Well, here it is - the original AIM game. I've played the sequel AIM 2: Clan Wars and fell in love. Thanks to whomever made this happen.
Barely anyone knows this game so all I can say is it's pretty funny and a decent third/first person shooter that eventually turns into a sort of RTS? Crazy what these guys were cooking back in 2000. Highly recommend this one for the story alone.
Wreckfest is one of the best demolition racers I have ever played. Heck, it's probably one of the best RACING games I've ever played hands down. The driving mechanics are absolutely delicious, with every car feeling like they've been meticulously mapped out by the developers and translated into digital form. The tracks have a huge amount of variety and there's probably something for everyone here, from road races, rallycross all the way to 100% gravel mudslinging matches, not to mention demolition derby as well. Having beaten the campaign I can say it's a very good starter for you getting ready to play against other players online. You'll want to play through it to amass credits which you can upgrade your cars with. A lot of the races are really fun set pieces like the motorised couch figure 8 race, as one example. All these races teach you not only what cars are good for what type of races, but what TUNING is important to maximise your performance. Tuning is a real boon in this game, with a simple tweak of a few sliders you can massively alter how you car drives. I highly recommend playing the entire game in manual (I could never figure out the clutch system though, sadly). As for multiplayer I'm amazed at how long the server list is, and how populated most servers are with players. This game has a really dedicated fanbase, and for good reason. I think the only downside to multiplayer is the way certain information is displayed to you. For example, in the campaign you will always get a heads up on the road composition of a track - in multiplayer this is not visible for some reason, which can make tuning a bit more difficult than it needs to be. I routinely play from AU -> NA-W servers with very little ping or latency issues. In general, aside from a couple of tiny flaws or changes I would make to further smooth the experience, I can't recommend this game enough. As for the DLC I can't speak but the base game is more than enough for most car enthusiasts.
Brigador is a very special game that I can't wait to see iterated on. There's simply too much to talk about in this one review, so I'll stick to the stuff that really landed for me. - The visuals are dripping with love and detail. Solo Nobre is an interesting place and I dig the choices of environments- graveyards, industrial complexes and even gated communities to name some. Environments are extravagant, vehicles look functional and unique, the lighting is nice and moody and EVERYTHING explodes. - The weapons look and sound great and are very fun to use - all have specific advantages over certain defense types, so you can get really creative even with just a couple of weapon slots. - The levels start off easy and let you get accustomed to alerting enemies, making traps or testing your firepower. Later levels are some of the hardest, most fun challenges I've had in recent memory, the final 4-6 missions will likely push you to your limit. There is a unique rush this game gives you when you set off a big trap in a level crawling with enemies, watch them funnel and then nuke them in a hail of gunfire and poison gas. You have to make rapid-fire decisions that are constantly life or death, having no sure way to know if you're about to eat lead or make it out the other side. Winging it and succeeding is supremely satisfying in Brigador like nothing else I have played - Even Synthetik 2 doesn't come close. - The vehicles at your disposal are really fun to use and can be diverse or specialised in their design. You have some familiar ones like mopeds, bikes, tanks and hovercars and then you've got other stuff like mechs, a bunch of cars stacked on top of each other, floating heads and a death toilet to name a few. You can always practice in Freelance mode to get familiar with what each vehicle is capable of. - MT Foxtrot is a playable character. The only thing this game lacks is Coop mode. Otherwise, an outstanding home run of a game. Can't recommend it enough.
First, a warning - you CANNOT enter the Rock sector or tutorial in the GOG version due to a corrupted texture. GOG needs to fix this as the Steam version works without issue. OK complaints aside, what's the game like? Imagine Morrowind or Stalker but in hovercars (the game calls them Gliders) with a dash of faction management and an open world with mostly RNG quests which help you accrue resources as well as more complex story missions that offer a surprising amount of lore and text for you to delve into. Graphics are what they are, kind of nostalgic I think. There are several sectors you can visit which all have their own unique setting, vehicles and mechminds as well as other cool random things like anomalies, ruined structures and ventilation shafts which take you to the dreaded underground. Traversing the underground zones is painful. Look up a guide if you need to go to a specific location within that area. The Gliders are surprisingly complex in how you can outfit them and they all feel quite distinct with their own roles and capabilities. I personally love the Nightmare 2 for its ability to fly, or the Namtar/Black Namtar being one of the better endgame ships. You can upgrade internal parts of your ship too, get better shields, armour, thrusters and plenty more. Weapons are a tad hit or miss, I would recommend sticking to high damage hitscan weapons but you may find others work for you. The faction system is pretty complicated as well, you use mechminds (the brains that control the Gliders) to form node clusters and control buildings, once your clan rating is 100% for that sector you have taken control of it and can move on to conquer a new sector. As for combat, it's tough. There's potential for fun, but I mostly just abused quicksaves (F5) to avoid being killed as it broke the enemy AI. In summary, this is a janky game with a multitude of bugs and flaws but I'll be damned if I can't put it down. For the asking price I'm surprised how much fun I had.
I'm not an expert on AIM Racing, I'm up to the first boss at the moment and while the game is quite tough there is some method to the madness. It's Vangers meets Mario Kart, more or less. The first few races avoid you trying to knock out opponents by going through their lives and instead try to get you to focus on racing and learning the tracks. Once you start getting into three lap races, you can start looking at the racers and their vehicles and choose whether combat is a viable option. Some vehicles have a lot of health and fly low, making inaccurate weapons pretty useless while others are paper thin and go super fast, some try to be jack of all trades and others seem to have no specialised role though vehicles do seem to have some benefits that aren't explained like being able to use one weapon over another or have better targeting. Even though the flying and shooting mechanics are a little basic and feel a bit janky, the entire game is based around said mechanics in a meaningful way that made it fun to take part in. I just wish I could brake better and do some cool slides. Even though the game says it supports a joystick and gamepad I never had much success with this, perhaps if you have a controller with a soft D-pad you might get some mileage out of those but I stuck to KBM with WASD movement and I used the mouse to fire but not steer. Yeah you can steer with the mouse in this game and it's not great - could be my gaming mouse settings though, so maybe an office grade mouse might work better? Graphics and sound don't blow me away, what's there is functional, I like the "you won" music though. It could have been more refined, but what's there is functional and in particular the story and vehicle designs are really out there and cool, it reminds me lot of Vangers if it was a racing game with the weird organic vehicles and the strange post-cataclysmic story setting. Worth grabbing on sale for sure if you like combat racing games and don't mind some jank.
Man, what a game. System Shock Enhanced Edition was a game I picked up for a few bucks on a whim, thinking since everyone bangs on about the sequel, so what's the first one like? Well, it's definitely got its quirks such as how you attack and interact with items in the world as well as reloading, so fair warning this game is kind of clunky. With all that aside, this was easily one of my favourite games of all time. I absolutely love the setting, the chunky graphics and saturated audio that just oozes 90's charm. The story is such an interesting take on a "doom clone" in that Shodan knows roughly where you are and what you're trying to do, and is very intent on stopping you by any means necessary. This can come in the form of some truly cruel traps. I have never had a game behave with such hostility towards the player and I love it. You never know what trump card Shodan has ready to play, as soon as you think you have an edge over them the rug can be pulled out from under you. It makes for an unmatched atmosphere even with it being an old title. In terms of the actual mechanics (walking, shooting, interacting) it definitely shows its age, but I really enjoyed the weapons they gave me access to. I think there are over ten. You also get a lot of tech upgrades giving you access to sprinting, a shield, jump jets and so on. The player can take advantage of these by going back to earlier levels to explore using these tools. In terms of getting the game to run, it was pretty simple, I seemed to have crashing issues with Vulkan/Borderless modes so I just stuck to what worked on my rig. I can't see it being a difficult title to get running, even on the least powerful computer in your home. All in all I had a blast playing through this and can't wait for the remake. If you see it on sale for a few bucks I would highly recommend it if you like immersive sims, sci-fi survival horror and games that don't hold your hand very much, allowing you to explore at your pace.
