And under "classic" I don't mean it's proper definition of a piece of art that kept it's worth over multiple eras despite harsh critism and rivalry with other pieces of art, without pulling any punches, staying relevant to the neo-modern audience not by what it did or related culture or tech progress but as a stand-alone art, but a modern definition of "classic" which stands for a piece of software made more than a few years ago and has someone with nostalgia attached who will not tolerate any criticism and believes that you are the one who should de-evolve in order to appreciate it on it's level. Pure classic. Ok, that was harsh, it was interesting to see (c)RPGs the way that they were done before anything was set into canon and people started to complain that you are not a real (c)RPG. I liked rather unusual progressiong through the game in Ultima 1 and 2. Well, liked seeing the idea and how it's different. Otherwise they are all three rather grind-based and have nothing much worth of art in them. No story for sure. Aside from manuals. It was before Ultima has found it's identify as well, randomly mixing sci-fi as well. Ultima 1 is simplistic and enjoyable if you only think about going around and increasing numbers. Though you only ever need to visit one dungeon of many. Ultima 2 is a shitpost in a form of game, too much in-game jokes and unfun puzzles. You may need a fan upgrade. For I remember that you couldn't edit your character in-game once it's created without some error message. Ultima 3 has party system so that's a nice step up from hack-n-slash. But eh, grindy grind there. Fan upgrade is a must there as well. I sure got extremely annoyed at movement keys getting glued if you press it for a while. Fan upgrade fixed it up, mostly, almost, just enough. Also, adds music like in other ports, I suggest you to change driver to Sound Blaster instead of Midi. Well, analyse it through articles, videos, peeking, history. Not worth anything as art pieces.
Actually, did they ever git gud? It was a mainstream game that wasn't "yet another Doom clone". No need to think of level layout, use very different guns, learn how to counter various monsters that had very different attack, to actually actively avoid projectiles. Just WW2 guns of hitscan, soldjas, on-rails action. Sometimes an important NPC you have to protect rushes forward and you have to tank like in MMOs. And it was before it became a proper spectacle either. You are still an American super-soldja that single-handedly destroyes both Third Reich and anime. You get more teammates but it doesn't really feel like a war. At least I must say that enemies feedback is pretty good, they do try to show off various human-like individual tactics, may surprise you. Also, dogs. Once I saw their running animation I LOLed. Actually, I am not a hate monster and I've installed it with feeling of WW2 shooter nostalgia. But by the time I got done with a game I really don't feel like playing another one. The biggest flaw of Allied Assault got to be that AI can see through foliage perfectly while you are struggling. This is the reason why sniper town is such BS. It also gets stupid by the end of game. Omaha Beach landing is like Saving Private Ryan, as historically inaccurate. But gamey and goreless. Those machine guns sure get perfect hits at Czech hedgehogs when you are hiding there, not touching you with a single bullet. You even get to use your American smelly sticky explosive socks in expansion pack, just like in movie. Good music tho. Spearhead expansion pack is better. You can lean in singleplayer. You always have teammates so you feel like a normal soldier. Berlin campaign is weird. Anticlimatic and short. At least not offensive to USSR veterans. Why is there an American? No foilage sniping at least. Breakthrough sucks. At this point your brain will be dead from stale gameplay and now enemies very rarely drop ammo. Enemies feel bulletspongy and come like L4D zombies.
Well, this is a game that has more historical value than artistic value. And even then it doesn't have big-scale historical value because "let's try to port DnD experience RPG into computer game" idea is not a terribly unique one. Mostly it shows what 17-year creator of Ultima was up to. Otherwise, it's eh. Too limited yet too hard, not a good combination for skinner box of stone age RPGs. Not much to buy, you will get stuff stolen all time, that food that you will keep running out of. Weird rules too. And, of course, no story or roleplaying. Get quest, beat monster up, report to Lord British, repeat. Die, reroll. Besides, it really isn't balanced well at all. Oh, and it's not original Apple ][ release. I think that it's a fan-made port to DOS from earlier 90s. The glitched up one. It also includes official port from later 90s as a bonus, less glitchy one but with more features like music, which may have been taken from another Ultima. The kind that are too advanced for such game, ehe. It has the best old-school cover art ever, however. Just look at this beauty. Real man with handsome moustache wracking the skeleton's dumbass head into bits and pieces. Simple and so snappy!
Jill of the Jungle is an epic prequel to the not-epic (but capcom) game so-called Resident Evil. Here you will learn about perils that Jill Redfield has faced in the jungle before she was called to investigate Chris blood. Or at least this is what I believe according to my game multiverse theory. It's a fun 2D platformer of olde that was made by Epic Megagames. It's now exclusive to GOG store for free, hoo hoo. If you look at core gameplay, it's incredibly sloppy and clunky - on jump and on landing you stop for a moment. You can't throw knife when crouching to hit low enemies. Most enemies just boringly walk left and right. However, JIll is responsive to the controls and level design actually take into consideration all the core design limits in order to create mostly fair and fun maps. And on top this game is amazingly quirky. It doesn't take itself seriously. And the amount of self-boasting is too charming. Or cringy. Cringy + Time = Charming, I guess. I was surprised that in game's ending the prince didn't ask for new hot Epic Megagames game. Like Fortnite. I mean, it has weirdly weird sound effects, that I am sure were done on purpose, that also change between episodes. Jill sounds like she is a metal woman when she lands in the second game. Mmmmmmm~ It also has a health bar so it beats Commander Keen. Also, the two apples that somehow remove the limit on game's speed that you can pick up in the third episode level under some block in waterfall confuse me endlessly. No idea if it's DOSBOX glitch or what.
If people can give 10/10 to old games for sake of nostalgia, then I can slam 5/5 to a game that came into my life and resonated so so deep with me by speaking on the same frequency. Not a simple arcade but not a dumb RPG to feed high intellectual society ego. Just something that speaks personally. A precious game. Value it. Finally something rivalled 10/10ness of Shinobi 3: Return of the Ninja Master, The Only True Game. I was so so happy as while I was playing it. Until I realized that I stayed whole night and had a headache. Music is r0xx0rs, lamers. Made me once again daydream about making my own game-experience while trying to avoid thinking about all the indies that fail to make it into spotlight and how my game is likely to fail to gain any recognition too. It's all your fault. I cannot believe that my game has already failed, right in my daydreams. TEM OUT OF TEM.
What's that? That up-to-no-good goof that is hating on all the old cult classic has actually liked one of them? A hitscan-heavy shooter while at it? An action kind of hitscan-abuse? Even actually liking a LucasArts game for once? Yep. Miracles happen. Well, I actually thought that it's trash at first, mostly because I was expecting the enemy AI to be on the Doom/Wolfenstein level. The kind that always knows your location and just always chases you nearly directly. However, after a while I read game guide and then played the first level on hardest and it finally clicked as I saw the AI being more advanced for Doom-like game. For example, some enemies would set ambush near door but then they will reach slower if you approach them from a side. Tactical AI with weaknesses, the best kind. Taking covers when they know they are being shot at and aggresive rushing whent hey think you are busy. Knowing from a guide that even devs themselves were crouching 90% of times helped too. So it's overall turned out to be a really fun mix between action and tactic. A good mix, where it's neither too slow nor too fast. Flanking, sniping, all the good fun. Plus, unlike 90s PC games that kept shoving levels until you were sick of them in main campaign, this one has shorter campaign of just 9 levels. Fun levels. With cutscenes. Albeit it comes with extra missions if you will want more. But then it's not all roses either. You may still want to quickscam occasionally. Mostly in extra missions however. But what truly sucks are boss fights. It's just tough baddies that may randomly instakill you. Joyyyyy. Oh, and some levels like train where it's just a straight line without flanking, yew. Oh, and weapons aren't that balanced. But overall I kept looking toward playing one more level every day and then it ended when I was starting to get sick of it after all the extra levels. Doesn't happen often with hitscan old FPS, so it's a real good one.
Well, unlike the first game, the second game is worth taking a look at. They fixed original flaw of things appearing camera before you can react nicely by simply increasing camera distance from action, to a point that it feels unpersonal until you take control of characters. It also feels easier to a point of being rather chill, aside from bosses that are sometimes hard and often feel quite a chore, outstaying their welcome unless you have huge powerups. Yea, it probably is not that good of game desing, with chilly game stages with even less in-game plot than the original game, with harder bosses, but forgivable for the time. I am sure some will love it this way. You should install Plus, a fan-patch, from goodies of GOG too, it fixes things. Don't use higher resolution tho, it moves camera way too far. Check out multiplayer, even with one friend, it's pretty cute. Never seen such platformer to have same multiplayer as what you expect from FPS games. Too bad it seems you have to fancy around console commands to get coop going in online Internet mode. Chill fun with friends. It also comes with Secret Files add-on already installed into game. It adds Lori, a new bun character to amuse late 90s Internet furries. I mean, the artist who drew her is obviously different, having also done intro and ending, her art style doesn't fit the rest of a gang. Spaz and Jazz look like crackheads in comparison. Sadly, they forgot to add any ability to allow her to reach higher places, so she can get stuck even in Secret Files's own episode. I mean, if you reaaaaally tryhard you can get around that as the faster you run the higher you jump in this game. Is not worth it. If you want to use her, remember JJFLY cheat for when you get stuck. Check out manual for characters special moves, btw. It also still looks and sounds remarkably.
This one combines "fast" with "pew pew". Which isn't a bad idea. However, how does it handle the camera issues where you often don't have time to react to obstacles, enemies and porjectiles that come off at the edge of a screen due to your character moving too fast, a bane of many bad Sonic clones? Sonic would do it by changing core gameplay to have ring health system to make it less of issues, having level design with enemy placement not to be cheap, and you were attacking enemies by rolling, not having to jump straight from the top of them, as well as being able to roll while moving down slopes. Now, does Jazz do anything to handle such camera issues? Not at all, it fully flops into this flaw face-first, earning the title of "bad Sonic clone from 90s". So if it came out on Genesis instead of PC, it would have met a critism, I am sure. Oh well. Even taking it slow is not easy as your character accelerates near instantly and projectiles can come from sides of screen just as fast and sometimes you have to jump blindly as well. Not much fun in gameplay to be found there. It does however has slow-mo mode on T button but 50% slow-motion is way too slow to be much exciting and physics still feel sloppy. Cute graphics and music tho. I like that it has animated cutscenes at the end of episodes. Also, if you are going to play it, make sure to download the fan patch that fixes one of the levels, as physics changes in official patches seems to have made it near-impossible to beat.
It's kinda cool to go on about how in the old times there was no graphics and everything was up to imagination with just text, but I don't think that Zork games are good representatives of Interactive Fiction genre. Sure they were the first big ones, having more advanced parcer than competition at the time too, but they are still icky. Dead ends, puzzles without much clues. Barely much of description or plot compared to any book, it's often barren, "there is nothing interesting about this " style. I tried to fairly beat the first three games with mapping and without guide, but as usual, upon seeing a puzzle with solution out of left field my trust in gameplay fell immediately and I resorted to just blowing thorugh with guide. Had more fun reading feelies. Zork 1 is a kitchen sink in everything in design, even including combat for some reason, without having much to do in combat or for preparing to it. Just treasure hunt. Zork 2 had a bit more personality, having a better reason to do treasure hunt as well, but still eh. Zork 3 suddenly got a certain mood, with certain worldbuilding. It's smaller but puzzles have more quality with them. Beyond Zork is semi-randomized CRPG/IF mix. I didn't bother as it's even worse this way when combined with dead ends. Zork Zero is the biggest, quantity over quality, even simply using classic puzzles that you've seen before, didn't bother either. There is Planetfall as a bonus. It's actually worth checking out. There is still a puzzle without clues. Puzzles are simple but it's filled to 75% with red herrings. Combine that with empty world that is livened up by a single sidekick and it just feels like an unique experience. I would say that you are better of playing indie takes on this genre. Check IFComp for some games for example. Don't let historical importance blind you from effort of modern indies that deserve recognition. Well, I am also happy that I managed to find "filfre" blog of history by searching on Zork info.
Warcraft 2 is RTS game that came out somewhere after the first Command and Conquer. As obvious from cover art showing pirates, W2 was novel due to featuring air and water combat along with land one. Well, for Air it would be simply scout units, for the most parts, which is interesting. As for sea, you build docks and create ships. Most people did not like it tho, as it felt too separate from land combat. Plus, sea balance is much simpler. Another, much better feature that it brought to genre is a fog of war. Yep. Fog of war the way that it works in most RTS, where you don't see enemy units in already explored areas if you don't have anything looking over, started with W2. So kudos to it for that. Devs increased the amount of units you can select together to 9. While increasing game's scale, so it's still not quite it. Balance is still out there, throw away, as Orcs are known to be more powerful than Humans due to orcs having bloodlust that is much better than heal. As long as you have skills to spam this ability. AI sure has. And yes, they still fixed up a lot of things from W1. Such as actually letting you to build another town center so you can place them near gold mines. But in all honesty, this game is just too forgetable for me. Campaign is still meh, same old for way too long. There is some attempt at emotion when a hero from W1 dies. Who's heroic deeds are only in manua, but was just this guy you escorted once in W1 and here he just appears and instadies. Noice. And I don't know, I just find this one forgettable. Atmosphere is just not there. It's too colorful to be cool dark fantasy of W1 but not charming-ish enough like W3. Just kinda there. It lost more fun stuff of W1. Competitive but not balanced. There is an expansion pack. It has interesting ideas, such as heroic units (same units but with unique portrait/voice and stronger) and some fancy story in Orc's world. It's still a chore to actually play. Manual is still the most epic part of a game.
