Oddly, this is even worse on GoG than the version I have on my original CD-based copy. I suspect that this may be because of some form of "copy protection cheating" built into the original game which wasn't properly removed for its GoG release. Let me just be clear. I have played through the first two missions, on the CD release. I was unable to get past the first few SECONDS on the GoG release, as my bullets seem to all... 100% of them... be blanks. I mean, I stood a few feet from a "terrorist" and unloaded my entire clip, at point blank range... and it didn't affect him. I, however, died rapidly. In the CD version, this is not the case. I can hit them (albeit the "hit boxes" are not really representative of the character model as seen on screen). But point-blank, dead-center-of-chest, or dead-center-of-face, and NO ROUNDS CONNECT? That's a HUGE issue. Now... I'll continue from the PC CD-based version I've played previously, and which (EVENTUALLY, no doubt) this will "rise" to become. This is a straight, on-the-rails shooter, with zero actual player interaction. You follow from one (nicely rendered, I'll grant) setpiece to the next, shoot the bad guys, wait a moment to "auto-heal," and then move to the next setpiece. It's the very antithesis of the sort of game the first two games in the "series" were like. So, as far as I'm concerned, this isn't really even in the same series. I suspect, in fact, that this game was originally written without reference to "Soldier of Fortune" and was then changed, by some text in mission briefings, to seem like it was at least missions from the same "shop" as the first two games were related to. You're not playing at John Mullins in this game, either... but rather, some unidentified man named "Thomas." The thing about the first game was that John Mullins is a real person... and while the games were not really "his adventures in real life," it gave you someone to relate to and pretend to be.
The good... this looks exactly as I remember it, and plays the same as well. It's a fun, albeit not DEEP, "time waster" type game. The bad? There are moments that this game, which runs perfectly smoothly on my current machine (and all prior ones) in the originally-released form, now "stutters" in the "updated" form. No doubt there will be patches forthcoming to fix that issue. And... there seem to be only a subset of the original playable characters. I always played as a "logical, smooth, calm, robot." It's more "my thing." But the version I just installed and played, has only three playable characters... a belching biker type, a cybernetic "she-bitch," and a "surfer dude" type. NONE of which are what I played... from the outset... on the original PC version of the game. I get the impression that these are considered "unlockable" characters now, but... I played this robotic character all the way through, every single level, and NEVER played any of the others. So, it's a bit odd to not have the option to do so in the "remastered" version. Maybe this is based upon a console version, rather than the PC version? In any case, the two "bads" are things which I hope will be corrected in a future update. But for now... they're a bit disappointing.
I got this game quite some time ago, in CD form. I have since tried several other versions, but none work on any modern system I've seen. The problem is with the Lithtech engine (coded by a company called, itself, Lithtech, but in partnership with Microsoft, who did a large part of the coding). The Lithtech engine looked great for its time, but has been abandoned for years, and used "special tricks" allowing it access to the OS in ways that other programs were denied... and which are now no longer available (due to security vulnerabilities, etc). Several Lithtech games have since received fan-produced fixes... TRON 2.0, for example, and the F.E.A.R. series. Others remain unplayable on any modern system (Blood 2, No One Lives Forever, etc). These are GREAT games... a lot of fun... but sadly, they fail, repeatedly, with a common error. No amount of "compatibility fixes" or the like have been able to get past these issues, for those who experience them. TRON 2.0 required an entirely new EXE to run properly, but does so flawlessly now. F.E.A.R, by contrast, would "sort of" run, but would slow to a total standstill in mere minutes if you had more than one or two USB devices in your chain... but a fix involving a replacement DLL created by a particularly ingenious guy managed to turn F.E.A.R. into a perfectly playable game again. Now... Blood 2 is a fun game. Not GREAT, not "landmark," by any stretch of the imagination... but fun. Like a couple of other vampire games out there, you recover heath in multiple ways, but feeding on humans is the most effective way in general... which adds a somewhat twistedly "fun" element to the game. The humor throughout the game is very up-front... it's not a SERIOUS game (for example, early on, you get a phone call in a laundrymat where you're given a survey about violence in video games). The gameplay is challenging, but not too difficult. The characters are entertaining, while not really being totally engrossing. You get plenty of "one-liners" as so many 1st-person games of the era provided, of course. The gameplay involves plenty of gunplay, knife-play, and direct hand (or tooth?) combat... The overall design is not a standout, but it's a fun game. It doesn't really feel all that much like its predecessor, which explains most of the negative reviews, of course. But I actually prefer this one to the first game in the series (as this gives me more of a "really there, really doing this" vibe). I know, I'm atypical in that way, but it's the truth. I really, REALLY wish I could get this to run on my modern, 64-bit operating system machine. But... I can't. I always get the same pop-up error, after the launcher screen, no matter what "tweaks" I try. I really hope someday someone who knows the Lithtech engine(s) better than I do comes up with an actual fix for this (and, PLEASE!!!! ... for "No One Lives Forever!")
I gave this a 3-star rating, which to me means "average in every way." I seldom give anything a 5-star rating (which means "the absolute best of the best") nor a 1-star rating (which means "terrible"). And a 3-star rating is EXACTLY what the game deserves. That's not a slam on the game, and I'm not discouraging anyone from playing it... it's fun. It's just not "special." Basically, this is another "Build-engine" game (the engine that Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, etc, were made on). This is a slightly more serious story than those others... but still very "comic book" in nature (just lacking the parody element). Gameplay is nearly indistinguishable from other Build-engine games, of course... but thankfully, the "key hunt" was left out (however, backtracking is still necessary... but for more reasonable reasons, in my opinion). I got this game with, as memory serves, a SoundBlaster AWE sound card bundled (as disk, of course)... and I bought the GoG version recently, since it's inexpensive and I'm a "completist." If you want a fun, fairly lengthy (without being TOO repetitive) 90s-style shooter, you won't go wrong with this. But don't expect to be thinking about the story or the experience once it's all over with (as the very best games, which really draw the player in, tend to do). For the price, you can't beat it.
When I saw, a while back, that "Space Rogue" was coming to GoG, I got excited... and then discovered that the game using that title was another, entirely unrelated game. This is the ORIGINAL "Space Rogue." For those who want, or expect, a truly modern, glitzy game... or who want fast, twitch-based gameplay... you'll hate this game. It's nothing of the sort. This game was literally the very first PC-based game I ever purchased. (Or rather, IBM-PC based... as they were called back then.) I'd played games on my old TI-99/4A, and on friends' Apple IIs or Amigas (and a smattering of consoles, like the Atari 2600). But this was the first PC game I ever tried. I didn't own my own PC at the time (they were incredibly expensive) but we had one at work, and I tried it there. This game was the first major release from Paul Neurath, and was the first major game or its genre, short of the ORIGINAL (line-graphics only) Elite. While Elite was purely space-based, this game merged the Rogue-like aspects of the Ultima games (also from the same publisher) and Elite's space-flight elements. The biggest issue I have with the prior reviews of this game are the claims that "it's boring" or that "there's nothing to do." Some reviews you may see will claim that it has "no story" or is a "pure sandbox game." Nope. None of that is true. But it's not designed for modern "console kiddie" gamers who have no patience. There is a real... and DEEP... story here, and everything in the game plays into that story. But you need PATIENCE and the ability to think and analyze in order to get to it. It doesn't simply spoon feed you onto an "on the rails" experience, like so many modern games do. Suffice it to say, the Manchi are not "mindless enemies" and you have to learn WHY they've become aggressive and hostile... and find a way to resolve the conflict. That's what the game, ultimately, involves.
This game has pretty decent gameplay... focusing more on observation and analysis than on anything really like "combat." If you can play it from that standpoint, it's an enjoyable game. In my case, however, when I first tried it out, I immediately became annoyed with the preaching... especially since the "preaching" is based entirely on nonsense (or rather, upon having fully bought into propaganda). The basic premise is that "due to global warming," the sea levels have risen and the entire world is flooded. Nevermind the physical impossibility of that (if the entire polar icecaps were to melt... the COASTAL regions would be immersed, but not the higher-elevation inland regions!). Also, nevermind that the entire biosphere involves negative feedback mechanisms... increase the temperature, and the water vapor levels in the atmosphere increase, which reflects more impinging sunlight away, which cools the planet, just for one example... The game itself is moderately enjoyable, but if you don't like having propaganda shoved down your throat, you may want to look elsewhere.
I first got into PC gaming as an adult, and my first real "3D accelerator" card was a 3DFX Voodoo Banshee, from Diamond, which came with "Turok - Dinosaur Hunter" as a bundled extra. So, in reality, this game was my first-ever experience with actual 3D gaming. I've still got the original CDs, but the game won't run on any modern system without a LOT of effort. (The sequel, by the way, cannot run PERIOD on anything later than WinXP SP1, as far as I can tell!) "Night Dive Studios" has been buying rights to older games, reworking them (with a significant amount of actual REWRITING OF SOFTWARE in the process in some cases... as in this one) to make old games servicable for contemporary end-users. This game is a perfect example of what they're doing. The "reworked" version of Turok works perfectly on any WinXP, Win7, Win8 or Win10 machine, it seems (though I doubt it would work on Win3x or Win9x machine, which was the original target!) They've done a great job, and it's worth the price. This game is large, and the game world is quite rich and immersive. Yep, it's not 2016-era tech, but it's a blast anyway, if you can get past your condescension levels... and I've been having a great time re-visiting "The Lost World" again after all these years. (FYI... completing the game is challenging, because there's a LOT of stuff you have to find, and you can't complete the game without finding EVERY item you need... and it's entirely possible to complete a level without getting everything you need. Expect to have to go back to each level at least once, unless you have a "strategy guide" with maps showing every single secret, or the like. )
Apretty good "first try" at simulating Star Trek starship combat in a "real world" sort of sense. "Klingon Academy" and "Bridge Commander" excelled beyond what this game, but it's still pretty good. The creators were VERY ambitious, and they didn't always succeed. For example, the release version flew like a fighter rather than a STARSHIP, but they eventually added a speed slider and at the low end, it feels like "Star Trek" again. They initially wanted more of a "star trek" feel, with lots of diplomacy and exploration but the game ended up being mainly about combat (which led to the sequel, "Klingon Academy.") The graphics are true 3D, but only 620x480. (Klingon Academy improved that dramatically.) The game has several missions which are nearly impossible... expect to play them over and over and over until random events "all flip the right way" so you can complete those missions. This can be frustrating. But... while not PERFECT, this is a fun game. where you get to command a starship, The acting is fine, but not spectacular. This set does not currently include the "Chekov's Missions" expansion. Those are a loss... several fun missions including recreations of several "tv-series" scenarios. Finally, note that GoG has included the nearly-impossible-to find "DVD version" videos as part of this release.. significantly better than the version you'll have seen if you have the CD version, as I do. No black interlacing lines, and no "compression artifact" distortions. That alone is enough to recommend this version.
