I've only this year played Ultima 1 for the first time. Its very interesting to play and see what kind of mechanics and concepts we take for granted this game pioneered! Just... playing this game nowadays in its original form is ROUGH man. You need to play this game with a notepad or something next to you with every single keyboard command written on it, as the game will not tell you... well, anything, really. Keep notes on where you are in game progression, so if you take a break you wont be completely lost on what to do next! Its an interesting game to try out just to see how the genre got its beginnings. But for someone who never played these games as a kid, MAN is it rough to try and solve.
So before anything else, do be aware that this game has a game mechanic of enslaving native americans. It aint great. Definitely a product of its time. Objectively the game isnt bad. It reminds me of Civilization 1, but with far more in-depth colony management compared to Civ 1's city management. Its fun to plan out the economy and get the money rolling. Just... yeah. The content is pretty troublesome. Its rough to recommend the game because of that.
I never got to play the OG Diablo much until this GOG release. I ADORE Diablo 2, and spent a good amount of time with 3, so the moment 1 was added to GOG, YOINK, I wanted that. Full glad I am that I did, because I was definitely surprised at how well this game holds up! Sure its slow, as you can only walk everywhere. But everything else about the game just... works. Its fun to explore the dungeons and kill monsters. The game is challenging, but not brutally so (unless you get unlucky and need to kill the Butcher as your first quest..). Gear is varied and always exciting to find. The game has few of its own bit oldschool mechanics, like certain enemies who permanently lower your max HP when they hit you, but nothing is so egregious that it would take away from the overall experience. Its a pretty bite-sized dungeon exploration game too, in my 17 hours of playing this game i've beaten it twice. You can almost think of it as a roguelike, in a way. Just good fun to play in small dozes.
I recall playing this game SO MUCH as a kid. I only had a very, very old PC with Windows 3.1 and DOS on it, with just 3 games on it. Civ 1, Wings and this one. My memories of playing this are fond, so I was excited to see it up on the site. I bought it, left it in my library for years, and now started playing it again out of the blue. I... did not enjoy it as much now. Good things for sure are the vast, elaborate and colourful levels. The music is nice with a few standout tracks, but no themes i'd actively call bad. You get a selection of 4 different weapons you can gather from the levels. I found that the differences are.. minor. There's no real difference in damage between any of them save for one, and that's only because of a technicality. One weapon has bigger hitbox than your starting weapon, one weapon bounces around, and one shoots two shots at once, which is why it does more damage than the other ones. You also get a screen nuke... which also only deals same damage as the blaster. So its kinda silly having to spam the nuke 3-4 times with some enemies to actually kill them. My biggest gripe with the game comes from the enemy placement. The game is really fast paced, but a lot of the enemies are just placed in straight up unfair spots, making it almost impossible to not end up taking damage. You can go fast, but you need to really take it slow if you want to avoid damage. And then you can still end up getting sniped by an enemy that only JUST enters the screen. I tend to play games on harder difficulties, but this one forced me to downgrade to Medium. I was not having fun on Hard (there's also Turbo but I dont enjoy the strict time limit it forces on you, so Hard is the highest i'd play even as a kid). Its bit of a shame, really. Baseline the game is very enjoyable. I was just blindsided by the perceived unfairness the game has with the enemy placement. But if you're interested in retro platforming action, yeah, i'd still recommend this.
I always thought of Hexen as a cool doom-like game that deserved more love. Never managed to finish it sadly. But now that I got this compilation for free due to owning Heretic beforehand, heck, time to try again! The little modernizations to controls are very welcome, letting you play with WASD + Mouse with proper mouselook. Also its just cool to be getting new content to these games thought long forgotten. I would say its worth the asking price. If you want some good retro shootie action in a fantasy setting, well you got it right here!
I'm personally more affectionate towards the old-school RE games like this PS1 trilogy over the more 'modern' style of RE's like 7, 8 or the remakes of 2 and 3 (remake of 1 is superb though, PLAY IT!). This particular port is fantastic. Works like a charm, its fast and snappy. You can even skip the door/stair animations! Though the settings are a bit lacking. Plus, character dialogue is very quiet, which coupled with loud music sometimes makes story cutscenes very difficult to hear. Works super well otherwise though. Don't even have to do any fancy shenanigans to get it to work on a controller, all i've had to do is just plug in my PS5 or Xbox controller and in the timeless words of Todd Howard: "It just works". 10/10. If you liked the old-school RE games, its exactly as you remember it. With some super minor QoL things added to make the game feel snappier and faster.
HoMaM 2 was my introduction to the series. I played it a whole bunch as a kid, and while I never got particularly good at it, I still had a great time. The graphics are very nostalgic, bright and colorful. The mechanics you recognize from later games are mostly there. Its not a bad game, by any means. What's the big issue then? Well, unfortunately... the sequel. HoMaM 3 is just such a fantastic game, that has everything 2 does and adds to it... I just dont see a reason to really go back to 2 outside occasionally playing a map just out of nostalgia. Its worth checking out, but if you're looking for a real good fantasy turn-based strategy experience, get 3. It has really good fan-made expansion to it that's still being worked on and has content being added to it to this day!
