Are Polish games good or bad?

Hi there, I would like to ask you about Polish games... nowadays Polish game dev industry is rapidly growing. Many games has been published and many of them are quite successful. Do you know which games are from Poland? Have you played some? You like or hate it?

I know of Flying Wild Hog, CD Projekt, and People Can Fly. I'm sure there's more out there, and I'm sure I've played some of their games.

CD Projekt has to be the most well known, but I've never really liked The Witcher. I tried playing the first one, put a few hours into it, but the combat was so janky I lost interest. I've been meaning to play the Witcher 2 and 3, I have both, but finding the time is difficult. I played 3 for a few hours one night, but then I realized I was going to have to sink a shitload of time into it, which I didn't have. But I still mean to return to it at some point. Looks like a great game, but a huge time-sink.

Flying Wild Hog, I love Hard Reset and what they did to the Shadow Warrior games. It would've been nice if Shadow Warrior 2 would've had more than 4 levels that you kept going back to though. 

People Can Fly, well I loved the original Painkiller. It's had so many sequels of such horrible quality that the brand has been diluted, but the original game is great.

Jello is correct about Painkiller. Incredible game. Terrible story, dialogue and voice acting, but none of that really matters when you're playing.

I did play Witcher 3 - and it's an awesome game. It's not so much as a "time sink" as much as it is a huge world, with a huge story, and even the optional quests are fun (rather than go fetch me this). There's even a card game (Gwent).

I'd say Witcher 3 is extremely similar to the Divinity Original Sin series which is extremely high quality.

23 minutes ago, Pure Hellspawn said:

I did play Witcher 3 - and it's an awesome game. It's not so much as a "time sink" as much as it is a huge world, with a huge story, and even the optional quests are fun (rather than go fetch me this). There's even a card game (Gwent).

 

I'd say Witcher 3 is extremely similar to the Divinity Original Sin series which is extremely high quality.

I guess maybe time-sink is the wrong word, as it does seem like there's just a metric shit-ton of worthwhile content in it. So it's not a time-sink in the way that I would be just wasting time doing pointless repetitive grinding. But it seems like I'd decide to play it for an hour or two, and end up spending four hours on it instead.

does it really matters from which country good (or bad) game came? tbh, i can't care less if a game is from poland, or from zimbabwe, or from alpha-centauri. especially nowdays, when you can work from your home (or local office) for some developer technically situated in completely different part of the globe.

sorry, this is not an answer to your question, of course. but i like to derail threads sometimes with my Very Important Thoughts...

Well, I just found out that the Call of Juarez series was made by Polish dev Techland. I guess I always just assumed it was made by Ubisoft, since they plastered their name all over it. I really enjoyed the first two, never played Cartel, and it doesn't sound like I missed anything, but Gunslinger is one of my favorite games. It's a great game to pick up real quick and get some satisfying shooting in. And I really enjoyed the way the story was told, through an old drunk half-remembering things that may or may not have ever happened. 

And yes, Ajora is right about Painkiller. Everything about the story/dialogue/acting was awful. But the game is fun, and that's all that matters.

On 11/4/2018 at 11:51 AM, ketmar said:

does it really matters from which country good (or bad) game came? tbh, i can't care less if a game is from poland, or from zimbabwe, or from alpha-centauri. especially nowdays, when you can work from your home (or local office) for some developer technically situated in completely different part of the globe.

 

sorry, this is not an answer to your question, of course. but i like to derail threads sometimes with my Very Important Thoughts...

Then stop derailing.

Also I want to share that GOG has a Polish game sale! With Steam launching their Polish game sale tomorrow. All because of that sweet incoming 100th anniversary of independence. https://www.gog.com/promo/20181105_polish_week

13 minutes ago, Alter said:

Then stop derailing.

 

Also I want to share that GOG has a Polish game sale! With Steam launching their Polish game sale tomorrow. All because of that sweet incoming 100th anniversary of independence. https://www.gog.com/promo/20181105_polish_week

This sale is actually how I found out Techland made Call of Juarez. It certainly makes sense that they're celebrating Polish Independence, since CD Projekt started GOG. Which reminds me, Latvia celebrates it's 100th anniversary on my birthday this year. I'll have to listen to some Skyforger.

All these games are too new. I'll point out something that came out at the time when Doom was still a fresh baby:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franko:_The_Crazy_Revenge

In Franko, you're playing as a Karate warrior whose only goal is to avenge the death of his friend Alex (who, by the way, you can also choose as a playable character). Your goal is to beat up everyone who stands in your way into a bloody pulp. Your enemies include common thugs, other Karatekas, communist militiamen and trenchcoat flashers. The enemies will insult you, throwing around Polish quips in the most glorious 8KHz rate. The game counts all your kills as "John Does". There's a stage where you drive a car and must avoid rolling over women with babies. When you finish the final boss he screams in large font "O KURWA!" before falling on railroad tracks.

Think that's raw enough? How about a second production made by the same team. Doman: Grzechy Ardana (translated: Doman: Sins of Ardan). Clearly inspired by the brutally rough and barbaric world of Conan the Barbarian, you and your friend can play as two well-built men in co-op mode to slice, hack and decapitate other well-built men in a most bloody fashion. Or, if you're bored with melee weapons, you can use a cheat code to give yourself an AK-47. On Amiga computer when the game encounters a disk error, it shows a huge "DYSK DUPA" screen which translates directly as "ASS DISK" or more precisely as "DISK FUCKED UP". And the loading screen shows the big bad and tells you "When you cry, he sees it.".

These are the products of the VHS era, when the communist borders fell and the market opened to the products of USA. When every boy was inspired by John Rambo, Conan, The Terminator, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Master Miyagi from Karate Kid and other True Men of the time. It was glorious.

Compared to Franko, Geralt is a mild mannered, civilized man with a fighting style of a ballet dancer. ;)

I was talking to a friend and he told me of some of the FPS games I've known that were made by polish developers, like the recently developed Project Warlock which is incredible. It's super inspiring to see FPS fans in Poland that keep it alive with their amazing games. Just wanted to add my to cents to this from a recent talk. 

Well I wouldn't consider TW1's combat janky at all, it's based on having three different styles and certain styles work better on certain enemies, you also have to upgrade the sword skills for the combat to get better. However to be more effective and swing fester each turn you have to click on the enemy again during the highlight on the cursor to swing even faster up to a few times until the last one where he grunts and swings a decisive last blow before it resets again, this helps take out enemies faster and you don't even have to swing at the same enemy to go faster which does allow you to take out more in a row. I have played through and enjoyed TW1 two times before getting tired of it at the third. I sided with order on the first, I was neutral on the second, now I am trying to side with the non-humans (elves and dwarves) for the third.

@Zalewa you've made my day! Franko and Doman was... sorry, IT IS a very good and ... funny(?) game with a specific vibe. For those who haven't seen it already just take a glimpse

looks fun, yeah? If you want you could play this games on amiga emulator. Games as you've mentioned: Witcher, Painkiller, Shadow Warrior 2 or Project Warlock imho shows that this nation is really good in game dev. Of course I cannot compare Poland to the USA but this people have that spark :) Project Warlock is an indie game but it was made by really small team (2?3? persons). As for that team-size it is almost AAA ;)

Have you played Frostpunk or This Was of Mine already? Its from polish studio 11 bits.

When Techland began to develop games on their own, in 2003 they created Chrome, which is some kind of prototype of FarCry-like gameplay. It has OST of epic quality.