Imagine a RTS game where the first level feels like the final level, where you're expected to perform absolutely flawlessly against overwhelming odds, and even then, you have only a 50% chance of winning. A game that punishes you mercilessly with impossibly vast opposing armies while you're still trying to figure out how basic combat works and what the different units and structures even do. A game that defies every strategy you try and leaves no room for experimentation, exploration or learning, only defeat, over and over. A lot of people call this fun, I call it abysmal game design. This is like playing Super Mario Bros. with one life and no continues, or Tetris with only L-shaped pieces at five times normal speed, or Castlevania without the ability to swing the whip. Challenging? Most definitely. Fun? I don't think so. The opening cinematic drew me in, I like the wide variety of spells, the graphics, while unnecessarily tiny for some reason, looked fine, and I was eager to see where the plot went playing as both the Keepers and the Cult of Storms. Unfortunately I won't be able to without cheating. At least I got this one for free.
Afterlife plays and looks a lot like Simcity 2000, but brings a lot of new concepts to the city-building genre. The most distinct, of course, is that you can manage Heaven and Hell at once, essentially running two cities at the same time, but in opposite ways. In Heaven, organized roads and diverse zoning are essential, but in Hell, long winding roads and monolithic blocks of the same zone are needed. On that basic level, anyone can pick up the game and play it, and be entertained for a good few hours. The in-game tutorials are enough to get you started, but if you want to actually "win" the game (getting a billion souls in both Heaven and Hell), you'll need to read the manual, experiment, and delve into every minute aspect of the game. There's a lot that's not obvious, such as being able to interact with the "living world" you're drawing your souls from and influence their beliefs, which has varied effects on how they act when they arrive in the afterlife. Balancing each reward or punishment is also very important, and can get either very tedious or very expensive. There's a lot to keep track of, but it's an amazing feeling when you finally reach victory. Of course, the best thing about the game is the creative and funny design. Every building has a rather humorous description you can read, and you really get drawn in to the world that's created. While mostly played for laughs, you also get a dose of the actual bliss or torment you'd come to expect from Heaven and Hell, and some of the fates you can assign to the souls either give you the warm fuzzies or are genuinely cringe-inducing. Even a simple concept like a place in Heaven where you can find everything you ever lost, or a never-ending search for an empty space in a Hellish parking garage really stirs the imagination in a way that most SimCity-style games can't match. Definitely recommended- this one kept me busy for days, and is a sadly overlooked gem.
Prisoner of Ice is a big improvement over its predecessor Shadow of the Comet in terms of gameplay, but still a bit of a disappointment for a Lovecraft game. Pros: The annoying, unresponsive controls are gone, replaced with a simple point and click interface. The backgrounds look good and are highly detailed. The pseudo-3D characters less so, but for the time they're not too bad. The plot moves along at a brisk pace, there's quite a bit of action and suspense, and you'll rarely find yourself wondering what you're even supposed to be doing, unlike Shadow of the Comet. The plot starts off rather dull, but soon takes some unexpected turns. Some of the plot twists are pretty clever and cool. Some of the puzzles make sense without being too easy. I never got stuck for long, though I may have gotten lucky. Cons: There's barely any characterization for anyone. More than in the first game, but still bare bones. Ryan and Diane begin to show hints of personality while solving puzzles together, but it's over all too quickly. A lot of puzzles require you to do random things with no indication of why, especially towards the end. The lack of hints or logic for some events just feels lazy. Other puzzles require pixel-hunting. The game is quite short, and leaves you wanting more. While enjoyable, the game does a pretty poor job of capturing the feel of a Lovecraft story. The mood is more like a cross between a spy movie and a sci-fi B movie, instead of cosmic horror. You get the feeling they weren't taking this very seriously right from the opening credits, where everything is prefaced with "Prisoners of" (Prisoners of Script, Prisoners of Graphics, etc.) Yeah. Hi-larious, guys. Truly the height of wit. This might be just me, but there were several graphics and sound bugs. Again, still fewer than the first game. All in all, a huge improvement over Shadow of the Comet, but awfully lame compared to what was yet to come, like CoC: Dark Corners of the Earth or Eternal Darkness.
I never played either System Shock game back when they came out- eventually I heard about SS2 for its fame on several lists of the greatest games ever, gave it a try, and loved it. But the first game hardly ever got mentioned, as though it were just a mediocre placeholder until the greatness of the sequel. Well, I've finally played it, and it deserves far more praise than it gets. Full disclosure, I only played the Enhanced Edition, so I may be a little biased, but this game was immerse, fun, scary and pretty much perfect. The graphics, while dated, are very good for the era- Dark Forces came out a year later and looks like a blurry, primitive mess compared to System Shock. The voice acting is kind of amateur, with the exception of SHODAN, who sounds just as menacing and creepy as in the sequel. The controls are a little awkward for the first few minutes, and there's a lot to figure out all at once, but it quickly becomes fluid and easy, and some quirks, like having to physically switch to your weapon, unload it and reload a new clip instead of just hitting a "reload" key, add to the realism, atmosphere and strategy of the game rather than being annoying. The game gives you a wide variety of weapons, ammo, and bionic implants, which keeps things interesting and fun, and lets you develop your own styles against the different enemy types. But best of all is the level design. It's immensely satisfying to explore Citadel Station, unlocking new areas and conquering new challenges. The game rewards you well for exploring every corner with shortcuts between areas, hidden caches, and crew logs that expand the story, and everything feels like it has a purpose, or at least had one before SHODAN's army rebuilt it into a death trap. The 3D cyberspace sequences add some variety to the gameplay, and add to the impressive worldbuilding. All in all, this game deserves a place of honor equal to its sequel. Play it, you won't be disappointed!
I had trouble even getting this game to run right- it seemed like the characters' movements were always too jerky and rapid, their mouths flapping a mile a minute and their eyes rolling wildly around in their heads, and the text boxes with their dialogue would linger a long, long, loooooooong time after the audio had concluded. Messing with the settings and framerate didn't really fix it, so I gave up and decided to go ahead and play the game anyway... and good lord, what a clunky, awkward, obnoxious interface. The walking is keyboard-based and hard to control, it's hard to tell what you can and can't interact with or how to use things together, you have to be EXACTLY lined up with a person or doorway to speak or travel... after I got killed because the damn walking controls wouldn't stop when I told them to, I finally decided it would be more fun to just watch a playthrough on YouTube. And then I found out that the crazy character movements and eternal pauses after each dialogue box weren't because of my system, the game is just badly made. Bad, confusing puzzles, lack of direction or clear goals, awful voice acting (made worse by the long pauses between literally EVER SINGLE line), shallow characters you can hardly interact with, and a plot that was a bit hard to follow even watching someone else play it, that seemingly has every major Lovecraft entity needlessly shoehorned in. The graphics are ok for the era but not very conducive to a Lovecraftian horror theme, the music is repetitive, the ending is cheesy and awful, and the bonus Lovecraft Museum feature is pretty lame and uninteresting. As a huge Lovecraft fan, I was really looking forward to this game, eagerly awaiting its release on GOG for years, but damn, what a disappointment. I hope Prisoner of Ice is better; I haven't tried that one yet. If you're looking for a good Lovecraft game, skip this and get Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (if you can stand the many, many bugs) or Eternal Darkness.
There's little I can say that hasn't already been said. It's a great game, not perfect, not the best ever made, but definitely one with a very distinct mood and personality, fun gameplay, and surprising emotional depth and immersion despite its relative simplicity and short length. It definitely deserves a sequel (and the ending begs for one), and luckily it looks like that may finally happen- it's been rumored to be in development since 2008 but, unlike most vaporware, it seems to have making steady progress year by year- by all appearances it's actually coming along and news is being released about it on a regular basis... it's just taking a really, really, really long time to come to fruition. A few cons: The GOG version has flickering problems, especially on the loading screens and item box, which persisted to a small degree even after I performed the recommended fixes. It wasn't enough to mess with the gameplay, but was an annoying distraction. The camera angles, though probably no worse than other games of the era, were also irritatingly uncooperative, especially when driving the hovercraft or fighting large groups of enemies. And damn, that race announcer is really obnoxious. Pros: Too many to list, but one in particular is a surprisingly scary and menacing final boss that stands out from the generally cartoony style of the other characters. The villains' motivations are never really explained, but the mystery of their origins and connection to Jade are a high point of the game, and the final stages add a lot of creepiness and danger that was generally lacking in the authoritarian but bumbling enemies of the planetside stages. Another pro would be the extensive use of the camera, as everything from an item identifier to a "look mode" to a decoder to a, well, camera. It almost functions as its own character, and I liked the emphasis on journalism and the consequences of Jade's photographic espionage.
I'd never heard of this one until it came out on GOG, but I'm sure glad I gave it a try. This is straight out of the glory days of LucasArts, before they cancelled Sam and Max, before they churned out nothing but garbage Star Wars prequel games, back when virtually everything they made was well-crafted, unique and fun. The passion and care put into this game really shows. The gameplay is very similar to Dark Forces, but with slightly better graphics and innovations such as swimming (you could swim in DF, but only on the surface, here you can explore underwater), a rifle scope, improved AI, etc. The level design is fantastic, with lots of varied and dangerous terrain and hidden secrets. The enemies are varied enough to not get boring, and defy the usual "enemy type that takes exactly this many hits" pattern, with some randomly having better aim or more health than others, regardless of their appearance. The graphics, though dated and blocky, actually convey the dusty Western atmosphere very well, the stylized cutscenes are great, the soundtrack is absolutely fantastic, and the game in general does an excellent job of drawing you in. The plot, though pretty basic and stereotypical, works well for this revenge-driven tale, and the way the bosses taunt and mock you is quite effective- each has quite a bit of personality, though the mad Doctor is the only one who really gets fleshed out much beyond the backstory in the manual. There were only a few downsides- the glitch where the music stops when you enter the save menu was very annoying, as was the lack of a quicksave button- this is a hard game where a couple lucky shots can kill you instantly, and you save a LOT. The levels could be a little too convoluted sometimes, and it got tedious wandering the corpse-strewn rooms looking for a secret passage. The bosses were pretty easy- usually I picked them off from a distance before they could see me, but maybe that was by design. Overall, great game and well worth a buy!
Add me to the list of people who are disappointed that the GOG version doesn't include the audio drama, nor any other versions of the game- from what I've heard, one of the other versions lets you see the main character's face briefly, and I'm curious! As for the game itself, it's good. In a departure from most Lucasarts adventure games, you have no inventory, nor any list of commands you can perform on the environment. Instead, everything is done by either clicking (which will examine or use objects and talk to people) or playing musical notes on your staff at the object or person. You can learn many different songs with different effects, including a few optional ones- I completely missed two of them and didn't realize they existed until I read an FAQ, but luckily a few puzzles have more than one solution. The graphics are beautiful, classic Lucasarts at its finest, and hold up very well today. The voice acting is also very well done, and the characters and world are charming and draw you in. There are a few problems- on expert mode, learning songs requires a keen ear and a lot of practice and experimentation, but on other modes, the notes are shown to you and the challenge is non-existent, reduced to little more than a game of Simon. Even on expert mode, the game is quite short, under three hours, which means you barely get to meet the characters before they're gone. And probably the biggest problem is that the game is a massive sequel hook with no sequel- the ending of the game has no resolution whatsoever, and, combined with the short length, this makes the whole experience about as satisfying as watching one third of a movie, then shutting it off forever. So overall good, and worth playing, but ultimately a bit disappointing, especially if you're expecting something on par with Monkey Island or Indiana Jones.
I've got to admit up front, I'm no good at side-scrolling shooters- even on easy mode, I couldn't beat this game. But that's what cheat codes are for. So, without going too much into difficulty or tactics, here's my impression: The game is pretty fun, and while it gets kind of stale quick, the wide variety of weapons you can buy adds some replay value and encourages you to try everything out and see what works best for you. There are a lot of secrets to find too, which means you'll likely spend some extra time searching for those in each level- the downside being that you probably need them to survive, so it's almost required to know where they are, especially the extra lives, which only pop up very briefly. The game is meant to be short and simple, so its lack of depth isn't a huge problem, but it might overstay its welcome. The graphics are fine for the era, but the enemies are pretty generic, most of them either classic UFO-style ships, various kinds of sea life, or Star Wars rip-off designs. The game certainly makes no effort to hide the Star Wars influence, as evidenced by the yellow text crawl in space before each mission. The bosses are disappointing- the few other shooter games I've played featured elaborate, impressive bosses that really made an impression, but here most of them are nothing but larger versions of normal enemies attacking you in groups of two or three. The backgrounds are nicer, if a little repetitive, and the fact that a third of the game is underwater is pretty cool, and something I haven't seen in this type of game before. Overall, it's okay but not great. But considering the era it was released in and the fact that it's available for free, a lot of these imperfections can be forgiven. It's definitely worth a play, but it probably won't make a big impression.
Pros: The wide variety of minions you can summon. This adds a lot of strategy and replayability to the game, as each has different attacks, strengths and weaknesses, some of which can be effectively played off each other depending on your party makeup. It's nice to have 3 extra slots so you can swap out minions for certain circumstances, too. Beautiful graphics and soundtrack. The stark, inky lines of your environment over the faded parchment-like background give this game a very unique look. Everything is extremely detailed and very pleasing to the eye- take a look at the sorcerer's hand when she casts a spell, with its arcane tattoos and rune-etched fingernails. The soundtrack is amazing- rather than epic fantasy fare, it's quite strange and wonderful, and you'll find yourself going into a pleasant trance as you explore the dungeon to its beat. There's something old school about the dungeon itself with its maze-like corridors, heroic guardians and secret passages, making it feel a lot like a 1980s D&D module brought to life. Cons: Lots of misspellings and weirdly worded dialogue. While it gets the plot across well enough, "your" and "you're" are mixed up constantly, along with many other unprofessional, easy-to-correct mistakes. Bugs. While nothing game-breaking, there are instances of temporarily getting stuck in menus that don't bring up what they're supposed to. Worst of all is a very long, involved quest involving lots of keys that just ends abruptly because the final key doesn't appear as an option in any of the last three doors, making them impossible to open (all other keys just break when you try to use them, and believe me, I found ALL of them). There's also a gem needed for another quest that's impossible to get because the chest it's supposed to be in is already opened when you find it. Though you can swap out 3 additional minions, it's not really cost-effective to train them, meaning you really need to stick with the same 3 for most of the game.
