Closer to Wet than Max Payne, but ultimately a bland shooter with a terrible FOV. The gunplay doesn't demand any special moves to survive, the style points don't mean anything, and the plot... exists I guess. I'm glad it's here for preservation, but it's a meh game at best.
There are few games I've played that made me feel my mortality quite like this one. It made me question what the hell I was doing with my life on a deep, unsettling level. That is not a joke. Look, I like to dive into bad games myself, but this one is too far. It's not that it's horrible and unplayable, but that there's no reason to play it. You're not here for the story, lets get that out of the way. There are few interesting character choices to make, so you don't get to be clever and play the game in entirely different ways. What's here is the barest bones of an RPG structure: walk down hall way, kill monsters, level up, kill more monsters. You don't get the fun loot drop stuff from an ARPG, you don't get the character building or story development, nothing.
The humor and writing in Space Quest is really good. It's clever and sharp and will often leave you rolling on the floor. Then you play the game and realize it's anything but funny. We may call this the golden age of adventure gaming, but in retrospect these are terrible games. Often it seems the designer had more fun writing new ways to die then anything else. Obscure verbs, illogical inventory puzzles and face-clawing traps ensure that even with a FAQ handy, you'll likely realize it isn't worth it. Watch a Lets Play if you want to see the funny dialog, but leave the playing to the masochists.
TOEE is the best rendering of 3.5 rules into a computer game yet. Everything's here, from the five-foot-step to attacks of opportunity. The story's classic DnD stuff and it's even pretty well told! Yet a word of warning: It hates you. Yes, ToEE is DM'ed by a prick that tries to jam dice down your throat and murder you. Save early, save often, EXPECT FRUSTRATION. If you endure, then you will earn a golden price unmatched in any other game.
Expect: Tedious and harsh hack-n-slash, above par for the time period Expect: To spend hours pouring over maps and manuals Don't Expect: Any driving story Don't Expect: MM1,2 to age well, even slightly.
I know it's a sin to review a GOG game less then five starts (even Judge Dredd gets 4.5 on average), but lets be honest here. Ultima 4 is many things: revolutionary, witty, clever. What it not, however, is very playable today. Later titles like 6 and 7 are far, far more playable. It's not the graphics, its the controls. Its the fact that you'll have to print out the manual and constantly pour over it for hours while you stumble along. There's a gem here, but you'll have to work very, very hard to get to it today. The later titles are still far more playable. Sometimes, our ancient treasures don't age very well...
A lot of games on GOG are really good on the nostalgia value and are fun trips down memory lane. However, I'll still find myself playing more modern games more often then not (I'll admit it). However, SC2 grabbed me by the throat and wouldn't let go. Hours bled away as I explored a tiny corner of my galaxy, wondering what small wonders awaited me. This game is not overrated at all.
