[DustyShinigami]

DeathSpank

Positives:

+ Colourful, cartoony, and quirky graphics. Although the graphics and animation look amateurish and cheap, like in the cutscenes for example, they add to the game's over-the-top nature and humour. There's a nice blend of 2D and 3D mixed together; the backgrounds and scenery look especially appealing and detailed.
+ The music is memorable and catchy, sound effects are great and appropriately wacky and funny sounding, and although a bit grating at first, the voice acting is done over-the-top on purpose for humour. Some of the character's voices and accents are brilliant. A bit of trivia I've found out just, for me at least, is that the guy who voices DeathSpank - Michael Dobson - lent his voice to a character in the English dub for my favourite anime series, Death Note.
+ As mentioned above, the game is very funny all thanks to its ridiculous nature, graphics, sound effects, voice acting, characters and dialogue. There were quite a number of occasions that made me chuckle and laugh out loud. The game pokes fun at and references other games and pop culture.
+ The gameplay is fun and at times addictive. It mixes action, RPG elements/gameplay - such as gaining experience, leveling up and upgrading -, exploration, adventure game puzzle solving and dialogue trees. Combat is simple to get to grips with, there's a big world to uncover and explore, loads of items, weapons and treasures to collect, loads of side quests to beat, quite a few different and strange enemies to fight, and although I've not really used them, there are plenty of magic spells you can cast.
+ The game has a satisfying length.

Negatives:

- There isn't really much of a plot/story
- Co-op is Local only
- Combat and side quests are quite repetitive
- You're limited to how many weapons and power-up items you can carry in your inventory. You can drop unused and unwanted items or make cash out of them, but there's no way you can collect and carry every single thing you get. And you may still find your inventory chocka from time-to-time even if you sacrifice items.

Overall:

[JemyM]

Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods
What kind of game earns 36% average on reviewsites and lead to the publisher to officially apologize for the game? Well, to find out have been my mission for the past few days.

Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods needs an explanation first. It's not the same game as "Gothic 3", but a stand-alone expansion and sequel.
It's also the prequel to the upcoming game Arcania: Gothic 4.

I loved the Gothic series, and I found Gothic 3 to be really enjoyable. Since it's release, the community have patched it up to make it a really solid title that can be enjoyed by anyone who enjoy large, free-roaming roleplaying games with a heavy focus on exploration.

However, Gothic 3 was released in an unfinished stage. The AI was broken and caused issues like insta-killing boars, quests that couldn't be finished, repeated crashes, and the worst of all; trashed savegames. It could be debated on why this happened, G3 was a very ambitious title, possible the most ambitious large-scale RPG in the modern era. The result however, was that the developer (JoWood) and the publisher (Piranha Bytes) went separate ways, Piranha Bytes later produced Risen, a game that carry over a lot of features from Gothic, but with a new setting. JoWood instead hired the Indian company Trine to make an expansion for the game, called "Forsaken Gods". However, they weren't allowed to get too much time to publish it, they had to do the impossible; to design a large scale RPG in a very short time. Due to the restraints, they had to go with what they got; someone elses game, someone elses engine, and lack of resources. The expansion was thus doomed from the start. Yet it was published, and there were even a collectors edition too.

Playing the game with the most recent patch is still like playing an alpha version, a gamemod in progress that was only just started. FG is not even "beta", and it's far less complete than G3. Explaining some of the surreal issues is what I will do in the rest of this minireview that would be fitting an episode of Angry Video Game Nerd or any other harsh videogame reviewer.

Story
FG takes place right after G3. Not given too many spoilers away for those who still would like to enjoy the first 3 games; the hero left the land after bringing it peace. But peace didn't last in his abscense. New factions arised, the challenged eachother, war broke out again. Scrying Myrtana from afar, the hero decide to return to the land to set things right again.

The hero begins with Inog and Anog, two brothers in the west of Myrtana. Thorus have gathered the orcs who fights against humans under Gorn. To the east, Lee have taken the throne of Vangard and hope for peace in the land.

To be able to end the war and build an alliance between the factions, the hero travels from city to city, speak to people, solve issues and collect loot from everthing that isn't nailed/glued to the ground.

This could have been nice setup. But the execution is awful. Since the game is unfinished, quests are likely to break so you can't finish the game, much of the dialogue is simply missing (giving you empty dialogue bars, or for some reason written in latin or missing voice acting). Some cases dialogue is spoken by the wrong person, which is very confusing, so the hero asks the NPC's question that the PC then responds. This makes it really difficult to understand what's going on, and the quest journal isn't helpful as it often gives wrong information, like "collect 1000" when you need to collect 3000.

As that wasn't enough, the actual game beneath all that have the kind of writing that reminds me of my own adventures I wrote when I was eleven. This makes Two Worlds look like an AAA title! They also trashed an almost perfect ending in Gothic 3, turning the whole awesomeness of that game upside down with the new silly plot that breaks the game and definitely shows that the original developers weren't around to stop the new ones from raping the NPC's the player got to love in the earlier titles.

Engine: Graphics & Sound
This is Gothic 3, with almost no enhancements whatsoever. Just like it's prequel it looks like crap at first, but once you tweaked the INI file, it can look quite good.

The game uses the same map from the first game, cutting Nordmar and Varant which leaves 1/3 of the map (Myrtana, the Middle Lands). It keeps the music from the first title, which is actually one of FG's only redeeming qualities. The music in G3 is often mentioned as "best game music ever". Walking around in the virtual nature, listening to the soft tunes, is strangely relaxing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLyqSQhS6E0

As I mentioned in the Story, the voice acting is screwed up. But there's another thing I would like to mention; when a NPC have nothing more to say, they tend to speak using the generic NPC voices, which means you can talk to someone who suddenly speaks in a drastically different voice.

continued in next post

[JemyM]

Forgotten Gods continued...

Gameplay
Imagine you had a complete game open in a toolset. Then you begin to wildly delete items that someone else placed in the toolset, such as NPC's, but even if you delete a lot there will also be a lot still in the game that you hadn't time to delete.

Traces from Gothic 3 is everywhere in FG. In fact, some of the patches were "delete patches", that simply removed Gothic 3 stuff that shouldn't be in FG. Still there is a ton of stuff from G3 that weren't changed at all. Chests are everywhere with the same items inside. Monsters stand at the same spots, including those related to quests in G3. Some might even give you G3 rewards when killed.

But at least they filled up with new content in the areas they deleted to build the new story. That's fine right? Where as Gothic 3 had about 20-30 NPC's per city that was worth talking to, FG might have five. Quests are usually "guide NPC", "bring me # item X" and really annoying. Many RPG's have at least a few silly quests that are clearly there for humerous relief. In FG more than half of the quests are awfully silly, pointless and stupid and they aren't even funny. There's for example a whole ton of "crazy people" who are clearly out of their minds. One or two might have been fine, or funny, but FG have them everywhere.

To really get through this game, I took no chances. I used a full walkthrough that do not only give hints, it also tells outright when one of the hundreds of gamebreaking bugs pops up, how to avoid them and how to use the console to fix the game if it happens. I used the console all the time to be able to even finish the game. I also used it to shorten the time it took to play the game using the GOTO NPC command that teleports you to key NPC's. Some quests involve going back and forth between cities multiple times which might cause hours of meaningless strolling in areas you already explored and cleaned out. Unfortunately, there's also a lost of quests in which you need to guide NPC's over the entire continent which provide some frustrating hours of simply walking and making sure the NPC isn't stuck.

Let me give you one example of the quests you will find in this game. In the first city you get a couple of missions, including "find my brother and take him here" and "kill the owner of the inn, he's an orc sympetizer". In the second city you talk to the brother who do not want to leave the city until you have done quests for him, including "collect taxes from the owner of the inn". You have of course killed him already, causing the game to break. I had to respawn the NPC using the console. In other cases you need key items that other events delete from your inventory, so you have respawn them again. Then there's key NPC's missing and you have to use GOTO to find them. In one quest you have to find a Black Mage who will only spawn after speaking to 5 NPC's, including people in other cities, who when you speak to them only give you a generic response, but the quest still updates when you do.

Balance is out of touch. You can find the best armor in the game early on, but finding a mage that can teach you will take ages unless you know where to look. There were a trainer in the second city prior to the 2nd patch, but now you have to go through over half of the cities before you find one, unless you go there at once, which I actually did. I walked over the entire continent, collecting every teleporter stone, reading every book (skillbonuses) in the beginning of the game before beginning to do quests in the first town, just to speed things up.

Most traders have the same content, making it easy to get some generic items, but impossible to get others. I found only one shop in the entire game that sold empty vials, neccessary for alchemical potions. The only one selling robes refuse to sell it. All helmets have the same stats. Getting into Vangard got me every magical weapon in the game and the best armor in the game within the first hour of playing, since they forgot to make items solid. That means you can simply grab stuff that are used for decoration in the throne room for example.

There is no logical placement of things, you will aquire so much loot and money from every chest you see that you will eventually stop bothering to loot.

Being a mage, I quickly realized that the fireball you get from the beginning of the game is better than everything else you can earn, so I never got to use anything else. I also realized that many of the mages skills, such as Light Armor Proficiency (that should double robes protection) simply doesn't work. I also realized that my damage 45 staff did more damage than my 140 damage sword, by only draining 5% of the stamina the sword does.

Final Conclusion
Well, I did get through the game. Now at least I feel prepared for Arcania. FG was often a surreal experience and I am happy I didn't actually go out and BUY this game. Alphas stolen and uploaded to torrent sites are sometimes in better shape than this game is, despite the patches the game received. The games only saving quality is that Gothic 3 had great music, which is reused in FG. There have been talk about a community patch, but I say do not bother. Even if all bugs were fixed in the game, the bad writing, the pointless quests and meaningless content makes up the bulk of the game and if there's a silver lining somewhere, I couldn't find it. Buy the Gothic 3 Official Soundtrack instead.

[Fantasysci5]

Hmm, do you guys feel like anyone besides yourself reads our reviews? For some reason, I've been pondering this thought, and whether I should bother writing reviews (not for the site).

[Tiocfaidh]

I read them

and enjyoin it !

[Ugignadl]

I also enjoy reading them.

[kuze]

I read those I'm interested in, which is about every third, so your review has good chances of me reading it.

[DustyShinigami]

Originally Posted by Fantasysci5

Hmm, do you guys feel like anyone besides yourself reads our reviews? For some reason, I've been pondering this thought, and whether I should bother writing reviews (not for the site).

Yes, I've been wondering the same thing. But then, I also wonder the same thing about all the posts I make.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.

[Origami]

^
Nice. If you like that one, the sequel will blow you away.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Origami

^
Nice. If you like that one, the sequel will blow you away.

It already is. I'm at the monastery presently.

[Little Writer]

I read the reviews of games I have played, or games I'm interested in.

[JemyM]

Full-length review 1/2

Risen
History lesson. Risen is a spiritual successor of Gothic 1-3, made by the same developer Piranha Bytes. After Gothic 3 was published too early there was a major fight with the publisher (JoWood). PB went their own way they made Risen. Risens mechanics is almost identical to Gothic, which is a good thing. Stroll back a few posts to see my review of Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods, JoWoods attempt in same conflict.

Story
This will contain some spoilers of chapter 1. Since most of the story is revealed in #2, that might be fine. In the intro we can see a mage with an ocular device over his eye, on a boat, trying to fight off a seademon in a storm. We see the main character and a girl hiding in the background. The mages attack fails, and he teleports out of there. The boat is turned upside down by a wave. The main hero is washed ashore together with Sara. Together you go into the Island you landed on to get help and to explore. Soon you meet Jan, who fills you in on what's going on.

If you aren't used to the Gothic series, this might be confusing to you. You must actually speak to people and learn the islands geography. There's no "follow the waypoint" system. You have a quest journal but it won't tell you exactly what to do. This makes things harder but also more immersive since it forces you to absorb the dialogue and what's going on. Once you gotten far enough, more secrets are revealed to you and the greater picture takes form.

Unfortunate, Dialogue is not too fleshed out. Dialogue can be used to pump someone for information, but it's rare to see that dialogue makes a difference. You can usually just take every dialogue option you get without worrying about the outcome.

But back to Jan, he tells you that the Island have two factions, the "Bandits" and the Order. The bandits are a mix of freedom lovers ticked off by the Orders powergames and real bandits, so depending on your morality there are reasons to support or not support them. Same with the Order, a religion with a mix of good charitable people who try to look out for the needy and some hardcore zealots who push their order on everyone. They aren't necessary the good guys.

There are three places of note, the Bandits camp in a swamp, the Harbor City where there's a powergame between the bandits and the order, and the monastery. The Bandits camp is open at once, but the City is difficult to enter and difficult to escape since it's sealed by the order. Going anywhere near the order is disencouraged by everyone you meet. By following the leads you get and their advice you soon understand that something is happening to the island. Temples is coming up from the ground, filled with treasures and nasty monsters. Both the bandits and the Order seems interested, in their own way.

Depending on your choices you can be forced into becoming a warrior for the order right from the beginning of the game, all it takes is to get too close to the Order. They smack you over the head with a stick and then your choice is made for you. If you can avoid that, you can later either join the bandits, or get accepted as a Mage. Once you chosen your faction, the main story is almost the same for all characters.

As I said, much of the overarching plot is revealed in Chapter 2. Prepare to spend many many hours not really understanding what's going on, having no further option than trying to help people with trivial tasks in order go get by.

Engine: Graphics & Sound
The graphical impression of Gothic is a mixed bag. Nature and the world is stunningly beautiful to watch. The thick foliage of jungle mixed with soft yellow light from the sun creates a warm and welcoming tropical environment if it wasn't filled with monsters. I felt that pickable plants were easier to spot here than in Gothic 3, where they were often covered with tall grass. I found nights to be a bit annoying though, they are so dark that it's impossible to see where you are going, which is an issue before you can find the first beds you can use, such as in the beginning of the game when you must find yourself to a city and even inside it's too dark to find a bed. It got dark in my first playthrough before I got to the first buildings, so I couldn't see that there was a bed inside... Torches exist in the game, but once you lit one up you cannot restock it to your inventory. At least they can be dropped on the ground and picked up in your hand instead of being destroyed when you leave it in Gothic. (Apparently there seems to be a hotfix for the darkness in the game, hmmm).

Inventory and 2d art have been much improved since the Gothic series. Shields, swords, animal parts, plants and potions etc look really good in your inventory.

Characters and character animation is barely improved from Gothic 3 (2006). After recently playing games like Assassin's Creed one is a bit spoiled in the animation department. Especially jumping looks like the character is floating in the air like gravity is distorted. I do not think they use motion capture for jumping in this game.

Monsters look really good and there are clearly a new art design to several of them. Animals warn when you get too close, the boar for example starts to make noises and the huged spiked rats begin to shake their spikes at you as a warning. Gnomes are fun, they begin jumping around when you get too close. I felt that with all the flora and fauna in Risen, nature and the world feels alive. At least until you slayed and harvested everything in your path.

The music is often soft and very relaxing to listen to the many hours you are going to pour down into the game. Voice acting isn't memorable even if it isn't awful. The main character is rather emotionless. The Audio is enhanced by using audio tweaks offered by modern soundcards. For example, dialogue is given a slight echo when underground. Unfortunately, this make some dialogue difficult to hear.

Gameplay
Risen inherit gameplay from Gothic. The only thing new I saw was rune magic, axe combat instead of heavy weapons and having 3 magic schools. If you didn't play Gothic before, here's the deal; the Gothic series pull off a free-roaming world that feels alive, in a way that other games simply fails to do. Oblivion feels empty and dead in comparison. Exploration can be really enjoyable here, since you always find something new and unique everytime you go off road. Exploration is also a key to get powerful, the best items isn't found in shops.

Oblivion was based on scaling encounters based on your level. Games from Black Isle or Bioware tend to block you from access unless you progress the main story. Risen allows you to go anywhere you like at first level. Risen limits you by placing difficult monsters, so you know you are threading on thin ice when monsters seems to be radically harder than you can handle. That's when you take a few steps back and find a better area to explore, then you can return later. This offers a more realistic sense of freedom, your own skill is ultimately that decide where you can safely go. It makes leveling up more rewarding since it allows you to explore new areas. If you want to take risk though, nothing is there to stop you. I managed to sneak past a large monster early in the game and got a +20 life amulet for it, which is nice when you have only 100.

Factions are better represented than in most recent RPG's. Picking a faction here has major consequences. Each faction have their distinct stronghold, culture and opinion on what goes on, and even early on while talking to people you hear their opinions about what goes on elsewhere. That way you are absorbed into a world that feels realistic and alive around you. More things happen here than what happens around your character. And who you wish to support ultimately falls on you.

In the game you begin with weak weapons that anyone can use and you do quests and earn experience. As you level you get Learning Points that must be used with a trainer. You can train in Melee weapons, ranged, thievery, crafting and magic.

All classes can create and use magic scrolls while mages can use the spells without a scroll. Some spells such as telekinesis, levitation and Nautilus transformation is necessary to get past puzzles in the game. If you want to use the greater runes you do not only need to spend learningpoints, you need to boost Wisdom, which can only be done by reading books and stone tablets scattered throughout the island. They aren't easy to find, unless you use a walkthrough you might only unlock the 2nd or 3rd tier in runecasting.

Mages can also use crystals as spells, the fire, magic bullet and ice crystal are all used for offensive magic and can be updated with more powerful versions. You seem to be meant to max out one during the game so it's a hard pick as each have their advantages and disadvantages. That said, I found damaging spells a bit boring. You can max out one school unless you really minmax and can max out two. Fireball consumes little mana and have an AoE effect, but the AoE is too weak so you almost never get something out of it, and unless foes are standing at a good distance you are going to fail. A fireball must be loaded up and if you get hit or try to jump, concentration breaks. This makes close-quarter fights almost impossible with fireball. Magic Bullet is fast and have a knockback effect, but drains mana rapidly. You have to chug down potions all the time, but you won't have the problem you do with fireballs thanks to the knockback. Ice freezes opponents, but then what? You have to manually beat them down.

continued...

[JemyM]

2/2 (Risen)

Magic Bullet was an unnecessary addition to the game, and the way fireballs worked in Gothic was more fun (they become homing if you load them up). The need to pick between the three attack spells was inconvenient. Had it been a spell school, unlocking plenty of "fire" or "ice" spells for example it would have been better, but picking between only 3 spells? Using the same attack spell throughout the entire game is boring.

People who want to be mages have a long and frustrating walk to go. The first mage trainer isn't met until you played the game for a day or two, which means fighting a lot of opponents while saving points. This can be done, I did, but it's a really hardcore route. Luckily the first two cities can be solved by very little fighting and if you get decent equipment it is possible to finish every quest in those without spending a single point in fighting abilities. It can be discussed if this is fair, but if you keep the points you get instant awesomeness once you get there, which might be really rewarding. I found a +5 strength potion, and I often quicksaved during combat if I successfully damaged my opponent, reloading if they struck me down. Cheating? Maybe.

As you improve your fighting abilities you as a player is actually trained as well. The trainer tells you how to fight better while your character gets faster and more fluid in his combat movement. He can also begin to use a wider range of techniques with more options in combat. This can tick people off though, since you might think the game have slow and bad controls at first, but that's actually your characters low level that does that. Once you improved your fighting skills you can pull off greater feats and can react much faster. Even early on you can learn how to improve your fighting though by learning how to fight a certain animal or creature. There's usually a trick. Wolves tend to attack rapidly then flank you, by blocking during their rapid attacks you can follow up with a counter attack. Human opponents might try to smack your sword out of a way and then do a follow up attack, so you need to learn to block right after that happens, then react with a couple of attacks on your own. Learning this allow you to take down even more difficult opponents untrained.

Thievery means you can sneak, pickpocket and pick locks. Lockpicking is one of the more awarding skills in the game and takes back the little minigame from the early Gothic games, in which you need to trial and error a code using your A or D key. Easy locks have a 4# code, where as more difficult locks have more. I thought this was fun. Failure might mean the lockpick breaks. Unlike Dragon Age where you can loot every chest you see, people react at once you enter their homes. They watch your moves and if you take anything, they attack and usually call the guards. Sneaking in at midnight is a way to avoid this, so sneaking is a very useful ability to learn. I actually do not know a RPG in which it's so much fun to be a thief, even if it's not your main class. Sneaking is useless outside cities though.

Crafting have always been a fun thing in the Gothic series, even if you do not train. You can for example always harvest meat from killed animals that can be fried over a campfire into a healing item. You can always cook, if you found the recipes. There are even recipes that permanently upgrade your stats, but ingredients are hard to come by. Learning the skill "Gut Animals" allows you to harvest more, fangs, hides etc, that can be sold for more coin. Prospecting allows you to harvest veins (like gold) you find in caves that can be sold or used for smithing. Smithing allows you to make weapons and artifacts that cannot be bought. Alchemy have often been a real gem, there's tons of potions that can be made from all the plants you pick up along the way, including potions that give you permanent bonuses to your stats. Since there's no regeneration in the game, mana and health potions is a must.

Unfortunally, you cannot change the main character beyond his class. It's always a he, and you cannot change his appearence. Gender roles in Risen can be discussed as ladies either are prostitutes or look like them.

I would have preferred a second or third quickslot bar, and the ability to assign key combinations like SHIFT+1. 10 slots didn't feel enough for a mage and 6-10 is inconvenient anyway (see technical issues). I also missed a properly scaled minimap and at least the ability to buy a compass. You can use the map, but it covers 1/3 of the screen. Some of the dark dungeons towards the end is difficult to navigate since all walls tend to look the same and the light spell isn't good enough.

I also often got the feeling that the character is moving too slow, even with autorun on.

NPC AI is quite great though. It does what Oblivion wanted to do; make NPC's to behave like they are doing things. They have a life, they work, they stroll around, they sleep at night, they investigate if you walk into their homes, they rest around the campfires. It's annoying that they begin to attack you if you damage them in a battle against enemies though, they really shouldn't have. There is a spell called "Tell Joke" that fixes this inconvenience though.

Achievements
The game have an achievement system, probably made for XBox 360 but inherited on the PC. Achievements wary between doing task X # times, to making certain choices or finding something rare or unique.

Bugs and technical issues
I didn't see too many bugs in the game. My greatest issues is that some keys are unneccessary locked and thus cannot be changed. This includes quicksave (set at F8 when F5 is often defeault) and hotkeys. These keys can be edited by using a XML file, which allowed me to make a more convenient setup (I never saw the point using 6-0 as hotkeys since you can't reach them). For example I often use "F" for light (Flashlight), so i wanted to use F for torch and later the Light Spell, so I had to manually edit the XML so that Quickslot0 became the F key.

Sometimes quests completes that you never took, sometimes dialogue refers to things you do not yet know. It's interesting how quests you do not have may complete when you complete them. You suddenly get a "quest solved" and experience, when you never accepted the quest. Interesting, but if you ask me convenient. You do not need to worry about taking quests first if you want to explore. You can always explore without screwing things up.

The worst bug I saw was that your journal and maps disappear if you use high resolution. To reset this I had to switch to widescreen mode and click cancel so it reverted back to 2048x1536. Doing so got the journal and maps back. While looking at maps, switching to another map (like local/worldmap) cause the character to look around as well behind the windows, while you move the mousecursor around. You might even activate things when you leftclick another map, if the thing you activate is behind the map-tab you click. Minor but annoying. I didn't find a way to delete old saves either, and I accidently saved over old saves more than once when I wanted to load them, but that can just have been my sloppiness.

Most NPC's in Risen are either indestructable or very though. I did get one single event when an NPC died on me that I wanted to keep (only Pickpocket 2 trainer for Mages). I found him much later outside a city. He seems to have been killed by an Ogre on his way back after getting recruited by me for a mission.

You can tweak the graphics quite a bit by editing the INI files, however, some values seems hardcoded like NPC distance. I ran with almost tripple the vegitation view range without slowdowns so obviously the vanilla game is optimized for slower machines or XBox 360.

I did got problems on Chapter 4, monsters begun falling through the ground when slain and whenever I threw a fireball the game began to crawl. Searching the forum made me found others with similar issues, but no solution.

A couple of times I was stuck in geometry. This often happened when I tried to walk off a ledge. The game seem to lock the keyboard when falling, so I had to force the game to close with Windows.

Final Conclusion
Risen remind me a lot about Gothic I. The area is much smaller than Gothic 3 which was Piranha Bytes former title, but a smaller space means more quality. Each area is handcrafted with a unique look and feel, and there are plenty of reasons to return to an area once visited once story have progressed or you earned more skills.

Most issues with Risen are minor, and I can live with them. The strongest might be that there's not much story until you reach chapter 2, and if you intend to become a mage that means finishing three "cities" with no fighting ability before you get to see anything more. You mostly do trivial tasks up to then and feel like an errand boy who's new equipment really do not come as often as they do in games like Dungeons & Dragons. Also, dialogue, voice acting and character faces is definitely a step down from other modern titles such as Dragon Age. There's really only one returning NPC on your side in the game and I say it should have been more. Gothic I had a NPC from every faction on your side.

If you can get through Chapter I (which can be enjoyable for it's own reasons), Risen carry most of the great features that got me to love the Gothic series, a large world filled with actual content and real joy of exploration. Despite the length of this review I cannot even sum up all the peculiar minor details I found in this game. Did I mention that eating ten eggs improve your strength? The game is filled with small and fun details like that.

If you like RPG's and have patience, try Risen out. A warning though, it might not be as easily digested as many games are these days.

[AprilLives]

Originally Posted by Fantasysci5

Hmm, do you guys feel like anyone besides yourself reads our reviews? For some reason, I've been pondering this thought, and whether I should bother writing reviews (not for the site).

I absolutely do read reviews of games I'm considering playing but trust adventure game players the most ... because that is mainly what I seek in a game.

[SoccerDude28]

Mass Effect 2

I came into this game having some reservations. On one hand, the game got some extremely positive reviews in the press; On the other, it is a successor to Mass Effect, a very decent game bogged down by repetitive side missions, unwieldy vehicular control, and frustrating inventory micro-management. To my delight, this game not only meets but exceeds all my expectations.

Mass Effect 2 is everything you want from a sequel; it takes what worked in the first game and fixes all of its shortcomings. Gone are the repetitive side missions, crappy car levels, and inventory bloat. They are replaced by a very streamlined interface, and very exciting side missions that shed a lot of light on your crew members and the thriving universe you are part of. And what a wonderful universe it is. I was so intrigued with the world, and the species that inhabit it that I went and bought the three mass effect novels and the mass effect comic book, to glimpse any further details I can get about the story and the world.

What makes Mass Effect 2 so wonderful is its amazing story, world and characters. If you take away the fighting, you would probably end up in what should be the evolution of adventure games. The story is so exciting, the universe is so alive, and your crew is so interesting, that the fighting becomes only a means to an end - unfolding the story and exposing the characters in an exciting space drama.

Lots of the stuff you do in mass effect have repercussions. Some are minor, some are MAJOR and game changing (especially towards the end). Some of the stuff you do in this game will probably also affect how your next game shapes up. All this choice gives lots of importance to the decisions you have to make during the game.

This is by far one of the best gaming experiences I've had in recent history, and a true example of how Bioware knows how to form an adventure that is more rich and exciting than any of the other "pure" adventure games released recently. Bioware is at the top of their game right now, and when they deliver like this, very few developers, if any, can match their brilliance. I am right now enjoying the extra DLC they have available for the game, and I can't wait for the last part of the trilogy to come out, and wrap up the story.

10/10

[JemyM]

Red Faction: Guerrilla
During the golden era of First-Person Shooters, many companies tried to bring their own unique twist to the genre. One question many had probably asked was why they couldn't simply blow all those locked doors up, or pass through a wall with a grenade. Red Faction (2001) boasted a new engine that made this possible. However, once the game came it remained a very traditional first person shooter, where the much talked about destruction system was underused and not as useful as it could have been.

The sequel, Red Faction II, was developed for Playstation 2, and was fairly different from the first one both in story and playstyle. It was still a first-person shooter, but since it was made for consoles it had controls and hud accordingly. The destruction system was somewhat improved, but still not really there.

Enter Red Faction: Guerilla, a game for a different generation. Third time a charm, or is it a different game alltogether?

Story & Immersion
RFG continues the "workers revolution" theme of the first games, with plenty of obvious references to socialism. The game takes place 50 years after the first game and make references to both. We are back on Mars (second game was on Earth), where the EDF (Earth Defense Force) is now a corrupt occupying force. Alec Mason just arrives on the planet to see his brother killed after which he is drawn into the revolutionary Red Faction who fight to liberate the planet.

From that point on, Mason is going to do mission after mission with the ultimate goal to liberate Mars, sector by sector. First one actually called Parker, an obvious reference to the main character in the first game.

The story are told through the main storymissions after which you might get a 3d rendered cutscene. There are few of those, and frankly the game isn't that rich on story.

It was rarely touched by the story of the game. It was only the secrets of the Marouders that felt exciting to explore, but only a few quests deals with that tale. Some background story to the game is earned by finding hidden radio transmitters, which is discussed in "Achievements and Collectables" below.

Engine: Graphics & Sound
RFG is set on Mars and Mars have a lot of brownish red. Interestingly, much of the game, the buildings, bunkers, the marouders (savages) etc remind me about the movie John Carpenter's Ghost of Mars.

That said, Mars have been divided into different sectors, not all of them red. Dust is greyish, Oasis actually have grass, badlands looks like a wasteland. Most of Mars is mountains though, and despite the mix of color, variation isn't that different. As a game rich on physics, it's not surprising that the dust/smoke looks good. Either you have foggy wind above you, small whirlwinds on the road, dust coming up from behind your vehicle or smoke from fire. It also adds to the atmosphere that this is a dusty mining planet.

The buildings reminds me about a Real-Time Strategy game, in that they have the same look and have been placed down from above. There aren't that many areas that looks unique, thought out by an architect. It's also rare that you go inside a building for a longer time. In the second half of the game you do get to see some more hospitable areas, actual cities, but still there were rarely a reason to go into a building, and if you did you probably demolish the floors whenever using a weapon inside, so moving upstairs is kinda pointless and sometimes annoyingly difficult. The rest of the planet is mostly wasteland, dirt and heavy vehicles for mining. The vehicles actually have some variation though, the more "civilized" areas had cabs, buses, sportcars and ambulances instead of mining vehicles.

NPC's have a specific artstyle, usually wearing padded clothing. Alec Mason himself have a workers coat with graphically enhanced reflexes that I thought looked rather nice.

There are few NPC's of note, but there are some reoccuring faces on the friendly side. Enemies are almost always faceless and nameless. I cannot complain about the voice acting, and the audio is ok. The music is fitting for the space setting.

The game ran extremely well on PC, despite being a very iconic console game. I played it on a 40" HDTV in 1920x1080 with a wireless XBox 360 controller. The game could sense whether or not the controller was online or not, warning me when it wasn't. When switching to mouse+keyboard temporarily I noted how the game's button icons automatically changed to keys. When earning achievements, a small Windows Live Window appeared in the bottom of the screen. I never had a single crash and the game ran solid and fast even after leaving it on over the night.

Continued in next post...

[JemyM]

Red Faction: Guerrilla continued...

Gameplay
As I hinted in the introduction, Red Faction: Guerrilla feels like a game from a very different era than it's prequels. Half-Life 2 proved a few years back that physics was cool, and I know few games who take this more seriously than RFG. Ignoring the destruction mechanics for a moment though, Red Faction: Guerrilla feels very much like a game I played before, but not thanks to the prequels. The core mechanics of the game is now a 3rd person character, a free-roaming environment filled with a mix of storymissions and generic missions, vehicles and unlockables, a cover system, turrets that overheat but never run out of bullets etc is the vanilla game these days. Beyond the Mars setting, the look and feel of the game and it's interface will instantly remind you of games like Grand Theft Auto, Just Cause, Assassin's Creed etc etc. The generic missions also reminded me of Far Cry 2.

I guess the only mechanic that I need to speak about then is the destruction. In the prequels destruction presented alternate ways to bypass problems, or sometimes a puzzle. Destruction in RFG is no longer an optional way to bypass problems, but rather the main point of the game. You need to destroy a lot of stuff to bring the game forward. You smack down or bomb buildings with whatever tools you have to pump a couple of vital values (explained below). I guess that if you have a primal impulse that makes you feel warm inside whenever you destroy something, this is for you. For me, I never really saw the point. Sure, I could tear down every building in the game, I just never felt the reason to if it wasn't to earn the three main values that matter in the game; Control, Morale and Salvage.

Reducing Control is an important task in the game, which means reducing EDF's control over an area. Doing missions can reduce control, but you can also do things like blowing EDF buildings up. Once control is gone, it's easier to move around. Control also unlock storymissions so it's the route you have to take if you want get forward in the main plot.

Next to Control you have Morale. Doing things that increase morale among workers or the Red Faction will make people more willing to help out in fights. I never really saw any other bonus to this than NPC's joining me when fighting the EDF. Most of the time they were cannon fodder, drawing fire off me, which could be quite helpful.

Destroying buildings into scrap gives you Salvage, which is the games currency. You use salvage to buy upgrades, better weapons, armor, jetpack and other useful items. You can also earn salvage by smacking down ore deposits, rusty vehicles scattered around the planet and completing missions.

There are many ways to tear down buildings, you have explosives that can be attached to buildings and blown, you also have an extremely powerful hammer (an obvious Hammer & Sickle reference) that easily turns concrete to dust. You can also unlock more powerful hightech equipment later on that makes destruction easier and faster. You can also use a vehicle, especially the heavier ones, and simply drive it into buildings, which I found to be the fastest way to take one down. There are also plenty of walkers that you can use for the same purpose. Tanks exist in the game, but they aren't accessible for the player except when specifically given to carry out a mission.

I played the game on normal and much of the game was quite easy, although there were a few missions that I had to replay numerous times. There are some missions that simply doesn't work that well thanks to the gameplay mechanics. When you have to run up on pipes and continously get stuck between them you begin to question why you need to run up pipes in the first place. Another time you have to race against the clock, passing waypoints marked with a yellow cylinder. If you pass the cylinder rather than drive right through it, you have to turn your vehicle around and make sure your vehicle really pass through. Since the goal is to get to the end as quickly as possible, this was very poorly done.

Collectables & Achievements
Like all games of this kind, achievements involves doing X # times. Destroy 250 crates, mine 300 Ores etc. etc. There seems to be less than 250 crates which meant that finding the last ones didn't mean searching a needle in a haystack, but there seemed to only be 300 Ore. I find that kind of achievements to be pointless and a waste of time. More rewarding are the 36 radio transmitters that gives you a short hint on what happened on Mars between RF2 and 3. Among those I also found the strongest reference to RF2, if not the only one.

Final Conclusion
If destroying generic buildings in an up-to-date physics engine have an appeal to you, RFG might be your game. If you are looking for a deep and immersive storyline, strong atmosphere, advanced and intriguing missions, tactical thinking, the joy of exploring strange and alien places etc, RF3 is probably not for you. I played both RF1 and 2 before RFG and in hintersight, none in the series really stood out. Destruction is no longer a tactical option, it's now the core gameplay, in a game I played so many times before. Without anything else setting it apart from other games of the same style, there are other games I would play first, with a lot more variation in gameplay and more interesting and immersive story.

I am interested in the idea of bringing proper destruction to the game, but I cannot say that any of the RF games have sucessfully pulled it off and made it interesting. I will still have a look at Red Faction: Armageddon once it arrives, but I do not expect much.

Red Faction Guerrilla: Demons of the Badlands
Demons of the Badlands is the supposed first of three promised DLC's for Red Faction Guerrilla, but I believe it's the only one that was ever released. The DLC is a prequel to the main game, in which you play one of the NPC's. There isn't much to speak about here, the DLC have only have 3 story missions, the rest is the same old generic missions from the main game, except this time you are doing it from the Marouder perspective. You do get some background story to the events in the main game, but overall it didn't feel that interesting. It only took me 2-3 hours to finish at the most.

[DustyShinigami]

Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - The Director's Cut

Positives:

+ Beautiful hand drawn 2D graphics, which are full of colour and detail. The new scenes look great and are up to the same standard/quality as the old ones. Animations are generally good, the new character portraits look good in the sense that they match the look of the 2D sprites/characters, and the redone/redrawn conversation topics and inventory items also look great.
+ A fantastic, memorable – and at times atmospheric – music score by Barrington Pheloung. The extra pieces composed especially for the Director’s Cut blend in quite well with his original score for the game.
+ A really engrossing and well told/written story that grips from the start and pulls you in. A story that’s full of mystery, intrigue, conspiracy, fact and fiction. There are plenty of twists and turns along the way, and the story is aided by a great cast of likeable and believable characters. George Stobbart and Nico Collard are two of the best, likeable and memorable characters in an adventure game. The additional Nico sections are a nice look at her side of the story and are interesting to play for the first time.
+ Voice acting is solid, believable and handled professionally. Along with the great voice acting and top-notch script, the game is also witty and humorous at times. Thankfully the new Nico in the Director’s Cut is much better than the last Nico from The Angel of Death.
+ Apart from the odd few, puzzles are logical and exist to drive the story forward. The new first-person perspective puzzles are a nice addition. The difficulty of them seems to be about right. They look daunting at first, but they’re never overly complicated, and clues tend to be available via the new notebook or an inventory item.
+ The slightly modified interface is good. A little blue blip appears over interactable objects when you move the mouse nearby, there’s a spanner icon at the bottom left of the screen for the menu, a satchel for the inventory/inventory items, a notebook that George and Nico use to note down events that have happened during the game (along with hints), and a question mark for the new hint system that’s been added.
+ I’m not sure if it only applies to the PC version, but using certain objects on certain characters will unlock parts of the comic. Once they’re unlocked, each part can be accessed from the left hand side of the main menu. Plus, once the game has finished, you can read a few pages of a ‘thank you’ note from Charles Cecil accompanied by photos.

Negatives:

- The Director’s Cut is an inferior edition of Broken Sword 1. There’s sooooo much content missing and altered that it feels incomplete. For example: even though new dialogue has been added to the game, a lot of it doesn’t sound all that great compared to the original dialogue, as re-recorded lines between George and Nico sound like they’re being delivered a bit too quickly, and some of the new dialogue doesn’t really add much anyway. And even though new dialogue has been added, there’s an awful lot that’s missing.
Missing dialogue isn’t the only problem though. A lot of hotspots are missing, making the game feel simpler, linear and too easy; some puzzles have been simplified or they’re missing; and death scenes have been removed completely – taking away some of the suspense – as well as blood. Even a lot of Barrington Pheloung’s score feels missing. This is because the more familiar pieces keep replaying throughout the course of the game – even in places where they never used to. For example: the music Lady Piermont plays in the Hotel Ubu starts playing whilst talking to the flower seller. Or Nico’s theme plays once you’ve uncovered new information or solved a puzzle in the likes of Ireland or Syria. Sound effects have the same 'added and missing' problem too. Some of the new effects are good, but again, there are too many that have been removed. And finally, a lot of the time character’s mouths don’t move with the words and animations are missing frames. As a result, it makes their animations look and feel sluggish and choppy.
- Character portraits add nothing to the game. These should’ve just been kept for the Nintendo DS version to accompany the subtitles, but when there’s speech they’re pointless. The character’s faces animate, sure, but their mouths don’t move along with the words. It’s odd because they do right at the very beginning of the game. To me, these portraits would’ve been fine if they did throughout the whole game.
- The new Nico sections add nothing to the overall story.
- One or two characters have been re-voiced and don’t sound as good as before.
- The new ‘hi-res’ cut-scenes and new voiceovers don’t blend in with the old ones.
- The game (or possibly just the new Nico sections) only runs at about 20-25FPS making the 2D sprites and mouse pointer feel a bit slow and clunky.
- Some minor bugs are present. One affected my saved game stats, which it thankfully rectified itself. My overall game completion jumped from 30-40% done all the way to 4000% My overall time I’d spent on the game stayed at 0:00 as well. And another one involved character sprites not facing the right way when talking to characters.
- The only gripe I have with the interface is that inventory items now have to be dragged-and-dropped. In the original, it was just a simple matter of clicking on an item and then clicking on the object you wanted to use it on; much simpler. The whole drag-and-drop thing made it a bit frustrating during the chess puzzle as it seemed like my mouse commands weren’t responding. In that particular case, you have to hold the left mouse button down a second or two longer than you would an inventory item.
- Some conversation topics kept coming back when I visited and spoke to a particular character again.
- Instead of having the option to double click on an exit to quickly get to the next screen, the game automatically fades to the next screen just by a single click. I suppose for a lot of people that's a good thing as it cuts out all the walking, but personally, I'm not too keen on it. I don't mind George walking from point A to point B. The double click option would've been better I think.
- The new ending looks, sounds, and feels out of place; there’s also no end credits either.

Overall:



A nice revisit to the game - ideal for newcomers I suppose - but inferior to the fantastic original.

[Origami]

That a lot of "-"s!!!!