One of those early 2000s FPS titles for the PC that made me fan already the first time i saw it being presented during a german games show called GIGA Games which was the first time i ever got in contact with a modern FPS game in the tradition of old DOS 3D shooters that had hordes of enemies and a not so important (but not unimportant) backstory. The whole game really lives through its not-so-serious presentation and humorous enemy design. Yelling headless freaks with bombs instead of hands, running towards you in masses or jumping skeleton kangaroo freaks, slimy toads, giant Bio-mechs, one eyed meatballs with arms.... and so on and so forth. And if you are not a fan of red blood, you can change it to green or even change it to flowers without any blood what so ever. The so called Hippie Mode. Weapon-wise the game also throws all sorts of things at you to shoot at these hordes of enemies with. One of the biggest fun factors of this game is the co-op mode which i often played with a good friend of mine. So you can basically play & finish this game by yourself or with a friend. If you just want a shooter without too much story or complicated gameplay mechanics and just want some "brain out" fun, this game is the right thing for you. Even today this game plays pretty well and hardware requirements are laughably low. So if you plan on playing it on more dated hardware, like laptops from around 2006/2007 or so, this game would still play great on low-end hardware.
Yes, the GOG version is "The Ultimate Doom" with the additional extra 4th Episode as well as some minor changes in the Leveldesign (like the extra switch in E1M1) but apart from that it is essentially the same game you got on CD-ROM back then. It is just the DOS version. No Doom95 launcher but you really don't miss it because nowdays you have better Ports to play it on modern PC systems. If you want the original PC DOS experience but without the DOS Box underlayer, i suggest you chose Chocolate Doom to play your WAD files with. In my opinion this is the ONLY true authentic Doom engine port that looks and feels exactly like playing it on a old DOS PC, without extra shaders or 60+fps and no jumping and mouselook. Just the original 1993 Doom experience. Even without it, this preconfigured DOS Box package comes with everything you need. Sadly there is no Linux installer. Just for Windows.
I bought the Disc release back in 2015 or so. Shortly after that, to support the developers, I bought the Steam version as well. However none of these versions supported my hardware fully and did not recognize my switchable GPU. So if you waned to run it on a Laptop that has dual GPUs it would always only detect the weaker Intel Graphics. That is a bug that fortunately got fixed in the Redux version. The savegame system is also much better now. If these things are important to you, then you should really only get Hard Reset Redux. It's a great game in both versions. Always loved this strong Blade Runner kind of atmosphere of the ingame world. Especially at the beginning.
Yes, this game is actually fully patched and not a 1.00 version like the one that used to be sold elsewhere in the Apogee Throwback Pack. So you won't have to worry about having to patch it yourself as this GOG version is already patched for you. The DOSBOX underlayer is well adjusted and you even get a installer pack for Linux as well. Which was one of the reasons why i bought it. :) I played the shareware version back in 2001 together with some other 90s DOS PC 3D shooters. I loved the enhanced raycast 3D engine from Wolfenstein 3D which in this game now supports texture mapped ceilings and floors. However i always felt Blake Stone to be a LOT harder than Wolfenstein 3D and there is even a lot more to explore. The environment is partially interactive like food dispensers that you can use by collecting coin tokens or asking scientists who give you some. But not all of them are friendly but actually betray and attack you. Which ads quite a lot of uncertainty and making you feel like a spy :) The enemy design is also pretty wild and very cool. The overall game design is very creative and i'm sure if my parents would have had a PC back in the mid 90s, THIS would have been a title i would have played like crazy. Playing it now makes me very nostalgic about the early 2000s when i first discovered titles like this when i finally had a PC on my own and playing several shareware versions of titles like Blake Stone. It is a wonderful modern release that still is exactly the game as you know and i can totally recommend it. Hours of fun :)
The only version of Fallout 3 you need to buy. No DRM, no half-hearted remaster, just the game you know and love and also leaving you the choice of what language you wanna have. However keep in mind that Fallout 3 will NOT properly detect switchable GPUs but will only run with Intel graphics if you have something like Nvidia Optimus. Even if you set the game to the performance GPU through software configuration, Fallout 3 will still only run with the Intel Graphics. Keep that in mind. It's an old Bug that still hasn't been fixed and probably never will be. So if you have just one GPU, it won't be a problem then. Yes, it also runs with Intel Graphics but it will have some performance issues.
THIS is how a remaster should be done. And once again Nightdive delivers. I played the original version somewherein 2003 using DOSBox since i had no system anymore that could natively run this game in DOS and my system was also pretty weak to run this game at full speed in DOSBox. It still ran but not really all that well. So when Nightdive announced they would be releasing this game i was relieved and instantly bought on release day. And apart from some smaller bugs on release, which have been subsequently patched, i must say playing this game has never bee more fun. it's a FANTASTIC remaster and you can still play it in a purist way if you want to, thanks to the many game- and video options. Even the original was already a full recommendation for everyone who loves fun and morbid games with so much love for details, easter eggs, hidden secrets and such a strong 90s 3D game flair. The remastered version even comes with motivating achievements for GOG Galaxy users. Very high replay value because of the creative level design and fun range of weapons. Totally recommended, even if you haven't played this game before.
First of all i gotta thank my best buddy from school who introduced me to "The Games - Winter Challenge" back in 2001 or so. He often showed me some games he used to play in the 90s on his grandfathers PC and i instantly fell n love with the game as well. A year later i got a bunch of Floppies in a floppy case from another friend of mine from school who felt like getting rid off stuff he didn't need anymore. Among those floppies was a copy of "The Games - Summer Challenge". I wasn't aware that Winter Challenge had a sequel so when i played it on my own PC at home it was like playing more levels of an already great game. Only this time with a different season. Technically both games are indeed something you really could only really enjoy on a PC, combining the best of both worlds, lovely 2D sprites as well as early 3D backgrounds & environments. Both works absolutely wonderful and the range of sport disciplines you get to play is both challenging and fun to play. Sometimes you need to do some of them a few times to get a feeling for how to do it properly. Especially Summer Challenge seem to be a little harder than "Winter Challenge". The wonderful VGA graphics and, the Adlib soundtrack as well as the digitized speech samples still put a smile on your face. Even after all these years, these games are still fun and quite challenging. I often played both games together with my best friend and we broke each others best times for every discipline. And i am so happy that both games are finally available here. The GOG version is perfect in every way and I really couldn't be happier. DOSBox underlayer is perfectly adjusted to the game and everything runs perfectly as it should. And the great thing is it even comes with a installer package for Linux right from the start. I really appreciate that. So yeah, i can absolutely recommend both games that you get in this package. Worth the money. Even when it's not on sale :)
One of the BEST late 90s 3D shooters for PC there is. And it still holds up really well, over 20 years later. And also the last PC game that uses Modules for the dynamic score. And speaking of the score, it is amazing too and really takes you back when you could have awesome scores in a game without having to rely on CD-Audio or OGG / MP3. That's also why the game's storage-space footprint on the harddrive is so small. But don't get fooled by it's small size, the game itself is HUGE and you will be surprised how big it is once you dive into the fantastic world of Unreal. For a game that came out in 1998 it has proven to be be still interesting and fun to play and yes, it is better than Half Life. There, i've said it.
Really love it. I had never heard of the game back then and only saw it when it was on GOG for discount during a sale. Gotta say I was pleasantly surprised how well it plays. The controls are VERY arcade and the difficult curve is pretty steep. It's quite a challenge and i must say this game deserves all the love it can get. A wonderful GOG release :) It reminds me a lot of "Street Racer" only with Anime Style.
