Rise of the Triad: Dark War

I did all the old FPS's, Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Duke, Shadow Warrior, Original Dark Forces.... the list goes on and on. This was always a classic. It had that right balance ofgood action and laughing my @$$ off. I remember what got me through it was a gamer friend of mine said the game is more joke than anything else, its not meant to be beaten. I said whaaa? He said yeah, no ones beating it on "They Call me the Cleaner" difficulty. So I proved him wrong :D The game is nuts, Democratic Bonus, Republican bonus, Ludicrus Gibs.... when you died, spinning around your corpse saying "You Suuuuuuuck" or the + and - key to scale the game incase your comp didnt have enough horsepower, and if you scaled it down too much it said "Buy a 486". Or the infamous "This level causes an error" To me, its not about cool features or the best graphics. I play Daggerfall over most other RPG's STILL. This just had the speed, pacing, absurd weps like Firewall, Firebomb,Drunk Missile etc, and a boat load of humor. As some have said, not for everyone, because it is over the top and campy. But sometimesover the top and campy is what makes it fun. That why I love Bruce Campbell "Splat stick" movies :)

ROTT (Shareware then DW) was my first real gaming experience (after kiddie edutainment games) and a program I ALWAYS had installed on any computer I owned or shared growing up because it could always serve as a quick low-investment distraction when bored. I was saddened the day I got Vista and ROTT no longer worked. God Bless GOG.com for giving me ROTT back. In the long run, it is not my favorite game ever, but it was my first love and you never forget your first.

Before Apogee would rebrand as 3D Realms and give us classics like Duke 3D and Shadow Warrior, we had this 1994 shooter. Running on the Wolfenstein 3D engine, it's surely a very unique shooter that is as campy and silly as it is over the top. Weapons like the Drunken Missiles and Excalibat are nifty and fun additions alongside other weapons like the MP40. The enemy AI is pretty advanced for the time, and vicious in numbers. Some of the additions are just strangely hilarious, like Dog Mode or Ludicrous Gibs. It's all rounded off by a timeless soundtrack from Bobby Prince and Lee Jackson. Can Rise of the Triad get repetitive? Prehaps. But every game does after a long play session. Rise of the Triad does a lot to keep things fresh and enjoyable, which is something to commend the game for. Plus, the game gives off a lot of value for its cheap $6 price tag. You get the Dark War campaign, along with the shareware episode The Hunt Begins, the addon Extreme Rise of the Triad, and an additonal set of maps. It really is worth checking out, especially for fans of old school shooters and Apogee/3D Realms games.

I have been a fan of this game since it first came out (especially the multiplayer combat), but haven't played it in years. Something made me think of ROTT again and I tried for days and several sources trying to get multiplayer to work, NOTHING worked until I tried GOG. I purchased this game from 2 other sources and tried Winrott, WinrottGL and WinrottAPI and couldn't get any of them to work in multiplayer over a LAN. GOG nailed it, it works perfectly! The menu to launch multiplayer mode took me a minute to find (for anybody who has not found it it is in "More > Other > Play Multiplayer Game"). It works perfectly over a LAN and it is a great multiplayer game, a true classic.

Rise of The Triad (ROTT) was a beautiful showcase for what could be done within the limitations of the first pseudo-3D game engine. While most were simply riffing on Doom and making mods or whole games that followed that same motif, ROTT was seeing what else could be done with the tools given. If you've ever played a game that had stairs, thank ROTT and their use of elevated discs to separate a level. If you've ever had interactive or moving obstacles (aside from color keyed doors) once again ROTT is the source of your joy. Have you had more than one character choice and each had different abilities? Thank you ROTT. Destructible environments, digitized characters, fog, working lights (that can be shot out), the ability to jump (via jump pads), all came from this one game. Hell, it even supported player speech via headsets or pre-recorded taunts! It has a story, not Hemingway level but still an actual story, it has varied levels often with multiple ways to solve them, and it had more than just the basic deathmatch multiplayer mode available in the modem era! For it's technical feats alone this game is a classic, and yet it is also a fun game as well. It follows the then-standard of having multiple levels spit into episodes, with a boss at the end of each one, gathering more weapons and powerups as you go. The environmental puzzles are simplistic, but seeing an enemy lured into a spinning post covered in blades or squashed by a descending post makes you appreciate it all over. Finding secret routes through levels, or getting the god mode powerup and hearing John Romero moan as you vaporize everyone with a glowing hand is a blast. The story and history of this game are well chronicled, this was a labor of love for these guys and they collected a lot of the information into a FAQ that is a joy for an FPS lover to read. http://archive.kontek.net/rott.classicgaming.gamespy.com/hell/index.html