Baldur's Gate carries a great reputation, one that I think is absolutely doggy doodoo. There are very few games out there like Baldur's Gate, so treasured and loved by so many, that in reality is a dismal drudgery of a game. Look up the Baldur's Gate review by Scorpia (one of the greatest gaming journalists and reviewers in the history of the industry, and certainly knows more about RPGs than anyone else I can think of) that was done in Computer Gaming World, she outlines, much better than I, everything that is wrong with this abysmal game. From the forgettable plot, to the outrageous crap writing, to the useless mage party members, the nonstop combat with uninteresting enemies in uninteresting areas and just CONSTANT (CONSTANT!) without respite, the herky-jerky stupidity of the real-time with pause system, the complete nose-dive in quality at the midway mark, the bizarre constant low rolls of the RNG that reduces combat to constant misses and failed saves. Jesus, what else can I go on about? The wasted potential of a story with an initially interesting villain (Sarevok) who by the end is such generic fodder? The insipidness of your NPC followers, who are either incompetent, whiny nincompoops (Imoen) or just comic relief (Minsc)? How playing with low level D&D characters is an absolute, unmitigated slog? How the only good thing for this game has longed been dated into oblivion? The production values have ceased to impress, the atmosphere isn't nearly as potent as it used to be, and the only saving grace, its relatively entertaining multiplayer, is completely outdone by Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate's own much, much, much better sequel, Baldur's Gate II. In 1998, with only Fallout to really give RPG gamers something decent to chew on at the time, this must have seem like a good game in the face of the garbage, but in reality, Baldur's Gate is an overrated, grisly, gruesome slime of a game. Avoid.
Never has a demo or teaser more quickly turned me off a potential game. Before I can really get into the thick of why this is such a miserable travesty, we have to first understand WHY System Shock 1 was so amazing at the time. Taking Ultima Underworld and transferring it to a sci-fi setting, SS1 did things like having places look like what they were supposed to be (the med-bay looked like a med-bay), an incredibly uncommon thing in 1994, the ability to jump and grab onto ledges, stunning atmosphere for the time, an innovative and compelling storytelling method (the audio logs provided exposition while maintaining an atmosphere of isolation). But that was all great back in 1994, now it's bog standard stuff. What this remake seems to be, is a literal 1:1 remake, they have the same damn textures except redone for true 3D environments for God's sake. Why would I want to play a remake of a game that seems to do nothing to modernize the game? Am I supposed to slog through 1994 quality level design? 1994 quality enemy design? 1994 quality encounter design? There is absolutely no reason to remake something in such a redundant way. It feels like crap, the combat is floaty and the feels utterly unsatisfying, just like the original. The enemies look stupid at best and completely laughably goofy at worst. Why do the robots still look like stupid Lost in Space Robby the Robot knock-offs? Why the hell would I play what amounts to nothing but a visual revamp of a game that has aged, to put it quite frankly, incredibly poorly? System Shock 2 completely outclassed its predecessor, and Ultima Underworld inspired games like Deus Ex are just plain better in every way. I don't get it, maybe some ubernerds who pretend they actually enjoy suffering through games that have aged like fine diarrhea will herald this as some kind of "proper remake" but developers should look at the GameCube remake of Resident Evil, or hell, the new DooM as the proper way to do it. This is a joke.
Akalabeth is a fairly intriguing game to look at. Here you can see Richard Garriott's baby steps, his first attempt at creating a living breathing world in the RPG format, something he would become known for, and would eventually evolve into the gold standard for RPG worldbuilding (Ultima VII). But really, that's all there is. Akalabeth plays as a somehow even more primitive version of Ultima I and II, with an overworld view that goes into first person when you enter dungeons. Like his later games, Akalabeth has you managing a supply of food along with your health and items, but nothing here is very compelling. You beat on monsters, get gold, get items, go further down, repeat ad naseum. With all that being said, there's absolutely no reason to play this game in a modern context, there are a lot of reviews pretending that this is somehow still worth playing, but I'm not going to give a game 5 stars because I want to pretend that I'm somehow some kind of computer gaming connoisseur and posture on GOG. This is not worth playing now, go look up videos of it on YouTube if you're curious, clutz around with a little bit if you feel like it, but don't feel compelled to actually play the damn thing for longer than 5 minutes, it's a fossil, and even as a kid who adored Ultima I, II, III, I couldn't stomach the entire game back when I was young. It's piss hard and simply not fun. Put it down as a footnote in your head when you're joining discussions about the origins of the RPG genre, recognize its significance, but there's nothing here for you to enjoy.
Dungeon Keeper was without a doubt, one of my favorite games, and despite its showing its teeth a bit, it's still a fantastically fun title that has aged more gracefully than I thought it would, especially with KeeperFX pulling it up. So naturally I was excited for Dungeon Keeper 2, there was a lot of things I was expecting to be improved, a lot of features that were being added that excited me, even though the graphics were a tad too goofy, bright, and characterless for me to really get into from the sparse previews I saw. Then it was released, and from the outset, Dungeon Keeper 2 disappointed me. For one thing, these levels are much more restrained than DK1's, they tend to be smaller, have less interesting architecture to them, and give you less freedom to layout your dungeon as you please. The game was profoundly buggy, poorly optimized, and went too heavy on the cartoonishness and excised much of the atmosphere that made the original DK1 such an immersive and unique experience. Even now, trying to give it a second chance (immediately after a reply of DK1) there's so much about its design that's just weak, the over emphasis on approaching missions just the right way, making the levels more about seemingly figuring out their "puzzle" rather than more conventionally battling an opponent using the game's mechanics to your best knowledge, and a number of other things, like the unappealing block 3D graphics, which, while professionally done, are utterly mediocre when it comes to the quality of their design aesthetic. Possessing your creatures is a constant necessity to destroy simple traps and move through the levels, and it's annoying, there's not enough Keeper vs. Keeper missions (easily the most fun part of DK1) and for the most part, the pathfinding is incredibly poor and the game is still very buggy. It works, it's decently fun, it's okay, it still does right a lot of what DK1 did right, but not a fraction as well. A decidedly lukewarm product.
The best way to describe Quake II is "competent." That's it, take any sort of interesting colorful words you could use to positively describe a game, and throw them out, because "competent" is the best you'll get out of Quake II. It's very obvious that John Romero was the creative glue at id, the ying to Carmack's cliched yang, because nothing in Quake II is compelling. Gone is the odd horror/sci-fi/gothic melange of the original Quake, gone are the rudimentary medieval looking weapons of the original, here replaced with the most stock, boring counterparts you could imagine. Instead of monsters with chainsaws popping out of their arm while spewing out grenades in a butcher's apron, you get generic monster with gun, and generic monster with different gun number two. There are no real extensive AI behaviors, most of what the enemies do is pretty rote, they either charge at you, or they zig-zag and shoot. Sure they'll keep shooting when they're downed, but after the first time, getting pecked in the back of the head by a lazer is just annoying instead of something you really need to watch out for. The real cherry on top is Quake II's stunningly bland level design, including the hallmark of all crap level design, a hub system, because the only way to make the bland, colorless levels with billions of monster closets and boring traps more exciting is endless backtracking. The levels suck, the monsters suck, the weapon sucks (they are unsatisfying and have little to no interesting functionality), the monster design sucks. In fact, the only good part of Quake II is that it has some impressive technical dinguses, but even that is a bittersweet boon as Quake II deigns to do nothing interesting or pretty with its technical prowess. At least the game works, it's not buggy in the slightest, it doesn't crash, and everything about it is professional. But that really sums it up, Quake II is a professional experience, it's like working in a cubicle, mindnumbing and just ass.
I remember coming home with Unreal, having just recently gotten a brand spanking new videocard, and being absolutely ready to gorge myself on colored lighting and brilliant level architecture. Back then, it was easy enough to allow the spectacle to thrill me, to excite me, and to carry me through the game with the glitz and glamour covering up all the very, very real flaws that Unreal has. Before Unreal Tournament was released with its brilliant level design, iconic and outstanding weapon design, and pure fluidity of movement and combat, Unreal took the babysteps that were necessary to reach that point, and it's quite obvious that these are, truly, babysteps. For one thing, the level design in Unreal is obtuse, sure these levels are pretty, but they don't work that well. Disguised buttons litter the place, monster closets are ubiquitous to the point of rivaling Doom 3, several rooms can look much too similar and have the levels meld into a confusing blur and the poor texture variation and dark lighting doesn't help. While one or two of the weapons are compelling (especially the homing rocket launcher) but generally several of them are interchangeable or just plain uninteresting. Some of the monster AI is spectacular, especially the Skaarj, leaping around the levels and dodging projectiles, but the actual visual design is lackluster, and there's about as many uninspired monsters as there are interesting ones. What Unreal does right is deliver some wonderful world design, text logs are hidden around to provide ambiance and background, friendly natives will cower and help you as you clear out monsters, and when you're not getting lost, the pacing and monster distribution is well done. What's here is a satisfying, solid game, but when level architecture trumps cohesive design, you're left with a game that leaves you fumbling around much too often, with an underwhelming arsenal, and just not enough to stand out beyond its status as a technical hallmark.
There's a lot of word going around that if you separate Daikatana from its sordid history, ignore the disappointment of its massive hype train, and the travesty of its ill thought-out marketing, that you'll find at its heart, it's just average. That, however, is bull to the highest degree. Daikatana is garbage, it was dated on release, visually and in the scope and execution of its level design, its weapon were either utterly unspectacular or were so lethal that they would kill you moron often than the enemies (in some poorly dreamed up idea of skill). The sidekick AI was not only terrible, but the game didn't even seem to be designed around their presence, the levels are so claustrophobic and tight that they would get more in the way than anything, and that's when they weren't getting stuck on things, getting crushed by doors, or being entirely arbitrary about when they actually decided to help shoot things. There's endless more you can go on about, the god awful balancing, rendering the first chapter the hardest of the entire game, with chapter two being piss easy and three being just as harmless, and the fourth being moderately challenging at best. Enemy design is awful, with little to no interesting AI behaviors (unacceptable in a post Unreal, post Half-Life industry) and horrible, annoying, tiny enemies (and tiny, annoying flying enemies). Its story is absolutely awful, boring, and the writing is infantile at best. Levels are obtuse and labyrinthine. Textures are muddy and god awful, and the colored lighting is eye searing, with neon green, far too dark areas, and generally bizarre lighting choices. Its only redeeming features are that the level architecture is semi-impressive (with the Greece chapter having some decent structures and the like) and that it delivers on having a lot of content. Not that any of it is good. Avoid this crap, it would have been bad if it made its original 1997 release date, but for 2000, it's unforgivably moronic.
Good. Gooood.
Lethis is a pretty game, and initially, a promising one, but then you quickly realize that even its greatest asset, its art design, is bringing the game down. The easiest way to describe Lethis is essentially an Impressions city builder, like Pharaoh or Caesar, you construct domestic structures for your population, then expand your city by adding necessities and better amenities to basically "upgrade" your city. It seems smooth at first, but quickly Lethis proves itself to be disappointing. The massive buildings get in the way, as will many other aspects of the art design. There's very little information in the game on what anything does, and the gameplay amounts to little more than building blocks and slowly placing structures to improve them. Controls are fairly abysmal, with the interface not being particularly responsive or well designed. You'll reach the limits of what Lethis has to offer fairly quickly, and if you're a seasoned fan of city builders, you'll pretty much just build up the desire to go back and play an Impressions title instead of a skeletal imitation of one. Buy Pharaoh or Zeus, skip this one.
The only reason it's a good thing that this game is on this site is so that you can see how pathetic the people are that give it high ratings which in a way gives this game a reason for existing.
