Shadowbane

Shadowbane

First of all, this game is absolutely worth playing if you are into oldschool PvP MMOs. No other game allows such in-depth character customization. Sandbox elements are present but are not annoying to the end of being “chop trees to gather lumber”. “Sandbox” here is actually building cities and demolishing your enemies' cities in sieges, hiring AI mercenaries to craft items which is another good part of this game, crafting isn’t about gathering 10 dragon scales and 1 mummy dust by repetitively killing monsters, it’s more about having mercenaries of right races placed in your forges and having resources from right zones in general, even city building (if you happen to own / manage one) is as simple as placing the building on the city grid and waiting several hours for it to go up in one click.

Real player with 1573.7 hrs in game


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Overall an exceptionally poor experience.

So why do I have so many hours you ask? 1) nostalgia and 2) I played with friends, but neither of those points are positives to the game in particular. And also do not be mistaken, for an RPG 80% of this playtime was sitting afk while leeching experience from macro-bots which is what everyone uses.

So this game is mislabeled as a PVP title. It isn’t. It’s actually a zerg v zerg title and those battles are decided by sheer numbers. If it was a pvp game, you’d have skills which synergize with each other to allow for good and creative builds. Builds which later you can learn to play and get better as you get more accustomed to playing your toon. Not the case here. At first glance you have SO many races, professions and disciplines to combine that the options eem endless…until you realize that every profession has no more than 2 ways to build it if you want to be in any way viable. Yes, you CAN be a minotaur that uses unarmed fighting, except due to weapon skill restrictions (built into the races) and stat caps you’ll never be more than 20% of the strength of a proper polearm minotaur.

Real player with 1121.8 hrs in game

Shadowbane on Steam

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut

I’d suggest to start the game as an elementalist for zooming adventures & farming fate points & use it as your crafting character(% reduced enchanting costs items) and then make a phlogistoner as your second character for farming gold & get you going through the hardest difficulty levels to earn that juicy 200 fate daily limit & then have fun doing whatever the heck you’d like to do, because you are probably going to be rich as hell that way.

Pros:

  • Main story is great to follow.

Real player with 566.0 hrs in game


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This is my, perhaps, final review of this game - I followed it from the very start, until this unification to one, complete and even better game.

A short description:

It’s an aRPG, in the full meaning of what aRPG is, and what it should be like. It resembles, reasonably closely, to Diablo 2. It offers a classic hack’n’slash experience, levelling, item hunt and character progression. In addition to this, rather uncommon to the genre, story is excellent, and game could even be played as an adventure. Ridiculously funny and witty, game follows a number of cliches - protagonist is a Monster Hunter, which (ever accompanied by his sharp-witted and even sharper-tongued ghost companion Katarina), comes to a fictional land of Borgovia, to rid it of a great evil - a group of scientist who took over the land after his father defeated ruling Vampire Princes. But the story just starts to unroll…

Real player with 552.8 hrs in game

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut on Steam

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III

Firstly, this is an EARLY review, written on the very first day of release.

[And then updated excessively week after, with some 70h of gameplay]

And to say this first, game is not FULLY completed - you can play story and scenarios up to level30. More features (Neverending Story, levels up to 60, probably a few completely new features). If this bothers you, wait a while, instead posting negative review.

Rather than continuing leveling from VH2 - (characters can be imported, but they don’t keep levels and items, they DO keep glory points and are given Epic item at start), the game offers whooping SIX classes, some redesigned builds from earlier games, but some rather unique to the whole genre, as is strength-based-stealth class I play.

Real player with 157.9 hrs in game


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I’ve now beaten the game with the Constructor and Elementatlist classes and I’m still going. I’ve tried out the Bounty Hunter and Phlogistoneer. I expect I’ll finish the game with the Phlogistoneer next, it and the Constructor are my favorites so far. The Bounty Hunter is a fun unique diversion, but feels ill handled for spawning mobs that a few enemies can throw at you - probably better to play in multiplayer. The Elementalist became quite enjoyable as soon as I added Frost wall to my skillset.

Real player with 44.5 hrs in game

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing III on Steam