User Rating: 5.5 | Beyond Divinity PC
Ouch. Games are supposed to be "fun." This is a pain in the ass. I played Divine Divinity, and while I wasn't enamored with it, I can say it was fairly enjoyable, and easy to play. This is why I was looking forward to Beyond Divinity. I've played a ton of PC games, including many RPGs. Sometimes, I'm not very impressed with the initial presentation. However, I always give them a chance, play through the first few hours and see if they come around. Well, I installed BD, created a character, and set off. Within 15 minutes, it was time to uninstall. While it promised many similar features found in the first game, and while it also promised several new additions, I just couldn't bring myself to hang in there. No amount of content, storyline, or choice of skill trees can save a bad interface. And that's what we have here; just a pain in the ass, cumbersome, choppy interface and gameplay, to me it's just not FUN. Who gives a hoot if you're a level 45 survivor/wizard with killer weapons and tons of armor if you had to sit through and endure a pixel hunting, drag and click marathon with a choppy, jerky mouse-scroll screen. In most 2D games that have a pan feature, time is taken to make this a smooth experience. Unfortunately, BD failed here. When you move your mouse to the edge of the screen, you immediately zoom off in that direction, and when you come back from the edge, it's a sudden stop. This is very fatiguing on the eyes. You CAN hold the left mouse button and move to direct your running companions, but in actual play this just isn't always the preferred feature; many times you'll need to scroll the screen. Also, the hot keys and interface are just rather poorly designed. Combining this with random, flat, carboard cut out 2D backgrounds, this game fails to entertain me in any way, I could "play" it, but it wouldn't be any "fun," it would be work.
