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Gareth Clark
Village Dweller
Joined: 23 Oct 2002
Posts: 5
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| Arx Fatalis review at Mad Gamers |
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Just thought I'd let you all know that a review of the English version of Arx Fatalis is up at Mad Gamers:
http://www.madgamers.net/news/view.php?id=1220
Hope it's OK to plug it here; hopefully it'll appear on the main news page of this site soon anyway. As this appears to be one of the first reviews of the English version I thought it would be of interest. |
Wed Oct 23, 2002 3:54 pm |
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Seth
Last Man Standing
Joined: 23 Jan 2002
Posts: 1008
Location: Faerun |
I see the guy wasn't impressed, only proves the fact: that you can't please everybody. 
_________________
Money - An article which may be used as a universal passport to everywhere except heaven, and as a universal provider of everything except happiness. |
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Wed Oct 23, 2002 4:06 pm |
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HiddenX
The Elder Spy
Joined: 20 Jul 2001
Posts: 749
Location: NRW / Germany |
I don't agree with this review, fighting, puzzles, pathfinding, item-searching should be challenging in a hardcore rpg - Morrowind is for kids, Arx Fatalis for rpg-veterans.
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=Member of The Nonflamers' Guild= |
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Wed Oct 23, 2002 6:13 pm |
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Rendelius
Critical Error
Joined: 06 Jul 2001
Posts: 16
Location: Austria |
Welcome Gareth 
The debate is getting heated in the news comment section, and I tried to direct it to this forum.
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Rendelius
former Senior Editor RPGDot
now at http://www.theastronomers.com |
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Thu Oct 24, 2002 12:14 am |
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Garrett
Joined: 13 Jul 2001
Posts: 74
Location: Munich, Germany |
ok...so hope people move over here
Gareth: Is it true you played through Arx Fatalis in 11hrs??? |
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Thu Oct 24, 2002 12:18 am |
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Rendelius
Critical Error
Joined: 06 Jul 2001
Posts: 16
Location: Austria |
BTW - if I play a game for 11 hours, I call that "first impressions" and I do not give a final conclusion then.
_________________
Rendelius
former Senior Editor RPGDot
now at http://www.theastronomers.com |
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Thu Oct 24, 2002 12:19 am |
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Garrett
Joined: 13 Jul 2001
Posts: 74
Location: Munich, Germany |
Ok, I am tired now and will go to sleep. Today was quite disappointing with FC Bayern loosing their next match in the UCL and then this review of Arx Fatalis...hope things will look better tomorrow |
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Thu Oct 24, 2002 12:24 am |
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Gareth Clark
Village Dweller
Joined: 23 Oct 2002
Posts: 5
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No, I did NOT play through the game in 11 hours... more like four times that amount, and then some. That comment was posted by someone on another board who had seemingly made that figure up.  |
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Thu Oct 24, 2002 12:30 am |
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Garrett
Joined: 13 Jul 2001
Posts: 74
Location: Munich, Germany |
ok, and have you read my long comment in our news section? what do you say? |
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Thu Oct 24, 2002 12:31 am |
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Gareth Clark
Village Dweller
Joined: 23 Oct 2002
Posts: 5
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Garrett, excuse me but it's late and I'm just going to bed. I promise I will reply to your points tomorrow - probably here rather than on the other board, if that is OK. Obviously I disagree with you but they bear discussing. |
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Thu Oct 24, 2002 12:34 am |
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Incendiary Lemon
Village Dweller
Joined: 24 Oct 2002
Posts: 23
Location: East Coast |
Gareth its the comparison of Arx to Morrowind. The TES games and Morrowind in particular try to create the feeling of a greater world. In Morrowind its through the large number of guilds, quests, and huge landmass. Arx takes a different approach creating realism and the living world through the fine art of baking fishing and theft. It focus on one city instead of a continent like Arena did.
I don't delve to insult you but the comparisons to Morrowind are not well chosen. You should have looked back to the Gold Box Games, Underworld, Bard's Tale. Arx never tries to be Morrowind and on that basis it undercuts your point. Arx is quite imperfect skills like pickpocketing are not useful against rats. The inventory management is poorly designed, but then back to pickpocketing. Its wrapped within a larger skill set, stealth, so that it has uses in both combat (sneaking up and backstabbing) and in the metropolitan areas (theft). Amnesia is a terrible plot device to use, especially considering how derivative the fantasy genre is already you are right there and then again on graphics - It makes use of lovely bump mapping and the like but it isn't revolutionary or in the end impressive.
But then going back and playing Arx I can't agree with your conclusion. The pigs and chickens in the street the dirt and grunge of the caves - that makes it real to me far more than a epic continent to traverse. While the problems have one approach to them in Arx (such as your locked chest or perhaps a incredible sword) the solutions are far more numerous. You can solve the quest and get the key, break the chest, or pick the lock. The said RPG renisance that followed Diablo focused on hackenslash or with the macro MMORPG scale. I am not taken with either, Arx bring memories of a different take on RPGs and one that I prefer. It being alone in its vision it gets by more easily on the merits, yes, and its not classic but it is a very enjoyable game.
(The graph paper was a funny side - i remember quite well resorting to that to figure out how the hell to get around - suppose the last time i did that was with daggerfall) |
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Thu Oct 24, 2002 1:36 am |
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Michael C
Black Dragon
Joined: 09 Jul 2001
Posts: 1595
Location: Aarhus, Denmark |
Geez, I have never seen so many wrong statements about a game in a review before. I'm not talking about the opinions on graphics, interface story etc. but on game facts and features. It's certainly okay not to like a game and state this opinion in a review, but it's absolutely out of place to increase this opinion, by lying so heavily about this games facts and features!
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Moderator on RPGdot.com Forum.
Member of the Nonflamers guild.
Member of the Sport fan club. |
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Thu Oct 24, 2002 3:58 pm |
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Gareth Clark
Village Dweller
Joined: 23 Oct 2002
Posts: 5
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Hi Garrett and everyone: I'm going to try and explain myself a bit here as I've obviously upset a few people and that was never my intention. After this I'm going to try and draw a line under the whole thing, because you're not going to change my opinion of Arx Fatalis and I doubt very much that I'm going to change yours.
Part of the problem is that we're talking at cross-purposes here. This is, after all, a site for RPG fans in general and this board is specific to fans of Arx Fatalis. I'm therefore not talking to an audience with a wide cross-section of viewpoints! As RPG fans - and as the kind of fans who are dedicated enough to hang out at a forum specific to those games - you're far more likely to welcome a new game of your favourite genre with open arms, and overlook its less appealing qualities simply because you find this kind of game extremely enjoyable to play. That's absolutely fine and normal, and most people have a favourite genre that they treat in this way, whether it's FPS, strategy, RPG or whatever.
However, that's not the audience that we're writing for at Mad Gamers. We cover a wide variety of games and we assume that our readers play and enjoy games from all genres. We also assume that readers do not have an endless supply of gold pieces and therefore pick and choose the very best games from each genre; it's our responsibility to point them in the right direction. And, critically, we also believe that readers have a wide knowledge of games and have therefore experienced most types of games before. Correspondingly, they're less likely to enjoy a game which doesn't drive things forward or attempt to progress the genre in any way.
This was a major problem with Arx Fatalis. Although it's enjoyable enough for people who like this kind of thing - as you all clearly do - it's dreadfully derivative. It doesn't appear to have any ambition other than to be a graphical update of the ten-year-old Ultima: Underworld. All its other significant points, from the combat system to the battle system, are lifted straight from other games (the developers have even admitted to me that the combat system was copied directly from Morrowind). In setting, style, game mechanics and everything else, it's a very, very generic game.
And yes, it is linear. Compared to the open-ended wonders of Morrowind or the old Ultima games (I'm thinking specifically of U6 and U7 here), it's restrictive. Not terribly so, apart from the opening stages, but still restrictive nonetheless - and I did point out, contrary to popular belief, that it's less linear later in the game. It's not a major criticism, which is why I'm surprised so many people have picked up on it from the review - lots of games are linear to a greater or lesser degree and it doesn't make them bad games. But the simple fact is that compared to other games in the same market, Arx Fatalis often feels old-fashioned.
I've had a few people say that you can't compare Arx Fatalis with Morrowind. Excuse me? As two of the most significant RPG releases of the year (the other being Neverwinter Nights, which is genuinely different), it's impossible not to compare them. It's a safe bet to say that people who enjoy one will be interested in the other, and potential purchasers may be choosing between them. They also have strong similarities in graphical style and interface design, and as stated, the combat is largely identical. They are in direct competition. The difference is that Morrowind is huge, open-ended, inviting, graphically splendid, has a rich sense of history, beautiful world design and is genuinely trying to drive the genre forward. Arx Fatalis, meanwhile, is a remake of a ten-year-old game, with added goblins.
I notice that no-one's picked up on some of the more serious complaints in my review, things which genuinely hindered the playing experience - such as the abysmal loading times, the poor AI or the terrible automap. I'd be surprised if anyone tried to deny these. And that's the ultimate problem with Arx Fatalis: it's one of the most inaccessible games around. It's aimed so clearly at its chosen market (RPG fans, ie you lot) that it's forgotten that a game should be fun for everyone. Everything from the interface to the control system to the poor performance to the cliché-ridden dialogue to the dire opening chapters to the fiddly item-hunting goes against the basic principle of gaming: that it should, most of the time, be something fun to do.
Arx Fatalis is no classic, but it's not terrible, which is why I didn't slate it, and why I was at pains to point out the things that it did well: the atmosphere, the setting and the sound, specifically. And 6.5 out of 10 is not a terrible mark by Mad Gamers standards: maybe you've been spoiled by US websites who seem to rate good games on a sliding scale from 9.0 to 9.9. The score I gave Arx represents a flawed game, but one which some people will find enjoyable, an impression reinforced by the last line of the review which said it was "one for the fans". That's you. That's why you like it. The criticisms I have levelled at the game are outweighed in your eyes by the game's qualities. I genuinely think that, for most gamers, that will be the other way around and Arx Fatalis will be a frustrating experience.
This has turned into a diatribe nearly as long as the original review, so I'll draw it to a close and I'll assume we can all agree to disagree. I'll end with a couple of points of self-defence: firstly, I did play through the whole game, a process which took a lot longer than 11 hours. That figure did not come from me and I have no idea where the poster who originally said this came up with that. And for the person who queried my title on the Mad Gamers forum, I can't believe I'm justifying this but this has actually been my title for a few days now. It's a quip made by my wife when I happened to fart loudly while playing the game... apparently I have an Arse Fatalis. I accept that it's a particularly feeble pun, but there's no accounting for my wife's sense of humour. And if you're really offended by a terrible pun on the title of your favourite game, then maybe you should chill out a bit, and consider getting a different hobby.
At the end of the day, the review was my personal opinion - as all reviews, by necessity, always are - and your opinions are clearly different. I think I justified my points in the review and have clarified them here, but I expect a lot of you will still disagree. I can't do much about that, although I suspect your enthusiasm for the genre is clouding your objective critical assessment of Arx Fatalis. But I hope you all enjoy the game, I hope I've made myself clear, and thanks for listening. |
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Thu Oct 24, 2002 7:25 pm |
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Raf
Arkane Master
Joined: 16 Jul 2001
Posts: 16
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Just one thing Gareth,
When I said we've copied Morrowind for its combat system, it was sarcasm, to argue against your review, please read again my Email:
You said in your review "The combat system is lifted wholesale from Morrowind"
>> To that, I answer : "Sure, Morrowind got released a few months before us, and we had time to copy their fantastic system, which is (by the way) different to ours, but we also have a hit point and statistic based system, it is true, as most RPGs in fact."
This was sarcasm to point out the fact that I couldn't agree with your point: If you want to know, we drew our inspiration from Thief and Ultima Underworld for the combat in fact, Morrowind got released 1 month before Arx, how could we copy there system ? then, I added (with humour) we have hit points and stats (as any ROG does in fact), I could have said we use a sword, or we fight against an oponent, etc... it is still humour...
Sorry my words were not clear enough, it must be my english. |
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Thu Oct 24, 2002 8:58 pm |
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Gareth Clark
Village Dweller
Joined: 23 Oct 2002
Posts: 5
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Apologies... the sarcasm didn't come over. I did think it was a surprising thing to admit to.  |
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Thu Oct 24, 2002 9:02 pm |
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