you have a comfortable mouse because you will be holding down buttons for long periods of time which can cause some hand-strain. If you can get a LAN set up, multiplayer is a blast.
I'm not very good at these Infinity Engine D & D games but I do like them a lot. I think I prefer the more straightforward, hack 'n' slash direction that the Icewind Dale games offer as opposed to the story driven Baldur's Gate games. Sometimes a good story just means too much tiny text for my lazy modern gamer eyes to handle. Just let me click on monsters and make them die. Despite my many hours playing IWD and BG, I still haven't got a clue as to how best to utilize my magic classes. So many spells and options, there needs to be a tutorial in-game to help us dummies learn all the intricacies of each class. If, like me, you can't be bothered with learning what the heck "THAC0" means or dislike reading in-game tomes filled with lore, you might prefer the excellent arcade-style RPG Nox to this. That said, there still nothing more satisfying than finally getting through each one of the many tough battles that Icewind Dale will throw at you.
