Recent reviews by A_Muller

Fun gameplay loop, great art style, dark, and absolutely brutal in the portrayal of war. in a much needed way.
I've played several sessions on and off over the course of almost a decade now and I always return a bit here and there. Lots of good mod content available as well.

I'll give a proper long and detailed review once I've got enough hours into the game. But man, it feels just like it felt plauing SoC for the first time in 2007, the vibes, the atmosphere, the immersion. The zone just sucks you in.

Performs better than I had expected based on the recent benchmark results posted.
Can't wait to upgrade my 3080 to a 50-series RTX GPU so I can run this maxed, currently running high/epic with DLSS on quality and I'm getting between 70 and 100 frames, a few minor dips have likely been below 50, but I expected much worse.

I'm sooo damn happy!

Unique and fun game.
Mixes many game modes and does it well, fun story with interesting areas to explore and biomes to learn.
Could have some form of procedural generation for added variety but that would just be a bonus. Relaxing tunes and a really cozy art style makes this game very chill to play. Works really well on the Steam Deck.

I have not fully completed the game, and it's been a while since I last played but I saw that there's new content either out or around the corner so I'll likely hop back in then on the steam deck over summer.

What can I say that likely already hasn't been said.. Not much I reckon.

As a long time fan of the BG franchise, dating back to the original release of BG1 on CD back in the late 90s I was both excited and anxious over this title's release.

I'm one of those odd BG fans who prefer real-time with pause combat over full turn-based for CRPG games (I still love turn- based games like XCOM and Total War/Civ), knowing Larian was developing this following their Divinity IPs I could guess that they would very likely "just" use the same system for BG3.

I was correct and was still reluctant to try this out during the beta stage, but realized I would still want to give the next BG title a spin even if it wasn't what I was hoping for out of the gate.

I was immediately drawn into an exciting and vibrant adventure -And wanted more, but I held off on any EA patches just so I could experience as much of the game for the first time on final release.


Having played a couple of playthroughs I can safely say that this is, by far, one of my favorite games to date. it's beautiful, dramatic, vibrant, living and constantly being shaped by the way you're playing it. With a web of world-state links that I can only imagine is pure hell behind the scenes. Bravo to Larian for achieving this!

With that said I do still feel like I'm very much dissconnected from the Baldur's Gate franchise; there's very little BG feel to the game and the world is built up very differently.

You're more on a track, but can take thousands of different left or right hand turns along the way making it a thrilling and unique experience, but you have very little agency of the pacing and after you're done in a place coming back to it feels empty and void. As if the world only lives around the main plotline. Given the story's nature I can see why this was the chosen path, but as a BG 1 and 2 player I would've liked to see it function a bit more like the previous titles personally.

With that said this is, absolutely, the best CRPG experience to date, even if it's mechanics are a bit more against my own preference (I still prefer the isometric real-time w/ pause experience similar to BG 1/2, Icewind Dale, Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder, etc). The cutscenes are phenomenal, all actors did a splendid job, and apart from times when the camera has bugged out during cinematics the cinematogrophy and storytelling is also fantastic.

If you enjoy RPGs and you enjoy a fantasy setting you should really consider hopping into the Forgotten Realms.

Oh wow, I can't believe that I never wrote a review for this game..

I've played the Baldur's Gate franchise ever since it's original release on CDs back in the 90s.. Every year or so I do another playthrough.
To me this is peak CRPG, very likely since I've got extreme nostalgic glasses when looking at my own experiences, but the game system does work well, it allows both for turn-based combat and (my personal favorite Real-Time with Pause).
A limitation lies in it's core ruleset complexity as it's based on D&D 2.5e and the THAC0 system definitely has it's flaws.

There are of course other core rules/mechanics that are debated as well but I won't get into the finer nuances
I find the complexity fun as it enables players to really find synergies and can get really nerdy about min-maxing builds should they want.
-But it is definitely not needed. As a young kid with no insight into the finer details other than realizing that -armor value is better I could still learn and navigate the game fine. The Enhanced Edition is, in my opinion, an upgrade over the original. Both with a lot of bug fixes and tweaks, but also the ease of use on modern systems and it's smooth multiplayer support.

The new content seem to be either a hit or miss for the most part in the community, for me it's a hit. New interesting characters with some new quest lines are rarely bad in my book and they're not terribly written or remove from the original story so they're absolutely fine for me.

I feel pretty much the same thing for the Enhanced Editions of Baldur's Gate II and Icewind Dale (A real shame the source material for IWD 2 is gone forever), so I will simply copy this portion of the review for those games as well.

When it comes to the Baldur's Gate 2 story (without spoiling anything) I think that the actors have done a great job providing us with interesting antagonists and a deepening of the lore continuing the main focus of the first game, and it does so without it feeling repetitive.

This title, just like

Oh wow, I can't believe that I never wrote a review for this game..

I've played Baldur's Gate ever since it's original release on CDs back in the 90s.. Every year or so I do another playthrough.
To me this is peak CRPG, very likely since I've got extreme nostalgic glasses when looking at my own experiences, but the game system does work well, it allows both for turn-based combat and (my personal favorite Real-Time with Pause).
A limitation lies in it's core ruleset complexity as it's based on D&D 2.5e and the THAC0 system definitely has it's flaws.

There are of course other core rules/mechanics that are debated as well but I won't get into the finer nuances
I find the complexity fun as it enables players to really find synergies and can get really nerdy about min-maxing builds should they want.
-But it is definitely not needed. As a young kid with no insight into the finer details other than realizing that -armor value is better I could still learn and navigate the game fine. The Enhanced Edition is, in my opinion, an upgrade over the original. Both with a lot of bug fixes and tweaks, but also the ease of use on modern systems and it's smooth multiplayer support.

The new content seem to be either a hit or miss for the most part in the community, for me it's a hit. New interesting characters with some new quest lines are rarely bad in my book and they're not terribly written or remove from the original story so they're absolutely fine for me.

I feel pretty much the same thing for the Enhanced Editions of Baldur's Gate I and Icewind Dale (A real shame the source material for IWD 2 is gone forever), so I will simply copy this portion of the review for those games as well.

The story itself is a great continuation of the saga, it starts off where you left off in BG1, and as such I think that this was the first game ever to implement this mechanic (that BioWare then continued with in other IPs). That means that hopping into BG2 will be a higher leveled adventure from the start. So if the BG1 story doesn't interest you but you still enjoy the world and game mechanics BG2 might still be for you.

Oh wow, I can't believe that I never wrote a review for this game..

I've played Baldur's Gate ever since it's original release on CDs back in the 90s.. Every year or so I do another playthrough.
To me this is peak CRPG, very likely since I've got extreme nostalgic glasses when looking at my own experiences, but the game system does work well, it allows both for turn-based combat and (my personal favorite Real-Time with Pause).
A limitation lies in it's core ruleset complexity as it's based on D&D 2.5e and the THAC0 system definitely has it's flaws.

There are of course other core rules/mechanics that are debated as well but I won't get into the finer nuances
I find the complexity fun as it enables players to really find synergies and can get really nerdy about min-maxing builds should they want.
-But it is definitely not needed. As a young kid with no insight into the finer details other than realizing that -armor value is better I could still learn and navigate the game fine. The Enhanced Edition is, in my opinion, an upgrade over the original. Both with a lot of bug fixes and tweaks, but also the ease of use on modern systems and it's smooth multiplayer support.

The new content seem to be either a hit or miss for the most part in the community, for me it's a hit. New interesting characters with some new quest lines are rarely bad in my book and they're not terribly written or remove from the original story so they're absolutely fine for me.

I feel pretty much the same thing for the Enhanced Editions of Baldur's Gate II and Icewind Dale (A real shame the source material for IWD 2 is gone forever), so I will simply copy this portion of the review for those games as well.


When it comes to the Baldur's Gate 1 story (without spoiling anything) I think it's a very nice scaling D&D Adventure, has great pacing and I do enjoy an adventure without having players being super high leveled adventurers at least by the first few hours of gameplay.

The story itself is also a great way to pull someone into the Sword Coast lore and, of course, helps deepen the lore knowledge of any BG3 fan interested in seeing it's predecessors.

Cozy "Survival" game with lots of similarities with the Zone in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Fun mechanics and very atmospheric.

Could be nice with an added difficulty as well as possibly some procedurally generated transport levels instead of "just" driving a safe passage to add variety into the game a bit more as each area is generally learned pretty swiftly and it's such a great world to explore new areas in, but still a great experience nonetheless.

Game could also use with a bit more of an expanded radio station selection. The music in the game is absolutely great, but gets repetitive fairly quickly. So either expanding on that from the developer side, or enabling a way for players to also include local music files into their radio station would be really great.

For me this game has a similar narrative level that of "The Long Dark" and the environmental hazards and scientific mystery that is "The Zone" in "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and the two meld so well.

UPDATED REVIEW:

The core gameplay loop is great, and playing a swarm game with friends rarely feels this good. Proper live service with regular content updates, a lot of great new skins and constant work on rebalancing mechanics and weapons/items.
This game takes my mind right into Starship Troopers and Warhammer 40k and I love it!

As long as content keeps on getting added and the Developers keep having fun messing with the player base through the game master then I bet we'll keep having fun as players.

I would love to see a game mode where we invade the nests (DRG crossover...? :D), but that's neither here nor there.

In recent days there's been a PR storm around this game, but as Sony backed down on their PSN requirement and made amends alongside the very transparent and honest communications from Arrowhead I can now say that I'm very pleased to see that the players' concerns were heard and addressed. And as such, I update my review to once more be a positive one.

Now travel the galaxy and spread democracy!

___________________________________________________

OLD Review (Was negative):
The core gameplay loop is great, and playing a swarm game with friends rarely feels this good.
But since day 1 of the release I've experienced:
- HUGE amounts of disconnects
- 1-3 BSODs every single match (correlation to anti cheat trying to read in memory; memory is verified to not be faulty, this has now died down to more like 1 BSOD every 2-3 games)
- 1-4 CTDs every single match (these have now died down to 0-1)
- 1-2 DCs every other game or so.

Continuous patching has helped the game greatly and we can see steady improvements. But combining these still (for me) persistent core issues alongside the developer's new hard requirement for steam players to link to a PSN account is absolutely outrageous when it's masked as to help protect players. Sony has literally had multiple severe IT breaches over the past decade, leaking thousands upon thousands of users' data. They are simply masking wanting to pull more user statistics, data and claim more active users in PSN.

on top of this PSN doesn't even exist in a bunch of regions so players who are in said regions will, in effect, loose their accounts and progression.

SCUMMY. SCUMMY. SCUMMY.

Shame on you Sony for doing this. And I'm so sorry to see Arrowhead's great work just burn like this because of yet another scumbag publisher move... Yet here we are.


If this reverts and we continue to see good fixes to the game reducing crashes further I would gladly change my review to a positive one, because I would love to come back to the game, but as of right now, I'll let it simmer in the backlog.

I played the early beta a year or so ago and have been on pins and needles waiting for this since. And man, if you enjoy city builders this is a fresh take on the genre combining RTS with some macro strategy and politics.

I can't wait for the full release with all features available.

The Cake is a lie, the game is absolutely fantastic, both SP and coop.