JaguarGod

I have played through the entire game, side quests and all, and here is my review of the game which I posted to Mac App Store. Just for reference, I am still leveling up and playing the game, even after I finished it. But please remember that this is just my stupid opinion.


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It May Be Buggy and Glitchy, But Worth The Price of Admission   4/5 Stars


OK, let me preface this review with a quick statement…. no, this game is not as in depth or as polished as Oblivion/Skyrim though it is obviously inspired by it. But you know what… Having played through the entire game, sidequests and all, it is still quite fun to play and even to look at in some respects. I think I had lowered my expectations when I saw this game had been reworked for Mac. The game was great on iOS, but a lot of that has to do with the expectations of the hardware. It could be said that Ravensword: Shadowlands is a great technical achievement on iOS, but a bit of a technical mishap on OSX. No matter what though, the game is a good deal for $12.99 USD in my opinion. Let's get into the review categories.

GRAPHICS
OK, there are points of the game at which the vistas look great and easily impress. You have to remember that this game is an iOS game reworked for the Mac. With that in mind, you may have a fresh approach to Ravensword: Shadowloands. You can change the draw distance which will help the game on some slower Macs. With this draw distance all the way up, you can see quite far, but you still see some draw-in in the distance. But it does not really affect the gameplay. A bunch of strange things do appear throughout the game though. A lot of glitches, walking through walls, missing polygonal edges, floating trees and other objects, strange objects high in the sky in South Aven, and some others. But if you can look past these, there is a lot to enjoy in the graphics department. Normal mapping is used to its fullest in the environments, creatures and people of the Ravensword universe which does make the game look more next-gen, or in this case, present-gen. But all in all the graphics do their job.

SOUND
The soundtrack is very well done for a smaller game. The music fits the atmosphere at most times, but does feel strange sometimes in certain circumstances. The creatures all have the sounds you would probably expect. There is some voice-over work for the NPC's, but most of the dialogue throughout the game is text. It would have been great to have this enhanced for the Mac version, but understandably, this would have been almost impossible and cost more. The weapon sounds are well done, but a bit shallow. The ambient sounds are also well done in some areas and others seem a bit too bland. This is where the music can help out.

GAMEPLAY
This is where some people will be having a problem. I will try my best to project the gameplay issues realistically. The gameplay in Ravensword is in broad scope, fine. But the little details are definitely missed here. It is very easy to get around, fight and traverse the landscapes. But you will find that some strange things can happen. I have walked through walls and fallen through others, jumped my way up a mountain just to fall through a false floor and I have even been stuck inside a Dino Cow after killing it. Yes, these are the things you will encounter when playing Ravensword for OSX. One issue that has followed from the iOS version is the loot waiting time. After killing a creature, you have to wait a few seconds, sometimes 3-5 seconds for the green loot effect to become visible letting you know that you can now loot your fallen enemy. This may seem like only an annoyance, but when you are slaying creatures quickly, it really causes an issue. You will find yourself killing a group of enemies first, then returning to loot them almost in the order you killed them to get the best timing. And this does work well if you can get it right. Also, the inventory menu, in which you can equip and enhance your character and his items, is poorly done. Clicking and dragging to find items is not very efficient in this case. Also, there are times where items will overlap each other in the menu causing some initial frustration. One other point here is the "buying a home" portion of the game. If you want to do everything in the game, you can buy a home and even furnish it. I did this and found it to be very disappointing. Dropping the items and moving them is not practical and should have been addressed in my opinion. But it is a side project in the game, so it is something that can be forgiven.

STORY
The story of Ravensword, though fairly basic, is well done. The side quests, though smaller in scope, are a nice diversion from the main quest and there are quite a few of them to keep you busy. I found myself wanting to finish the current quest to get to the next one. The storytelling is not very in-depth, but it gets the job done. I was interested to know what happened and what was going to happen next.

OVERALL
For the $12.99 USD price tag, you get a game that tries to emulate what some other RPG's have successfully portrayed. It does that, but in a very limited role. I could not give this game five stars as I do not believe it warrants it, but it definitely earns the four in my opinion. There is a lot to like in Ravensword: Shadowlands, but there is a lot that could have been much better. With a bit more time and polish, this OSX port could be a very good game. In its current released state, the game is a nice Oblivion/Skyrim wannabe that I think you will enjoy. Just be careful where you explore or you may end up falling through the ground

They do have some offers right now and there are times they have offers for free. But I think right now it is 50% off on some subscriptions.

Well, I will preface this with a quick statement... "I love iRacing and have had a lot of fun in the past playing the game. Now that I am testing the game on OSX it is pretty clear that we need OSX specific software for these wheels soon. I have had no luck with Fanatec or Thrustmaster in recent years as the market is just too small. FFB, even with the kext installed, is not working in the current gamestate. This just makes the game unplayable if you rely on your wheel to get the best laptimes and I certainly do. Very disappointing.

OK, I will be testing the game which is pretty cool. But I too am not a fan of subscription games. The only difference here is that it is iRacing and I am such a big fan of the game on PC. A lot of friends play it on Windows and I have played it also on their setups. I am pretty envious as the game is great for online races and the amount of tuning that can be done is amazing. But in all reality, I will probably do it for a year or so after the initial release and take it from there. I am much more of a "buy the game once and play forever" type of gamer, especially with racing games. I do not mind DLC much, but would prefer to purchase a game as a whole. That is why my own game, AuoSport Driving has no DLC or subscription. I just wanted those who purchased it to pay once and get everything (what little there is). I have updated the game 4 times over the past year and a half and have many more updates coming. But iRacing is just so well done. The laser scanned tracks are beautiful along with the car models and when playing online with people who are "gentlemen" racers it can be very rewarding.

Has anyone played through the actual game. I downloaded the demo quite a while ago as I had been awaiting the game for so long, but have not put any time into yet. The little I did play does seem pretty relaxing in a way. The puzzle element is different and seems like it would be fun to get into. Should I give it the small amount of spare time I have?