Great game that doesn't try to fix what isn't broken. The REAL gamespot review.
Gameplay
"The Cycle of Fun:
Fighting monsters gets you loot and experience.
Experience lets you graduate to new levels. Each level lets you enhance your masteries and skills.
Improved weapons, armor and skills make you stronger, which lets you fight more powerful monsters.
And the cycle continues"
-TQ handbook
The character creation is weak but it can be overlooked as you are never really up close and personal on your player. It would have been nice to have simple creation options though such as hair color and style and maybe body size but it doesn't effect the overall play of the game. For those of you who haven't picked this up but did play the demo and are wondering about tunic colors, well there are many more than the initial few to choose from.
The gameplay is very framilliar It's layed out for you right there in the hand book, though that is nothing to complain about. It's classic hack and slash at its finest. Most everything can be done with the mouse and there is really no need to even touch the keyboard, making the experience very simple yet still enjoyable. There is tons of loot and I don't think the loot system is as messed up as some reviews are making it out to be, I have been finding new things here and there and have still been using the merchants. Granted there are a lot of lower level item that are usless to me but that's what the "show magic items only" button is for. The story is decent nothing revolutionary but it gets the job done. I would have liked it to be a little more personal in the begining, something like your family was killed so you had more of a sense of hatred for the baddies. But I suppose if someone was burning my houses I would take up arms as well. The gameplay eventually does get a bit repedative but it's addicting as ever and it's always fun to find that new weapon or armor and to see the next mythical beast around the bend.
Graphics
The graphics are stunning. Lighting, particle effects, shadows, detail everything is gorgeous. Though the zoom is pretty pointless as when you zoom in the least bit you start getting attacked by things you have yet to see. Also the lack of camera movement is annoying it would have been nice to be able to spin and have a little control over the XY axis, but it's not to hard to real with. There aren't too many options or any sliders to change the settings but they get the job done. It would have been nice to have sliders as opposed to high medium or low choices but I can't complain too much. FYI Turning on the AA doesn't really seem to have much of an effect other than droping the frame rate at 1280x1024. Aside from all the beauty there are a few things that are a bit bothering, first off the frame rate drop in certian areas. Now I know it's a RPG and not an FPS so we don't need crazy frames to get the job done but it gets annoying when they drop for no apparent reason at times. Secondly...where's the blood? there could be an option to turn it on or off but at least put it in there, when I hack at someone with a sword I expect to see a little red, or green, or whatever color some of these monsters would bleed. Anyways, the physics system is far from realistic but boy is it fun, hacking a monster twenty feet off a cliff with a single blow is a blast to watch and having monsters fly in the air all around you is hilarious.
Sound
The sound in this game is breathtaking, moreso than the graphics in my oppinion. Now no there aren't any advanced sound options like EAX but it doesn't really matter. The ambient sounds are solid, everything from birds and crickets chirping to waves crashing on the beach to the wind blowing to the footsteps are all amazingly realistic. The score is equally amazing, the music really helps get you into the game it rises up in certian situations and falls in others, fitting very well with the overall feel or the journey. It's very apparent they went through a lot of work in composing the sound track and it pays off big in the end.
Then on top of this it's a 40 plus hour journey through three very different lands with much loot and many enemy types, even if some are just new skins on the same old beast they are still interesting to look at. Then once the games complete you can hop online to play with some friends.
All in all I have to say this is a great game and a solid first outing for Iron Lore.
Play System:
AMD 64 X2 4400+
4 Gigs of OCZ Platinum memory
2x Nvidia Gforce 7800GTX's in sli
FPS steady 60 with drops to 25 or so for unknown reasons.
1280x1024
All settings on High
Vsync ON (prevents random horrizontal lines going up and down the screen and the FPS doesn't need to be over 60, this isn't an FPS)
AA OFF - As is doesn't seem to make a noticable differance other than droping the fps.
Nvidia control pannel on High Quality.
FPS figured out using FRAPS
-Tyler