I bought this game about 10 years ago, before GoG (You could send a check to an address on the East Coast and get original floppies of 90's Epic Games - legitimate copies, but probably from some guy in his basement with thousands of the originals. I still have the One Must Fall 2097 poster and hint manual), and like most Epic Games platformers of the period, I found it spectacularly underwhelming. Jazz Jackrabbit was the only one that broke the mold - but I digress. Jill is very bland. The fighting is tedious - your boomerang or whatever-it-is absolutely refuses to go where it should - and the enemies are repetitive. The crawler/patroller types feature heavily in the game's Rogues Gallery, and for a game released in '92, the graphics somehow look worse than the original Commander Keen. Only Jill looks nice (a key selling point, I would imagine). Also the jumping was touchy, and Jill would frequently overshoot (as you couldn't change direction in mid-air and floated like a balloon) and end up crisped in the lava. Once you've played through a handful of levels, nothing dramatically changes for the rest of the game. No enemies break the "don't touch it or it'll kill you somehow!" standard and waddle around from barrier to barrier, awaiting your deadly boomerang toss. I found it very similar to Wolfenstein 3D - you get everything the game has to offer in the first few levels and that's it. It's not a buggy game, which is one plus. It played very smoothly. The only downside was I didn't want to keep playing it! I played this in 2008 or something, so nostalgia didn't cover up any of the perceived defects. It's free, sure, but you can get much better 90's platforming for only a handful of dollars. I wouldn't recommend this game.
No, seriously, I did. I've dumped hundreds of hours into Eador since I bought it and I am completely addicted. I've restarted the game about a dozen times (the learning curve, especially mid-game, is very steep) and this game is all I do. This is the best turn based strategy game I've ever played (besides maybe Divinity: Original Sin) and it puts more expensive games like the new X-Com to shame. I can best describe it as Heroes of Might and Magic mixed with Civilization - and it was developed by one guy. Amazing. I haven't played the newer ones, but I don't think I'll need to - I'll be playing this game for a few more weeks until I beat it. It's gloriously deep, with hundreds of rare items to discover, diverse enemies and encounters, and no level is ever the same. I'm playing on the third difficulty level - competent - and it is very, very hard. This game alternates between frustrating the daylights out of me and incredible satisfaction (once I crush the previously uncrushable enemies). Again, it takes a while to find good strategies, so this isn't for the easily frustrated. It took me a good two weeks to figure out the optimal starting strategy (I haven't looked online for hints 'cause I don't want to spoil anything). For a translated game (from Russian) the script is surprisingly good. The dialogue is often hilarious - your gremlin henchman provides excellent comic relief - and the story is interesting. Like the rest of the game, the story takes a while to get moving, but it's worth the wait. In conclusion, if you like turn-based strategy and are willing to sink a lot of time into a highly addictive game, you can do no better than Eador: Genesis.
The game started slowly, built tension relentlessly and ended with one of the better I-didn't-see-that-coming plot twists. I know it's good horror if I'm super depressed by the end of the game - only two other games (SOMA & Fran Bow) have had similar effects on me. It played like a TV series in its episodic story arc (intentionally, I'm sure) and used excellent character development to draw me into the plot. It's a rare game that gets me emotional - I'm a bit jaded with horror games - but I was genuinely distraught over the ending. I was so sad I committed suicide (in-game, of course) and it felt like the right thing to do at the time. I was rooting wholeheartedly for my favorite characters, and without going into spoilers, it didn't end well for all involved. Also, this game is not for the faint of heart - the death cutscenes are extremely grisly. So, we know the plot's good - but how was the gameplay? It was basic, for the most part easy, and usually a smooth ride from one cutscene/plot point to the other. Driving, oddly enough, was a blast. I loved rocketing around the small town in my police cruiser, catching big air on every jump. Combat was a bit underwhelming - the enemies aren't ever a serious threat to your character (except perhaps the bosses) and are easily dispatched with some well-placed shotgun blasts. The game is also quite linear plot-wise, but there were an enormous amount of side quests to be discovered by cruising around the town free roaming and talking with everyone. There's even a dartboard minigame - the town is incredibly detailed. However, getting to the end was a major challenge, as the game contains a wide variety of infuriating bugs and crashes. If the Director's Cut was this bad, I'd hate to have played the unpatched version... but I digress. The trouble I had with bugs was far outweighed by the brooding atmosphere, creepy environments, and demented villains. It took a lot of patience, but the payoff was definitely worth it.
I have played nearly every horror game on GOG. I thought I was immune to fear. However, I have met my match with the soul-numbing dread that is SOMA. -MILD SPOILERS- I hate deep water. As I wandered outside of any human structure, alone on the ocean floor, staring down into the black depths of the abyss, I could not help but crave any - ANY - human interaction. The game offers little in that regard, and my real life state of mind has suffered as a result. The last few days have been tough (literally - this game has made me depressed and even more scared of the ocean), but it has been completely worth it. SOMA has raised deep questions about the existence (and definition) of human consciousness, the future and ethics of robotics, and it has reminded me of the destructive power of complete isolation. The awful loneliness, punctuated with the occasional shambler from the dark, kept me on edge for three straight nights. This game resonated with me on an emotional level I haven't felt in years, and if you have enough antidepressants and anxiolytics on hand to counter its effects, I heartily recommend the experience. SOMA is a deftly written horror that does not depend on the cheap jump scare and as for me, the nightmare under the ocean is not something I will soon forget. You have been warned.
This will be a quick review, as I have to get back to Spear of Destiny, but I saw some less-than-positive reviews and decided to throw my two cents in. The game itself is simple and relatively mindless, but it's fun, and that's all that I hoped it would be. I never played it when it first came out (just bought it 2 weeks ago, playing it through for the first time), so nostalgia isn't clouding my judgment. Yeah, there are a handful of enemies, and they all do (mostly) the same thing, but that's hardly a good reason to grade it down. If it's fun to shoot these enemies, why does the game need anything else? And sure, DOOM did everything better, but the idea of a review is to review a game on its own merits, not on what something else did years later. If you're going to compare it to the best FPS's of all time, why play anything else than Halo or Duke Nukem 3D? The point is, this game is an extremely solid FPS for its time. It's polished, easy to learn and a great way to kill a few hours. There's nothing like cracking open a door, mowing down 20 Nazis with your chain gun, swooping up their ammo and racing to the next room. In conclusion, this FPS is not for anybody who expects a modern shooter, but as for me, the game that started it all is still pretty darn enjoyable.
I am not often let down by GOG games with 4+ stars. However, this game is so bad I don't want anyone else to suffer my fate. I love horror games and try to buy these gems exclusively from GOG. Having enjoyed everything from The Cat Lady to F.E.A.R., this game looked right up my alley. After a little over two hours, though, I can't recommend this game for anything but nostalgia. This game is not a good FPS. The hit boxes are atrocious, your bullets seemingly cannot travel more than 20 feet, the flintlock pistol somehow does more damage than your revolver, and the enemies are annoyingly repetitive. Sure, the ghouls (and zombies... and dogs... and bosses...) might look different than the vampires, but they all run blindly towards you and attempt to beat you to death with their three-pixel wide claws. These recycled enemies randomly respawn in any and all rooms, constantly draining your limited ammo. This game makes you retrace your steps multiple times, and the designers apparently thought random enemies would make things more interesting. After killing the same ghoul for the fifth time on the fourth pass through the same room, believe me, it gets old. Fortunately, the laws governing your bullets apply to the zombie musketmen as well, but once you get within 20 feet, you better hope you have a ranged weapon, because these crack shots will down you before you even think about pulling out your sword cane. And that's IF your ammo doesn't mysteriously disappear from your inventory while switching weapons. The controls are sketchy, at best. Going over any bump or debris on the floor will often cause your camera to jerk uncontrollably upwards. Your character is not in good shape, as he can sprint for about 3 seconds. He must be very fat, as well, as melee enemies can deal damage from bizarrely long distances. And I haven't even mentioned the nonexistent plot, the obscenely sub-par graphics, or the epileptic cutscenes. Don't buy this game, it's not worth it.
