I have poured so many hours into both the GOG and Steam releases of this game. After having a super-crappy day, this game is the kind of relaxing as-difficult-as-you-want-it catharsis I find is sorely needed. Nightmare Reaper takes the best ideas from a ton of legendary FPS games, adds some of its own amazing ideas, and throws a ridiculously long and enjoyable campaign at you, featuring grinding arenas and multiple minigames (these can be disabled in the options while not affecting the gameplay). Small game team vibe, with the excellent Andrew Hulshult on music. The game is a Boomy-Loot-Shoot distilled to a mirror shine, with tons of weapons and weapon modifiers. With the upcoming co-op update, I will without question pour hundreds more hours into this amazing game. I can't recommend this enough.
If you like any kind of FPS that isn't based on stealth, you'll love this.
I'll split this in two from initial reactions. Warcraft 1 - DOSBOX'd original with the usual configuration. The low-res really shows how much the game has aged, but for those who crave to see where the series began, this is the best way to run it outside of building yourself an old DOS machine. 5/5 for accuracy, the original game itself hasn't changed. Warcraft 2 - Really nice to see Battle.net with both expansions in tow here. When the release mentioned upscaling, I thought there might be an expanded map view, but its just antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. It looks fantastic, and as a cranky-old gamer-dude I only have two gripes: * Forced cd audio music. While most would consider it to be the definitive way to hear the songs, I would have liked to have had the old option for a MIDI configuration via something like BASSMIDI, ADLMIDI, OPLMIDI, etc. Not enough to lose a star but the cheese from hearing the original songs played back in Adlib glory would have been a nice bonus. * Battle.net only for original graphics release. Haven't tested it just yet but the top menu indicates that LAN mode is only supported for the enhanced graphics release. Maybe this was done to continue supporting anyone running it on original hardware with Battle.net support? Not sure, but it's a limitation that is going to discourage me personally from trying to play on net. All in all, a great purchase for anyone interested in the roots of the franchise, as well as revisiting the original RTS LAN party days. Now, back to poking the seals...
Hypnospace Outlaw is a game in some very loose senses, but also goes well beyond the usual fare of what a game is. It's similar to Kingsway in that it apes the visual aplomb of vintage operating systems and interfaces. It's similar to Emily is Away in how its gameplay emulates window management and "standard" web browsing. You get emails and tasks but the amount of attention to detail of the whole experience is so complete and genuine-feeling. You play as a new Hypnospace Enforcer, patrolling the Hypnospace pages using your Enforce Edition HypnOS to strike down infringing content across an internet-like world that is access by people dreaming. You get to download virtual pets, music, collectibles, images, themes, sound effects, and have access to email, interface customization, and more. The deeper you go, the weirder things get. You can search for web pages or just tumble down the rabbithole by clicking link after link to end up who-knows-where. Populated by amateurishly-designed pages with lots of annoying (on purpose) background music, spinning gifs, low-res videos, and blog entries, Hypnospace is enticing to those who remember the pioneer days of the web as well as those who enjoy lapooning popular culture. There is a lot of darkness lurking in the innocence of the Hynpospace, so be careful what you click on... I've enjoyed what amount I've played thus far, as it has proven hard to put down once you really get going. Highly recommended!
Finally, Worms World Party is playable on modern OSes without silly hacks or cracks or patches. With support for current resolutions (for the most party). AND GOG Galaxy support, so hopefully Internet Multiplayer works even better than it used to! There are a few caveats to the creamy goodness here, though. I absolutely respect the amount of time and effort the dev team(s) put into making this thing happen. It's been a long time coming and it is great to have the definitive pre-3D Worms experience playable to the modern masses and available digitally. 1) Don't think everything will be glossy. The Menu UI is still a bit wonky, with slowdowns on the menu transitions and a weird semi-windowed (Fullscreen Window Borderless) mode that uses the old square resolution types. With a dual monitor setup, this means a lot of window shifting between menu and games between the screens. Not a dealbreaker, but something to be made aware of. At least they work and don't freeze or get weird colors like the original CD release on anything past XP. 2) Feels unoptimized. I'm running an AMD FX 8320 w/ 16GB RAM and a Geforce 570 GTX and I'm getting some strange FPS issues. It's not tied to Vertical Sync, because even with it disabled, it feels like it jumps between 30 and 60 fps with zero variations inbetween. Tt doesn't feel as snappy as I would have expected, especially compared to the older release on older machines. It's great that it works, might be worth investing a little bit more time in fixing the rough edges. That's about it! Minor issues in what otherwise seems like a great release. It's awesome that WORMNET is working the way it should, though I haven't actually played a game on it yet. Thanks again to all parties for making this re-release possible! Long live the LAN Parties. Long live Worms World Party.
