At the time it was impossible to talk about Heretic without talking about Doom that was released only one year before, but long time has passed and nowadays it does not matter where the game come from. What it matter is: is still fun to play? IT IS. Even nowadays Heretic stands as a good and fun shooter and includes many "modern" touches like a inventory, meaningful items, and the ability to look up and down. You may want to use a modern engine like gzdoom, ensure you disable jumping and crouching (it was not possible in the original game, and allowing those extra moves change many levels) and use the "Heretic Neural Texture Pack" to make the graphics smoother. You are Corvus, marked heretic by evil forces in a quest of vengeance. The story is straightforward, but the locations are memorable, colorful, and somewhat credible as fantastic castles, hellish landscapes, mysterious domes... The weapons are balanced and fun to use, the only exception is the Firemace that is barely usable. Enemies do not use hit-scan weapons so the levels often give bullet hell vibes. There are different difficulty levels, but I suggest to consider only "Thou art a smite-meister" as "easy" and "Black plague possesses thee" as "normal." Since mouse+keyboard controls and run-always option make the game easier than the authors probably intended. The game divides the story in 5 episodes, the first three are about Corvus vengeance, the fourth and fifth were released later and continue the main character story. The extra episodes are quite more difficult, but still fair.
Amid Evil is a single player first-person shooter set in a fantasy world. One can Think Amid Evil as a child from Heretic, Quake, and Painkiller. It is a shooter, the settings and the weapons are all fantasy-inspired, and once you collect enough souls you get a powerup a-la Heretic's Tome of Power. The first thing that stands out of Amid Evil is the graphic. In videogames far too often "retro" actually means "cheap" or "ugly-looking," because studios simply use low res without any of art skills that in the past made graphics memorable. In Amid Evil it is not the case, everything looks good, but fashionably old-fashioned. The gameplay reminds the classic Quake, but enemies are able to move through the map well. Levels are really well made, large enough to give satisfaction. But small enough to give a sense of progression. There are seven episodes each with its style and enemies. Enemies, as the styles, are very different to each other making each event a fresh experience. Weapons are well made, each has its quirks and good uses. The only exception is perhaps The Celestial Claw that is a bad-taste version of a rocket launcher. The difficult can be adjusted in multiple ways, there are four difficulty levels; one can start levels with only one weapon; and the souls-activated power-up can start automatically forcing a more tactical approach. Everyone can find something to fit their tastes and skills. So, it is a good game and definitely worthwhile to any fan of the old shooters. Yet... something is kinda amiss. After playing Serious Sam the difficulty (and the epicness) may seem a bit on the low side; some levels are weirdly magical looking, but not as much as strange or mind-bending as the 2006 Prey; no multiplayer at all means no LAN parties like in Quake. I have the feeling that Amid Evil is good in everything, excellent in nothing.
Super short review: the game is excellent, if you like two stick shooters just buy and play it. The graphics are nice, the music is cool, the story simple but effective, the powers and weapons powerful... Basically, it is Crimsonland with everything better. I give few suggestions to enjoy the game the most based on my experience. First, wait to install the expansion "For Science" until you finished the main campaign of the base game. The expansion makes the game zanier and gives the main character a good power up; this maps well with the new levels and the insanity theme of the game, but makes the base game a bit too easy. Once installed go to Gameplay options and set up Body Decay Time, Maximum Number of Enemies, and Camera Distance the maximum. You may wonder "To increase the Number of Enemies won't make the game harder?" Actually, it is not the case, because more enemies also means more power up and leveling up faster so the difficulty is actually similar, but the game is more intense and more fun. If you find the screen too cluttered for your tastes, you can lower the Body Decay Time and/or disable the Show gore option. Go the Controls panel and activate the "Weapon Lock" this will add a new button that allows to ignore weapons pick ups; it is very important because to pick up the wrong weapon by mistake can be extremely frustrating. It might seems strange in the beginning, but most perks and weapons are useful somewhat, what matter is their combination. Piercing bullets, for example, are extremely powerful with shotguns, but basically useless with Gauss guns. Half of the fun is finding the powerful combinations and quickly adapt your game style when it happens, keep and open mind. Don't listen to the negativity on the internet, the beginning of few levels is indeed difficult and you will fail few times. But all levels are short and sweet, and the satisfaction you get when you finally win is great. So keep trying.
Super quick review: if you like single player games, download and play this game now. The "IF" underlines the major gripe I have about this game, there is no cooperative mode. A bit more details. This game is a six degree of freedom shooter in a zero-G environment. Robot operators went rogue and killed most of the human workers in each base, your mission is to rescue the survivors, blow the evil robots and run with your life. Your tools: a small, but advanced and extremely versatile warship, and your wits. And meanwhile, possibly discover what happened. To guide your ship, even the classic Mouse + Keyboard control settings works well, but the game allows a lot of configurability including two joysticks and VR sets. The enemies are all robots, but they have different weaponary and personality. During the game you will learn the best way to defeat each, but the first time you meet them often it will be a surprise. The story is told via audio logs and via messages of your ship AI. The story builds up really well, but it is not invasive. If you are playing a difficult section for the tenth time (or you are not interested) you won't be forced to skip (or worse see) cutscenes all over again; you will just have this audio log in the background. The graphic looks gorgeous, the sounds do their job, and the music is really well done. About negative sides. I write those for sake of completeness, the game is great and the good point greatly overshadow those negative sides. There is no coop multiplayer. The levels seem a bit static, outside enemies basically only the doors move. The story is great and builds up well, but still perhaps a bit more hints of what is going on would be nice; you learn the significant details only at the very end of the game. The game is a bit on the easy side, you probably want to play Insane. The voice acting is fine, but sometime it seems a bit too clean; it seems that everyone recoded their message in a isolated sound booths, not in factories.
Unmechanical is a platform physics puzzle game. As a little floating robot you move around a weird environment, an inspired mix of rock, steel, and flesh. The controls are simple: move and use your tractor beam to lift or drag some items or enable switches. To open passages, in order to move from one place to the other, you need so solve various kind of puzzles. Usually there are no obvious hints how to solve each riddle, but with some thinking everything makes sense. In the game are no luck-based or random puzzle. Besides the robot main character is indestructible, so you do not have to worry about anything than the puzzles. So if you like scratching your head and platformers you will love this game. The only flaw? It is really short.
Graphics is breathtaking; the music nice; the physics is well done; the story enjoyable; the game not so much. The game is a spiritual successor to Lost Vikings; you control three characters with different abilities and combining their powers you must finishing the levels. Unfortunately the game has far too little puzzles and far too easy. If you actually beat The Lost Vikings everything will seems obvious. Even if you never played it you will hardly ever need more than few seconds to reach the next part of the map. The puzzle are almost ever solved stacking few crates or summoning bridges. The fights are frequent, but fairly boring; beside after a little level-up the Thief is able to fight at least as well as the Knight. So you tend to play with only two characters: Thief for fighting and moving; Wizard to solve puzzles. So the charm of using the special powers together is essentially lost. My verdict is: if you want to scratch your head about how to solve difficult puzzles with the different powers this is not the game for you. But if you just want passing some time relaxed or playing with children it might work well.
This game is an excellent 3d adventure. The story is nice with some unexpected twists and never shallow. The puzzle are somewhat simple, mostly because the inventory is much smaller than the previous games; but I think I liked it since it helps focusing with the good story. The real flaw of this game is the rushed ending, it almost seems Revolution ended the time or the money to make it properly. I do not want to spoil it, but the final puzzle is very easy and the final cutscene is so fast it is already ended. No epilogue, no hint of how the characters will continue their lives. Only the credits...
