Well, to me at least. I own a copy of this game on Steam and I played all the way through it upon the release. I initially hesitated before picking it up because I found the first two Aquanox games super disappointing (my first-ever purchases on GoG, by the way!). But after finishing Deep Descent, I was definitely happy that I gave it a shot anyway. I found this game to have struck the perfect balance in the mission length and variety, as well as in-between-mission dialogue scenes, which provided the right amount of exposition and world-building without wasting too much time on badly written idle chatter. Deep Descent was also the first game in the series in my opinion, where the developer really managed to create an immersive sensation of piloting a combat sub. Unlike the previous two games, which just felt like space shooters with a tacky underwater theme that barely did anything gameplay-wise to capitalize on their unique setting. In Deep Descent, I actually felt like I was trapped deep beneath the surface of the ocean, with the crushing weight of the water pressing down on the hull of my ship like a colossal vice. The action also felt pretty satisfying and the aforementioned variety of objectives and solid pacing always kept me engaged in the gameplay. Clearly, this is not a high-budget game so don't expect any lavish production values, captivating storytelling, and motion-captured voice acting. But visually it looks pretty nice, it plays well and has a great atmosphere, and it's sure to keep you engaged from beginning to end. At that price point, I think it's a solid game to have in your collection and a definite upgrade over the previous games in the series.
This is one of those games that I have a very strong childhood nostalgia for, and the memories of playing it after school as a wee lad are very dear to me. The game features a great, stylized sci-fi aesthetic that I just adore in games from around that era no matter how much the graphics will continue to age over time. The techno music tracks by Jesper Kyd are still bangers and they greatly enhance the game's atmosphere. And the shooting action is still pretty exciting to this day, with lots of particles and green blood effects flying around as you rain down hails of gunfire at funny-looking aliens and robots. There's also a lot of puzzle-solving and platforming for a shooting game and... well, we'll talk about that in a moment. So anyway, the game also has a great sense of humor. It's apparent not only in the funny writing and dialogue but also the overall tone and little details such as enemy animations and sound effects just ooze with character and can be amusing enough all on their own. I remember laughing my ass off at those moments as a kid, and they can still elicit a chuckle today. It does a good job of incorporating humor into the gameplay and making what would normally be ordinary shooting galleries all the more memorable. Alright, I've been putting it off but I guess it's time to talk about the game's shortcomings. And those are mostly limited to levels where you play as Dr. Hawkins, where you have to do a lot of precise platforming which can be maddeningly frustrating. There's also a couple of moments late in the game where you have to do a bunch of platforming with a rocket pack as Max, and I remember wanting to just snap the game disc in half during those particular levels. Some of those platforming sections are the only parts of this game that haven't aged well in my opinion, as jumping controls can be really finicky, and the kind of precision that is sometimes required in order to pull them off always drove me crazy.
And by that, I mean that it bears all of the hallmarks shared by some of the later games made by this developer. It was a visual powerhouse at the time of its release, it had an intriguing premise and gameplay that was fun in the first few levels... but then about halfway through the campaign, it just fell off the cliff and turned into a complete mess. In Crysis, it was the annoying snow level, and in Far Cry it's the appearance of mutants that can either leap at you from 50 feet away and kill you in one swipe, or gun you down from the other side of the level. At this point, I've played this game enough to sort of adjust to its level of crappiness when it comes to dealing with mutants, and I was surprised at how easily I was able to breeze through it on my most recent playthrough. But I wouldn't count that as a sign that it's a good game - that was just me having a lot of practice with it so I'm not the least bit surprised whenever someone who never played this game before picks it up and eventually gets frustrated with it. Another thing that I noticed during this playthrough is just how dumb the human enemy AI is. Very often I will be picking dudes off like ducks and their comrades will just stand around trying to figure out what happened to their friend before I inevitably put a bullet in their skull too. The instances of them doing something incredibly dumb are numerous and the only challenge comes from their inhuman accuracy once they finally spot you and figure out that they should probably start shooting at you. In general, it's not a bad game and the open-ended nature of the levels is certainly one of its most unique selling points as far as the gameplay goes. But it's just a mediocre shooter that didn't age very well and it's obvious today that graphics were its strongest element at the time.
Judging by some of the other reviews I guess I was one of the lucky ones who didn't experience any technical issues with this game and, in fact, I was surprised that it just works out of the box without any major tinkering. Even my wireless Xbox One controller was detected right away and the default mapping matched that of the console versions so I could just jump right in after maxing out the graphics settings. Anyway, as for the game itself, I gotta be honest - never was a big fan of the classic Tomb Raider games from CORE Design so I generally passed on most of them back in the day. However, I am a fan of Crystal Dynamics and their work on the Legacy of Kain series, so I was delighted to find that they were the ones to take the mantle and continue the series back in the mid-2000s. Replaying this game right now, I'm surprised at how well it holds up. The controls are tight, the stylized graphics still look very pleasant, and it has cool music, fun levels, and set pieces... heck, even the story is somewhat engaging. The moment you start the game and right up until the end credits roll, I was just having a lot of fun with it. From nicely balanced challenges in the platforming and puzzles to kickass and over-the-top combat and vehicle chases, it's just a thrilling, globetrotting adventure that never lets you be bored for a minute, and it doesn't overstay its welcome either. I wish that the developers would go back to this style of Tomb Raider instead of continuing with the drab and gritty tone of the modern games in the series. It was fun, light-hearted, and filled with a sense of adventure, as a game about a badass and sexy treasure hunter should be.
Elite Force II overall feels like a huge improvement over the original in almost every aspect. However, the more you play it, the more it becomes apparent that there was just something special about the original Elite Force that the developers of the sequel failed to fully recapture. The visuals are great, there are a tonne of new weapons all of which feel great to shoot, the campaign is lengthy and there's a lot of variety to the missions and locations that you visit. The developers clearly had a lot of love and passion for the source material because the game just oozes with atmosphere and deep-cut references for hardcore Trekkies. Aside from the shooting, the game also expands on the puzzle-solving and platforming aspect by frequently having you use the Tricorder in order to hack a computer, rewire power conduits, find invisible traps, etc. All of this really helps to reinforce the idea that you're a Starfleet officer on a mission, and it's a great way to leverage the game's setting and premise. The story is also decently engaging, although it kinda suffers from a lack of cohesion and proper pacing, as the first game did. What also drags the campaign down is that you will spend the vast majority of it shooting rather generic-looking bug-like enemies, which is a trope that was so common in video games at the time that the decision to make them the main cannon fodder is pretty baffling. I can't think of too many reasons why you shouldn't play this game. It was one of the last hoorahs for the classic Quake 3 engine-powered PC shooters, right before the industry made the jump to next-gen with games like Half-Life 2, and abandoned the design philosophy that characterized so many shooters from the 90s and the early 2000s. In a way, this game feels like a swansong to that long-gone era and it's pretty damn good time to play it. However, I would still recommend the first game over this one, as it simply was more fun and provided a more focused experience.
I never played this when I was younger. I only have a vague recollection of my friend showing it to me once on his computer but that's about it. On the surface it seems like something that would be right up my alley, i.e. a futuristic racing game with that signature late 90s cyberpunk style, techno music, and arcade feel where you race at extremely high speeds, take ridiculously high jumps, and blast your opponents with an assortment of power-ups. All set against the backdrop of cool-looking sci-fi locations. And the fact that it's running pretty flawlessly with gamepad support on modern systems is also a huge plus. And yet, I can't help but to think that I'd rather just be playing Rollcage instead. Because that's essentially what Dethkarz is - Rollcage but without its unique car physics. Plus Dethkarz really suffers from two major problems: 1) it has very little variety to the tracks and game modes, and 2) it's too damn hard. I only reached the second tournament after beating the first one without breaking a sweat, and the game suddenly got brutal with its difficulty, and even dropping it to easy didn't do jack to help. I don't mind a hard game but the difficulty curve in this one is just too steep and it's really off-putting. Again, I guess it's a solid racing game with a lot of nostalgic charm to it that I understand a lot of people are appreciative of, but my childhood was spent playing Rollcage and I'm happy for it because it is just a better game overall.
I spent some time trying to get this to run using some forum guides (even though you'd expect that a GOG version would just run out of the box) but it looks like it's one of those games where trying to get it to run is a total crapshoot, and you'll have to perform some dark ritual in your basement and pray that it will boost your luck stat enough to magically make this game run on your specific system. Waste of money.
It's kinda funny to imagine the stuff that takes place during the gameplay actually happening in an episode of Voyager because it would make it one of the bloodiest pieces of television of all time, and the main characters would seem like they came from a mirror universe with the amount of carnage that they commit over the course of the game. I guess making a first person frag-fest instead of a more thoughtful adventure game was a more bankable choice considering the genre's popularity at the time, but regardless, it's just fun to think about and it's not a jab at the game's quality anyway. The developers still made concentrated effort to emphasize the storytelling aspect and properly immerse you in this setting, which really does feel like you're on the set and playing out a role in an episode of Star Trek. The fact that all of the members of the original cast make an appearance to voice their respective characters adds to the immersion as well. All the shooting an mayhem is simply a bit of a ludonarrative dissonance that doesn't exactly align with the show's ideals but serves as a fun diversion in between the plot dumps. As for the gameplay, this is definitely an early 2000s Quake engine FPS action at its finest, and Raven Software doing what they did best at the time by delivering an extremely fun shooting game. Thanks to the clever story setup, there's enough variety in enemy and level designs to keep things fresh as time goes on, the controls and character movement are tight, precise, and satisfying as you would expect from a game made by this studio, and there's enough light puzzling and platforming to pass the time in between shooting galleries in a satisfying way. All that goodness served on one of the finest FPS engines at the time, with all its audio and visual bells and whistles that still hold up to this day with a very unique, timeless aesthetic to it. It's a great game and I heartily recommend it to any Star Trek or FPS fan.
If the original Xbox version was still available on the Microsoft Store, I would've chosen it over the PC version, which is messy and workarounds aren't very simple. Firstly, there's the baffling decision to force the gameplay into a letterbox format. Why was this even a thing? Widescreen monitors weren't exactly the norm in 2003. It must have been some misguided artistic choice, but in my opinion, it doesn't look very good and it's just distracting. Even if you manage to force a widescreen resolution, the black bars won't budge unless you mess around with the hex editor. Another thing is wonky mouse support or ear-splitting sound mixing that sounds like your speakers are about to explode but there aren't any fixes for that as far as I know. As for the game itself, it's not half bad, but it feels like the developers either rushed it due to time and budget constraints or simply didn't think things through. A&D was made by the same guys behind Giants: Citizen Kabuto, and it does bear a resemblance as a spiritual successor. However, it feels stripped down to the bone, offering only one playable character, even though it feels like others should've been playable as well. Or, at the very least, a co-op mode should've been included but that is also mysteriously absent. It's mostly just mindless running and gunning which, interestingly enough, is completely bloodless even though the characters frequently comment about flying guts that aren't there, so I see it as yet another feature that was cut for some reason. It's sorely lacking the variety that could have made the gameplay more engaging. It gets the job done, but after a while, you find yourself zoning out and becoming numb to all the chaos. That's why Giants had multiple factions to play as and a strategic element to spice things up. On the bright side, the story does its job, and the humor, while not everyone's cup of tea, did manage to elicit a few chuckles. The soundtrack is also pretty unique.
Honestly, the only thing I really need to say about this game is that I used to have to get into fights with my then-16-year-old sister because she was hogging my computer all the time, playing through Soldier of Fortune's campaign on repeat. Let that sink in for a moment. If that doesn't sell you on trying out this game then I don't know what will. And before you get on my back for suggesting that girls aren't gamers or whatever, you really need to understand what kind of a teenager my sister was. She was literally the last person you'd suspect to be into this type of game at that age. Hell, she was never really into gaming at all and once she got over SoF, I don't think she ever picked up another game ever again. And I guess it's entirely possible that what grabbed her attention was the fact that you could shoot dudes in a dick and they would react to it in a believable way. But my personal takeaway from this little anecdote is that Soldier of Fortune is just so much fun that literally anyone will find it enjoyable.
