○ Video Games ○ Humanity ○ Individuality ○ True Freedom ○ Be Free ○
Every single time you visit this site, you directly support my efforts and spread my message - Thank you!

Explore My Game Room

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Testing Out ArcaniA: Gothic 4

After trying out the demo on Steam several days ago, I have finally decided to induct ArcaniA: Gothic 4 by Spellbound for the Personal Computer into my Game Library. My current love for Two Worlds II probably had a lot to do with my interest in ArcaniA - I am in a wild thirst for more role playing adventure games. I have only played just about an hour of the game but I have heard that a lot of Gothic fans really hated this latest entry into the series because of its linearity. It's hard to tell that where I am currently at in the game but linearity has its positives and negatives. I don't have too much of a preference between the two types of design philosophy as long as the adventure ends up being a great one and so far, I do like what I am playing.

Can you be trusted to tend to your flock of sheep?

After the game's weird, trippy prologue involving a possessed king, you found yourself taking the role of a shepherd who is trying to win the hand of his lover. There is no option to customize your hero's appearance but at least he looks cool enough. The battle system is action oriented where you have to press the input repeatedly to chain attack combos. It's simple but it's pretty solid. The graphics are nice - I love how the shepherd's entire village becomes shrouded in darkness when the sun is blocked by the surrounding mountains - but they are clearly not quite optimized since the frame rate can become rather erratic. There is a great amount of vegetation that covers the ground and the texture works on both the characters as well as the world they inhabit are complex and sharp. I am able to run the game well at 1920 x 1080 on my PC setup with all the graphical options maxed out but without post processing and the "Ultra" level shadows. There are weird frame hiccups that happen quite often but seeing how badly the game looks at lower native resolutions, I have to just settle with that.

"Going my way?"

Between this game and the recently made Two Worlds II, there is no doubt in my mind that the latter is infinitely better. There are a couple of really odd gameplay quirks that I have found thus far in the game, like the roleplay activities option being unchecked by default - enabling it will allow you to interact with more objects in the game - and the camera being too close to your character whenever you have your weapons sheathed. ArcaniA does have its own allure however thanks to its fun combat and beautiful vistas.

Sunset battles are so epic.

FIRST IMPRESSION: 4 out of 5

3 comments:

Kelli said...

I first tried this demo on the xbox and I was interested in the game, the only thing was the words were sooooooooooooooo small. Then I tried it again on my pc and I had grass blinking in and out of my screen everywhere I went (even inside the houses, lol). I read the reviews and they say graphic wise is better on pc but everything else is better on the xbox. What's your take on it?

Loner Gamer said...

I have not tried the 360 version but from the gameplay footage I have seen, you definitely get better lighting and texture resolution on the PC as long as your PC can handle it.

The problem with the PC version however is that the engine is rather unstable and it's hard to get it to perform well at the high settings. The game is not as good looking as say Two Worlds II but it performs much, much worse. I didn't experience the blinking grass you mentioned, only stuttering and a bad frame rate. The game can be played with the 360 controller on the PC but the implementation is weird where you still have to navigate the game menus using the mouse. If you really like the game but you have problems running it well on the PC, perhaps the 360 version is the solution. I prefer the PC version and there's also that prospect of the game running better eventually when I upgrade my PC.

Kelli said...

Thanks for that insight, I didn't know you can use the xbox controller on the pc.... I learn something new everyday :)