Dark Reign works great for me on Windows 11 without any fuss so I assume some fixes were made. This was one of my first RTS games and I really enjoyed it even though I sucked at it as a kid. It's not the most complex or content rich RTS out there but it's good fun while it lasts.
Corridor 7 was the first attempt by the infamous Capstone Software to cash in the FPS mania generated by the release of Doom. At the time id Software was happy to license out their old Wolfenstein 3D engine to anyone who wanted it since Doom had completely blown their previous work out of the water. What followed was a solid attempt at trying to make a more Doom-like game in the aged ray casting engine with some misguided attempts to innovate in a few places like adding invisible forcefields that are more irritating than entertaining. On the positive side some of the enemies are genuinely kind of cool looking but most are uninspired. The levels themselves are bland even for the limitations of the engine and most are amateurishly designed mazes though unlike Wolfenstein 3D you are given a tiny, almost useless map to help you navigate. Most of the weapons feel awful but they do get the job done. Enemies tend to be extremely dangerous and since they're hitscan like Wolf 3D the game is full of cheap and unavoidable deaths. Still there's something really appealing about this scrappy little game that keeps me from giving it one star. It feels more earnest than most of Capstone's cash-in titles and an RVGFanatic interview with programmer Les Bird reveals that they really did put a lot of effort into it. It feels like a Wolfenstein 3D fan game in a lot of ways and while the end result certainly isn't a good game it's definitely a playable one provided you like Wolf 3D style gameplay. In a post Doom world though, Corridor 7 never stood a chance. I can't really recommend this game unless you're obsessed with retro FPS titles and nostalgic for them like me, especially when the Blake Stone duology that's also available on GOG is a vastly superior sci-fi take on Wolfenstein 3D's gameplay. It's still an interesting piece of FPS history that I'm glad to see preserved and it's way better than Capstone's ugly follow-up, Operation Body Count.
A fantastic isometric action game with beautiful graphics, a fantastic soundtrack and even deep lore if you care to dive into it. With fully destructible environments and a large variety of vehicles and weapons you can lose hours just blasting away and trying to improve your tactics in every mission (of which there are a lot of). That said it's a great blend of pure action and strategy as you have to choose how best to approach the enemies using the abilities of your current vehicle to your advantage from huge and powerful tanks to dinky little cars that rely more on being sneaky than full frontal assaults. If you're a fan of mechs or vehicular combat or just wanton destruction or always wanted an old-school isometric game like Crusader: No Remorse in HD, give this a shot. It's one of the most overlooked high-quality indies on the site.
First of all this game is NOT an FTL clone or successor. The only similarities are that it's a rogue-like in space where you order your crew to man stations. FTL is a streamlined combat strategy game among all else with very light exploration elements. This game perhaps has more in common with games like Star Control 2 in that exploration and resource management is the main focus. The combat is a lot more slapdash and random and isn't really that fun or strategic. Most of your time will be spent staring at menus, swapping out modules and dawdling along trying to scrape together constantly diminishing pools of various resources. My main problem with this game is there's an immense amount of statistics and micromanagement and I don't even know what I'm looking at half the time. The UI is and gameplay is all exceptionally clunky. I could probably learn with time but the core gameplay isn't really satisfying enough for me to want to. The game throws so many numbers and modules and weapons and crafting options that you have to manage in your face without any real indication of what your most advantageous moves will be. There are ingame tutorials but they're bare bones and don't really succeed in pushing you in the right direction. I'm not saying I need every game to be simple to learn but I felt this one was information overload for its genre. If you're the kind of gamer who gets excited by intense micromanagement (nothing wrong with that) then this is the deep space exploration rogue-like you've been looking for. If you're a fan of FTL looking for a successor or at the very least another sleek and intuitive space combat strategy game, this unfortunately probably isn't what you're looking for. This isn't necessarily a bad game, the love from the developers is both obvious and definitely present in the product, I think it just maybe went a little too far in a few places. I haven't quite given up on it yet but I don't have high hopes it will win me over.
What you're going to get out of this game depends on what you want out of it. If you want Max Damage to be a modern feeling game with spot on physics and cutting edge graphics, you should likely avoid it. If you're a fan of the original DOS game and want to revisit it but with a modern coat of paint, Max Damage does exactly that. Along with the classic "race or kill" set up of the original there are other game modes, some better than others (though the point stealing mechanic allows you to play pretty much every one as a standard demolation derby if you want), as well as power ups like in some of the later games. These range from extremely useful weapons to traps that nerf your car or fancy new ways to kill pedestrians. Another thing I wasn't fond of was the upgrade system which requires you to collect hidden tokens as well as level up instead of just saving money from your races. The graphics aren't stellar, the controls aren't perfect, but all of those things line up with what Carmageddon was. I can only recommend it to those with nostalgia for the original game, but those who love Carmageddon should be right at home. It's an amusing and addictive game as long as you're not expecting a DOS remake and not some AAA racing game. Also, in 2019 I don't suffer from any of the performance issues this game apparently had at launch.
First off as other reviews have noted, it will take further messing around to get the game working on Windows 8 and 10, but you can get it working. Deadlock 2 is in a way just a special edition remake of the first game. The goal of the game is the same but with more features added (and working multiplayer) making this the definitive Deadlock. The attempt to make a UI more integrated into the game world is a bit of a miss however. While it's more immersive it's not as convenient as the old Windows-style UI. If you're only going to play one of the games, you should probably play this one, but if you find it frustrating you may enjoy the first one more.
Deadlock was one of my favorite games to play as a kid, building up my colony was very satisfying and the different alien races added a lot of variety even if they all effectively play the same way with different pros and cons. Deadlock is ultimately a simpler and more accessible version of other turn-based strategy and empire building games of the time, letting you tailor scenarios to be as short or as long as you want them to be. It's a race to either build the required amount of cities or destroy your opponents militarily and claim the planet as your own. One of the benefits to it being a bite-sized Civ-style game was that it was perfect for manageable multiplayer sessions. Unfortunately that functionality has been removed from this release but the single-player is still fun enough if you want to play this type of game without having to get too involved or spend too much time with it. On top of the solid core gameplay is an extremely charming and humorous universe with great world building. I feel like the Deadlock games have sort of fallen through the cracks which is a shame because they're just as fun today a pick-up and play titles. Speaking of which, Deadlock 2 is practically the same game with more features so you may want to pick that one up instead. I personally prefer the simpler Windows-style UI of the first game however.
Aliens of Gold, while instantly overshadowed by Doom a week after release, did well enough with preorders and early sales. Considering it was made by two guys and some artists it probably didn't need much to turn a profit. Still, it was a little strange to see them put out a sequel in the wake of Doom II, especially on the Wolfenstein 3D engine which in 1994 was only seeing commercial use in one other game, the somewhat infamous Super Noah's Ark 3D. Essentially what Planet Strike boils down to is it's the Spear of Destiny for Blake Stone with twenty or so missions bringing it to about a third of the length of the original game and feeling more like an expansion than a true sequel. Unlike Spear of Destiny however, JAM Productions put some effort into making the game fresh. For most of the changes it feels like they were trying to bring the experience a little closer to doom. The overall atmosphere has been darkened from the brighter colors of Aliens of Gold though not unrecognizably so. Simple things like the gun bobbing when you walk was added as Doom made it a genre standard to make characters feel less stiff and robotic. A new rocket launcher like weapon was added with the ability to destroy unlocked doors and there are several new enemies throughout, the most interesting is able to shapeshift into inanimate objects. Probably the best addition is the updated automap which is always active on your hud and has multiple levels of zoom that consumes batteries but allows you to see enemies and at the max zoom secret pushwalls. Also, the first person gun graphics were redesigned to look better. Overall while Planet Strike is more of the same, it has more to offer over the original game than Spear of Destiny did over Wolfenstein 3D. It also brings the events of the first game to a conclusive ending. If you played Aliens of Gold and liked it, you'll love Planet Strike. If you only want to play one of these games, Aliens of Gold is probably the more definitive experience.
Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold was a game that was simultaneously ahead of its time and behind the times. Because it was so heavily based on Wolfenstein 3D and used its engine it didn't stand a chance when id Software's groundbreaking classic, Doom, released one week later. This was unfortunate because even though it was no Doom, it was well worth the price of registration. Today the colorful retro graphics, while dated, have a classic and endearing look. The controls are even more dated and might be frustrating to people who aren't used to Wolf 3D (source ports are available online that alleviate this issue and allow for modern control schemes). Interesting new features diffentiated it from Wolf 3D and are surprising to see in an early FPS. There are friendly NPCs in the form of informants. Sometimes they'll be on your side and give you information and supplies while other times they'll be loyal to your enemy and attack. Tokens can be collected to use at vending machines to restore health, a kind of level interaction that would not be similarly implemented into other FPS games until much later. One enemy type will also occasionally play dead and ambush you if you're not paying attention. There is a large enemy variety of mutants and machines alongside the normal humans, much more-so than Wolfenstein 3D. The main villain will also occasionally appear as a hologram to attack and laugh at you. The sci-fi James Bond setting of the game and its jazzy music also set it apart from other generic Doom clones of the era. The level structure is very simlar to Wolf 3D, collect the keys and exit, though you always know where the exist is as the levels have a single elevator. Unlike Wolf 3D the enemies cannot be staggered by attacks, making the game a much more difficult test of your reflexes. All-in-all this is a fun game with a cool old-school look and lots of neat ideas that was unfortuantely overlooked thanks to sharing a release window with the juggernaut that was Doom.
