Ironheart

One of the best COG title I read in the past two years. Story is nicely written overall if not a bit short, very interesting concepts here mixing the Third Crusade, time travel, and Mech together. (Also if you happen to be a fan of Assassin's Creed, you are in for a treat)

This game could be perfect if the writer put more efforts into it. The saga and the story line is riveting. And the game often reminded of the 2005 movie Kingdom of Heaven. But unfortunately, there is not much developments of characters and the plot just gets increasingly shallower in latter half of the game, which makes it fall short of realizing its potential of becoming a fantasy masterpiece. Such a shame. If there were more intrigues and moral struggles in the war and more chances to make in-depth connections with other characters (be it romance or otherwise), it would make a truly memorable experience, but now it's simply a meh game I could do without.

It does have a magic moment where the reporter bumps her head and goes "Ouch, I blame you for that." It's cute, but alas.. There are some interesting topics like the degradation of social skills with the advent of cheap literature, and the decline of hour-long dinners in modern society, but they are mostly in the reader's mind; what the game offers stays superficial. There is a fool/jester type of character with some good writing and dialogue, but players who aren't into fart jokes and getting force-hugged by dirty drunk people will likely write that off as a nuisance or casual harassment. Possible expectations of being able to change the course of history are thwarted in the way that the parallel universe is a fait accompli without need or ambition to include player choices in that. There is no way to hunt enemy 'Mechs for lodestones and outfit a 'Mech army, or implement a technology that will be instrumental in shaping a new future with player in charge. The reader is expected to wait for events to unfold instead of actively shaping them, and shoe-horned into opting into "peaceful" choices that will make for a very bland and predictable experience indeed; one that has player on the sidelines instead of in the focus of choice and consequence. Side characters are fixed in their ways and largely immobile. Instead of agency to get involved, there are band-aid solutions in the form of one or a few paragraphs outlining how a newly built hospital or foundry will now benefit the populace, when this changes nothing about story and gameplay, and the benefit is dubious. The author doesn't seem to understand that telling a player "wow, now even celebrity x you don't care about rides one of your bicycles" does very little in the way of a felt reward or arc of suspense. Using 22th century technology to change the 12th century was the premise the game sold with. Alas, it's too much for a choice of game apparently, so they throw a wormhole anti-matter perpetuum mobile at players and call it a day. "No need to change anything, we changed it for you." The audacity. From a world literature point of view this is overpriced junk, competing with famed authors who can without fail deliver on their promises, but don't get the chance to be promoted on STEAM. There are millions of skilled authors who can write something noteworthy that has proper unique story for all characters, no loose ends, and proper conclusions. Why do we have to read amateurs at a premium pricepoint? I understand Stanislaw Lem and T.C. Boyle is fantastic reading, why not make games with their books? From a games perspective it's not much better, because buying choice games means each time we buy the pig in a poke, because there is no minimum standard for online book-games, no critic to ridicule the carpetbaggers and less than ambitious. How do we get through their heads that Choice of Robots was on the lower end of expectations and that there is little leeway to sell something notably worse and still stay honest? In the end selling good games instead wouldn't cost more. It would just mean buying from those people who are willing to put the work in to become good writers. Looks like a management issue.

这篇文感觉不错，有一说一，要是喜欢中世纪十字军类历史的玩家来说。而且很多情节借鉴了电影《天国王朝》，这个可以有。然后游戏剧情增加了一些穿越的情节，但是更多的是添加了悲剧的色彩元素。然后这游戏添加了机甲，刚开始以为这很魔幻，其实你完全可以看成机甲是骑士的坐骑之类的东西，只是在战斗的时候偶尔能玩上，但是总体对剧情影响也不大。接下来离谱的来了：当你以为你只会看到鲍德温和萨拉丁相爱相杀的战争剧情的时候，突然蒙古来了，然后横扫千军，秒杀了双方？！作者：喜欢我大蒙古国吗~~。大汗表示：我起了，一刀秒了，有什么好说的！ 。。。。好家伙，这就作者亲儿子，开挂秒杀是吧？。。。最后说一句，剧情还是很好的，就是有些线显得很欢乐。

Among what I played from Choice of Games this is one of the best, no doubt. Positives: - Writing: I enjoyed it throughout the entire game, very engaging style, just loved it. - Characters: some characters may start as annoying and a little out of place, but they grown on you as you read on. - PC Culture doesn't get in the way here at all. Choice of Games titles are PC for sure, but it seems to me that good authors can work with it, and the end result is perfectly enjoyable even for people such as myself who might be a bit more on the conservative side. - The character creation part was done really well in the beginning. - Author knows how to write strong female characters. The one I encountered in my playthrough reminded me of the like of Ellen Ripley from the aliens. - Romance with said strong female character was thorough, it went on like a journey. I guess the writers can't go too deep into the love-making, but even just scratching the surface it was actually hot. - Overall story: maybe not the most complex one but still very enjoyable. - Replayability: now to be honest I only finished the game once but I'm certain there are quite a few routes you can take and I'll surely play it again in the future with a different MC. Neutral: - There's a back story to the alternative history you end up in the game which I'm not entirely sure was necessary. I enjoyed it, but I think it would have been the same without it. - The pace in the later chapters are very fast, not something you are used to in the first 2/3 of the story. The last 1/3 could have been easily three times this long. I highly recommend this one, and I would love to read more from Lee Williams.

Really really good nothing is rail roaded join a side or not it is all up to you one of the best i choice games i have ever gotten.

By far one of the best choice of games to date, I have been disappointed with a lot of the recent games but this is well worth the money , its a very interesting concept, well written and researched .

I love these choice of games and this is definitely a fun read. Less technical than choice of rebels on par with choice of robots or choice of magics I'd say. The combat is a bit basic if your character is good at it (stats).

This is a truly well written, atmospheric choose your own adventure story. I'm pretty picky about my fiction and usually hate about half of the books I start but this thing grabbed me right away and I had a hard time putting it down. The author does a nice job of setting a scene and although you never truly know how much weight your choices have in a story like this, the whole time I really did *feel* like I was guiding the story and that's the important thing. Given that I finished having only completed 2 of the 19 achievements I've got a pretty strong feeling that there's a lot of this story that I didn't see even though the story I DID see felt like a complete experience. Usually if I play through one of these once and got a good story of it I consider it a win, but this one I suspect I'll come back to to try to see what I missed. Definite recommendation if you like choose your own adventure text stories.