After the masterpiece that was Shadow Warrior 2, you do this? Just horrible. I have 80+ hours on shadow warrior 2, played it multiple times, with friends. Meanwhile in SW3, only 4 hours and I hated those 4 hours. Voice acting was abysmal as well. Also, why did you delete my review gog? I had a much more concise one and it's gone, so I'm rewriting this short one because I saw it on my list and was reminded of the sadness I felt from seeing a franchise I liked die.
Let me preface by saying I'm a 3D/Digital artist and I've only completed the first map of the game at the time of this review. I also played the original back in 1994 and a few other times throughout my life. So this is assuming the quality for the rest of the game is consistent with what I've seen so far. Lets start with the good - It's System Shock. I've seen reviews saying it's faithful to a fault. Well, that's what people who played the original want. We want the exact same experience, but without issues from running an old game and limited graphics. So with this alone, this game should be 10/10, specially when compared with some "remasters" we have been getting. - The control scheme is much better than the original, so that's an welcomed change. - Graphical design is exactly the same as the original with minimal concessions here and there - Very few bugs so far, which is a blessing compared to the releases we get these days. - FOV slider, thank you for not giving me a headache. Not only that but it has sliders for the cyberspace as well, which is even more motion sickness inducing. And the bad - Motion blur on by default and no way to turn it off unless you drop shaders quality. This is unacceptable. Motion blur is trash and only belongs in certain games and in certain conditions. This is not one of them. FPS games should -never- have motion blur.You gave us FOV sliders but dropped the ball on this one. Go figure. - Graphical design is exactly the same as the original. Which lets be honest here, the textures in the original system shock were terrible. They are all high frequency and when translated to 3D surfaces, it makes the game look even more busy visually. The only solution I can think of would be having better aesthetics as a separate graphical pack, but that would be even more work for a remaster that is already really good. So I can't fault them for that.
Total play time: 5 hours and that includes menu downtime and me going AFK now and then. So, who decided after making Shadow Warrior 2 that this would be acceptable? You're not doom, why the hell did you guys try to make a trash version of doom eternal? I'd fucking refund this if I didn't have any integrity after actually finishing the game. So lets get on with it; Pros: -Decent graphics and interesting looking enemy design. Except for the fur, it looks terrible. -There is at least one redeemable music in the soundtrack -Combat is alright now and then Cons: -Short, I don't remember how long the Shadow Warrior reboot was, but it feels much shorter than that. Nothing compared to the hundreds of hours you can enjoy in Shadow Warrior 2 -Most upgrades are outright shit or don't make much of a difference. -Small weapon selection that tries to imitate doom a bit, with certain weapons being ineffective against certain enemies -Sound track is mostly uninspired and repeats non-stop. Now go listen to this: https://youtu.be/WyXQaA4giPQ See the difference? That track gives me chills to this day. -The voice acting is mediocre at best, bad a lot of the time, what the fuck happened to Hoji? -There are about 9 enemies you fighter over and over and only 2 bosses. What... The... Fuck... -It's a god damn theme park arena shooter and a bad one at that, Doom, Shadow Warrior, even Hard Reset are much better than this. -You constantly get interrupted by low framerate, low res cutscenes that were pre-recorded in the game engine. Is this the 90s again? Conclusion: Just why? Did you want to kill the franchise? And are these 5 stars reviewers high or something? I only voted 2 stars because from time to time the combat can be fun, I guess thankfully it was only 5 hours, because it was tiresome by the end. Making a shooter you don't want to shoot in anymore, congratulations.
The good: -Great rpg with some really good writing. Most characters are believable and feel grounded. -Good graphics and spell effects -Lots of options and variety for your build, dozens of classes with specializations -True d20/Pathfinder experience -Returning characters and stories from the last game -Play as baldur's gate / icewind dale real time or table-top turn based mode -I can't emphasis this enough, there are a lot of cRPG that are based on table-top games but don't do it justice with completely different rulesets and just ruin the experience for someone used to the tabletop game. Yes, I'm looking at you Harebrained's Shadowrun. You had a great opportunity to bring the tabletop to life and you spit on it by fucking up a good tabletop ruleset. But not on Pathfinder, if you played the tabletop rpg, or dnd 3.5, you will feel right at home. Almost everything is by the book and it works perfectly well, no need for bullshit excuses like tabletop rules not translating to video games. The subjective: -Early game ascension. When it should be a level 20+ feature. Reminds me a bit of Icewind dale 2, without having to get to level 30. -The main plot itself is a bit too much in your face, unlike the first game where you were slowly figuring it out. The bad: -Loading screens... Lots of them... For everything... Even on a fast SSD it's annoying. -Bugs, just like the first game, lots of them. Some game breaking, some just annoying. -Turn Based mode is half broken, some classes get broken turns, some skills that should go out just fail instead, like when your character has to walk to heal, even with half a turn to walk and half to cast, it sometimes doesn't go out for no reason when it should have. Only rated 4/5 thanks to the bugs and loading screens. The bugs will be fixed over time hopefully, but the loading screens are there to stay, sadly.
Pretty fun game, can get emotional at times too. The music is amazing, I recommend buying it with the soundtrack.
Most bad reviews has been about bugs and polish, and they wouldn't be wrong. The performance isn't that great and the bugs are plenty, altho most are just hilarious. The game itself is pretty good on the first few hours, and knowing CDPR and how much they patched witcher 3 over the years, I wouldn't just dock stars out of them because of bugs and issues. Unless I look at this review two years from now and it's still full of the same bugs.
The core loop of this game is extremely repetitive. Not in a good way like a roguelike would be, even if tries to take in some roguelike aspects to it. The planets are tiny little arenas where you always do the same thing in them, the aliens are on par with free unity asset store aliens and the potential invasions are mostly annoyances and set backs. The only somewhat redeeming factor is building your base/spaceship. There's a certain level a strategy to it and how you place your defenses. But even that is overshadowed by meek upgrades and terrible gunplay. I'd say this is fun for maybe a couple hours or at least one playthrough if you can manage that. Only reason it's not outright one star. I really don't see myself playing it through more than once as it's intended to be played, with the roguelike unlockable system, which is a shame.
This was definitely the best I've played.
