The premise of the game is incredibly simple: get through eight maze-like levels per episode (nine per episode if you find the secret levels), find colored keys to open locked doors, look for secrets that give you useful items, and shoot demons until they die. The level design is for the most part really quite good, and I very rarely felt that any of it was unnecessarily complex, with enemy placements and weapon and item pickups in just the right areas, and it never got overwhelming - at least not in the first three episodes. Thy Flesh Consumed just kind of felt more like a random mishmash of levels than an actual part of DOOM. There are some really good levels in there but overall...meh. Each episode has its own theme to it (except Thy Flesh Consumed - I'm still not entirely sure where they're going with that one) with Knee Deep in the Dead being a UAC outpost on Phobos. The Shores of Hell sees you in the UAC Deimos base which has been consumed by Hell and you start to see a lot more Hellish environments. In Inferno you're entirely in Hell making your way through demonic structures and landscapes. You can get an overhead view of the general area mapping your progress from level to level in between each, which is pretty cool. At the end of each episode you get a text screen that gives you a little more of what very little story is in DOOM. Even the secret levels are a lot of fun and they can give you a weapon or two earlier than you normally get them. Both DOSBox and the Unity port are perfectly valid ways to play the game so this will work right out of the box, but if you want to set it up with a source port, you can do that too.
In much the same way Duke Nukem 3D was a parody of 80s and early 90s action movies (bring Duke 3D back to GOG, Randy), Shadow Warrior is a parody of 80s and early 90s kung-fu flicks. The one-liners are fun, the weapons are all great to use, and the enemies are exactly as challenging as they need to be. It can get quite a lot more difficult than Duke 3D, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Level design works really well for the most part, and there are only two "episodes" - the shareware episode is one and the rest of the game is the other. So except for one part, you don't have to quit out and start a whole new game just to progress through the campaign. Some people might find it "offensive" or whatever but those people miss the point entirely and should not be trusted. Get this game. It's free. If you don't want to run it with DOSBox (which runs perfectly fine if you configure it properly) you can get a source port like BuildGDX or VoidSW (a fork of eDuke32 meant to work specifically with Shadow Warrior) and run it that way.
Dusk is one of the games that (for better or worse) helped spawn the "retro FPS revival" and for good reason. It's great. Everything from the movement to the weapons to the enemies to the environments and the soundtrack just all feel fantastic. And yes, you can pick up a bar of soap, throw it at an enemy, and they will explode. It is glorious.
I remember this game fondly as it was my introduction into the World of Darkness 20 years ago. Sadly, it's aged like milk. The XP system is confusing at best (the system used in Bloodlines made it much more understandable, much more similar to the TTRPG), and because of various bugs even with the 1.1 patch pre-installed, having your frenzy meter go all the way up in less than a second is not an uncommon occurrence. The storyline is cool (but having your main character speak in 'thee's and 'thou's throughout the entire thing gets a little annoying) and the music is dope. If you can live with some frustrating bugs I say go for it, but otherwise you're better off playing Bloodlines to scratch your World of Darkness itch.
Doom II is the sequel to DOOM (obviously). The premise is identical to the first: Make your way through maze-like levels, find colored keys to open colored doors, find secrets which grant you powerful items, and shoot demons until they die. The map design isn't as good as the first, and I'm putting that nicely. The game isn't divided into episodes this time around though, so you don't have to keep starting a new game just to go through the whole thing. As far as weapons go, they're the same as the first with the addition of the Super Shotgun. Additional enemies include the chaingunner, Pain Elemental (which spits out Lost Souls - I hate it), the Revenant, which fires homing rockets at you, and the Archvile, which resurrects dead enemies and can burn you alive. I also hate it. If you're wondering whether or not you should play DOOM 2, the answer is yes. Yes you should. It's great. But there are some parts that you might find...unenjoyable. I blame Sandy.
This game is great, when it works. It's a great park builder with competitive and sandbox modes. The precursor to Roller Coaster Tycoon. But for some reason, the game crashes a TON. The game itself crashes within DosBox, while DosBox itself responds just fine. It's strange. You might get an hour or two of game time in before this just randomly happens, or you might get 30 minutes. You might get 10. For that alone I can't really recommend buying this, unless there's a source port out there somewhere.
I thought, "Hey, maybe if I buy the game on GOG it'll work, since they actually take the time to make sure their games work out of the box," but this piece of trash STILL crashes every 5 seconds. And yes I've done all the blah blah blah that I shouldn't even have to do with GOG. Save yourselves the money and accept the fact that you will never be able to play this game again because Bethesda can't get their heads out of their asses.
