BL2 is still the same tedious game with countless boring fetch quests. I stopped playing it after jamming 30 hours or so on it. This game basically has no difference with BL1, I just feel my time is totally wasted.
In this newer installment of Tomb raider series, we follow the young Lara's first adventure which starts her career as a treasure hunter. Story-wise, I think this game's content is quite confusing sometime. Unlike Nolan's Batman Begins in which Bruce Wayne became a fighter after years' training, Lara 's growth from a naive college student to an expert adventurer is so quick that it makes little sense. I think the developers made the main story first then attached a origin story of Lara on it as a selling point. To me, it would be better making it just another story of Lara, but the stunt of "origin story" may attract larger audience. The strong aspect of the game is the presentation. This time, Tomb Raider completely abandoned the old gameplay formula and is more akin to Uncharted and Batman Arkham series, but the result, I have to say, is fluent and beautiful. It has none of the movement or camera problems from previous games and everything moves fluidly. The gameplay is great too. Tomb Raider introduced new ways of fighting enemies: covered gun-fighting, stealth killing, and sneaking which eventually makes the game very pleasant to play. Overall it's still a great action/adventure game with believable world and characters except for Lara's unbelievable transform. I will certainly recommend this game.
KoA is a fun game but nothing spectacular. Overall the game's structure is very similar to the elder scroll series. it has a fairly okay main story line as well as multiple faction quest lines. the gameplay, however, is very versatile. You can build your character by mixing skills from might, finesse and magic three skill trees. It also had diablo-like loot drop mechanics and a decent crafting system. So basically your character is very customizable. One major strength of this game is actually the combat since it's very flexible on how you want to fight. You can play as a mighty warrior smashing foes with huge hammers, as a powerful mage shooting fireballs and lightening bolts as a stealth rogue backstabbing enemies unnoticed or combine all fighting styles together. the combat action is fast-paced and satisfying no matter what fighting style you choose to play. KoA's fantasy setting is well thought-out but not interesting compare to, say, Skyrim. the quests became quite boring quickly and I end up just not caring about the story anymore after a while. in a word, if you want a rpg to immerse yourself in a fantasy world then KoA is not really a good choice, however if you just want to have some fun, this is the game to play.
Simply put this game is GREAT. First, the main story line is tight and well-written and I can safely say it would **** you in for very enjoyable 10 to 12 hours time. Several notable villains in Batman universe made appearance in the main game and I am surprised how well the devs put them together to form such an epic story. Kudos to B:AC's writer! Gameply is pretty much the same as BAA's, but this time you will have a small chunk of Catwoman's story in the main game and also you can use Catwoman to explore the Arkham city. Another major improvement is that there are more fun bat gadgets in this game which allows more variations for gameplay. The game feels much bigger than BAA since it not only had a large city to freely explore but also had a series of side quest lines. That is to say, you will have a lot of stuff to do after beating the main game or test your skills in various ranked or campaign maps. I would give the game a 10 by itself, but this game had a serious problem. I had a computer crash during the game. After the reboot, I found my save file corrupted, then I had to restart the campaign. At last, one miner warning: do not turn dx11 features on if you do not have a high-end computer. Final Verdict: 9/10
Overall this game is just a quick xbox360 build with optional key binds and additional content (they do not bother changing the on-screen key markers). To be frank, I played Demon's Souls as well as Dark Souls on PS3 and they both played and looked much better than this sloppy PC version. I know a lot of reviews here are biased because it is an amazing game, but it's really unfair to new comers. If you are a new player who do not own a console then you need to buy a gamepad first to make the game playable and enjoyable, then hassle for a while with the third party fan-made patch to make it look as nice as console version. I do not think those hassles should be placed on an average gamer. If you want to try this beautiful game on pc then I'd say wait it on sale for $10.
DNF may not be a bad game but it's really a bad duke nukem game. But still have to thank Gearbox for finishing this game although it's more of a nightmare. First, all the weapons feel like crap. None of the awesome weapons in the Duke Nukem 3d feel powerful in this game except railgun maybe. and you can only equip two weapons at a time. so most time you just have to run and gun like in most generic FPS. I mean it just does not feel like Duke nukem at all. The level design is not good either. Most encounters feel like playing a standard call of duty game which I clearly do not like. The only thing they manage to keep the theme of Duke Nukem with cheesy jokes. Overall this game is fun a few hours but quickly fun factors just fade away then it became a mediocre modern FPS. 3 out of 10.
Metro 2033 is a very atmospheric first person shooter/action game but unfortunately this game is hugely hampered by bad presentation. The visual effects of this game is quite impressive especially the lighting which really created a very realistic dark underground environment. The texture and character models are also great as well. The animations are also very well done and feel very smooth. The story is decent enough but the problem with the presentation is the most levels you run through just feel like fillers rather than any actual meaning. And most characters are so generic and pointless most time. you feel like they are there just to progress the story. The pacing of this game is also a little off most time since it just feels so full of pointless fillers. Gameplay wise, the difficulty of this game gets very inconsistent. The stealth mechanics is so broken that you will found some levels brutally hard. I personally just do not enjoy this game that much. if you are looking for a thriller FPS experience I would recommend Bioshock 1 and 2 instead.
Mass Effect 3 is a well made experience to say the least. The overall combat action is very fast and fluid though there are quite a few animation glitches here and there but aren't serious enough to ruin things. The six basic classes are played differently, so the combat itself had replay values. The enemy AI are improved a bit but still feels weak most time. The pause function really ruined this game imo which made this single player game rather easy. The story is epic in scope compare to the previous two entries but some new plots are not well explained. I wont put spoilers here, but the game indeed will confuse you if you ever played the first two mass effect games. the newly released extended cut added more explanations, though I do not feel it helped **** playable characters are significantly reduced compare to mass effect 2 which leads to a shorter story line. the playable contents in single player part are noticeably less than those in mass effect 2. you should be able to finish most single player contents in 30~35 hours. However, the game did add a quite fun multilayer portion to compensate the shorter single player game. there are lots of unlockables in multilayer, so it should keep you busy for one or two months. despite the flaws, I still would say mass effect 3 is a very solid game combining fun combat, epic storyline and interactive cinema. It's still a memorable adventure and a must play for people who loved storytelling in video games.
this is an okay role playing game, but not if you don't like to talk to various NPC. The game is set ancient china and the player will play as a cast out prince who tries to find out the conspiracies behind an empire. there are lots of side quests and lots of story line. Don't play unless you like to take your time because this game is lengthy. The game is played more like dungeon siege but overall experience is more like neverwinter nights since it does have strong characterization and quite a lot dialogue. Also you will find that there is no real structure in the game so you kind of wander around a bit. Personally, I like that it seems more realistic and more freedom. Story line pretty cheesy and reminds me of a dungeon siege 1, but cheese can be OK sometimes. Also I personally like its ancient China setting, another game from Bioware called Jade Empire has a similar setting but overall this game has more depth on role playing aspects.
The Witcher 2 has some key design failures. The inventory system is as bad as Oblivion. the fighting style is still limited to a steel sword(or whatever else) and a silver sword, and the game plays more like a hack & slash type combat plus rolling around .I do like they add traps and throwing-weapons, which will make the game significant easier when facing large crowd of monsters or long-range enemies, but I think they should bring group sword style back or add more fight styles, because for a RPG combat, you should provide the gamer as many different approaches as possible, not limiting the combat styles. some of stupid boss fights QTEs makes the game's combat even frustrating. The witcher 2's narrative resembles most good RPGs but not very innovate, at beginning it utilize a frame narrative similar to Alpha protocol to help you to get into the story. the dialogs and interactive scenes are also presented in a similar way like mass effect, they also add some time based dialog choices, but those are nothing new. On the good side though, this game has a very strong story line with significant branching. you can expect to face a couple of hard decisions. Since I do not really have a high-end graphic card, so can not experience the extraordinary graphics of the witcher 2. I am running the game on 8800GTX , the game still looks fine on low-setting. I had about 30 frame rate, but saying this game has been perfectly crafted is overrated. you will experience a lot of lag for loading when you are running around, and the game does freeze or suddenly shut down at times.
There are non-stop complains about mass effect 2 after its release. I, for one, genuinely believe this game is a ground breaking game that beautifully combined shooter gameplay with a role playing storyline and it's also the best game Bioware offered so far after Baldur's Gate series. The most problems people complained at are actually what makes mass effect 2 truly shine. I understand die hard RPG fans are very hard to please, but the game has to evolve to get better. Mass Effect 2 did it and did it brilliantly. First, the removal of redundant inventory makes mass effect 2 a very well paced game. One of major bad design in mass effect is its painful inventory system. so you are a distinguish soldier and a spectre and you still have to kill mobs to loot better weapons and armors or sell those stuff for credits? why the council does not supply the best gears and funds to you? Also, dont you feel weird that a human being can carry dozens of guns and armors with him. Mass Effect 2 did it right, shepard can only carry several guns on mission and every weapon you start with is still viable in later game, also you get funds directly from Cerberus. Those changes are made for better experience. One thing I do miss is the weapon mods. they could do it like deus ex that gives a small and limited space to store some extra stuff. Second, character development is still a huge part of gameplay and the skills and abilities are still necessary for combat and social especially when mass effect 2's shooting mechanics is actually not that great. Some people think that role-playing means running around for meaningless side quests (mass effect 1 comes to mind) and keeping track of stats. I would those are not what defines role playing game. Mass Effect 2 gives the player the true immersion that you can expect from a role playing story line. That means taking a role and feel your role not plodding with meaningless exploration and stats.
Despite the weak story, this is a good old school party based RPG, much like Baldurs Gate/Neverwinter Nights seires but of course in very good 3D graphics. Although nothing really stands out as different than those games in the same type, it's still fun to play. The game does have some flaws. First thing you will notice is the bad camera, though it's not clunky enough to ruin things but just feels very uncomfortable. The other thing that not very good is the linear gameplay and dialogue. There are nearly no story branching in this game and combat gets repetitive the more you play. At last the game's journal system is poorly written and it does not offer enough information for quests, so most time you have to run around to find the destination. Generally Drakensang is a game for die-hard RPG fans, but I do not recommend this to people just play RPG for stories.
It's lucky I got this game through my video card purchase and thoroughly enjoyed it for 60 hours with two play through. I am new to Deus Ex franchise and immediately got hooked in first couple of hours. The presentation and dialogs are handled similar to mass effect which I liked very much. However, the main strength of this game is the game mechanics. It's unusual for a game that combines so many aspects together. there are so many paths in each level to take, you can sneak past your enemies, or you could silently take down each enemy and hide their bodies, or you could grab a machine gun to fight your way through and if you increase your hack abilities, it will open even more ways to approach your goal. It's just so much fun to try each way out . I recommend it to any general PC gamer and I also bought the original deus ex at direct2drive. hope it will be as good.
After 50 hours log into to this game, I still found this game is an empty and hollow game. Skyrim has hardly any immersion. The story is bland. You can tell they created the bells and whistles THEN created the storyline around it. Which is sad. As an RPG, it should be more concerned with the story. Then the bells and whistles pull you in even further. Bethesda is losing track on what made morrowind so enjoyable. To go from Morrowind to Oblivion then to Skyrim are huge steps backwards. This game was released with lots of bugs and even broken on PS3, Bethesda clearly choose quantity over quality. They do not even bother to polish the game. I'd say Don't buy it right now. Wait for the price to come down to $20.
Fallout 3 has potential but suffers a lot from mediocre game design. First problem of fallout 3 is the gameplay. The V.A.T.S. system of location-specific targeting has been added to sort of simulating turn-based combat for those interested, but it is poorly done with some repetitive and boring killing animations. Gameplay is primarily first-person, but it turns out not working very well since you are not able hit anyone if not using awkward V.A.T.S system at the beginning. Second the game's quests are mostly done with linear solutions. In Fallout 2, most of quests can be done in different ways. it seemed that there would be a lot of choices in how Fallout 3's quests were to be solved but shortly after going into the game, those different solutions tend to fade away especially for the main quest. Fallout 3 tries to give you an illusion of choices to impact the story but it actually does not offer any non linearity in the quest structure. But I still would say Fallout 3 is a fun game to kill time in a virtual, massive and varied world, just do not treat it like a fallout game, it just does not have the spirit of Fallout.
Fallout NV is noticeably better than fallout 3. This game is actually more like the original Fallout 2 and really true to the lore in first 2 games. I bought it recently so most bugs are already fixed and the crashes and freezes does not occur frequently. So those technical problems did not bother me. The atmosphere is pretty much the same as Fallout 3 which is not bad, and the graphics look prettier and more colorful. Details in the weapons are very well done and weapon mods allow more in-depth gameplay. The game's difficulties are still easy even on very hard though I have not tried hardcore mode yet. The main plot line is very well done and I thoroughly enjoyed it for 60 hours. The story starts boring but eventually is built up to something great. There are a couple of factions that you can interact with during the main quest line and your decisions will alter the outcomes through the whole story. Obsidian really put their deep role playing game making experience again into fallout universe to make a worthy sequel to fallout 2 (do you think New Vegas is somehow similar to New Reno in Fallout 2? ). If you are a fan since fallout this game is a must have. if you like fallout 3, NV's overall style is the same so still a good buy.
Maybe in my gaming life, I will never like an arcade type shooter game. Counter Strike, Modern Warfare and this highly acclaimed UT 2004 all seem very average to me. It's just a mindless shooting game. You run around boringly repetitive 'arenas' and shoot other people who are trying to shoot you. Most gameplay modes are just feeble attempts at making the run-and-shoot idea which in my narrow mind is an inferior gameplay design. For example, the 'capture the flag' mode, which should involve strategy, planning, and team coordination (similar to Battlefield 2). But no, you just run. And shoot. And when you get a flag, you run, while being shot at. Yet, I am not suggesting people not to try this game, I believe some people who are obsessed with this type of shooter would love it anyway. However, if you think a small amount of deliberate gameplay on the part of the design is important, just get away from this game.
The single player mode of this game is actually OK. Danger Close does a great job at creating an immersive single player campaign that follows a storyline set in 2002-2005 Afghanistan in response to the United States' anti-terrorism campaign. The game suffers from a weak enemy AI which makes the game incredibly easy. Overall the campaign is enjoyable, though short. The multiplayer is repetitive. The maps are good, some are better than others, while some are chaotic depending on what type of game you are playing. Problems with it is its design concept. The multiplayer is nothing like battlefield more like CoD style but with less depth in classes which makes game even less enjoyable in multiplayer session. Overall, The game felt rushed, and design idea is poorly executed. I recommend to get the game below $10 if you do want to play the SP campaign.
I played gothic 3 with community patch 1.74 which fixed most serious problems of this game so the performance issues and bugs did not bother me much. Despite the flaws, gothic 3 is truly an immersive open world RPG. The exploration, unlike in Oblivion, is actually fun, and it's interesting to loot some surprising treasures after beating tough foes. The faction setting in this game is utterly good. You can side with different factions and ends up with different endings. The gameplay is also very non-linear. In many cases you can just talk your way out or you can smash them to death. Though the story in gothic 3 is terrible, it's not that bad considering that you have a massive world to explore. The graphics is still ok in today's standard and you pretty much are able to max its setting in mid-range PC nowadays. I personally think Gothic 3 is The elder scrolls IV: Oblivion should have been. Highly recommended if you enjoyed Morrowind.
The Witcher EE together with Dragon Age Origins are my favorite modern computer RPGs in this gaming generation. The story in the Witcher has a very deep scope as it follows the journey of the witcher Geralt of Rivia to reveal the imbroglio in a nation and all the dark secrets. The game features a lot of moral choices which will yield different consequences in the later game and you have to do a lot of dialog choices to uncover various quests. Combat is entertaining and somehow tactical, you will need to choose right fight styles against different types of enemies as well as use effective portions. Inventory is the only disadvantage because the space is really limited, so strategy is needed. Overall it's a great rpg with a deep storyline driving it. The game still has problems, long loading time and instant crashes do occur but not often enough to ruin the immersion. If you enjoy games like dragon age origins, I am sure you will love this game.
Arcanum by its concept is much like fallout 1. Fans of the Fallout games will find a similarly interesting setting, sense of humor and alternative solutions to quests. Fans of complex RPGs will be surprised by the depth and length of the game. However if you are more interested in a linear game like diablo or elder scorlls games, do not bother with this one. The steam-punk setting is fantastic and well-designed. The plot is long and involved. The system for using technology is quite fun. Characters can literally take bits and pieces of things and assemble them into everything from hand grenades to healing salves. The major disadvantage of this game is the combat. There are no party damage whatsoever, so you can just throw grenade everywhere without hitting yourself and party members which quite ruin the fun of combat. Critical hits and misses are too common, with sometimes drastic results, such as scarring or even crippled limbs. Also you can not control your party members directly, and their behavior will sometime frustrated you.
Although generally I had no interests in RTS games, have to say warcraft III is kinda a game that even can get a role playing game fanatic like me into it. Cast absolutely all doubt aside that Blizzard might have lost its touch in games like diablo 3 and the new world of warcraft expansions, Warcraft III is an absolute good game. This game is far from being an RPG, but The light amount of RPG elements infused in the game are so appropriate since you will be spending a great deal of each campaign story with a given character and you would like them to grow somewhat between missions while you are still forced to rebuild the rest of your base and those character focus story-telling through the campaign helped so much to build something really great to the end. Yet WAR III is essentially an online game, but I really do not find the online match that frustrated like starcraft, because other than building a base and army, the hero can be a very key role in the game match. Also in the game mod called DOTA, you can only play as just a hero to against each other which is really a very good online competitive experience.
Bioshock may not live up to system shock 2, but it's still a great game. my problem with this game is it tries to combine shooter gameplay and RPG elements, but did not do a good job on either side. In a intense shooter you expect to be able to aim for a critical shot, and for rpg elements, you expect something that is truly your own play style. The shooter mechanics in bioshock is average. There are no covers, no sniper rifles. All you do just go straight to shoot bullets. There are a couple of powers (Plasmids) that you can use, but only 2~3 of them are actually useful. Comparing to system shock 2 which has a very solid RPG mechanics with minor shooter gameplay, this one feels a little bit cheap. Although the twisted story is somewhat impressive, the two moral paths in this game just does not make any sense (harvesting one little sister suddenly makes me evil?). The only aspect that levitates this game from good to great is the incredible atmosphere. overall, it's a 8 out 10, worth playing through once.
I still remember putting hours and hours of my early life into this game. Although this game has a really long learning curve since it's built on complex D&D rules, it's such an epic experience that you wont regret spending time on it. It may be too arbitrary to claim Baldur's Gate II is the best game ever made, but it's arguably the best mainstream RPG over all platforms. The game has excellent pacing and provides enough challenge. Game experience will be different with different party members, as all playable NPCs come with distinctive banter, side quests, and classes/abilities. Also The game packs all the stuff an RPGer would love: endless quests, believable characters, deep customization, various fighting styles, tons of unique treasures, enthralling main storyline, and lots of explorations. Pick any aspect of the game and it would be greater compare to other RPGs out there. If you are an RPG fan who has not played this, buy this game on gog and play it now.
Counter Strike is a good multiplayer shooter. You probably will find hours of fun if you enjoy online shooter game. The mechanics of the game is simple but works well. Players purchase weapons and accessories with money they have received. Money is received in portions determined by the server each round plus bonuses for the following: team win, kills, completed objectives, and other miscellaneous factors. The game does offers a great depth of strategy for each individual player and teamwork is fairly important in it. The major failure of the game is it's one of the most hacked games ever. Because the the engine is open-source, modders creates lots of hacks to automatically aim their weapons for them. But right now they probably already moved to team fortress 2, so the game is still worth to pick up.
Dragon Age 2 is still a average to good game from Bioware. After putting 50 hours in this game, I can understand why so many people hate this game, but if you calm down and try to enjoy it you will find it has its won merit. I spent 45 hours on my first play through in hard difficulty, right now still on my 2nd play through in nightmare difficulty. Story wise, I read a lot of reviews saying how shallow the story is. However, I think the reason is most people are used to 'the lord of ring' formula. This game is not about slaying evil like the first game but a story through Hawke's life in Kirkwall. It seems there is no clear goal for the story, but there are lots of lore about dragon age world. The plot is simple, just about How the Ferelden refugee Hawke gains power in Kirkwall. But through Hawke's life you will find the conflicts between Qun and Chantry (the religion conflicts between human and qunari), you will know more about Dalish's and surface dwarves culture and of course you will learn more about the struggles between Templars and mages. The most engaging part of the game is Hawkes family and companions all have their own story, you wont feel they just suddenly pop out. Though the plot is pretty linear, you can still make lots of choices, side with different forces and influence how they will end including the companions. Origins did better Companion characters. Dragon age 2 is similar to Awakening. You can not interact with companions unless there are companion's quests. Of course there are a lot of quests from companions. Through those quests, you can push them to Friendship or Rivalry with Hawke based on your dialog choices. It's actually interesting to see how different they will treat Hawke as friend or as rivalry. And one thing I like about dragon age 2 is you actually can see how the companions are interacted with each other through cut scenes, also they will act differently as friend or as rivalry. To avoid the spoilers, I do not want to talk about companions in dragon age 2, but generally Origins' companions have more distinct personalities, of course you can see several cameos of them. Also the Warden in first game is cited a couple of times. as for combat, Many hardcore rpg gamers may hate this combat system. I can see the reason behind that. But generally combat in dragon age 2 is better and well balanced despite the animations. I did not play in easy and normal difficulties, because I know they are not designed for PC gamers. However, I found the hard mode is a satisfying tactical combat experience. Mages and rogues are vulnerable to physical damages and their actions will be interrupted often, so you will need to pause often and relocate them to avoid damage and use warrior to taunt enemies wisely. Boss fights will take quite a while, because of their huge amount of health and continuous reinforcements, however most bosses in the main plot are not very challenging, the hard parts are all in side quests. So it wont be very difficult to finish the game in hard mode. I played in nightmare for a few hours, it really takes a long time for a single battle, because you either have to relocate party members or kite frequently to avoid friendly fire or you have to kill enemies one by one without skills or spells with area effects. And bioware is being lazy on this, they put even more health and resistances to enemies but not working on AI, so some battles are just being tedious at the end. The environment design is the major flaw of this game. A lot of recycle dungeons and recycle music from Origins. I can see Bioware really rushed this game to be released (or EA forced them to rush). However, I probably will tolerate this, since this is really not the thing I care about. Because of the revamped combat system, I can see a lot of people will lose interests in this game, Though personally I do enjoy my first play through for 45 hours and I still have a couple of side quests I found but did not finish them. It's certainly shorter than Origins which took me 60 hours for first play through on hard mode. But this is still a good game if you really get into it. if you like party based tactical combat like dragon age origins and world of warcraft, I suggests you start with hard difficulty and most likely you will like dragon age 2.
Call of Duty 4 is not a good game. The best parts about the game are the sounds (pretty good); however, the rest of this game is painfully average. Half-Life 2 which was released 2 or 3 years before this has similar graphics and much better level design and story. Another good point is that the game is length being short so I do not have to force my self to continue its repetitive gameplay. The bad parts of the game? well, first the game is completely uninvolving or say not interactive and mostly because of its linear story and average level design. This game consists many levels in which you have to shoot tons of enemies. This makes game extremely repetitive. Also there are no interesting characters in this game and most time it just direct the player to a certain way with no intriguing or complex levels. Yet the game really does not have any story whatsoever. The online part is okay, although generally I do not like this kind of mindless shooter.
Bad company 2 is a average-good shooter. First, the single player campaign is very bland as it puts you in a very linear story and featured with too many cut scenes which are not needed in a FPS game. It does not have too much fun to be honest and seems like it's trying to copy Call of Duty style which in my opinion is always mediocre. I prefer the older single-player modes in the Battlefield series where you can practice your skills on various maps and play with different toys that you would find in multiplayer. Yes, Battlefield is always about online play and that's why people like it. Multiplayer mode, however, is good. The online action is intense and you must be smart on choosing a squad because if your team did not coordinate right you are going to lose. Also the game provide tons of the unlocks and achievements, so you could just dig them out for months. Final words, I will say BC2 is a good multiplayer shooter harmed by mediocre SP campaign, yet it's definitely worth checking out if you enjoyed online shooter games.
Simply put Battlefield 3 is great. If something can actually be called subtly awesome, Battlefield 3 is the case. Partly because of the generic art design, it's difficult at first to distinguish exactly what the game does better than comparable shooters, but the attention to detail, abundance of reflecting surfaces and complex lighting stands out the more you play it. Light in particular is used to good effect. And the other part makes battlefield 3 truly shine is the sound design. It just feels so real sometimes you even feels you are actually in that situation. I personally think this is truly an achievement in interactivity.
I got this game because most reviews say it somehow combines FPS gameplay and RPG elements. However, the RPG elements in this game are nothing but improving your character's stats and mindless looting. It's essentially just a diablo game without even good story telling. the NPCs you interact with are mostly wooden and dull without any story behind or interesting personality. The game is also suffered from way too many fetch and simple killing quests which are pointless and tedious, and gives no immersion in the game world. The aspects of the game that I find fairly good are solid shooting mechanics and four distinct classes which gives you some fun time and replay values. The game provides tons of looting but I find it rewards the player so quick that you really can not feel any accomplishment. Comparing to Mass effect 2 and Deus Ex which perfectly integrate RPG story-telling and gameplay into a shooter based game, Borderlands just feels too un-inspired and bland. I seriously can not recommend this game to anyone, since it's just pure a waste of time.
Battlefield 2 is a fantastic multiplayer shooter game. This game really shows a life-like warfare with tanks, jets and other vehicles in the battlefields. However note that this is NOT a standalone/singleplayer game at all that means it supposed to play online with others. Also the community keeps making new mods for the game, so still this game has tons of replay ability.
It's a shame that how bias and ignorant video game journalism is nowadays. The gameplay is formulaic? just combining a standard third person action and old-school platform? All COD games are the same, what say you? 9? 10? Invisible walls? you know almost every game has them. Long chapters and hidden collectibles make it a lengthy adventure?ah, now, the game length being long and hidden elements are disadvantages. my opinion about this game: Alice Madness Returns has beautifully twisted art style and atmosphere. the gameplay is not innovative but still fun. The game itself is filled with intense action, interactive environments, and interesting puzzles. Yes, Alice MR has its own problems, for example, the length is a bit short comparing to the original one and the control can be jerky at times. yet, playing through game is still an enjoyable experience. Overall a sold 8 out of 10.
This is a fun adventure game actually but the annoying controls ruin it completely. At various points, you lose the ability to control where you are looking and just have a fixed view, or have a changing view that the game controls instead of you. Sometimes those weird camera views make me dizzy. And even worse the direction keys are tied to view, so sometimes w is forward and sometimes it is sideways and sometimes it is back. I can not recommend this game on PC, maybe console version is better.
By far this is the best DLC I have ever played. the stunning visuals, highly intense combat sequences and two well-designed boss fights makes this dlc the most engaging gaming experience I have ever had so far. Despite the incredible level design for combat, every cinematic scene is well done and dialog writing is in line with the past mass effect contents. Also there are a lot of hilarious writing contents after beating the final boss. You will see how shadow broker was wiretapping other people including shepard's own crew. And also Liara is back as a temporary squad mate, if your shepard romanced her in first mass effect, you can expect some very touching moments which is a unique gaming experience. The only downside I have to say is it's a little bit expensive if you hadn't played the first mass effect. But if you liked mass effect 2, there is no reason to miss this.
this is a huge disappointment. yes, the guns and bomb is fun to play but but the AI is terrible, without you, your troops can barely manage to survives even odds. Even worse, suspicious your best troops start dying out of proportion in your absence. the strategic side of the game is also TERRIBLE. Varied terrain and cultures are gone, Social life is gone, Businesses is gone. what's left? banking system? it's broken any way. Your money is tied to the city it is deposited in, you'd better just haul around your money in case something bad happen. Final words, this is not a rewarding experience, warband mods are better than this crap.
The game play in warband has been improved with additional features. players can now kick enemies, making their foes open to an attack. Enemies are more difficult to hit because the hitboxes were changed to be more accurate. he singleplayer mode has been improved quite a bit. There is a wider variety of areas. Villages and castles now have a more unique feel for each faction.
The player can now become a king or queen, and may marry a lord or a lord's daughter.
There are more characters and scenarios in the custom battle mode. However I found the multiplayer mode is terribly done and unblanced. but I definitely recommend this to new players of the seires.
Mount & Blade is a hybrid of RPG elements and real-time strategy gameplay. It has all the elements of a fun game: character personalization,massive variety of weapons, armor, and horses, and also engaging large-scale mounted combat later on. Yeah it does not have even good graphics in the standard of current generation but that does not make it a bad game. the game play makes its way around to finally be executed wonderfully in a video game. Couple this with the medieval-like battlefield element of combat and you have truly memorable skirmish experiences--perhaps even stories to tell when defending or besieging keeps and cities. Despite the lackluster quality, it is still a solid fun game. A definite recommend if you enjoy RPG and strategy game play.
Risen is said to be the successor of the gothic series. I used to try playing gothic 1and 2 but never get into them, because of their weird interface and controls. but I actually liked Risen. the interface is intuitive and easy to handle. the controls are better than gothic games. you just use left mouse button to attack, right button to block and space to jump which makes it quite easy to get into battle and of course this game is hard, so at lower level, you'd better not get involved with some high level monsters or persons. In this game you have to learn skills from certain NPCs and they will charge you gold for that which is quite realistic. I suggest start with talking to various NPCs and get some easy fetch quests first. The exploration in this game is fun and level design is well-done though the characters' animations are very awkward. story wise it's not impressive however this game has several factions, when you joined one, the quests from other factions will be locked so there are some replay values here. overall if you want to find some realistic open-world RPGs, Risen is a good start but just keep in mind the world in Risen is dangerous even at the beginning if you used to a easy run like in oblivion you will be pissed :).
Let's say that this DLC's gameplay is what DA2 should have been. A couple of interesting puzzles, very nice Companion banters and dialogs(highly recommend Bethany and Sebastian or take Aveline or any LI your Hawke romanced ), and well-designed boss fights (the final boss battle is quite fun) gives this one some credits. Well the stealth mechanics is pretty broken and easy as hell. It's still not a long dlc (5 hours on Nightmare), but if you actually like how DA2 handle the interactions between the characters, then it has replay values. I gave it 7 out 10 for the mediocre stealth mechanics and overpriced tag and recommend this to people who liked DA2.
if this game is not dungeon siege, it's actually OK. Despite the awkward control on PC, I found it actually quite enjoyable to play through. The story is well done and the closure which gives you a summary for the choices made in the game is satisfying. The combat is a standard hack & slash plus more actions oriented elements. Most RPG elements have been significantly reduced in scope, at least when compared to first two dungeon siege games. There are really only a small handful of active skills to select and a very limited variety in items/drops. while the game is fun in its own unique way, the simplistic nature of the game warrants it only in a mediocre title.
There are nothing really bad about this game. Yeah, The control can be awkward at times. The game mechanics may be not well balanced. AI may be too simple. But really those aspects never ruin the game. The shooting is fine, and stealth actually does work most of time. the only thing that annoys me is just those insane mini games. The writting and story is at the same level of mass effect. The choices and consequences in this game are very well done which gives this game a great amount of replay values. I personally think this game is the best game Obsidian ever made. if you values the choices and consequences in the RPG and good story telling in video games, this is a game you must play.
Other than exceptional music, fantastic setting, several well-written characters and some emotional moments, this game is completely dull in gameplay. The game may be fun at beginning, but later it's just getting more and more repetitive and boring. very little creative strategy needed or possible. Yes, the setting is unique... but there's very little of it to explore. But I do hope they could make a sequel for it to fix those problems, since this Asian style is so fresh in the current major video game industry.
Neverwinter Nights 2 is actually superior than the first neverwinter nights in game design. It has a functional party system, some good companion characters, an interesting story line and lots of choices and consequences. However, this game's user interface is just terrible. there are three modes for camera angles which may drive people crazy because you have to press a button to change it not like in first neverwinter nights, just need to scroll up/down the middle mouse button. Also this game still has performance issue even with current patch. All I have to say, this game has potential but is not nearly as well-done as the original Neverwinter Nights. so I give it 7 out of 10.
Morrowind is one of best open world RPGs, maybe skyrim will be better but I do not know right now. As usual for a elder scroll title, the main story line is non-existence. But this game does give you extensive choices to customize your character. your character may pursue every skill in the game regardless of class and can learn a large number of spells and may even design his/her own. you may play your character as a good or evil character depending on your choices. The exploration in this game has lots of rewards. you most likely will find some unique items after some very tough situations. The faction setting in this game is fun too, you can establish relations with them to get benefits.
Still do not understand why this game is so well received. It may be good for newcomers of this series, but it is neither as massive as daggerfall nor as fun as morrowind. The setting in this game is painfully average. The leveling system is broken unless you use mods to fix it. Quests are quite repetitive and there is not much story associated with those quests, so you end up with doing the same things over and over again. The setting for the factions in this game is just terrible comparing to morrowind. In morriwind, you can establish social relations with different factions, and you can be smooth and slick with them to achieve a lot of benefits which is tons of fun. The factions in oblivion are just like a bunch of quest generating machines to extend the game time. Overall it's a good entry to elder scroll series but probably the worst elder scroll game.
Planescape Torment is a masterpiece of work in RPG video game genre. The characters, individually, are among the best you will encounter in a game and all are with deep backstories and interesting personality and The massive amount of dialog used to present its story. Dialog trees stretch sometimes up to 10+ options, each with several subcategories, and with several more sub-sub categories. Those dialog lines often will take quite some time to absorb which is why this game is not as popular as Baldur's Gate series. The story in this game is incredibly good. You play the game as a character that can never be killed and nameless. What you do in the game is to discover who you were, why things are happening, and what to do next, so you are truly role play a Character as you want to be. Although it did a tremendous job on story telling, the gameplay in this game falls a bit short. The pacing in this game is too slow and since you can not die, it really take a lot fun from the game itself. So overall it's a 9 out 10, I like Baldur's Gate 2 better
ToEE is a good RPG. It has a deep turn-based combat system implemented with D&D 3.5 rule set. The story line is very generic to be honest with you, pretty much as bad as Neverwinter Nights. The dialog is very plain compare to games like Planescape Torment and Baldur's Gate. The game's main focus lies clearly on the combat aspect which is quite enjoyable to play although it's not as tight as Baldurs **** you like d&d games or strategy-focused game play, this is a good choice.
This is a well-written and good role playing game although it really does not offer too much character development. The scope and imagination in this game is top-notch in sci-fi genre. However, similar to many other games, it suffers from many design failures including repetitive combat, reused environments, inconvenient user interface (inventory system is so bad), and technical problems (crash, freeze and long elevator loading). This game's story and character design is quite like Knights of the old republic. There are many twists in the plot line and you can choose two different moral paths. However, I personally feel its real-time combat system is better than KotOR at least it's not that boring while the down side is you can not directly control your squad members. I give it 8 out 10 since mass effect 2 did a better job on the overall game design.
I have to say it first this is not my type of game. I appreciated Bioware creating such a great story and awesome characters after the absolutely dull neverwinter nights, but the gameplay of this game is really bad. The problem I have mostly lies in the combat system. I've played D&D based games, so I understand this kind of RPG system however the combat in this game is boring, repetative, slow and unrealistic. You end up selecting attack actions, and waiting for your character to do them over and over again. On the good side though this is an extensive role playing story line with a real cool light side/dark side choice system in place that lets you really develop a character.
This game is no Baldur's Gate imo. But it has a different purpose and that's multiplayer and endless modding. One of down side of Neverwinter Nights' gameplay is you can control only one character, instead of a whole 6-persons party. True, this is dissapointing in a way, but the game is meant for playing with other people online with various mods. Story wise, I can not say the main plot is terrible but it's too generic and predictable. The game also suffers from way too many fetch quests (Comparing to Bioware's Modern Games, it's quite like Dragon Age 2) . However, I do LIKE this game as it offers fun multi-player experience. Overall, it's a great game but do not expect a masterpiece like baldur's gate series
