The first game I played in The Incredible Machine series was Professor Tim's Incredible Machine, also known as The Incredible Machine 3. I have been completely amazed by the wacky-yet-challenging puzzles, the pretty visuals and the varied soundtrack. With more than a hundred puzzles, this game is one of my favorites puzzle games of all time. The game revolves around placing objects in an environment in a paused state in order to complete a specific task when running it. If you miss, you can always return to the original state and try again as many times as you want. In the worst case, if you're stuck, you can always refer to a hint to help you. After solving a puzzle, you can always check a replay or check the official solution. Additionally, the UI never gets in the way and is easy to use. This is a great design and it is very enjoyable. The game also features a solid level editor powerful enough to allow recreating all of the levels featured in the main game, even up to the backgrounds, plus some extra secret holiday parts that are not featured in the main game. Homemade levels are saved as individual files and they can be shared easily with friends, by email for example. The sequels, Contraptions and Even More Contraptions, uses the same game engine and soundtrack but with a different interface. Some will prefer the 3D visuals, but personally I prefer the charms of the 2D visuals. Also, those versions of the game have some stability issues, noticeable loading times and the holiday parts were not even updated to the 3D style. Unfortunately, Contraptions is too similar to IM3, as there is only a handful more puzzles, and they are not really challenging. Still, Even More Contraptions is worth playing through once for the extra puzzles. Just remember to turn off the annoying professor's voice. As for the prequel, Even More Incredible Machine, the style is a bit more serious and the game engine is a bit more primitive. However, there are a lot of puzzles and they are really creative, so you have plenty of brain teasing to do. This pack combines all of the official puzzles that were ever created, plus it allows playing all of the homemade levels available on a 2D or 3D style. I highly recommend it.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of TIme could have been an ordinary 3D platformer. Tricky jumps. Deadly obstacles. A simple battle system. A couple of puzzles. A story that exists only for the purpose of having a motivation to go from point A to point B. And that's about it. Nothing bad, but nothing worth mentioning either. But these simple ideas are considerably improved by the introduction of time-altering abilities. Suddenly, you have to overcome seemingly-impossible tasks such as several death traps combined over a whole room and massive groups of undead enemies surrounding you. If you fail, you can rewind time. If it's too hard, you can slow down time. When you save, you can have visions of the future. And so on. But don't overuse your powers, because you only have a limited amount that you can store. Unfortunately, this game has several flaws. The main one is that the enemy AI is too predictable and is way too easy to defeat. Also, the voice used for main protagonist (at least in English) does not fit at all with the character. And finally, this game is a bit on the easy side because of the rewinding ability that can be abused easily. Despite that, this game is quite enjoyable and is a breath of fresh air compared to similar products. Recommended.
Battle Chess Special Edition is basically 2 classic games in 1 package: chess and xiangqi. Yes, I did say "2", not "3", because the only thing different in Battle Chess 4000 from the original Battle Chess is the cheesy sci-fi theme. Except for the piece sets and battle animations, don't expect much more. Chess is the standard Western chess game that pretty much everybody knows and love. Xiangqi is a relatively-fast chess variant from China featuring a different board, starting position and moving rules. And in both cases, you can already play them for free over the Internet against human opponents of the desired skill level easily. The Battle Chess series was excellent and original back in its original release, and it should be recognized as an important part of video game history. However, in today's context, a question arises: what's the point of buying a bundle of 2 games that you can already play for free? The trademark of the Battle Chess series is the animations given to the pieces. Every time you move a piece, it walks to the desired location. When capturing a piece or when a checkmate occurs, a battle to the death ensues on the board. It doesn't add anything to the gameplay, but it's still fun to watch. The best way to describe it is to look at the chess game at the end of the first Harry Potter movie. Don't expect something that epic though, although it's certainly funnier to watch. The main problem though is that some of the animations are played way too much, and some others almost never. For example, in chess, half of the pieces are pawns, but it appears that the developers forgot about that and gave only one specific animation for each possible battle featuring pawns. You can still skip battles, but it's annoying. As for the rest of the package, each game contains network play features, although archaic. DOSBox thankfully has a feature to convert old network protocols for modern PCs, but you'll still need to find another player outside of the game. Because of that, you'll most probably have to rely on the included AI, which can be set to a pretty good difficulty level for the casual player, but that can be defeated relatively easily by a hardcore chess/xiangqi player. You have the possibility of playing with a standard chess/xiangqi set, but that pretty much annihilates the only distinctive feature of this bundle. And finally there is a board editor, which is completely useless except for being able to watch the battle animations that you normally don't watch during a normal game. If you're unfamiliar with the rules of each game, don't expect any kind of in-game tutorials, which is a major disappointment. Don't expect any extra content either, such as puzzles or challenges. Therefore, I can only see Battle Chess Special Edition as a way to "trick" children into getting interested into playing chess or xiangqi, but be aware that the original Battle Chess contains blood and gore. For everybody else, the battle animations are most likely not worthy of your wallet.
You wake up trapped in the middle of a mysterious building, all strapped in bandages and with a serious case of amnesia, and you quickly discover that you have crazy psychic powers. When attempting to escape, you discover that pretty much everybody wants you dead, police included. The only things you can remember are flashbacks of a military mission in which you participated as a civilian expert, but the information you gather in the present appears to alter your actions while you experience a flashback, which itself changes the past and the present. What's going on? What really happened during that mission? Can you escape your fate as a fugitive? That is the setting of Second Sight, and the story only gets better as the game goes on. The game itself is separated in 2 timelines: the present, in which you must visit various locations to gather more information about you and attempt to save yourself, and the past, during the top-secret military mission. Even though the controls are identical during both time periods, the gameplay itself is not, since you don't have your psychic powers in the past, but you do have several teammates and lots of guns to compensate. And since the game always switches between present and past, and since you constantly discover new psychic abilities, the experience is always fresh and never gets boring. Even though the game is played in a 3rd-person perspective, aiming and shooting is surprisingly easy, and you can usually find cover when you need it. Stealth, melee combat, and some tricky platforming are also all integral to the gameplay, and the 3rd-person perspective is an advantage in these cases. As for the psychic powers, you have a psychic bar that refills slowly over time, and the trick is to know when to use your powers versus standard stealth/melee/gunning gameplay, as it may well save your life in desperate situations. The psychic powers are diverse and always fun to use. You can use them to either attack your enemies, distract them, have access to unreachable objects, heal you and/or your allies, or just have a good laugh at confusing and scaring grunts. Some powers may appear too powerful, but use them too often or unwisely and the first thing you know is that you become defenseless. The AI of allies and enemies does a pretty good job, and even the most insignificant NPC feels like a real person. The physics sometimes are a bit arkward, but it never detracts from the experience. The story sequences are usually integrated within the game, so you never feel like watching a movie. The game isn't too punishing when you die, so it never becomes a frustrating experience, but unfortunately it makes the game relatively easy. Therefore I recommend playing at the Hard difficulty setting right away. Finally, even though this game is only about 15-hours long and lacks a bit on the replay value department, the experience is so unique and thrilling that it's worth every second of it. This is easily the best 3rd-person shooter game I have ever played, and it even puts the Metal Gear Solid series to shame. Definitely an overlooked title. Buy this game, you won't regret it. NOTE: This review is based on the GameCube version. I know that some people have issues with a mouse/keyboard setup, so you might want to play this game with a controller.