Forget about your so-called survival horror, everything is about atmosphere. And this game has it all. This feeling of emptyness, that urge to pay attention to every sound, to keep a count of every single ammunition... Claustrophobic corridors inside, agoraphobic space outside... No communication except for a single human beeing, ghosts appearing in the middle of nowhere, a Crazy IA and a few audio logs left behind for you to understand... This is it... "I am not affraid", you say... "You will be..."
...And remove all the RPG and adventure part. What do you get? A tactical-RPG with no real RPG part, also called Fallout Tactics. the SPECIAL system, wich was great for a real RPG, does not fare so well on a strictly-fight base. The social skills are almost completely useless. And even is the game is interesting, he's very inferior to a reference like Jagged Alliance 2. Honnestly, you wan find absolutely all this game has to offer -and much, much more- in your average Fallout 2 play.
I played a lots of adventure games of the golden age. Loom, Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, King's Quest, you name it. When Broken Sword was released, I kinda hoped to find the great Gabriel Knight's saga successor. Boy was I disappointed. First of all, this is a "tourist game": absolutely no historical accuracy. Paris looks like a village build around the Eiffel Tower, french policemen are dressed like how they used to in the second half of the XIXth century, Ireland is just a pub surrounded by green pastures... Did you just say "cliché"? Even worse, the whole intrigue about the templars doesn't even make sense, you never really get to know what they attempt to do (take off the world, obviously, much like the purple tentacle in Day of the Tentacle) but you don't know why or even how. Now, the game is cute and very colourful. A pop-corn game, but only play it if you have nothing better to do.
In the last 30 years, I played a lot of CRPGs. The whole Ultima saga, the Wizardy saga, SSI's golden boxes, Baldur's Gate I & II, Icewind Dale, Lands of Lore, Dungeon Master, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Al-Quazim, Wasteland, you name it. But this is the most brilliant, cleverly designed and beautifully writen game ever. Ever. I must have finished this game 14 or 15 times. And every time I found something new in it. It simply never ends: this is the ultimate gaming experience. If you like gaming, never ever miss this game. This IS the greatest.
All right, Ultima VIII was more of a bad platformer the day it was launched. After being patched, it became an excellent adventure game. The city of Tenebrae is incredibly vivid, the game feature an excellent exploration component (you can really spend several hours in Tenebrae and haven't seen it all), the graphics are state-of-the-art VGA and the music is simply the best MIDI has to offer. So yeah, it certainly is a bad Ultima, and a mediocre RPG, but a great game nonetheless.
Ok, so you liked Icewind Dale, but now you want the same thing with a better story, more sidequests, and with the 3rd edition of D&D rules instead of the ancient overused AD&D? There you are. No, it still isn't a Baldur's Gate. 90% of the game is made of fights, but man is it fun. Wanna try an experimental group with six monks? You're welcome (and I can swear it actually works). Wanna make an old hero and make the whole adventure alone? Well, you can too, and you will actually level up much faster. Want more? Well, go to the config, and activate the "heart of winter" mode for a harder mode (level 15+) and even more XP! Try this one if you simply love to build a band of adventurers and love to test their skills -and yours.
This game was often perceived as a huge disapointment when it came out. The reason was simple: it used the Baldur's Gate's engine, so it had to be a Baldur's Gate - a rich, enticing story, with a lot of exploration and sidequests. Well, it wasn't. The game's mechanisms are quite simple indeed: you go to the next place, then you kill everything. The story is nice, but very straightforward (go there, do that), no exploration at all, very few sidequests. But if you loved the Baldur's Gate's combat system, then this is the game for you. If you're fed up with the old AD&D fighting system, though, you should probably try another game.
Ok, now is the time to settle things. You are colonel Christopher Blair, best pilot of the TCS Tiger's Claw, the man who blew the mighty fortress of K'titrak Mang all by himself. A legendary pilot, so feared in battle that the wild Kilrathis have come to call you "Heart of the Tiger". But no man, not even you, can win a war all by himself. Now the Kilrathi's fleet is approaching Earth, the TCS Concordia, pride of the fleet, has been destroyed, and Admiral Tolwin, who considered you has a traitor years ago, has decided to send you aboard TCS Victory, a ship considered as nothing more but flying garbage. This war shall end soon, and the battle's outcome depends on YOU. Mark Hamill, Tom Wilson, Malcolm Mc Dowell, John Rhys-Davies, a casting and a game like you'll never see again in your life. For 6$. Man, why are you still reading?