GB Feature: The Age of Decadence Review

If you're in the market to add another role-playing game to your collection, you should know that we've doled out a four-page review of The Age of Decadence, the long-in-development CRPG from the team over at Iron Tower Studio. A sampling from the critique:

Combat skills are a straightforward affair. Most of them handle the different weapon categories, like bows, crossbows, hammers, swords, etc. Some of these synergize too. For example, raising the Bow skill gives a minor bonus to the Crossbow skill. There are also two skills that deal with avoiding damage, Dodge and Block. A player can choose to raise both, but they are designed to be mutually exclusive. Finally, there is a Critical Strike skill that influences critical hits and is also very useful in text-driven interactions to get the jump on enemies and assassinate them.

Civic skills include skills that deal with dialogue and general knowledge, like Impersonate, Persuade, Streetwise and Lore, crafting skills such as Crafting and Alchemy, and thieving skills like Sneak, Lockpick and Steal. It should be noted that The Age of Decadence has no gameplay systems for stealth and that the related skills only come into play during text-driven interactions and conversations.