MadOverlord.755's reviews on GOG.com

Created on 25 October, 2023 01:22

Created on 17 April, 2023 09:00

An esoteric tale spanning dimensions.

The short version: It's great! One of the better games I've played, period. Planescape: Torment is, in essence, a story about a man, (the protagonist), and all the peculiar events he comes into contact with, while trying to unravel the mystery of who he is. This is the same Beamdog Enhanced Edition as in BG1 & BG2. Your mileage will vary on that, but I like this version. It features QoL improvements like widescreen, among other things. As far as gameplay goes, this is more of a narrative game than the BG games. It's like a visual novel, incorporating some D&D and Lovecraft-esque concepts. If you like novel-style writing with highly-detailed world-building, then this is your game. The writing never stops being top notch, even when nothing of particular importance is going on. If you don't like reading, well, that's going to be a pickle. Maybe on sale? "Planescape" refers to the many planes in the universe, such as The Nine Hells, Limbo, and the Material Plane (where we live), among many others. Sigil, the "City of Doors", is plane/city that has portals to all other planes. Because of that, it is a popular destination for travel, relaxation, and trade. Sigil is your character's main jumping-off point, so you'll be spending a good deal of your game time there. Your character is pre-defined, as are all hirable party NPCs. This allows for a more detailed and specific narrative. You are "The Nameless", a man made of scars, who cannot die. But thanks to recurring amnesia, he does not know why. He revisits people and places from his past, trying to piece together clues of what's going on. The recruitable NPCs are a motely crew of a wisecracking flying skull, an eccentric warrior-sage, a benevolent succubus, and a feisty thief, among others. You will have access to them as the story dictates, or by coincidental discovery, so never expect a full party. It's not a hardcore game, so it's less important. Overall, it's great! The best "reading" game I've ever played!

6 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 18 December, 2022 00:06

Updated on 18 December, 2022 01:14

Very Enjoyable, and down to Earth.

This is probably my favorite Gothic-like. If you don't know the gag, Piranha Bytes created a game called Gothic, which they recreated a million times under different names. However, I think Risen 3 is the most approachable to non-Gothic gamers It's both a serious and whimsical tale. On the one hand, not everybody is an unrelatable garishly dressed planet-saving weirdo. Often you' can identify with the more mundane NPCs. Their hopes, dreams, fears, failures, and successes, probably sound a lot like yours. No superheroes, just people like us. It's refreshing. It's got all the standard pirate tropes to the point of being ridiculously cliche. Buried treasure, rum, goofy pirate hats. But, it's clever pirate humor, offset by genuine serious moments. A good mix of both. Your character can be a snarky jerk, or offer personal sacrifices to the less fortunate. I thought I would dislike Risen 3 at first. It's the intro gameplay, the first 30 mins or so. The sandbox elements don't show up until that initial "tutorial" business is taken care of. I would say for a downside, the game introduces mandatory sea battles against sea monsters, and other pirates. These are the most tedious and boring aspects. But there's only about 5 events altogether, after which no more will ever show up again. Overall, I can easily recommend Risen 3.Many might not appreciate what it's going for. For some, it might seem mundane at times. But before long, you'll be a free-wheeling, swaggering legit pirate.

4 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 01 September, 2022 06:20

Created on 02 March, 2016 02:21

A step back in time, for the worse.

The old Shadowgate was popular because only a small number of those types of games existed. The old game was full of too many stupid puzzles with random non-logical solutions, (like use the boxing glove on the potato salad). So I thought hey, I sort of liked it back in the day, maybe their update will address some of those old problems. Even if the puzzles are the same, maybe they'll drop better hints, so it's less random. NOPE! It's WORSE! They doubled down on the randomness. Not only are the obscure bits every bit as obscure, they added new puzzles that are even worse than the original! Even after reading the solutions in a walkthrough, I thought "Why would I have tried that?" A better game would have me thinking, "Oh, duh! How did that slip past me?" I suppose, if your idea of an adventure game is to randomly "use everything on everything, until something happens," then this game will work for you. The graphics and sound are nice. If only they would have left the Stone Age of game design. The older Shadowgate was mediocre, because the genre wasn't refined. It had potential, since it was the puzzles, not the game system, that was bad. My hope was this would be a Modern Age upgrade in all the right ways, but it's not.

45 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 20 October, 2015 00:44

Smarter than the average dungeon crawler

While this game has many standard RPG trappings, once you start to pick up on its subtleties, you realize you're into something special. My favorite aspect is that the game is more about survival than plowing through areas with brute force. Combat is of limited significance. Frequently you bump into overpowered enemies, or unwinnable situations. The game is VERY forgiving of such things. You generally have to run away, or lose the combat, in which case you are simply shoved back to where you came from. Dying is present, but doesn't happen that often. This is clearly by design, and you get the feeling you're simply trying to exist in a crazy world. You're not the "chosen ones". You're just some poor schmoes trying to fit in. Nobody knows who you are, nor cares. Ah but eventually you will become significant in the bigger plot. Rags to riches. Just as one example, you're dropped naked in the starting city of Purgatory. There's no weapon or spell shop. You have to figure out the unique ways to get some starting gear and spells, which is not at all spelled out for you. Until then, you're indecent and relying on fisticuffs. There are plenty of other unique aspects. Characters are classless, so their development is based on how you assign skill points. You're never told when you can use a skill, so you have to rely on your own intuition as to whether a location seems like it matches with a skill. The map is somewhat open world. You can't access most places right away, but there's usually at least 2 or more locations available to explore at a time. Well... once you escape from Purgatory.

63 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 25 June, 2015 15:56

One of the better hack-and-slashes

Demon Stone is a hack-and-slash beat-em-up, and I quite like the system. It uses the same engine as the Lord of the Rings beat-em-ups, except this time with 3 D&D heroes fighting slaad, githyanki. and yuan-ti. Each hero has special abilities and roles to fill. The wizard is the sniper, the rogue is the insta-kill assassin, and the fighter is the tank that gets in the middle of all of it. You can switch between them at any time. The fact that all three characters play a bit differently adds a lot to the strategy. The hero AI generally does a good job, but they are slower to act than when you control them. This gives you incentive to switch to the role that's needed most at the time. There's a lot of action happening on the screen all at once. Sometimes you're fighting a couple baddies, other times there are entire throngs on the screen. The levels are often set pieces with a lot of chaos going on in the background. It makes you feel like part of something epic. If you're wondering if it stays true to the D&D license, it half does. There's no D20 rolling, no "miss" chances, no attacks of opportunity, or pretty much anything from the books. It's best to just let that go, considering the type of game it is. The story seems legit, and IMO is pretty good for D&D. I recommend Demon Stone to beat-em-up hack-and-slash fans, and to D&D fans with an open mind.

3 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 05 June, 2015 14:48

No other game like it!

Microprose makes great simulators that frequently break the mold. Covert Action is an espionage simulator, and it is one of the most unique games I've ever played. There just aren't any other games like it. The premise seems simple enough: One of the many terrorist organizations is hatching a plot to do something bad. Your job is to prevent their ultimate goal by gathering evidence and arresting the suspects. There are up to 8 suspects in a single case, with their own faction, job, and face, (yes, there's a random face maker). Each fills a specific role, such as courier or kidnapper. They all work together, passing information and mission items back and forth. The blueprint inspector tells the burglar how to break in, while the electronics whiz sends him/her a door bypassing gizmo. And so on. Arrest the known suspects, or allow them continue on to reveal even more suspects. Be careful of red herrings. There are limitless enemy agents, and only some are relevant to the current case. Besides the main game, there are 4 mini-games that are all connected: Breaking and entering, driving, electronics, and cryptography, (though honestly you will mostly be breaking and entering). You don't strictly have to play any one mini-game, as I often don't even bother with electronics. The complexity of the game comes from the various ways you can gather information, and how you formulate your plans based on it. But the clock is ticking. It takes hours to fly to the different locations, and to perform the mini-games. The plot is always moving forward, so let's hope you figure out what's going on before it's too late. It would be impossible to describe the number of unique features in a short review. There is so much going on that is atypical for any video game, but it's familiar and intuitive enough that it only takes some practice to really get it down. Highly recommended!

14 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 23 April, 2015 12:33

Interesting, but confounding.

This is a bit of a weird one to me. Occasionally you find a game with convoluted rules, and sometimes you find a game with REALLY convoluted rules. That's Elminage Gothic. It's the kind of game where understanding the quirky nuances is best figured out beforehand, since you can't really make casual decisions. My dragon fighter sounded "cool" (Oh neat, I can slash with swords AND breath fire?), but was a bad choice. My sword damage is WAY higher than my dragon breath will ever be. Weird. So making a dragon mage would work, but as a fighter, it's a waste of a race feature. That murders any playfulness in making a character. My biggest gripe shouldn't have to exist, in my opinion. So far I've played about 4 hours of the game, and I'm still almost always using the standard attack with every character, even the wizards. They have so few spell uses, you have to save them. I feel like I'm still in a tutorial mode. There's NO way to go on auto-attack. You hit Enter 12 (!) times every turn to repeat the same 6 actions for 6 characters. I must look like I'm having a button mashing contest! Here's a huge one for me. You can't make money off selling loot unless you have a Bishop class in your party. Again, unless 1 of your 6 characters is a Bishop, YOU CAN'T MAKE MONEY SELLING LOOT! Why? Because only the Bishop class can identify items. Before they are identified, you can't even use them! Found a helmet, but have no Bishop? Sorry, you can't even try it on. Now you CAN identify items at the shop in town, but get this, at half the cost of the item. The irony is, you can then sell it for only half it's value. That means you break exactly even! I hate it. I complain a lot, but I can see a lot of decent things in the game. I can still play it in short doses. The art is fantastic, but that's its biggest selling point. Maybe after a few more hours, I'll have a lot more abilities and spells, and start having some depth of play. But it should not take 4+ hours to get there.

26 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 15 October, 2014 01:12

Great fun, but frustrating

I have a love/hate relationship with Privateer 2. It's very fun and unique, but it also frustrates me to the point of yelling at the screen. Let's start with the good. It does play like a Wing Commander, with space dogfights that are quite fun. The AI is variable: Weak ships tend to have bad AI with poor piloting. Good ships tend to drive you crazy with their constant dodging and sneaking up behind you. It's nice to have diversity. The game world is fantastically weird. The first bar you enter is like a rave, with all sorts of weird cyberpunk people flailing about and getting in bar brawls. The FMV cutscenes are deliberately silly, and pretty amusing. Wing Commander fans will probably find the setting to be very out of place. Don't expect any Kilrathi. The Wing Commander name feels tacked on. You'll have to let that go to enjoy it. Now for the bad. You can't save in space, and you die, constantly. This means restarting missions over and over. You move around the map via jump-points, and you cannot jump if there is an enemy present. That's fine, to a fault. But sometimes they'll throw way more ships than you can handle, since new ones can constantly jump in. Or they'll just kill you outright by surrounding a jump-in point with a small fleet, which spams you with fatal damage before you can blink. This doesn't happen all the time, but definitely too often. It's especially frustrating if you spent 20+ minutes on a mission, only to get blown up right before you land. The military, (aka police), is trigger happy. If you're smuggling illegal goods, or you so much as graze their ships, (say while trying to shoot down a nearby enemy), they ALL go into berserk kill mode for that jump-point. There's got to be a less fatal way to deal with that, like a fine and confiscation. Still, this game somehow draws me back constantly. It's really fun, when it's fun, and the FMVs are a hoot.

3 gamers found this review helpful

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