Lacks a more realistic "Dante Must Die" difficulty for SMA students
El Matador is Max Payne but in South America...wait, i mean Colombia. As far as "budget barrel" games (a term i use affectionally sometimes) El matador is a pretty good one. You play as some DEA guy sent into takedown a bunch of bad guys in, I think, Medellin spanning about 3-4 hours. I think the length does El Matador a favor, it's a heap of fun, ragdoll infused, slow mo third person action with enough polish that it just works. The biggest issue i had with El Matador besides the occasional difficulty spikes was how, I think, it only used one core of your CPU, making it run very poorly on modern OS'. I'm hoping GOG's release fixes this. A solution has been provided on the PC gaming wiki if its still running at a low framerate. Overall, this might be a the quintensial 6/10 or 7/10 game, it's a pretty good time if you've already played Max Payne 1 & 2 for the 10th time and want something a bit similar
Cave Story+ is now a decade old, the original 2004 freeware release a passion project by a single guy over 5 years. If you haven't played it, do it.
Refuse death. Get revenge. Become Vampire Lord. Dab on Squid God Up Your Grindset
BEA wasn't mindblowing by any means even at release with expansive levels, lots of destructibility and a decently length campaign. This is because of pretty uninteresting plot and fairly standard objectives of defending, attacking and occasionally a boss fight. The BEA itself controls fine and it is fun switching from a landwalker destroyer then a agile airfighter in single button. The game simply doesnt explore much beyond it, not that's always a bad thing. I'd rather something done right than dozen things done poorly. It really never stops being fun wiping out hundreds of foot soldiers, blowing up a battleship and watching it smash into the ground or drop some heavy artillery on an armor column Mostly I'm just happy GOG is listing these obscure games, that's worth supporting in my book
The late 90s had a host of pretty awesome action titles, and Outwars, coming form Utah based developer SingleTrac, was almost among them. What you get here is jetpacks and alien blasting action in large levels that range from push over easy to quite frustrating. You have a nice range of weapons, allies and level variety across the 6 hour or so campaign, but that won't stop you getting overwhelmed by spawning in enemies and bottomless pits. GOG's pricing of this is spot on for this, as it is a decent albeit rough gem. More details in the video review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSMx6zRyK0s&t=18s
Blood Money is near perfection and easily the most cherished in the Series. If there is one Hitman game you need to play, its this one hands down. I've already done a whole review of it, going into detail and outlying how its stands the test of time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF9kPZJr9dA&t=28s
After blood money and years of waiting, Absolution was a disappointment and over the years its been a personal frustration replaying it a few times. That because the game is quite fun if played like a loose, on-the-fly stealth action title but far too annoying and cumbersome to constantly replay for that coveted SA rank. Honestly, 2016 basically made Absolution a moot point, but i'd still recommend it for perhaps newcomers a little put off by the prior games somewhat now dated mechanics
Earned in Blood continues the story of HH and retells some of the events from the character of Red. EiB is basically the 1.5 of the series; more weapons, better AI, better balance but similar maps, locations and mechanics. If you enjoy the original, EiB is a fine title, otherwise, play the first game!
Brothers in Arms retells the week of blood soaked fighting through Normandy through a squad of paratroopers just trying to survive. It very heavily takes notes from Band of Brothers, but its largely a good thing with decent characters and (for the time) voice work. It's gameplay is fairly dated by modern standards but the attention to details be it the quiet french farms and streets, the stark noise of gunfire, explosions knocking you over or the reenactments of battles like Cole's Charge keeps the linear singleplayer campaign still an enjoyable tour. For its price (thanks GOG), its easy to recommend to casual WW2 and tactical shooter fans
