Yet another broken engine to add to the plethora of broken engines in a dying industry full of incompetent PCgame devs.
I want to say that Divinity 2 looks like a great game from the outside. The books are a nice addition full of creative text and verbal imagery, I think that stands out the most to me personally because I like to read and write.
This game also boasts 60+ hours of gameplay if played entirely which is quite impressive. A modding tool(s) would have been even better but I won't take any points away over it not having any.
The voice actors are all southeast british. I guess that's okay but it's a bit of "been there, done that"--I won't take any points away for it. The voice actors sound nice regardless. They're just starting to all sound the same after hearing them so many times in so many games. They sound like gender specific versions of the same person after a while. I would like to see some differences in single-player RPG games like this.
The quests try to be different, and I can't say I found any of them to be annoying which is good. The game tries to be dramatic without sounding cliche' and the character animations fit the mood of the character, leaving some mental imagery to be had. I thought it was nice.
A lot of people are having codec problems with the videos. I'm not totally convinced of whether or not it's a problem with the codec interacting with the video or if it's a problem with the video interacting with the codec. I too have video lag problems but the videos (located in the program files game data directory) all play perfectly fine in any media player outside of the game, which leads me to believe that it's a problem with the game engine or the videos themselves and not necessarily a problem with my codec being that I can play the videos fine outside of the game, and every other video in every other game plays perfectly fine also--such as Mass Effect 2 videos. I don't appreciate people telling me there is a problem with my system when there is not a problem with my system. They lost points with me over this.
The game engine was initially unstable and a lot was being said around the internet about it which initially led me to not purchase this game at first. I gave it time to patch which is why this review is as late as it is. It was patched, but unfortunately it is still very unstable. Random crashes and low FPS. Turning things off makes everything go smoother but it doesn't help the videos and it makes everything look worse overall. It might be more entertaining to reinstall Oblivion or Morrowind.
There are also reports of tearing even when vsync is turned on. Triple Buffering should have been included in the graphics options but it wasn't, so it has to be forced with your preferred graphics driver tool.
Overall this should have been more than it was. A good story and all the innovation in the world won't make up for a broken game engine the developers used when the developers themselves quite obviously don't understand the broken engine used and/or created.
I am tired of companies like Larian blaming their broken engines on the end-user just so they can keep milking money from their product. If they really wanted to make money from their product, they should have ensured it would not be sold broken from the very beginning when they initially began to design the said product.
Nice idea, and I'm sure the game design doc was quite an eyefull of pleasantry, but a very poor attempt overall. I do not advise anyone purchase this game ever and any product sold by Larian in the future should be reviewed carefully for any such problems in the future.
The last thing this industry needs is more inconsistent developers milking out broken products solely so they can put food on the table for their little ones. I highly suggest they go back to college and find a new job. You're not welcome here, at least not by me personally.
I'm not telling anyone how to think, but you have been warned. Purchase this at your own risk.