Having completed the tutorial section and couple of contracts, I have pretty much only praise on the game concept so far. Basically, game is like many other sims. You start small in a living and open world of Apollo Sector, a colonized corner somewhere in the galaxy, and work your way through the story (or sandbox), trading, bounty hunting, building your ship, talking with the NPCs and doing other your regular space ship captain duties. The twist of the game is that you aren't staring out of the windows of the ship and flying with your HOTAS controls as usually, but using using sensors, screens and buttons on different stations of your ship. And to make things interesting, your spacebox is armed with a 386 computer running with MSDOS and other obsolete technology, so the controls are far from the modern looks we are used to. All in all, the game is more like a subsims of yesteryear, something that the devs defintely were aiming for. All this makes game unique and there is no doubt a great deal of ambience is awesome. Although this kind of game isn't probably for everyone, I don't still feel that the learning curve is exceptionally high. Controls are still relatively simple without gazillion of keyboard commands and game doesn't throw you in the deep end at the first moment you start piloting. My biggest gripe at the launch is unfinished Linux release, which seems to be unplayable. If this is fixed soon, I can change my review up with one star.
TIE fighter was back in 1994 the best Star Wars game yet released and most likely still is. With its "sister" game X-Wing, TF represents the only serious attempt for SW space combat sim and both games do the genre very well. Lawrence Holland, creator of these SW sim titles, did terrific job in the late 80's and early 90's with his Lucasarts WW2 combat sims such as Battle of Britain and Secret Weapons of The Luftwaffe, and these two SW games continue this lineage, only in SW universe. Biggest core difference compared to the earlier WW2 titles is the lack of dynamic campaign, but instead we get a scripted campaign with a plot, so these games are similar to Wing Commander series in this sense. For the time, graphics were beautiful and dynamic iMuse music system (unfortunately lacking in '98 verision) created a true SW atmosphere never seen before on PC. '98 version still looks decent and cinematic music is passable, but what still remains intact under the hood is a gameplay of pure gold. With joystick the ship's handling is still rock solid and although graphics are low resolution by modern standards, you have a good sense of what is going on around you. Missions offer nice variety and game gets really challenging later on. I just wish that GOG would've included the '95 version, which is pretty much the DOS version with higher resolution, full voice and iMuse music, which beats the cinematic music of the '98 version hands down. I really hope GOG can offer it later on, but the package even as it is, is still worth every penny. It just baffles me why Lucasarts hasn't recreated the success of these games in modern days.
Gray Matter is another very well made adventure game from Jane Jensen. Like Gabriel Knight games, this is a very story driven game which also means that the puzzles are far from being the genre's most challenging. While story is well written, it doesn't have the depth of GK-series plots with all the intriguing real life historical events mixed with fiction which we saw especially in GK2 and GK3. Walkthroughs aren't needed with this title, but it still offers solid 10-12 hours quite straightforward gameplay. After a while, loading times between locations start to get annoying, them being several seconds sometimes even with a top notch computer like I have. Although now few years old, Gray Matter looks still fantastic by the adventure game standards. Background art and movie animations are beautiful and 3D characters are mostly OK, although they can be a bit clunky here and there. Soundtrack is top notch and voice acting mostly terrific. Although Gray Matter isn't Jensen's best work and certainly one of the least famous, every adventure game fan should definitely get this one. I'd give it 4.5 stars if possible.
GK2 is a truly a masterpiece. It is a fine example that FMV game doesn't need to be overly cheesy interactive experience just combining the worst aspects of a cheap movie and bad computer game. GK2 really shines on two areas, which both are in my opinion the strong points of all the games in GK-series. First, plot is incredibly detailed and clearly a lot of attention and love has been put in the script. Secondly, characters are really likeable and actors do really terrific job in front of the green screen to support them. GK2 isn't without its flaws, though. Puzzles are easy as FMV concept limits the gameplay significantly in this one. Also, in few cases it is not clearly obvious what player should do next and you may also get stuck if you just miss some hot spot with a small piece of information. This causes you to go through the same places several times before you find the missing information and next scripted event or dialogue opens in the game. Still, GK2 is a beautiful game. FMV was an interesting concept from the short period of time, where the large capacity of CD-ROM offered new possibilities for the developers and proper 3D acceleration was still far from being mature technology. FMV games have been a dead and often a ridiculed genre for a long time. Most of the FMV titles were simply bad, but GK2 shows that FMV adventure can also be highly entertaining. If you like adventure games with mature plot and like to have a proper nostalgia trip to 90's, get GK2!
