Gord

Gord had the potential to be an enjoyable survival builder, but alas, it fell short in several key areas. Its narrative was lacking, gameplay felt repetitive, and the choices offered often seemed devoid of meaning. As a player, you found yourself excessively concerned with tasks that were typically automated in other games. Perhaps the most captivating aspect of Gord was its folklore, yet regrettably, the campaign failed to fully explore and leverage this rich narrative backdrop.

Gord wants you think that it is a very different RTS, but once you get into it, you find out all those differences are superficial. Still, if you want to relive the Witcher atmosphere in a RTS, check it out, but also prepare yourself to be bored.

Gord is an alright game. But that’s it. Nothing more. I had more fun playing this than, say, the new Settlers, but there’s so much unused potential here that a hypothetical sequel could be infinitely more interesting.

Gord is an interesting and, at times, good, albeit flawed, survival city-builder mixed with action RPG and strategy elements. The atmosphere is excellently done, but this is countered by the sanity mechanics taking too much from the rest of the game. Almost every positive has a negative. The character development mechanics bring a fundamentally broken inventory system. The excellent monster development introduces a few that are just outright broken. The (sometimes) interesting campaign brings a near-opaque element of worldbuilding, requiring much side-reading as names are unceremoniously thrown at you. All in all, Gord isn't a bad game, and while I can have a decent time of it, there are too many flaws to recommend it universally; hardcore strategy fans may apply.

Gord interprets the construction genre differently. It relies on story instead of complexity, with all the strengths and weaknesses that entails.

Quotation forthcoming.

Gord wanted to be a beacon by reinventing the strategy genre with unique mechanics taken here and there from the videogame industry, but it ultimately falls flat on its task, demonstrating to be a really good game, but not achieving the greatness it was hoping for.

For all the interesting and novel things that Gord brings to the city building genre, it's just not coherent nor determined enough in what it's trying to do to create something with the necessary confidence to compete with the countless options available to genre fans these days. The result is a game with a strong start and a compelling world, but one that cannot build upon those strengths to retain interest over each new settlement and its repetitive gameplay.

Any way you look at it, whether it’s an RPG, a real-time strategy game, or a colony sim, Gord is as miserable as its downtrodden villagers. Other games are bad because they aim too high, attempt too much, and fall down on their own merits. They are at the very least hoisted on their own petard, doing us the favor of digging their own grave or being entertaining in their failures. Gord does not; it simply falls flat and rots where it lies, surrounded by monotonous micromanagement, a poor interface, and by-the-numbers combat. I am content to leave it there, but you may bury it if you like.

Beyond the shock value of its demonic horrors, this survivalist city-builder has little to recommend it.

With its controls much more suited to the PC than to consoles, Gord is not without flaws in terms of ergonomics and readability, but it largely makes up for it with its tortured atmosphere at will. Survival in a dark fantasy world populated by nightmares is a long succession of tests and crucial choices, especially when madness awaits our units with each new incursion into darkness. Too bad that the strategic stakes impose permanent vigilance on the management side because this is done a little to the detriment of exploration and adventure.

Gord shows a lot of promise and is certainly enticing for those who like the genre. Unfortunately, it also needs a few improvements and tweaks, namely with unit behavior and pathing, to lessen any frustrations that you might experience.