There are many reasons why people play role playing games. Some want to lose themselves in a tightly controlled story, other prefer more freedom even if it means the loss of some narrative cohesion. Many people play to monster bash, though some come from a more tactical background. A large amount of people find technical polish important in an RPG title while others find the mechanics more important than graphical flash. Geneforge 2 takes three of these elements-- a free, branching storyline, tactical combat, and low polish-- to an extreme. The result is a game you either love or will be completely baffled by.

Let's start off right off the bat addressing the graphics. Yes, they are primitive. They are tiny, barely animated sprites on a tiny background, locked at 800x600 resolution. The interface is really large and occasionally feels in the way. All terrain description and conversation is done by huge message boxes that take up almost your entire view of the playing field. The sound is worse off than the graphics. Entering the first city is an auditory nightmare, as various things crunch what sounds like granola, moo, and children babble non-stop until you flee to rest your aching ears. This is definitely a game to play muted, or if you fear you'll miss an auditory clue, at the lowest volume you can make out.

However, this reviewer still loved the game. Once you get past the presentation there is a gem of a game here. You begin the game as a Shaper, that is, a member of an association of people who operate under the umbrella name of Shaper. Shapers form life out of nothing, creating beasts that can perform any task. You choose your class. You can be a Guardian, a rough and ready warrior with a focus on combat skills. Next up is the Agent, a master sneak and all around handy gal. Last is the Shaper. This is the class the Shapers are known most for; they are fragile spellslingers with the greatest ability to create lifeforms. They also have a bevy of non-combat skills that, once properly leveled, can allow your character to avoid combat quite readily.

Combat is handled in a turn-based fashion, using Action Points. Any time you want to do something in combat-- take a swing, cast a spell, run away-- it costs you an amount of Action Points. Your turn ends when you either forfeit the rest of your Action Points or run out of them. Carrying too much equipment can slow you down and eat into your available Action Points, making inventory management and treks to town to sell off loot a necessary part of the game.

You are rarely alone in Geneforge 2, especially as a Shaper. You can have a veritable horde of friendly, created monsters along. They come in three basic types, Fire, Battle, and Magic. As you progress in the skill required for each you can buy training that will let you buy greater types of monsters in each tree. When you go to create a monster you have to invest your Essence into each of them. Your Essence goes up each time you level, which can allow you to create more and more monsters. However, sometimes more is not always better. On the monster creation screen you can choose to invest more Essence into a monster, increasing his stats. Even a single dot in a stat makes a large difference in their performance and survivability, which can lead to some tough decisions when creating your line up. Marching order also has to be taken into account, as you have several formations available that your monsters will attempt to stick to as you rampage across the land.

There's also a decent story here. Told almost entirely through text, your actions and dialog choices can make some pretty drastic changes in what ends up happening. There are several factions, some hostile to one another, and all will try to recruit you. Add to this a fairly large world with lots of areas to crawl through and you have yourself a fairly sizable game that can eat up a lot of time.

Geneforge 2 is definitely not a game for everyone. The graphics and sound are primitive, the combat requires some planning, and character creation and development can seem obtuse to someone who is unfamiliar with old computer RPGs or tabletop RPGs. If you can get past these things, there's a great, solid game system under there and a storyline you can directly change.