Somewhere in 1998 - 2000, the Giant games were fantastic! Now, it barely works on modern PC's. For modern standards the UI is clunky and the games run very choppy. But *if* they run on your PC, its great nostalgia, but nothing much more. At full price I cannot recommend the bundle, in sale, it might be a good deal.
Short recap: Intravenous is a tactical top-down, focused on stealth (altho: run-and-gun is possible: it's up to you). If you liked the first game, you'll probably love this one too. Intravenous 2 is continuation of the first game, with lots of improvements. The only gripe, it suffers from what the first game suffered too: a awful story. (It is very questionable). And not always consistent. To be short: - If you loved the first game, buy this one. - If you never played the first one, get it, or check some reviews and decide for yourself.
The game feels like a tower defense mixed with Sim Ant. Missions are mostly "survive the day/night x time(s) to win". While at the beginning the game is fun, and fresh, halfway through, things start to grind: Every start is kind of the same, you've got to build your "army". And you've got to do this every mission over and over again: Dig, collect food, hatchings a few ants, dig some more, defeat whats crawling into your nest, collect the food. etc. And survice the wave of enemies. And: This is not a quick game, missions take some time to complete. There are a few variety of ants, every species has its own unique abilities. Most missions you have to play multiple times, (due multiple reasons) and this is what in my opinions is the weak point of this game. There is just not that much variety to keep it interesting. To me, the long development period of this game doesn't really shine. Overall, the game is good fun, just nog for long. Don't expect you'll playing this for months. (or at least, I won't).
Not here to review but to nag about the broken links in the description, please fix. About the 1st game: Played it 5 years ago, its a difficult game, but worth your time.
This game is truly a retro textmode ASCII/ANSI experience, keyboard interaction only. Since the game is keyboard oriented navigating menus and options needs to be easy; and I have to admit that in this game, it is well done. Nothing is over-complicated and works very well. The game itself runs really smooth (that is, as far emulating textmode goes) :-) Based on the DEMO, the story is good enough to keep you engaged. Overall, it is nice to see something different, and I think think that this game is executed very well. However, this is NOT for everyone. It is for a selective group of (retro) gamers. Or for those who'd like to experience old-school text-mode (j)rpg/adventure game(s). Pricewise you can't go wrong with this one!
