Good FPS, but has some issues. Whats going for it really well is the atmosphere. The visuals, art, sound, voice acting all work towards making you feel part of the post apocalypse world. Gameplay mostly consists of either stealth or combat sections. You navigate through the tunnels of the Moscow metro system or sometimes the surface to get from one point or another. Often you get a choice on how you want to approach the enemy. While the AI isnt particularly smart, there are a variety of difficulty settings that can make the combat more "realistic" damage-wise and force you to play smarter. There is a decent selection of weapons with good customization options as well. While the story in the game is interesting, what the game suffers from is lack of meaningful character development. Some of the characters or factions return from the previous game, but that doesnt resolve the issue. The games were based off of books, so if you want a more detailed descriptions of the characters, factions, places, then that could be a place to turn too. And I guess that makes sense in way. However, as an example, in this game you have a sort of romantic interest, but you spend way too little time with her or know way too little about her in order to have a meaningful connection. Those are the sort of spots they should have worked more on. Another thing that bothered me was the "moral" system. Based on your actions in game you can get a bad or good ending. While I put quite a bit of effort into making proverbially "good" choices throughout the game I still got the "bad" ending. Wish I had some way of knowing my standing, otherwise I would have been a lot more aggressive in my behavior at certain instances. Despite some of my complaints, its still a very solid experience and aside from the main storyline there are side missions you can do, separate from the main campaign. If you like stories and shooters with some challenge, this is a good choice.
For people who missed this game and have no nostalgia connection to it I can honestly say, dont bother. Graphically it hasnt aged well, looks quite pixelated. The controls arent comfortable at all, making combat and traversing feel a lot like a chore. I havent played it much, but I realised that this isnt going to be a fulfilling experience. Neither for me, nor most other people. And I dont want to spend time trying to optimise it or get used to it. There is much better stuff out there today that would warrant your time.
A fun retro FPS. Visuals are nice and sound is good. Aint much of a story, just some text at the end of chapters to move you along between zones. Gameplay is pretty nice. Each zone has a variety of enemies, even though some of them may be reskins with similar abilities to previous ones. There are 5 chapters and all end with a boss. I think some bosses could have been done better, but overall they were alright. Last boss is pretty chunky, so be prepared to shoot at him for a while. Level design seems alright. yet somehow I felt it could have used more variety. There are secret rooms in levels, but often you need to mass click the space bar in order to find them as there are no visual indicators for them. There are rooms where you need to shoot a hole through, but usually there are some visuals cues for those. I think these could have been done somewhat better. There is a decent variety of weapons in the game, as well as spells. You can earn collect upgrade points to specialize in them. You also gain levels and can upgrade your character in ways that also shows specialization. Beat the campaign in 6 hours in normal. Its a pretty good product for the asking price, so if you want some shooting fun, go for it.
A 3rd person Western adventure game. You go about shooting down various outlaws because the plot demands it, for the most part. There are also some side missions, both related and unrelated to shooting. You can get upgrades for your weapons and such. Graphics seem to have aged well for a 3d PS2 era game. But the overall landscape can seem quite bland. Only thing that stood out for me was the night sky. Audio and voice acting is good. The plot seems kind of thin, could have used more work. Its not bad, just feels underdeveloped. Game overall is pretty short, you can proabably finish it in a day or less. There are some console issues. Like your crosshairs could slide trying to trace the enemy. Overall the game feels a bit clunky. Overall, its not bad. For its day it probably was quite alright. But nowadays it just doesnt really offer that much.
As a kid I tried playing this game, but failed to understand what I needed to do to make cities work, as I wasnt that good at reading information and strategizing. Now, being older, I wanted to try again and see if I can fair better. Although I did fair better and managed to understand how much of the things work, it isnt a fun experience. There are some issues I have with this game. First off, is that you need to often follow specific buidling strategies to be effective. Either because you need to make sure maintenance is carried out properly or houses develop properly. Its important, because if you dont then your city collapses or you dont have a proper tax base. So possibilities for variation are limited and often come out inorganic or even somewhat illogical from a normal city perspective. If you are new to this game, trial and error will be a running theme and there will be a certain lerning curve. Next off, you will require to do some micromanagent in certain situations, but interface and controls are so outdated it becomes quite a chore. This also applies to gathering information. Also, some information you dont get, like how far people can live away from their work place. There are those that are quite fine with the design of the game and others get mods to solve technical or other issues. I can definitely see why people like it a lot. Even I wanted to like this "classic". But while trying to play the missions and learning how it all works I kept catching myself on the thought that Im not enjoying myself. I caution younger or newer audiences to this genre. Despite having a lot of charm, the game also has its significant flaws.
So first of, this is primarily a sort of adventure game, not puzzle game. Youre here for the experience, not the gameplay. The game seems to try combining strong elements from different great games like the Portal series, The Talos Principle and the Stanley Parable. But it never really advances any of them to a meaningful extent .... Some of the puzzles in the game were quite neat, but once you were done with a mechanic then you didnt come back to it. It was never reused or expanded upon. The premise of the story is quite simple and it isnt explored much. The philosophical concepts brought up feel somwhat superficial. There are some attempts to play with your expectations, but they either dont last long or dont lead to anything interesting. There are a couple of voices you get to hear through the game, that of female program and a male doctor. An attempt to add both a "Gladdos" and a "Stanley", yet neither one turned out to have depth to them. Add to that the fact that it feels these things dont feel like one cohesive experience and it becomes problematic. Its not bad. It had its moments. I wish they did more with it, to be honest. And better. I would have rated it a bit higher, were it cheaper. But its not nearly as good as its made out to be. Definitely not worth full price.
So trend with leftist garbage started a long time ago, I see. There is basically no gameplay here, its a walking simulator. Presentation values are probably from the mid to late 2000s. It all wouldnt be that bad, really, if it had some decent story/context. But of course its about the brave lesbian doing what she wants in disregard to everything else, because she is a brave lesbian and thats all that matters. I didnt even want to finish it. If youre a normal person, there is nothing of value for you here.
A classic arcade style shooter from the early 2000s and the golden age of FPS. I never tried it and was looking forward to catching up. The presentation of the game holds up pretty well in my opinion. It may be 20 years old, but visuals still look decent and sound is alright. Story is just for the backdrop. It gives some description of what you are doing, enemies you encounter and so on, but its not the focus of the game. Gameplay-wise its pretty simple. You go around killing things, all the while picking up new weapons along the way. The farther you go, the more unique enemies you encounter and the more weapons you collect. You dont need to reload weapons, aside from the pistols. Places where you fight enemies can be huge, which can feel quite impressive. Enemies feel varied and guns look cool. It all sounds fairly solid. However, there are some drawbacks. First off, you swap between weapons too slowly. Thats important, because different weapons are best used against different foes. Considering how relentless the enemy attacks you sometimes, the slow swap can be fatal. That also ties in with the bigest issue the game has and that is its level design. It uses a lot of cheap shots in the form of triggered spawns. Unless you know whats coming, odds are you are going to die. Sometimes even knowing the spawn it takes you several tried to get it right. Towards the later part of the game certain enemies are overused and become very annoying. In the game there are also a lot of moments when you need to fend off a constant spawn of enemies. Its not bad per se, but the spawns can be such that unless you are prepared for whats coming they will probably overwhlem you. There are things in the game that I liked, but the level design and questionable balancing also brought a fair amount of tedium. I dont regret trying it, but its not something I will go back to.
I initially was quite intrigued by this game as it reminded me of an old pixelated action horror game where you needed to navigate a haunted mansion full of spooks. It turns out it is a kind of rouge-like with a lovecraftian theme. I was intrigued at first, but eventually I realised it is not good enough to warrant the investment. While the pixel graphics are well made, you will get tired of seeing them. Im not a fan of pixels, so it may be just me. The story aspect of the game isnt that interesting. There are interesting pieces to explore, but overall ... Maybe I didnt get far enough into the game to see the cool stuff, but the beginning wasnt enough to keep me going. The gameplay isnt that fun or well thought out. In the game you move from room to room and each room is randomlly generated. Some rooms are bigger than others. And some rooms are more cluttered than others. Meaning you may not have proper space to maneuver against enemies and bosses. Another thing is the poorly balanced sanity system. Almost everything you explore will give a sanity hit, while there are few ways to avoid it and treating it isnt easy. The rewards you get from exploring the stuff usually arent that great either. In this game you have a lot of debuffs, almost each requiring their own healing method. But you have limited inventory space to collect the stuff. You also have no indicator of what to expect in a new zone when you leave stuff behind. You also have a lot of different stuff, but a lot of it is useless. The old "Why use a plus +50 ice resistance ring when I can use a +20 health ring, since I dont know whats coming" problem. So gathering loot and planning is a pain. Projectiles and firing work by navigating the mouse where you want them to go. Thing is, the enemies are quite quick, so using stuff like grenades, dynamite, etc. isnt efficient. All of the above isnt a good recipe for a roguelike game. Its not a bad game, but it isnt ironed out to the point of being fun.
From what are considered Souls-like I only played Remnant from the Ashes with a friend. So this was kind of a new venture for me. I didnt play long, but played enough to know what Im getting into. Firstly, the game looks more bland than the screenshots. Maybe my settings were off, but the screenshots paint a more "colourful" picture. There is some story here, but from what Ive seen its presentation is lackluster. The gameplay in the begining is simple. You get a weapon and a shield relatively early on and fight enemies. The interface is rather clunky from my point of view, but then I found out this is geared towards consoles. Maybe its good for them, but for me it isnt that good. The explanation of the gameplay systems isnt that good either. I had to find out about the block button and dodge roll by pressing different keys, because it felt that I was lacking certain combat options. The initial enemies were pretty simple, but then I stumbled upon someone who basically one shotted me. It wasnt even a boss. By looking through some videos I found out you need to basically avoid these enemies until you level up. Run past them. I have absolutely no idea why the levels need to be designed in way where I need to run a way from enemies that are naturally on my progression path. There was no other way to go. And how many more surprises like that await me? After ddeath I was kicked back to the beginning of the game where my only checkpoint was. I consider that poor level design. On top of that you have no map for the space ship you are in. You have to memorize where you are and it can be quite confusing. Maybe I am not the target audience of this product. But since I got this for free I want to warn the average user that this for people who are willing to invest, grind, trial and error games. So unless you are in those categories, dont bother.
