RPGWatch Feature: Geneforge 4 Review

After playing through Geneforge 4: Rebellion with a couple of different characters, it's time for a review of Spiderweb's latest entry into this series. Indie heaven or more of the same?

Faced with a troop of well-armed Shaper soldiers mercilessly hunting down fleeing peasants, does the player float back into the shadows and allow the slaughter or step in and face a difficult battle? Or were they troublemaking Rebels to be dealt with? Geneforge 4 often uses these scripted encounters to good effect and with surprising emotional depth. Cornered by a Shaper operative, do you choose to betray the location of a Rebellion camp or maintain loyalty? Which holds the better future for humanity? Siding with one faction or another will gradually change your reputation with the different sides and – together with certain key encounters - can affect which areas are accessible and sometimes who will talk with you and how they react. Much of the time you’ll be able to pass as refugee riff-raff, but as your reputation and power grows word will reach some ears. There are a handful of specific turning points in the game and the overall structure of the journey is the same regardless of the faction the player supports but there are plenty of choices that change the shape of the gameworld along the way.

Read it all here.
More information.

Excellent review, but the page's lay-out works dodgily for me (Firefox 2.0.0.3); the "pros and cons" are in the same colour as the background, and every thumbnail links to one single screenshot.

I'll probably pick this game up now, based on this review. Though I just finished Avernum 4, and long since found Vogel is a bit too repetitive to play a lot of in quick succession.

Originally Posted by Kharn
Excellent review, but the page's lay-out works dodgily for me (Firefox 2.0.0.3); the "pros and cons" are in the same colour as the background, and every thumbnail links to one single screenshot.

Fixed the screenshot links and the text color. Sort of, I guess I never really made dark versions before I took a break from web work. Will be next on my list.

Colours still messed up on Dark view

Thanks for the comments. I think a break after playing Avernum is a good idea but this is far less linear, with many more choices. It's not going to change a lot of minds - if you don't like his stuff, you probably won't like this - but it really is good work and there are just enough improvements that some people put off previously might just stick with this. Walking animations is a good example - the whole game is similar but just feels nicer, and that might tip someone over from "nope" to "hey - this is OK".

The pros and cons work OK for me with the latest Firefox but the gallery links are playing up…I'll have to pass that to Myrthos. You can scroll through the gallery to the correct pics.

Edit: thanks Arhu!

Originally Posted by Kharn
Colours still messed up on Dark view

Shift-Reload. (should at least be readable now)

Originally Posted by Arhu
Shift-Reload. (should at least be readable now)

Ctrl + Reload (Firefox)…

…but whoops, yeah. Fixed now. Good job.

Very good and fair review. I'm playing G4 right now and I'm having a blast with my Infiltrator. But the "pros" are missing a point which (sadly) should be mentioned nowadays: Vogels games are nearly bugfree. I haven't encountered a single bug in G4 so far (and only one noteworthy in a previous game and that was nothing showstopping). That's some quality coding.

I second that… I'm making my way through Avernum 4 right now and so far the only bug I've encountered after over 40 hours of gameplay was a spelling error. If we could say that for the AAA titles it would be amazing.

I know that technically Jeff's games are no where near as "complicated" in their programming, but he still creates huge, bug-free games. And that's a serious accomplishment.

Nice, well written review. I might be one of those who just might be swayed to give it a try. I will make sure to try the demo.

Good review - I played Geneforge 4 already and can second everything said in the review.

I never finished, but have been playing the Mac & PC versions for months … wonderful game! Nice review!

Good review

Hey roqua, long time no see! Yes Dhruin, an excellent review as usual. Eventually, I'll get around to trying it!! I don't mind Jeff's graphics; they remind me of the Ultimas!!

I havent played it yet either. To tell the sad truth I've been playing burning crusade. I have yet to do an instace in the outlands (who has the time to focus uninterupted on a game for 4 hours?) and I would ratherbe raped in the mouth than do a raid, but I'm hooked on the arena. And I suck at twitch combat. I wish everything had a global cooldown and it was 4 or 5 seconds. My 2v2 team ranking is 1180 or something.

This article makes me want to play a real game, but I want to fight in the arena even more. Stupid wow.

Well, one of the best things about spiderweb is the games age well, so it will be there when I need it.

Roqua…playing WoW??
The sky is falling.

Nice review!

But someone Please fix those stars…….

What's wrong with them? Please post suggestions if you have any in the RPGWarch forum set aside for that.

First of all I have the dark "setting" and it is easy to see that just like those litle buttons that shows who is online… the transperancy is completely wrong making them look very ugly. Acctually I tried on the light version.. and they don't look okay there either.

Secondly I really think you guys should have something that is a symbol for the site.. how about that watch tower? people do often post reviews on their websites and stars are just plain out boring… but if you keep the stars at least make them look okay on this backgroud.

OK, but this REALLY needs to be posted in the correct forum, since there is no guarantee that either Arhu or Myrthos will see it here. They are responsible for all site design changes!!