Dodge enemy ships and bullets while collecting an arsenal of auto-firing lasers, missiles, orbital saw blades and more. Graphics are nice, sound is nice, plays clean with full controller support. It's a very relaxing game to just float around dodging and making critical decisions in for a while. A nice soft entry point to the genre for the uninitiated, a nice light snack and change of flavor for the experienced. Highly recommended!
The game plays with a sluggish frame rate and the controls were designed for a three button sega controller and this alleged "port" does nothing to fix those things. I don't think "turbo mode" even exists, or maybe it's always on, it's not really clear. It runs well on Linux with wine with full controller functionality. If you can get past the very very VERY slow frame rate, the game actually plays pretty smoothly. The controls are responsive and consistent and perfectly functional once you adapt. You can even pull consistent strafe jumps if you want. That being said, this was a king of it's era and still has a lot for enthusiasts to dig into. It lies somewhere between Wolf3d, Doom and Duke3d, being far more full featured and interactive than it has any right to be while making sacrifices to run on the hardware of the time. You can jump, crouch, damage walls, use various items, and there is an on screen mini map with a bio sensor upgrade that makes creeping through the dark levels filled with ambushes feel just right. This is a dark and slow techno dungeon crawl with deadly close range combat that really pushed the limits of it's time and was an absolute legend in it's day. It's way better than the Snes Doom port, that's for sure. Not a hidden gem but a neat looking rock!
Our hero, a dude with a spiky punk hair-do (wink wink) is one of 3 old losers with no money and no friends or family who sit around a brothel and talk about how much they love Dragon Quest. They go to the movies to watch old boring films and try not to fall asleep. The Yakuza games are some of the most well polished fun you can find in video games and more importantly are some of the best stories ever told. These stories would work easily as stand-alone films or even written novels. They are very, very good. The games are full of heart and love, densely populated with references and clever fourth wall handshakes with the player. Live the dream of being an old broke loser who spent his youth playing video games and now fights other homeless for scraps while feeding delusions of heroism! Another beautiful gem in the Yakuza Crown!
HROT is simultaneously one of the cleanest most tightly designed first person shooters and one of the most charmingly strange video games I have played to date. Most importantly the level design is FANTASTIC. It's really dirt simple but profoundly creative. If you're searching for well hidden secrets and expertly crafted combat encounters this game has them perfectly paced from start to finish. The enemies and weapons all have unique roles, interact well with each other and are placed smartly within the environments. HROT also has some of the most impressive atmosphere I've encountered in a game. Without fanfare the game just slips and melts into a puddle of gritty pixels and flickering fluorescent bulbs over muddy concrete government office buildings and let's the drab sparse world speak for itself. There is just enough hint of the reality of the old soviet days and the German invasion to make you feel and maybe think a little before you find the secret level and get lost trying to figure out what a pack of small rat terriers has to do with repairing an old broken astrological clock. Great game, expertly crafted with a lot of heart.
Heavy metal neon sci-fi body horror run'n'gun done near perfection for my tastes. Varied and well paced level design with very well balanced challenge, a huge variety of just tough enough bosses, a giant pile of three different weapons and a shield all integrated elegantly together with a recharging energy system, absolutely gorgeous graphics and a banging but not overbearing heavy metal soundtrack all come together to make a beautifully cut and highly polished gem. Had some trouble getting it running at first, it didn't run on my low end Win10 machine that more than doubles the listed requirements and performed similarly on my high end Linux machine for my first few installs. It worked clean in the end but not through my preferred launcher so no acheivements for me. Great game, lives up to the image it presents without going too far over the top, easy recommendation.
Excellent title for GZDoom enthusiasts, particularly Hexen fans. A little light on polish but makes up for it with large, well designed levels just big enough to get lost in but not too lost. Enemies and weapons have large variety with some standout spells but nothing really overpowers anything else. All in all a very solid title with a lot of heart.
The simulation elements are neat but not particularly well done or engaging. The role-playing elements are skeletal. I spent a real life week's worth of play picking wildflowers and trading them back and forth with merchants in the tutorial because that's actually what you do in the game. I don't mean to say that there aren't elements of craftsmanship or fun but the whole experience is so awkwardly balanced and presented and doesn't really hint at any greater depths than just pretending you're a peasant slowly learning herbalism by canvasing the field and clicking every popup caption. Blech.
I've been trying to pull myself away from this game long enough to write a review for the last few days but I haven't been able too because it's just so much fun. I want to gush about it for paragraphs and go into extensive details and spoil everything but I don't have that much time because I want to play some more. The level design is masterful. These are without hesitation some of the best fps levels I have ever played. There is intense focus put on the player's experience and the knowledge the creators have can be felt through this. Every nook and cranny and hovering eyeball monster is deliberately placed to play with your attention. The weapons are fantastic and a lot of fun to use, all useful with little to no overlap. Things like the bow and throwing sword I expected to be excess but fit in perfectly to the flow of combat. Enemies are likewise specifically designed to fill roles and are used well to that effect. They respond well to your weapons and you can really get a feel for the damage you are doing and receiving. The soundtrack is very hard and heavy and great. The visuals are high fidelity with heavy pixels on the textures, feeling at once clean and grimy. The story and voice acting are forgivable for an indie production and charming in a way. It's a great game. Count me in the camp that likes it more than all of it's peers. I haven't played any of those in months but I'm going back now for more Dread Templar!
It's a great top down shooter, really clean and refined, good variety. I had a lot of fun chasing high scores and trying to advance to the next levels. However, the default controls are some of the worst I can imagine, a mirror swap of the standards any experienced player will be accustomed to with no option to alter them in any way. That's just bad design for any game, any genre, whatever the case. This would be mitigated a degree if the controller support was reliable but it isn't. It stops working between sessions with no rhyme or reason. Works on on system at one time and then stops, refuse to work on one and then starts. It's completely unreliable. It's a fantastic action game with great presentation but the poor controls make it nearly impossible for me to enjoy.
Quirky, unique little rpg. Originally had to source quicktime codecs to get cutscenes working when I bought it years ago for Windows 7 but now I'm running it on Linux Mint and it works out of the box through heroic for me.
