Pillars of Eternity: a review. Computer games

Pillars of Eternity is a successful role-playing game, published in 2012. This project is the ideological successor of such legendary RPGs as Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment. What is most interesting, when creating this game, the developers did not have money. Funds for the development of Pillars of Eternity were collected with the help of Kickstarter (a platform for attracting investments for the implementation of various projects). Thousands of fans of the genre around the world supported Obsidian Entertainment (the creators of the game) and threw a penny or two. As a result, the Pillars of Eternity budget exceeded $ 4 million. Could the game justify its value? And what caused so many people zadonatit on the creation of Pillars of Eternity? The review of this project will help you to find out the answers to all the questions. Are you interested? Then read this article!

Pillars of Eternity: Overview

Many players believed that the RPG as a genre was lost in the distant 2002 immediately after the release of Icewind Dale 2. And this statement is fully justified. After all, the subsequent role-playing games were dull copies of their predecessors. In them there was nothing new, revolutionary. They just repeatedly repeated what the players saw in the same Icewind Dale. In addition, in the gaming industry, a new stream called MMORPG appeared. MMORPGs were low-cost and attracted a lot of people. It is for this reason that many developers have decided to develop in this vein. Why try, create something unique and new, when you can simply take a ready-made sample of the Korean MMO, remake it in your own way and receive money from internal microtransactions?

Fortunately, after 10 years, everything changed. The popularity of MMO projects began to slowly but surely fade away. Surely this was influenced by the fact that the gaming industry has a new, mainstream direction (it's about MOBA). It was then that the best time for reincarnation of RPG came. And the game, which should return the genre of RPG to its former popularity, was Pillars of Eternity. You can see an overview of this project in this article.

Why this project attracted so much attention to itself and collected such a frantic amount on "Kickstarter"? Everything is very simple. According to the developers, the Pillars of Eternity harmoniously combines a classic, old school atmosphere and a new, revolutionary gameplay. This is what made the fans of the genre RPG pay attention to this project. But were the developers able to keep all their promises? Is one of the best RPGs in recent times - is Pillars of Eternity? The review and detailed analysis of this game will help to answer these questions.

Plot

All the vicissitudes occur in a fictional and fantasy world. The protagonist "was lucky" to witness a very strange and truly supernatural event, the horrific consequences of which will haunt him throughout the game. The main goal is to find out the cause of what happened.

Although the description is rather vague and vague, it is impossible to say more about it, since it will already be a spoiler (premature disclosure of important information). In order to understand the depth of the plot, you need to play Pillars of Eternity yourself. Passage will tighten you with a head, because the game has a lot of intricacies, secrets, mysteries, alternative endings and additional quests. You do not have to miss exactly.

Another advantage of Pillars of Eternity is the characters. There are many NPCs in the game, and you can start a conversation with each of them. As a rule, through dialogue, the world of the game is revealed, important plot twists, etc. It is for this reason that it is not necessary to skip conversations with the NPC. You can miss an important part of the great story, which tells the game Pillars of Eternity. The passage of the whole storyline will take about 40-45 hours.

Gameplay

As a known game process - the heart of any RPG. Could Pillars of Eternity profit from the background of similar projects? Definitely. The game with its combat system is very similar to the good old Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. But at the same time in the brainchild of Obsidian Entertainment there is a lot of innovations. A unique role-playing system, reputation, detailed customization of the character, etc. - all this can be found only in the Pillars of Eternity. The review, which you can read below, will help you understand all the intricacies of the gameplay.

Role system

As a rule, the hero's abilities in RPG games are aimed only at destroying enemies. But in Pillars of Eternity, in addition to combat skills, there are abilities that are not related to battles. For example, if a player experiences difficulties in moving around the world and is constantly lost, you can pump the navigation capabilities. Thanks to her, the character will be able to find short paths and quickly reach the desired point. Such abilities greatly help during the passage and in interaction with the game world, communication with the NPC.

Reputation

In the game there are many different groupings, bands. The attitude of the protagonist with them determines the reputation. It is determined depending on the actions of the character. For example, if you carry out assignments from groups, trade with them and maintain friendly relations, then in difficult times you can count on their help. If, on the contrary, they attack the gangs, they will be repaid in the same coin.

Customization

The first thing you need to do in the game is to create your own character. For this, the developers provided an entire editor. Thanks to him to make a unique and unique hero is very simple. The interface of the editor is intuitive. In addition, you can literally change everything - from the hairstyle to the shape of the face. Also, in order to start the game, you must select a race (which in game 6) and class (which 11).

Graphic arts

The visual component is another advantage of this project. Since Pillars of Eternity was developed on a new engine, the graphics in the game are excellent. Detailed textures, bright colors, juicy picture and delightful locations do their job. The world seems very alive and atmospheric. You can say that the developers have worked hard on the visual part of the game.

Pillars of Eternity: cheats

RPG games are famous for their complexity. And the brainchild of Obsidian Entertainment was no exception. Strong monsters, cruel bosses - all this is typical of the Pillars of Eternity. Cheats and codes are discussed in this part of the article. They will help players to go through the difficult moments of the game.

How to use cheats in Pillars of Eternity? Codes are entered using the command line (opens when you press the "~" key). This console was originally intended for testing the game. But the developers decided to leave it in the final version of the product. The first thing you need to enter is iroll20s. It gives you access to other cheats that you can watch below.

NoDamage X - a command that allows to make the main character and his companions invulnerable. "X" in this code can take only two values. If "X" is 1, then the main hero's unit gets invulnerability, if "X" is 0, the normal mode is activated, in which all the characters are mortal.

AddExperience X - cheat, with which you can increase the amount of experience by a certain number (X). As you know, in the world of Pillars of Eternity, the level plays a rather important role. Therefore, this team can often come in handy throughout the game.

GivePlayerMoney X - code that gives the player a certain amount of gold. Money is one of the most valuable and at the same time hard-to-find resources. In order to earn at least a little, you have to do quests for a long time, to farm. But it's pretty boring and not everyone has this time. In this case, you can use the above code. Instead of "Player" it is necessary to enter the nickname of the player to whom the money will come. A "X" is the amount of gold that the character will receive.

"AddItem thing number" is a command, thanks to which you can receive things. As you know, to get the world of Pillars of Eternity weapons, equipment or any other equipment, you need to fight with powerful bosses. But even then, it's not a fact that the loot you need is dropped from the fallen monster. Using the above code, you can get any object. Just instead of "thing" you need to enter the name of the desired object. And the item "quantity" means, in how many copies the player will receive this or that object.

Invisible - the code that will make the main character and his team invisible. This code can help in order to avoid battles with small mobs and quietly get to the boss.

God is the command that includes the "God" mode. In addition to the fact that the main character becomes immortal, he also gets a couple of amusing abilities. The code can be used to go through complex bosses, or just to have some fun.

In the end, it is worth noting that using Pillars of Eternity codes, you will "steal" the opportunity to get achievements in "Steam". Therefore, it is worthwhile to think carefully and ask yourself the question: "Do I need cheats?".

Tips for passing

As mentioned above, during the passage you can repeatedly meet with various difficulties. In this part of the article we have collected important recommendations on Pillars of Eternity. The tips that you can read below will help you repeatedly throughout the game process.

Perhaps the first thing to advise is read the dialogues. They often jump tips for fighting monsters, bosses, reveals the features of the gameplay. Skipaya dialogs, you can skip important information, without which the passage of the game will be many times more difficult.

Also do not forget that diversity is the key to victory. And this rule works for all aspects of the game. For example, if you recruit only a physical damager in your squad, the team of the protagonist will cope with ordinary mobs without problems. But at the same time it will be vulnerable to magic creatures, ghosts, etc. Therefore, do not get hung up on one thing. In the team, in addition to the tanks, there should be doctors, buffers, and losers. The more diverse classes in the team, the more flexible and versatile it becomes.

The game has a fairly useful thing called "Diary". It stores all the information about the enemies, which is often useful in the course of passage. It's much easier to fight, if you know all the weaknesses of your opponent.

One of the most useful items in the Pillars of Eternity is the paralysis scroll. Although it does not deal a lot of damage, this spell can bring a lot of benefits. Using a roll of stun, you can find an enemy unit for a long time. As a result, even at a low level and with bad equipment, you can kill almost anyone.

Criticism

The gaming community took the game very warmly. Basically gamers praised Pillars of Eternity for the huge and delightful world, fascinating quests and gameplay. Many noted that in the game very organically combines the same "spirit of the old school" and modern mechanics, the gameplay.

If we talk about large gaming publishers, they flattered about this project. For example, "Metacritic" put the game 91 points out of 100, "PSI" - 92 out of 100, "Gambling" - 9 out of 10.

Results

We can say that the Pillars of Eternity fully met the expectations of the players. The developers tried to glory, and in the end we got an exciting, unique game. In addition, the brainchild of Obsidian Entertainment did what Blizzard failed to do with his Diablo 3. Pillars of Eternity was able to breathe new life into the RPG genre, regain its popularity, attract a new generation of gamers. This is the main merit of the game.