Robocop was the first GOG game I returned: my Rx 580, (amazingly) above the minimum reqs, couldn't make it playable on the lowest settings. Months later, after buying a new video gard, I bought it a 2nd time, and it's a delight to play (and runs barely well enough to be playable). It is a remarkably heartfelt, well-considered adaptation and arguably should be called "the real Robocop 3." It is not very smart or satirical and has more in common with Robocop 2. They clearly put a lot of thought into how to make a fun FPS where you can't run, duck, or jump. Instead of feeling hindered, it feels absolutely awesome. When it ends, it feels like the journey was a bit short and incomplete, but it's not short by FPS standards.
The GOG release of Doom 3 is fantastic, including both versions of the game without DRM. Doom 3, itself, is a very silly game. The devil is constantly pulling practical jokes on you and making himself giggle. These frequently involve turning off the lights after you enter a room, but can be as silly as (literally) making a skeleton jiggle as you walk towards it (after which Satan chuckles to himself). In cutscenes, imps perform stealth takedowns of space marines a la Metal Gear Solid. Everyone is a dude on Mars, except a random female who lasts less than 10 seconds. There are hundreds of pointless emails to read on PDAs. Then, I die from falling damage, after jumping about 1 meter because I am too impatient for the lift to go down. The player character is not "Doom Guy," but is instead Bella Lugosi from the silent film era. The entire game is comic relief, but then, for comic relief, there's a farting zombie. The game itself has a reputation of being underrated and misunderstood. I disagree. Doom 3, at the time of its release, was overrated. It is even more overrated today, now that everyone thinks it's some kind of underappreciated masterpiece. It is reasonably enjoyable if you turn off your brain and sprint through it. I think this is how it is supposed to be played - every 5 seconds, the guy on your radio tells you to "hurry up, marine! Pick up the pace!" If you're reading the emails or trying to explore, you're doing it wrong; the emails are stupid, and there's nothing to see. Just run straight ahead and let Satan play his practical jokes on you. A couple of mods make it better than it was twenty years ago.
I REALLY enjoyed this game, even though it was very unkind to me. Actually, that was why I enjoyed it. Frostpunk starts out as an exciting ~apocalyptic city builder. You spend most of your time directing resource gathering, building, and research, and you intermittently send expeditions into the wild to seek out resources or learn more about what has happened / is happening to the world. I don't play a lot of games like this (city building games), but I think many are initially addictive in the same way. The way this game differed is that a story developed over the course of the game that ultimately confronted my naive optimism with a harsh reality I wasn't expecting. I feel I learned a fundamental lesson in the process about the limits of of what a civil group of people can achieve and about circumstances that can lead to societal collapse. Needless to say, my dudes all died. I do not intend to play again and try to do better, because this was really a wonderfully bad time, and my failure felt like the definitive experience.
While hardly perfect, “Rogue Trader” is the biggest RPG adventure I’ve ever been on, and it deserves to stand out much more than it does among the countless mediocre Warhammer 40K games. I heard about it from Mortismal on Youtube. I was apprehensive due to the generic marketing is and the fact that “rogue trader” sounds like it’s about the stock market. It turns out that Rogue Trader is a TREMENDOUS, mostly good, mostly traditional, party-based RPG set on the fringes of the Warhammer 40k universe. It is not the best game I’ve ever played, and it has “double-A” production values, but I do feel it has offered me more than any other game I’ve ever purchased. I just finished the campaign, which entertained me for 183 hours over the course of several months. I think it deserves to be purchased at full price. (I bought it on sale.) The good: -Very big game, and most of it is good. -Variety of gameplay. There are turn-based space battles, colonies to manage, text-based encounters… -Good for people who like to read. Excellent writing and characters. -Each of the 5 “chapters” really shakes things up; you’re not doing the same thing for 180 hours. (Not everyone will like this). -Countless narrative decisions & consequences that really enhance role-playing the “rogue trader.” -X-Com-like turn-based combat is fun and addictive (but not as robust as X-Com). -Many clever refinements to traditional CRPG mechanics. It’s complex, but it’s easier to understand than older games. The bad: -Inconsistent difficulty. Most of the game is too easy, even on harder difficulty settings, but several specific enemies/fights are MUCH harder. -I personally think “skill checks” are not a fun RPG mechanic, and they are ubiquitous. -Story is kind of a mess (but writing and characters are very good and will stick with you). -Leveling up can take forever (e.g. 20 minutes) due to literally dozens of perks/abilities to choose from for each characters at every level. -In-engine cutscenes are primitive.
There's remarkably little going on here. You are a fat dad-like guy. You move slowly and clumsily through a neverending linear corrider shredding countless orcs with satisfying gunplay and, when they get too close, button-mashing melee combos. It's wonderful. It doesn't fully achieve its potential, but there's plenty of enjoyment to be found here.
I love a mindless FPS. I also love the ~one unique idea this game has: arresting NPCs. There's a key bound to arresting neutral NPCs, and you can go after any of them. It's silly and completely unique. Other than that, this game is short on ideas and on polish. The gameplay is unpleasant, because many enemies are have hit scan attacks and Dredd's weapons don't feel impactful. You just shoot at enemy NPCs while they shoot at you. Then there are zombies. It might be fun for some people to breeze through it on the normal or easy difficulties. It's the rare action-FPS that just feels tedious. I wasn't able to finish it due to boredom.
I played the Uncharted 4 portion of this bundle only, and I loved it. The gameplay was meager; it alternates between linear platforming sections, linear puzzle sections, and less-linear stealth/combat/exploration sections. Switching between these prevents it from getting stale. What makes it great, however, is the story and production values. Unlike other games I've loved, I never wanted to play for more than an ~hour at a time. It was a bit like reading The Count of Monte Cristo: I always enjoyed it, but after completing a chapter, I was ready to put it down for the day. Further, once the Uncharted 4 story was over, I was satisfied; I didn't want any more from the Uncharted universe. I recommend it as a mostly-casual experience of impeccable videogame storytelling and audiovisual mastery.
With the development of Daggerfall Unity & a phenomenal mod scene, it is finally possible for a mostly-normal, not-quite-hardcore person to play the game to completion. It is an absolutely amazing game in its scale and premise. Unfortunately, it is also half-baked in most other regards. As the story progresses, it does not live up to its promise, and the gameplay becomes very repetitive.
This unusual entry in the Arkham series puts a clinically-depressed, shotgun-wielding Batman in giant wasteland where he punches everyone he meets and eats dogfood. The batmobile is in rough shape, too. Really, it is very satisfying and simple and just gets a blissful vibe of melancholic wasteland wandering.
Bought it because I loved the Dungeon Keeper games. This has the same look to it but no charm, no smarts, no real humor. It's competent but I felt like I was just "babysitting myself" playing it. There's nothing of value in there, just a way to pass time.
