I recently read an article about Jeff Vogel and his Spiderweb Software company and the great games that he was making. I decided to take a look and downloaded one of his shareware RPGs (Geneforge 4, which by the way is an excellent game as well) and I immediately fell in love. In a day and age when games are multi-million dollar projects (and that doesn't necessarily indicate it will be any good) Vogel's RPGs are a fresh breath of air. In Nethergate the focus is put mainly on the story and the gameplay elements rather than on flashy graphics. The game is actually a somewhat historically accurate account (except for the Goblins ans other fantastic thing of course) of the Roman's occupation of the Gauls. In the game you can choose whether to be Roman or Gaul and then play out each sides story. The cool thing about the story is that you affect what happens (via a choose your own adventure type multiple question list) that will decide the eventual outcome of the story. The gameplay is where this game really shines. Initially you are given the option to play right away or to tailor your character's skills to your preference. There are many different skills to choose from (allowing for a great degree of variety) and you also have the option of creating role-play type restrictions for your characters that will penalize you in one area and benefit you in another. The best part of the game though is the fact that you can see the amount of care that went into making this game (Vogel made sure that the customs and traditions of the Gauls and Romans are accurately represented). This is a very good game that every gameplay and story oriented RPG gamer should check out.

Learning Curve: Takes a second

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