Replayability is the major issue for me with games. Unfortunately this game does not have a great deal of it and I can't give it a 10, but it's still a very close run thing. Astounding. Unforgettable. Hypnotic. Exhilarating. The amnesiac storyline sounds cliched but this amnesiac storyline is so different, so well told, so deeply described that the game is more than forgiven for it. There are not many joinable NPCs, one of them is hard to find and another does not appear until near the end. But these NPCs have, individually, more personality than shelfloads of games than I could mention, so again, the game is more than forgiven. There are more than a few bugs. But this game is so engrossing that you don't really care. Game absolved again. From the constant thud thud in the Lower Ward to the very inspiring fighting music in Curst, the sounds in this game make it unforgettably atmospheric. This game does not have many areas, does not last very long and has been accused of having an unsatisfactory ending. But no other game has such a plethora of memorable characters, stimulating dialogues, great music, spell visuals and moments of great hilarity in such a short space of time. It just shows what can happen when people's motivation is belief and pride in what they are doing and a love for it too, as opposed to purely making money. The quest to find a certain NPC is probably the most fulfilling quest I've ever done. As far as I know, there are two valid endings which occur about half way towards the accepted ending (and one other a lot closer). I can think of no other game which dares to do that. An exceptionally enduring masterpiece.
Dear me, some people haven't done their research before buying again. Obviously it isn't for everyone. I got it cheap in the sales and I have to say if I'd have paid full price my score would be 8 not 9 because the game is rather short. There is some replayabilty but not a great deal. I found it hypnotic, engrossing and very funny in parts. The writing is first class and the art eye-catching. The skills that you can acquire are intriguing and fresh and the story is very well told. Most of the politics can be avoided if you wish and save scumming is definitely not required to enjoy the game. I have minor gripes about the plot and the GUI needs some polish but overall a great experience.
First of all, I don't like being lied to. Blatant lies just to line someone's pockets are even worse. So -2 marks straightaway. This was not developed fist and foremost for PC. Not a chance. Gameplay and PVP are still very good, some of the innovations were good and bad at the same time. Ascetics for example - good of you want a sudden increase in difficulty and more loot, but bad because some cheesy items could be farmed limitlessly with minimal effort, eg Gower's ring. They also dampened my desire to actually go to NG+. Respeccing is a good idea, lifegems just made the game a lot easier. Seed of a tree of giants was a good idea, soul memory was so-so. Some bosses were extremely hard solo but stupid easy with a summon. Other bosses were just easy full stop. On the whole I would say the game was easier than its predecessor and not quite as good. But definitely still worth playing. Probably deserves an 8 but doesn't get it for reasons already explained and those reasons ruined any chance that this developer got any DLC sale off me. After a long time I have upped my score to 9 purely because I love the PvP in this game and had many hours of fun with it. Best PvP in the series by a long way.
A very solid 9 but there are many reasons why it isn't a 10: Farming is complete BS and always has been. Some quests are once again very difficult to follow and you can miss out on great items because of it. Some NPCs have no purpose in some quests and are a waste of time. Crafting is mainly more farming. PvP is decent but there are too many one shot possibilities and mainly it is Ash of War spam and not much else. We have the usual happy Fromsoft mixture of some good boss fights and some awful. I could go on but overall it's still an excellent game and if you are a Souls' fan you will almost certainly have a great time with it.
Just about worth it at half price and the main reason for that is the game is once again very busy, not because of any remastering that's gone on. A huge huge missed opportunity to make a great game a truly outstanding one. Edit - changed my rating from 7 to 5 after realising the matchmaking system is utterly stupid.
As a stand alone game it's decent. As the final curtain for the series it's very disappointing. There is nothing new here. Three of the bosses fall under the 'seen it all before' category, even the final boss. It's very evident that From has run out of ideas and it's no great surprise there will be no more. The length of this DLC is again shocking. I managed it in 7 hours at a leisurely pace. I've seen people do it in 4. There's some good gimmicky weapons and a good new covenant (whose main idea is copied from DS2) but you can still R1 spam and roll your way through most of the content. There is nothing that is remarkable about this DLC at all, and sadly the series has gone out with a whimper.
Dark Souls 3 - Souled Out. And they certainly did with this one. PvE although decent is way too easy, even solo. You can R1 spam all the way through this game with a straight sword and resins. And then do it again in NG+ and NG++. Of course, you may want to roll your way to victory too, since it costs no stamina to do so. There is no thought or deliberation required in any kind of fighting in this game. It's basically mindless spamming all the way. And then of course, there's the PvP. Invasions are a total nonsense now, duelling gets very old very fast. Two of the covenants still don't work properly. I'll admit to having good fun as an Aldrich and a Watchdog though. The last DLC was easily the worst DLC From have made in these games. Way too short, uninspiring and basically nothing new. Shouldn't be surprised that a niche game that becomes popular is suddenly dumbed down to appeal to the masses, but for a game that made its name by being difficult, this is even more hard to swallow. An awful way to end the series and I'm not sure that I'd buy a DS4 anyway if this is the new direction. Shame.
A very good game but not an outstanding one. Of course, every true rpg made these days is measured against the BG series (and quite rightly so) and it is perhaps unrealistic to expect any new game to have the same impact. Anyway, this game does a lot of things very well - character creation is great and there are some interesting classes to investigate. Joinable NPCs are good although a rogue would have been nice, game play is generally excellent. I cannot say that I found the powerful weapons and armour to be particularly inspiring but there are some other items that are, well, overpowered to say the least. The loot system is a bit quirky and one extremely useful item hasn't shown up in any of my 6 games so far. Spells are good but there are too many damp squibs in there (and some spells are just too good not to spam). The story is more than adequate and extremely well written in places. Overall, very playable (and replayable) and an enjoyable experience. Hopefully they can improve upon it with another effort.
It took a long time for someone to drag the isometric RPG back to where it belongs and Larian have done an excellent job of it. All the plaudits that you can read here and elsewhere are justly deserved. Engrossing, challenging, addictive, well written and a treat visually. Can't say I was a great fan of the combat system initially but it grew on me quite a bit. Spells and abilities are good and some of the fights quite challenging (although enemy AI could be improved - I felt a bit too lucky in a few fights). Crafting and blacksmithing systems are great, there are wide variety of enemies and, of course, loads of magical items floating about with which to outfit your party. All contained in a very impressive game world. Inventories are a bit fiddly and annoying (err make them bigger onscreen?) and we could do with some more joinable NPCs in the game world who have a bit more voiced dialogue. I suppose there is a case for not making every PC be able to learn every skill too. There are a few more minor annoyances but I'm sure these will be ironed out in time. If you are an RPG fan you should play this game. Baldur's Gate still holds the crown, but I get the impression that if anyone could make something that could be hailed as a BG3 (at least in spirit) then Larian would be the people to do so. Well done guys - a great accomplishment.
I don't think I'll ever give DLC a 9 or 10 but this is very close to a 9. Easily the best DLC I have played and so superior to Dead Money that it makes you wonder how on earth the same people were responsible for both. Fantastic writing, great humour, tough and varied enemies and some satisfying new weapons. You won't finish it all in 1 hour either. The only DLC that I've played more than twice and in a few respects better than the game that spawned it. In fact, this should be adapted to a full scale game. Extremely good value.
Weak contrived story, weak characters who are given no chance to develop, and very irksome in parts. After I got half way through I just wanted to get the hell out of there. If you like quicksaving every 2 minutes and essentially travelling through a maze painfully slowly, where a wrong turn means an unavoidable death, then this is the game for you. Poor design and a poor DLC.
Pretty good game but with some glaring faults. First of all, this is NOT a terrible port, just vaguely bad. I've played through to NG++ without ANY mods or controllers at all and not had any problems whatsoever. People need to learn how to 1) Use a computer, 2) RTFM , 3) Not pretend to have high standards and 4 ) Stop using the word 'clunky' just for the hell of it. Clunky clunky clunky - get a new word for God's sake. I venture to suggest that it is you who are clunky. OK ,character creation is minimalistic and uninspiring. Character classes are pointless since you can turn one class into any other after at most 8 levels. Starting gift is a no brainer. Dark Souls does not play fair - try watching the path of an enemy arrow as you move away from it. Apparently random conversation options which serve no purpose (YES or NO). If you do a bit of grinding in NG there's not much left to do in NG+ onward (weapon and armour wise) and it gets repetitive. Minimalistic NPC storylines (if you can call them that). PvP can be fun but suffers from a surfeit of backstabbers. Too many invasions when you are human. Some weapons are obviously much better than others and one in particular is almost a game breaker. Suicide runs are very appealing which is just bad design. Game could do with more music in some parts. Magic is mediocre with only a few spells being useful. Archery is only a bit player. On the plus side, an excellent variety of locations, items, enemies, weapons and armour. Combat is good, battles rewarding. Weapon and armour upgrades can be confusing at first but are ultimately satisfying. Gameplay overall is excellent, but quite a few enemies can still be 'cheesed'. Overall a good experience, immersive, varied, and definitely worth a try if you haven't already.
This game has a lot of faults, some of which are quite annoying but from a RPG perspective it is absolutely top notch. Fantastic character creation and development, great replayability, lots of joinable NPCs, some tough decisions to make and lots of charm. The magic/technology dichotomy is handled very well and the narrative is more than respectable. I enjoyed it and if you can forgive its faults you will too. This game could have been a 10 and I don't think I will say that about too many games that I score an 8. Definitely worth your time.
First 50 hours or so are very good but then this game flatlines very badly and becomes quite a deflating experience. Take the smithing skill for instance, great fun at first but then, along with enchanting and alchemy, it becomes part **** triumvirate and after say level 30, the only way anyone should die is by falling off a cliff in a snowstorm.. Not long after this you've probably had your fill of the 'radiant quests' (stupid name for a srupid concept) and you are almost certainly tearing your hair out after being told to clear out Fort Respawn for the 3rd time. Then comes the problem of where to put all those unused perks - hmmm do I really need a running power attack when a standing one takes care of most enemies? Do I really need prices to be lower when I've got 80,000 gold and no useful way of getting rid of it? Why the hell would I need poisons? Why should I put any perks in blocking at all? The basic shield bash seems overpowered as it is. Persuasion attempts are 30% easier? You mean you can fail them? I have several items that do what the perks do anyway. I finished the whole thieves guild line of quests without putting any perks in sneaking, lockpicking, pickpocket or speech and only lockpicking and speech got out of the 20s. I didn't even bother to try out half of the shouts some of which can only be described politely as stupidly redundant. I'll give it an 8 (barely) because it was quite engrossing for a decent amount of time. But in no way is this an overall improvement on Oblivion and I can't really see what they can do next with this series. I had much more fun playing The Dragon Knight Saga. People who give this 10 should really try to use different parts of their brain for once.
Hmmmm, let's consider the evidence. No levitation. A very weak and artificial storyline. A main setting mainly full of .......space. Some good quests, some bad ones (the highly nihilistic Gaenor quest was my favourite) but really, this expansion offers nothing new to Morrowind except for a kind of proving ground for high level characters. Bland but just about worth installing.
Very good game which contains a lot of the stuff of which Bioware were the very best at delivering - excellent story and great characters, excellent voice acting (how on earth did they get John Cleese?) and solid gameplay. Quite beautiful to look at in some parts too. The fighting system is by no means perfect but it's good enough and the mini game brought back some good memories. I was a little disgruntled with the duration of the game, but at today's prices this is very good value for money and you should get at least one playthough out of it. Try it if you haven't already.
Approximately 180 miles south of here a certain Mr I. Newton will be spinning in his grave. Luckily for him he can't get out and play this thing. Actually I'm doing the game a disservice. It is tremendous fun for a few hours. After that it's all downhill like the opening parachute jump. It's best not to take this game too seriously (if that's even possible) and then you will have a pretty good time until you get bored with an extreme bout of deja vu. I toyed with 6/10 but decided on a 7 because I laughed a lot, and arsing around, seeing what stupid thing you can do next appeals to the kid in all of us.
Good expansion which although very playable, didn't hold a candle to the game that spawned it. Mind you, there were no candles nor hands to hold them to anything when it came to BG1 and 1998/99. Two of the three new areas were quite uninspiring as were most of the new items and there are no new joinable NPCs. Durlag's Tower saves this expansion. It is large, dangerous, tough, very atmospheric and the story behind it is extremely well told although the boss at the bottom was very very overhyped. The final boss fight was excellent but the overall quality of the voice acting took a large hit when compared to the original. Still, I'd rather play with the expansion than without it and it's a must buy for any BG fan.
Let's face it, BG2 was a (extremely brilliant) side issue as far as the plot of this saga goes. This is why this game should have developed the main story more, and Bioware, at the time, were the masters of doing just this. Supposedly they ran out of time on it (more than likely due to KoTOR) and it shows somewhat. But hey, all the fantastic things in BG2 are still there. Amazing high level abilities, interesting and varied armour, weapons and spells, a great new joinable NPC, some very tough enemies, romances, party banter, a great new dungeon and all the other small things which sometimes are the most important. The ending could easily have been a big let down but definitely wasn't (shivers and spine come to mind) but I think they could have handled the major villain a bit better. It could be argued that this game could never live up to its predecessor, but most of us were probably enjoying ourselves too much to care. A fitting end to the best thing ever to come off a collection of small circular discs.
Took me over two hours to get it to run properly. Eight different weapons, each with 3 types of ammo, and six or more plasmids. What am I? A concert pianist? I didn't find the hacking change to be an improvement at all and the story didn't hold my attention in the slightest. As far as I was concerned the story was just trying to get through a level whilst making yourself more powerful. Voiceovers and fighting got very tedious towards the end. Having said all that it was enjoyable to jaunt through Rapture again even though it was with a sense of post mortem deja vu. New weapons and enemies are decent enough, but the trips along the sea-bed seemed very pointless. And where the hell were the soundsets for the vending machines? Anyway, a reasonable buy at current prices and a good buy if you are a Bioshock maniac.
OK, they made some improvements/additions on the original ( My Pet Dungeon, better traps and some interesting level objectives) - but this was more than offset by a total ruination of the most important element - the basic game play. This is slow, slow, slow. I don't want to drop my creatures and watch them lie on the floor for a minute. I don't want to build my dungeon like an ailing octogenarian would. I don't want to watch my creatures shuffling around as if it's a Sunday afternoon stroll. One of the best features about the original was that (mostly) you had to play fast, think fast and act fast. And what's with the stupid buggy cut scenes? Absolutely pointless. The new creatures didn't do much for me either. The basic excellent concept is still there though and the voiceover and music is once again very entertaining. Regardless, still a big disappointment and I couldn't be bothered crawling through the main campaign a second time.
I must have been under the illusion that this game would be at least in some ways reminiscent of Dungeon Keeper when I purchased it. It isn't and I made a big mistake. This is a game brimful of pre-pubescent humour, unoriginal premises and tired cliches. My minions seemed quite adept at not doing what I wanted them to (or was that intentional?) - either way I ceased caring very quickly. I also stopped caring about my long term goals with equal alacrity and uninstalled after about 5 hours.
More hardcore than its predecessor this game delights in placing you in very tough situations repeatedly. I got tired of the 'now get out of that' scenario quite quickly and despite my affinity for IE games I only just mustered the motivation to finish the game. The villains I thought were unispiring as were a lot of the locations. I got quite a bit of satisfaction from winning tough battles but sadly that's where the satisfaction started and ended - nothing else about this game seems pleasurable. Worth one playthrough, more if you just like fighting for fighting's sake. Try some summons if you are struggling - they are strangely overpowered for some reason.
A sort of perfunctory Baldur's Gate Lite. More specifically, a series of long battles occasionally interrupted by some storytelling. Of course, many people embrace that, but after a while I just want to give the fighting a rest. Nevertheless, there are many good points to this game most of which apply to all IE games. Many and varied items to find, good spells, atmospheric music, some great dungeons and some challenging fights with varied enemies. If you liked the BG series and somehow haven't tried this you should do so - you'll certainly get some mileage out of it. Just don't expect your party to talk to you or each other.
This game is just plain old-fashioned fun all the way. I'm not really a fan of Batman or the genre but I enjoyed this from start to finish. The penultimate battle was the most fun I've had in gaming for a long time. The couple of criticisms that I have are that the final battle is disappointing as you don't get to go one on one with the ememy. Also I hate games that flesh out their playing time by sending you out to find dozens of hidden objects. This is just laziness on the devs part. But really, they have been anything but lazy on the rest of the game so can be forgiven to a large extent. Gaming is all about enjoyment isn't it? This game delivers it. Definitely worth your time.
It is very difficult to pigeonhole this game into a genre and this is probably one of its strongest points. But you don't have to be a fan of any genre to realise that this game is special. Great story, good replayability, interesting special abilities, a good variety of weapons, many different ways to complete missions and a great soundtrack. This game has it all. Even the hero's very monotonous voice is strangely compelling. Fantastic entertainment on many levels. The only thing that I can criticise it for is the pathetic attempts at foreign accents of which the Australian variety was particularly atrocious. But still, this is a must play for any gamer, any gamer at all.
A decent game that could have been much better. First of all if I'd wanted a driving game I would have bought one. Secondly, I couldn't complete one mission due to the moronic AI of a companion - had to cheat in the end. There were other minor bugs. More positively, the story is good and the game keeps you interested (when not driving constantly) and I did start to care about my character. The missions were varied and interesting and the cut scenes done well. The game was very interactive in its time and the city is excellently rendered. This game minus most of driving and one game breaking mission, was a nailed on 9/10.
To me, the whole choice/consequence idea in gaming is vastly overrated and using it as a marketing point leaves me cold. Any really good game does not need such a thing and shoehorning it into a game doesn't make the game better for it either. Would The Witcher have been a worse game without it? I find it difficult to believe so. On the whole I thought The Witcher was an excellent game with only some minor faults. A decent combat system, interesting alchemy, reasonable story and some memorable characters, it held my attention almost all the way through. The locations were nicely rendered and diverse, the enemies challenging and some of the characters very compelling. The magical abilities were also worthwhile having if you wanted a break from all the swordplay. The drawbacks were some nonsensical conversations (not deliberate), risible voice acting and the extremely gratuitous sex aspect which probably only served to boost sales amongst males of a certain age. It added nothing to the game whatsoever. In addition to this chapter two seemed to drag on for a long time. Overall a good game, quite unique and well worth anyone's time and money.
A triumph of style and gimmicks over substance. There is not much going on here except for shooting monsters repeatedly. An overly generous person would call both the setting and the storyline minimal, that same person would call it predictable and sometimes a little bit scary. Having said that, some of the weapons are good, some of the gimmicks keep you interested and you do actually want to escape the damn place. So I managed to finish it and just about got my money's worth. I cannot envisage a scenario whereby I'd ever play it again and would only recommend it to horror maniacs who have no more than £10 to spare and nothing better to do.
I had fun for about 3 hours, soldiered on for about another 3 and then lost interest completely. A game more bereft of personality I have yet to play. I can't say that I saw much evidence of a story or any story telling for that matter - just a continuous chase with a few guns and vehicles thrown in. Oh yes, a couple of humans too who did nothing except break up the monotony of shooting stuff every once in a while. It has some good moments no doubt but very quickly I neither cared about what I was doing or why I was doing it. A faceless, straitjacketed and shallow game is the only way I can describe it.
A very sound game with some unique features but too short for my liking and the ending is poor. On the other hand, the setting is visually stunning, the story is well told and thoughtful (especially the tapes) and the plasmid idea is interesting. One gets the impression that mixing philosophical and moral issues with liberal amounts of violence tends to confuse people. This kind of thing only works once and even then not for everyone. A shooter is a shooter no matter how you dress it up, but Bioshock dresses it up extremely well and is definitely a game that is worth playing and that will be remembered. I didn't find that much replayability myself, but when I did play I was thoroughly entertained, except perhaps for the ending. An FPS devotee should not miss it.
Fantastic, innovative game with addictive gameplay, great music, great sound effects, a narrator who will quickly turn you into a severe stress head and with a sinister charm that will keep you wanting more long into the night. Attract your creatures, train your creatures, keep them happy (or not) and destroy bunches of heroes and rival keepers who are foolish enough to challenge your supremacy. There are many ways of beating each level - brute force, starve your enemies out, take out their rooms by stealth, lure them on to dozens of traps or just capture them and 'convince' them to join you. This game has so many things going on that you will be kept on your toes constantly from about level 5 onwards. Research spells, sacrifice creatures, find bonuses - the list goes on. Never a dull moment and extremely enjoyable. Probably will not run on newer computers but can be run via dosbox. Superb and a must try if you haven't played it.
I like this game. I like this game a lot. Even though it can very hard on your first couple of playthroughs, even though the role playing elements are minimal, even though it is 13 years old, even though might becomes pretty useless near the end of the game and magic is the only way to go. This game is just pure addiction. Always someone to visit, always a skill to increase, always some monsters to kill, always a dungeon to clear and always some more fun to be had. I was pretty clueless about D'n'D games when I first played this and notwithstanding the fact that I was finding it extremely tough going I still wanted to play on. One dungeon alone took me 12 hours to complete. But I just had to carry on. The story is appealing, there are some very good spells, a wide variety of monsters (and plenty of them) and of course you always want to make your party more powerful - there are plenty of ways to do this. Throw in some wonderful music, some well hidden tricks and bonuses and the fact that you can play on after the end and go and slaughter all the things that gave you pain earlier in the game - all this makes for a great experience. I like trying to make games easier to beat, and am constantly looking for ways to do so. This game gave me that opportunity like no other. I must have finished it about 20 times and each time has given me ample satisfaction. Then after I've made the game quite easy to beat I look for ways to make it even harder than it was originally. Again, this game will allow you to do that (and not by just moving a slider) - play with 4 knights for example. Easily the best of the Might and Magic series and one that I still play even today.
The only way this game improves upon Fallout 3 is that the main storyline is disappointing rather than ridiculous. The rest of the game can largely be described as same old same old. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing but the gane does try to impose quite a bit of linearity on the player which is annoying and the best fun I had out of this game was trying to get to the casinos as early as possible. The factions are uninspiring, the majority of the quests dull, the casinos are way too big for travel by foot and I ceased caring about who took over Vegas long before the end. But still, if you liked Fallout 3 you will probably get some good mileage out of this one. I didn't try hardcore mode simply because after 2 playthroughs I couldn't be bothered and I can't imagine any reason why I'd play it again.
Pluses: Great story, totally believable and interesting characters, superb voice acting and good music, good lore and some very well written material. Minuses: Enemies, weapons and armour are all very bland and do not have much variation. Combat is ok but you find yourself spamming the same spells/abilities a lot. Character classes and abilities are so-so. The Deep Roads dungeon is extremely tedious and predictable, the Fade only slightly less so. Those two areas discouraged me from playing through for a third time and I've not had the urge to play again since the game came out. I expected better from Bioware.
Shameless D2 clone which just about improves upon it. Good visuals for the high level abilities, some interesting adversaries. Some good player classes, some bad. A perfunctory storyline, repetitiveness and super linearity make this the usual mind numbing left clicking orgy. Enjoyable on those occasions when your neurons can't be bothered to fire.
Average FPS which brings nothing new to the genre's table at all (apart from strange graphics). The useless ability count is quite high and I've already forgotten the reasons why I was going around shooting stuff. Some of the weapons are fun to use and sniping is enjoyable but it usually is. There is nothing in this game that makes it stand out from the crowd and I would only get it if it's cheap or you have played all the others with higher scores.
Superb game which spawned a superb sequel (a quite rare achievement in itself). People tend to prefer its successor but this game is actually better in some respects. No less than 25 joinable NPCs and many many areas to explore. The beginning can be quite tough but once you are over it the game is rewarding, suspenseful, amusing, intruiging and challenging. Travelling through wilderness areas always keeps you on your toes - am I going to meet some kobolds, a greater basilisk or just some madman who likes hearing the sound of his own voice? The diversity of weapons, armour, spells and enemies is necessarily limited by your low level but there are enough interesting items and encounters to keep you going throughout the game. One of the joys of this game is that almost any battle can be won by any group (or soloer) just by using the right tactics. Away from the combat, the NPCs have good interactions with each other and the PC and actually have minds of their own. The fact that all NPCs will say something out loud when you click on them is amazing in itself. The story also keeps you motivated and has some very good twists. Unbelievable replayabilty. Play as a thief with Imoen, Branwen, Kivan Xan and Shar-teel. Or maybe be a mage with Kagain, Coran, Safana, Tiax and Garrick. In 1998 this game wiped the floor with everything and it can only be judged on that. This made me a gamer and despite its age I would never hesitate to call it one of my all time favourites.
An excellent game let down spectacularly by its main quest. Atmospheric, visually fascinating and manages to maintain your curiosity at high levels. Can't say I met any NPCs with anything resembling a personailty (with the possible exception of Moira) but that's not uncommon nowadays. Sniping with the dart gun was great fun, but the tube stations got irksome quickly. I don't see what all the fuss about VATS is - to me it just seems like cheating so I never used it. There is a lot here to interest the casual FPS and RPG fan but perhaps not enough to interest the hardcore elements of both factions. The main quest is totally uninspiring and (maybe thankfully) a fair chunk of it can be missed without warning. Plenty to see and do and I finished it 3 times which probably says more than any of the above. Definitely worth a try.
I can really do without a game telling me on screen that I've reached the entrance to a cave when I'm stood 1 foot away from said entrance. A game where levelling up seems more than a bit pointless. A game where I'm thinking 'why don't they get the guards to do this quest - they're obviously more capable'. A game which threw away many of the great things that its predecessor had. But I can't honestly give this game less than an 8. It's entertaining, engaging and has some replayability and if it grabs you, you will probably spend a lot of time with it. Personally, I found it a lot more enjoyable when I finished the game at level 8 as opposed to level 24., which says it all about the levelling system. Still, at today's prices I would consider it a great buy.
Mindless clickfest which is addictive because of the fantastic loot system and (some) good high level abilities. No other facet of this game interests me at all. Story is extremely cliched, dialogue minimal and bland and the cimematics between acts is very much at odds with the graphical gameplay. In Hell mode you tend to spend much more time trying to avoid fights than to seek them out and really the only thing that keeps you going is the thought **** drop (which rarely happens). Anyone who has ploughed through acts 3, 4 and 5 in Hell mode has my deepest sympathies. One of those games where your forefinger has its own case of St Vitus' Dance and your brain goes into partial shutdown. Such games have their place and can be good for brief periods but can never be construed as classics in my opinion.
A fabulous, unique, imaginative and very immersive world to explore which will intrigue you all the way. Concern yourself with the politics of the gods or find a peasant's lost trinket, or maybe just do a million things in between, the scope of this game is staggering. The architecture, the landscape, the inhabitants, it's all believable. So believable that armour made out of glass seems completely natural as does travelling about on the back **** flea type creature. Far far better than Oblivion and the only thing preventing a '10' is the end game which I felt was hugely anticlimactic ,and a final boss whose appearance reminded me of a humorous children's tv character from long ago. Also, high level characters tend to turn out very similar to each other no matter how you started them. But enough criticism - A groundbreaking game in many ways and still worthy of anyone's time even now. Surely you've tried this game at least once already?
10 for story. 10 for replayabilty. 10 for combat. 10 for characters. 10 for graphics at the time of release. 10 for entertainment. 10 for addictiveness. 10 for timelessness. 10 for the modding community. Nothing but nothing is in this game's league and I suspect people will be saying the same thing after another 10 years.
I was undedcided whether to give this an 8 or a 9 but then I saw how many hours I'd spent on it so a 9 it is.Value for money is king and this game gives it to you in bucketfuls. The North American market seems to be churning out highly polished games with trite gameplay at present (in this genre), whereas this game is quite the reverse and better for it. Sure, it has several minor faults but had it not had these it would be close to a 10. I won't go into details - if you are thinking about buying this then do so, give it a chance, and you won't be disappointed. It is very engrossing, original and entertaining.
Excellent game which will keep you interested right until the end. The new resources available to you add to the already innovative first game as do the new characters (Steven Merchant is superb) - If you don't laugh your head off at some of the comments Crippen wasn't guilty. I have two complaints. Some of the puzzles could have been made more difficult (only two gave me any trouble at all) and the game is short. OK it's not that short by today's standards but add to this that the game has almost no replayabilty value and you have a few hours entertainment for £30. Valve could have easily got an extra mark from me by putting in the challenges from the first game (least portals, steps etc) - why they didn't is a mystery (DLC maybe). This would have extended the playtime significantly. If you like puzzles, a decent story and some excellent humour all rolled into one this is a must play. Just depends how much you want to pay for it.
I thought that DA:O (decent game though it was) was the beginning of the end for Bioware and this just confirms it. Bioware have, in the past, given me more value for money than I could ever hope for. And for that I am ever grateful. But this game, this game is a disgrace. Companions I know little about and a main character that I care about even less. Extremely repetitive dungeons, lack of any driven storyline, poor artwork, far too much (oversimplified) combat in any given period of time, environments pared down to the bone, uninspiring weapons, uninspiring armor, uninspiring enemies, not a few essential elements deliberately left out so that they can be put back in via DLC. The list does not end here. This game is just disrespectful to all fans of Bioware. It is so obvious that it was rushed purely for money making purposes without any care for fans or even for Bioware's own integrity. Their marketing department nowadays is tacky, untruthful and quickly becoming synonymous with unadulterated greed on one hand and total BS on the other. It's fine making money boys, but where the hell has your pride gone? I thought I'd get double digit playthoughs of DA:O. I managed 2. I tuned out of this one after 10 hours. I'll give you this one Bioware. I'll give you this one because you have done fantastically well by me in the past. But please, get your pride and integrity back.
