Whatever you do. Dont judge the game on the reviews. Especially IGN. And gamespot as Usual didnt even bother.
This game Drakensang is actually really simply done, (I recommend turning off the voice acting and reading it to get a better experience, I would also recommend turning off Voice acting in Fallout 3 also because its atrocious.)
So the rant is out of the way , now its time to get to the game, ill be brief.
Graphics :> The Witcher graphics would be as a good comparison. Cartoony and a very bright colour palette, and is very nice to look at. The lighting is bright and enticing and does its job well. The graphics of the people are a little like Conan and arent anything like Crysis but look great all the same. Heaps of insects and little fire flys cover the screen and dust flies around and looks great.
Performance :> RUNS Flawlessly on XP, 2 GB Ram, Intel core 2 Duo 2.66 or higher , And a 8800gts 512mb. FLAWLESSLY , no glitches , no hangs , nothing just smooth as. Why small budget games seem to make really smooth running games like this and massive budget games like Fallout 3 and Crysis are glitchy as hell is beyond me.
Gameplay :> A mix between final fantasy tactics and the witcher, excellent gameplay for fighting. I really like that kind of gameplay though, where you can stop the battle and make decisions. The fighting looks fantastic. The strategies are very simply done , its not a tactical masterpeice by any meens, but you choose a guy or character, point to where you want him to attack. You can use special attacks that you learn as you go along and each character has thier own abilities. That you can assign to hot keys. Simple, effective and does the job. And looks fine. The quests are rpg like quests that have been done by every rpg game maker out there, go do this , go do that. Follow the storyline and do alot of sidequests, in large cities or in the forests or in little villages. Lots of exploration and lots of linear stuff also. You are given loaded areas that you can explore like the witcher. Its not far flung like Fallout 3 where you can just go anywhere. But then again games like Fallout 3 you dont want to go just anywhere until your tough enough anyway or you die, so you end up staying in certain areas for long periods of Fallout 3 anyway.
Character development :> OLD SCHOOL , YAY. I really warm to this type of development in RPG's, its not all spelled out for you like Fallout 3 or Oblivian. You have to make wise decisions to make you character grow in certain areas. You get Adventure points to grow into new levels and you get Experience points that you can use to develop individual skills , like points EP to your sword arm or axes and maces etc, or 20 points to healing or 20 points to bows and arrows. Then as the game progesses you obviously get tougher and tougher as time goes on. There is a slight learning curve at the start but once your use to it, (Like The Witcher) You get the hang of it eventually after about 30 minutes into the game. Make sure you group your characters together also so you keep them together while your walking everywhere. Its not like Fallout 3 where you can just get tough as with everything you have to really hone in on certain skills for different characters so they get better at certain things, not just everything all at once.
Lasting appeal :> It is a large game , so by the time you finish it , it would be a long time anyway, not many games make you want to come back for more after the first play through. And this probably wont be any different in that regard. However to get to the end will take a very long time at least 80+ hours which is huge anyway.
This game is a very tried and true game style, yes there are wizards, yes there are dwarves, yes there are humans , so yes you have seen alot of that dynamic before, but DONT read the IGN reviews and go by those alone, play it for half an hour and its a great rpg. Its runs smooth as, and is alot of fun. And most of the reviews were just looking for things to pick at. The storyline itself is as epic as any other rpg (Including Fallout 3) Which had a crap storyline(go find your father, that was the only storyline in Fallout 3, the premise made you think the storyline was bigger but it wasnt), just the graphics and scale of objects are obviously a little more ol' school rpg like in Drakensang Graphically, but still looks fantastic.