Divine Divinity/Beyond Divinity Retro Reviews ( Review )
posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Thu 05 August 2010, 10:35:54
More info on Divine Divinity - More info on Larian Studios
Celebrating the release of Divinity 2: Flames of Vengeance, which lies unopened on my desk, GamesmediaPro retro-reviewed Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity.
One thing is certain if anything about Divine Divinity and that is the actual World of Aleroth is enormous! Taking into account the size of the open world will be daunting for those gamers unused to such freedom in a title, especially due to the more linear nature of RPG’s even as more recent as Dragon Age:Origins, it is handy then that the developers included the very useful ‘teleportation’ system of travel for your character to venture in this vast fantasy kingdom. Interaction with your environment is, even by todays gaming standards, on an unprecedented level, as you can literally come into contact and interact with just about anything that you can see in the World of Aleroth. And with the first real glimmer of a successful morality consequence being incorporated into the game there is much more to Divine Divinity than would be imagined. This is not mindless hack’n'slash as you run from one meaningless battle to the next, only stopping off at the local merchants in between fights to pawn off the goods that you have plundered from the cold dead hands of your fallen adversary. Oh no! The gameplay in Divine Divinity shows far more complexity and depth that followers of the RPG genre will no doubt recognise from facets of a whole multitude of later, more recent tiles such as Fallout, Oblivion and Dragon Age:Origins.
Spotted at: GB There are 26 comments on this article. Click here to comment.
Divinity 2: Flames of Vengeance Released ( Game news )
posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Mon 02 August 2010, 11:42:58
More info on Divinity 2 - More info on Larian Studios
And when I say released I mean the german version. But fear not, as usual Larian Studios will use the Krauts as free beta testers, an approach benefitial for all of you as soon as the english version hits the shelves.
There's even a review already over at Gamestar.de (86%), here's a Google translation.
The most important info is they basically cut the Dragon stuff, you'll be questing mostly in Aleroth where turning into dragonform is not allowed. You'll still have your Dragon Tower though. You can import a character or start a new one at lvl35, which is pretty generous since reaching lvl35 wasn't easy in Divinity 2. Plus it seems this time you can prevail at the end.
There are 13 comments on this article. Click here to comment.
Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance Debut Trailer ( Game news )
posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Mon 26 July 2010, 16:30:54
More info on Divinity 2 - More info on Larian Studios
With the german release only a few days away PCGames.de shows us a trailer.
Spotted at: GB There are 0 comments on this article. Click here to comment.
Divinity 2: Flames of Vengeance Finished ( Development info )
posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Mon 28 June 2010, 11:40:10
More info on Divinity 2 - More info on Larian Studios
... or at least the german version is finished. Swen Vincke of Larian Studios gave a status update on their forums.
I think I'm not hurting the truth that in the past, many domestic releases through domestic publishers which were only later published outside of their territory sucked when it came to the amount of bugs, of which it is most likely that several were known up front. The responsible ones to be honest are usually the developers who slipped and weren't ready in time, and if a publisher risks getting into trouble because of the delay, they will usually release in the territories where they are the strongest to recuperate their investments as fast as possible. Personally, I never thought that a wise move, as I always thought it's better to ship when it's really ready, but as a developer, responsible for a delay, you're usually not in the strongest position to argue, so you do your best to limit the damage. I'm going to give you an elaborate example of this in a minute, but let me first talk a little bit more about Flames Of Vengeance and why I think this time around, the understandable and probably predictable comment "You are using Germany as a beta-testing country" isn't merited - knowing full well that my statement has a certain bias, and if the unexpected happens, I'll be forced to eat my words and walk the hall of shame.
The main reason - we took our sweet time and managed to get away from external pressure for the development of this one. A dangerous thing in the mind of a lot of development managers around the world as developers tend to spend far more time than they should on their games (which is true) but we actually think ourselves that what we're offering you now is ready, and is a much better experience than Divinity 2 ever was. If it weren't for the reasons mentioned before, we'd happily release everywhere.
Obviously it helped that we built Flames Of Vengeance on a finished game, but still, one year for an expansion pack is pretty long, though then again, it's a pretty big expansion pack. Some games nowadays are shorter than Flames Of Vengeance on its own, let alone when playing it combined with Divinity 2.
Also, if required, our time to patch is going to be lot shorter this time, as we made sure that this time we can quickly react to anything that might go wrong. I really don't think it'll be necessary, but you never know. Did you know btw that for one of our games I once had to deal with the statement - "We don't do patches, our games are perfect" while these boards where being overloaded with messages of technical problems. The first patch for that game was actually "leaked" on purpose.
Sounds as if they're planning to use Germany as a beta-testing country.
Spotted at: RPGWatch There are 6 comments on this article. Click here to comment.
Divinity 2: Flames of Vengeance Is Not Perfect ( Development info )
posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Wed 09 June 2010, 11:48:36
More info on Divinity 2 - More info on Larian Studios
... but it beats most RPGs I’ve had the occasion to play recently. Says Swen Vincke of Larian Studios.
It’s no secret that a lot of people thought the first part of Divinity 2 was the best part (me included), and when we started working on FOV, the goal was to capture that same feeling, and I’m quite happy to say that I think the team managed this. I hope all of you will agree when you get to play it. Having seen what the Divinity engine can do now in Flames of Vengeance, I regret that the values present in FOV weren’t present throughout the original game, because that would’ve made a big difference I think to the nay-sayers. These caused quite a lot of frustration on our side, given how long we worked on Divinity 2, but of course, they did have a point about certain things.
The nay-sayers had a point about certain things. But everything has been addressed, that'll shut them up. Stupid nay-sayers.
Spotted at: RPGWatch There are 12 comments on this article. Click here to comment.
Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance Website Launched ( Game news )
posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Thu 03 June 2010, 19:22:23
More info on Divinity 2 - More info on Larian Studios
The official site for Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance, the expansion to Divinity 2, launched. Officially.
Read the press release over at this site where we store our press releases and other stuff we really can't be bothered with.
There's also a FAQ in case you don't know about the game and need more details.
What is Divinity II - Flames of Vengeance?
Divinity II - Flames of Vengeance is the next chapter in the Divinity saga and is an expansion for Divinity II - Ego Draconis. It continues and concludes the story of the Dragon Knight.
Spotted at: Gamebanshee There are 27 comments on this article. Click here to comment.
Divinity II Addon announced ( Game news )
posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Thu 04 March 2010, 14:46:48
More info on Divinity 2 - More info on Larian Studios
Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance Addon has been officially announced.
I copy the pressrelease from RPGWatch, a site civil enough to receive press releases.
Hamburg/Germany, March 04th, 2010 – Aleroth, once a war-torn city, now holds the next challenges for computer role playing gamers. Rivellon, the world of Divinity II: Ego Draconis, is still not safe. In Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance, the game’s official add on, players must face the evil once more.
Soon they’ll recognize that many of the characters they met in the main game aren’t who they pretended to be. Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance continues where Divinity II: Ego Draconis left off. "In Flames of Vengeance, the player picks up the story of the Dragon knight and guides him to his ultimate destiny. Along the way several accounts are settled, and the answers to many questions in the Divinity universe revealed. We've also taken the opportunity to give the engine a solid overhaul, improving performance and graphics quality along the way", Swen Vincke, Creative Director and CEO of the development team Larian Studios, explains.
Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance, the official add on to Divinity II: Draconis, offers more than 30 quests and about 15 hours of gameplay.
dtp entertainment and Larian Studios will publish Divinity II: Flames of Vengeance for PC and on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft in August 2010.
“Divinity II genuinely surprised me”, “1up.com” stated on Divinity II: Ego Draconis. “I had an absolute blast playing through Divinity 2: Ego Draconis”, said the reviewer of “Zeitgeist Game Reviews”. German magazine “GameStar” stated the game was “the RPG surprise of 2009 so far” and honored it with an award for special “quest quality”.
Spotted at: Not a cesspoolThere are 14 comments on this article. Click here to comment.
RPGWatch reviews Divinity 2 ( Review )
posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Tue 23 February 2010, 13:41:12
More info on Divinity 2 - More info on Larian Studios
Larian Studios Action RPG gets reviewed over at the Watch.
One of the most interesting and useful skills you learn is Mindreading. While using this skill will cost you experience points, it is frequently worth the cost. Often it will open up new quests or areas, it might get you better prices from merchants and it will sometimes give you extra skill points. The more experience it costs to use, the greater the eventual reward.
...
While some quests had a few alternative options; using mindreading to discover a more diplomatic route as opposed to straight combat for example, the depth of choice comes nowhere near to that offered by Dragon Age, for example. As the final solutions tend to be roughly the same, other than trying different character builds there was little incentive to replay the game.
Conclusion: Divinity fails to achieve the depth of choice Dragon Age set as a new standard.
I very much enjoyed Divinity 2, but I also have to say it didn't meet my hopes and expectations. After a few hours I truly loved the game, but after a few more the weaknesses started showing through. It is a solid story-driven action-RPG that is a worthy addition to any genre fan's library, but in a year that saw Drakensang, Dragon Age: Origins, Risen and the Mac release of Avernum 6, not to mention King's Bounty: Armored Princess, it is hard to push Divinity 2 above any of those games as a necessary purchase. For ardent fans of Divine Divinity, the return to the setting and characters along with the brilliant music might be enough to justify paying full price to play immediately, but for most folks I would recommend waiting for a good sale or a lull in the RPG onslaught to give this a shot.
They rate it 3/5.
Spotted at: The home of the well mannered folks on the interwebsThere are 16 comments on this article. Click here to comment.
Divinity II: Ego Draconis Reviews ( Game news )
posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Thu 11 February 2010, 11:06:04
More info on Divinity 2 - More info on Larian Studios
Here are 3 reviews of Larian Studios Action RPG.
The Game Reviews scores it 7/10:
Unfortunately, the difficulty balance of Divinity 2 isn’t finely tuned, as it can be extremely frustrating if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing. Enemies of all levels are everywhere, and you really have to pay attention to the advancement of your character if you don’t want to get destroyed by a random countryside encounter. If you aren’t an experienced RPG player, I can see you having a bit of trouble getting accustomed to Divinity’s system, as walking your level four characters into a group of level ten bandits is not a pleasant experience.
A weakness of the system is that there are no clever tactics you could apply to defeat a lvl10 character when you're lvl4. You can't damage him and you'll die in 2 seconds, that's all there is to it.
Game Revolution scores it "C-":
A swelled head.
Here's a sign that a game is trying to push just a little too hard: The instruction manuals is over 60 pages long. That's right, sixty pages for one game (and yes, it was all in English, with no other languages present). Maybe it goes along with that “ego” part of the title, I dunno, but that's my guess as the manual doesn't tell you much you couldn't already figure out. If it was filled with character bios, backstory, a real overview of the world, even a comic book kind of dealie, that would be one thing, but that is only four of the sixty pages that weigh down the packaging. I guess in the original PC version it would make sense - hotkeys and keyboard strokes and all that - but on a pad it's just plain unnecessary.
If you learn nothing else from this review, learn this: You will die in this game. A lot. To put it in perspective, I believe I died roughly six times on my first major battle of the storyline... and it wasn't because I entirely suck at playing these types of RPGs. It was because I was rushed like a Beatle/Hanson/Jonas Brother waltzing unprotected through a mall. Even on the easy difficulty setting, you'll still find yourself shot down, beat up, and burning alive by somebody you not only saw coming, but was unable to stop from coming.
That's right, you can't pwn everything with just furiously clicking. LOL this gaem is prime nerd material, just look at the manual. Avoid at all costs.
GamersInfo without a score:
Divinity II: Eco Draconis brings you on a journey from a Dragon Slayer to the last Dragon Knight in a rich world. The lore and mystery in the game combined with a sense of exploration really let me enjoy my time playing. While the game does have quite a few rough edges, I found myself often forgetting all about those and just having a lot of fun. Whether it was reading people’s minds or swooping down and destroying goblin towns in dragon form, there isn’t anything quite like it. Divinity II is definitely a unique RPG that is worth a try.
Is it worth a try, Codex?
Spotted at: GamebansheeThere are 36 comments on this article. Click here to comment.
Divinity 2 Video footage ( Game news )
posted by VentilatorOfDoom on Thu 28 January 2010, 19:48:58
More info on Divinity 2 - More info on Larian Studios
Filler combat is despised among the local C&C crowd. But you should never stop to educate yourself. If you want to learn more about the true nature of filler combat I kindly refer you to Divinity 2: Ego Draconis.
Spotted at: the site that names the instant classics There are 3 comments on this article. Click here to comment.
| 
