Is it a bird, is it a plane...
While at the time I wrote this review there were only 114 folks listed on GameSpot with this game in their collection, I have hardly ever read such varied reactions to any game. This certainly doesn’t make the game top 10 selling material and I guess it really can only compete in a relatively small niche market anyway.
I have written quite a number of reviews here on GameSpot over the years, but this is certainly unique - Given the relatively small number of reviews up to this point, it’s almost bizarre in a sense:
A large percentage of the reviewers claim that the game is a complete fiasco from a technical perspective. Other’s all feel that the game is the best thing since ice cream and hot chocolate!
That’s not to mention the relatively large percentage of reviewers (albeit small in numbers) who perceive the game to be boring to the point of rather sticking hot needles in your eyes than watching another minute of the drudgery of medieval life. From the original GameSpot review, it appears the latter would apply there as well.
So now what?
I think it’s only fair to begin at the beginning and address the large percentage of reviewers that commented about the poor technical standard of the game:
I have now played this game for almost two weeks, at least 1 hour a day, which would therefore equate to approximately 20 hours, give or take an hour extra over weekends here and there.
In those 20 hours I have not had a single crash to desktop, blue screen or even hanging PC in game. I lie – I actually had one crash when I accidentally did the Alt-TAB thing while busy with the tutorial to read an urgent new E-mail that arrived – that was the only problem so far.
Like always, I immediately patched the game to its latest available patch moments after taking it out of the box anyway. So, from that perspective I cannot comment about the game in its original release form.
Perhaps I’m just lucky, but as far as I can tell, the game is really quite stable, given the usual few quirks such as stuttering graphics on certain occasions, etc. – quite normal for most games I have in my collection anyway.
So, from a technical perspective, I personally certainly can’t complain.
Now let’s address to other two types of review responses I referred to above in the usual manner:
Gameplay:
Back in 2003/04 I spent many hours with a rather obscure game (based on pure numbers here on Gamespot in terms of collections, etc.), called Patrician III.
While playing that game, which I personally really enjoyed and reviewed here on GameSpot in October 2004, I often wondered what it would be like if this, that and the other were possible.
Well, in short, The Guild 2 is really everything I would have wanted to add and include in that game then and a bit more – almost like Patrician III ++ (the guys at 4Head will hopefully forgive me for this very direct comparison in the creative department), bearing in mind that I don’t own the previous installment of The Guild.
When one first starts the game and one goes through the rather extensive tutorial to begin your first dynasty so to speak, the game actually feels somewhat overwhelming when your character stands there in front of his or her medieval hut for the first time.
Where to from here is the first question that goes through your mind. Do I start a business, do I go into politics, do I hire a few rogues, or do I start bribing folks and try to court someone?
It’s all a bit confusing at first, and after defaulting to a sort of Sims 2 playing style with my character, I soon realized that this was a completely different kettle of fish. It doesn’t play like The Sims 2, since the character interactions can be done from almost anywhere on the map using the many different ways of finding the target such as your diary, list of important persons, etc. This means that the interface is somewhat divorced from the actual intimacy of character interactions found in Sims 2, for example.
But then again, this is not Sims 2, and the game needs to cater for many other aspects over and above character interactions, such as running your business (no not Sims 2 Open for Business style for those who were wondering), going to court, etc.
It appears that quite a lot of design thought went into the user interface, and once you get used to it, you can almost leave your character anywhere on the map and simply order everything in the game world around with a few clicks here and there.
One of the complaints I have in all of this, is that the original GameSpot review was right when it said that the path-finding in the game is rather poor – it is! While the interface is good, your character can sometimes literally spend game months to go from point A to B just to kiss or court someone that’s actually just standing at the hut next door!
The same applies to your carts, once you start automating your businesses via the rather extensive AI built into the game for that aspect of it. Carts almost go MIA sometimes, often leading to cash flow issues in the business they are supposed to serve.
It would definitely be a good idea for the developers to address these issues in the next patch.
Building a business can become somewhat repetitive at first and I can see where the immediate feeling of boredom can creep in. However, I found that this quickly changes once your family tree grows and other characters have their own businesses and children are doing apprenticeships, etc. The economic climate differences between towns on a map can also make for interesting business variations in terms of sourcing and selling goods.
Life in politics is real doggy-dog stuff as one would expect from medieval times, with quite a lot of bribery and kissing up going on, not to mention spying on all and sundry to gain evidence to take to court and get the opposition to the gallows if possible.
There’s nothing like ordering a tax audit on one of your competitors!
The main problem here is that you need the memory of an elephant to keep track of all the character names involved in regular gameplay just so you know who to bribe and accuse and court! It can become rather cumbersome going through all the lists of enemies, folks in politics, etc. finding names belonging to messages that pop up all the time.
To summarize the gameplay therefore is actually rather simple:
This game will really only appeal to a handful of players who actually enjoy significant levels of micro-management with some variation in terms of character interaction, role playing and so on – Patrician III ++ as I said before.
The game is almost like a very good novel that just starts off way too slow to get most people to that point where it really starts getting good, since they would have put it down by then!
Graphics:
The graphics are really very good albeit that, as always these days, I believe you’re going to need something in the NVidia-based 6800 plus range, to really get some eye candy going. I don’t own any ATI-based cards, so I can’t really say from that perspective.
The graphics engine does tend to stutter a bit up close and under certain conditions in my setup –NVidia-based 7800 GTX with 512 MB - but I’m actually quite used to that in most PC games anyway.
Sound:
As usual, there’s not too much innovation on this front, as far as I can see.
My biggest complaint would be the appalling synchronization during character interaction cut-scenes.
Perhaps another aspect to address in any future patches.
Value:
This is really a unique game in many aspects and to give credit where credit is due, the developers really tried to come up with something new in a sea of cloned games in a limited number of genres. In fact, it’s really hard to find a genre to describe this game.
While this is the game’s biggest value aspect in my opinion, it could also be its own worst enemy. The game can be many things to many people but as a result, it probably can only be average at any of it and not really good at anything, so to speak.
So, if you enjoyed a game like Patrician III, there’s definite value in this, otherwise you’d probably be hard pressed to find any takers, which shows in the vital statistics here on GameSpot.
Who Should Buy It?
Anyone who really enjoys Dynasty building at a fairly intricate level of micro-management with some good graphics and unique gameplay additions to go with it, bearing in mind that you have a fairly good graphics card and don’t mind going through the first hour and a half of rather boring gameplay to get to the meat of it.
Who Shouldn’t Bother?
I guess just about everyone else.