GreedFall (Spiders/Focus Home Interactive) 2019

Only if you end up liking it*!

*Otherwise I’d feel bad - I like it when people have fun with their games.

I think I will, Euro RPG are up my alley.

Not so hot on the romancing aspects though, but it sounds like this has really good quest design which I am looking forward to appreciating.

10 hours in and I haven’t seen a bit of the romancing stuff. Is that actually in the game?

Also, I don’t get why people would bee line the main quest. That’s a horrible way to play a ROLE playing game. Sounds like someone didn’t care for their review assignment from their editor.

Apparently.

The reviewer in question said they were not enjoying the game (due to the colonial aspects) so I can’t imagine they’re stopping to smell the roses.

OK, someone that’s actually played the game correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t “the way the colonial aspects are handled” significantly up to the player? I mean, isn’t that the whole point?

I just dipped my toes in this and it looks like it inherited the horrid “head sway/bob” in third person that causes me nausea and headaches. Swell. And I can’t find a setting to turn it off. I think I had the same problem with Technomancer so never got far in it.

Often the problem with Games Criticism that tries to be serious is how amateurish and misguided and prejudicial it is. Passing judgement on a game’s handling of themes before even giving the game a chance to resolve its core conflicts is critical malpractice, and shockingly common in the game space.

Played for about 2 hours. The controls are a little touchy and combat will take some getting used to. I’ve only played one of their games before, Technomancer, which I enjoyed but it was a little rough in spots.

So far I am loving what I see in this game. No regrets at all doing the preorder. I look forward to exploring more of this world.

What I’ve been wondering is this: can you befriend the natives and side with them in a meaningful way?

All the preview materials indicated that you absolutely could, and that the fundamental choice of the game is whether to do that or go full colonial.

Thanks. I suppose you could say they are glorifying the colonial period, but if they present choices in a thoughtful way, it gives players a chance to relive those choices or reflect on them. Not that Greedfall is attempting to be historically accurate, of course. I don’t see the issue, personally. I’m with @telefrog here.

Certainly on the basis of that review I don’t see an issue. It’s certainly possible that the pro-natives side of things isn’t handled well, but that’s not what the reviewer played. So, unless the previews totally misrepresented things in terms of being able to choose (also possible, certainly) it seems to come down to player choice.

Whoah! I haven’t played Greedfall, so I don’t really have a position here. In general, I think creators should produce whatever art/media they want, but I also think everyone is else is free to judge and interpret that art how they want.

Sorry, I meant @ShivaX.

Not sure that Steam’s the platform for Gears and that other stuff is a bit tired, but still, nice for an RPG from a less well known source.

This game is the bees knees for a Spiders game. Surprisingly good, though the various builds are all over the place. It is possible to make a pretty gimpy character or a demigod and that doesn’t surprise me since game balance and Spiders don’t strike me as something that should go in the same sentence. You can respec to a VERY limited degree so I’d recommend doing a bit of research because you must specialize, period. You simply will not amass enough skill, attribute, and talent points to build much of a jack of all trades type character.

I’m not even going to wade in on the perpetually outraged children gnashing their teeth about the setting. Put your big boy pants on, or don’t play. And yes, you can be an anti-colonial freedom fighter so you especially need to grow up. Safe space retreat!

First of all, how dare you. Perhaps you wouldn’t take that tone if you were Irish.

Only had the time to play for 1-2 hours yesterday.

  • The world looks beautiful and I’m looking forward to exploring it.
  • JANKY sure was the right word. I had to turn down the camera sensitivity by two or three points cause it was just jumping all over the place. Even so, your character basically JANKS forward as soon as you start moving.
  • Mouth movements are absolutely horrific.
  • …but voice acting is great!
  • Actually enjoying combat, it felt a bit overwhelming in the tutorial but I think I can get used to it. I love how you can quickly shoot someone in the middle of a fight (and not miss).
  • Not sure why you can basically “talk” (get a comment) to all passers by and workers, as they never (so far) had anything interesting to say.
  • Immediately after starting you get to engage in a few short missions and rigth away choose different approaches to them and make your own moral choices on how to solve them. That, I like.

It’s also often a problem of our expectations being shaped by a popular culture.

I haven’t played Greedfall so I can’t talk about what fantasy otherworldly made up world tells us about colonialism, but quite often I see people don’t like historical work cause it’s not made of Hollywood history. E.g. Kingdom of Heaven showed that smart guys didn’t really buy into all of this religion stuff, and quite often I see people assume that anyone with a brain was always a cryptoatheist.

And this review makes me wonder if there’s a similar case in reveiwer’s take on Greedfall. It sounds like the game is not didactic and doesn’t have a concious message, and the subconcious one is evil. Well, welcome to the world of art.

I think we may see a lot more criticism along these lines. I cannot speak to the quality of the article in question since I haven’t read it nor have I played any of Greedfall.

As a game mechanic/system and theme Colonialism (or its constituent parts) make for very interesting games. Most 4X games inherit the concept, many Paradox games, Monster Hunter World, etc. Traveling to and exploring a virgin land filled with mysteries, conflict with and subjugation of the native inhabitants, hunting unknown species of fauna, exploiting a resource-rich land to enrich your home civilization, and other aspects make for incredibly fun gameplay mechanics.

The historical reality was always terrible and tragic however. So it is definitely worth investigating and wrestling with how Colonialism is used in games and I hope we get more articles along these lines even if this one potentially missed the mark. It is also perfectly reasonable to have very negative critical reactions to a game yet still enjoy the world, gameplay, and narrative (as I did with the Division). If I were a reviewer I would still score The Division pretty high while noting how toxic and disturbing I found the power fantasy presented therein.


As a side note, as I wrote this I was thinking how fun it would be to play a strategic 4X-adjacent game that didn’t rely on exploitation and strip-mining, but more peaceable and harmonious expansion into an unknown world (even though I still love my pure 4Xs).