Björn Pankratz (game developer) playing guitar with his wife.

[the dark side]

oh...dear...

Graphics are a little bit Xbox 1, ah well, no problem, you can see what your doing, so, they will do. graphics are.."a nice little extra", id sooner have a game that runs on the way out of date "build" engine but plays brilliantly, than something that runs cryengine 3 but is just the usual run of the mill broken, boring "machined sausage" AAA game, its nice to hear some UK accents in a game for once too! (if i here one more "angry bronx guy" in a game i am gonna scream!) but,, oh dear.

i see what you mean about bugs, game freezing, broken AI (not good in any game, let alone rpg), the overdose of cutscenes isnt normally a problem in RPG, or for me (come on, i sat through MGS4..one and a half hour cutscene! o-u-c-h! good thing it was well written and beautifully animated), but, a bad script and a cliched to hell story that is chronologically disjointed are not what you want in an RPG, as the story is the game. i can see why you got bored, no one, not even i, want to sit through a Bad Story.

also, i Know its the tutorial, but a little bit of K-A-T-N wouldn't go amiss... i kinda miss the days of Baldurs Gate (spelling?), were there was a Sub Boss! in the tutorial level, even Final Fantasy has a little bit of K-A-T-N in the turorial, RPG is more than just walking round and talking, thats fine for some levels, and in any genre (NOLF prooved it can work even in FPS!), as long as its balanced with plenty of other types of levels action levels, platform sections, Vehicle sections, Puzzle areas, Boss Fights, etc . i mean, its fine to have a "slow" beginning to the story, as that allows the story to be given "slow burn", so it can be deeply fleshed out and expanded on giving you great charachters and a rich background lore, wich cant be done when the game runs at a million KMH, but i really think if a game is gonna do that, it should begin with one heck of a ding dong, either a flashback to a previous battle or, "in medias res" to get the player "amped" for the rest of the game and encourage him or her to go through the slow bit.

i get the feeling Pirahnah Bytes did "an EA" and rushed the game to market while it was still pre alpha, no Wonder you were dissapointed!

i think ill just stick to Risen 1, thanks traggey! you just stopped me making a mistake i think!

also, googolplex, ive said this to you before, just because a game isnt designed for American Teenage "deffmatch" trolls, it doesnt mean it has to have broken AI, an inexcusably slow beginning, and an overdose of badly written cutscenes.

the best games combine a strong storyline, great action, and Stratospheric Difficulty. thats the making of a proper game. just lacking action doesnt make a good game, it makes a dull one. ok, there is nothing worse than a game that is All out action, as that is every bit as boring as having none what so ever, perhaps even more so as "constant nuclear explosions" gets rather repetative. a game needs Balance. action, strategy, thaught and story in perfect alignment, those are the best games.

also, old school is a gameplay style, not a graphical style, to me the Ultimate game would have the very best Modern graphics (cryengine 3) with the very best old fashioned gameplay (NOLF with the "dynamic scaling" turned off), id pay 100 quid for that, let alone 50.