A fantastic PC imagining of a DnD style "rogue-lite". Play your choice of a few different campaigns on a procedurally generated overworld with up to 2 other players by your side. The multiplayer is incredibly easy to use, just make a room and tell them to join you by name through the lobby browser. Once you are in a game together you get to choose between several different character classes all with their own strong & weak stats. While playing the game you find a variety of loot that buffs various stats and can make you immune to certain status effects. The combat system relies a lot on RnG dice rolls which seem to be heavily in the enemies favour as they will get more perfect rolls than you will. The rolls required are offset by your players stats ('skill checks') and effect how much damage you will deal with the attack. You can spend 'focus' to increase the odds but focus is limited per character and only regained when you rest at a town or tent outside of combat or through the use of certain recovery items. While exploring the map similar to most tabletop dungeon crawlers every so many turns the 'chaos' level will increase which gives the enemies more health and can spawn some strong creatures on the map. By clearing quests/sidequests the chaos will be reduced which removes the threats introduced by chaos. In addition to chaos the game also features 'scourges' which are challenges spawned onto the map that until defeated will effect the entire map in a negative way. Some examples of scores are messing with your dice rolls, spawning volcanoes that spew lava that blocks your path or making the enemy encounters hidden so you don't know what you are about to fight. The graphics are highly stylised and after you get used to them are quite charming, the music is nice to begin with but can become a bit tiresome as it is repetitive. Combat sound effects are nothing special but not jarring, there is no voice acting but the characters do make some noises.
I have fond memories of playing this game and would definitely recommended it if it were not for the price. I know we all like older games but racing titles age less gracefully than the other genres I believe, the handling in this would feel completely wrong were I replay it in this day and age, I feel $10 is too steep of an asking price. Moto Racer 3 is(was?) a blast, was definitely cool racing with traffic and doing all the stunts this game has to offer, there is enough gameplay variation to keep you interested for hours, i'm not sure enhanced the Gold edition is but if they have touched up the handling a bit I would highly recommend this title to everyone, just a shame they didn't add in multiplayer racing while improving the engine. If you feel you can risk $10 on the handling then I would definitely say buy it, it's a great game! (how I remember it)
Although this is a great game no matter how you look at it, for $5 more you can get Serious Sam HD which is an official HD conversion of this game. The game is exactly the same as you remembered it, just with a more modern engine & better graphics. Anyway, about the game. Straight off the bat, Serious Sam is a completely non-serious game. It's full of cheesy one liners and awesome secrets all over the place. Sam is a great character who is a parody of Duke Nukem. This game needs to be played co-op, I mean sure you can play it singleplayer but it's not very exciting and where this game truly shines is playing together with friends. The game pits you against HUGE forces of enemies which when the game was released would bring computers to a crawl. The engine probably still looks great as it was quite impressive for it's time, especially pushing the enemy numbers it manages. The gameplay is standard FPS shooter fare, wipe out all the bad guys or find a key or switch to progress to the next area, rinse - repeat. The enemies are quite varied and the locations are very distinct and pretty. The game is going for an Egyptian theme and there are plenty of pyramids with their traps waiting to catch you off guard. The game has a lot of traps where you will be pulled towards spikes, have to dodge things or the room is just flooded with enemies. As I said before, this is a load of fun with friends especially watching them mess up and fly into the spikes lol Although the game comes with modding support I don't think it was really utilized so there isn't much in the mods department. The game has a few competitive modes but they are pretty awful and feel like tehy were just added at the last minute to add some extra longevity to the game. I cannot stress how good the co-operative play is though. You really must play this game at least once, it's great fun. The only issue I have with it is I just don't see why you wouldn't pay the extra $5 and get the same game with a fresh coat of paint, better compatibility & support.
