András Gregorik @Delamir
Reviews
BloodNet (DOS)
The original urban-dystopian RPG
The Good
This game was never really a fan favourite. I can see why, but it's also clear to me why it was one of my cherished games as a late teen.
The collective of writers, graphic artists and composer(s) in Bloodnet is nothing short of brilliant when it comes to setting a particular mood. I would label this unique mood as, well, urban-dystopian-futuristic-cyberpunk-gothic-mystic: a deliciously unique mess that ends up being both oppressive and enchanting at the same time, which is quite a feat in my book. Especially four years before the original Fallout.
It's amazing what Microprose can bring out of the dedicated player with little more than a mixture of pre-rendered and handdrawn futuristic stills, and peculiar midi music to match. Especially back then as a teen, Bloodnet's distinctive atmosphere engulfed my very essence and managed to linger around me even when I was not actually playing it. Few games (or movies, or books) are capable of this, as it takes a certain kind of giftedness, one that this bunch of developers happened to possess.
I also like the fact that Bloodnet is a game of alloys: it fuses classic adventure with RPG, a distant future with Medieval vampire myths, a bright and loud metropolis with a dark and silent mystery, a detailed and possible future with implausible supernatural goings-on. This aspect was accomplished well.
The Bad
On the other hand, the game feels like it is not interested in letting us actually play it, but only in showing off its cool graphics, ambient music and, above all, writing. At the same time, it clearly has high ambitions of attempting to merge the genres of laidback point-and-click adventure and rigid stat-based RPG. The end result is a weird mishmash of endless conversations, heavy turn-based combat, and wandering about on motionless landscapes. Weirdness can be a good and a bad thing, and in this case it's both. Part of the appeal, I think (at least for me).
My biggest beef with the overall experience is the pre-scripted, absolutely non-interactive dialogs. Again, the sprawling, gritty conversations in this game are masterfully written and are just as memorable, if not more, than the ones in big-time sci-fi movies like Blade Runner, but leaving them non-interactive is the biggest deal-breaker, a missed chance for an additional layer of depth and player involvement.
The Bottom Line
Bloodnet is not a good game. It feels static and almost non-interactive. It is, however, a good experience. So good that it ended up as one of the very few games from the early 90's that I actively revisit from time to time.
The ultimate praise I can give the game, I think, is that it is a spiritual and atmospheric precursor to the Deus Ex series and VTM: Bloodlines, which are of course much better games, but Bloodnet holds its own against them in terms of mood, writing and originality. No small feat for a 1993 DOS game.
By András Gregorik on August 15, 2014
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders (DOS)
The mother of all point-n-click adventures to come.
The Good
When I was around 12 and this game first made a splash on the scene, I pretty much became obsessed with it. It was nothing I've experienced before on my trusty C64: its breadth and atmosphere felt just surreal. I could submerge in it for entire weekends. Granted, I used to progress awfully slowly in adventure games, prone to savour and take in every new location for quite a while.
On a less personal note, this game was the first truly accomplished, epic point-n-click adventure game -- or 'arcade adventure' as we called them back then. It really gave Sierra a run for their money by taking to the next level everything the then-simplistic Quest franchise stood for.
It had heartfelt dialogs, an intricate if goofy plot, plenty of good ideas and in-jokes, loads of locations, and even a catchy theme song. In other words, it was a cut above the Quest series it was designed to challenge.
Significantly, it also directly paved the way for the more sophisticated Monkey Island duo by boldly experimenting with the SCUMM design system.
The Bad
The maze scenes; these were obvious fillers in a game that didn't need filler material.
Also, if you're much older than 12 or 13 -- which I think was my age at the height of my Zak fandom --, you might find the plot and the characters a tad too juvenile.
The Bottom Line
Lucasfilm's adventure department evolved in leaps and bounds after this game, releasing a classic a year, so in retrospect their 1988 effort may not look much.
But as the first Lucasfilm adventure game that requires more than just a casual approach, Zak McKracken's spot is forever secured in the annals as an important release.
By András Gregorik on August 12, 2014
Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer (Windows)
Unfairly ignored because of a dated engine
The Good
Everything about this largely ignored game works despite infamously reusing the M&M 6 and 7 graphics engine. I'll cut to the chase by talking about a single aspect: atmosphere.
This one may be the most atmospheric Might & Magic in the entire series; no, I'm not exaggerating. Tinting and colored lighting seem to be a great help. The Abandoned Temple finally feels like an abandoned temple and not like papier-mache cutout. Alvar feels like a small town and not like a set of polygons.
There are little touches here and there that were pretty much absent from previous parts: like a tiny park in Alvar with a pedestal in the middle that glows in the dark; or the tomb near Ravenshore with the eerie red glow on its top. Also, the game boasts more varied landscapes, more detailed textures in general.
As a result, one feels sucked into this world instantly, something that may not quite work with previous installments.
The Bad
True, it is all less than original: a variation on the age-old theme really. Questmaster > dungeon > monsters > questitem > questmaster > levelup. That's it. And there are still problems with NPC interaction (or lack of it). Villagers are still drones telling us the same lines over and over again.
Many players label this series 'pure RPG' -- and quite falsely. M&M 8 is still closer to the action genre than to the all-immersive, in-depth role-playing experience embodied by the Gothic and Elder Scrolls series.
The Bottom Line
I for one enjoyed M&M 8 more than M&M 6 which, despite being a lot more popular, feels stale and spartan in comparison. The designers were in absolute control of their engine the third time around and felt free to experiment with it -- to the benefit of the player. It's okay to pass on M&M9, but M&M8 is an appropriate swansong to a highly esteemable 15 year-old series.
By András Gregorik on July 26, 2014
Risen 2: Dark Waters (Windows)
The best pirate game since Sid Meier's Pirates.
The Good
Leave it to Piranha Bytes to serve up a wholesome, open-world pirate-themed roleplaying game, the best in a long while -- one which, in practice, feels like a cross between Risen and Monkey Island 2. That's obviously a first, and it's great that they once again came up with something original. A contrasting, more pragmatic definition could be that it's a quintessential Caribbean adventure force-fed into the Risen setting for franchising purposes.
Risen 2 came on the heels of the global success of Skyrim, which means that its timing was perfect. I'm not sure it was a conscious choice from Piranha Bytes though, who always struck me as a defiantly independent mind in the face of the ebbs and flows of a rather tyrannical games industry, focusing on one thing only: releasing deep, engrossing open-world games, one after the other, for the hardcore player. Let's see if they succeeded a fifth time:
An immersive atmosphere. Piranha Bytes' forte, their enduring talent was always the evocation of a strong, distinctive mood, and Risen 2 is a roaring triumph in this respect. I don't even know how they do it, but every little place oozes a steamy, in-your-face, I'm-being-there tropical feel, complete with realistic weather effects and day-night cycling. What I always loved about their games is how they manage to infuse a gritty, naturalistic atmosphere with that of an enchanting fairy tale. As a result, Risen 2 feels like both how 17th century Caribbean drudgery must have felt like (cutthroats, schemes, sickness, danger and death on every corner), and how it lives on in our postmodern public consciousness: an idyllic, enchanted archipelago with its archetypal buccaneers, treasure chests and damsels in distress.
An advanced engine. In fact, this is the most advanced graphics engine I've experienced yet. There's just something about it that eases the player into immersion from the word go. It must be the combination of its being optimized for mostly unrestricted free-roaming, a super-far viewing distance, and a pitch perfect rendition of geographical reliefs, bodies of water and vegetation. With some config file tweaking (as in Risen 1), viewing distance and the lushness of vegetation can be further advanced to a jaw-dropping extent.
Freedom of exploration. This is what separates the men from the boys, so to speak, or the dedicated and generous world designers from the lazy, formula-following ones. Creating an open world clearly involves much more work and dedication. To me, there was always something special about open-world games, right back to 1987's original Pirates, or even 1984's Seven Cities of Gold. I feel that open-world RPG's transcend their genre and approximate to a real-world experience in a way no other entertainment product is capable of. Modern 3D open-world games are almost scary in this respect. At their very best, they are realistic adventure trips for $30 or less. And Risen 2 is among the very best.
A streamlined crafting system. Piranha Bytes' games always required a high degree of micromanagement (of wearable gadgets, potion ingredients, blacksmithing parts and so on) which is the salt and pepper of open-world roleplaying games. Here they also introduce a 'pistol/musket' and a 'voodoo' system -- in concert with the 17th century Caribbean setting -- and get the corresponding micromanagement down to an art form. They became such experts in implementing this complex under-the-hood stuff that it feels seamlessly organic, a natural part of the game's fabric, unlike in several other games.
The Bad
This is Piranha Bytes' first "semi-open" roleplaying game. I admit it was a minor shock when I first realized that completed areas get locked down -- at least for a while -- once we leave them. Gothic 1-2-3's main claim to fame was that they provided a single huge sandbox of a game area where every nook and cranny was physically accessible. Instead of a huge sandbox, they opt for multiple smaller sandboxes here: an interesting, fresh approach that does sacrifice some of the old magic of the Gothic entries and Risen 1.
The studio's main weakness continues to be the somewhat banal characters, along with their cheesy names and especially their short, sketchy dialogs that get to the point too fast without any flourish or flair. Granted, there are a zillion sidequests, and the writers might feel that longer, better dialogs would overwhelm and distract the player, given this overabundance. But I think that being distracted and overwhelmed would be a good thing in this case. Hey, Skyrim and Fallout: New Vegas got away with it. In fact, they are regarded the pinnacle of modern roleplaying games.
Speaking of Skyrim, there is definitely much less than 100+ hours worth of material in here. Continuing with their new habit started with Risen 1, the game clocks in at around 40 hours, which disqualifies Risen 2 as a potential contender with the biggest boys of the genre.
The Bottom Line
In a day and age when ambitious open-world roleplaying games come in scarcity, Risen 2 is an unlikely gift to the unhurried connoisseur. It is among the most atmospheric and evocative games ever produced, and it more or less does to a quasi-Caribbean setting what Skyrim did to a quasi-Scandinavian setting. In a perfect world, where a couple of sophisticated open-world RPG's would be released every year, we wouldn't normally ooh and aah at Risen 2 given its shortcomings. Alas, the world is imperfect, and Piranha Bytes are one of the last lions, so every one of their roars should be cherished and savoured.
By András Gregorik on February 4, 2014
Mata Hari (Windows)
Strong pedigree, weak results.
The Good
Historical edutainment adventure titles are a dime a dozen, and the only reason I decided to take a closer look at Mata Hari is because its designers are Noah Falstein and Hal Barwood. While not exactly famous, these names might ring a bell in 'proper' LucasArts fanboys and 80's to 90's point-n-click purists.
Falstein was an instrumental early designer at Lucasfilm Games, later acting as consultant and/or co-designer on virtually all classic LucasArts adventure titles. Barwood used to be a close associate of Steven Spielberg, and was more of an outsider at LucasArts until he joined forces with Noah to create The Fate of Atlantis, a benchmark classic still widely played two decades after its release.
Well, as a sad sign of our times, both have proceeded to spend most of the 2000's designing what could be regarded as casual console games, so I was excited when I discovered that they teamed up in 2007 to create this full-length title -- for German studio Cranberry, as LucasArts wouldn't be caught dead these days supporting a point-n-click adventure (sigh).
Do we have another Fate of Atlantis on our hands? No, not exactly. This is a low budget effort which is not necessarily a bad thing -- see the Law of Diminishing Returns for why many big budget games fail. In fact, the game lacks the urgency and passion of classic LucasArts titles, but there are some things to like.
While there aren't many locales, the hand-drawn backgrounds are uniformly wonderful and evocative. Sound is adequate, but the music appears to be patched together from short sound bytes, making the soundtrack repetitive.
I like the fact that the game is frank about the risque aspect of its protagonist's chosen career as a duplicitous seductress. It's far from being graphic in its depiction, but there are scenes which actually find her in bed with some of her "persons of interest", complete with erotic lingerie.
The dialogues themselves are often sophisticated, venturing into topics like fashion, 1910's European life, the looming war, all in all suggesting that the game is intended for a mature audience.
Well, so much about the upside...
The Bad
Mata Hari is a storehouse of what many people detest about stereotypical point-n-click adventure games. Incessant commuting between the same couple of overexposed locations, a lack of world interaction, a lack of immersion, long non-interactive conversations, annoying and contrived "maze" sections, reflex- and/or logic-based minigames that stick out of the gameplay like a sore thumb, cliché codebreaking puzzles, a general sense of triteness, and a lack of dynamism in the gameplay and the plot.
It's like window shopping: the game entices us with the promise of a globetrotting espionage adventure, then we find that glamorous Paris ends up being a 3-screen wide small town, Monte Carlo a 2-screen wide village, Madrid a single-screen town square.
The Bottom Line
Given its strong pedigree and the fact that it was supposed to be a comeback of sorts, Mata Hari is a disappointment. It has just a modicum of the inspiration and invention of the lauded 1990's titles its designers were involved in. Only its well-written dialogues serve as a reminder of the fact that it's actually coming from semi-retired adventure gaming royalty. But it's not enough to save it from being a bore, even with its short playing time.
Full-length point-n-click adventure games can be a deep, rewarding, enchanting experience. Just see Gabriel Knight, Monkey Island 2, Death Gate, Mission Critical or Grim Fandango for prime examples. The genre's late 90's demise tells us more about our ADD/ADHD-affected times than about adventure gaming itself. And Mata Hari, an uninspired, derivative game, tells us that LucasArts' veteran designers will probably not play a role in the much-needed revival of the adventure genre.
By András Gregorik on January 28, 2014
Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir (Windows)
Both a nostalgia trip and a visionary experiment
The Good
In their campaign to push the original NWN1 role-playing template in all kinds of unorthodox directions, this time around Obsidian expands the Aurora engine to host an extraordinary hybrid of Neverwinter Nights 2, Settlers, and Heroes of Might & Magic. That's right. No wonder it failed to get the attention of either NWN2 or the Mask of the Betrayer add-on: Storm of Zehir requires patience and time just to figure your way around the genre-bending weirdness of this package. Then it requires extra patience and time to make enough money by trading (Settlers portion), to reach higher levels by hunting down enough mobs and doing enough local sidequests (Heroes of Might & Magic portion), and to complete the overarching plot and its subquests (NWN2 portion) in order to finish the game.
I did take the time and now I take my hat off to Obsidian realizing that they managed to push NWN2's envelope even further than Mask of the Betrayer and get away with it. Such bold and creative experimentation with an RPG engine and mechanics is to be commended.
Storm of Zehir catches us off guard because most of us approach it as "just another small scale NWN add-on". It does start off like that, but soon it blossoms into an epic experience that is only comparable to the most ambitious roleplaying games of recent times. And even that description fails to do it justice as essentially it's three games rolled into one. Let's count the ways:
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Part of the framework here is to go VERY old school. It's an unexpected move since NWN2 and MotB both excelled in being forward-looking and experimental. But Zehir actually far surpasses them as an experiment. It starts off by adopting the wide-eyed, enchanted feeling of typical 1980's RPG's -- which was the best bit about them -- without falling into their traps of repetitiveness and eventual boredom.
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This time, it's truly open ended, a game of the ignore-the-main-quest-and-explore-the-country variety which is vastly different from previous NWN games. It's a small miracle that the Aurora engine could pull this off.
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Obsidian serves us their own version of Heroes of M&M seemingly without even trying. Because it's all based on the pre-existing NWN character, prestige and leveling system, which is one of the most complex and better-implemented CRPG systems ever, the game ends up as something that's arguably more intriguing and deeper than the actual Heroes of M&M series.
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The trading system is not tacked on but forms an organic part of the whole. The game even manages to make this open-ended trading between towns a plot development device that makes the role-playing portion roll forward.
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Even if the focus is not on in-depth characterizations this time, the game does not sacrifice lengthy, colorful dialogues as a lesser game would. The result is almost overwhelming, in a good way: the characters are alive, and the trading system is alive, and the sidequests are alive.
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For once, the light, cheerful approach and the sunny tropical setting feel refreshing rather than juvenile, especially if you come to Zehir directly after completing the dark and oppressive MotB. This includes some odd characters like Volo who seem to be added mostly for comic relief.
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The engine's graphical aspects seem to be upgraded. All aspects of Zehir's graphics are pretty, even in 2012. The dimly lit tropical caves are some of the most beautiful ones I've seen in a game.
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The overland travel system is typical 80's stuff, well implemented. It surely is more interesting than the static region maps that most contemporary RPG's try to get away with for long distance travel.
The Bad
Yes, there are trade-offs. The plot IS thinner than in any previous Obsidian games, and far less interesting than MotB's storyline. The random mob encounters every 2 minutes ARE frustrating and draining, but they are a necessary evil needed to propel the open-ended mechanics forward (by giving plenty of XP). Towns ARE tiny and forgettable this time, because the game scheme needs many of them. Our optional cohorts are NOT very interesting this time, lacking elaborate background stories, but there's a good selection of them. To sum up, it's often quantity over quality with Zehir. This is the first Obsidian game to feature some unsavory elements from the hack-n-slash genre, which is almost the equivalent of a Steven Spielberg stooping to direct a porn film.
The limited, mediocre Aurora engine creaks and suffers under the daunting task of having to support this hybrid monster. Even with the final patch I've encountered a nasty show-stopping bug that required me to edit my savegame so I could progress. Come on, Obsidian!..
It all sounds worse than it actually is. Zehir does deserve that you give it a try.
The Bottom Line
It's great that Obsidian had the guts to create this complex experiment. It must have taken someting of a visionary game designer just to put the blueprints of Storm of Zehir on paper, let alone to successfully implement it as an unassuming NWN2 expansion pack. If there ever was a game that is more than the sum of its parts, this is the one. I'd LOVE to see a Neverwinter Nights 3 that stems from the crazy, genre-unifying Zehir experience. Just don't let Bioware do it: Obsidian must be the one.
By András Gregorik on July 31, 2013
Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer (Windows)
D&D Meets Existentialist Poetry
The Good
Unlike Bioware's somewhat predictable expansion packs to NWN1, Obsidian takes us by surprise in Mask of the Betrayer, reinventing that very commercial genre of RPG add-ons from the ground up, and giving us something that is qualitatively and experientially quite different than 'vanilla' NWN2. They're having so much creative fun with their engine, it's a joy to behold.
We are introduced to the concept of spirit-eating, which ends up to be pretty much more than a gimmick or a mere plot point: it partially replaces the fundamentals of the NWN2 mechanics, so that the hero's mysterious affliction becomes the driving force around which everything else revolves. They intend to convey that spirit-eating is not just some fancy RPG "augmentation", but a pervasive condition that both governs and threatens much of the character's running emotional and mental life. And they succeed with flying colors. It lends the add-on an existential and even "alien" feel when compared to NWN2, and everything feels more urgent than in either of the more conventional expansion packs to NWN1.
I gushed about creativity in an earlier NWN2 review; well, this add-on has a creativity overload. To call the plot, the juicy dream sequences, and many of the conversations poetic may be too big a word, but it is close.
The Faras-Enzibur sidequest in particular, a very detailed account of a wizard's contract with an insidious devil, is a gem of intricate writing. As a budding writer, I've sure read (and most probably wrote) so-called literary short stories that are far less intriguing and worsely written. I've also found the Anya-Gann sidequest memorably endearing despite being very short. It takes skillful and imaginative writing to set a quest within the dream of a lovesick farmer girl who transforms into a dragon in a naive attempt to protect her illusory loved one.
Again, the colorful tidbits: the tiny, overlapping "subquests" in the Skein and in the Ashenwood, all with lively dialogs.
The Bad
Criticism of the NWN2 engine and overall gameplay scheme obviously applies to its add-on as well, but if you've played through NWN2, chances are that by now you've at least made peace with the engine. It's still "hands-off", there's not much to explore in the Gothic/Risen sense, but the Aurora Engine is taken in new directions the original NWN2 couldn't dream of.
The Bottom Line
Mask of the Betrayer is a relatively short but sweet experience that, through its gameplay innovations and flawless writing, injects new life into the very framework of Neverwinter Nights 2 which, in turn, was such an improvement over the comparatively stale NWN1.
When taken in isolation from the main game, I regard this add-on as the single tightest and most exciting adventure of the official NWN1-NWN2 canon. It's also the weirdest and most disturbing one. Mind you, that's a compliment.
By András Gregorik on July 10, 2013
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Windows)
Bethesda's very first masterpiece
The Good
This is it. Bethesda had finally done their homework by listening to their fans, researching into what worked and not thus far in this most complicated genre of all, what made Morrowind so much deeper and more memorable than Oblivion -- and they released what is probably their best and most consistent game yet. All things considered, it is also among the best role-playing games ever made. But Bethesda needed all their blood, sweat and tears, all the hard experience from Arena to Fallout 3 to pull this feat.
Skyrim is best described as a distinctive, homogeneous experience in a dynamic open world. I think it is best played in huge chunks, in a wide-eyed, semi-meditative state, which is a prerogative of open-world RPG's, this pinnacle genre in video gaming. I'll try to break down the best components of this experience:
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As much as the vast open-world formula permits it, Bethesda creates free-roaming NPC's with true characters -- even if only some of them really stick out and even fewer are memorable. As expected, characters who are relevant to the main plot are fleshed out the most: Ulfric Stormcloak, his second-in-command Galmar, Esbern, and our clandestine associate Delphine, perhaps most of all. What is great though is that some of the less important characters end up being quite memorable too: Ancano, the mysterious Thalmor emissary in the College. Madanach, the disgruntled leader of the Forsworn. Kodlak Whitemane, the Companions' elderly foreman who even writes a lengthy diary that we can discover. And when I finally lost my loyal sidekick Lydia in some dungeon after days of doing quests together, I felt a genuine sense of emotional loss (even if she wasn't one of the more memorable NPC's), a very rare feeling in computer games.
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Politics are realistic, complex, convoluted, frustrating, as they should be. The internal and external struggles of the various factions are not sugarcoated for the player, it's all laid out as it is, and we need to figure our own way around the relations. The Empire, the Thalmor, the Stormcloaks, the Forsworn, the Blades, the Greybeards -- all their destinies are intertwined in a realistic way, all have their respective agendas that the player needs to figure out with minimal to no hand-holding. The fact that Skyrim's political landscape is not simplified for easier digestion is one of my favorite aspects of the game. It's a subtle, mature feature not advertised with hype, yet it helps the immersion tremendously.
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Many of the conversations are deep and involving -- for a Bethesda game. They are excellently written and are often quite long, which is taken for granted from some other developers like Obsidian, but it's a very pleasant surprise coming from this developer who were once notorious for their drone-like NPC's and deadpan dialogues. The crucial negotiation scene in High Hrothgar reminded me of the Castle Never trial scene in NWN2, as it achieved the same kind of tension, gravity and drama, which is awesome for a mostly non-scripted open-world role-playing game. Skyrim is probably the very first open-world RPG that lives up to the challenge posed by Obsidian's offerings in terms of dramatization and tension.
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Many of the quests are creative, exhilarating and unorthodox. The main plot line is haunted by a sense of wonder and is graced by many (scripted) scenes that are bound to be remembered as some of the most memorable scenes in gaming: the first dragon hunt at the Whiterun guard tower; the reading of the Elder Scroll on the mountaintop; the dragon trapping in Dragonreach; the greeting and cheering of a dozen flying dragons after the final battle. And Blackreach, a vast, eerie, otherworldly cavern with abandoned structures is one of the top five ingame locations I have encountered in a game EVER. Outside of actual real-life adventure travel, it is probably only open-world RPG's that are capable of achieving this sense of wonder, since it presupposes the element of boundless exploration in an intriguing region. It also presupposes a capability of sensing wonders in the players themselves, something that many jaded gamers of today seem incapable of -- in real life or virtual.
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There are about 330 books in Skyrim, and while I haven't read all of them, I took the time to read quite a few. This is part of why the game is a triumph: not one of the books is shallow, boring or badly written. Yes, I know that many were already included in earlier Bethesda games, and most of them are brief 3-4 page treatises. Yet all things considered, this has to be one of the first games that does take its own book reading feature very seriously. You can spend several hours just browsing through the ingame books and not be bored. What's even better is the way the books' material ties in directly with the actual gameplay. In most RPG's, ingame books are disconnected from the actual gameplay. Here, they complement it. You can read a lot about Alduin or the Wolf Queen, for instance, and later you get to meet both of them.
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Some towns are architecturally awesome and feel alive with daily bustle. Markarth and Whiterun, especially. I liked the vibe of Solitude and Riften as well. Again, this would not be such a feat in a "hands-off", closed-world RPG, but the fact that even towns are awesome and realistic in Skyrim makes the end product all the more irresistible.
So the game is not only huge and open-ended, but it includes characters, quests, books and towns with the high quality of smaller scale closed-world games: it's a culmination of the best of both worlds, not unified successfully until now.
The Bad
I finally got fed up with all of it around the 100 hours mark. That's quite a feat as the vast majority of contemporary RPG's stop being interesting (and usually run out of material) before 40-50 hours of gameplay. At this point, I couldn't stand to endure another bandit-infested fort, another Nord village, another steampunk Dwemer ruin, another mission update and so forth. It was too much, because Skyrim's world is very homogeneous. You'll find the exact same non-scripted stuff at the southern tip as on the icy northern reaches. Thus Skyrim's geographic and thematic realism is a mixed blessing; it can get grating, repetitive, predictable. But it's a long enjoyable ride until that point.
The skill system is radically simplified and streamlined, clearly the influence of mainstream console gaming (which itself is a blight on role-playing games). Much had been said about the classless system and the lack of skills like acrobatics. While all this can be interpreted as a dumbing down of game mechanics, I found that it doesn't hinder immersion, in fact maybe it promotes it: much like on a real-life adventure trip, in Skyrim all you need to really worry about is the actual surrounding environment instead of stats and dice rolls.
The Skyrim province and culture is quite blatantly inspired by Medieval Scandinavia, right down to the names and the looks of the people. I wish Bethesda took a more original approach than just "vikings on steroids".
I've used the already-famous SkyUI mod almost from day one, because I found the original UI insufferably dumbed-down and console-y. Its inventory management was so simplistic and awkward, it felt like it belongs to a lesser game.
Oh, the bugs. The 1.4 patch (as of early 2012) still failed to squash a number of serious show-stoppers. But us open-world RPG fans learned years ago that a major game is considered an "immature" release until it lives to see its first or even second birthday. By then the inevitable barrage of official and unofficial patches will have probably helped it to thoroughly playable status. (VTM: Bloodlines and Gothic 3 are prime examples of why it is useful to wait at least 2 years after initial release.) Judging by that, I'm sure I'll return to Skyrim around 2014 for another playthrough.
The Bottom Line
"We’re checking [Skyrim] out aggressively. We like it. We’re big admirers of [Bethesda] and the product. We think we can do some wonderful things," says Bioware co-founder Ray Muzyka. That has to be the ultimate praise, even if it comes from an increasingly uninspired developer that has spent the last few years spiraling down from failure (Mass Effect 2) to failure (Dragon Age 2) to sellout (The Old Republic). Here's hoping that Skyrim will change the development path of RPG's for the rest of the decade, bringing back both Obsidian and Bioware to the right track.
Let's face it: Skyrim is an important moment in game history. Its success and greatness prove to the entire industry that hardcore, epic games are not only actually marketable, they are plain cooler than anything the more casual Wii/PS3 market can come up with. They are even capable of entering popular culture if the quality and marketing is right. This is going to be a great decade for hardcore role-playing game fans.
By András Gregorik on June 2, 2013
The Dark Eye: Drakensang (Windows)
Another restrictive RPG that fails to take off
The Good
As far as 'closed-world' or 'hands-off' fantasy roleplaying games are concerned, the 2000's undeniably belonged to the Neverwinter Nights series. Stretching between 2002 and 2008, this string of games, including the main titles and their expansion packs, boasted the production values, writing talent, promotional machinery and eventually the sales figures its competitors could only dream of. Radon Labs were one of these latter day competitors. Their bold endeavor was to revive the 'Das Schwarze Auge' franchise on the PC a decade after the cult favorite Realms of Arkania Trilogy, all in the midst of Bioware's and Obsidian's ongoing triumph with the more accepted D&D setting.
The end product, Drakensang: The Dark Eye, is clearly a match for these twin giants in terms of sheer size, storytelling and complexity, but ultimately falls under in so many ways I almost don't care to count. Actually, I do, hence this review was born. I think it's more interesting to see the ways the game failed rather than the ways it did work, so I'll just breeze through the "good" section.
What have we here:
Lively dialogs; these should be a given in any roleplaying games, but sadly they're not, so when we come across good, colorful writing, we're pleasantly surprised.
An epic scope; again, let's not take this granted anymore, and when a game like this gives it us in spades, we can appreciate it.
A good, effective engine; the best thing about Drakensang is its fluid graphics/audio engine; it's more responsive, less bug-ridden and easier on the eye than NWN2's overworked Aurora engine.
A good economic and crafting system; it's clear that much thought and effort went into this department. This system is so efficient and streamlined, it would deserve a better game.
The Bad
Clichéd writing. While dialogs themselves are good, the overall story suffers from your old sub-Tolkienesque pitting together of dwarves, elves, dragons and humans in a standard fantasy world. That may be a systemic problem with the Das Schwarze Auge setting though.
Clichéd characters. This game is a strange beast: the main characters themselves are often trite, but they get good dialogs. I suspect that dialog writing was outsourced to folks who were more gifted and/or creative than the design department. In any case, we have the stereotypical drunken dwarven fighter; the typically untamed, taciturn amazon warrior; the insipid, altruistic paladin; the evil sorceress who conceals her true identity; and so on. No pleasant surprises in this department.
A curious scarcity of atmosphere despite good graphics. This appears to be a conundrum until we start to think about its reasons, see my further points. The towns don't really feel alive the way they do in, say, Dragon Age: Origins. A major part of this might be due to the fact that none of the houses are accessible, they're just facades in a restrictive game world. Also, the underground dwarven empire, where a huge chunk of the story takes place, should feel gritty and crowded but feels clinical and hollow instead.
Closed world. The game seems to entice us with magnificent vistas and huge open spaces around towns. At first it almost fooled me into thinking I have another Gothic-type free-roamer on my hands. But no: it really features strictly enclosed territories, and even relatively narrow paths of allowed movement, but the skilfully (or rather deviously?) programmed engine does create an illusion of much wider spaces. Yawn.
Hands off. A close relative of the lamentable 'closed world' feature, a hands-off RPG implements a design choice that renders most fixtures and equipments seen in the game environment -- including everyday items that common sense would suggest to be operable and useful in a game like this -- inoperable and useless scenery pieces. "Hands off!", the game seems to yell at us every 3 seconds when we attempt to fiddle with fixtures, stoves, ovens, chairs, anything, just trying to make sense of the graphically detailed environment. No can do. Yaaaaaaaaawwwwn.
Slow movement of the characters. It's plain annoying and extends hours of gameplay in a wrong way. This was discussed in more depth by others.
Constant micromanagement in combat. This was handled better, in a more user-friendly way even in the original Neverwinter Nights. Then it was perfected in NWN2 and DAO. In Drakensang, all you can choose is between Passive and Aggressive battle modes, and both modes require constant on-the-fly tweaking during each long fight, as without assistance all 4 of your characters would act like mindless drones. A familiar problem with 1990's roleplaying games, but it's sad to see it re-emerge in Radon Labs' 2008 debut RPG, even if it was obviously a deliberate design choice based on a misguided "back to the roots" directive.
Respawning enemies. This is so 1980's, it's almost a dealbreaker. At the very least it breaks immersion. Surely there can be more interesting ways to have the player farm XP's. To me, respawning enemies in a roleplaying game indicate that the designers went bankrupt in the creative department.
The Bottom Line
Arguably, the only good way to do a closed-world, hands-off RPG (if you absolutely have to do one) is demonstrated in Neverwinter Nights 2 and Dragon Age: Origins. Designers are supposed to make up for the lack of an open, breathing, explorable world with the inclusion of super-lively, unique characters who fall in love, scheme, argue and banter with each other, a convoluted plot with jaw-dropping twists fit for a top shelf fantasy novel, and a palpable, attention-grabbing atmosphere both in towns and dungeons that will suck you in.
Drakensang provides none of these. And it's a crying shame because its engine and audiovisuals are a notch above NWN2's, the game it apparently attempts to outdo.
Still, there was something in the overall experience -- maybe its sheer epic size, maybe its often entertaining dialogs, most probably both -- that does prompt me to try its prequel, released two years later. But that will be quite some time later, when I'm finished with most of the open-world roleplaying games I'm still behind with.
By András Gregorik on April 27, 2013
The Curse of Monkey Island (Windows)
An elephant in Ron Gilbert's porcelain shop
The Good
Game designer/programmer Ron Gilbert is the equivalent of a folk hero for several thousands of old school adventure game fans. He was the brain behind 1987's Maniac Mansion, a seminal graphic adventure game with unprecedented atmosphere and storytelling; the brain behind 1990's The Secret of Monkey Island, another milestone that took absolutely everything about adventure games to the next level; and the brain behind 1991's Monkey Island 2, an epic, refined and outlandish piece of art that I seriously believe is the best adventure game ever made. He left LucasArts soon after for reasons that were discussed to death.
Monkey Island 3 has nothing to do with Ron Gilbert. It has everything to do with LucasArts' greed to make some new bucks off the revival of their flagship adventure game series several years after Gilbert's departure, when LucasArts was very probably faced with diminishing sales and critical reception.
This game's popularity baffles me. Then again, maybe not, as I can see where it's coming from. Monkey3 is like an Indiana Jones film NOT directed by Steven Spielberg, or like a Harry Potter novel NOT written by JK Rowling. It lacks the soul of the series, or worse yet, it is replaced with a different soul. Obviously, this is not sensed by those who dashed through the originals in a superficial way. It is only felt unanimously by fans who embraced Monkey1 and Monkey2 to their hearts, or were even obsessed about them, like I was in my late teens. See, not obsessing about a game series is no sin. (In fact, the world probably doesn't need more hardcore game geeks.) But trying to argue how a counterfeit entry to the series is on a par with the true classic entries... is plain wrong. Monkey3 has superior graphics and music compared to the originals, which seem to have dazzled several gamers, but this is the only upside I can think of.
The Bad
Monkey Island 3 was designed and led by the Ackley-Ahern duo, with only one of them present in the team of Monkey2 (as an animator). While they prove to be capable game developers by and large, in the delicate, nuanced, semi-serious, and very personal world of Ron Gilbert, they move and thrash around like a particularly clumsy elephant in a porcelain store.
Regardless if they do or do not understand what made the original games work, they prove utterly unable to emulate their general weirdness, their general Ron Gilbertness. Now it's hard to define this Ron Gilbertness in mere words and give it a semblance of justice -- but for the purposes of this review, we can try: bittersweet, spooky, unpredictable, odd, offbeat, atmospheric, enchanting, smart, subversive, tragicomic and poignant; definitely poignant. The design in Monkey3 sometimes manages to be remotely spooky and/or atmospheric (the theater scene comes to mind), but that's where similarities end.
The Bottom Line
Aimed squarely at prospective new fans who were probably still preteens during the run of the original Monkey Island games, Monkey Island 3 is an OK if unremarkable adventure game when taken strictly in isolation. It looks well, plays well and sounds great. But it's not a proper Monkey Island entry. What LucasArts does here is effectively betraying the old fans (and Ron Gilbert himself, I guess), and producing something lighter, less profound, less edgy and more "PG" than Monkey Island 1 and 2, all for the sake of catering to a "fresher" audience. Out of cold calculation, the Monkey Island soul is replaced by a cheaper, downsized one that proves incapable of emulating the feeling, mood and peculiar jokes of the original, despite trying hard.
All this results in that no real fan of the series would honestly cheer this game. They just feel it's fake, like a changeling. What is there to cheer about an Indiana Jones movie deprived of Spielberg?..
By András Gregorik on December 26, 2011
Neverwinter Nights 2 (Windows)
The very best in "hands-off" role-playing
The Good
"Hands-off" type role-playing games are, of course, those belonging to the tried-and-true Black Isle and Bioware tradition, and the Wizardry tradition before that. They are based on an overtly restrictive mode of gameplay: dice-rolled, relatively passive tactical combat, no jumping, no crouching, no freedom of movement and no free map to explore. Environmental gadgets, objects on tables, cupboards etc. are not operable, they're just static parts of the scenery, as if behind a glass case. Rather poor and non-immersive approach really, especially since the advent of the Gothic series which should have changed everything in the genre. I for one much prefer the more realistic, deeper and open-ended Piranha Bytes / Bethesda / Reality Pump school of "hands-on" RPG's, but as far as the Bioware tradition is concerned, I regard NWN2 to be the pinnacle, even as late as 2011.
My beef with the newer Dragon Age and Mass Effect franchises is that they take this restrictive approach to their logical, yawny extremes. There is never a feeling of freedom, maybe a poor illusory semblance of it, but never the feeling of even previous Black Isle / Bioware titles, or Obsidian's NWN2. This game embodies that final moment before the Bioware school submitted to this new trend of even more restrictive, handholding, console-y gameplay. (Obsidian's next RPG, Alpha Protocol, was already horribly hands-off.)
NWN2 actually feels more advanced and evolved in gameplay terms than the much-hyped Bioware blockbusters that came in its footsteps. Let's see:
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The conversations are alive, organic, inspired and often humorous. Just as importantly, they can branch off to all kinds of directions that are far from plot-relevant, but crucial in terms of building atmosphere. (Granted, this was the one strong point of Dragon Age: Origins). Take the trial scene in Castle Never: it's basically one epic, intriguing, tense, fully interactive conversation between 4-6 characters.
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The above brings us to the fact that the characters, even minor ones, are fleshed out and have some depth to them (as far as mainstream, PG-13 role-playing games go). For instance, whatever Neeshka says or remarks is never boring or trite, thanks to her well-rounded character.
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Some parts and tidbits are so creative, they are almost literary art. The Wendersnaven, Grobnar's invisible instrument, Guyven of the Road, Daerred's adventure troupe: you've gotta love them. The inclusion of these make NWN1 seem like a tired and phoned-in effort.
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The build-your-stronghold "subgame" is a breath of fresh air, and quite unexpected too. It lends a light strategic touch to the role-playing experience.
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Finally, optional side quests are not force-fed to us, but presented in a casual manner. Take for instance the Neverwinter crypt side quest. The little group that triggers it is standing almost out of sight, casually near the entrance. The game hopes that you show some interest in them, as it's a fairly substantial sidequest, but it's not forced on us.
The Bad
Here's a rich, evolved, delicate world -- called Toril and/or Forgotten Realms -- in development since the 1960's, way before D&D was even born, a world that always had the potential to be the be-all and end-all of computer RPG settings, and one that begs to be given the unrestricted, open-ended, free-roaming treatment.
But like Bioware's NWN1, Obsidian wouldn't get off their butts to treat it as deserved. They are doing a better job than Bioware, but they still take a relatively cheap way out, offering us little more than isolated, episodic glimpses into this vibrant world. They give us what amounts to self-enclosed "levels" that are still made up of cramped, conspicuously square-shaped and very 2D maps that remind me of those simplistic 1980's RPG's no one plays anymore.
The very engine is incapable of giving us more than glimpses into this universe, yet Obsidian seems content with their methods and their engine. Even Gothic 1 (released before NWN1) runs circles around this dated and lazy game design scheme.
The Bottom Line
Neverwinter Nights 2 is a mixed bag, like a surprisingly tasty diet chicken soup. It goes to great lengths to try and keep us entertained for 50-odd hours in its restrictive, self-limiting micro-universe. Its dialogs and characters in particular are some of the best in computer role-playing ever.
But once you've tasted what the dynamic, open worlds of the Elder Scrolls, Two Worlds, Mount & Blade, and Gothic series have to offer, chances are that Obsidian's fancy diet soup won't impress your palate anymore.
By András Gregorik on November 30, 2011
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - The Missing Link (Windows)
A tiny gem of a teaser
The Good
This is just a complete little 5 hour package with a masterful dramatic drive that makes it all feel longer than it really is. In a good way. It has mysterious allies, some twists, and a heavily augmented super-soldier boss everyone keeps talking about on the ship.
I kept thinking about how seamlessly this mission would have fit the main game; the logs, e-books, conversations all make perfect sense (duh!) in terms of the big picture, and I think Eidos should have included it between the Hengsha and Singapore stages. The main game could sure have used the 5 extra hours.
There are unexpected little graphical touches that suggest some internal engine update, including the most spectacular depiction of a raging sea I've seen in a 3D game yet. There are more moving parts on the levels too: I recall seeing suspended cargo in a rocking net, and some canvas wrapping being blown by the wind. So everything feels less static than in all those office rooms of the main game.
The Bad
This expansion is very short. Yet it does a great job making itself feel epic as it slowly builds up the tension to the final fight.
But then the final boss fight doesn't feel like a boss fight but like one of the many tougher generic fights from the main game. You'll see what I mean. Advice: bring at least one EMP grenade for the robot.
The Bottom Line
Missing Link is an enjoyable boat ride, but there's the nagging feeling that it should have shipped with the main game in the first place. It's more of the same, plus some tiny graphical updates. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is ripe with DLC possibilities: what about Adam's life as a Detroit cop? His scandalous final mission at the DMPD? Or his first few weeks on Sarif's security team? I have high hopes for Eidos regarding future DLC's or even a full-length expansion pack. Give me Deus Ex, guys. I hope Missing Link was only a teaser yet.
By András Gregorik on November 11, 2011
The Longest Journey (Windows)
"That is so... uncool."
The Good
This game is regarded as a minor classic. It put its then-young designer on the map, and became one of the bestselling adventure titles of its era. It certainly has great production values, an epic story, plenty of conversation and plenty to do. Other reviewers do a great job heaping praise on it, so I'll just skip to the next part.
The Bad
The three basic elements that arguably make an adventure game tick are story, characters and atmosphere. So let's see a rundown.
Story: 'The Thirteenth Floor' and 'The Matrix', two films with a similar basic idea both came out about a year before the game was released, but the 'parallel universes' premise was already considered age-old in the 80's ('Labyrinth', 'Ultima 1-6' etc.). This game turns out to be yet another variation on the theme. Nothing groundbreaking.
Characters and Dialogs: this is a biggie. In terms of classic adventure games, it apparently takes a Ron Gilbert or a Jane Jensen to dream up memorable heroes and supporting players, and this game simply doesn't have what it takes. The characters and their dialogs are either lifeless or even worse. In fact, April Ryan of The Longest Journey may well be the single most irritating protagonist in a major adventure game ever. For me anyway. The author clearly made a grave mistake by turning her both 18 and a bland partygirl. Her incessant cries and whines of 'Duh!' or 'That is so... uncool.' along with her overemphasized hipster attitude were probably designed to appeal to, well, fellow hipsters I guess. Monkey Island 1-2 or Gabriel Knight did not resort to similar gimmicks and still drew in quite a fanbase. Guybrush Threepwood in particular was 19 without being annoying. Gabriel Knight was a brooding charmer. Zak McKracken was something of a lonely young bachelor. My point is that if you can't grow attached to the protagonist in an adventure game, your experience goes downhill quick. That's what happened to me here. April Ryan is the kind of vapid-girl-in-tight-pants that I wouldn't want as a steady girlfriend -- and even less so as a heroine in an epic adventure game I intend to play through to the end. She does write a diary throughout the story but the things she writes in it read like bits of throwaway chitchat from some high school party. The diary feature adds no layer of much-needed depth to the proceedings, because April has no layer of depth. In turn, none of her friends or associates are fleshed out either: we get two run-of-the-mill best friends who have nothing substantial to say or contribute at all.
Atmosphere: starts great, goes downhill once I realized the earlier points. In other words, the combined lack of a tight, original story and that of full-blooded, endearing characters result an inevitable lack of a strong atmosphere.
The Bottom Line
I wanted to like this game, as fans of elaborate and serious-minded old-school adventure games are not exactly spoiled since the late 80's to mid 90's boom of those great LucasArts, Sierra and Legend titles.
I think The Longest Journey was a nice try, but I couldn't warm up to its semi-recycled story and especially to its blasé hipster heroine. So it's purely up to personal taste. Your mileage may vary, especially if you regard yourself a hipster, I suppose. Deck tassel, cronkite.
By András Gregorik on November 9, 2011
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Windows)
Deus Ex Lite: FPS Edition
The Good
It is sad to see that Eidos jumped on the bandwagon with their flagship RPG series, and went the Bioware route. Meaning that first they kickstart an awesome, intricate, deep RPG franchise, then they proceed to ruin it to oblivion in its sequel(s) which end up being glorified First Person Shooters with mild RPG touches and very non-RPG-ish boss fights. FPS's are easier to develop and easier to market to the teen crowd, so I see the incentive. But really, what's next? Deus Ex 4: The iPhone Arcade Game? Anyway, there's still plenty to like here, so let's see:
This game is strong on atmosphere; sometimes that translates to oppressive, foreboding urban landscapes (Detroit), sometimes to exotic locales that ooze Oriental mystery and intrigue (China). Even the sterile office building interiors in this game are verisimilar and atmospheric.
Another strong point is imagination and immersion: the game dreams up a believable, fairly dystopian 2027 where we witness a widening gap between those who can afford flashy high-tech augmentations and those who cannot. The game takes its elaborate political-scientific-economic setup for granted and builds it from there, remaining very consequential and serious throughout in its depiction. No lazy shortcuts, no deal-breaking wink-wink-nudge-nudge allusions to the present day as a lesser sci-fi game would resort to. DE:HR is a mature attempt at imagining a possible, persistent 2027. In this regard, it is up there with Blade Runner's 2019 and Mass Effect's 2183.
As a consequence of the above, all the dialogs and the characters are very good, almost too good for an action RPG. Sarif is my favorite example: a charismatic, enigmatic leader and a love-hate father figure to our hero, he always has another revelation or two up his sleeve. The conversations in general are multi-layered, eloquent, emotionally mature and unpredictable. They should be good, as they are written by novelist James Swallow and veteran lead writer Mary DeMarle.
On a more technical note, this game has the best cover system I've experienced in an FPS/3PS yet. It's practical, very useful and easy to master. It's even great to look at: whenever Adam leans next to a wall in his aug-sunglasses, silenced gun in hand, and an enemy guard approaches from around the corner (as it occurs dozens of times in the game), it looks just like a shot from some cool sci-fi comics. As far as cover systems go, I hope future action games look at DE:HR and take it from there.
The Bad
This is an FPS. Granted, this is an FPS that can be optionally played as a survival stealth game. Yet it was marketed as an RPG. If it walks like a duck and quacks... you know the rest.
The game actually becomes unapologetic in its FPS-ness by the second half. The focus shifts to sneaking, evading turrets and upgrading your weaponry so you finally have a chance against Jamar and Zhao, the last two bosses.
Oh yes, don't get me started on the boss fights. These are the equivalent of Eidos's ultimate testimony that they WERE thinking on FPS terms with this game.
Then there is the problem of repetitiveness in the second half, again a typical FPS trait.
The Montreal stage is a seemingly endless array of boring office rooms and vent ducts.
Much of the Singapore stage is, surprise, a seemingly endless array of boring office rooms and vent ducts.
The following Panchaea stage, however, is quite brilliant, as if the project leader finally burst out: "Guys, we need to end this one with a bang! No more office rooms and vent ducts, use your head! This is s'posed to be a Deus Ex game!"
It ended up as an odd out-of-place homage to Half Life 1 (and even to Left4Dead), but I loved it.
The Bottom Line
When taken at face value and not as the latest entry of a venerable RPG franchise, DE:HR proves to be a very playable FPS with some RPG elements, in fact it stands out as probably the best of its kind this year. It's much longer and more interesting than other 2011 FPS/3PS titles I've played. Problems arise when we realize that it's supposed to be a full-blooded prequel to Deus Ex. THE Deus Ex. The fact is, Eidos went the safest, trendiest route here and tried to appease both contemporary fan camps: the newer generation of hardcore action afficionados (who were reared on Quake 3 and Half Life 2) and the older generation of actual Deus Ex fans. As Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age 2 have proved just before DE:HR, you can't have the best of both worlds in RPG gaming: you either go "deep, hardcore RPG" or you're lite and flawed. Deus Ex has just joined the club of flawed game franchises.
And yet Deus Ex: Human Revolution excels in one aspect: give me its memorable vision of a 2027 Shanghai any day.
By András Gregorik on November 8, 2011
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Windows)
Walk in a huge, lifeless, soulless theme park.
The Good
...and nothing more to it, really. Granted, a walk like that can be fairly interesting for a while, much like being in an enigmatic dream that may or may not just turn into a nightmare. Thus your walk may be intriguing up to the point that you visited all the highlights, set pieces like 'The Quiet Fishing Village', the 'Dark Foreboding Tomb', 'The City With The Weird Architecture' and so forth. But then you realize that this is a 'hands off' kind of theme park, there are no interactive elements; sure, you can enter the caves and houses but their residents are the dullest androids ever, each repeating the same lines. Sometimes radio-controlled creatures seem to attack you but they feel fake and out of place. You soon feel that you had enough; it's one lifeless, soulless park.
The Bad
Morrowind just doesn't work as a game. Without repeating all the agreeable criticism of the previous reviews I'll just emphasize what is possibly the ultimate cause of the title's failure: stock dialogues. NPC conversations are normally the life and soul of an RPG and these were removed due to a highly regrettable design choice. Either that or Bethesda's complete lack of writing skills and NPC-related imagination. Was Ultima7 the last game that got it all right?..
The Bottom Line
Here's hoping that Bethesda learns the error of their ways and Oblivion will actually be an enjoyable role-playing game with unique, believable NPCs.
By András Gregorik on December 20, 2004
Gothic II (Windows)
Ruined by superficiality
The Good
Graphics are really nice, especially if you can afford to set viewing distance to 300%. This setting is actually necessary if there's any atmosphere and sense of realism to be found during your wanderings. It's still never superior than the earlier released Morrowind but at least it's equal which is something.
Music, though repetitive, is quite enchanting; in particular, the track you hear during the countryside scenes is good enough to add a feeling of unreality to your travels. But again, even this track is pretty short and keeps repeating itself.
The Bad
All the audiovisual sorcery this game offers comes off as unworthy when you realize how utterly lame the ingame dialogs are -- by the point you reach Khorinis, the first town.
Granted, I'm the old school RPG fan, seemingly unlike the previous reviewers of this game. When playing a role-playing game, I still look for conversations that are actually worth reading because they are colorful, realistic and makes the NPCs feel closer to the player. Think Ultima 7, Ultima Underworld, Bloodnet etc.
What I get in Gothic 2 instead are simplistic, superficial and uninspired one-liners, two-liners, three-liners (complete with mostly horrible, overacted voiceovers); reading and/or listening to these you can picture their writer yawning about while making them up.
The Bottom Line
What a shame. Could have been an overall classic if only their creators were either inspired or gifted enough to add conversation texts that are not an insult to the players' intelligence/attention span/imagination.
By András Gregorik on December 8, 2004
Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven (Windows)
Mighty and magical -- not.
The Good
I liked the huge five year long gap between parts 5 and 6. Was anxious to experience all the vast improvements that would justify this gap.
I also liked the quirky touches in the manual.
The Bad
Others might disagree, but I think the main assets of any CRPG are supposed to be NPC interaction and atmosphere. When the emphasis shifts to anything else, like constant leveling upwards, the overall game experience comes off as hollow.
Sadly, this is just what gives in M&M6. Prepared to get immersed in a deep, involving adventure, I found myself in a rather generic quest-fest, required to meet impersonal and laconic NPC's on non-interactive 'conversation' screens who proceeded to send me on repetitive killing sprees over and over again. Not even the most important NPC's are developed or memorable (Nicolai, Wilbur etc.), everything they have to say directly or indirectly triggers yet another XP-boost session (or quest).
I'm not rating graphics, audio or the like, because these are not what I'm looking for in an RPG. In this one I haven't found what I'm looking for, so enough said.
The Bottom Line
A glorified hack&slash game with no real depth or personality, almost like a 3D Diablo. All throughout Enroth, I felt a bittersweet nostalgia involving New Sosaria (aka Serpent Isle).
By András Gregorik on October 31, 2004
Ultima VII: Part Two - Serpent Isle (DOS)
The single best RPG of the 90's.
The Good
What's with these guys?.. We're talking about an essential classic here. In terms of depth, richness, immersion potential, atmosphere and invention, its sole match may be Arcanum, released 8 and a half years later. Every single ambitious isometric RPG after 1993 had drawn upon Serpent Isle for inspiration and basics.
With Ultima7/1, Origin had developed way too masterful an engine not to employ in another game; this is that game. More polished and accomplished than Ultima7/1, it is arguably still the best 2D RPG around.
The Bad
The early, amateurish voice-acting and nothing else. Period.
The Bottom Line
This is the original sacred source of all your fancy Baldur's Gates, Fallouts and Icewind Dales--which were generally put together with much less love and attention to detail (similarly to Origin's own Ultima 8, but that's another story).
By András Gregorik on December 17, 2001