tinyE: I love those games.

F4LL0UT: I have to wholeheartedly disagree with you there. First of all, there have never been any recurring characters in the original series. Even SH3, despite being a direct continuation of SH1's plot, didn't feature any of the original characters and SH4's plot is actually more related to the SH lore than SH2's. Ties between the games have always been *comparably* subtle and SH4's plot is actually directly related to the cult activity that also SH1 and SH3 were about. Walter Sullivan made his first appearance in a newspaper article in SH2 but more importantly many of the snippets of information that reveal SH4's plot actually directly refer to characters from SH1 or SH3 and Walter Sullivan's entire scheme is basically about the same kind of ritual as the one SH1 and 3 were about. Content-wise SH4 is by no means less related to the main story of the series than SH2 is, even if you never really visit Silent Hill in the game (you do explore the outskirts, however, including one important location described in SH1).

As for the gameplay - yeah, sure, there were differences, but not as big as some make them to be, they were certainly smaller than the changes Resident Evil went through with RE4. Many mechanics or iconic elements were either removed or altered but the basic gameplay had remained the same. It was still about exploring environments, beating the shit out of monsters, solving the occasional riddle and putting the pieces of a convoluted plot together. The character controlled pretty much the same (IF you were clever enough to use 2D controls in SH2/3), you still completed that map separated into clearly defined rooms and areas, it was still about those disturbing moments when opening a door without knowing what awaits you on the other side. And the horror, while somewhat different (and perhaps weaker) than in the previous installments, was still psychological by all means.

I'm not saying that SH4 was anywhere near as good as the original trilogy but it sure as hell is a legit Silent Hill game, even if didn't start out as one.

l0rdtr3k: Is Sacred 1 good? I remember loving the second one on my 360 but I always wanted to try out the original.

skeletonbow: Duke Nukem Forever. 12 years of hype and vapourware and the game finally comes out and gets totally murdered in the press/reviews/blogs/forums for all sorts of reasons but mostly because people were pissy it took 12 years to make a game.

I finally got a copy of the game and played it for many hours and thought it was pretty funny and totally lived up to the Duke Nukem name. I hope they make a sequel if they can sort out any legal issues.

ScotchMonkey: This is first time I heard of anyone like DNF. To each his own indeed sir.

P1na: Well yeah, but it's not Fallout 3. It's a whole different beast, and as a tactics game it was awesome. Even if you could exploit the turn based combat.

ScotchMonkey: This is first time I heard of anyone like DNF. To each his own indeed sir.

javihyuga: Castlevania II Simon's Quest. I think it actually is a good game.

Potzato: I never played it in turn based so I don't know, even in tough guy (ok, the wastes are full of my team's body parts, but we got the Mission Accomplished™)

snowkatt: it is
but it is so fucking obtuse you need a walkthrough to figure it out

even by nes standards its mystifying

P1na: A high agility character could stand up, shoot and get back into cover each turn, therefore never being shot at all and one sidedly killing everyone.

P1na: One thing I loved on that game was the gambling. There's one quartermaster you can gamble against, and used it to get his entire inventory and put it into my tank. I had so much ammo my characters couldn't move just with the ammo alone. Such a pity you couldn't bring your vehicle into the mission.

Potzato: Oh indeed, I get idea (and I put that in the immersion breaking of turn based combat folder ). I'd hate the AI to do the same to me though :-)
To expand further on the real time crouching : crawling your squad to every window of a house and rise them up for an instant ousting is deeply satisfying in real time.
However, for descendants of survivor of a nuclear holocaust, you'd expect your squad member to duck n' cover more swiftly (and I put that in the immersion breaking of real time combat folder).

Potzato: In my opinion, this game just slightly scratched the surface of so many cool gameplay mechanics, it is a goldmine of untapped potential. Troïka was one of my favorite game studios. Could you imagine a mix between F:Tac and Arcanum (Edit : I am talking only in terms of scope and mechanics here, not setting) ? JC Denton would have wanted to be the Virgil of that.

darthspudius: Well then it is a rare day because I really had a good time with it too.

F4LL0UT: Me too, actually I enjoyed the heck out of it. So it wasn't some brilliant masterpiece but it sure as hell was gory fun and that's the most important thing about a Duke Nukem game.