I seem to remember this having a lot more mobility actions and it simply does not hold up in 2022: no reload, no slide, no climbing... Things you get on free games in 2022. I wish we had a more recent shooter with the skill-ceiling, speed and energy of Unreal Tournament but UT2004 is not worth playing, even for free, for that bygone aspect alone. Many games nowadays, even the competitive ones, are slower and simpler so that "everyone gets a trophy" and are more inclined to spend money and keep playing; You can find similar-enough and vastly more developed alternatives that are free-to-play in Destiny 2, Apex Legends and many more. No, they're not replacements for UT but they are still better - and often cheaper (as in free-to-play) and with many more players.
While I absolutely understand the need to start new playthroughs at level 5, with low-level characters in D&D being extremely frail (especially solo), it also defeats the purpose of playing an RPG and developing a character from zero to hero. This could've been avoided by granting a diminishing buffs to under-leveled heroes instead, so you don't have to spend an hour creating a character before playing the game. In d20 D&D A "negative level" is a -1 bonus across-the-board" and as such it's trivial to roughly "level up" a character by inverting the sign. The RogueBasin wiki lists over a 1,000 roguelikes to choose from, most of which are completely free-to-play and many that are being developed for decades. Literally all of them will allow you to start from 1. While it should be possible to find some fun here, it's hard to recommend even for cents of a dollar.
While NWN greatly reduces the micro-management of earlier Bioware games by changing the party from 6 to 1 hero under your direct control (slight 6x adjustment in complexity), it carries with it many of the problems from those games as well. Despite 4 releases over 20 years, it's still hard to enjoy it. Balance is a major issue: even on your first post-tutorial quest: you will go from fighting many groups of 2-3 escaped prisoners at a time outside the Prison to 10 at once inside the prison. If you think a power level variation of 500% between two adjacent areas is fine in D&D then you might enjoy the game. If you want to do every single "optional" side-quest and explore every city house before progressing in the story, so that you are able to face said encounter spikes, you might enjoy the game - but probably not the many 2-prisoner encounters that will be completely meaningless at your power level after that. The interface is not bad but definitely clunky. You can't rebind your hotbar keys and by default they are assigned to function keys while the number row (1-9) are never used; if you select a ranged weapon and attack before the draw animation completes, your hero will move to mêlée range... it's all clunky. There are a dozen options between official campaigns and premium modules plus perhaps one or two hundred fan-made modules. Maybe somewhere out there one of those makes everything click together but the main campaign should be the ultimate showcase and I'm not impressed even at 80% discount. I tried this game at launch and despite being a huge Black Isle fan at the time, I never managed to enjoy myself enough to get through Act 1 of the Wailing Death. 20 years and 3 re-releases later, the Enhanced Edition did nothing worth noting to make Neverwinter Nights more appealing in 2022.
While Pillars improves on almost every single aspect compared to the original Infinity Engine games, it's still not enough to bring the formula up to speed with contemporary standards. Interface, balance, rules system and writing are subpar - often when directly compared to those older games too! A lot of what hasn't aged well in classic cRPGs is on display here, such as having a rules system better suited to one-character-per-player tabletop play which translates to a real-time video-game 6-unit micro-management nightmare. At least those games offered 3 quickbar slots for abilities, 3 for spells and 3 for items, while this game's interface devotes what must be 1% or less of screen real-estate to your combat options (which is at the very least half of the content in the game). It's a UX choice literally impossible to understand or justify. Balance is horrible by modern standards, instead relying on the same "reload until you make it" or "explore every area fully for experience (even though the story gives you no reason to)" formula. It's that much worse if you're playing casually (such as only following the main quest) or using a small party. Writing ranges from great at some points to poor most of the time. "Pretentious" is an impression that comes through a lot of the time. The setting is more interesting than your generic Baldur's Gate fantasy backdrop but only in being "grim fantasy", that is almost as generic as the Forgotten Realms these days. I'm mostly over narrative video-games and would rather stick to film or actual tabletop RPGs for my stories. If your main goal is to fully explore and interact with a game world, Pillars may be a decent choice at 60% off but if you want good gameplay, try Dungeon Siege or Neverwinter Nights instead. If you want the full depth of classic party-based RPG rule systems then go turn-based. Games like XCOM 2: War of the Chosen and Shadowrun: Dragonfall display vastly superior approaches than here.
While I played and loved this game when it was initially released, nowadays I struggle to see the fun in micro-managing a party of 6 in real-time. I'd rather play a proper turn-based RPG or a more casual real-time game like Dungeon Siege. While beatable solo with extensive grind, a smaller party in BG1 doesn't lend itself well to casual shorter playthroughs. By the time you finish your first main quest, minutes into the game, you already have 3 extra companions pushed into your party too on top of your starting limit of 6. Balance is absolutely intended for full parties, as trying to go smaller will make every battle a life-or-death (most often death) deal, especially given how fragile low-level characters are by official AD&D rules. The tabletop rules were never meant for full-party management: each player creates their own character, with extensive options, abilities, items... to manage. While this can be eased properly into a video game, having it be real-time ends up being the worst of both worlds. A lot of this could perhaps be mitigated by having smaller parties start at level 2 or 3 but alas, that's not a feature in the game or this enhanced edition. Winning a battle in which the odds are against you won't give you enough experience to level up either, even if you do it multiple times in a row or with the fewer units to divide the experience pool with - which means progress is likely to be woefully slow if you're playing casually (such as sticking to the main quest only). Baldur's Gate is a beautiful game and worth getting at 70% off if you're going to explore all of it, read every paragraph of dialogue and micro-manage each party member for literally 90 hours of gameplay (source: How Long To Beat) but if you've been there and done that already or are looking for a good video game rather than a narrative campaign, you can do a whole lot better in 2022.
Cryptic puzzles, convoluted movement and inventory management and heavily reliant on game logic - pretty much all of the features that caused the classic point-and-click adventure game formula to go bankrupt.
This game tried to pretty much recreate the Baldut's Gate / D&D / Infinity Engine experience almost 20 years later and suffers for it. Instead of trying to improve on the formula like what other games have done in the last 2 decades, it not only tried to stay as close as possible to that classic but it also missed the mark too. Some things that were acceptable back in the day just aren't anymore, even for "retro" cRPG titles: clunky combat system, inconsistent balance, lackluster exploration mediocre dialogue and writing. Back in the day that was acceptable because cRPGs were still trying to carve their way into a mainstream audience (instead of the niche market of SSI Gold Box fans). This game though has had 20 years of gaming (video games and tabletop!) evolution to rely upon and still came out with a system as clunky as AD&D (from back in the 70s) and an overall experience that falls short even of the classic titles from the 90s like Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Planescape: Torment... not to mention other games that improved on the formula in the 2000s like Temple of Elemental Evil and Pool of Radiance! I'm not only judging this game by it failing to innovate and improve on the formula - but actually saying that it fails to be as good even as those 20 or 30 year old games! It boils down to the fact that the core gameplay is quite weak while the UI, setting, plot, exploration, combat and balance are mediocre at best. I'd rather play Fallout 1 any day of the week than this unfortunate release that tried to stay too close to its roots and probably doomed itself from the start while at it. Had it tried to expand and innovate upon the things that those classic games did right, it could have been awesome but instead it just recreated the same beaten concepts into a new skin - with a couple nice new things to go along but a disappointingly weak core experience.
The first act of this game is extremely tightly designed - it's not at good as your favorite horror games (like the first Resident Evils or Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth) but definitely enjoyable! Everything makes sense and if you're stuck, you can progress by examining the notes and mementos you find carefully (they aren't many). The story is delightfully Lovecraftian and the balance between exploration, atmosphere, peril and suspense is almost addictive! When it comes to the second hub though, the quality immediately lessens. If not only that, there are also glitches that can prevent you from progressing further (especially in the Storage area). If you don't mind "magically refilling" the oil barrels that fuel your lantern by leaving and entering an area; reading walkthroughs when you get stuck (and notes won't help you); or having the chance of your progress being corrupted by possible glitches, then this won't bother you. If, instead, like me, you feel that this breaks the immersion in the game, then skip Amnesia - there are better horror games out there. That being said, I do think I got my money's worth from how far I got into the game since I got it super cheap - however, I've come to the point where the game just doesn't feel worth playing anymore.
Bastion is a mix of a lot of genres that somehow weren't put together this well yet. It's got the isometric perspective of Diablo, bullet-hell moments from your favorite Shoot 'Em Up, intense but not brainless action like in a Beat 'Em Up, a self-referential narrator out of Stanley Parable, Megaman-like gear setup, RPG levels and even base building! If someone told me anyone would be able to turn this crazy soup into a decent game, I"d be skeptical. And I was, for my first half hour of playing - and then I was hooked! Bastion isn't better than dedicated or established games in any of those areas but it's a very solid on its own - maybe not truly innovative since it only draws inspiration from all those other genres but since you've never seen anything quite like it, it sure feels fresh - and quite addictive in its own right since it nails the power and rewards curves, making it so you're always looking forward to doing the next level! Bastion isn't a long game. I beat it this afternoon, doing all levels and arenas but skipping the "proving grounds" content. However, the game has great replayability value - you'll find a New Game+ mode after you win, and also a ton of different styles to try on new playthroughs but, more importantly 10 different in-game "challenges" that you can select to make the game itself harder at your own pace. The base game felt easy to me - I only failed a mission once but that is not to say that the challenge level wasn't very satisfying! A completionist will be at home here and the full asking price will be worth itself many times over. I, myself, am happy with my first and only playthrough at a 70% off sale. I still recommend the full price if you are happy to pay for it as a "one superb great gaming afternoon package". There are very few things I can fault this game for. I couldn't roll when moving in the northwest direction, while all other directions work fine (obviously a very annoying bug) and I felt that using the mouse to direct attacks worked fine for the ranged weapons but not so much for close-combat ones: you can be standing right in front of an opponent, facing him and not hit it. Close attacks should act in accordance to your last movement and disregard the mouse instead. Speaking of the mouse, it's crazy that you can't hold the left mouse button to keep attacking and instead you'll have to click for each attack. In this game, that's a ton of attacks and a ton of clicks! If you have RSI (and most of us do), this is very inconsiderate and really unjustifiable since some of the ranged attacks can be held continuously. As with this, the lack of user settings is apparent, with barely more than video options and key bindings. These small but very noticeable flaws are why this game doesn't get a 5 star rating from me, though it's close (especially for a 70% off purchase). It also didn't really amaze me at any point in time: the story is passable (and I mostly skipped it), the narration is cool but forgettable, the visuals are very pretty but repetitive and sometimes confusing. It's OK though - Bastion isn't really trying to impress you in any of these areas. They're only background for the core gameplay experience, which is where the game shines - and damn good backgrounds at that too! Except the music... The music is really amazing!
I absolutely love the simulation aspect of this game: you really feel you are in a spaceship, with its crew bustling around while you, as captain, shout orders for Scotty to go repair the propulsion drive while the rest of the crew stand firmly on their jobs in order to get through yet another challenge in your quest. The space navigation, both in each system and in the larger scope, feel crips and engaging - if somewhat repetitive. The gameplay, however, is badly tuned. I am a huge fan of roguelikes: I'm certain I've put more hours into them than half the people here, easily. I'm not stranger to their difficulty curves (both in learning and in play) nor their inherent randomness and all the ups and down that come with it. The major issue with FTL: Advanced Edition is its balance. Unless you're playing easy (which, really is not what a hardcore roguelike fan would), the strategy pretty much boils down to finding a good scenario early on. If you do, you're set. If you don't, it's game over, no matter how good your strategy is. Roguelikes (and procedural games in general) should be informed by randomness, not dictated by it. A player with a solid strategy shouldn't lose a game because of a single overpowered encounter even when he immeditaly decides to run away ("make an FTL jump") and this happens way too often on FTL. In fact, that's what the gameplay is about. Even the best strategy is 80% at the sole will of what the RNG will put in his way, for good or bad, and while this makes FTL a roguelike, it doesn't make it a good one. Other than this major gripe with the game, the rest of gameplay is very repetitive - but also very enjoyable on its own. The brief texts are nice when you start but you'll find yourself ignoring them and just looking at the outcomes pretty soon since they're only for flavor and not really interesting. 90% of the prompts boil down to a "risk your resources for a possible reward" or "play safe and move on". Since you'll be given a prompt following this formula most of the times you take a step in the game, it gets old fast. Each of these having more options; more randomized (or even better, skill-based) outcomes or even them being less common would have done the game a service. As with these events, most of the gameplay is easy to figure out. Exploring a system boils down to "try to move through it as fast as possible because you're low in resources" or "since you're high on resources use them to explore". The larger exploration is also the same: "do I have enough resources to take a high-risk, high-reward sector next or should I stick to a friendly one since I'm low"? Can you see the pattern here? Most of the decisions in the game (except during combat) are binary and revolving only around how many resources you have to waste (or, conversely, to protect in order to stay alive). As with the event RNG, exploration is also dictated by randomness and not player strategy: you can get lucky and get a map with plenty of friendly sectors or one almost fully made of perilous, sensor-interfering, plasma-bombing nebulas which even the best player will be hard pressed to survive early on. The combat is amazing and it's a perfect blend of the best type of roguelike strategy, top-notch simulation and space opera that owes nothing to Star Trek and the like. I think the combat being so engaging is why so many people disregard the flaws of this game and look only at its good parts. If you like space operas, simulation and strategy, this could be the game for you. If you don't think that buying something where the random generation plays a more important part in the game than you do, better stay way though.
