Let´s get this out of the way! The "FMV" is serviceable at best. But to me it is part of the charm. The humor in some parts is pretty adult and I definitely had no clue at the time. The funny thing is, that I breezed through the game, just because all the puzzles were so memorable. And it´s very witty in it´s dialogue. The animations are pretty nice and remind me of the good old Warner Bros. days. The music too. They have some all time classics in terms of sound track in there. I wonder how they can still have them in there without horrendous license fees. Although, they might be public domain by now. I can whole heartedly recommend this game. It has been a blast once again.
I sunk 282 hours into this game after probably spending 150 hours modding it. And imo it truly needed it. I is a massively different game from the original vision, while I stuck to a fairly vanilla experience gameplay wise. The MVP of the whole show is definitely the writing and Obsidians committment to branching choices and how they effect the outcome of everything. Its such a shame that it needed the Fallout TV show for me to play this, because I already loved 1&2 so much and with some gripes like FO 3 very much. For everyone who likes a game that takes you and your decisions serious, just get this game. Its on sale so often and get the Ultimate Edition! They tie into the game quite nicely. Just don´t get it if you are not willing to mod the game. I recommend either the Modpack Viva New Vegas or Tale of Two Wastelands if you want to tie FO 3 and NV together. And for an additional overhaul get Salvo. The former two ensure the best stability and I think both even provide Wabbajack packs, which makes it way faster than what I did modding wise. Just don´t miss out on this masterpiece. And it could all be relevant to season 2 for those who watch the TV series.
I gotta admit I had to start this game 3 times ever since it released. Now I am in the middle of the playthrough (103 hours in) and I had so much fun just existing in this world. I initially had a hard time with the setting (What´s the point of living in the Apocalypse in Nevada - it already is a damn desert), coming from roaming the Capital Wasteland of FO3, which was just insanely fun. But looking at NV now it feels very much more immersive since Obsidian imo has a way better hand at making everything appear more believable. I think I will sink atleast two hundred hours more into this game before I am anywhere near the end of this game. Can recommend only with mods (Viva New Vegas as a suggestion) though.
This is a great departure from the earlier entries and it was heart wrenching in so many places. I loved this whole series and this Addon is a great sendoff! I just hope Embracer lets Grimlore Games live long enough for another game (hopefully they get to finish Titan Quest), because this game once more is a master class in world building. I can still not fathom what I played and I feel sad and empty now! I can only recommend it!
The campaign once more fills in some blanks from the previous games in the series and offers great fanservice for fans of the entire series. It is even more polished than the base game. I loved it to bits.
A little disclaimer beforehand: I played all the Spellforce games in succession over the last months so I have the timeline burned into my brain. Someone who did not play all these games beforehand with the same fondness for the series like me will have a vastly different view on this. First and foremost - This game oozes fan service for fans of the games and it fills in a lot of the stuff from the previous games, since SF3 and its Addons play before the first two games. It was just so great to play with circle mages in your party, while exploring the very nice and pretty world. Grimlore now are the masters of world building to me! Everything looks timeless and pristine. Some maps remind me of those model train courses or dioramas of small landscapes. This game world is so screenshotworthy. On top of that, even if you did not play the previous games you get a campaign in the veigns of Warcraft 3. Of course not these massive CGI trailers, but the dialogues and the engaging characters with all their intrigues are just remarkable for a AA production. It feels really polished at this point. The RTS gameplay might seem a little bit shallow to fans of Age of Empires or Starcraft, but it did its job well enough. I was in it for the campaign and played it on normal difficulty. So I have no clue if this is an indicator for people who prefer a bigger challenge in their RTSes, but to me it was serviceable. I can wholeheartedly recommend this to people who wished for a story driven RTS.
So far this is the last chapter of Styx and I gotta say Cyanide really stepped it up. You can clearly see the evolution of Cyanide in this game series and this is their masterpiece from a technical standpoint. The graphics look really sharp and nice. Beautiful graphics and breathtaking vistas. The only shotcoming to me was the story. It was feeling like a filler game before the final game, which so far has not manifested yet (but hopefully will some day!) The movement is smooth and in its best form. It is really fun to time your stealth perfectly in between masses of enemies. It feels like in some spy move films where everything is timed perfectly if you can pull it off. Very satisfying. And finally all achievements work (atleast for me so far!), compared to Of Orcs and Men and Master of Shadows. I can recommend this to every stealth fan in existence. All the tools, skills and abilities feel worthwhile for different playstyles. Styx' one liners are the best they have ever been (if you like that cheesy stuff!). I can only wish Cyanide will make another chapter of the Styx story, while finally filling the plot hole between Shards of Darkness and Of Orcs and Men. We all deserve this!
They really stepped up the overall polish, compared to Of Orcs and Men. Sure it is a completely different game, even in its mechanics, but you can definitely see that Cyanide's skill grew in the time between OOAM and this first Styx game. But of course it still has some flaws. For example the movement is not as slick as you would wish for a stealth game and cost me my "unseen streak"quite a lot of times. But that leads into a positive: The immergent gameplay. It is so much fun to either flee and regroup after being caught by guards, or even fight them out in the open, though it is quite hard to fight more than one or two people and in that regard it could be called similar to Thief. The Stealth itself is solid and I never felt that I have been detected because of a poorly impemented system. If you look for good stealth, even though in third person (I only like this fact, because of me playing a GOBLIN!). The sound quality is a lot better than in OOAM and kudos to the team to get the same voice actor for Styx as in OOAM. One thing I did not like about this game was the skill system. It felt tacked on and not really that impactful. The story I liked and even though smarter peole will see the twists, I got utterly surprised, which does not happen that often in games anymore for me. But it get pretty long in the tooth towards the end. Another very negative for me was the same as with OOAM -> The achevements do not work properly. Basically every achievement that serves a counter does not function, like pickpocket 20 guards. I don't know what it is about Cyanide games, but nearly all of them have this flaw it seems. A very positive aspect to me was the atmosphere and the sound track. Both reminded me a lot of Dishonored, which I utterly love I can really recommend this to stealth game fans in an unusual setting. Avoid as an achievement hunter.
I gotta be honest...one of the main reasons why I like this game is the fact, that you play as a friggin Orc and a Goblin. I always liked this premise, even though it happens so rarely in the gaming industry. But as many people already said, this game is flawed majorly. The combat is fiddly and cumbersome to the point that you lose fights because of it, especially on harder difficulties. On top of that, you can build wrong and you might have to start over again. I can only recommend playing it with a skill guide on everything over easy difficulty. The achievements on GoG are buggy. Basically most of the achievements that have to track multiples, like assassinating 47 enemies just don't track and I had GoG manually giving me the achievements that had this problem. So achievement hunters beware! I like the voice actors, but the sound quality is crunchy, as in not that professional sounding (understandable for the standing of the studio at the time!). I really liked the soundtrack and the ambient soundstage. It kinda reminded me of Gothic. The story is a little bit artificially convoluted, but serviceable for what they wanted to achieve - telling the story of two green skins! And I loved it! I can only recommend it if you have a fable for older RPG systems like KOTOR and Dragon Age Origins, but crunchier and of course for people who want to play a Goblin and/or an Orc in games.
My first contact with this game was a demo version which was on a CD Released by a well-known German games magazine! I played through it over 10 times! When I bought it shortly after, I played through the game three times, one playthrough after another! That is how much I loved and still love this game. Fun fact: I bought me a DVD drive for the soul purpose of playing through it again, about a month ago. It makes me really happy to see this game re-released, on GOG especially. I highly recommend everyone to grab this fine piece of gaming history. It has one of the best storylines in a shooter. It is like playing a spinoff movie of the Godfather movies. Sure it has dated controls and dated graphics...but no big problem if you are keen enough to mod this game a little. Especially the characters are pretty memorable, when you get to know them over time. And by time I mean "quite some" for a shooter. If you go fast you might still atleast have about 15 hours of gameplay, which by todays standards is a lot for a shooter. It is a true gem which was really underappreciated and forgotten by most throughout time and even back then. It is just a pity, that the iconic soundtrack is missing, but I am sure, that some modders, might be able to fix this problem pretty quickly! To me this is a "Must-Buy" for everyone!
