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Oblivion has set the standard for the RPG genre. So, comparing " Mage Knight", "Gothic 3", Neverwinter "Nights II" or any other new release to that is like bananas to carrots. "Mage Knight" is "same old, same old". It's playable & entertaining, but falls short of great.
Here is the main point: the game has promising concepts but is poorly executed. The dialogue is mostly emotionally flat. The game was shipped with many bugs, including quiting when trying to finish the 5th major quest, the sound effects are so poorly done as to be annoying. There are balance issues as well, there is no happy median between parts which are too easy and others which are to hard. If they properly patch it and redo all the voice acting and sound effects and the many bugs, then it might be a decent game (in the 3 star range).
I could not get into this game, the look and feel of the game had a cheesy quality to it. I will admit the game did have a lot of interesting ideas espcially with the skill trees. The graphics were not where they should be for a 2006 computer game. My assessement is the game was desgined for Mage Knight purist, outsiders need not apply.
The title says it all. I ordered this game one-day delivery from EB Games (since Amazon didn't have it yet), hoping it would live up to my expectations.
It exceeded them.
The graphics are amazing, though the camera controls are tricky at first.
There are 5 pre-generated characters with different skills, but that does not mean you have to play each one the same way every time (unless you want to). Each character has three "skill trees" and using lower level skills unlocks higher level ones. The manual says that mastering one skill tree is an accomplishment; mastering two is possible, but very difficult. Mastering all three is impossible.
As I'm playing, I find I am focusing on one tree, but using another enough to build up some skills in that one. I completely disregarded the thrid because juggling them was causing me to slow down the progressions on the trees I wanted.
My only major issue, and the reason this game got 4 instead of 5 stars, is that when you save and reload a game, previously cleared areas are populated with monsters again.
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