complacentnatio on 16/2/2004 at 07:46
I started playing this game about five hours ago (stopped because of a crash, I don't mind though). I've read a lot of reviews... I played Morrowind, after a while I had felt like I wasted my time. It just doesn't ineterest me that much, I was interested in the massive freeform world etc, but the combat was pretty weak, I got tired of traveling all around for stupid reaons...
I've played Arx Fatalis for five hours and it's great because its not so massive, the story flows which keeps it interesting, the mood is great, the graphics ARE good, I love the ambient sounds, they really set up a creepy ambiance. I like the fact that it is all based underground like a lot of old CRPGs, this game is a rockin' updated version of those games, I feel like the media totally cheated this game because it was buggy out of the box, in my mind its like "so how long have you been gaming? A year?". Buggy releases have always plagued CRPGs, for some reason it just doesn't bother me that much.
Morrowind gets praise for having that open-endedness, and it is cool, but a lot of the open-endedness to me shined through in the fact that I would be traveling to some hut in the middle of no where to assassinate someone, or to go get something, none of it felt important.
This game is good, and I'm a little baffled by the 2/5s for this game. This game is structured, moody and entertaining, it even sometimes reminds me of an evil The Labrynth with David Bowie because of the goblins and voices.
What do you guys think?
Shadowcat on 16/2/2004 at 09:17
I think the general concensus is favourable.
Also, checking the Arx review summary page on gonegold.com, the scores are very positive by and large -- a handful of reviewers found the style or complexity of the game and/or the initial bugs not to their liking, and gave it a poor score. Most people liked it, however.
Here are the scores from gonegold, connverted to percentages (rounded where necessary). There was also a 'B', a 'B+', and an 'A'.
42
50 58
60 65 65 69
70 70 70 70 70 75 76
80 80 80 80 80 80 80 80 80 80 82 82 83 84 84 85 86 87
90 91 92 95
The median score is 8/10, which seems pretty fair to me -- I thought Arx was flawed, but an excellent game nevertheless.
bogogf on 16/2/2004 at 11:58
I quite like Arx, it has it's own style, (in a germanic kind of way) Is JoWood a german developer ? The Gothic games had german developers, which are also excellent IMO.
Shadowcat on 16/2/2004 at 15:26
Actually JoWood isn't a developer at all -- they're the publisher. I think JoWood may well be based in Germany, but I'm not certain about that.
The developers of Arx are called Arkane Studios, and they are a French company.
zacharias on 16/2/2004 at 15:34
Arx should be required playing for those who complain about 'lack of depth' in modern games IMO.
The magic system i think is the best contribution it makes..(i'd love a thief like game where you could play a campaign as a thief or a magic-user..the arx magic system or similar with cityscape levels and thiefy gameplay..)
I didn't like the goblin voice acting, some parts i had to use a walkthrough for, and the start is probably the weakest part of the game i think. Apart from these things it is a great game. I enjoyed it more than Morrowind.
complacentnatio on 16/2/2004 at 18:25
I don't know if you guys know the program Reason, but if you don't, Reason is a large drum, loop, sequencing machine. It lets you put tons of mods and effects on every sound, you can even turn the racks around and mess with the plugs.
Reason reminds me of Morrowind, Reason has it all (Morrowind doesn't but hang on), we were having this discussion on the Reason boards about how even though the user has all of these options, most people using Reason are probably drabbing everything with too many effects. Simple, many times is better. Morrowind just focused on the world because really the gameplay is terrible. This is where Arx prospers compared. Arx is a lot more focused.
About the reviews, I think I saw a lot of reviews from when it was initially released, I saw on Arlkane's site new reviews, now that its patched, and they've all been positive. I still doesn't understand reviewers and graphics. The Adrenaline Vault gave the graphics like 2 or 3 stars... I like the graphics a lot, but the point is, how can reviewers give a good game a lower score because of their graphics. I think RPGs, strategy games or games that are trying something different should be able to have engines that aren't up to date. Some of my favorite game like Alpha Centauri don't have beautiful engines. I still like the way things look in Alpha Centauri, the graphics don't need to be 3d or super polished, they have their own feel. At this point in gaming I really don't think people should be spending as much time on graphics engines, but gameplay. Which Arx's graphics engine isn't the best but they spent so much time with their textures... it's beautiful.
Arkane did a fantastic job of bringing that TTLG feel. I find it strange that TTLG type games are never quite as successful as other games (since System Shock 1 at least), maybe because sometimes they have looked like a lot of other games, maybe with less appealing graphics and people don't realize that the gameplay, sound and everything else is topnotch?
Shadowcat on 16/2/2004 at 22:41
I agree completely on the graphics comments -- the fact is that the most graphically beautiful games today require extremely high budgets for art work, and a small company with limited financial resources has little or no chance of competing in that regard. Personally I thought Arx looked excellent, but I also saw lots of comments about poor graphics, and often see similar comments regarding other games -- I think some people tell themselves that the most beautiful models and textures they've seen are "the standard", and anything less is lacking and unworthy, which I think is a ridiculous attitude.
Unreal 2 is a beautiful game, but was almost universally scorned for being a poor game. The thing that I don't understand is that a distressing number of the people making that complaint would not consider trying a game with weaker graphics, even if it had the outstanding gameplay that they were supposedly wanting. It seems that many people not only want it all, but actually expect to get it from every developer out there.
(/rant)
(edit: just a reminder: LGS/LGT was the game developer. TTLG is the fan site whose forums you're reading :)
bogogf on 17/2/2004 at 02:50
I agree about the graphics, the Arx engine may not be overly complex but the textures are awesome and there's enough debris and environmental objects lying around as well as excellent sound to make it a lasting and convincingly enjoyable and atmospheric game.
*takes a breath*
To hell with bad reviews.
Child of Karras on 22/2/2004 at 05:23
It's unique in so many ways. I have not played that far but so I like what I see so far. From the spellcasting, to the enviroment interaction and so on.
raetsel on 22/2/2004 at 06:47
Quote:
Originally posted by zacharias The magic system i think is the best contribution it makes..(i'd love a thief like game where you could play a campaign as a thief or a magic-user..the arx magic system or similar with cityscape levels and thiefy gameplay..)
oh, that's a drool-worthy thought :)
the game is good all because of stephen russell, of course :joke:
my only problem with it at all is the replayability factor - i had even little interest in replaying it after the first time through - doesn't feel like there's anything new to discover or any other way to go about what you have to do (pretty linear) which makes replay pretty dull to me (don't get me wrong, the game is still one of the few i've enjoyed).
now with zacharias' idea - that would = much more replayable (what is it with thief never getting boring... it really kills every other game :))!
