Liberation Day takes Fallen Haven, and adds more of almost everything. It reads nice, there's twice as many factions, a campaign with multiple continents to conquer, more unit types. Yet, at the same time, it fells less polished, less atmospheric to me. In an effort to differentiate the units and factions, the developers used a bigger part of the colour palette available to them at the time, and it doesn't quite feel homogeneous anymore. Together with the much appreciated further zoom level, the graphics can appear a little crumbly; While probably a step up back when, age has not been as kind to Liberation Day's looks as it has to its predecessor. The mechanics are solid, adding a few welcome interactions of unit types with the environment above "flying units can cross water" and "artillery can shoot over walls". The campaign differs somewhat from the first game, allowing players to select missions on a map, then deploy units with resources based on previous decisions like the status of the players main base, as opposed to Fallen Haven's system of having to actually build units and ship them to a province with dropships, which added an extra dimension to logistics. A general issue of the first game, having just the choice between exhausting enemy overwatch with cannon fodder or using units with superior range, remains, maybe somewhat exasperated by the lack of logistics to ad-hoc deploy masses of cheap infantry. On the bright side, these missions, with their extra goals, add variety to the deployments, where in the first game there was only the odd mission available in a handful of provinces. The UI is somewhat poorly explained, with a lack of clarity and simplicity especially for today's eyes. All that said, it is a solid tactical game with sufficient depth and complexity even without a nostalgia filter. If you liked Fallen Haven, and you want more of the same, this an obvious choice, with good value for the money.
I played this game decades ago, when I still went to primary school. Little me knew no English, so I had limited understanding of creatively named units like "Mega Tank" (it wasn't the best localisation). I still have the disk somewhere, with its original packaging and manual. The game IS old by now, and the pictures remind me that it can be described as positively ugly today, but even the graphics and limited sound quality didn't detract from it having a pretty good atmosphere. I know I spent an unhealthy amount of time with it, at times risking bladder malfunctions because I wanted to do yet one more turn. The game: Game Design is deceptively simple. There's two playable factions, humans and taurans, and a human neutral faction. Human units are generally slightly faster with higher range, Tauran units nearly across the board have up to +50% hp and damage, but also cost about as much more. There's a strategic map upon which you can select your own provinces to manage their buildings and defences, and click on hostile provinces to attack them. An attack is performed by up to 3 transports, provided you have those; a transport holds 8 units. The enemy faction may sometimes raid some of your frontline provinces, as well. The game offers as unit types ground vehicles (tanks, artillery, etc.), different shades of fast hovercraft, and infantry. The Backstory fits on 1-2 pages of the manual: Human colony planet, largest province (Haven) wants independence, other provinces are supplied by terran company for war, then aliens show up. There's 2 "campaigns", being 2 strategic maps, one of them with neutral colonies in the middle, the other with your enemy holding the entire map but your starting province. The side that captures the other's capital wins. The game has an enormous nostalgia factor for me, and is actually well thought out and balanced - but it is also 23+ years, and it shows.
I won't be able to add anything to the reviews that got me to try this in the first place, but here goes: I went into the game not expecting much; I've never been into JRPGs and then this comes along looking all cute and generic. The combat is simple, but workable, the graphics are outdated, the controls are ... let's say serviceable. But the game has atmosphere. As others have said, it's about the exploration; Every major quest, all the NPCs have new dialogue, the music transfers emotion, and the if you get even slightly invested in the world or the characters (which are genuinely likeable), chances are you'll be interested in the next chapter after this one.
I was genuinely disappointed by this way back when, as it failed to deliver on pretty much all fronts compared to Schleichfahrt (Archimedian Dynasty). No less, it's actually a decent underwater shooter with rather distinct mechanics, so I can't fault it for that. Not being as good as it's predecessor is a tough fate for many a game, yet some are still good games in their own right. I can't really add anything to what Flaser said, but I felt I had to give an opinion, as it's still kind of a part of my late youth.
I bought it because it was drastically reduced, and I found it worth the money, maybe. But it turned out it wasn't actually worth my time. When compared to, say, Jets'n'Guns, it just... doesn't get there. Small things, but they add up. I think it's sad I have to give this 2 Stars, but for me personally, it isn't worth more. Tastes may differ; What I think is telling is that I normally like Shops and clever elements like the temporary turrets; But it's still not good.
This Addon takes everything that made the base game good, and turns it up a notch. The gameplay has been improved; There's more equipment options and more available approaches; Some missions can literally be solved without firing a single shot. There's interesting choices, and a lot of them; You may have a choice between the doing what you were called for (reputation), doing what another party asks you to do (money, safety), or doing what is not morally questionable (uhm... conscience? I sure picked the last one that time). You can spend money on your kiez, a task without any gameplay benefits and still something I enthusiastically did. The one thing that makes this game stand out, though, is the story. The main story is captivating, with turnarounds and a story arc spanning a good forty years of Shadowrun universe; But what really gripped me was the party. Your main party is a lovable cast of characters, each with a deep personality and rich background; Some of those stories were outright heartbreaking, and even though it scarcely has impact on the game, the decisions on how to react to actions, past or present, of your own party members were some the hardest I had to make. I sure will be thinking about this game for a while to come. The game has it's weakpoints, yes; The enemies are unbelievable stupid, and the gameplay is certainly old-fashioned, but the strongpoints outweight it for me.
I never played Alien Crossfire, even back when it was impossible to get! I might have done a review a while back, but this update warrants buying it. I save 40-60$ by buying Alien Crossfire here!
It's awesome. The game is, too. I played that a lot; Back when it was out, I played the demo, but then forgot about it for a bit. Then I tried to find that game again, took me over a year to finally get a hold of it. GoG's a little late, but I still recommend it to everyone interested in RTS.
I know this game is great; I've played it on CD; I even got the sound files in my language. But the graphic glitches make this game somewhat unplayable; The first cutscene of every level is a black screen, theres lots of colorful pixels where text should be. Given that the game ran perfectly in the original CD version, I don't quite get what has been done wrong.
