Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Game News Arcania: Gothic 4 Demo Released

Elwro

Arcane
Joined
Dec 29, 2002
Messages
11,751
Location
Krakow, Poland
Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
Orruk always looks at young lady with big eyes
 

denizsi

Arcane
Joined
Nov 24, 2005
Messages
9,927
Location
bosphorus
God, these guys are still living in the dark ages of software development. They screwed up the interface. This is at 1920x1280:

hu0k7t.jpg


Next one is at 1280x800:

68u7o5.jpg


Anyway, I don't get what's good about the game that any of you could look forward to it. Combat is as popamole shit as it gets. At least with the shepherd stick, one would expect to be able to use the curved end to grab and pull some necks or limbs. Then the same old of bigger weapons = slower bullshit. When will anyone do anything more interesting than clickfest combat? And combat becoming harder when it's shit is just tedious grind. And since the game will have nothing else but combat to gameplay...

Writing is shit. Also, no swimming.

I was surprised at the graphics though. Town's design was neat, the art direction acceptable (except for the character models) and the shadow quality was good. Animations are once again retarded though. They should've just drop the body language animations during dialogues, it comes off as retarded and annoying. The camera black-out between when you talk to a character and the dialogue scene comes up is terrible. They must have fucked something up to work right during that transition to make it so that you can't even skip that black-out.

And generally speaking, one of the worst demos ever. It's a pretty retarded idea to try to cater to the old fans with the ending for a demo and that cave-dungeon was just too fucking long for a demo.
 

Elzair

Cipher
Joined
Apr 7, 2009
Messages
2,254
So, does this demo have any shitty malw.. er DRM on it? I hate that shit.
 

markec

Twitterbot
Patron
Joined
Jan 15, 2010
Messages
49,088
Location
Croatia
Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Dead State Project: Eternity Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
I cant wait to get the full game since I cant believe this was presentation of finished product but more like a beta build or someones joke.
This was probably the worst demo I ever played and who ever approved of the decision to distribute this should be fired on spot.

The combat was a joke, I played it on hard and yet never once did I save the game or felt a need to do so. Dialogs and voice acting were hilarious but in a very bad way, I honestly cant remember so poorly written dialogs in a AAA game. Lack of swimming was surprising even more when your character needs to circle around a small pond, god forbid he wets his feet.
The funniest part was invisible walls that made you unable fall of cliffs (until you press the jump button), this is obviously made for the console masses since it seems developers think that it would be hard to walk to edges with a controller.

Graphics and world design are quite goo, but beyond that I dont see any reason to play this.
 

Elzair

Cipher
Joined
Apr 7, 2009
Messages
2,254
The fucking thing will not even run. It exits saying the file cudart32_30_9.dll is not found. Oh well, I did not really care enough to try it anyway.
 

Antihero

Liturgist
Joined
May 8, 2010
Messages
859
Elzair said:
The fucking thing will not even run. It exits saying the file cudart32_30_9.dll is not found. Oh well, I did not really care enough to try it anyway.
Did you uncheck "install PhysX"? But you're not missing much, quit at the witch's cave.

Graphics whore complaint time: why are the caves just as bright as the outside areas? At least they were with the mostly default settings I had. And lip-syncing was so terrible it looked worse than a poorly dubbed film's.
 

Twinkle

Liturgist
Joined
Sep 14, 2009
Messages
1,426
Location
Lands of Entitlement
Elzair said:
The fucking thing will not even run.

Dude, you should thank it.

Heck, the demo exceeded my expectations. I thought it would be just bland and forgettable next-generic hack'n'slash in Gothic setting. Instead it was horrible, horrible piece of shit without any redeeming qualities whatsoever. The reasons were described in detail by Roxor and others. Apologists may state - but it's only a tutorial area, and as we know tutorial areas in RPG are traditionally supposed to suck. But they've shown us starting location and plot's opening. Some brief history lesson for you:

- Gothic 1. You are dropped behind the magical barrier with a letter to deliver. You are greeted with facepunch. Then some Spanish-looking dude "saves" you and suggests to join the Old Camp to prevent such accidents in the future. You follow his advice and move forward. You grab your first weapon, some shitty sword and you suck at wielding it which the game reflects through animations and puny damage output. Nevertheless, your skills are sufficient to kill scavengers in your way. You approach the castle. A guard stops you at the gate. You reply with smartass comment. You are beaten and ridiculed. Yet you are alive. I fell in love with the game at the same moment. :)

- Gothic 2. You are resurrected by your necromancer friend and given task to stop Ancient evil. Shit opening? Yep. But solid gameplay will make you forget about it pretty soon. Your first "real" task is to get to the blocked city of Khorinis. The starting area itself is pretty linear. But it has some neat surprises. Fore example, you can hack your way through the goblin caves and meet your friend from the first game. Or be a good boy and follow the road to the city. Soon suspicious bearded dude will stop you, because you match the description of the man they are looking for. You can engage into fight or talk you way out of it. In this case he mentions his boss in the cave nearby. You can try to whack him in the righteous fury. Or again, just follow the road. You reach the gates and guards don't let you in, because you need special pass. You can play by the rules and perform several primitive quests for a local farm owner. Or through careful exploration you can find another way into the city, bypassing the gate entirely.

Even G3's "kill all orcs in the village" was better.
 

Stabwound

Arcane
Joined
Dec 17, 2008
Messages
3,240
The "no going in the water" thing is mindblowingly hilarious. Has there been any official statement on this? Even an invisible wall out a bit into the water would have been preferable to "you can't even go in the water"
 

Hamster

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 18, 2005
Messages
5,936
Location
Moscow
Codex 2012 Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014
What i found one of the worst things about the demo is how it hints at absolutely terrible story in the full game. Your pregnant wife wants to go to war-torn land to have an adventure? What an excellent idea! Why do i have this feeling that plot will revolve around me saving her from captivity or avanging her death? And seriously, if you are going to force player into having a wife it's a bad enough design decision, but how the fuck can you not make the chick hot? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR FACE?!
 

markec

Twitterbot
Patron
Joined
Jan 15, 2010
Messages
49,088
Location
Croatia
Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Dead State Project: Eternity Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Hamster said:
What i found one of the worst things about the demo is how it hints at absolutely terrible story in the full game. Your pregnant wife wants to go to war-torn land to have an adventure? What an excellent idea! Why do i have this feeling that plot will revolve around me saving her from captivity or avanging her death? And seriously, if you are going to force player into having a wife it's a bad enough design decision, but how the fuck can you not make the chick hot? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR FACE?!

Dont worry when she dies you will probably find comfort in the arms of some busty princess, who with a little luck wont look like a tranny and have weird shaped shoulders and arms.
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,379
Hamster said:
What i found one of the worst things about the demo is how it hints at absolutely terrible story in the full game. Your pregnant wife wants to go to war-torn land to have an adventure? What an excellent idea! Why do i have this feeling that plot will revolve around me saving her from captivity or avanging her death? And seriously, if you are going to force player into having a wife it's a bad enough design decision, but how the fuck can you not make the chick hot? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR FACE?!

yes i was thinking that as well, and according the rich dialogues with npcs, theres no doubt , they have no magination and it will works that way.
I suppose they made the girl ugly cause the players would be too "emotionnaly involved" if she die :).
The plot looks like as cliché as an eschalon games with voice acting similar to the audio book for childrens 4-7 added.
 

SharkClub

Prophet
Patron
Joined
May 27, 2010
Messages
1,580
Strap Yourselves In
Hopefully it bombs.

Though somehow I find that unlikely in today's gaming industry, the big craze at the moment is about single-player WoW clones, look how successful Oblivion and Fallout 3 were.
 

SharkClub

Prophet
Patron
Joined
May 27, 2010
Messages
1,580
Strap Yourselves In
lordfrikk said:
Haha, so Oblivion and Fallout 3 are now WoW clones? When did that happen?
Single-player variants, when you look at the bare bones of them.

It's pretty much grind grind grind, a bunch of monotonous quests and skills that don't amount to anything important.
 

Murk

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2008
Messages
13,459
I'm actually really mad that the man character has all this background and history...

... I honestly loved the original dude being ugly as fuck, a douche bag, and a drifter.

edit: sup grammar
 

Felix

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2009
Messages
3,356
Almost everyone in Gothic games are douchbags in some way with some rare exceptions, that's why I love them.
 

Pseudofool

Scholar
Joined
Jun 3, 2006
Messages
202
Location
Solipsism
The Gothic tone is clearly gone, and that was to be expected, given the change in studio.

The dialogue was just awful, even worse than gothic 3. As for quests it seemed tutorial/demo common fare, I did, however, like the bit with Diego, seemed Gothic-y if somewhat very simple and easily stream lined.

Not super happy about it being a free loot fest, without repercussions. The skill trees look way lamer than the former Gothics. The combat was better than Gothic three, but was a bit of click fest, and the dodge is crazy-over powered.

The invisible walls, and the dude on the bridge, along with the lack of side-quests felt par for the demo. The end of the underground cave section was clearly just there to show off baddies and probably differs greatly in the real game.

I'm still looking forward to it, but the skill tree gives me more pause than anything.
 

made

Arcane
Joined
Dec 18, 2006
Messages
5,130
Location
Germany
Hamster said:
Why do i have this feeling that plot will revolve around me saving her from captivity or avanging her death?
Don't be stupid. Pregnant women don't die in video games.
 

Elzair

Cipher
Joined
Apr 7, 2009
Messages
2,254
Alright I have played the demo.

Basically this is Gothic: Ascension
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom