Nosferatu has one major thing going for it, and that's atmosphere. It has the slightly cornball, yet the slightly chilly edge you can't ignore. It's the feel of a good black and white horror movie or old gothic novel. These thrills aren't cheap in the days where horror movies and games have an overproduced quality that tends to reduce the good old fashioned haunted house feel. It's here, in reasonable quantities. The rest of the game is pretty cheap, but again, not horrible. The random layouts, coming long before the roguelike craze, quickly become recognizable segments. Once you figure out how to deal with the monsters, you'll instantly dispatch them or simply ignore them as you head for the next door. The difficulty seems reasonable, but there's quite a bit of repetition. You're looking at 6-10 hours of pretty good play that--if you're not charmed by the feel of the game--wears out its welcome around halfway through. It's worth persisting to the end, like any good old book or movie, but requires some indulgence from the player. If you have that indulgence, it's a great little snack of a game.
AI War is one of those games that describes its own arc of fanaticism. On first play, it's a graphically underwhelming, but mechanically overwhelming mess. You lose the game in a frustrating way. You know it's a good game, and maybe you stop playing it rather than dial down the difficulty, because that would harm your ego. On second play, you get the basics, the thrust of the game, and might walk away at this point, thinking you understand it. And you probably do. But you lose anyway, and though it's clear why, and you're pretty irritated about it. Unlike first play, you're itching for a rematch. On third play, you up the difficulty, sprinkle in the little additions of the expansions, and tune the game to your desire play style. And you lose again, but you realize why and what you were up against. And it was much more interesting this time. By the fourth play, you already know that you love the game even though you were wrong on play 3: you don't understand it, but it remains within your grasp. And you lose again, or you win, but only because you made it too easy. So, back to the lobby, to add more resistance... By the fifth play, you may already know that you're going to stop playing it for a while, but that you'll pick it up again in a couple months. You aren't sure if you love the game or not, but you know you'll be back. The end result is what I call a "career game," a game that you never completely master, never finish, never uninstall, and never stop playing. It's like Sid Meier's Civilization, or Chess, or a good stiff roguelike: a continual challenge that's as hard as you want to make it, and the most fun when you're not sure whether you're going to survive or not. Humanity needs saving again, against terrible odds. Time to start another game.
