This is a great game in many ways; not only is it a classic adventure game, it has an interesting ship-based combat system, however for both, studying the manual first is an absolute must; like many classic games this one does not teach you how to play! The missions are interesting and diverse, with some choice in how to solve them, resulting in a commendation at the end, however there isn't too much flexibility; most will require the same basic set of puzzles to be solved, and while the solutions to these are sometimes straightforward, many are infuriating (like working out door codes, I still don't know where I was supposed to get the information for this or if it was just trial and error!). Unfortunately the biggest failing with this game is its ending; despite being one of the best levels the final part of the last mission has to be done in a meticulous order or it will become impossible to proceed, I'm very disappointed this wasn't fixed, so save often! Furthermore, even once you do do it you are thrown into a battle that is effectively impossible to win; one on one ship combat is tricky, two on one is hard, but the final battle is three on one, and includes the hardest single enemy in the game! It's a shame since, as so often happens, a bad ending can really spoil an otherwise good game. I still recommend playing it, but beware the ending!
I love Railroad Tycoon 3, in spite of a few annoyances, so I expected this to be somewhat similar, unfortunately it's unlikely to scratch the itch for fans of the Railroad Tycoon series. In terms of track management, there are tools for laying parallel track alongside existing single-tracks, and you can choose where to place points for trains to wait/pass one another. At first glance this should be fun to manage when combined with the Hard routing mode that prevents trains from passing through each other. However, in practice the system doesn't scale at all as there is no way to limit track to a particular direction, which means that trains will automatically pick any track that looks free, only to encounter another coming the other way and become grid-locked. To overcome these issues requires a lot of work and strange solutions, and doesn't result in a very realistic or efficient railway, it's also more frustrating than fun as it's easy to get stuck with leftover pieces you can't remove or replace properly, along with visual clutter like signals. In terms of the actual mechanics of the game, the industrial model is simplistic; RT3 had businesses appearing organically to meet demand, but prohibitively expensive to build yourself, with goods making their way own over land, passengers wanting to go to specific destinations etc., Railroads! has none of these things. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it's not just simple, it's far too easy; except at the very beginning of a game it is just too basic to be rewarding and you're soon floating in more money than you can spend. The single scenarios are likewise underwhelming; most have very difficult initial objectives, followed by a massive stretch with no challenge and nothing to do. In RT3 even a company doing well was in a constant struggle with its board and financiers, plus there were usually meaningful events to keep things interesting. While this is graphically pretty, Railroad Tycoon 3 is by far the better game.
This is a good game, not great, but still a solid adventure title. Story is strong, characterisation is… okay, but the gameplay is particularly nice, with generally logical puzzling with some complex ones thrown in here and there (often skippable if you get really stuck). Unfortunately the game is let down by translation and performance issues; I noticed a number of dialogues that were badly translated, or even lacked english subtitles. The voice acting is also generally poor, lending very little weight to the subject matter, which was disappointing. Performance wise the game is normally fine, but I noticed a lot of audio distortion on cutscenes, and some areas had noticeable delays when moving from screen to screen (or even just moving up and down with the same screen), which got frustrating when back-tracking a lot. Overall a good game though, and worth playing. Oh, remember to inspect items in your inventory! I got stumped so many times when I forgot to!
The Book of Unwritten Tales is a beautifully realised, heavily tongue-in-cheek fantasy adventure game that errs on the side of cliché, breaking of the fourth wall and gaming references. It's hard to classify this game though, as it's rated 12+, but often feels geared towards younger children, while at the same time referencing things more familiar to an older RPG/adventure gaming audience. As a result it can feel a bit confused, and the frequent jokes become a bit tiresome, not helped by clunky, often long-winded dialogue. However, the interface is slick and easy to grasp, and the puzzling is generally logical if a bit too easy. Overall it's a good game, perhaps not very re-playable but it has a charm and entertainment enough. Oh, and if you find a Crumpled Note, you can right-click it; never had to do it with anything else, but… yeah.
This game has some great inventory puzzling (item combining) mechanics, and has some slick visuals, but I just didn't find it very immersive; your character's narration is poor and corny, and a lot of what you're doing is very banal and boring. There isn't a particular sense of mystery or suspense to drive you onwards, which makes it hard to stay engaged. It's not bad by any means, and it's a decent offering to the genre, it just doesn't have enough character compared to the great games that really suck you in to their universe. Also, the Mac version seems to lock up sometimes so that the controls become unresponsive; I FINALLY managed to slingshot all the damn monkeys when this happened to me, making it impossible to save. The lack of an autosave feature as well is disappointing, as the need to save isn't particularly obvious, nor is the option readily accessible.
This is a game with a ton of fun mechanics, but also a bunch of terrible ones (or at least very poorly balanced). It has a lot of potential, and it's a real shame not to see it more fully realised, but it's worth playing anyway, if only to see if you can beat it before you can't help but give up in frustration instead. It has two elements that ultimately conflict; namely a scarcity of resources that has you moments away from going adrift or being unable to repair hull damage, but combines this with a high degree of randomisation that means that winning the game is all about beating the odds, rather than any actual player skill. If stores stocked a few items with more consistency (like the cloning lab and recovery arm) then things wouldn't be so bad, but as it stands the randomisation serves to make the game very, very frustrating, even on normal difficulty!
I used to play Master of Orion 2 all the time, but it's perhaps one of those games that I remember more fondly than I should. It does do a lot of things very, very right, with rich diplomacy options, and tons to do. However, it requires micro-management at pretty much every level, which means that playing a competitive empire with a well-maintained fleet is a huge amount of effort, but on the other hand playing a small, focused empire rarely works unless you get just the right (randomly selected) leaders with the bonuses you need. On Average difficulty this is a fun game, and definitely one of the defining turn-based strategy games, but higher difficulties tend to be less challenging and more just an exercise in frustration, and later game empire management can feel more like a tedious job than a game. Fortunately the game pacing is fast, IMO too fast, as your ships are often outdated the turn after they are built, however this means that if you play to win as fast as possible then you can have a blast and waste a lot less of your time on the AI which quite simply cheats to an insane degree (far more than necessary to remain challenging). Unfortunately I never tried MOO 1, and perhaps I should, but graphically it has aged far worse than MOO 2, which has made it very difficult to get into.
I do wonder if this game should have been a Zork title or simply released as it's own stand-alone creation. It lacks the quirky humour of its predecessors, but at the same time what light relief it does have is made all the more rewarding for the dark and mysterious atmosphere. As an adventure game however it is simply must be played; the game has stunning (for the time) visuals with a level of artistic direction that and a quality of story-telling that still outclasses many modern titles. The dark mystery is enhanced by equally haunting music, high quality sound design and some great live action performances. The puzzles are often fiendishly difficult, relying on clues in the many books and alchemical diagrams around the game, and for which a quality notebook is an absolute must (and part of the experience). Although some can be frustratingly arbitrary in true adventure game tradition, it is hard to stay mad at them in such a well crafted environment. I was a little disappointed that the soundtrack isn't part of the free bonus content though, as I would pay just to get my hands on high quality copies of the music!
This is a fine example of classic adventure gaming; a mixture of cute environments, quirky characters plus challenging (and often infuriating puzzles). Compared to other, similar adventure titles Beneath a Steel Sky can be a little repetitive with a lot of revisiting areas to see if something's changed, or while trying in vain to find something for which that sandwich is the ideal solution; although many of the puzzles and fairly easy with some light creative thinking or good guesswork, others can be extremely arbitrary; leaving you stuck for ages just because you didn't choose that one dialogue option for that one character at the other end of the game world; so absolutely choose every dialogue option you can as you never know what will trigger something new. Voice acting in this game is functional enough if a bit lacklustre at times, and the music can get annoying very quickly. This adventure does nonetheless have some great little features such as Joey your little robot pal who can be used to solve various puzzles, and the storyline, though not exactly gripping still has some twists towards the end. For a free title this is something well worth trying, and I do recommend sticking with it, and who knows, you may just develop that craving for adventure gaming all over again :)
