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G3-why do you dislike it


wxxqut

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The main complaints seem to be the jumps from island to island and how black and white the choices are between Rebel and Shaper in each island. You have to pick a side by the end of the third island and can't just be neutral as in the first 2 games, or powergame with helping everyone to get ahead.

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I haven't finished/registered it yet, but in general I prefer to take a neutral course between the rebels and the shapers, so the fact that it is not available will be annoying (once I actually get the game).

 

(I have completed the demo portion of G3.)

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I defend G3 as being the right game for its point in the story. But I suppose I can still concede that that point in the story is kind of depressing. It's about the narrowing of the range of options, once open war has broken out, and that's a necessary part of the story; but as a game it's still kind of frustrating. Constraint and frustration is really a motif in G3: you can't get off the islands, you can't get to a forge, the conflict can't be resolved, the army won't march, Khyrryk won't do anything, the Geneforge isn't ready.

 

Obstacles are the stuff of all games, of course; but in G3 the frustration factor is amplified just that bit too much. The small islands force you to focus more on whatever is blocking you at the moment, and as a more official agent of either the shapers or the rebels, you are directly involved in the frustrations more than in earlier games. And your range of options is narrower.

 

In many ways this higher focus and involvement is a good thing in a game. If there were only a bit more success possible in G3, so that you could turn the long string of frustrations into satisfying victories, then I think it would be much more popular.

As it is, all the G3 victories are modest at best, whichever side you take; and I think that's maybe what gets people down. People feel bad about being constrained, because they feel bad that no option leading to great success was available.

 

That's one thing that G4 does better, I think. You have a sequence of major and important tasks that you can actually achieve, and as you knock each one down, an authority figure pats you on the back and sends you urgently onward.

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When I went back and looked at my earliest posts here for the relevant topic, I was surprised to see how positive I was about G3. There were things I hated, like the boats; but I was very positive about the direction of the story and even the type of forced choice questions involved.

 

The problem, I think, is that the lack of variety in plot, questions, and game paths, makes the interestingness of G3 quickly fall to the ground when you replay it. And because I didn't quite finish the game but instead replayed it several times for strategy, I became annoyed at all of those things.

 

So I must reluctantly agree: G3 is a good game, just don't play it twice.

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Hmm, island one was linear.

Island two had 3 choices. You could destroy the spawners, give the "rebel" leader the canister, or kill the "rebel" leader.

 

Island three had two choices. Destory or repair the huge spawner.

 

Island four had two choices. You could free the shapers, or kill whats his face. This is the last island you can decide whether shaper or rebel.

 

Island five was linear. But what you did depends on whether you are shaper or rebel. Destroy Geneforge or kill Lord restore health obnoxiously.

 

Island six doesn't exist.

 

So this game doesn't give many options. It is still good though, but not what it could be.

 

Also, correct me if I'm wrong on anything above.

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I hated all the random hacking and slashing. It was too easy to destroy an entire island before learning what you were supposed to be doing there in the first place. This was possible in the first two as well but because they were so open, it wasn't as bothersome.

 

I think Student of Trinity highlighted what this game did well but because the plot was loosely connected with the player's actions, ultimately it just felt like the first two Geneforges confined in an annoyingly cramped story and world map. It kind of reminded me of ZKR.

 

I don't think it's a bad game though.

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The problem wasn't necessarily in its linearity... it was the fact that the linearity felt forced and artificial. For instance, it drove me crazy the business with the boats, and the idea that a flimsy wooden wall was all that was keeping me from leaving an island. Why couldn't I just climb over it, burn it down, or swim around it? And for that matter, why would you need more than one boat to travel from island to island? Wouldn't the one you got on the first one suffice? :p

 

In my opinion, the most worthwhile thing from GF3 was Khyryk. I only actually played through it once. I was playing as a canister-mad rebel, and the extremist attitudes of most of the Shapers I'd met didn't convince me much to join them. Then I ran into Khyryk. Perhaps a bit late in the game to change sides, but Khyryk was enough to convince me to join the Shapers. I even went back and killed the rebels on the second island and destroyed the Creator on the third... even though the ending dialogs didn't acknowledge some of the stuff I'd done. But in the end I found that much more satisfying than having been a hardliner for either side.

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I don't see the linear game you are all describing. There I was trying to play through as a pure Shaper loyalist, I had made it all the way to the final island with every intent of smashing the geneforge and killing whatever drakon scum was guarding it, when all of the sudden Litalia appears with her last ditch attempt to 'save my life'. Now, I didn't exactly accept her offer... but I could have.

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That's quite true, and in one sense G3 is much less linear than its predecessors. The others allow a lot more flexibility, but only because the actual plot of the other games consists of only a few crucial actions. G3 has at least a rudimentary storyline, with a sequence of actions that have meaningful consequences at least on their respective islands. So although in fact you seem to have fewer paths through the game than in previous versions, your several chances to switch sides seem more significant than simply chatting to Learned Darian.

 

It is still a problem, however, that many of the restrictions on your actions in G3 do seem arbitrary. The waters around the Ashen Isles must be strange indeed, if you can't possibly sail from one to another without acquiring a new boat in between. And if a simple fence can defeat a mighty Shaper, then we know the ultimate horror that lies beneath even the Monastery Caves: you must face the gazebo alone.

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