GOG confusingly lists this as the 1997 version of Turok, but it's actually the 2015 remaster, with graphical improvements and changes to the levels - hence its surprisingly high price. It's a meaningfully different product from the original 1997 game. Whether the remaster is worth the asking price is another matter, but be aware that you're paying for a modern Enhanced Edition, not a 20-year old game.
Gorogoa passes as a puzzle game - and the puzzles are well-designed, intuitive, and non-trivial - but it's first and foremost a piece of beautiful interactive art. Come for the puzzles, stay for the experience. The puzzle design isn't as masterful as Portal or as thematically clever as Braid, and the emotional depth of its space is never as all-encompassing as Journey or Gone Home, but if you've liked some of those games, this is well worth your time. Alternatively, its simple interface makes it a great choice for casual gamers who want to experience an artistic high without struggling with a full-fledged "game".
Somehow "camera voyeur" became an entire burgeoning genre, and this game is in that genre. Watch some cameras, see some scandalous secrets, decide whether to intervene in the lives of strangers, do all this while juggling your health and finances. The time management elements can be stressful. The scenarios you spy on are cute but rarely as deep or open-ended as they initially appear. Moment to moment it's fun but it never really comes together into something larger than its individual vignettes. If the game sounded fun to you based on its blurb, you'll likely enjoy, but it won't shake your world.
Review as at 5 June 2019, running on Windows 10 with a 4K monitor. The settings offered compatibility with ridiculously high resolutions, producing some interesting interface designs that probably weren't intended by the original creators, with hilariously small text and icons. However, regardless of whether I ran it at modern resolutions or era-accurate ones, the game would regularly crash, referring to "draw errors", and I couldn't make it run reliably enough to enjoy it. The game may take further work from GOG to make it fully compatible with current systems.
This is not the game you're looking for. I'm a fan of turn-based RPG strategy. I've enjoyed other Compile Heart / Idea Factory games. But Agarest is just not a good game. The pacing is ruinous - repeat after repeat of the same battles agains the same units. The system is baffling - there's a lot of depth, but the user interface simply doesn't give you the information you need to understand the consequences of your actions, even once you understand the mechanics. The presentation is ugly - sure, it's a late PS2-era game, but that's no excuse for muddy brown backdrops and endless reuse of the same flat, terrain-free battlefields. And there's nothing in the story to make it worth sticking out. Go pick up something in the Disgaea, Fire Emblem, or Valkyria Chronicles franchises, and leave Agarest on the shelf.
There is nothing in the SSI Gold Box RPG range that is remotely accessible for modern gamers. Rules are unexplaind, combats are brutal, the UI is unintuitive, and story fragments are buried in documentation that you'll have to look up in a PDF while simultaneously playing the game. Plus there's an assumption that you're already a Dragonlance fan and have read the books. If you don't already know you want these games, don't buy them. BUT - if grappling with retro RPGs is your thing, or you played and loved these back in the day, or you're just so curious you can't help yourself, then they're every bit as good today as they were then. It's all here - a surprisingly faithful and deep realisation of the AD&D ruleset, a story that builds on classic Dragonlance lore in surprising and exciting ways, epic high-level play and genuinely challenging and lethal combats.
Brutal Legend can't decide what kind of game it is. Is it strategy? Is it action? Is it roleplaying? Or does none of this matter because the story's what's important? It aims for all four, and ends up being deeply frustrating, because when it's good it's SO good, but when it's bad it's heartbreaking. Ultimately I can't recommend the game because it's good or it's fun - but I CAN recommend it because it's Brutal Legend, and there's nothing else like it. Its mad heavy-metal-does-Game-of-Thrones premise and aesthetic are unforgettable. Jack Black is perfect as Eddie. The classic metal soundtrack is impeccable, and well used - the Mr Crowley scene remains a favourite years after playing it. If the game's imperfect, it's not because it wasn't aiming for the stars, and that ambition is worth seeing all by itself.
There's really only three relevant questions about this game. (1) Is it a Bard's Tale game? No, not in any meaningful sense. It's a click-to-kill action RPG in the vein of Diablo, with more story progression and less loot grind. (2) Is it funny? Yes, mostly - it frequently made me chuckle, and you probably will too, although even the fairly generous amount of narration isn't quite enough to sustain the game's run time. (3) Is it fun? Yes, mostly. I doubt it's anyone's favourite game, but It got my money's worth and enjoyed my time with it, and if a humorous click-to-kill RPG sounds at all interesting to you, then you probably will too.
Wandersong is flawed, and it doesn't matter. The music gameplay never really works, there are bugs, the first two acts are slow and twee - and yet, as it gradually builds, it's so earnest and passionate and filled with humanity and charm and warm hugs that you just can't hate it. Please buy it. Please stick with it through a bumpy opening. Please get to know Miriam and the Bard and all the other weird and beautiful characters. Definitely worth your time.
7 Billion Humans is a game about learning coding, with a focus on parallel processing - not that it ever admits that. You write instructions, and swarms of little humans execute them simultaneously. If you're smart and lucky, your code achieves the desired result. If not... The coding UI is surprisingly clean and intuitive, and the puzzle designs are good. Probably my only real complaint is that it feels like a game of two worlds. For those who actually know how to code, the later problems feel like actual work. For those who don't, there may not be enough random humorous consequences along the way to get them to stick it through. Nevertheless, it's a solid, highly-professional game, and if "coding puzzles" at all sounds interesting to you, this is what you're looking for.
