Chaser is in no way a perfect game, but I have a lot of fond memories playing in endlessly a long time ago, and upon replaying it I can say, that it still is hugely entertaining. In Chaser you are an amnesiac man waking up aboard a space station, that is suddenly attacked by hostile forces. The game will take you from space to Earth to gang turfs and deep see trenches to the cold wastes of Syberia and even exotic Mars. If I have to use one word to describe the game, it's "ambitious". Chaser starts with a bang and for the first half of the game engages in a non-stop heart-pounding action. However developers ran out of steam and after that the game becomes more bland and repetitive, storyline also suffers as a consequence. Still, I would consider it to be one of the strongest scenarios in an FPS. The game is fairly challenging and provides a lot of guns to help you. Even an easy difficulty setting is of quite moderate difficulty. Also the game is very long and might just be one of the longest first person shooters. The downside that in the end the game becomes repetitive and is quite buggy (nothing critical; some graphical glitches, ability to get stuck in walls, jumping doesn't work as intended...). Pros: Strong plot Memorable characters Engaging gameplay Varied missions (shoot them all levels, sniping levels, underwater levels, stealth levels) Very long Lots and varied weapons Graphics still look good even today Cons: Buggy The second half of the game is worse and becomes repetitive, design also suffers Underwater levels are notorious (though they are more irritating than actually difficult) Extremely unsatisfying ending Other: Voice acting is so bad, that it becomes good:-)
How do you gauge, what game is good and what is so-so? I suppose, that if it stays in your mind ten years after you played it, then you can seriously consider it above average product. I played "DragonSphere" (DS) ages ago and upon launching it now, everything came back to me in a rush. I remembered the plot and even the majority of the puzzles with no problems. In DS, you are a recently crowned king Callash and you are already facing huge problems with your kingdom. The evil wizard Sanwe is about to return after 20 years of banishment and it is your royal duty to get rid of him for the benefit of the glorious nation of Gran Callahach. The plot of the game follows a supposedly cliche script of you completing some preparations and defeating the evil wizard, but nothing can be further from the truth. After you banish the wizard and restore the piece, you have completed... half of the game. Here comes a major plot twist, that will knock your socks off, if you are playing the game for the first time. The differences between this and other good vs evil scenarios is very refreshing and it really helps that the game is peppered with likable and lifelike characters. Here you actually care about the outcome of your quest and the fate of your hero. The puzzles in the game are not very hard with the exception of a certain sprite riddle that you encounter upon your first visit to the Faery Land which will surely force you to look for a walkthrough. Another puzzle prior of entering a sorceror's tower is a remnant of an ancient DRM scheme and GOG provides the answer for you in an installation directory. On the whole, the game is not very hard and the only annoyance you might encounter is an occasional pixel hunt. There are some items that you can acquire in the game that have no bearing to your quest and that only add to your score. Depending on your score you might get a slightly different ending. The graphics and music are not very memorable and are a staple of the bygone era, but surprisingly voice acting was not dreadful and I think that the actors did a decent job. All in all, "DragonSphere" is a very fun game and in my opinion the best of the free adventure games available on GOG (yes, I liked it even more than "Beneath a Steel Sky". P.S. GOG didn't do a very good job of porting the game to DOSbox and the game has a penchant to freeze. That can be fixed by opening dosboxDragonsphere.config file and changing the contents under a cpu label from "dynamic" to "auto".
Let's just put thing to rest. Painkiller is a pure unadulterated fun with little pretense of being anything else than an old-school kill'em'all shooter. It works surprisingly well with this formula. Playing PK you will focus on one main thing only - action. The core gameplay is - move into the area, kill all the baddies (preferably in a very bloody limb scattering way) and move to the next one. And what Painkiller doesn't suffer from, is a lack of variety. While the game colours are dark, as befitting of a Satanic themed shooter, they are not just greys and browns we are fed with modern FPSes. The enemies are also worthy of a special attention as there are loads of them and every stage has different ones. You will rarely see familiar faces while blasting them to pieces with a shotgun. In between chapters we are bound to meet boss enemies and they are some baddest meanest motherscratchers ever seen. They tower over you for hundreds of metres and you won't be able to kill them by just blasting them away. No, sir, some of the boss battles are riddles that you need to solve in order to kill them. You are given lots of bizarre and wonderful weapons for the pest control. Not two, not three like in the modern realistic games, but all five in the core game and two more in the expansion. And when I said bizarre weapons, I meant that. All of them have two attack modes (for example, a shotgun that can also temporarily freeze enemies, and if you shoot them at that moment... ;-)) and some of them with whole three modes (like a gun that shoots shurikens or lightning, or shurikens charged with lightning... O_o). And if the guns are not enough, you can acquire tarot cards by completing stages in a certain way (for example, by not getting hurt at all). Cards are like magic powers that you can employ during the game - increase the damage dealt or temporarily become invincible. Oh, and let's not forget the heavy metal music score that will follow you the whole way and really fits the mood of blasting everything that moves and some that doesn't move to pieces. Of course the game cannot be without flaws. Sometimes the action tended to become repetitive "clean the area/move/clean another area". Also I'm a fan of strong plot in my games and if PK's plot would be any weaker, it would vaporise. Few and sparse cutscenes are there probably only to show off cinematic achievements as they do not advance plot at all. Furthermore, the expansion pack "Battle out of Hell" is kind of bland and not memorable. However, despite the flaws, this is a very strong package that will keep you entertained for a sufficient time if you seek simple mindless fun.
"The Witcher" is based on a complex world created by a Polish fantasy author Andrzej Sapkowski and features Geralt of Rivia as its protagonist. Geralt is a witcher - a mutant created for one purpose only: to slay monsters. The game starts with a certain hostile group of combatants, known as Salamandra, attacking the witchers' stronghold of Kaer Morhen, where Geralt is recuperating. While the knowledge of how to create any more witchers has been lost, the means are still available at the fortress and Salamandra are obviously after them. Why, you will have to find out for yourself as in Geralt's shoes you'll go on an epic quest to avenge your fallen friends and unravel hidden conspiracies. Geralt relentlessly pursues Salamandra throughout the game and along the way changes himself and those around him. The greatest strength of "The Witcher" lies in its writing. Both the world and the characters come alive on screen and pull us into the great conspiracies, happening just beyond the veil of ignorance. The game world is very dynamic with every choice we make having smaller or bigger consequences, so choose wisely what to do. The biggest choice of all is of course which faction you side with. There are Scoia'tel (The Squirrels) - non-human freedom fighters fed up with their mistreatment by humans and having taken up arms; the other side is The Order of the Flaming Rose - a faction obviously inspired by Knights Templar. The biggest appeal of "The Witcher" is that this is such a grey world - there is no right or wrong and everyone has more than a few skeletons in their closets. There are few games, where words "dark and gritty" actually feel as properly applied as here. Whatever you choose or don't choose, there will be lots of fighting involved both in the main storyline and the side-quests. The fighting is based of the, so called, witcher combat styles, that is basically Geralt hacking the shit while you are quicktiming to press the mouse at the right times. Many people seem to complain about this quicktiming, but I found the fighting very involving and never repetitive or boring and if you dislike the sword fighting, you can always use signs. "The Witcher" employs some godly tunes and the soundtrack really fits the atmosphere and provides chords to really make you feel in an adventure story. On the other hand graphics haven't aged very well - only a few years have passed since the creation of the game and while the overall backgrounds are not bad, some of the character models look really awkward and undetailed. Also the hordes of clones plague the world as only a few builds and faces are used for common city and village folks. Sometimes it gets ridiculous as you bump into five or six persons that look the same in a row. "The Witcher" is not an overly long game, but it's immensely satisfying. When I knew that we are about to get a sequel I was almost jumping in joy. Now, I usually don't spend my nights playing games anymore as I have to get up early to go to work, but I lost myself in Witcher until the early morning a few times. There are few games this involving and this... alive to actually care about characters. Also, kudos to the game for invoking one badass plot twist at the end that I definitely didn't foresee the first time I played the game. "The Witcher Enhanced Edition" comes with seven bonus adventures that can be played outside of the main game with five of them being fan-made. Full review can be found on my blog (http://beliar-cos.blogspot.com/2011/06/witcher-enhanced-edition-review.html).
When XIII came out back in the day, the critics gave lackluster reviews, but I didn't pay much attention to that, because to me the game was awesome. What XIII, a game based on a Belgian comic book provided, it provided in spades. It tells a great and engaging espionage and conspiracy story about an amnesiac man accused of killing the President of ya old US of A. The game is an unrelenting action fest taking you from NY to Appalachian Mountains, to a desert, to a submarine many feet below the surface. But what I liked about this game is, that it's a living, breathing comic. The graphics are done in a cell-shaded way and the game itself provides special effects like "TAP, TAP" for walking and "BLAM" for explosions to create that special feel. If that wasn't enough, the story is told through the cutscenes that look exactly like comic book panels. Unlike many shoot'em ups, the story of the game engages you just like the action itself does and until the very end you'll be guessing the identity of No. I (well, maybe not really.... Maybe you'll guess it much faster, but it doesn't matter). In the end, all the components of XIII mix together to create one awesome blend. If I have any problems with this game, it is an obvious one - the game ends on a very abrupt and annoying cliffhanger. It was supposed to have a sequel, but due to poor sales it has been canceled and we are left with a nerve grating "To be continued...". However that doesn't mar my enjoyment of the game and you can always read the comics to learn what happened next (you can get them in English at www.cinebook.co.uk).
"Teenagent" - an old Polish adventure game was more fun than I reckoned it to be. While the jokes were hit or miss, it entertained me considerably. "Teenagent" follows the story of of a teenager Mark, who has to solve the case of a missing gold. Why? Because a fortune-teller said so. His motivation? All girls love secret agents. The game follows the same pattern as all point'n'click games out there. With the exception that left mouse button examines stuff and RMB - executes. Such a reverse scheme is seriously strange to me. After the lengthy introduction you are dumped into a boot camp in order to hone his skills. The game is very short and there are only three locations where you can act: a boot camp, a village and a mansion. I found the graphical aspects of the game surprisingly good, considering it came out in 1994, however sound department is seriously lacking with only a few basic tunes. Puzzles are quite hard and I find a few of them totally out there - potato grenade, like, what? Surprisingly there were almost no pixel hunting with the exception of finding a lever in the car. Anyway, unless you are a hardcore adventurer be prepared to jump to FAQ once in a while. While "Teenagent" is brimming with humour and pop culture references like "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones", ultimately the plot is kind of shallow and juvenile with little "oomph" gained after completing the game. If you compare, lets say, "Syberia" to a full course meal at a French restaurant, then "Teenagent" is a hamburger at "McDonalds"... A small one; after finishing it you are still hungry. However that doesn't mean that "Teenagent" is a bad game. No, sir, it perfectly fits to play some evening when you do not have much time. Only do not expect a profound experience.
"Lure of the Temptress" was an earlier game released by the makers of "Beneath a Steel Sky" and the latter game clearly shows how much the company improved in their quest of game-making. LOTT is a clumsy, short, slow-moving and ultimately boring game with convoluted puzzles. In this game you are a Wasshisname hero on a quest to save the Kingdom from the aforementioned Temptress Selena and for that you will have to solve some muddled puzzles. Seriously, those all follow a "Go somewhere, do something" pattern without any clarity and more often than not you will feel confused, lost and frustrated about what you should do. Plus all the personages you meet in the game are as interesting as turnips, main character included. The programming is horrible as "Revolution Software's" flaunted Virtual Theater technology most of the time works against player than in his benefit. All the characters on screen speak at the same time, interrupting your speech and it's almost impossible to go anywhere as the terrible pathfinding has the other characters bump into the main char, impeding your progress. Sometimes it gets so bad, that Mr. Wasshisname starts walking in circles, inciting in you a desire to bash him over the head. To top with a laughably anticlimactic ending and you already have a bad game, but that's not the end yet, no, sir. GOG has introduced a fatal bug in their build that prevents you from finishing the game. Namely they used an old version of ScummVM that doesn't fully support LOTT. Only after I have downloaded a new version of ScummVM and played the game through it, only then I was able to finish the mercifully short game. Final verdict: do not bother unless you have too much time on your hands. Some things aren't worth your time even for free.
