An ambitious god simulator where you start as a creature and work your way up to conquering the center of the galaxy, i.e.: creature in water -> creature on land -> tribes -> cities -> space The creature stages are especially fun where you get to use an intuitive modeler to create limbs on a creature and the system will dynamically animate how they move. The creative parts become progressively meaningless in terms of how they affect gameplay as you move up the levels though. The tribal and city stages are basically Civilization/Starcraft clones, but are very basic and is over way too quickly. The space stages can get boring and/or tedious, but that's if you are forcing a certain playstyle. To me, its really about figuring out for yourself the most efficient and varied methods to find a balance between maximizing income, fulfilling the badge requirements, and having some fun to unlock things that helps beat the game. The interstellar travel, on-foot missions, space combat, and alliances with aliens kind of resemble Star Control 2 or Mass Effect. At some point, you do become a god in that you can create, tweak, uplift, and/or destroy all manner of life as well as terraform or destroy planets to your liking. Despite its shortcomings, its fun to get back to every now and then, and is definitely for those who like creating things.
A solid RPG but with janky/dated mechanics based on 2003 standards. This is basically Mass Effect (ME) before ME. An good/evil-based RPG with a hybrid turn-based combat with real-time elements. (the following's based on a blind playthrough) Technical: -For whatever reason, I have to turn off frame buffer effects or else the game crashes every time. -I also have to turn off grass or else it makes my player partially invisible in grassy areas. Good parts: -Its nice for the game to have a lot of choice as to where to go and how you go about doing things -story is interesting (albeit similar to ME like something to do with an advanced lost ancient civlization) and has a twist to it -Some of the dialogue with major characters are interesting. Good/bad: -It is possible to make "wrong" choices that lead to instant death, or a poor outcome so frequently / multiple save files become necessarily. -Combat's a mix of turn and real-time based combat based on dice rolls, so there's a lot of times where it appears your character hits an enemy only for it to display as "miss"; sometimes requires pausing and optimizing the actions. -Wildly inconsistent difficulty curves where one moment, you easily defeat enemies, and the next moment you are barely surviving, if at all. Bad parts: -A lot of the worlds are just large spaces with just a few actual areas of interest. There are lots of long distances where you're just wasting time moving through. -A lot of the dialog with NPCs are unneccesarily long-winded.
I'd give this a 7/10 (somewhere between 3 and 4 stars). Its a 3D puzzle platformer with some 3rd-person shooting bits, probably what the original 1996 Tomb Raider was meant to be. There are gameplay parts are very similar to the Uncharted, Prince of Persia, or Assassin's Creed games, where basically you're jumping from ledge to ledge in all directions, hitting switches, and to open up new areas. The graphics are really nice especially the protagonist's "assets." The music is either non-existent or background ambience most of the time but then suddenly goes up in intensity to suit the situation. The game generally plays well and is fun but hampered by some frustrating parts, both related to the game running on Windows 11 and the game itself. Running on Windows 11, the game does not run as-is. To run correctly, the Data Execution Prevention for the .exe of game needs to be turned off. (System -> Advanced -> Advanced tab -> Performance -> Settings -> Data Execution Prevention) For the game itself, there's a lot of situations where the camera doesn't show where you need to jump (and it cannot be adjusted) and results in blind jumping / deaths. Also some things you jump to cannot be grabbed unless you first jump from a correct height which isn't always obvious, i.e.: you see the character obviously should be able to grab something but just doesn't. The "adrenaline rush" mechanic needed to beat bosses are not obvious either and the game does not give you enough practice before its needed. (hold right mouse, move left/right, don't shoot, press shift at right time, shoot once at right moment). So for those frustrating parts in-game, following some kind of guide online would be recommended, just for confirmation that you're going in the correct direction, but just doing it "wrong".
A great vertical scroller. Its got some RPG elements like story and the ability to get stronger over time. Its fun to keep upgrading your ship and finding out which combination of weapons work out best. Its got some unique elements that takes some trial-and-error to work out, like how the energy bar relates to the shield and armor, or how the money system and weapon power levels work. On the other hand, the graphics are very choppy and disappointing especially for its time when it came out in 1999 (even for its time, there were much better looking 2D games). The controls are a bit floatly, where it seems like there's a bit of a delay after pressing a key for the ship to stop moving in that direction. These things are easily overlooked since the game is just fun and fast-paced, and not require any big time commitments.
A game where you try to profit off of building cities while balancing the demands of your citizens. For someone who's not played before, it may be rough to start where some of what you need to do isn't obvious, like maximum distances away from roads, education, water, traffic, pollution, crime, etc. These things could result in going bankrupt quickly where there's little you can do. So I'd suggest referring to online tips to play the game properly. But once you get over the initial hurdle it becomes addictive in that you get a good sense of progression where you are expanding your city at an accelerating pace to the point where you have more money than you know what to do with. Then it becomes an open sandbox where you are free to use your imagination and try out some different city layouts without having to worry about money. There are still some annoying quirks. -Like the fact that power, garbage, and water buildings will eventually expire and demolish themselves and cannot just be auto-renewed. -No auto-saves, so the game could (and did) crash and you could lose progress. -Some kind of bug with water distribution, where if you get to a big enough city size, only water towers can supply water to the remaining parts of your city. -Sluggish controls at times.
-This is a fun 3rd-person squad-based tactical shooter from 2003 about the Soviet Union invading USA and you have to fight on the US side with guerilla tactics; basically its the game version of the Red Dawn movie. -The flexibity of the squad commands are nice. Some possible ways to play: (1) you can command individual squad members to different locations to cover each other's flanks, (2) or move together as a single unit for more firepower, (3) or just treat your squad members as cannon fodder and send them all to attack at once. -There's a satisfying RPG-like progression where successful completion of tasks also you to recruit more squad members. -It is nicely non-linear; you pick and choose missions between interconnected levels, such as blowing up helicopters in one level so that they don't attack you in a second level, but not before you get the bombs to do so in a third level. -The sounds are also quite epic and make the missions seem more serious than they really are. -There are also some flaws, but nothing game-breaking: (1) The indoor sections are not well suited to the main style of the game, and highlights some camera problems when you are aiming while standing close to a wall. (2) The level designs are also kind of restrictive where a lot of times, if you took a wrong turn, there are no alternative paths to the correct destination, and you end up having to backtrack long paths. (3) If you are playing the game blind, the interconnectedness of the levels may not be obvious, and may result in frustration, where parts become overly difficult. So some kind of guide online would be recommended reference material for this game.
Not a bad game, but the graphics warp in a way that after about 30 mins. I start to feel like vomiting. So for me it's only playable in shorter bursts. Basically its a Doom clone FPS that emphasizes more on a melee weapon to save ammo for the guns. It has things Doom doesn't have like bombable walls. Its also like Duke Nukem in that the character has occasional one-liners. There are some very frustrating/unfair parts, but that's somewhat alleviated with the ability to save and load instantly with the press of buttons.
I've originally played beaten this game on the Xbox around 2007. This GOG version works on Windows 11 and has the added benefit of much shorter load times and higher-resolution graphics (albeit with some occasional stutter and some grainy FMV sequences) in comparison to the Xbox original. Its a fun mix of an RPG, a 3D fighting game, and a 2D overhead shooting game. Its rare to have a setting in ancient China; complete with its mythology, traditional instruments in the music, and some funny dialogue, it makes the game very memorable. Even playing it again now in 2024, its still very fresh, engaging, and fun. While the graphics are technically dated, the environments still have lots of detail, variety, and are stylistically beautiful. So this game has definitely aged well.
I've given this game a shot since its free. There's probably a great game hidden inside especially for 1985 standards, but is highly unfriendly to newcomers. There's a lot of keyboard commands that are not intuitive; even talking involves you having to type in things like T->Enter->press direction -> then type in the text Name, Job, Health, Look, etc. Confusingly the manual contains no instructions, but the actual instructions are contained in the reference card. The reference card also encourages you to create a journal and record the conversations to solve the game. In modern times that amounts to having the game run on a window while an excel sheet on another window can be used to record, sort, and order things. This is probably something no one's gonna do today, myself included, given that's way too much time and work for something that should just be entertainment. Its important to note that this game is historically significant in that it inspired the first Dragon Quest / Final Fantasy games in 1986-1987, which are much more playable even in now in 2024. But other than its historical significance, there's no reason for me to play nor keep this game.
Probably the best RPG ever made. The main quests are pretty interesting and varied. I like the color palette, location variety, music, and the pacing better than the next game Skyrim. It also is great that this game takes up a lot less memory and resources as well. I've played and beaten this game "the legitimate way" on game consoles since it came out. To me, its most fun now if you make full use of the console commands and simply be a god-like being in the game world and turn the whole game into a sandbox where you can use your imagination and have fun any way you like. My favourite configuration is giving yourself maximum magicka and speed but with limited health, so you can still die. Among nearly-limitless possibilties, its fun just fool around, i.e.: -just fly on top of a mountain instead of going on foot and getting stuck -find out which items to enchant yourself to 100% immunity to magic -paralyze everyone in a large area attack and watch them just fall straight to the ground -etc.
