I have never played the original Rise Of The Triad, so I am new to this. The GOG version is the most up to date (1.5.5), so some problems from the older reviews, like glitches or crashes, must be gone, because I have never encountered those. The game itself is about a team of five characters with different health and speed stats, shooting nazi-like enemies, known as Triads, on San Nicholas Island, to find and kill the big bad boss, simple. Although it is a 1st person shooter, it is more like a classic platformer and a tough one indeed. The enemies, that are hard to spot, have, despite their low AI, pinpoint accuracy and there are many traps in the levels, so prepare to get killed a lot. There is a checkpoint save system, which you should use, as quick loading your game, which has been implemented after some critiques, deducts your high score. According to my taste, the game still looks pretty well, especially the huge explosions, there are a lot of secrets and some of the weapons are really cool. Yet, I advise you to start at easy difficulty and learn where the enemies and traps are located, so that at one point you will know it all, to run and gun through the game like a speed runner, you know, like in the first Prince of Persia. Unfortunately, you cannot change your player name from John Doe, so you are always called this name in the high score list. Frustration mostly comes because of the bad jumping controls that are not really smooth and some levels (like E2M2) are an exercise in frustration, with all of their traps and jump pads. Yet, the soundtrack by Andrew Hulshult rocks, especially if you love metal, which can also be changed to the classic soundtrack of the original. Indeed, this shooter is not the best out there, but it is, in my opinion, not the worst either, especially now, with all the old problems patched out, so on a good discount you may want to give this a try, because it contains more than enough classic action and truly kind of a 90s feel.
Hearts Of Iron II is a wargame set in the era of WW2, so do not expect a civilization-type of game with this one. It looks like an Axis And Allies boardgame, but in this one you can play any nation of that era from the entire globe. You are preparing for war, if you choose the start of the game being in 1936, build up your forces, research technologies and conquer other countries, to gain more resources, become stronger and start to conquer even bigger nations. Thanks to GOG, this version includes the Armageddon expansion, so the time is being expanded to the Cold War area and does not end in 1947. The game has no real goal though, only three factions exist in the score, so you can set the goals freely for yourself, which I like very much. The strength of your forces, weather, territory etc. have to be taken into account for every battle and I highly advise you to read the huge manual too, because the game is really deep within itself and nothing for gamers that love a quick game for just 30 minutes. Yes, you can shape the outcome of history and it is funny watching the USA having Alf Landon as their president instead of Roosevelt, then invading Middle and South America or the Germans using paratroopers to conquer London, yet if you play a country like Switzerland, Tibet, El Salvador or any other small nation, expect to do almost nothing throughout the entire game. Bigger nations can research more technologies at once, so you are quickly falling behind, you do not own enough resources to build up a sizeable army, sometimes you need years to change your nation’s government from totally introverted, which prohibits you to declare war, to a more interfering one and then the other nations have already advanced too far in strength. If you play a mid-sized to large-sized country you will find an extremely challenging wargame with an extreme amount of strategical depth and a lot of historical surprises, yet, unfortunately, you will get bored playing the small ones.
If you love the turn-based Panzer General series, yet you are looking for a game of this kind that gives you modern units, instead of WW2 ones, then this is the game to go. I have played it on my Windows 7 gaming computer, assembled in December 2014, as well as on my Windows 11 notebook, bought in February 2022, and the game works flawlessly on both machines, including its videos. It plays in a fictional WW3 scenario, in which China is at war with the United Nations. Thanks to that, there are numerous scenarios and plenty of campaigns you can choose from for all sides. There is also a scenario editor, to create your own missions, for endless fun. Now, the game is nothing for beginners and you need to study the manual carefully. It has a tutorial mission, but you still have to invest hours to entirely learn the game. It’s not that the game is hard to control or difficult to understand, but it is meant for strategy experts and quite different, compared to the Panzer General series. For example, the modern artillery has a far greater range and the same goes for helicopters. There are no planes and no ships, but you can now call in for airstrikes. The more units you defeat and the more cities/airbases you conquer, the more you earn prestige points, with which you can buy new units or call in the aforementioned airstrikes. Overall, the game is very tough and nothing for short-tempered players, but the good thing is that even if you play exactly the same mission, the AI behaves different, especially if you raise its prestige in the beginning, so that it can buy more units as well. Unfortunately, there is one (minor) flaw: Just like in Panzer General you are forced to move and conquer your objectives quickly, as the turns in every mission are limited and if you run out of turns your mission is lost. I always hated it, but at the same time it forces you to think carefully and act decisively, so it is not that bad either. Therefore, I still give this WW3 strategy gem 5/5.
I have really believed into John Romero and I have really looked forward, when Daikatana was only 1.39 € during summer sale, so I gave it a try, besides the crushing opinions of so many players. Well, unfortunately, they are absolutely right. I personally do not care about the old graphics, as I know that there are plenty of enjoyable games out there, whose graphics aren’t good looking at all either. Yet, when your first level starts in a green swamp with a green background, in which you have to shoot dozens of small mosquitoes and frogs, while hurting yourself with your gun, when you try to shoot it underwater, this is already a true fun-killer. The level design is pretty linear and very often you have no space to evade the enemies shots. Even with the easy difficulty and your health fully boosted via the neat RPG system of the game, chapter 1 is incredibly hard, even for experienced FPS-players. Yet, very often the enemy robots are stuck at a corner of a door, so you can keep shooting at them, while they cannot find a path to you, which, unfortunately, makes the game very laughable. Although you got plenty of weapons, the only 16-pages-sized manual gives you no clue how they actually work and that they are most likely to hurt you, while trying them out. Mostly, in chapter 1 I just used the Ion cannon, which you find right at the start of the first level. Yet, if you accidentally miss your target, it hits the wall and can fly back right toward you, eating your health away. Be prepared for a lot of frustration, might it be due to the terrible AI of your two comrades and your enemies, the weapons that harm you just as they harm your enemies or the extremely dark and often too narrow level design, which gives you rooms filled with enemies that just tear you apart within a few seconds, as soon as you open the door to enter. Luckily, GOG uses the 1.3 patch, which allows you to save and reload any time you want, otherwise Daikatana would be an even more frustrating mess.
Honestly, I cannot understand the praises of many people in here. I was searching for a good alternative of Sudden Strike 2 and Blitzkrieg seemed to be the way. At first I was happy. The graphics are nice, the game allows you to receive better units by doing side-missions (I never minded that they repeat themselves) and the game did put a lot effort into historical accuracy, for example into armor and strength of the gun’s caliber. Yet, as other people already mentioned, the game is too much focused on artillery. While in Sudden Strike 2 the supply trucks had to rebuild ammunition themselves on a legendary slow rate, making artillery useless, here you can level everything down and then send your tanks in for the rest. Well, at least if the enemy doesn’t have artillery. While in Sudden Strike 2 you were able to hear the enemy shots, in Blitzkrieg you only receive some orange circles on your map and these suggestions are only very vague, while at the same time the enemy shoots with a huge accuracy. The main missions are bad. While in the side quests you have just a few tanks and soldiers, suddenly you are the commander of a huge army that already gets attacked from all sides, after just a few seconds. And forget your air reconnaissance because as soon as you send them the enemy sends fighters, not to mention his flaks that are all over the map. All you can do is use your tanks and artillery only and pause a lot of time to give commands, otherwise you WILL lose track of what is going on. But the worst part is the infantry. It is completely useless! In Sudden Strike 2 your soldiers had bazookas and anti-tank rifles to be useful against vehicles and they were. In Blitzkrieg they are just pure cannon fodder for tanks, except the sniper who is a perfect scout. You cannot even take out the tank crew and capture the enemy tank, while in Sudden Strike 2 you could. So the infantry has no chance against tanks at all. They are useless, regardless of how you try to use them.
I can feel your shock. How can I call Myst, the very adventure game that started a fantastic series, mediocre? Well, stay tuned for the reasons: At first I have to say that the new graphics and the addition of free roaming brings a wonderful experience to a gamer that only played the very original Myst and never before a remastered edition. Yet, besides the 3D graphics that mostly look beautiful to my eyes, except for the ugly leafs on the trees in Channelwood, everything else has stayed completely the same. So if you like me can remember most of the puzzles you will have beaten the game in around 2-3 hours. The biggest problem to me was always the non-existing replayability. After you have beaten the game you are allowed to roam through the Myst islands as long as you like. But the problem is: There is no interactivity with anything on all of the Myst islands. It is just too simple, at least in my point of view. Just grab one of the two pages, get out of there, then return for the other page (all puzzles stay solved when you return) and return to Myst again. Don’t understand me wrong. I had plenty of fun already as a child playing the game just for the videos in which these two poor guys are telling me “Bring me the red/blue pages!”, but the pages are obvious to find on the islands and as soon as you figure out that most of the puzzles are simple logic ones you might leave with mixed feelings as I did. If you remember them well you can beat any island in around 5 minutes and all the new graphics and the few interactive objects besides the puzzles are just for show. Also the additional island in this edition is just for show as there is no real puzzle in it at all although it adds much to the already superb atmosphere of the Myst legacy. Decide it yourself if the price is worth for the exact same Myst experience with enhanced graphics. If you are a Myst pro and remember all the puzzles by hard then there is not really a reason to buy it, at least in my opinion.
I.G.I. 2 sounds like a good game to me: Being a special military agent with high tech gadgets, sneaking into enemy bases with realistic modern weapons. Unfortunately the developers were able to destroy everything they tried to do. There is a story and it is as stupid and boring as it comes. Once again in the end you fight a crazy general that wants to launch a nuclear warhead, doesn’t this sound familiar? For a game that pretends of being realistic no story at all but just giving you military type missions would had been much better I think. The stealth elements are as crappy as they come. The manual even lies to you that you should consider different ways into a base. But most of the time there is only ONE way to get into the base and only ONE way to finish the mission, always forcing you to shoot yourself through the enemy soldiers instead of sneaking past them. It is impossible anyway. The enemies are placed in a way in which you are forced to fight. This wouldn’t be that bad if they would not have godlike accuracy and can even shoot you from a mile away with a pistol. But even this wouldn’t be that worse if you would not be restricted to a few saves during a mission. But in all other aspects the AI is completely retarded making them easy to kill, especially if they have to go through a door. The outside graphics are good looking, even today, but the inside of buildings is as boring as they come. The models are some of the ugliest I have ever seen and they all walk like puppets on a string, making this game really laughable. Same goes for the cheap 90s style blood effects and the fact that you cannot carry dead bodies away, while you were already able to do this in Thief at the end of 1998! But you are supposed to shoot your way through anyway so even this doesn’t really matter. What matters is that there are much better games out there that combine shooter and stealth elements. Avoid this game at all cost because this is really not worth your time and money.
As much as I loved to play Quake 3 I was always looking for something better with more game modes, more weapons and just more fun as Quake became a bit too simple to me over time. Unreal Tournament 2004 was the one I’ve truly been looking for! The game offers endless hours of awesome classic shooter fun as well as many gaming modes: It got the classics like Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture The Flag as well as the Assault or the Onslaught modes where you even drive vehicles and other players or bots can also mount additional turrets while you are the driver or otherwise. Or you fight off an invasion of the old Unreal monsters whose numbers you can even modify before the match. The graphics and the blood and gore factor as well as the ragdoll physics of the dozens of playable characters are still top notch today for me. There is no other shooter I can compare with this endless replayability. Plus you can even configure the crosshairs of your weapons in the menu as well as the announcer which brings you awesome fun, especially the sexy female announcer that gets an orgasm every time you get a Wicked Sick kill (many kills in a row in a very short amount of time). You got to play this yourself to see what I mean. As I’m a singleplayer only I need to talk about the bots: They are really deadly, especially on the three highest difficulties. Yes, on these they cheat but to me they feel like as if I would fight against human opponents while the Quake 3 bots became predictable after some time even on the highest difficulties. As your buddies in team matches they are really valid and cover your way back to the base, for example when you carry the enemy flag. Again, they really do feel like teammates and they saved my virtual life many times. I just can recommend the game to anyone who likes ego shooters and a futuristic atmosphere, dozens of maps and characters, gaming modes and never ending replayabiliy. This game is wicked sick for good, you just can love it!
