steo on 17/12/2008 at 22:59
Just been checking out gog.com and it caught my eye. I'm a fair RPG fan, played though dark messiah several times. Enjoyed Oblivion with OOO and Morrowind to an extent, though I felt it got pretty dull after a while. Also liked the Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights series.
What's Arx Fatalis comparable to? Is the combat good? Is it much like Dark Messiah? Good plot?
Stingm on 18/12/2008 at 00:17
I would highly suggest you try Arx Fatalis. Its one of the best rpgs in my opinion. The combat is great and the spell casting is done in a new an inventive way with the mouse. I have never played Dark Messiah or Oblivion because my computer will not run them unfortunately. It wouldn't be on ttlg if it wasn't good! :thumb: :cheeky:
doctorfrog on 18/12/2008 at 15:53
It's ten bucks, and well-worth it in my opinion. I had several false starts in Morrowind and Oblivion, before getting kind of lost and forgetting my character's path. Arx is kind of a lighter version of these games in a way. There's still a good depth and the feel of an ancient world, and a sense of exploration, just less than that of Tamriel.
The combat's nothing to get excited over, but isn't as annoying as Morrowind's was for me.
One warning: explore, but not too much. I stumbled into an area that I was supposed to go to later, and as a result, the characters there were hostile to me when I later needed to visit them to advance the main storyline. Pretty much killed the game for me, and I'm only now able to consider playing the game again since I've forgotten much of it by now.
ZylonBane on 18/12/2008 at 18:38
Quote Posted by Stingm
The combat is great and the spell casting is done in a new an inventive way with the mouse.
What Stringm means here is that the spell-casting is done with chains of mouse gestures, which of course sucks when you're trying to do them in the middle of combat. But you HAVE to deal with it, since the only way to practically defeat some of the higher-level monsters is by fireballing them to death.
twisty on 19/12/2008 at 00:52
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
What Stringm means here is that the spell-casting is done with chains of mouse gestures, which of course sucks when you're trying to do them in the middle of combat. But you HAVE to deal with it, since the only way to practically defeat some of the higher-level monsters is by fireballing them to death.
Sounds like you weren't very good at it then?
Yakoob on 19/12/2008 at 23:33
no
Faxfane on 20/12/2008 at 00:12
Downloading it right now from GOG. Be warned though if you use an American bank debit card, as GOG is located in Europe and may get flagged. That happened with me, though it only took a call to my bank to fix the problem after they verified my identity.
The good thing, aside from the DRM freedom, is that the VAT is already included in the price. That means downloads from GOG will be 5.99 or 9.99, not 9.99 + value-added tax.
eddy on 20/12/2008 at 17:24
Quote Posted by steo
Just been checking out gog.com and it caught my eye. I'm a fair RPG fan, played though dark messiah several times. Enjoyed Oblivion with OOO and Morrowind to an extent, though I felt it got pretty dull after a while. Also liked the Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights series.
What's Arx Fatalis comparable to? Is the combat good? Is it much like Dark Messiah? Good plot?
Arx can't be compared to Morrowind and Oblivion at all. The only thing they share is the first person perspective.
Arx's world isn't that big and it focusses more on story and immersion, while Morrowind/Oblivion feature a big, mostly generic, world.
I can only recommend Arx. It's one of the most underrated games.
Necros on 30/12/2008 at 11:12
I recommend it too, it's a great game with a good story and gameplay, lots of humor, I love it. I hope there will be a sequel or an other game like this. Maybe from Harvey Smith. :cool: Dark Messiah could've been a worthy "sequel" but it was too shallow and action oriented, and a bit disappointing too.
steo on 18/5/2009 at 16:48
Well I've just picked this up, it's got a bit of a learning curve on it but I'm over that now. There's a lot of things I like about this game: the shock style interface, the adventure game-like feel to it and the doing away with various rpg game-isms - you drink a bottle of water or a potion and are left with an empty potion, combining items to make an excellent wine and apple pie and so on.
There are a few things that annoy me though, one being the inventory, and most games with inventories are guilty of this but why on earth do inventory items stack? My inventory is full, so I can't pick up this mushroom but I can carry another nine apple pies. I suppose the reason it's so annoying in Arx is that the inventory is small in relation to the amount of stuff you want to carry around, particularly when you're at the start and carrying twelve different types of food. You find yourself searching for a fire so that you can stack your uncooked fish with your cooked fish.
The game is a lot more linear than I expected. Though you're free to roam around at will, there pretty much seems to be only one 'place to go next'. Maybe this changes later, I've only just gotten to Arx. I've already managed to get stuck a couple of times though, because I missed a turning somewhere, which is a bit annoying.
My character is primarily dexterous and stealthy, with some magic and a little strength, but the stealth seems to have little purpose other than pickpocketing, which is disappointing.
Oh, and I've also got an annoying bug, which means when loading a game in a different area, or when I've just booted the game, the loading screen finishes prematurely, leaving a black screen with some ambient sound which makes it appear that the game has crashed and my saves are corrupt until about a minute later when it loads properly.
Still, the game is good despite these shortcomings, so I will persevere.
I also see there's an Arx enchant mod, is it worth installing for a first-timer, or should I stick with vanilla?
And they really should have done a dedicated buy/sell screen...
