Levethian

Modded inventory & flight. Operates well on my gtx760 set-up, fortunately. The algorithms used to generate planets are impressive, as is the tech that does away with loading screens. Most things feel 'natural', with attractive art & sound. Pop-in is ugly when flying, although 'places of interest' are visible much earlier. Feels like enough to 'do' to satisfy the occasional aimless wanderer, but not enough to immerse yourself into the galaxy's lore. I adore this game, but it isn't for everyone. I benefited from not seeing much of the pre-release trailers. After a few hours locations begin to repeat themselves. After several hours you'll start bypassing locations you already 'know'. And the same eventually becomes true of planets. But there isn't a game that offers what NMS does, for the first dozen-or-so hours of play-time. Hopefully 'Hello Games' will release more locations, more generative mini-quests, and more easter-eggs to keep things enticing, as well as increased optimisation and unlock PC-options to, for example, heftily increase pop-in distances. Mods are already on the scene, and the modding community will probably 'finish' the game before anyone else does.

Opinion after 250+ hours. Bethesda's pursuit of freedom is admirable, and this is the best world created to date; but it naturally comes at the cost of a cohesive narrative. If you want great story & characters, better to play a more traditional RPG. Or better still, read a book. 60,000 lines of dialogue in Skyrim, but still not enough :). If you're about to play this for the first time, make sure you check the 'Skyrim Nexus' and browse it's 2700+ mods (amended UI, better textures), and I suggest a mod that stops NPC's from clamoring to spout their life-story (no NPC greetings).

Good to hark back to scrolling shooters, but i can't shake the feeling that Tyrian is a cleaner, deeper experience (and free on GOG). I like my customisation options :)

Objectively a poor game, but still fun nonetheless - especially for those who have been waiting to revel in the memories of Duke 3D. It's graphics are not up to par, and it certainly can't justify 15 years of development, but it's chauvinism and brainless fun oozes Duke-ness - and that's what we've been missing for 15 years. Not for the jaded or politically correct.

"A true successor to Painkiller"? Really? This game is not similar to Painkiller by any measure. Entirely different narrative structure, campaign and level design typology, repetitive enemies, rail-shooter-like gameplay, cover-based combat, no health-bar, no jump capability, 2-weapon carry limit & leash, quick-time events, achievement-based motivation... Could. Not. Be. Much. More. Different. Than. PAINKILLER. Disappointing as this spells the death of old-style frenzied shooters if this is what passes for 'innovation' with this genre.

There's enough additional content here, and I truly respect this series as a fan of the genre. While it trumps Disciples 3 in most other ways, there is not enough of a visual hierarchy ingrained in KB's units to convey their menacing or pitiful statistics. D3 uses a very distinct and striking consistency in it's art direction that better communicates a units' status. As King's Bounty is dominated by combat, this lack of visual flare beyond bright coloring starts to grate. Additionally, the omission of AI negates any time-pressure on the player, reducing it to a mmorpg-style grind fest, and the inability to replenish certain high-level units means that losing a special unit is frustrating. The whole series is frustrating - HOMM, Disciples and KB all boast great game-play elements, but some not-so-good ones. Combine the best elements of the three and a stunning game will emerge.

Actually I like this game now -- It's almost as compelling as Gothic 2. Can Metacritic delete 'AndyG's' review, given that he's me, and that I've changed my opinion?..

I had heard that there was some alleged improvement in the writing department. This is occasionally evident, but the plot-lines are banal and the NPC's are still robotic and stilted, demonstrated by their oft inconsistent and unlikely behaviour that makes it difficult to become immersed. The best bits still comprise wasteland-wandering, and the hardcore mode is a curious addition. However, the Gamebryo engine is beginning to feel dated; It usually looks fine, but loading screens between doorways, the limited NPC population and the lack of views to underpin context add to a collective impression of unreality. Since NV uses the same graphics as FO3, it surprised me that NV shuns years of modding and DLC content by making this a 'new game', when it should have been implemented as a full expansion; Our FO3 character could easily have been asked to courier the Chip from, say, Rivet City to New Vegas and found ourselves confronted with Benny, allowing for a seamless merge. For those of us who have tweaked FO3 to our liking since '08, being dragged back to a 'Vanilla' world is a stark reminder of the flaws that mods have fixed (unless you are a console-gamer). I could have excused the game for occasional crashes and glitches, and I understand that the emphasis is now on the console-market, but the trigger that turned my mind from "give it a chance" to "this is dull" was the awful immersion. This was achieved by the inane AI, the primitive patchwork world, the poorly/lazily constructed story & narration, and the implausible architecture. My zero score is for balance. My true score would be 3, for its efforts to add 'Hardcore', improve the implementation of skills when dealing with NPC's, and some other beneficial but superficial improvments. NV's increased linearity irks me slightly as well. I hope ID Software graces Bethesda with a better 3D engine for TES V:Skyrim.

Goodness. What a panning. There appears to be a great deal of comparison to HOMM 5, which, if you adore cartoon-like WOW-stylised graphics, may be more your taste. Scrap that - if you like that visual style, play 'Kings Bounty'. Disciples 3 is a different animal - often gritty and beautiful, if busy, and takes risks by amending some gameplay elements (as opposed to HOMM 5 which retracts features and stagnates the formula). The battles are no more slow-paced than in HOMM or KB. It's recommended to switch the movement speeds up and turn off 'cinematic camera', which is twitchy. Indeed, there are translation issues and terrible dubbing, and the tutorials are confused. Slap-dash. However I doubt very much that the story was the reason we all played HOMM, or that many will care about tutorial implementation, and instead just jump into the main campaign. We play TBS's because of their 'just-one-more-turn' addictive nature of game-play, which still remains here. To be clear - I award 10 as an effort in re-balancing. I would give 7 now and 9 when the Editor and the Dwarf & Undead races are released. HOMM can't touch the visual flair of Disciples. I have encountered no technical issues with this game.