Sounds like GoT, honestly. If that's what we can expect then I'll pay 20 euros gladly.
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Of Orcs And Men
- Thread starter MicoSelva
- Start date
Sounds like GoT, honestly. If that's what we can expect then I'll pay 20 euros gladly.
LOL, typical mainstream-press justification for saying "well they didn't send 5000 bucks for whores and booze, so let us pull an immortal argument of production values and give 6/10, hahaha. Fuck those greedy reviewers jews.
sser
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2011
- Messages
- 1,866,879
The game is good. So here's a little bit of lowdown on what it is.
First, the gameplay. It uses the Game of Thrones RPG battlesystem, but it's much improved. I really hated the combat in GoT:RPG, for the record. In Of Orcs and Men, or OOM I guess, the combat isn't cringeworthy because the game really offers a huge dichotomy between characters. The orcs in the game are huge. They tower over everything and are walking war machines, more or less. The orc's combat capabilities are basically offense/defense, with passive bonuses applied when fighting in one or the other. You can assume what kind of abilities are in each; offense has huge attacks, defense is more about huddling up punching people in the face/taunting/stunning. One big attribute of the orc is his rage-meter. His rage meter builds as he is attacked. The orc being enraged is good and bad. Pissed off, you lose complete control over the character. I mean complete control. If your goblin is nearby you will want to move him away or else he might get smashed in the frenzy of a bloodthirsty beast. So you lose control and the orc goes totally apeshit. Huge damage boost, swinging away and crushing everything. This can be a good thing if you're combating a few remaining enemies as the orc quickly pulverizes his prey. It's a bad thing if you're surrounded, as the orc manically attacks everything in sight, spreading his offense too thin and getting himself killed. So as an orc you have to: know when to go on the offense, when to play defense, and when to control your rage. It's a dynamic, constantly changing combat system. And it all moves very quick, the system ridding itself of the slow-as-molasses combat that was in GoT:RPG.
The goblin is the opposite of the orc. He can't smash up whole groups, but that doesn't mean he's useless. His combat is swings back and forth between close-combat with daggers and ranged with... thrown daggers. Anyway, the goblin is more or less a rogue. His primary ability is to sneak around assassinating soldiers to weaken the enemy ranks, picking up any items you see pre-fight, or just scouting and seeing what is coming up. This might sound lame, but as the game progresses you realize the value in selectively assassinating people either in a certain order, or by how big of a threat they will be in the coming fight. For example, you can get away with assassinating two ordinary soldiers before people will catch you; or you can assassinate a ranking officer and get caught immediately. Up to you. In fights, the goblin debuffs enemies. He can destabilize them, basically lowering their "stability" and opening them up to short-stunlocking, make them bleed, poison them, wreck their armor, etc. He's basically the high-precision tool you use to pick through enemy weaknesses, prying them open like clam shells so the orc can feast. There is something else the goblin can do, a sort of "combo" ability he uses with the orc: the goblin can be thrown by his muscled compatriot. This gets the goblin onto higher ground, picking off pesky archers, or you can use it as a can opener for fights, as it is a high-damage move.
I. AM. SUPERMAN...
Combat is fairly intense. The one thing I've noticed about Cyanide's two similar RPGs (GoT, OOM) is that they are quite challenging. Fights can quickly turn into clusterfucks and you have to just learn how to manage them efficiently. It carries the basic mechanics/modifiers you'd expect. Spearmen play the part of rodeo clowns, prodding the orc away and keeping him off balance (the aforementioned "stability" is very important here). Sword'n'board troopers block light attacks no problem. And certain enemies require layered tactics, like having the goblin keep more agile attackers off their feet or splintering the armor of heavy foot soldiers. I am playing the game on normal because I've found Cyanide's RPGs never seem properly balanced on the harder difficulties; normal is hard enough, while everything above it is just blistering frustration. (This is opposite to, say, Dragon Age, where anything below the hardest difficulty is far too easy. I think designing difficulties in RPGs is probably one of the more challenging tasks when it comes to game design.)
Both characters level up and the system is more or less the same as it was on GoT: RPG, but better refined. I do like the rather simple trade-system -- the economy is tight, with items being bought or upgraded for costs as low as "two," for example. It works fairly well, with "money" provided through items, of which you can decide to keep around or sell. My only complaint is that upgrades cannot be seen before hand -- which is pretty bad -- and some items give attribute boosts, but you can't measure exactly what they do in terms of hard numbers. Learning the system itself makes this null, but it does seem to be a basic feature left out.
The game is quite linear. You have side-quests galore, but each one is more or less a straight shot with a few divergent paths here and there. Honestly, this doesn't bother me, but I'll get to why in a second.
Aesthetically, the game looks great. It's strange, watching it in motion, because a lot was done with obviously few resources and you begin to wonder what kind of amazing spectacles could have been had were Cyanide a "top tier" developer/publisher. Art direction is of very high quality. This game is technically worse off than Dragon Age, but it looks better already and it will age just fine. It's crazy what a game can do if you invest resources into the art itself (Half-Life 2 and Shadow of the Colossus are my favorite examples). The music is fantastic and, no doubt, stands as one of the game's best facets. Everything about the game's appearance just feels great. I am one to not really give a shit about high-end 3D graphics, though, so take that into account.
The story is quite interesting so far and is also the reason I do not care about the linearity. I will admit right here that I much prefer "journey" type stories than the open ended ones most games have. I don't care if a game is blatantly mediocre or even bad, if it has that "hero's journey" element I'm all in (Castlevania: Lord of Shadows, Risen, for examples; I love both those games even if they are flawed). The plot centers around you and a few other orcs who are the remaining soldiers of a highly destructive fighting force, the Blackjaws. Most of the orc tribes have already been defeated, murdered or enslaved. In a last ditch effort the Blackjaws are going to penetrate the giant walls of the human empire and assassinate the emperor. Pretty awesome. I don't want to get much further into it, but the story is pretty enjoyable. It has its pretty grim moments and it flirts with Heart of Darkness-esque material on occasion. The characters progress the plot well enough, too. And here's something important about them: they are fully realized. They rarely step out of the bounds of their established norms. The orc is a big angry oaf; the goblin a quick-witted rogue. When the protagonists meet some hangups in their quest it just feels realistic, like it was an error brought out from their inherent character flaws. The voice acting is pretty solid on the goblin/orc, and totally hit or miss on just about everyone else.
Dr. Orc, PhD in killing and a self-taught chiropractor.
I can recommend the game if you love the lore behind orcs, or just want to play a game that spins the tropes about. That's easy enough. Also if you're one of those folks who liked the GoT:RPG combat for whatever reason, then it is better and more realized in OOM. If you're not one of those folks, well then just wait, I suppose, and don't get it at all if you hate that system altogether or if you prefer open-world RPGs.
Final score:
Better than DE:HR, L.A. Noire, and Alan Wake combined/10
First, the gameplay. It uses the Game of Thrones RPG battlesystem, but it's much improved. I really hated the combat in GoT:RPG, for the record. In Of Orcs and Men, or OOM I guess, the combat isn't cringeworthy because the game really offers a huge dichotomy between characters. The orcs in the game are huge. They tower over everything and are walking war machines, more or less. The orc's combat capabilities are basically offense/defense, with passive bonuses applied when fighting in one or the other. You can assume what kind of abilities are in each; offense has huge attacks, defense is more about huddling up punching people in the face/taunting/stunning. One big attribute of the orc is his rage-meter. His rage meter builds as he is attacked. The orc being enraged is good and bad. Pissed off, you lose complete control over the character. I mean complete control. If your goblin is nearby you will want to move him away or else he might get smashed in the frenzy of a bloodthirsty beast. So you lose control and the orc goes totally apeshit. Huge damage boost, swinging away and crushing everything. This can be a good thing if you're combating a few remaining enemies as the orc quickly pulverizes his prey. It's a bad thing if you're surrounded, as the orc manically attacks everything in sight, spreading his offense too thin and getting himself killed. So as an orc you have to: know when to go on the offense, when to play defense, and when to control your rage. It's a dynamic, constantly changing combat system. And it all moves very quick, the system ridding itself of the slow-as-molasses combat that was in GoT:RPG.
The goblin is the opposite of the orc. He can't smash up whole groups, but that doesn't mean he's useless. His combat is swings back and forth between close-combat with daggers and ranged with... thrown daggers. Anyway, the goblin is more or less a rogue. His primary ability is to sneak around assassinating soldiers to weaken the enemy ranks, picking up any items you see pre-fight, or just scouting and seeing what is coming up. This might sound lame, but as the game progresses you realize the value in selectively assassinating people either in a certain order, or by how big of a threat they will be in the coming fight. For example, you can get away with assassinating two ordinary soldiers before people will catch you; or you can assassinate a ranking officer and get caught immediately. Up to you. In fights, the goblin debuffs enemies. He can destabilize them, basically lowering their "stability" and opening them up to short-stunlocking, make them bleed, poison them, wreck their armor, etc. He's basically the high-precision tool you use to pick through enemy weaknesses, prying them open like clam shells so the orc can feast. There is something else the goblin can do, a sort of "combo" ability he uses with the orc: the goblin can be thrown by his muscled compatriot. This gets the goblin onto higher ground, picking off pesky archers, or you can use it as a can opener for fights, as it is a high-damage move.
I. AM. SUPERMAN...
Combat is fairly intense. The one thing I've noticed about Cyanide's two similar RPGs (GoT, OOM) is that they are quite challenging. Fights can quickly turn into clusterfucks and you have to just learn how to manage them efficiently. It carries the basic mechanics/modifiers you'd expect. Spearmen play the part of rodeo clowns, prodding the orc away and keeping him off balance (the aforementioned "stability" is very important here). Sword'n'board troopers block light attacks no problem. And certain enemies require layered tactics, like having the goblin keep more agile attackers off their feet or splintering the armor of heavy foot soldiers. I am playing the game on normal because I've found Cyanide's RPGs never seem properly balanced on the harder difficulties; normal is hard enough, while everything above it is just blistering frustration. (This is opposite to, say, Dragon Age, where anything below the hardest difficulty is far too easy. I think designing difficulties in RPGs is probably one of the more challenging tasks when it comes to game design.)
Both characters level up and the system is more or less the same as it was on GoT: RPG, but better refined. I do like the rather simple trade-system -- the economy is tight, with items being bought or upgraded for costs as low as "two," for example. It works fairly well, with "money" provided through items, of which you can decide to keep around or sell. My only complaint is that upgrades cannot be seen before hand -- which is pretty bad -- and some items give attribute boosts, but you can't measure exactly what they do in terms of hard numbers. Learning the system itself makes this null, but it does seem to be a basic feature left out.
The game is quite linear. You have side-quests galore, but each one is more or less a straight shot with a few divergent paths here and there. Honestly, this doesn't bother me, but I'll get to why in a second.
Aesthetically, the game looks great. It's strange, watching it in motion, because a lot was done with obviously few resources and you begin to wonder what kind of amazing spectacles could have been had were Cyanide a "top tier" developer/publisher. Art direction is of very high quality. This game is technically worse off than Dragon Age, but it looks better already and it will age just fine. It's crazy what a game can do if you invest resources into the art itself (Half-Life 2 and Shadow of the Colossus are my favorite examples). The music is fantastic and, no doubt, stands as one of the game's best facets. Everything about the game's appearance just feels great. I am one to not really give a shit about high-end 3D graphics, though, so take that into account.
The story is quite interesting so far and is also the reason I do not care about the linearity. I will admit right here that I much prefer "journey" type stories than the open ended ones most games have. I don't care if a game is blatantly mediocre or even bad, if it has that "hero's journey" element I'm all in (Castlevania: Lord of Shadows, Risen, for examples; I love both those games even if they are flawed). The plot centers around you and a few other orcs who are the remaining soldiers of a highly destructive fighting force, the Blackjaws. Most of the orc tribes have already been defeated, murdered or enslaved. In a last ditch effort the Blackjaws are going to penetrate the giant walls of the human empire and assassinate the emperor. Pretty awesome. I don't want to get much further into it, but the story is pretty enjoyable. It has its pretty grim moments and it flirts with Heart of Darkness-esque material on occasion. The characters progress the plot well enough, too. And here's something important about them: they are fully realized. They rarely step out of the bounds of their established norms. The orc is a big angry oaf; the goblin a quick-witted rogue. When the protagonists meet some hangups in their quest it just feels realistic, like it was an error brought out from their inherent character flaws. The voice acting is pretty solid on the goblin/orc, and totally hit or miss on just about everyone else.
Dr. Orc, PhD in killing and a self-taught chiropractor.
I can recommend the game if you love the lore behind orcs, or just want to play a game that spins the tropes about. That's easy enough. Also if you're one of those folks who liked the GoT:RPG combat for whatever reason, then it is better and more realized in OOM. If you're not one of those folks, well then just wait, I suppose, and don't get it at all if you hate that system altogether or if you prefer open-world RPGs.
Final score:
Better than DE:HR, L.A. Noire, and Alan Wake combined/10
fizzelopeguss
Arcane
Green is best.
Now I'm intrigued.
Mary Sue Leigh
Erudite
After the novel feeling has worn off I find it rather boring. The over-use of foul language that all characters use seems way too forced and makes me genuinely uncomfortable.. Maybe it incides with the fact that the orks kind of aren't written like orks.. Just sub-standardy generic fantasy characters.. which I should probably have expected. Levels are quite linear which at least I have started to enjoy by now, with the odd sidepassages to find stuff.. which seems to be actually useful gear rather than pointless 1 out of 255 collectibles to unlock concept art that you'll never look at.
Never missing a chance to push the rather plain and uninspired backstory at you, but the skip button is a strong ally at least. I'm kinda failing to get the setup, and motivation of the cardboard-y cutout characters, but I didn't expect much.. Actually I didn't expect or desire ANY human NPCs.. I came to see ORKS! And one goblin.. Bleh..
I'm undecided how this was meant to be played.. The mouse control is a bit odd, as is the overall perspective you get, it gives me trouble seeing anything beyond my characters, even applying to the goblin as switching to the li'l rat makes the camera view go very low into the ground, Orson Welles style. Gamepads work but then you lack a lot of important functions or maybe I simply can't find them, being unfamiliar with the thing after all.. Every attempt to go stealthy with the goblin has always resulted in the ork walking up and picking his sidekick up and tossing him in the midst of a pack of enemies I was intending to pick off stealthily.
Was only the first actual mission I played there which clearly shows you when you should go sneaky stabby and when to go all in, but what's the point.. if they expect me to take on 4 guards - which I can - then why shouldn't I just jump the 2 solitary ones that are NOT facing each other. Okay, this is on easy setting since I just knew I would get mercilessly crushed otherwise. So I'm better reserving comment on this mechanic for now.
I'm just awful with this action-queing thing, it reminds me a bit of the old "Summoner" game, or maybe even the first Neverwinter Nights since fighting is more about what attack or defense move you do and when rather than strategic movement.. but I find it hard to anticipate what the enemy will do, what I should do about it, and what exactly works/does not work about my strategy. Plus it does never play out as you imagine it would anyway, it's not taking turns or anything, it's a rather arbitrary bashing each other with the vain hope to make your interrupts by chance actually interrupt something, there is no grace or beauty or method to this that I can see. It's like you give two actors the same script, they both only read THEIR lines, but none of them ever makes a pause or break or interacts with the other in any way, so in the end the one who screams the loudest gets declared winner.
The whole thing doesn't even look that great, somewhat poor textures especially on the actors when you see them close up, and the vegetation just sticks out as if it doesn't belong.. it's by no stretch of the imagination as bad as a wii game or similar, but it's nothing that makes you go "Oooo.. double rainbow.."
I'd say like.. given today's standards.. a 489 out of 1027 score? At any rate, definitely not worth it at a price tag higher than let's say € 20 or so. No matter how many hours of gameplay this'll turn out to be.
Have a nice day. n_n;
Never missing a chance to push the rather plain and uninspired backstory at you, but the skip button is a strong ally at least. I'm kinda failing to get the setup, and motivation of the cardboard-y cutout characters, but I didn't expect much.. Actually I didn't expect or desire ANY human NPCs.. I came to see ORKS! And one goblin.. Bleh..
I'm undecided how this was meant to be played.. The mouse control is a bit odd, as is the overall perspective you get, it gives me trouble seeing anything beyond my characters, even applying to the goblin as switching to the li'l rat makes the camera view go very low into the ground, Orson Welles style. Gamepads work but then you lack a lot of important functions or maybe I simply can't find them, being unfamiliar with the thing after all.. Every attempt to go stealthy with the goblin has always resulted in the ork walking up and picking his sidekick up and tossing him in the midst of a pack of enemies I was intending to pick off stealthily.
Was only the first actual mission I played there which clearly shows you when you should go sneaky stabby and when to go all in, but what's the point.. if they expect me to take on 4 guards - which I can - then why shouldn't I just jump the 2 solitary ones that are NOT facing each other. Okay, this is on easy setting since I just knew I would get mercilessly crushed otherwise. So I'm better reserving comment on this mechanic for now.
I'm just awful with this action-queing thing, it reminds me a bit of the old "Summoner" game, or maybe even the first Neverwinter Nights since fighting is more about what attack or defense move you do and when rather than strategic movement.. but I find it hard to anticipate what the enemy will do, what I should do about it, and what exactly works/does not work about my strategy. Plus it does never play out as you imagine it would anyway, it's not taking turns or anything, it's a rather arbitrary bashing each other with the vain hope to make your interrupts by chance actually interrupt something, there is no grace or beauty or method to this that I can see. It's like you give two actors the same script, they both only read THEIR lines, but none of them ever makes a pause or break or interacts with the other in any way, so in the end the one who screams the loudest gets declared winner.
The whole thing doesn't even look that great, somewhat poor textures especially on the actors when you see them close up, and the vegetation just sticks out as if it doesn't belong.. it's by no stretch of the imagination as bad as a wii game or similar, but it's nothing that makes you go "Oooo.. double rainbow.."
I'd say like.. given today's standards.. a 489 out of 1027 score? At any rate, definitely not worth it at a price tag higher than let's say € 20 or so. No matter how many hours of gameplay this'll turn out to be.
Have a nice day. n_n;
Hm, I expected that. Will skip it and stick with Dishonored and Risen 2 for now.
Meanwhile, please refer to Metro for an indepth review when he has finished the game 7 times within the next days.
Meanwhile, please refer to Metro for an indepth review when he has finished the game 7 times within the next days.
I. AM. SUPERMAN...
Metro
Arcane
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2009
- Messages
- 27,792
Say it ain't so, buddy!
Just means the game might actually be good for what it is.
sser
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2011
- Messages
- 1,866,879
Cyanide games go on sale pretty quick, by the way. Wouldn't surprise me to see this for $26 or $20 come November/December.
And I think Mary Sue is off the mark on a lot of things, but right about the game not being high fantasy. Lord of the Rings this is not -- "fuck" is thrown away a good amount. And much of the dialogue is pretty edgy as far as banter goes. I find the writing to be very strong, personally, but if you like your preened elves and fake swears (sodding! to the hells!) then this won't really be up your alley. The main character's nickname is "Butcher," and you kinda learn why as the game goes on.
And I think Mary Sue is off the mark on a lot of things, but right about the game not being high fantasy. Lord of the Rings this is not -- "fuck" is thrown away a good amount. And much of the dialogue is pretty edgy as far as banter goes. I find the writing to be very strong, personally, but if you like your preened elves and fake swears (sodding! to the hells!) then this won't really be up your alley. The main character's nickname is "Butcher," and you kinda learn why as the game goes on.
fizzelopeguss
Arcane
Yeah, that character was terrible.
fix'd
sser
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2011
- Messages
- 1,866,879
Not sure it is possible; same engine as the GoT:RPG game, same flaws in that respect. I only have issues maybe once every other level when a fight gets clustered into a corner. The game mechanics and engine were not well crafted for that kind of combat.
The game really wouldn't have suffered from normal healing (like healing skill on a cooldown). Anything's better than Arkail pausing a few seconds in the middle of combat to catch a potion, giving enemies free hits.
During boss fights I find myself running around with Styx throwing stun bombs, until Arkail's health is fully charged again. Then again, boss fights are the only time combat is challenging; the stealth is too powerful and too easy as enemies don't even react to corpses in their way.
During boss fights I find myself running around with Styx throwing stun bombs, until Arkail's health is fully charged again. Then again, boss fights are the only time combat is challenging; the stealth is too powerful and too easy as enemies don't even react to corpses in their way.
sser
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2011
- Messages
- 1,866,879
I haven't had to kite anyone. Arkail's health regenerates pretty fast if you turtle up with carapace and rage-release or catch a potion. My strategy is to open with an offensive move, like the charge, and then switch to defense and taunt everyone into you and spam disengagement, making Arkail kick and swing around like a madman; punch those in the face you want to stun. Styx either does the knife-spam move if you're fighting weak targets (it mows down goblins), or I have him melee against beefy guys like knights or orcs, cutting down their armor and stun-locking them with his destabilize move. Throw in his "Focus," which for me does high crit chance and dodge, and he becomes a whirling dervish of death. Most battles are more or less a race: Styx has to kill everyone off before Ark is ground down; Styx is juggling offensive moves, Ark is juggling defensive. For me, Styx's damage is extremely high; I can post screens of my two stat builds thus far if you want to compare. I'm not sure how far you are into the game, but there are fights where I don't think kiting is an option.
Tips... Make sure you upgrade armor you're using; upgraded armor usually gives huge -dmg%, especially if it's something like chest plating. Unless there are way stronger targets around, I'd focus enemies with spears. They're the ones who destabilize Ark and keep him off his feet. Never have Ark fight in offensive when there are a lot of enemies around. The offensive-stance has very little use to me because he simply dies too fast when in it. I let Ark control his rage and off-set that with Styx's damage output. A berserking Ark does insane damage, but he also dies fast. Limited usage as the game goes on. Also, I saved on Styx's stealth upgrade for a long time. Take the speed one if you haven't already; big time saver.
Tips... Make sure you upgrade armor you're using; upgraded armor usually gives huge -dmg%, especially if it's something like chest plating. Unless there are way stronger targets around, I'd focus enemies with spears. They're the ones who destabilize Ark and keep him off his feet. Never have Ark fight in offensive when there are a lot of enemies around. The offensive-stance has very little use to me because he simply dies too fast when in it. I let Ark control his rage and off-set that with Styx's damage output. A berserking Ark does insane damage, but he also dies fast. Limited usage as the game goes on. Also, I saved on Styx's stealth upgrade for a long time. Take the speed one if you haven't already; big time saver.
sser
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2011
- Messages
- 1,866,879
I don't know yet. There is for sure two choices that actually impact the gameplay -- it will be pretty obvious when you come across them.
I got to play it 8 hours or so. So far it is very similar to GoT (same engine), but worse. Locations are more railroaded - it is like a string of going there and killing dudes. I remember GoT much more varied in this respect. Combat system is a bit changed - cannot say if it is for good or bad. Lots of people were complaining that GoT had many redundant abilities. Well, here is the same at lower difficulty levels (easy, normal). But, in this game, it feels like you have more meaningful options to choose from with regards to combat. Still, I am too early into the game to evaluate whether this is a case.
It also feels even more action-adventure than GoT. As a matter of fact it is basically an adventure game with some quick-time puzzles (that you can slow down with pause).
Story, while interesting enough to push forward, is vastly inferior to GoT so far. But, as I said, I haven't played enough yet, so it may get better. And, at the time I was playing GoT, I was very fresh on the setting/lore etc., so it might be that...
It also feels even more action-adventure than GoT. As a matter of fact it is basically an adventure game with some quick-time puzzles (that you can slow down with pause).
Story, while interesting enough to push forward, is vastly inferior to GoT so far. But, as I said, I haven't played enough yet, so it may get better. And, at the time I was playing GoT, I was very fresh on the setting/lore etc., so it might be that...
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