I haven't played Balder's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights, or any other D&D-based game yet, though I'm familiar with the basics of the universe as a whole (elementals, beholders, the different kinds of dragons, etc.), so I have little basis for comparison with other D&D computer games (or the old version of Icewind Dale, either). On its own merits, Icewind Dale EE is an enjoyable adventure, though a bit clumsy and flawed in some areas. Pros: A fairly engaging, if basic story with a lot of different factions interacting in a believable manner and a wide variety of settings and foes. Considering the small area of the world the game seems to be set in, they managed to cram in a lot of different environments, though only a couple were really memorable. Controlling six characters at once requires you to think strategically now and then. Adding to the tactical side is a massive array of spells (I think there were about two dozen per level) that give you a lot of options. The expansion was fun and had some great lore involved, though the Luremaster part was painfully difficult and felt more like an endurance test than a quest. Cons: The pathfinding when going through a doorway is annoying- the characters all need to go through at once, but often one will run off in the other direction and need to be called back. There seems to be no in-universe way to replace a character if they get blasted by a death spell or disintegrated- you just have to reload or else go on with a constantly-dwindling party. There is a bug near the end that sometimes prevents a quest from being completed (and apparently kept me from getting the best sword in the game!). Too many spells you can't realistically cast without hitting your own party, and it's very hard to cast spells without getting hit and interrupted every time. The characters aren't very memorable, the story is linear and the quests are usually simplistic. It's fun to play through once, but will be quickly forgotten.
As a game, Akalabeth isn't great- wander around the world map hoping to find a dungeon before you starve, head in, kill some stuff, hope you can find the exit before you starve, leave, hope a town is close enough to buy food before you starve, repeat until you're carrying thousands of food and don't have to worry about starving, at which point you can find the castle of Lord British and get some actual quests, which just consist of killing certain types of the monsters you've already been slaying just to survive. It's challenging but repetitive. As a way of experiencing gaming history, Akalabeth is fantastic. Imagine playing it on a clunky, clackity beige keyboard and big black and white CRT monitor, loading it up from an eight inch floppy disk, reading the manual full of fanciful, amateurish illustrations that draw you into the game world. Imagine living in 1980, when most computer games were either text adventures or had graphics on par with Pong, and being able to walk around dungeon corridors in three dimensions, seeing enemies in the distance moving gradually closer, having an actual goal, a QUEST, beyond "collect some treasure", a chance to be a hero, to explore and discover secrets. This was a turning point, a time when video games were beginning to develop plots and graphics were beginning to become immersive. Everything after, from The Legend of Zelda to first person shooters to plot-driven epics like Mass Effect, came from seeds like this. While I wouldn't say Akalabeth is directly responsible, it holds some of that magic, that sense of a new era in gaming just beginning to dawn, and it's nice that it's been preserved for us to experience. While simple by today's standards, it opened new horizons at the time, taking gamers on an adventure they'd never imagined before, and I think we can all appreciate that.
Shadowgrounds isn't a bad game, exactly, but it's certainly mediocre. As Tyler, a mechanic on Jupiter's moon Ganymede, you must fight off an alien invasion with an impressive arsenal of upgradable weapons. And that's about all there is to it. The controls are a little awkward, but serviceable, though the weird top-down 3D view constantly makes you wish you could see just a little further into the distance. The graphics are dated, early 2000s stuff, and probably a bit cheap even for 2005, but they do the job and there aren't too many issues, aside from a glitch I had that rendered the water incorrectly (I think there was a fix to this, but the game was over before I bothered to find it). The low budget definitely shows when, for instance, vehicles just slide across the ground, their wheels clearly not spinning. The characters are shallow and given very little development or personality, though Tyler himself has a bit of grumbling charm, and the voice acting isn't very good. The sound and music are fine, but nothing special. Overall, the game shows a lack of ambition or creativity, as evidenced by the many obvious tropes taken from other games and movies- Tyler in his orange jumpsuit fighting an alien invasion is reminiscent of Half-Life's Gordon Freeman, the APC you have to reach looks EXACTLY like the one from Aliens, there are enemies that look like Starcraft's hydralisks, the robot enemies look exactly like ED-209 from Robocop... the list goes on. Probably the game's strongest point is the variety of enemy and weapon types. With 10 weapons, all very different and with three upgrades each, as well as enemies that rush you, turn invisible, shoot at you, poison you, are invulnerable from the front, etc., there's a lot of room for inventiveness and strategy. It's fun to play, no question, it just leaves you wishing all the enjoyable combat mechanics were accompanied by interesting characters and a good plot.
American Nightmare is a fun continuation of Alan Wake, moving his story forward and adding some variety to the combat mechanics via new enemies and a larger selection of weapons. However, it's fairly short and basic, as though Remedy didn't have enough money to make a proper game and did the best they could with a tiny budget. To their credit, there's no drop in quality- the writing, characters and look of the game are still excellent, though the move to an Arizona desert environment means the spooky dark woods and Twin Peaks-esque atmosphere are replaced with a less interesting vague pulp sci-fi feel based on the game's Twilight Zone expy, Night Springs. The shift away from horror is matched with easier combat- the Taken don't feel all that threatening, and the wide variety of weapons outgrows the game's limits, making it possible you'll upgrade from one weapon to the next without even having a proper chance to use them all. The game takes place in only three fairly small map sections, repeated, and though the game handles this fairly intelligently with a time loop plot, it still feels like a weak excuse for not being able to make a full game, rather than an organic part of the creative process. There's some fun to be had with the arcade mode, but it too feels like a tacked-on apology for the game's brevity rather than a necessary feature. That said, if the game being short and repeating the same areas doesn't come as an unpleasant surprise, there's a lot to like here. The manuscript pages and TV/radio messages give us more of the backstory and characterization that made the first game so enjoyable, there's a couple musical bits to pump up the action scenes, and the villain is such an absolute bastard and his taunting messages are so personal and smug that you love to hate him, even if his existence and motivation are sort of vaguely defined. Thankfully they did finally make a proper sequel, but for that long period in between, this was much better than nothing.
I've been playing the Remastered version recently, but the only difference is a slight graphics upgrade- the original holds up fine and is highly recommended. Great characters, great music, great story, great voice acting, great atmosphere, fun game mechanics (these get criticized a lot and while a little basic, they're in no way clunky or awkward- if you find them frustrating, my advice is to not be stingy with ammo and use your best weapons constantly, as the game is quite generous in resupplying you). The game's plot is heavily inspired by Stephen King, Twin Peaks and HP Lovecraft while still being its own unique thing, and playing through it and unraveling the mystery piece by piece is a blast, with plenty of moments of intrigue, humor and horror. If you like a good story and bother to read text and immerse yourself in a game's atmosphere, you'll enjoy this game- though that's not to say it's slowly paced or unexciting, unless you're dead set on searching behind every tree for collectible coffee thermoses on your first run. Overall, a classic horror/action game and one you'll remember for a long, long time.
Pros: The new graphics are clear and vibrant, and as close to the originals as it's possible to be- it literally looks like someone hit one of those fictional 'enhance' buttons and the game became less pixelated. Everything from the original is there, with nothing cut or changed except the new interface, which is easy to use and can easily be swapped out for the old one if desired. The developers' commentary, while fairly short, is enjoyable and a good excuse to play through a second time. And if you prefer the original graphics or just want to experience the game as originally seen, there's an option to use those, too. As for the game itself, I hardly need to say that it's a classic, and while I prefer adventure fare like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, it's a fun, silly, well-designed, enjoyable game deserving of five stars. It's rarely laugh-out-loud funny, but you'll get a smile out of it. Cons: There are literally none. Other remakes like Broken Sword Director's Cut and Gabriel Knight 20th Anniversary should have gone this route instead of adding filler puzzles and dumbing down the game world.
Pros: Kind of relaxing atmosphere and music, easy to get lost in for a few hours. It's fun to try and collect the different kinds of crops and livestock to give your villagers variety in their diet. The number of building types isn't overwhelming, and the game seems fairly forgiving about where you place stuff compared to, say, Pharaoh Gold, which requires everything to be in exactly the right place or be useless. There isn't much of a story or goal, but there are some achievements to earn if you need direction. Cons: Really annoying placement rules. If I can't build a road up a gentle hill or make an orchard that isn't a perfect rectangle, why is the entire goddamn game set in a super-hilly wilderness that forces me to waste most of my space? The game lacks variety, and there aren't any rewards for getting far- everything can be built right away, and the only things that you don't start with are various types of seeds and animals, which aren't that hard to get. Can be difficult to get started without dying- your population uses food at an astonishing rate, and it's hard to maintain a supply for even a tiny population while still having enough people to fill the needed jobs. I managed to get the food situation under control, but then my young, healthy, happy villagers with lots of new houses inexplicably wouldn't breed, so the population dropped and dropped and dropped with almost no children to replace it, making production rapidly worse and worse and making my village unsustainable. Extremely frustrating because the game refuses to tell me what I'm doing wrong- I'm not even sure if I WAS doing anything wrong or it was just a bug. Fun for a little bit, but the limited choices and unfair, confusing difficulty really ruins it.
Playing as a Guybrush Threepwood-looking young sailor lad, you embark on a quest to rescue your family from the cruel noble who enslaved them and stole their fortune. Along the way, you can discover buried treasure, have a duel with Blackbeard, plunder Spanish treasure galleons, woo the beautiful daughters of governors, become a decorated naval hero, and get revenge on the evil Marquis Montalban. Pros: Swashbuckling adventure, graphics that are slightly dated but still serve their purpose admirably, lots of things to do and collect, decent, minimalist music, an enjoyable plot, wide variety of ships, and open, free exploration of the Caribbean with the choice to do anything you want in almost any order. The pirate encyclopedia also has some fun historical info about the notorious pirates you'll face in battle. It's a Disney-fied 1600s setting where everything is sparkling clean, nobody drinks or bleeds and all deaths are off-screen, but depending on your point of view, that might be part of the charm. Cons: Sailing is extremely time-consuming and tedious, ruling out all but a few ships because the others are just too damn slow. The biggest flaw is the repetition- you'll be watching the exact same cutscenes dozens of times, and it sucks a lot of the reward out of the main goals. Rescuing a family member, victorious the first time you do it, becomes rather hollow when every one (and there are only four) has the exact same reaction, with the same animation, in the same shack. The gameplay is the same- when you've seen one swordfight or ship battle, you've basically seen them all, though they do try to slightly mix up the defeat of the main pirates, at least, almost as if deliberately hanging a lampshade on how similar it all is. The ballroom dances are a chore and last far too long, but you'll want to do them to get valuable items and information. Finally, and this might just be me, the difficulty seems to ramp up mercilessly as soon as you pass the lowest setting.
As with many others, I think the graphics are nicer but the overall game is a bit of a step down due to the quicktime events, simplified swordplay, and hard-to-manage inventory- though I will give the game credit for giving me a reasonable carrying limit and not making me visit an inn every five minutes to drop off my extra items like the first game. However, even the graphics are a little glitchy, with small items like amulets and hair jittering around and clipping through things, and it even crashed a couple times when going through a door, though that was rare. Most of all, the atmosphere and plot are a bit of a letdown. While the game tells a good story and involves lots of reading like the first, this time around it seems to be mostly about politics and remembering the names and relationships of literally dozens upon dozens of people and kingdoms. I get that Geralt being forced into politics against his will is a theme of both games, but I really feel like they went light on the monster-hunting in this one. Maybe I should try again with Iorveth's path instead of Roche's and see if it's any better? One plus side was the gradual reveal of more and more information about the Wild Hunt throughout the game, which I found interesting and foreboding and which gives me a lot of hope for the third installment, given its title. Also nice was that the sexism was slightly toned down for this one- it's still absolutely rampant, but it feels more like a natural part of the game's world now that Geralt isn't sleeping with half the women he meets and collecting nude trading cards of them. So in short, not a bad effort, but some bad design decisions and a lot of running around punctuated by massive, minutes-long infodumps that can be a bit overwhelming and hard to follow. Oh, and the Draug fight on Dark Mode is incredibly cheap and unfair, not to mention ten times harder than any other fight, so poor balancing too.
