First of all the Anno series is amazing and each game in it is worth playing, in my opinion. 1404 is the most modern historical Anno, besides 1800 and adds some nice modern touches to the series. For example there are now frequent missions from the NPCs. Keep in mind that like the rest of the series its more about building and managing the economy than warfare which is kind of basic, compared to other RTS games. Especially in 1404, where you have to manage 2 different types of settlements (west/oriental) to progress, while the control of ground troops is less like an RTS and more like Civ. There is GameRanger and the Annoverse Discord, where you have good chances of finding people to play multiplayer even now. I would recommend getting the GOG version, only if you care about it being DRM-Free. For anyone else who wants to play the best version of this game, currently I sadly have to recommend the Anno: History Collection (A:HC) from the Ubisoft store which includes 1602, 1503, 1701 and 1404 with many worthwhile updates: - Support for up to 4K resolution with UI that works -64-bit support for support of modern systems (feels smoother, less janky than the original, higher memory limit, so no crashing with big cities, when 2GB memory limit is reached) - Working friend system for easily creating and joining games (much easier than using GameRanger, Radmin VPN, Hamachi, etc.) and a low chance of finding public games - The people on AnnoVerse usully play the History Collection version of the older Anno Games, good luck finding people elsewhere (it did work once over gameranger) The only downside of A:HC is the DRM and Ubi play/connect client thing. I am disappointed that Ubisoft didn't release the History Collection as an update to GOG and split the already small player base. But at least they updated it, so if you want to play the best old Anno games, you can get A:HC from a cheap game key website for ~10€. I will definitely wait for a deep discount on Anno 1800.
First of all the Anno series is amazing and each game in it is worth playing, in my opinion. 1503 in particular is a complex city builder that feels ahead of its time in many ways. Keep in mind that like the rest of the series its more about building and managing the economy than warfare which is kind of basic. There is GameRanger and the Annoverse Discord, where you have good chances of finding people to play multiplayer even now. I would recommend getting the GOG version, only if you care about it being DRM-Free. For anyone else who wants to play the best version of this game, currently I sadly have to recommend the Anno: History Collection (A:HC) from the Ubisoft store which includes 1602, 1503, 1701 and 1404 with many worthwhile updates: - Support for up to 4K resolution with UI that works (the HD patch mod is a nice try, but can't keep up with this) -64-bit support for support of modern systems (feels less janky than the original) - Working friend system for easily creating and joining games (much easier than using GameRanger, Radmin VPN, Hamachi, etc.) and a low chance of finding public games - The people on AnnoVerse usully play the History Collection version of the older Anno Games, good luck finding people elsewhere (it did work once over gameranger) I am disappointed that Ubisoft didn't release the History Collection as an update to GOG and split the already small player base, but if you want to play the best old Anno games, you can get A:HC from a cheap game key website for ~10€. I will definitely wait for a deep discount on Anno 1800.
It's good: - As a CS surf and Titanfall player, this is exactly the kind of movement I'm looking for in a fast-paced 3D action game. There's wallrunning, sliding and a dash similar to Dishonored's blink. You can slow time by jumping + holding dash to take a breather. - Enemies one hit you and you one hit them. You will quickly get back to where you were. It's similar to Hotline Miami where you repeat levels frequently, but you aren't set back that far and each room is like a puzzle that you need to figure out. - The game feels very consistent and if you die, you usually know what you could have done better. - Darksynth soundtrack by Daniel Deluxe is on point. Some criticism: - There are puzzle sections which range from mildly interesting to slightly annoying, the last puzzle is and especially confusing maze, where you will just get lost and get through it by trial and error. It kind of interrupts the action flow, but adds some variety and a break to the pacing. - The voice acting is good, but the story is mediocre and mostly told as your running through the game. - The city only feels like a level, kinda dead, not like it's lived in or has much purpose. It looks good in most parts, less so in others. It's just a super polished CS surf map. - There are no story decisions or interactions with in-game characters, besides slicing up the baddies. I know, it's an action platformer, not an RPG... - During the lab level I had some FPS stuttering, but was fine again, after restarting the game - I got lost twice because I missed a door and started going backwards through the level. It's really empty when you get lost and it can take a couple minutes to find the way again - Most deaths because bad timing with parry against one enemy where u can't slow time The main game is quite short, I finished it under 8 hours in two play sessions, but it still has some replayability with the time attack mode, new game plus and trying to find secrets you missed on your first playthrough.
It's nice to see a relatively new futuristic racing game with split-screen, but after playing it for a bit, I decided to try out F-Zero GX and Wipeout Fusion on emulators again and I just have to say that Redout is just not as good as those games. It looks bland and is missing the style and vibes those old games had. Also the announcer voice is so painfully boring, it sounds like siri or hey google, while the announcer in F-Zero gets me absolutely hyped. Although the speed racing in Redout is almost as good as those games, what it's completely missing is the battle aspect of the game. There's no way to crash out your opponents. For 30$ I can not recommend Redout. Maybe get it on sale, if you don't like messing with emulators, but you should know that this is still far away from being as good as Wipeout or F-Zero. Another tip for when you go back to replay those old classics: If you play on a high-rez monitor it's worth it to add a slight scanline effect using Reshade. It will will mask upscaled low-rez textures and make it feel like you are playing on your old TV ;-) It's how those games were meant to be played. When you do that then those games still look much more detailed than the boring low-poly style used in Redout.
Pros: - Unique cyberpunk, fantasy mix setting. - Variety of playable and viable builds and party composition - Story, dialogue and characters are good, though also bit cheesy in a likable way (you're character has plenty of action movie one liners and jokes as conversation options) Cons: - Not many choices in the game seem to actually matter. Not much difference in possible endings. - Tactical turn-based combat is weak, missing a lot of what makes other turn-based games like X-com good. For example misclicking is easy, sometimes characters block a field and you can't rotate the view, so moving behind a character is sometimes impossible. - Hard to tell who you can aim at, when moving somewhere and where you can take cover. (also never explains what cover does: it significantly lowers oponents' chance to hit) - Barely an explanation of how combat works, tricky to make a good character, when you have no idea of the game yet. - Hacking is just reskinned regular combat, could be better, I'd prefer if it was more of a puzzle - The ehthnic "diversity" aspect of the game is a bit overdone... might make you roll your eyes a bit. - Mostly too easy even on hard, except for some few parts which just feel annoying. TLDR: Play the game for the story and uinique setting. The tactical turn-based gameplay could be better. The game can be completed in 10-20 hours depending on whether you take your time or rush through it. One last big hint: If you get Shadowrun: Returns and Shadowrun: Dragonfall, you can copy some files around and play Shadowrun Returns (Dead man's trigger quest) in the better and updated Dragonfall game engine. I only saw this after I played the game (why doesn't the game tell you this -_-), anyway here's a guide how to do it: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=343908392 (just use the install locations where you installed the games with gog)
The game itself is an ok action game with a decent story and characters. The most fun thing about the game is exploring the island. I never played the old Tomb Raider games, so I can't really make a comparison, but I heard the puzzles in the older ones were better and I did notice there weren't that many interesting puzzles in this. Overall I would still say the singpleplayer is quite decent. However, there's a problem with this version of the game... It doesn't have multiplayer! That's right this game actually has a relatively fun multiplayer mode and it's only available in the Steam version. Although the amount of players is relatively low, even 8 years after release I was able to get into games with people and had a good time with it. Even 1v1 was quite fun, in my opinion. I can imagine it being really fun with a group of friends... I do prefer DRM-free games, but not when they are missing big features! I can only recommend buying this one on Steam.
It's a fast-paced arcade racing game with planes, obviously. It feels like the star-wars pod racer game, mixed with mario kart. It definitely reminds me of a good old game. Graphics are plain (pun intended), but not bad. Framerate can be set to 30 or unlimited, but otherwise there there are basically no other graphics options which is kind of odd, but everything looks fine, so it's okay (no stupid blur or depth-of-field effects or anything like that). Maybe there's a config file or something I don't know of... This game has split-screen. Always nice to have. There's a decent number of planes with a couple different skins and also a good variety of courses. There are items along the course to pick up and use against your opponents, including a homing missile, machine gun, shield, mine, electric shock and repair kit. Simple, but gets the job done. It has online multiplayer too, but I'm not sure if this means there is matchmaking or not. There is "Quickmatch" and then you are in a lobby and can invite people, but I'm not sure, if this means there is matchmaking or not. I waited five minutes to see if someone else would join, but no, it looks like it's invite only, so you have to look for people to play with on forums/discord. Does it have cross-play with steam? Again no idea... (I will try to remember updating the review if I find out) If you are looking for a flying sim or multiplayer with lots of active players, this is probably not the right game for you, but for something that is quick to pick up and have some fun with, you can't really go wrong with this if you like this style of racing game. It's definitely one of the better ones on gog. 5 Stars for fun game -1 star for overall simplicity and lack of online matchmaking / players.
Anno 1503, 1701 and 1404 are all much improved games over this first iteration. It's not even so much the outdated graphics that are the problem, I wouldn't mind that for an old game, but the pathfinding, unit control and UI for trading, building and fighting are all worse than the newer games. To top things off the game crashes about once every 2 hours for no good reason on my beefy windows 10 PC. I even tried using dgVoodoo2 as a replacment for the default directX libraries. That managed to solve the issue of much too high framerate which caused stuttering, but the crashes still happened. Maybe this can be avoided if you run the game in a windows XP VM, but that's where my patience ended. If you are playing this on a modern PC, do yourself a favor and play a newer Anno instead. This one just isn't as great anymore as nostalgia makes you believe. There are just too many rough edges for it to still be enjoyable.
If you like retro games, pixel art, chiptunes and difficult platformers, then this is an excellent game for you. Checkpoints are placed a reasonable distance from one another, so you won't have to replay entire levels dozens of times to make it through the game, removing much of the frustration from the original Ninja Gaiden titles. One minor complaint - it doesn't tell you the keyboard controls in the beginning and doesn't have a menu option to rebind keys. I had to tap around to figure out that spacebar = A-button and leftAlt = B-button in the main menu. MouseClick = Sword swing in game, WASD to walk around and Spacebar to jump. The game does tell you about further controls later on. Other than that, The Messenger is a near-perfect retro platformer.
First of all the Anno series is amazing and each game in it is worth playing, in my opinion. 1701 is more similar to 1602 than 1503 and keeps a lot more of the classic gameplay than 1404. For example I enjoy the way military units work more in 1701, as they are individually controllable (compared to 1404, where you can only place a unit's camp and have less control) Keep in mind that like the rest of the series its more about building and managing the economy than warfare which is kind of basic, compared to other RTS games. There is GameRanger and the Annoverse Discord, where you have good chances of finding people to play multiplayer even now. I would recommend getting the GOG version, only if you care about it being DRM-Free. For anyone else who wants to play the best version of this game, currently I sadly have to recommend the Anno: History Collection (A:HC) from the Ubisoft store which includes 1602, 1503, 1701 and 1404 with many worthwhile updates: - Support for up to 4K resolution with UI that works -64-bit support for support of modern systems (feels smoother, less janky than the original, higher memory limit, so less crashing with big cities) - Working friend system for easily creating and joining games (much easier than using GameRanger, Radmin VPN, Hamachi, etc.) and a low chance of finding public games - The people on AnnoVerse usully play the History Collection version of the older Anno Games, good luck finding people elsewhere (it did work once over gameranger) I am disappointed that Ubisoft didn't release the History Collection as an update to GOG and split the already small player base, but if you want to play the best old Anno games, you can get A:HC from a cheap game key website for ~10€. I will definitely wait for a deep discount on Anno 1800.
