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Gorath
Mostly Harmless
Joined: 03 Sep 2001
Posts: 6327
Location: NRW, Germany |
| Restricted Area impressions |
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Iīm now 75% through with Restricted Area. Here are some impressions I copied over from Octopus Overlords.
1. Johnson (heavy arms) -> demo
The most simple and most straight forward char. Not much thinking necessary. Not that impressive but so easy that youīre through quickly. I would call it a nice warm-up.
2. Kenji (Katana, dual pistols)
Clearly better. You have the choice between developing your skills for Katana or dual pistols, which requires a different focus.
3. Victoria (Psi attacks)
Again clearly better and more interesting. She is a mage type, weapons are rather worthless. She can practically only (!) use genetically modified Bioware (!), which both limits the choice because it excludes Cyberware and is very expensive.
4. Jessica (Hacking)
No comment yet.
The chars are very different, the story short. Itīs impossible to max out the stats on your first run through the story. Good replay value, so I donīt think the people criticizing the gameīs not long enough are right.
Graphics:
2D, Good enough, constantly 63 fps - no matter what happens on screen, nice big explosions. The real-time shadows are much better than you would expect after looking at the screenshots. The generated dungeons suffer through the limited number of tylesets, though.
FMVs:
Dynamic and action packed. Medium quality. Nothing to complain. You can make choices in the middle of a FMV, sometimes. Itīs interrupted and you can make your decision. Very well done. Unfortunately this doesnīt happen often enough.
Sound, etc.:
Great voice acting, very good f/x, two good sound tracks. The whole sound department is strong.
Stability & bugs:
So far there was a patch ~ every 10 days, the next is announced for this week. The release version was buggy. Now itīs much better, all stability issues are solved, many gameplay bugs also. Still a handfull serious bugs left, but they stay in the background. Now itīs stable and very playable.
No Starforce. The used CP seems to be harmless. Iīve only seen less than 10 people in the forums who thought they had CP issues (which of cause turned out to be configuration problems).
Action:
Hard & Fast. Try the demo - this is the slowest action youīll see in the game. All chars have at least one of the following skills: running speed, attacking speed, casting speed, recovery after an attack, strafing, teleport, rescue jump.
Balancing:
Neither perfect nor unfair. The difficulty doesnīt grow constantly, it jumps. This can still be improved.
Interface:
Very good. Clean, fast, stylish and unobtrusive. All 3 mouse buttons can be configured. Quicksave and quickload have been patched in.
MP:
I didnīt try it yet. Forum talk says itīs unplayable.
Misc:
-items can be exchanged between the chars
-the few NPCs react differently towards the main chars
-items can be put aside at the shop if you donīt have the money yet.
-an equivalent to set items exists. ("Company bonus")
-items can be made according to your specifications if you have a blank (?). I had a left arm made for Vicky. 4 stats improved as far as possible (-> 200k $) and then the arm modified for Vicky (120k $). The average mission earns you 50-70k. The arm was worth it, though.
-weapons can be enhanced. Expensive.
-Arms and legs can be "turned around". Left becomes right and vice versa. All this means money is never useless.
-enemies donīt respawn in cleaned areas/levels
-You sometimes find "self-learning weapons".
Conclusion so far:
A nice little effective game. Mediocre starts, but thankfully it gets better with growing complexity. Definitely better than most Diablo clones. Some nice ideas. Twice the budget and it could have been a real killer.
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Webmaster GothicDot |
Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:26 pm |
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Cironir
Village Dweller
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
Posts: 2
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I had meant to pick up the game a couple of weeks ago, but decided against it after reading the official forum for a while. The main reason for that was that many people said that there is very little variety in both the weapons and the "landscape" (everything looking the same), and that the items/treasure aren't exciting (no "Sammelfieber"). Have any of these aspects been addressed in the more recent patches? (I'm not overly interested in futuristic settings, but do like Diabloesque games, even though they are frequently looked down at.)
Restricted Area is still on my radar, so information and opinions are definitely appreciated. For now, I ordered a copy of Kult, which should keep me busy for a few weeks. With Dungeon Lords delayed until spring, I'll be in need of another CRPG. 
Thanks for posting your impressions, Gorath. |
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Mon Nov 08, 2004 6:45 am |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
Look forward to your review, Gorath.
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Mon Nov 08, 2004 9:32 am |
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Arma
Mysterious Lady
Joined: 24 Oct 2003
Posts: 1230
Location: in the middle of hell |
I'm also looking forward to this, as I was a bit disappointed by Kult.
Has there been an english demo released? |
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Tue Nov 09, 2004 6:43 pm |
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Gorath
Mostly Harmless
Joined: 03 Sep 2001
Posts: 6327
Location: NRW, Germany |
Not yet, and the German demo shows a rather simple part of the game.
News about a publisher for the English version should come soon, I heard.
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Webmaster GothicDot |
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Wed Nov 10, 2004 2:09 am |
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Gorath
Mostly Harmless
Joined: 03 Sep 2001
Posts: 6327
Location: NRW, Germany |
The review is online.
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Webmaster GothicDot |
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Thu Dec 23, 2004 7:08 am |
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