is it worse than how skyrim was at launch?
maybe times have changed, but I thought skyrim was mediocre at best, even at launch and it was full of bugs.
that didnt stop it from getting a 96 score on metacritic...
I don't know what the issue is tbh. Have played it for the past 4 or so hours and had a blast.
The short version would be: The graphics are really good, the sound design is amazing and the combat system seems fun.
The longer version:
The visuals and the design for the locations, the environment and the level of detail are pretty astounding and the graphics look good even on comparatively low settings. Changes in daylight and weather are very nice to look at. There's mild issues with clipping here and there, but overall nothing too bad. The animation is sometimes a bit wonky (especially facial animations), but again, nothing too bad. Character models are pretty good, too.
The sound design is top notch. From the sounds of an armored character moving to wildlife and the sound of wind in the trees or rain... it's
very atmospheric, especially in combination with the landscapes. The VAs are decent enough overall, but Brian Blessed is in this thing, so that alone is pretty rad.
When it comes to the controls, there's a bit of an issue with the character movement. Whenever you've got a fully rendered body in an FPS, it needs a bit of getting used to the way the character moves. At first, it somewhat feels like you're overshooting small movements. But it's not as bad as it used to be with games like Operation Flashpoint.
As I said, the combat system is a lot of fun. I feared it might be awkward or feel kind of floaty, but it turns out that they came up with a control scheme that works pretty well.
You lock on to an enemy and your view will automatically centre on that person, you can then use the mouse to switch through stances/wards (moving the mouse up will make you go into the upper position). There's a button to block attacks, but there's also a system to use feints (by quickly switching attack direction during the strike), parries (by pressing the block button at the right moment) or dodging (by stepping to the side at the right moment).
It's a lot more complex than, say, the M&B combat system and is a lot of fun, but I haven't yet quite gotten the hang of it and my character's stats are lousy, so I'll see how this turns out... looks promising enough.
The Story is... well... rather clichéd so far, tbh, but given the trailers we knew this wasn't going to be Shakespeare. The characters have good dialogue every now and then.
I really like the system where in order to save the game between auto-saves, you have to drink booze (that you have to buy, no less) - doing it once will actually give you a little buff on your confidence and strength, but doing it over and over will make your character end up drunk off his ass - so savescumming is punished in a creative way. Though the placement of those auto-save spots might be a bit annoying or even outright frustrating, when you end up doing some menial thing over and over again in order to get to the point where you screw up.
Now, there's a few things that I am still not so sure about. As I said, the combat system looks nice, but I don't know how it'll fare in the long run. Most notably, I fear that fighting several enemies at once will be even more frustrating than in the Gothic series.
And, of course, I hope that the game isn't too short and has a decent amount of quests and stuff to do.
Short addendum:
There's a journal in the game where you can look up a lot of information about the political situation, important people from all over Europe and background information on medieval society. Haven't yet dug through that, but it's certainly a neat thing.