I still have the disk for 3.0 right here in my desk. I've been playing these game since 1995, however it's been about 8 years since I last played it so I decided to get the whole package here on gog. And man, the puzzles are so memorable I actually remember how to do most of the ones in the base game, so the expansions I am totally grateful for. What makes these puzzlers so awesome? I think it lies heavily on their intuitiveness and the way they slowly introduce the diverse range of objects in the puzzles. It's all about contraptions, but the diverse range of parts makes for a variety of brainteasers. My favorites of course are the puzzles that require you to blow up the environment, followed by puzzles involving ropes and pulleys since I find them to be the most challenging. As I mentioned earlier since it introduces the parts a little bit at a time so I was never overwhelmed. And like the recent game Portal certain patterns deliberately repeat so you can build up skill sets for each element in the game, so when you come across the later contraptions that make us of all the parts you won't need anymore hints. The editor needs mentioning as well. It's extremely intuitive and easy to use. You can easily set up a clever puzzle in a few minutes if you have it mapped out in your head. You can even go crazy with background art using a huge selection of sprites. I went pretty nuts with it when I was 13. Oh and how could I forget the music? The songs are so catchy they'll be stuck in your head for years! I personally love the diverse soundtrack, even the country songs! I enjoy the original midi tracks very much, but the later games with live studio versions with added vocals were absolutely fantastic. The notes were exactly the same, but the extra fidelity and the human played instruments added depth to the soundtrack. During the game these tunes really add to the experience! I've had these games for 15 or 16 years now and I keep coming back to them because I have yet to find a superior puzzler. You could say these games are casual since there's no clock to race against or bad guys trying to kill you, but the point is not to get a high score or to "win". The objective of the game is to push your brain to its limit, and that is a great challenge any hardcore gamer like myself should accept.
I got this on Steam over a year ago not expecting much and man was I pleasantly surprised! I got into the B-Movie plot pretty fast. The protagonist can be pretty contrived at times but I like the other characters a lot and the dialogue and voice acting is decent. What sucked me into the plot though was the very well done atmosphere and suspense. Yes, this game did make my hands sweat. Enemies are cleverly placed and will emerge from realistic hiding places, but I was never sure where! They may drop down in front of me, sneak up from behind, or my ambush may just backfire! Seeing my enemies scaling a wall I'd already triple checked made me paranoid as all hell. The dependency on the flashlight probably helped a lot with the fright, but it helped with the atmosphere as well. The way it plays across the environment and reveals new things makes me wonder if the devs took some influence from Doom 3. Of course the game play is rock solid or I wouldn't of stayed sucked in. The weapon upgrade system, while ridiculously standard, actually lets you feel the effects of your upgrades pretty fast and keeps weaker weapons like the pistol useful later in the game. The weapons themselves are pretty diverse and allow for a number of strategies, and thankfully the levels are set up to where you could use a bad attack strategy and get killed. I never did find a "one solution" for all problems or an over powered weapon. The pistol may have been a little over powered, but I found it too difficult to use later in the game with tons of enemies on screen. Level design and flow is a mix of old school deliciousness and realism. By realism I mean you'll have health packs stored in lockers or storage rooms and weapons in armories. Old school in that the game is reminiscent of games like Alien Breed. However I'm finding the Doom 3 influence apparent in the level design as well. You start off in a more comfortable setting and then you start coming across more and more creepy things, some of which are quite subtle like a broken air vent. And then of course you'll come across blood stains and mutilated bodies. Levels also give you quite a bit of room to explore and take alternate routes, removing the sense of linearity and increasing the immersion. The biggest thing I should note about the levels is the logs every one leaves scattered about on PDAs. The text is well written and serves as premonition as well as filing in the back story. They also tell a few different side stories. I actually felt bad when I found the PDA that ended a story in tragedy. My biggest complaint is the inability to save during missions. Each mission takes about an hour so that can be pretty frustrating, especially during the final mission where you have to face an insanely hard final boss at the end, but if you die fighting him you have you restart the whole mission! Another low point is the archaic 5 life system that destroys the balance. You have five lives to complete each mission and they reset after each mission. Each time you die you go back to the last check point you passed, but nothing is changed or reset when you die! Any enemies you killed are not respawned, so you can essentially "sacrifice" a few lives to get passed a really hard part, but if you run out of lives it's game over and you have to restart the mission. As a whole I adore this game. It took me around ten hours to beat the whole game so I'd say it's well worth the ten dollars. It's worth a second play through as well! Hell I almost went out and bought the hardcopy just to hold it in my hands. It's just a well done title that any top-down shooter fan could appreciate. While other games out there have better overall gameplay, few have that awesome sci-fi b-movie vibe or an atmosphere that can compete with blockbuster games.
