cioran's reviews on GOG.com

Created on 05 April, 2026 09:24

Odd Psychological FMV game

Runs on Windows 11. Holds up remarkably well. If you like FMV games you'll like this. If you don't this isn't convincing you otherwise. Limited gameplay. And close to modern slowburn exploration/adventure FMV games that are closer to interactive fiction with branching paths. This is a game from the 7th guest/11th hour people. It has actual actors, namely John Hurt who's very good in this. Very odd and very psychological but entertaining game more attuned to modern fmv games and adventure games/walking simulators. Some traumatic scenes and IMO fairly mild (PG-13) sexual content if that sort of thing offends you. I like FMV games and have played a lot of them. I think it's pretty good. Point off for the complete lack of puzzles.

3 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 18 March, 2026 07:27

Updated on 18 March, 2026 07:27

Story/world is amazing. Combat meh

PSA - Works on win 11, no problems. This game has really, really good writing and genuinely interesting characters. Excellent story and worldbuilding. It looks good too. It reminds me of both Diablo 2 and all those beautiful infinity engine games I like visually. I wish they'd get this design team to write and do scenario design (and maybe character design) for another game and have someone else work out the combat systems. The combat and difficulty in places is absurd. Killing some bats, wondering what people were fussing about. Then first major enemy. WOW. I was playing on easy with the priest which is allegedly the easiest class. Just bonkers difficult and I had to cheese him to beat him. I'm not joking, you're looking at a game like IWD2 HoF level difficulty. On easy. This is so close to being a great game if they fixed the difficulty spikes and balanced the abilities so you could choose what you wanted rather than stuff off a guide. You need levitation for instance. It's not even the combat itself would be terrible if some of the enemies didn't take insane amounts of hits to die and they got rid of the stamina bar. The controls are completely responsive, the animation and hit detection is fine. Oh another thing - your equipment breaks. Constantly. I went through 3 weapons in the first major fight. And the thing that makes it weirder is it has this really mellow laid back OG crpg vibe, so if you toned down the difficulty a lot, way more people would play this. Very weird game to rate. I really like the almost planescape-esque wall of text dialogue and thick description and choices. Some people may not. Dislike the combat. Enjoyment will depend on how much you dislike the combat. And you will dislike it. And how much you enjoy good old-school DnD wall of text. I'd wait for a sale. At $5 or less, eh. I'm having fun with it. Hopefully there are console cheats or something.

1 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 13 March, 2026 01:58

Updated on 23 March, 2026 23:00

BG + combat, - story. Runs in win 11

It's great. Less story than BG more combat. 2e. If you like that just buy it. BG is better, but this is still quite solid. Some of the boss fights are absolutely bonkers the first time you play them, which is fun. It's really the only game of the era where bosses all have minions/allies which was common in the tabletop campaigns and which you saw in EQ and WoW raids. Theres almost nothing changed of note in the EE unless you're a diehard whose played these 100 times. It looks good on modern systems, no need to install any mods. Only downside I saw in the EE is character imports. You have to copy save to MP, then load from the party screen there, then save, then copy to SP. In the original you could directly import. It's not a huge hassle honestly but it's a weird thing to get rid of. It also starts to get kind of tedious near the end and it's more or less impossible to beat the last boss without cheesing it but eh, still a classic.

Created on 28 June, 2023 05:22

Updated on 28 June, 2023 05:48

Average w/some odd story elements, bugs

If you're not familiar with DSA /"The Dark Eye" basically it's Germany's answer to Dungeons and Dragons. Overall it tends to be a bit darker and more "low fantasy". It's in the same ballpark as "The Witcher" setting, especially the first game. This game is in that DSA/Dark Eye setting and kind of plays a lot like Risen 1, Gothic 3, The Witcher 2 or Dragon Age 2 or one of the ps3/x360 era console rpgs except with less of a budget and more repetitive scenario design. Play it with a controller. It's a console game. Combat is well done and similar to the Fable games or The Witcher series. The game's decent if you like the modern European console RPGs, but not a must play. The characters are interesting and pretty likeable except for the fact that the two main characters are brother and sister and openly and repeatedly express romantic feelings for each other which, frankly, I think is incredibly odd and for some people will be uncomfortable for a variety of reasons, so fair warning. Incidentally, your other "romance" option looks like she sleeps on park benches so if you like that aspect of these games, that's not there. My biggest problem with the game is bugs and saving. There's some weird sound glitches. It has a console style save system so if it crashes, you'll be re-doing a segment. I gave up after I couldn't continue for some reason and couldn't reset my save. Apparently I was very near the end of the game and just watched a video of the ending on youtube. The last chapter or so seems to be rushed. Worth it at about 5$ or so IMO if you played most of these games already and the story content doesn't bother you. If you haven't already, play all The Witcher games first. They occupy a similar niche and are much better at it. If you like "The Dark Eye"/DSA try the Drakensang games, they're excellent and play kind of like Neverwinter Nights.

12 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 29 March, 2022 19:08

Out-Max Paynes Max Payne

If you : -played Max Payne 1 or 2 (not the trash third one) and liked it -watched Hard-boiled or The Killer or any vintage John Woo movie with Chow Yun-fat and liked it You'll LOVE this. It's no surprise John Woo films and what he called "gun-fu" *heavily* inspired the Max Payne games (and The Matrix). Well I guess Woo saw MP and made his own game (he actually co-owned the game studio that made this, Tiger Hill). And this game, Stranglehold was among the best slowtime shooters ever made. Unfortunately, Stranglehold and its ilk shared the fate of a bunch of hard rock bands when grunge came out, slowtime shooters were out and co-op cover shooters were in with Gears of War in late 2006. So, one of the best examples of the slowtime genre has been largely forgotten. GOG to the rescue! Stranglehold has a lot going for it. Awesome cinematic story, very good gameplay. This has a better storyline, acting, cinematics and more mind-blowing set-pieces than Max Payne (though Max Payne 2 is pretty close), but Max Payne had better gunplay w/tighter controls, a grittier film noir vibe and originated this style. Short but sweet. Around 6-7 hours. This is one of those games like Sacred or PoE, that was a better diablo than the next actual, canonical diablo game. This is a better Max Payne than the 3rd Max Payne game. They should have hired these people to do MP3. This is basically what Max Payne 3 should have been instead of some weird, awful cover shooter. Wet for X360 was good too if you like the slowtime shooter genre. Highly Recommended.

7 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 07 November, 2016 03:47

Fun gothic ARPG, plays like BG:DA

Some people have compared this to Diablo 3 because it's an ARPG. I really like Diablo 3, but It's not like the Diablo series (or Torchlight or other Diablo-styled games) or the more recent open world/sandbox ARPG variant (like Grim Dawn and Sacred). If you played Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance for PS2, this plays pretty similarly to something like that (especially the darker second one). First off, It plays really well with a controller. Then, there's the central hub, large linear areas/levels with good design and not much backtracking, typical ARPG light RPG elements with leveling and loot (but without metagaming and loot grind that's now part and parcel to ARPG's of the Diablo strain), a cohesive story campaign, Just lots of fun. "Classes" are more about your weapon than which of the three types of Victor Vran player you select. Combat's great. Strong voice acting talent, too. Recommended.

2 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 29 November, 2013 11:58

A hidden treasure for ARPG fans

The mechanics of this are quite good and reminiscent of Dungeon Siege, but the thing that stands out is unlike most ARPGs there's actually a very good story driving the gameplay along with real moral choices.

9 gamers found this review helpful

Created on 25 May, 2012 16:44

Updated on 10 March, 2026 03:48

Created on 25 May, 2012 16:42

Created on 25 May, 2012 16:29

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