Geneforge is bad, m'kay?

[Konjad]

Fairly interesting setting, intriguing story, true open world (basically no quests you *have to* do, but plenty of major plot points and tasks), interesting factions and enjoyable exploration... but all overshadowed by inane amounts of trash mobs you have to go through in 90% of areas every few meters to the point it's infuriating and kills the joy. Especially considering that the combat is extremely shallow. Challenging encounters are important in such games, but if the fighting system itself is so simplistic, superficial and boring they can't carry the game on their own.

There are also bugs that seem to have never been fixed - nothing game breaking but rather hilarious. Such as you enter a faction's town and a text event appears in which angry villagers put down their weapons and let you in, but after you click "OK" in-game they attack you anyway (which removed an option to side with one of the factions for me). Or when you meet a guy who doesn't speak your language so you both can't communicate, but if you attack him then suddenly he starts talking aplenty in your language and continues to throughout the fight.

[viata]

The best thing about Geneforge is really the Shaper class. No matter how boring the combat was in most of the game, how full of trash mobs it had, I'll still love that game just because of that. However, I still prefer his Exile series.

[Cedric]

I only tried Geneforge once and didn't find the writing as good as it was claimed to be. That, plus the endless trash fighting, eventually made me quit playing after a few hours.
Disclaimer: not a single Vogel game ever grabbed me or brought me genuine joy.

[Ratcatcher]

To OP:

NO U!

[Fargus]

The best thing about Geneforge is really the Shaper class. No matter how boring the combat was in most of the game, how full of trash mobs it had, I'll still love that game just because of that. However, I still prefer his Exile series.

It was the class i finished this game as. Personally i enjoyed the story and how you can double cross that guy at the end and usurp power. Nice challenge, but some maps were miserable slogfests, like the map with constant ghost spam.

I tried playing his other games but never finished any. They just don't grip me as much. Almost finished Avernum 1 at some point but got bored.

[JarlFrank]

Jeff Vogel does not know how to do encounter design. He just doesn't. Every game of his is filled with trash mobs galore.

[WhiteShark]

Another who finished as a Shaper here. That one challenge fight against the cockatrices was pretty deep. I also remember assaulting the fortress head-on and... well, that's mostly it, really. I didn't pick a side so I never fought any of the villagers. That probably saved me a lot of trash-clearing.

[Griffin]

Are Vogel's games even worth playing?

[Acrux]

I mean, I would have said Geneforge is. I've played a little of the remastered version and the GUI improvements are the best part.

I think the newer Avernum is okay. Exploration is pretty good in it, encounter design is the same as every other game of his.

[Konjad]

Are Vogel's games even worth playing?

Not really, his other games than Geneforge focus even more on combat (which is hard to imagine, I know). Don't bother.

[Tweed]

I didn't see a problem with the trash encounters since competent shapers can get through battle fairly quickly and what do you expect most encounters to be if you figure out what you need to shape? A single Cryora can carry you through the first part of Geneforge without any problems and the first game really isn't balanced anyway. Once you can make Drayks, which isn't all that hard either then it's GG. In fact, I think it was in Geneforge 4 or 5 that I had two Cryoras who lasted almost the entire game since they leveled up with me.
Later games tried to handle it in their own way, usually by locking specific creatures behind certain factions, there's also the matter of getting bad endings for binging on cannisters. Later Geneforges also required you to diversify your group a bit more to deal with damage resistance, both a good and bad thing in its own right.
Geneforge 5 is the one that screwed the pooch by giving trash mobs way too many hps, each fight takes forever and makes playing the game an absolute chore. Give me trash mobs that go down in one hit if I'm doing it right any day of the week compared to bullet sponges.

[Lhynn]

Jeff Vogel does not know how to do encounter design. He just doesn't. Every game of his is filled with trash mobs galore.

This is partly true, exile 1, 2 and 3 have genuinely good encounter design. The man has just grown old and lazy, each new game or remake being objectively worse than anything that came before.

[aeternalis]

I liked Geneforge 1 and Avernum 1 most (also played 2 and 3 but they had declining enjoyment value; I was mostly along because I wanted to see what happened to the world established in #1).

Vogel indeed made interesting settings for each of these, fun to explore, unfortunately the sequels got samey and there's increasing proliferation of the trash combat. Vogel always seemed like a story of indie success leading to inevitable decline as it's basically been either figurative rehashes or actual rehashes, besides the unsuccessful attempts at new gameworlds (I was very unimpressed by Avadon).

[viata]

Yet the man can still make money releasing the same games over and over again. It's impossible to not be jealous of him.

[agentorange]

As far as the sense of non-linear exploration and adventuring/mystery uncovering (which are things I personally value very highly in an RPG), the amount of factions that can be joined and the ways in which the player can influence the outcome of the story (it's still one of the few games where you have the option of killing everyone and taking all power for yourself, similar to the FNV wild card ending, and that one still requires you to put faith in Yes Man), I'd put it up there with games like Fallout, Baldur's Gate 1, Arcanum.

Visually the game is so bare-bones that I find it hard to criticize. But I will say that I prefer the bare-minimum style to something in bad taste with clashing assets like the remaster, or any modern game with those "queer" cal-arts/anime visuals.

The combat relies on trash encounters a lot but there are certainly some well designed encounters in there, usually against what could be considered the bosses, probably more so in the sequel than in the first one. Also as tedious as some of the trash encounters can be they at least force you to pay attention to your resources, and once you start fighting multiple types of monsters at once you do have to think about how to approach certain areas/pay attention to positioning.

[NEG]

Geneforge was a good game because it recognized that the best, most rational path for a shaper was

► Show Spoiler

to ignore the story, characters, factions etc., and simply purge all life from the island without contaminating yourself with any canisters.

The fact that Vogel wrote an ending for this path made me quite happy.