With the decent reviews and the 80% discount I thought now would be a good time to try this game. After installing it I went into the options to crank up the resolution and graphics quality. I have a nice 4K monitor and the reviews mentioned this resolution was supported, which technically it is. It just doesn't work. There is a slider to let you adjust the resolution which goes up to 4K, but when you go to test if the new resolution is working with your setup the game throws an error and bombs out. I tried the other resolutions and they all behaved the same, except for the default resolution which is on par with VGA if you can remember back that far. That worked but hurt my eyes, especially after playing games like Cyberpunk2077 and Witcher3 which are amazing in 4K. But I pushed on and tried to play the game quickly learning that the mouse is far too sensitive for the game and I couldn't find any option to adjust it. I could work-around this problem by changing the mouse setting in the control panel but I would been to so this before and after playing the game (each time). I doubt the game is that good so I returned it. Perhaps one day if they can fix all these problems I might consider trying it again. In the meantime there are lots of other working games I would prefer to spend time on.
The visuals are nice, especially at 4K, the voice overs are done well and the cut scenes are smooth and less intrusive than other games. The action is fast and intense at times and with cut scenes tossed in it can get confusing. Fortunately the game restarts quickly after dying, which I did a lot. There is a decent mix of fighting, stealth, and climbing/jumping to keep the game interesting. Most missions allow the player to determine how much stealth verses combat they want. Unfortunately there is no alternative to all the climbing and jumping you need to do. If this is your thing go check out Dying Light – I felt it played more smoothly. Even on the lowest setting the camera still moved more quickly than I cared for. Same for aiming. This would be a 5 start game if not for some drawbacks. At the start the path is well marked and the help is very useful. The path becomes more obscured as the game progresses. This means you end up guessing which way and where to jump/climb more and more. A wrong guess usually results in death. I died a lot having to play “try this” which quickly got frustrating. The game tries to reduce this by providing clues. Some of the missions involve larger areas with lots of treasures to find if you do a good job searching. These areas can be difficult to navigate. You need to remember which paths you searched to avoid wasting time searching through them again. One of these paths, usually the one that prevents you from going back, is the way forward to the next mission. If you happen to hit that path before having completed all the treasure gathering and searching you will need to reload an earlier save and try again, or forgo the treasures. Some scenes the game flipped the camera from behind you to in front. This was disorienting and I found it difficult to move about. I died a bunch of times trying to get through it. There were a ton of cut scenes to keep the story moving – I would have preferred less cinema and more game.
I bought this game because of the good reviews. Choices are supposed to matter so I thought replays might be more interesting. This is a point and click type of game which can be frustrating although they do a good job of helping you find the places you can click on. To progress you need to solve puzzles and make choices. The puzzles started out a lot of fun. As the game progressed the order of clicking becomes important and at least to me it wasn't obvious what the right order was. A lot of try this or try that was needed to get past these puzzles. If you find yourself getting frustrated you can reference a walkthru and take a hint or two. The story was difficult to follow. It is told from different perspectives and you have to figure out how it all fits together. The designers also noticed this and added a lot of narration to fill some of the gaps. The last part of the game was likely rushed. It is mostly cut scenes (one after another) with very little game in between. The acting was decent and the graphics were good, but if I wanted to watch a movie I would be in front of Hulu and not playing a game. I can't say how impactful the decisions you make are since I lost interest after the first play through. I expect your choices may impact some minor things but the main plot would remain unchanged. It wasn't worth my time to find out.
I only bought this game because of all the 5 start reviews and more recent release (so I assumed the graphics would be better). Its a point and click type of adventure which means if you don't click on the right spot you can't progress. To make the game mode challenging (I assume) the designers made these click points less obvious. After a few hours of clicking randomly around I made a little progress. The entire point of playing a game is to enjoy it and this one had the opposite effect. I deleted it and never looked back. If you are into this sort of game see Dreamfall Chapters which does much better at helping you locate the exact spot you need to click on.
The graphics are good and the story line is decent if you don't think about it too much. The game is very difficult I thought - a lot of trial and error to figure out how things work. Once you get past this, if you stuck with the game long enough, it starts to become fun. Sadly the fun is short lived as the story quickly moves forward and you find yourself scrambling to avoid the next catastrophe. Most city builder games try to adjust the game to your speed, allowing you to grow the city as and when additional infra structure is created. In this game it is just one disaster after another and you have very little time to respond to each. I suggest saving your game between these challenges so that you need not start over from the beginning each time as you try to figure out how to deal with each crisis. I get the designers wanting to keep the game moving but with no difficultly adjustment (which I could see anyway) this game quickly became more work and stress than fun. To bad. This game could have been a lot of fun if the major events were spread further apart so you aren't constantly being rushed to solve the crisis de jour.
After so many positive reviews I was looking forward to playing this game. After installing I noticed that I doesn't work. The process is running but beyond that there is no indication that anything is happening. To fix this problem I made the following registry change: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\GameUX\ServiceLocation to the value 127.0.0.1. Apparently the prior value points to a Microsoft server which has been retired. Don't forget to reboot after making this change. At least now the game starts, sort of. I hear audio but no video. To correct this problem you need to open Gothic.ini in the Gothic - System folder and change scaleVideo=1 to scaleVideo=0. Now the game seems to run. The interface is a bit clunky but with some practice you can get by. The graphics are crude and the resolution is fixed, unlike many other GOG games which allow you to adjust the resolution to the capabilities of your PC. While exploring you can only find loot if your weapon is not equipped. Fighting without a weapon is suicide so you end up constantly switching back and forth between weapon and no weapon. Lining up with items to interact with is annoying due to the clunky interface. Still I pressed on. What finally killed the game for me was the clunky interface making battles difficult. It appears that you need to be a precise distance from the enemy otherwise you won't be allowed to use you weapon. With the poor graphics I found it difficult to gauge. As the enemy charges I pull my weapon and when they get close enough I strike. Sometimes the weapon swings (sword) and other times nothing happens - I assume because the enemy got too close. Yet the enemy has no difficulty striking you. Even on the lower levels I ended up getting killed frequently because I couldn't fight back. The point of the game is to have fun and trying to figure out how to make the best of the clunky interface is the opposite of fun.
I'm a huge fan of the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series and this game was recommended as something similar. I haven't completed the entire game but so far I've spent the vast majority of the game sneaking around and peeking through binoculars. This I found to be quite boring so I doubt I'm going to finish the game. Much more fun is to fight your way through although on all but the lower levels I find myself dying a lot. Part of the problem is you can't accumulate healing kits or armor. You can only replenish your health or armor at fixed points. Even if you only need 10 or 20 percent health it will consume the entire kit. Thus one tends to wait until injury is more serious before consuming a healing kit - same for armor. Sadly this means you end up dying more frequently or having to go back long distances to try to find kits you didn't need at the time. All this running around managed to suck the fun right out of what could have been a good game.
Interesting twist on standard empire building model, yet not a lot of fun to play. The two biggest problems with the game are the lack of detailed instructions for how to actually play the game and all the bugs. The tutorial covers just the basics, enough to give you the impression you can figure it all out – and with enough practice you can eventually figure most of it out. Provided you want to invest that kind of time on a mediocre game. Perhaps part of the fun was supposed to be in figuring out how the interface works and what to do when. I found it frustrating and I’m not sure I figured it all out. This problem is further compounded by all the bugs in the game. The crash bugs are annoying but the auto-save feature makes it tolerable. The other bugs are more annoying and harder to work around. I AM VERY DISAPPOINTED THAT GOG DOESN’T DO A BETTER JOB TESTING THEIR OFFERINGS. This game is definitely not worth $30. Sadly it is after the 30 day return period (by ten days) so I’m not sure I can return it. I bought the game because it promised epic space battles. The battles are definitely the best part of the game but there isn’t much you can do to influence the outcome. Mostly you just watch. On the more difficult levels you won’t have time to jut sit back and enjoy the battle because there are too many other things which require your attention. Instead you just periodically check on in-progress battles and then either run away if you are loosing or continue to fight on if you are winning. All in all the game needs more work to make it less buggy, more fun, less tedious due to planet and resource management, and have more interactive space battles. There are some options to automate some of the management but I got bored with the entire game and didn't believe those features would enhance the gameplay.
