Descent was one of the first PC games I've ever played, recently I gave it another go and... It's still everything I remember! With the Rebirth Mod you can even play in widescreen with mouse and keyboard as if it was a modern shooter. The balance is kind of broken sometimes, with hitscan enemies destroying your ship as soon as you turn a corner or open a door, but the game isn't hard everytime and also it isn't very long. You can find a lot of weapons ranging from lasers, miniguns and missles, with levels offering a good variety of enemies and an awesome soundtrack to follow. It's one of those classics that aren't so remembered as it deserves, but one that surely still plays very well.
I wasn't expecting an RPG of this age to be so good. Of course it's completely different from Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, but my god, it is charming. Everything is so colorful and easy to read on the screen that I mostly played it at sundays just to relax. The technology behind the size of the world map is astonishing, and every RPG lover should at least try it just to feel how it was made. Some mechanic aspects of the game as levelling up, combat systems and inventory management didn't age very well, but if you play with Daggerfall Unity, most of these problems can be solved. If not, it has a long mod library on Nexus. Also beware that it is huge and very repetitive on quest variation. You will spend most of your play time inside labyrinthian dungeons searching for a needle in a haystack, with no quest pointer at all; a migraine indulcing map which reveals itself as you explore; and some enemies that can kill you with half a hit, at least in the beginning, so make sure to save a lot and always. All the Elder Scrolls races and classes are there, also the alchemy and spell creation. Some cities are filled with taverns, stores, banks and houses to interact with, so you will have a lot to do even when you're not doing some quests. After a couple of hours you will stop engaging with most of the NPCs, as most of them are just walking paper dolls, but let's not forget this is a game from 1996. There are no dialog options, neither voice over, but I particularly loved the writing and lore of this game, paying attention to what the main NPCs has to say, reading books and letters. It's a nice piece of RPG history and totally free to download.
I know the title seems like bait, but let's be honest: people play this game and usually mistake obtuse level design with GOOD level design. At first I was even getting some Heretic vibes, the free demo level is the best one this game has to offer(heh), together with its first Episode. The first chapters kind of follow a solid medieval/fantasy style, but then everything starts looking like an acid trip. Not a single corridor, bridge or platform make any sense whatsoever and are just there to look "cool", and it actually does! The textures are beautiful, the lighting overall are very well balanced (except the forges, which is your run of the mill unreal engine tech level where everything is always dark, but with lens flare, if that makes sense). Although it looks very cool in screenshots, the game is a chore to play, not fun at all and a pain to navigate as you progress through levels. Arcane Expanse, for instance, is so uninspired that you can feel the smell of a rushed Episode just to finish the game and reach 1.0. Again, I don't understand how this game gets praised by its level design, when as a matter of fact it has the worst levels I've ever played in a FPS. If the developers could stand by its initial style and go from there, it would be different. Another thing: almost every enemy follows the same color pallete from its respective Episode/level design; in other words, they BLEND IN the environment, how... I mean, how does that even happens during development and no one notice a thing like that? If you could inter change every enemy between levels except their home Episodes, it would be way better. By the end the game was just forgettable at best, leaving zero interest to be played again. Of course I won't touch the DLC Black Labyrinth.
Makes me wonder if some people are playing a different game than I; best tactical game my a**! The game IS charming, voice acting is really beyond the charts in quality, and the NPCs are very well done in personality and design. When you are hiring mercenaries and handling the map screen the game is just perfect. It has some UI/UX problems but for a 1999 game, it's bearable. But as soon as you get in combat it all collapses around you. None of your mercenaries can hit shit, it doesn't matter if marksmanship skill is 15 or 99, they will miss 90% of the time. It doesn't apply to your enemies, because of course not! Everytime you get spotted, enemies get a free turn where they can shoot you twice THEN run into cover and maybe even get a third shot. Meanwhile, you barely get enough action points to walk a couple of steps before everyone from the opposite team has another turn. The only strategy available is the good old save scumming behind a wall, waiting for your enemies allign in the corner and get piled up. That's "tactics" everyone! Not to mention that as soon as you get hit, your chances to hit get even lower. This game also has the worst healing mechanic I've ever seen in my life. First aid kids only stops bleeding, and to heal your party, you have to spend days on map screen waiting for your medic to heal everyone, which leads to contracts expiring, requiring you to renew them spending more money. But wait! Now your mercenaries need to sleep a couple of days more, because they're tired of doing nothing. This game has more mechanics to fck you up than to entertain you. Sometimes you'll be asking yourself, "am I fighting Deidranna soldiers, or the game mechanics?" Fallout Tactics, considered to be a poor tactical game, is so much better than this in every aspect, that JA2 actually made me wanna reinstall that and had a proper tactical RPG experience. About 1.13 mod: despite the name, it isn't a patch, it's a complete overhaul of everything said here and more.
Firstly I must say that its graphics are brilliant, Cinemax completely nailed the Diablo/Baldur's Gate aesthetic in this (and I bought the game because of that). The soundtrack is awesome, you can download it separately. The gothic/satanic atmosphere is top notch, with roosters crowing during the mornings and owls hooting during the nights. That's it, that's all the game has that is well done. After spending most of my youth playing Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Divine Divinity, Plascape, and so on, I can surely say that Inquisitor doesn't hold up at all. The dialog trees are huge, but that's not the problem; the problem is that it's all filler content and repetitive lines said with different words making 80% of NPCs completely redundant. They spend 15 pages of conversation to say 3 or 4 words, most of the time without advancing the plot and/or quests. The same items can't be stacked in inventory, so let's say you get 20 orc heads to complete a quest, they will occupy their space 20 times. Potions also can't be stacked, and YOU WILL fill half your inventory with health, mana and stamina potions, so you don't need to get back to town every minute; No town portals. Need to get back? Better love backtracking, the maps are huge and you walk very slowly; there is an item that summons a genie who can teleport you to town, but this item is rare, it's expensive, and doesn't teleport you BACK to where you were; Enemies can kill you and your party with one hit; sometimes the same hit kill you all; the rules that you must follow doesn't apply to enemies, for instance when you cast a spell, you must wait for a cool down that doesn't show up on the UI, but the enemy can cast the same spells at the rating of a full automatic rifle. Bosses always has something to say, so the dialog screen pops up, you choose your response (that will always end in combat), and then he kills you before you can even change your mouse position; This game hates the player and hates fun.
The game is inspired by one of the first tales by H.P. Lovecraft: Dagon. Before starting the game, I reached for my old copy of his works to re-read Dagon and embark into the game with a fresh memory of the tale. The game is exactly the 3D version of the world created there, and it takes the same time as one would take to read it. It's an interactive novel which you play only with the mouse, clicking your way through the scenes. There is a focus mechanic that enables you to reach for clues about the author himself, and discover a little more about his personal life. The story is fully narrated accompanied with good sound effects. Totally recommed for any Lovecraft fan here.
Most people will bash this game because it isn't "Dishonored 2". Both games were released close to each other, and Dishonored was obviously inspired by the old Thief series, but this fourth entry in the franchise is actually it's own thing. Although it's a reboot instead of a sequel, it still has the same dark atmosphere of its predecessors. The city you explore (in hubs, I must say) have a dirty victorian setting, with ports, taverns, a brothel, a bank (with maybe its best mission in there) and various homes and alleys to navigate. This game has a full body motion system (you see your body when you look down), and you can see hand animations for every single interaction (button presses, cutting trip wires, opening drawers and safes). You have a skill system now, but you can ignore it completely if you want, no penalties. Even the usual "magic vision" that so many games have it, which highlight points of interest, can be ignored. You can't jump, as it was the main reason for most complains when it was released. You have just a contextual jumping, that out of obstacles it works as a slash feature to move quickly while crouching. It isn't a bad game, the only problem I had was with the sound effects (people talking near you and sounding as if they were a block away and vice versa, and other missing sounds like footsteps). I had good times with it in both my playthroughs, and the atmosphere alone deserves a special attention.
You know the excessive number of Warhammer titles lately? With a lot of games that doesn't even try to be good? Well, this isn't one of them, Mechanicus can be put right there with Space Marine and Dawn of War. It's basically XCOM in the WH40K universe. While you aren't fighting Necrons in turn based levels, you are upgrading your Adeptus Mechanicus inside you ship, installing cybernetic augments, upgrading skills and equiping them with armor pieces and various weapons, ranged and melee alike (seriously, there are a LOT of them). The sound effects are perfect, they really put you inside the game; the "voice" acting couldn't be better, really, watch some of them on YouTube and you'll understand! And the soundtrack? By God, buy the Omnissiah Edition just because of it, it's full of gothic/industrial/gregorian goodness. They nailed the soundtrack with glorious success.
