Finished the base campaign before reviewing. I had no issues running the game on Win11, required no tweaks at all. TL;DR If you've never played it, then I think it's worth experiencing, but don't expect something outstanding. In fact, expect some jank, and uneven difficulty. Pros: + Unit variety There are two sides of the conflict to choose from, and both have completely unique units. + Firing on the move It's not a common thing to see this feature in older games. + Interesting behavior customization You can set your units to behave a certain way, like ignoring enemy fire or chasing enemies in the vicinity. You can also put units on scouting or search and destroy duty. Interesting campaign mission structure Each mission is designed to be played from the perspective of both sides. You can switch sides in between missions (story-wise it's explained because it's supposed to be a simulation). Cons: - Unit AI A lot of basics seem to simply not work properly, especially on later missions, which makes me believe AI breaks down when too many units are on the map. I.e. your units will not fire at enemies in their sights. - Line of sight and elevation This game features different elevation levels on the ground, but it's not really visible. Your units cannot fire at things they cannot see themselve, so fighting in area filled with tiny hills is hell. Only artillery can fire at things your other units spot. - Difficulty spikes This wouldn't be a problem if not for the two other issues mentioned before, but compounded result in frustration. Lowdown I had fun for about half of it. The game includes an expansion, which I haven't played yet, so take that as you will. I'm rating it 3* because it's playable and has some neat ideas but isn't really what I would consider 'great,' just okay. A good game for an RTS history fan who wants to experience something different, but I wouldn't recommend it for someone who just seeks to have fun.
I finished it on normal after slogging my way through about half of chapter 1 on hard. TL;DR It's nothing like Turok 2 or Turok 1 in terms of gameplay design. Some weapons come back, some frankly straight up ripped from Turok 2 with less weapons overall. Mostly linear or railroaded levels, poor level design, few enemy types. The only reason to buy this would be to support Nightdive, because I guess they'll need the money to buy some oats so they don't fking starve to death after polishing this turd of a game. Which they accomplished as well as one could expect, so if anything it's impressive. Pros: + Gore It's meaty, chunky, sloshy and disgusting. I love it. Enemy body parts explode, most enemies have several body parts that can be destroyed. + Each chapter ends with a boss All of them are unique. Not very fun to fight though. Cons: - Levels Levels are very small. Very few open areas have respawning enemies (goofy mechanic from Turok 1) and bland design. The game is also very short. I had to restart 1st level after about 30 minutes of grinding at it on hard and I still finished the game in sub 3h. - Difficulty Normal is too easy, Hard is insanely difficult as enemies have huge AoE and near-hitscan accuracy. I did play without autoaim though, maybe this game was designed with autoaim in mind... - Weapons Less weapons than Turok 2, no alternative ammo. Tek Bow now only fires explosive arrows. If you want to use normal arrows you have to use regular Bow. - Enemy variety There are usually 2-3 enemy types, per chapter, some of which are taken from Turok 2 with almost no changes. - Story Tries too hard to justify itself, fails anyway. - Adon Turok 2's Adon was a hottie. This one is a weird mutant-chick with megaman hands. Lowdown I could replay this as an alternative character, but... why? The only reason I didn't refund it is because Nightdive did a good job and I want them to keep doing it. Just hope they'll pick better games.
I finished it on hard after finishing Turok 1 on normal before reviewing. TL;DR In every way a better game than Turok 1. It has nice weapons and some of the more goofy mechanics like constantly respawning enemies have been dialed back, resulting in a much tighter FPS experience without the baggage of nintendo-like-platform-game design. Pros: + Weapons + FoV/modernized graphics/QoL features + Gory, nice kill animations Cons: - About half of levels are bad - Some annoying enemy types - Backtrack for keys offers no new challanges or rewards The biggest flaw is some mission design and objective placement are really bad, but first 2 levels are good. There's also a barely justified backtrack through all the levels before you are able to access the last boss. This port has some decent new features like highlighting objectives if you are close to them. This may help reduce some of the frustration of the levels that are badly designed, but still - prepare yourself to be lost at least a few times during Turok 2 as some of the key items or switches are hidden in a very hostile way. The best thing about it is again the weapon set. Some ammo types will have two different weapons using them, like the pistol and the more powerful mag pistol that consumes more ammo. The game does a good job to justify usage of both versions of same weapon, witch the exception of 2 (bow and melee - they have direct upgrades). One of the cooler weapons is a launcher that fires little floating drills that home in on a target, latch themselves onto it's skull and then explode after drilling in. Morbid, gruesome, awesome. While I barely recommended Turok 1, I can easily recommend the sequel. No need to play the original, the story isn't really connected.
I finished it on normal before reviewing. I don't recommend starting on hard because you'll easily get starved out of ammo if you don't know where you're going. Description: FPS game where you play as a native american in a SF setting, shooting at dinosaurs, aliens and robots. Aside from typical shooter elements this game also has a lot of platforming and item collection as you need to find keys to new levels, which are usually hidden behind some basic exploration. This game operates on a lives system like old platform and arcade games where you collect lives by finding enough of special objects (points?). If you die you can continue from last checkpoint or you can reload the game from last save point. Pros: + Large weapon arsenal You start with a knife and bow, grabbing a pistol in first few moments. There are also pump and auto shotguns, assault rifle, grenade and rocket launchers, minigun and a total of 5 different energy weapons, one of them being ultimate 'nuke' type weapon and one more being a secret 'even bigger nuke' weapon. Some weapons can use alternative ammo too. + Animations Enemies tend to die in a nice fashion. Especially some bigger bad guys will roll around spewing blood etc. + Most levels Fun to explore, interesting layouts, every level has it's own 'feel'. Cons: - Last level Long, boring, filled with annoyingly tough enemies, douchebag placement of instant-death pits, etc. Also confusing to navigate. - Instant death pits Falling into an endless pit takes away a life instantly, but most importantly - also takes away the best powerup in the game - ammo backpack - Ammo capacity Very low unless you find an ammo backpack, which as explained before - can be lost upon death. Lowdown I've played a lot of Turok 2 waaaay back when PC version released, but never experienced the original. I'm glad I played it, but I'm aslo a bit disappointed in the end. I recommend in mildly, but Turok 2 is a superior game in every way.
TL;DR Not good, not bad. Just 'eh'. I liked some parts of it, especially the ending, but pixel hunting and voice acting can ruin it sometimes. If you like point-and-clicks - get it on a sale. Not TL;DR Cons: - pixel hunting - janky controls - spotty voice acting - villain Pros: + premise and story + presentation You play as a guy who wakes up in a space station that's seemingly abandoned. He doesn't know how he got there or where his family is. Your job is to find your family and gtfo. There will be horror elements along the way. A lot of puzzles I had trouble with were easy once I found a necessary item on accident. Pathfinding is all over the place, because that's what where you can expect the hero to walk if you point to any point that isn't in a straight line. Using items also sometimes doesn't work first time and you have to click again. Some voice lines ruin the mood. The villain is barely explored and doesn't have enough effort behind him to warrant some of his pompous dialogue. But I liked the story and most of the visual design. The ending was also pretty ok. Not a straightforward finish, if you haven't been reading certain PDA's you will be confused. You can die in this game, but autosave usually takes you back moments before and you can't really soft-lock yourself. Death scenes are well animated. Get it on a sale if it looks interesting to you.
It's impossible to do this game justice and point out everything that's wrong and right about it with how low GoG review character limit is. I will have to ommit things. Review done in 2022 after finishing the game on v.hard difficulty. TL;DR If you are looking for a GTA-like open-world sandbox game or an immersive-sim experience then look elswhere. Cyberpunk will break if you treat it like that. If you want an RPG-FPS that has engaging story with memorable characters and solid core gameplay then you will find a lot of fun here. Provided you have the PC to run it. You may have a bad time if you are on the low-end of the requirements. Pros: + Audiovisual quality + World design and details + Variety of playable builds + Amount of content + Story/characters + General gameplay Cons: - Buggy I only had 1 game-breaking bug with a quest objective not working. I fixed it by leaving and returning later. Most other bugs are not bad, but can be immersion breaking. Things like disappearing cars so a quest NPC can drive unobstructed. UI or FoV bugs can be fixed by quick-save/load. - Melee Enemies don't have to visibly hit you to deal damage. You may be backing away from an enemy trying to punch you and still get hit despite him being at least 3 meters away. - Difficulty 1-shot-deaths especially from chapter 3. You have to exploit cheap strategies. - Items You will look like a dumbass because the game will give you random pieces of gear that are better than ones you currently wear, but look stupid on you. - Driving Driving model doesn't feel good and often buggy AI is tied to driving. Conclusion Media bandwagon and general disappointment that it wasn't an amazing game on release made the pendulum swing in the other direction and everyone decided to hate on it. Especially if you fell victim to the notion that it was supposed to be a GTA-style game. Take it for what it is – an RPG/shooter/stealth game and you will like it despite the bugs. I'd give it a low-end 7/10.
TL;DR It's better than SS2, but worse than any other game in the series. On it's own it stands as a very average shooter at it's best, if you ignore all the story and characters. I'm giving it a below average score because of all the focus on pointless things. Not so TL;DR Take Serious Sam, get rid of beautiful environments and replace them with boring modern ones, then jam a bunch of obnoxious characters and a story into it, top with occasional stutter on a modern hardware and that's SS4. Croteam has forgotten what made SS so great. Back in a day the game WAS cool, because it focused on the gameplay and visual level-design. Now the game TRIES to be cool first and treats gameplay and design as a secondary concern. It honestly feels like the game tries to insist that it is in fact cool, but if you've ever known a person who always acts like they are cool - you know how uncool it actualy comes across. Instead of putting you in a classic environment, you get ruined modern cities. Instead of being alone, fighting hordes of aliens, you are accompanied by a bunch of bad characters. You'd think the game would try to ridicule the idea of having several protagonist-like one-liner-spitting bro-dudes, but no - it does it's best to insist that all of those characters are incredibly cool and you should like them. They are not. And don't even get me started on the story - for the love of fuck - who would ever think to try and put CUTSCENES with DIALOGUE into a fucking Serious Sam game?! The focus was put in the wrong direction and it shows. Shooting is just fine, but everything else, from boring levels to terrible characters and a forced story makes me not want to play this damn game. Serious Sam should be about you, being alone and fighting hordes of aliens across great environments and this ain't it. This feels like a bad EDF game with doped-up graphics. Please play SS 1st Encounter and 2nd Encounter, leave Serious Sam 4 to rot in hell. What a waste of time and money...
Disclaimer I tried finishing the game on highest setting (very hard), but ended up restarting on one setting lower (hard) due to the game being… well, too difficult. I recommend people familiar with Homeworld to not start with highest difficulty. Tips on running this game https://www.gog.com/forum/homeworld_remastered_collection/homeworld_emergence_in_dx9_32bit_1920x1080_60fps If you used dgVoodoo before, then you are in luck – aside from janky launch where initial company-logo videos run at low resolution, the rest of the game can be made to run with dgVoodoo wrapper. TL;DR It has great story and some great mission mechanics that keep you on your toes. Unfortunately if the only Homeworld you know is the Remastered versions then this may be more difficult to get into because it doesn’t benefit from years of game development progress that’s been made when Remastered collection got made. And since the source code was lost – we will probably never get an accurate Remaster of this game. Not so TL;DR This could be considered a story-campaign DLC with all-new units for the original Homeworld. This story takes place not long after the first game, and is not canon for Homeworld 2 (damn shame, since story is good). You will play as a mining fleet that answers a distress signal from fellow Hiigarans. Little do they know that their involvement in battle will set off a series of events that will release a new, dangerous enemy upon the galaxy. It will be up to those miners, barely having any means to combat such a threat, to save the world from danger. Lowdown If you liked original Homeworld, but for some insane reason you skipped this treasure – play it now. If you liked Remastered and didn’t play the classics, know that it will take more effort to learn to play this as it lacks many QOL features of the Remastered engine. I still recommend playing it though.
I finished whole game on highest difficulty before reviewing TL;DR I think Thief 1 was a better game because of a better story and more interesting mission design and variety. Also – I don’t like the new mechanical enemies in Thief 2. However, it’s still a fantastic game and if monsters annoyed you in Thief 1, then this could be a better game for you. Not so TL;DR Thief 2 continues the story of the first game. Hammerite order was replaced with the new Mechanist order, who are adept at creating automatons, cameras and traps. Garret will be thrown right in the middle of a conspiracy that, again, places the fate of the world in his hands. All mechanics are the same as in the first game – you just get a few more gadgets like vine arrows (upgraded rope arrows that can attach to metal grating). There are almost no animals, monsters or undead in this game. Instead, it has cameras that will rotate and after seeing you – will start alarm or run traps in nearby area unless you break line of sight quick. There are also automatons in 2 varieties: small and big, both will patrol some areas just like normal guards, but to dispose of a robot you need to hit it with a water arrow in it’s back engine. 1 arrow for small robot, 2 arrows for a big one. Some guards will also wear reinforced helmets that make them immune to being knocked out with a blackjack. Most levels are large and have many ways to get to your objectives. The usual briefings/cutscenes are still great. Nearly every mission will be focused on sneaking around guards, cameras and robots. A lot of people disliked spelunking/treasure-hunting levels in the first game - I liked them, so to me this is a downgrade. Machines, especially cameras are just annoying. Most of the time they just test your timing instead of providing interesting dilemmas in level progression. The worst by far is the last mission, which is overly long and deliberately doesn’t give you enough resources to deal with all the machines.
Review done after finishing the game on normal. TL;DR While I enjoyed it a lot make no mistake - this is a BAD game. So why the f did I give it 3*? Well, a bad game can still be unironically enjoyed and you can’t stop me. Not so TL;DR Witchaven is an action dungeon crawler focused on melee combat. This is NOT an RPG. This game has an unresponsive melee system that’s bad. When you click attack, your weapon will begin swinging in one of 2 motions. These animations will have different length and will connect on different frames. Since you will have to approach enemies while swinging in order to get close at the precise moment of strike, random animations mean can’t really do that reliably and enemies will hit you back most of the time. All melee weapons can break and you have to replace them, but you also cannot carry more that 1 of each weapon, so you have to break them in order to replace them. However, the act of killing enemies is satisfying as fk. They scream, spew blood and guts. Sprites, while basic, respond nicely to being killed. There are ranged weapons and spells but they are weak and ammo is limited. All spells are one-use and there are also flying and ‘open door’ spells for when you want to maybe skip something. You also have potions for healing, temp. increasing damage, curing poison, fire immunity and invisibility. There are 25 levels and during my gameplay I’ve encountered 2 bugs that could be skipped using your spells. Most levels are also pretty fun to go through, with moving elements and interesting layouts. Some trap-heavy levels can go to hell though. It will take you up around 8 hours to finish the game. Finally, the port. Since this is DosBox – you will sometimes have performance issues common to the era. Looking up/down feels unresponsive and menus are TOO responsive and you can accidentally pick load or new game instead of save. Save often. Lowdown It’s a bad game. I liked it. You probably shouldn’t play it. Or maybe you should.
