You should understand this game as a Panzer Corps low-effort clone set in the Warhammer universe. After playing 6-7 missions at next to the hardest level possible I couldn't fail to notice that AI seems somewhat passive compared to the Panzer Corps. After some investigation, I have discovered that enemy force consists of scripted units that shall move and attack and other units who shall just stand there and retaliate if you attack them first, but otherwise remain docile. Your primary task on the battlefield shall be to identify scripted units on each map and deal with them while avoiding docile ones as much as possible to avoid taking retaliation damage. The best way to do it is to try attacking out of enemy range or exploiting the unit's advantage (for example Ogryns are best used in close quarters and best avoided at range against enemy shooters). There is a tutorial in this game but much to my dismay it fails to explain some fundamental game mechanics, for example, "zone of control" is not mentioned a single time although it is present and influences the game. To add some sense of difficulty under these conditions the game places a tight time limit for accomplishing your objective. Given the 50 euro price for the game and DLCs, this is a borderline scam.
Got this game, fortunately at a discount couple of days ago. The graphics are very good but so is the strain on your hardware, after 20 minutes of play I could boil an egg on the plate next to my processor. As you can see this game is about flying a boat in the world loosely resembling the 19th century in Europe. You have only two tutorials available, the fighting tutorial and the ship fitting tutorial. You will immediately notice problems even during the simplest screen manipulation. For example, moving your mouse while holding the right mouse button allows you to rotate the view, but the mouse cursor continues to move so you will soon hit the edge of the screen and to rotate your view further in this direction you need to release the right mouse button, return mouse cursor backwards, press the right mouse button again and then rotate the view until your cursor again hits the end of the screen. To achieve 360 degrees rotation you shall need to repeat this action several times. The user interface is very poor, in the first 30 minutes of the game I was scolded by my first officer a couple of times because I had chosen to fight instead of parleying with intercepting the boat, the truth was I was unable to find the parley option at all and I had to resort to the internet to get a clue. Actions in cities like purchasing stuff, and progressing a quest are similarly unintuitive. Even after several hours in the game, I was unable to judge how equipment available at stores compared to my current equipment and how they would affect my boat's performance. Ship combat also feels very poor even when compared to Sid Meir's Pirates Gold where wind strength and direction, ship size, damage, etc played a crucial role. Here tactics play a minor role, you shall have difficulty comparing enemy strength with yours etc. The story is very generic and traversing distances (through mostly notighness) takes a lot of time even when using time compression.
This is a simulation of a gunboat on river patrol duties. The graphics are loosely on par with Wolfenstein. Copy protection is removed and you can write what you wish when you enter the game. After you type your name you shall be issued with the first two missions. The first combat mission makes you invulnerable and if you complete it you shall be declared ready for combat operations so use it wisely to familiarize yourself with the river, piloting, objects, enemies, and 4 stations you have on the boat. Do understand that this is not a destroyer, rifle fire, not to mention something bigger represents a serious threat to your boat and crew. After you choose your mission, load what you want on your boat stations and prepare for patrol. Ready your boat by doing the following: Press X and then F1 and F2 to set engines into motion, press V to enter the first combat station, and then F1 and F2 to power up the turret and remove safety, press B and repeat and then press N and repeat. Arrows control throttle and steering, F9 will identify the object directly in front of you, F3 turns on or off the searchlight. Try to eliminate as many as possible enemies with your frontal V station. Esc pauses the game, the tab returns you to the base and Ctrl + Q exits the game, enter fires a weapon from the selected station. If you need to stop the boat immediately press F2 while in the main cabin and when you are done hit F2 to start the engines again. M is for map. There are a few other controls, like F10 where you can order AI gunners on the station to fire at will or stop doing that while you are in the main cabin but be advised that AI is not as skilled as you can be. Absolutely never trust AI to pilot your boat from the main cabin. Do not run your boat ashore this is damage-wise worse than taking some small caliber fire. Practice steering the boat on the open sea near your starting position and after that navigate the treacherous river. Alt + Tab does not work properly while in game
This is an excellent board / tactical game developed by very talented people from the Canadian company Silicon Knights which wanted to specialize in the Dark fantasy genre. Their other masterpiece Legacy of Kain Blood Omen is already present on gog.com for some time and there is no reason Dark Legions should generate any less love. The game is very straightforward. You are presented with a pre-defined number of credits, which you can use to purchase creatures for your army, enhancement rings for them, or traps and illusions to place on the battlefield. Once you are done you must name one of your creatures as an orb keeper. The orb keeper is like a king in chess, if the orb keeper dies his side loses the match. It is important to learn that some creatures have a negative life regeneration and those creatures are unfit for being orb keepers unless you are an extremely skilled player. For example, Vampire that does not fight and win battles shall die by itself. Also if Vampire fights another undead creature it might win but it can't regenerate its own health by biting and drinking from such an opponent. You can't see who is an enemy orb keeper so you must carefully observe their unit behavior and use your deduction. Once you deploy your army you can move your units in a turn-based fashion. However, once your and the enemy unit occupy the same hex a top-down real-time fight ensues where you must use your reflexes and knowledge of your unit's strong and weak points to the maximum. Once one of the combatants dies the game shall return you to the map. In 1994 playing hot seat multiplayer against a friend was a top-notch experience, I am not sure how today's youth are into that and that could be the only drawback of this game I can think of.
This is a very good game, the name is King's Bounty and indeed the basic setting reminds me of that title. You can choose among three heroes, one gathers the largest amount of troops, another modest amount of troops but with the best abilities, and another the least troops but has access to powerful magic. The kingdom is in trouble and you shall gather an army and gradually take on more and more complex tasks as you grow in power. The main idea is to pick your fights carefully, if the enemy stack is too strong it is best to find something else to do and return when you are better suited. Once the game begins it doesn't look like old King's Bounty titles but reminds more of 1C's other excellent title (also available on Gog.com) - Ascension to the Throne. You watch your character from behind, when you notice the enemy stack there shall be a circle around them, and stepping into that circle starts the tactical combat. There are two major changes compared to the Ascension to the throne. Before the fight really starts you shall get a comparison of your's and enemy's forces and the last opportunity to back off and do something else instead. The second major change is that hero is not an active participant in combat which makes the game much easier than the Ascension to the throne. Quests are extremely numerous and often branch on many sub-quests and sub-tasks so you shall never find yourself out of things to do. When fighting also pay attention to keep your losses under control, you can end the game prematurely without failing if you do not have the cash to replenish lost troops. It is easier to get stuck on the map while riding a horse than while walking. If you are stuck on a horse, hit the dismount button and try walking out of it. It worked for me. During the course of this game you shall stumble upon various items that enhance your stats, always check the item requirements, and utilize better items
It is by no means a bad game, but not great either. Another of those Micro Prose simulators that improved on F-19/F-117 engines this time with campaigns that look like being dynamic. Namely, when you enter the campaign you shall get a short overview, and afterward, you shall be given your first mission to fly. Nothing has changed much since F-117 and F-15E Strike eagle, you shall get the primary and a secondary target - you should hit at least one of them, but preferably both, and in addition, you should make as much carnage as you can. If you do that when you are issued with the next mission you shall see that a few friendly units appeared on the map where before only the enemy stood. If you repeat your success a sufficient number of times, more and more allied units shall be on the map until you encircle the main enemy strongholds and earn a win. If you eject three times from your plane the top brass shall conclude you are not the man for this job and your career ends. There are two types of Harrier available - AV-8B and Gr.7 - but there ain't much difference between them. You would expect AIM-120 AMRAAM on the US jet but that would put it too far above GR so it is not possible. You would not expect GR.7 to have radar but it has it etc etc. With some training, I could handle everything on hard/realistic level except landing on a ship. Besides campaigns, you can play a single day or a single mission, but I never felt a desire to play so. When you exceed expectations (in the campaign you better exceed them on regular basis) game shall award you with medals (British or American, depending on the model you fly) or promotions. It is a solid game, but I would recommend playing first Micro Prose F-14 Fleet Defender game (also available on Gog.com) for a better experience, and when you get tired of it try this one.
This is a well-imagined game with a great atmosphere and is set in an interesting world that would appeal to most people including me. The problem is that you shall end fighting game itself not things on the screen. I would be ready to pay another 10 eur for fixed character movement. You control the character with "WSAD" buttons, shift for a run but you also have to adjust the protagonist's heading with a mouse. This effectively brings you into a situation where you dodge a hostile attack but can't counterattack on time or where such controls together with stagger caused by hostile attack prevent you from regaining composure or run if a fight happens in cramped space because you shall end stuck in corners or against furniture or random junk which shall happen a lot. To swing a weapon you need to press and hold the right mouse button and to strike the left mouse button. If you get hit by an enemy swing resets and you need to do it again (and again to get hit by the enemy in meantime). Only the area in front of your character is fully visible so you need to spin constantly to figure out what's around you. Summa summarum, I have completed Forest, I am regularly in the top 3000 players in Mortal Kombat 11, and in 5 hours of Darkwood, I have killed maybe two enemies and died around 15 times. The game urges you to spend a night in a fortified shelter, however, one game day is slightly under 10 minutes in our world. This works well if you have foreknowledge of things ahead, but if you do not and you happen to get stuck somewhere or have a dilemma about what next or you can't find something things can quickly get ugly. The game advises you to "respect forest" which I would love to do but is nearly impossible with such a short time limit and clunky movement and combat. The map is not accurate and serves for orientation purposes only. This is a good game with some bad execution and probably won't be able to compete in the long term with other stuff in your library.
This is another turn based squad game set in Warhammer universe. I have played almost every single such warhammerish game from Chaos gate onwards and this is definitely the most unplayable one. Unplayable to the point if you lead your cursor to the right side of the map screen shall go left or not move at all. My every campaign on normal level ended two fold: 1. Game deployed my only two characters giving me task to survive for three rounds. After spamming enemies for two rounds it changed my objective to "kill all enemies". My two characters could not fight 6-2 ratio battle and died - mission was labelled as easy. Game over 2. Game tasked me with collecting samples of a Necron destroyer. Necron Destroyer moves two turns for each one of mine, deals massive damage and is supported by other units. Mission was labelled as easy. Game over. You shall quickly discover that your units need some "cognition points" to do anything including simple melee. Those points can be gained at terminals which will put your characters at risk of crossfire. If you can't gain enough of those points your main characters are only able to do melee attacks of opportunity - to react if enemy is trying to distance for you. If enemy has ability to do melee as well you are dead. My Gog Galaxy states that average player has played under 10 hours of this game which is enough to experience what I have said above 6-7 times and make an uninstall.
This is a solid helo sim you can buy with confidence. I am a Win 10 user and game runs perfectly when installed either via GOG galaxy or common installer. Digital Integration shined in early '90s with Their Tornado simulator which was viewed as "hard core" by both players and critics. Tornado has laid a foundation for three follow up games: this one, Hind and iF-16 which is sadly not available on gog.com. None of them are difficult like Tornado and this Apache Longbow game is the easiest of them all. Difficulty wise you have only two options: You can choose realistic or simple flight model. In my opinion everybody who had at least some helo experience should choose realistic because even on realistic many forces influencing your helo are not simulated. If you want a realistic helo flying buy Hind from same company also available on gog.com. Difficulty slider (1 to 9). This affects many aspects of game not directly related to flight model. 1. The speed of enemy reaction and how much their missiles are susceptible to countermeasures. 2. The number of eliminated targets needed for "Mission accomplished". 3. How many hits your helo can take before exploding or having an engine overheat. Regardless of difficulty you chose you need to accomplish mission objectives AND to land at desired base for mission to be successful. Problems known to me: 1. Yemen campaign is almost unplayable and 8/10 single missions there because a glitch will collide you with your base LHA Tarawa from the moment you increase your throttle and kill your pilot. This means you have roughly 1/3 of intent content unplayable. 2. Few missions are ill optimized for playing on high difficulty setting (I play 8/9). Example: Fourth mission in Korean campaign might ask you to eliminate four ECM vehicles. You kill all four but game does not say "mission accomplished" because it thinks you should kill more on your difficulty level. You can exit and reload until you get playable mission.
This is obviously some sort of parkour simulator with decent graphics. I give it 3/5 because other people have enjoyed it. I had a disturbing experience despite being adept in action gaming. During tutorial I couldn't perform a "skill roll" in 40+ attempts. After searching internet for solution I have figured out that was an issue for many players as question appears on different sites. As "holding left shift *really* close to the ground" did no good for me - I have removed this game after only 15 minutes of playing.
