Venetica - Review @ The Guardian

Venetica for the X360 has been reviewed at The Guardian. The score in the very short article is 3/5 but the text does describe it as "surprisingly compelling":

In fact, it proves that initial appearances – some of the graphics, plus the character models and animations, are ropey in the extreme – can be deceptive, as it turns out to be fun to play and surprisingly compelling. You take on the role of Scarlett, a young female interloper in a small village which is attacked by assassins without warning. Scarlett survives, discovers she can fight, and experiences an odd visitation in which, summoned to a netherworld, she discovers she is the daughter of Death, who has stashed an undead-slaying sword called the Moonblade for her; she must find it, go to Venice and locate and destroy the Undead Archon, who plots to bring chaos to the world.

Click to expand...

More information.

Sad that the score is low, but the gameplay descriptions continue to interest me.

…a 3 rating is "low" all of a sudden? Then a 2 must be what.. super-low? i'd say a "3" is a good score for such a game, on such site..

The Guardian. Recently overrun by hipsters, who decided that "gaming is cool!"
Sorry. But we go back a long way...

Regardless of this whine, the score seems to be consistent with others...61 on MetaC and so on. I`d give it a go, if only for the beautiful setting....

Hi all!

I just registered to give my 2 cents of Venetica.

I've got almost 16 hours of gameplay behind me and I've been playing it with xbox360.

Truth to be told, I didn't expect too much when rewievs and metacritic has given bit of "sucky" ratings. But because I like action rpg:s, Pratchett (death's daughter, well not ysabell but anyways ) and choices between good and evil I decided to give this game a try.

And what a little pearl have I found! O.K. Map is not-so-holdin-your-hand as fable (in fact the map might me the weakest link in the game), voices of npc:s are sometimes irritating ("I don't know", "that's good" and so on. These voices are made to make city feel more lively but it's not exactly have been success).

Little glitches in graphics are in presence here and there but i'm not golden eye so I can forgive these and everything mentioned above because:

Scarlett is somewhat a well-designed character , I always like battles between good and evil (even when my characters tend to be goody two shoes every time).

Venice is pretty well drawn and interesting enough to walk around (no fast transport in map, if you need to go another side of the town; you walk - this is pretty sure a big con in many players eyes but I don't mind too much, it helps to get the town's map into my head better, after all, map is not clearest of them all).

Hack'n slash in this game has been made pretty well, mapping the spells and moves are pretty easy to remap to button which you want. Battling in this game is even enjoyable and it's pretty nice to make combos with for example moonblade, blood vortex and with venice with love.

Different weapons also work to different bogeys and it's pretty logical what weapon to use to what monster.

In my books this is more than "pretty nice" game. It's at least a good game and worth my 25£. I'm playing now for example Fallout: New Vegas, Fable III, Dragon Knight Saga, and Mass Effects 1&2 and DA:O. When we remember that Venetica is way lower-budget game than for example Bioware's masterpieces I must give BIG kudos for people in Deck13 and say like the good old pointy-ears mr. Spock:

Live Long and Prosper!

just my 2 cents from frosty finland

e: If moderators think there would be better place to post this, i won't mind moving the post. I'm new in forum so not exactly sure where to post.

Welcome, and there's no problem contributing impressions in this sot of thread. Thanks for the comments - I've been thinking I might import this.

Yes, thank you for posting your impressions. Impressions and reviews of Venetica seem pretty scarce, so I'm always interested in more opinions. I think I share your sensibilities (e.g., I like old fashioned "good vs. evil" battles, too), so it's encouraging for me to hear that you are enjoying the game.

I'm so pleased that we'll get a chance to play this on the 360 in North America. It wasn't looking good for a long, long time. I'll probably buy this one upon release. Knowing the US 360 crowd, hardly anyone in my circles will pick it up, especially if it continues to garner 6's. I enjoy playing the role of supporting the underdog and shining a little light on the lesser-known/appreciated RPGs like this.

over 25 hours behind and still looking good. With time I've learned to use map a little better. Definetely going to do another round (or more) after first. This is baaaad game that way that it's somehow harder to stop the longer time you play. Still feels good. No more this time, just told that tastes still bueno mucho

Big decision time. And thanks Mora or the great review.

Fallout Vegas is almost done. Over 200 hours in (same game). I have leveled to 30 a long time ago and 2Worlds2 awaits in late Jan - maybe.

So now I have to decided if I should get Venetica the Euruo version now or wait 2 weeks for the US version. (Jan 11). But as I write this post I'm guessing Venetica is not an Epic game and I could possibly wrap it up before 2Worlds2.

Does anyone know anything about the US version?

I don't know why but my warden sense tingles that maybe it might be better to wait for u.s. version to get to market. I don't say there are much bugs but maybe under atari's brand it might be even more "fine tuned".

At now when game clock shows ~27h I think I'm about a little over halfway there (not sure but strong maybe )

Atari won't change anything. Rest assured they're not interested in this game. It's only a pipeline filler for them.

Not sure if I quoted Anderson correctly there.

Click to expand...

Close enough, thanks. Appreciate your input.

If you like H&S, go for it.

Click to expand...

When I hear "hack and slash," I think of endless button mashing (or clicking, I suppose, if you're on PC) through wave after wave of nearly-identical enemies who run to the slaughter with nary an IQ point between them. Rinse and repeat, over and over.

I don't care much for that type of game, but I don't get the sense that Venetica is like that, really — or at least I hope not.

It's not hack & slash. A lot of action, but usually only small groups of enemies - each of them dangerous enough to demand your full attention. Combat is a bit similar to Rune, with influence through character development and strong effect of weapon & armour choice.


-----------------------


I'm a bit surprised about the " Akward dialogue throughout" comment. The German version had good dialogs (of course not Bioware-good) and very good voice acting (only slightly behind the superb German Divinity 2). So it's possible that whoever paid for the translation didn't throw enough money at it.

Good to hear it's not the hack & slash I was imagining, Gorath, thanks.

As for "awkward dialog throughout," I don't think it's consistently bad, but rather hit and miss — at least judging by the 2 earlier reviews. For instance, the Eurogamer review said that "voice-acting ranges from triple-A to bargain basement." And the Strategy Informer review referred to the dialog and voice acting as "schizophrenic," meaning that it was of mixed quality. So apparently, some — but not all — of the good German dialog and voice acting was lost in translation.

The mixed asset quality was inevitable. Venetica cost only ca. 1M EUR per platform and came in slightly below (!) budget. For comparison: Arcania cost ca. 8-9M EUR on 2 platforms.
I like the art direction and the setting, but there are obviously a couple of compromises.

I think we've already had a couple of threads on Venetica after the German release.

So Venetica cost 1/4 what Arcania did to develop? That's a little scary. Hopefully they spent their meager assets wisely.

Just noticed it's releasing for $40 on console, which is nice. 1/11/11. I put down my pre-order tonight.

I just paid a visit to the Deck 13 homepage.

Without actually playing the console versions I would prefer the platforms in the following order:
1. PC (lead platform)
2. PS3 (later conversion by Wizarbox, includes a couple of small improvements)
3. XBox (also outsourced to Wizarbox)

I don't play on PC, so it's either 360 or PS3 for me. I usually go with the 360 unless there's a clear reason to pick the PS3. I much prefer the 360's pad, and from analysis of head to head comparisons I've seen, the 360 version of multiplatform releases are, on average, slightly better than those on the PS3, so I feel like it's the safer bet, especially when PC is the lead platform (because, as I'm sure you know, 360 architecture shares more in common with the PC than the PS3 does). And I've been gaming on the 360 for many years, so it's the familiar choice.

So I'll be getting the 360 version. With the low budget and the mediocre review scores, I'm not expecting anything brilliant. But sometimes modest expectations are a good thing.

You may be in for a positive surprise. I enjoyed it a lot, and the German reviews were generally very positive, but a few disastrous scores brought the average down to ca. 75%.

At least Deck13 didn't phone in their performance. It's an inspired game, and it doesn't look incomplete.