OK let me start by saying that this game has NOTHING to do with Bethesda. The GOG page for this game states "iD Software and Bethesda". The only reason it says Bethesda is because Zenimax Media bought iD and gave control of the company to Bethesda, but this happened recently, and Bethesda (thank GOD) has nothing to do with this game. Return to Castle Wolfenstein is the sequel to the grandfather of modern day FPS games : Wolfenstein 3D. It was released a dull decade after the first game and the genre had come a long way. RTCW makes use of all the evolution and progress which happened from 1992 onwards to bring the player one of the most crisp, fun and challenging single player shooter experience of the era. Using the Quake III engine, the mechanics and gameplay are as fluid as you would expect them to be. RTCW uses a largely unmodified version of the Q3 engine so, unlike other titles which made use of the same engine (such as Medal Of Honor : Allied Assault), the speed and feel remains very similar to the iD's multiplayer masterpiece. There is no pretense here. No tricks. No "wow" moments or pointless immersion breaking cut scenes. This is a shooter from the golden era of PC gaming, and one of the best single player FPS games ever made. It is no frills, pure blood FPS action, PC style. The maps are sprawling and deadly, the enemies will not miss very often and you have to be merciless if you want to progress. Luckily the weapon and shooting mechanics are almost perfect, which will help you on your way but still requires skill and careful planning, especially on the harder levels. The story is cheesy but takes the player to some epic locations which make full use of the engine and the talents of the level designers, from huge outdoor areas to underground, Nazi Zombie infested caverns. That part is a tribute to "Operation Eisenfaust" perhaps. You need to play this game. You should have already played this game. One of the best FPS games ever made.
Metro is a strange game. It is a pureblood FPS, but certainly not a run and gun affair such as Wolfenstein New Order or Doom III. Metro has a story and the narrative drives the gameplay. So although, as you read on these reviews, the game is very linear - it is paced extremely well and as such the game feels less linear than it actually is. The graphics are amazing. They were superb when the game was released some years ago, but few people had the gaming rig to drive the game in full settings back then. Todays average hardware doesn't struggle to give the players the full experience, even in these "redux" version, which don't look much better than the PC orignals. The "redux" games were created with the consoles in mind, as the new Playstation and Xbos finally had enough grunt to play the PC version of the game. But forget about the graphics ... it's not imporant. What is important is the gameplay, and Metro gameplay is awesome. The atmosphere is oozing and ominous, the characters are well written and look very convincing. You really get the feeling that survival in the Metro is as difficult as the game is (on the harder settings) and every bullet counts. I really mean that ... every single bullet counts. Because down here, ammo is currency. It was refreshing to see an FPS game, and one this well written and beautiful, make it out into a market saturated with "modern military shooters" like the endless repetition of COD and Battlefield and their spin off clones. Metro takes you back to when games were very different from one another, and stays an amazing game. The combat was glitchy in the original Metro 2033 release (it's only major fault) but the Redux version brings the much improved combat of Last Light to the original game. So this is no longer a problem. The only problem is staying alive, not running out of bullets and having the nerve to finish the game, because it takes guts and stamina as well as much as skill. Metro is an awesome experience.
One of the best and timeless RTS games ever made. And Jeremy Soule did the soundtrack! The only problem with Total Annihilation was simply how far ahead of it's time it actually was. Even a top end PC of the era struggled to play the game with decent framerates. Dropping the very few graphical settings to low and reducing the resolution to the minimum 640x480 hardly helped at all. Duing the later stages of the game having a large army crash against the AI's force would reduce you to single digit frames per second. A nuclear attack could potentially crash your entire PC. I had a very expensive and fast Pentium 200mmx back then and it was nowhere near capable of smooth gameplay in Total Annihilation. Skip forward a few years and my friends and I all bought Pentium 3 550Mhz machines and were able to play TA on LAN pretty effectively. There was still some slowdown but it was playable for the most part. This was with the standard unit cap of 250 per player. Having 150+ advanced fighter planes on screen did reduce the gameplay to single frames per second again, but if you had 150+ advanced fighter planes on your screen, chances are you were only seconds away from winning the game anyway, so you didn't really care. I now have an i5-2500 @ 3.6Ghz and I can play TA in 1920x1080 and the experience is astounding. Even with a unit cap of 1500, I have mothballed over 900 Vamps around my base and CTRL+ALL clicked them to wipe out the entire map and it is silky smooth (almost). The game only uses a single core so even a fast but old Pentium 4 can do this. I have to say TA was my favourite RTS of all time for over a decade but I cannot ignore the genius of Blizzard in Starcraft II. They are two very different games, and I play both equally as much. It is a shame that neither Taylors Supreme Commander or the disapointing Planetary Annihilation came close to capturing the scale and epic magic of the original. Maybe one day someone will be able to do it justice...
F.E.A.R was a strange release. In the days after Halflife 2, the FPS scene had changed somewhat drastically. While many subsequent games borrowed and emulated the cinematic storytelling of Valves masterpiece, the focus began to shift into something new, having been stuck for over a decade with the Doom style of get keycard, open door, reach the next level sort of linear "run and gun" gameplay. With games such as Doom 3 and Quake 4 finding a happy medium between these two playstyles, F.E.A.R also remained at heart an oldschool. combat focused FPS but with some exploration and added storytelling. It was also a very big surprise for me because, despite at first being skeptical of the game having seen little coverage in the magazines about the game, I very much enjoyed playing through it's gripping, tense story. And there was lots of blood... The combat is great, the AI will outflank you and flush you out with grenades much of the time. The graphics were amazing back in the day and even now they are clean and crisp. There is no clutter, nothing to get in the way of the gameplay. And the gameplay is why I loved F.E.A.R. Weapon balance, difficulty, level design, pacing... everything is of a high standard. The game is very challenging at the higher difficulty levels, forcing you to constantly be aware of your surroundings should you be ambushed, having to backtrack to pickup health after a tense firefight and searching out those secret areas for the perma boost upgrades scattered around the levels. The storyline flows nicely and will keep you on your toes : F.E.A.R is not a game for the squeemish. There is blood, guts, shotgun dismemberment in slow motion with a hazy blood spattered mist, not to mention the paranormal activity surrounding the missions... For F.E.A.R. itself, £3.39 is an amazing price for such a quality game. The two expansions are just a bonus. Graphics 7/10 Sound 8/10 Gameplay 9/10 Atmosphere 10/10 Replayability 7/10 Overall 8/10
Most of the complaints regarding Fallout : Tactics centre around one thing - the lack of open ended RPG elements and the concentration on Combat only mission based play. To me, this is exactly what makes FO:T. There are some RPG elements, as you have to nurture your squad of recruits and make certain choices in game which affect not only the outcome of the missions, but also your standing within the Brotherhood of Steel. Although the main meat of the game comes from the combat. Amazing well designed maps, multiple goals and an endless variety of approaches make FO:T the best turn based isometric squad based combat game ever made. The fact that it is set in the Fallout universe is just the icing on the cake. From the earliest missions, where tactics are of the most importance as you face overwhelming odds and must think hard how to engage and overcome your enemy, right through the penultimate mission where you have to drive an Ice Cream van with a nuke strapped to the roof through enemy infested minefields, the action never lets off. The genius of the game and it's design far outweigh the minor flaws and as some of the missions can take hours on end to finish, the value for money is outstanding. I not only recommend this to Fallout 1 + 2 fans, but to anyone looking for a serious, challenging turn based combat game.