the first game is awful but lance boyle is an iconic character and there's a lot of cheesy game show fmv to enjoy if you can endure the races. the second plays much better and also has a lot of fmv. without those I would've never bothered for long (and would've given it fewer stars).
DROD is a long-running franchise of puzzle games, sadly very underrated, but in 2008 Caravel Games decided to try something a little bit different. Still set in the same universe as the other games, DROD RPG takes a few steps away from regular puzzlers. Your task is to guide Tendry, a brave soldier through several levels (12 plus a secret stage, each consisting of about 20-30 rooms or more). It's still very much a puzzle game but apart from collecting keys (different kinds open different doors, so you'll have to think twice before using them) you'll also need to fight all sorts of enemies (humans and monsters alike), collect money (by fighting said enemies) and get more powerful to be able to survive. While still not an RPG, despite its title, the game now has objects you can use (some only once, some more than once) and you can raise (or level, if you wanna stick to RPG terms) your HP, armor and defense to make things easier. The top-down perspective and the mini-map makes it easy to get an overview of the levels and think up a grand strategy, but sometimes you'll need to try different approaches to certain problems. No matter how tempting it is to kill everything as soon as you see them, it's a bad idea. Wait till you get stronger/more powerful, and in the meantime, try to think of alternate solutions, like bypassing doors, going round enemies without initiating a fight (which is turn-based, by the way), and so on. Be sure to save as often as possible, though, because it's easy to run into dead ends sometimes. Normally this would make me irritated, and admittedly this game had the same effect on me initially, but after I realized my mistakes (not using items/keys optimally, starting fights with monsters left and right, since 'Hey, there's a health potion right there, why should I care?', not looking for secret areas, etc.) I started over and had a much more fulfilling experience. And despite it being a long game (relatively speaking, but when you think it's over after a few hours, it turns out it's only the end of the first half), replaying certain areas with a more thought-out strategy doesn't take very long at all. The game is a huge amount of fun, very easy to pick up and pretty hard to put down. Just one more room... (It also has some references to other titles in the series but you'll be fine playing it without any prior knowledge.) Pros: - Takes a while to complete (~8 hours or more) - Save anywhere (you'll need it!) - Active community on the game's website - Replayability (try for a higher score, look for secret areas or alternate solutions, download user-made levels, etc.) Cons: - A little bit on the trial-and-error side, and sometimes the error part only becomes evident later, so save often - The voice acting is pretty poor, though after a while I found at least the main charcter's voice more funny than annoying
essentially the second half of bm2, if you liked that, obviously finish the story here.
one doesn't expect much from sequels, and while this isn't a direct follow-up, takes place much later, it's still really enjoyable. looks and sounds better as well.
creepy point & click adventure with less than great voiceovers. there are places you can die and unlike prisoner of ice, for instance, you don't immediately respawn as if nothing happened, so save often.
the usual gta-like shenanigans in a cool 80s mexican setting. combos, bullet time, etc. one of those games I started just to see how it plays and ended up 'accidentally' completing it. just one more mission, then another. there's some open-world stuff but it's not padded to infinity.
not sure how involved card (ender's game, etc.) was during development but the result is a somewhat generic (early-2000 xbox, you know what to expect) but still enjoyable sci-fi shooter. good enough story that ends on a cliffhanger never to be resolved, as it was planned as a trilogy but sales didn't let it happen. there's an unofficial patch if you want fancier-looking cutscenes, including some only available on xbox.
