The Last Stand: Aftermath is a game focused essentially on very simple mechanics, which is doesn't pad with excess bells and whistles. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Essentially, the game is an isometric exploration slash stealth slash action game, with heavy emphasis on action. Stealth only helps you so far - eventually you'll find yourself slogging it out with the zombies the old fashioned way. Learning the ropes is easy enough, and there's a genuine sense of progression through the game. As you get better, learn what's important to focus on and are able to unlock the various upgrades the game offers (better stats, better starting equipment etc.), progression becomes easier but you'll still get done quickly if you blunder. The infection rate, which is essentially a decreasing health bar that will result in death at some point, feels way too oppressive at first, but can be mitigated through various means as you progress through the game. As a slight con, the maps are not randomly generated, and there are only a few map types per locale. So you'll scour the exact same camps, neighbourhoods and bases time and time again. The game also seems to populate every map in a region with the same (luckily non-regenerating) amount of special zombies. Despite some minor bugs and a few design flaws the game is fun and enjoyable while it lasts. After getting to the end, there's very little replay value. By that time, the game has revealed all of its tricks and becomes pretty repetitive. But the game does what it does well enough. So I'd say this is one for the zombie buffs, and not necessarily a game worth full price. Snag it off a sale and enjoy it as a snack between bigger games.
First of all, the game is extremely unstable. More often than not, it will crash on startup. Getting the game to run is more complex than the game itself. Because the game itself is a pretty shallow experience. Pseudoroguelite management/tactical game with turn based combat. It's a simple matter of pitting the right strength against the right weakness both on offense and defense. The tactical element is pretty thin, and the fights brief. Fun for an evening or two, if you can get it to run.
What the title says. Won't start. Won't run. Nowhere is there any help to be found, only throngs of people who have the same issue. Don't waste your money on this.
This could be a good game. It's a deceivingly simple strategy game of building an ever-expanding empire of Lemmings-like mini-men, where key things are resource management and infrastructure. Surprisingly complex product chains and the importance of balancing everything from production to transport gives the game surprising depth. Sadly, this 10th anniversary edition is riddled with bugs which largely make the game unplayable. For example, randomly a specific mine type will receive no food even if the sliders are set to deliver food ONLY to that mine. Or flour will not be sent to bakeries, even if there is ample surplus of it. Or a random building will receive no materials. This leads to the game becoming, in essence, unplayable, as you are unable to progress when the bugs entirely halt production of necessary items. It is a shame that this remake of the classic is such shoddy work. The half-baked 3D visuals are another point of annoyance, adding in essence nothing to the crisp and clean look of the original. Had it been done properly, Settlers II 10th Anniversary would be great. Now it's just broken.
I remember seeing Doom for the first time in '93 or '94. I, like most of my contemporaries, was awestruck. How could a game look this good, and feel so... real? Sure, we'd played Wolfenstein 3D and other early FPS's, but somehow Doom took everything to another level. It was a revolution, and suddenly first-person shooters were the thing. Nothing else would do, as far as shooters went. Revisiting Doom 30 years later, of course the graphics look crummy and the gameplay feels archaic. The FPS genre has evolved in leaps and bounds. But still, Doom has a strong charm of its own. Outdated and outmoded as it may be, it is still a genuinely good game. Tough but balanced levels, action combined with simple puzzles, jump scares with fierce fire fights - Doom is a game that was not merely technically ahead of its time, but relied on solid gameplay and level design. I bought the game with the intention to just demo it a bit for my kids. "Take a look at this, this is what was the apex of graphics and gameplay back when your old man was your age." I did not expect for the game to hook me in again and have me play all chapters in just a few days. But it did. Old-timers and younguns alike will do well to check this out. Us old farts can take a trip down memory lane, whilst younger gamers can partake in a bit of video gaming archaeology and visit the game that made FPS's the biggest thing in shooting games. And, at the same time, discover a genuinely good game.
Apparently I'm one of the lucky few, as on my rig the game runs smoothly all maxed out apart from the occasional, rare hiccup. The only bug I've encountered so far is the inability to properly reconfigure controls; my generic brand gamepad is not recognized, and the same applies to the fourth and fifth buttons of my mouse. The gameplay mechanics are simple and the aims are repetitive. However, at no point has No Man's Sky promised a game with complex mechanics bristling with action and suspense. People who expect that have obviously been waiting for some other game than No Man's Sky. NMS is all about slow-paced, relaxed exploration: what's behind the next hill, what's on that planet over the horizon, what awaits in the next solar system? The simple resource gathering, crafting and inventory management serve no other purpose than sort of forcing the player to explore the worlds he or she encounters. For what it is, and promised to be, NMS is a great game. It's fun to explore and discover new planets, places and creatures without a sense of urgency. It's not a game for people who want action and events.
Building planes is fun, trying to get them off the ground and be maneuverable in the air is tricky but rewarding, flying is fun, but ultimately there's really little do here except build something and play around with it for a bit. Dogfights, especially with missiles, are boring and at least the version I bought in Jan 2016 featured only 1-on-1 dogfights. So in a nutshell: the building is fun, but beyond that, there's not much of a game here.
The game is obviously meant to bring the first X-Com game, UFO: Enemy Unknown to modern computers, and it does a great job at that mostly. Basically, anyone familiar with X-Com will feel right at home here and as such won't need much of introductions and tutorials. However, the few new features are explained awfully and anyone unfamiliar with UFO will have an uphill battle to get to grips with the game, especially as the UI and presentation of many of the various screens leave a lot to be desired. The big problem with the game is that a lot of information is hard to find without clicking through lots of screens. Summaries and tooltips are missing. However, whilst not perfect in everything, it does what it sets out to do admirably well, and feels like the "real thing". As such, despite minor flaws, I cannot recommend this enough for people who spent countless hours battling aliens and frustration with the original gem.
This unashamedly violent and brutal top-down action game instantly brought to mind old NES classics with its graphical approach, but luckily has much more going for itself than mere retro nostalgia. The game is equal parts frantic action and tactical planning: because it takes just one hit for the player to go down, the idea of the game is to plan your attacks carefully using the environment to your benefit. It's not so much a stealth game in the sense that Thief, for example, is, because ultimately you have to kill everyone and -thing, as it is a tactical action game. Using weapons found in the levels and picked up from dead foes, the key to success is a combination of stealthy kills of isolated foes and panicked bursts of action when you charge into a room full of foes and hope to kill them all before they get you. Whilst the AI is simple and stupid (a fact the game admits!), the game sometimes seemingly randomly varies the patterns enemies patrol, meaning there's always some variation in each attempt at a level. This also means there's no surefire key to success, as an enemy may react differently this time around. The controls are a bit clumsy at times, with the fast pace meaning you'll sometimes be swinging your weapon in all the wrong directions and occasionally getting stuck on an obstacle. This minor detraction and the very nature of the game mean you'll die frequently, but luckily each level is small, so you won't have to replay more than a few minutes of gaming time. But you may replay those minutes time and time again. Luckily, the game manages to avoid aggravation and frustration. The other slightly flawed bit of the game are the boss fights, which rely too much on discovering that one trick rather than requiring actual skill. Despite the downsides, Hotline Miami is a stunningly addictive and enjoyable game. Under the retro shell is a brutal little gem. The game could be a bit longer, though, and the story a bit better.
Master Of Orion is a game that still today manages to surprise and even awe me. I first played it soon after it was released on a friends' PC; we were both hooked and played pretty much only MOO for weeks. When I got my first PC, it was one of the very first games I acquired for it, and was hooked again. And when I found out it was on GoG, it was one of the very first games I bought through it and was - seeing a pattern here yet? - hooked. One of the things that makess MOO unique is that underneath its surface of simplicity, it's a surprisingly complex game - but complex in a fun and engaging way. Even when you first fire up the game you won't really be daunted by an endless amount of menus and choices. Quite the contrary in fact; all you've got are about half a dozen of different screens, some of which you can basically completely ignore and still get along just fine. MOO does a good job at taking care of the micromanagement if you choose to not bother with it, but on the other hand does give you the chance to slide those sliders if that's what gets you off (I, for one, rarely bother with the Tech-screen). After a few turns you will feel completely at home with the GUI, and as you get better, you will discover what the different screens and sliders do. You probably won't even have to consult the manual. The gameplay isn't much more complex at first sight; build ships, send them off to explore, build colonies or do battle, research tech, build better ships, do diplomacy, and so on. Really, it's simple stuff that MOO is made from, but it takes a long while to truly understand how the game works. The beautiful thing is that your actions have real consequences. Everything has an impact on everything else. In similar contemporary games such as Civ and Civ II, especially diplomacy felt vastly inferior due to one bothersome aspect: too often it felt like no matter what you did, regardless of whether it be parading your superior military power or groveling in the mud and offering gifts to other nations, or trying to be a cool equal, you'd end up facing the wrong side of their sword. In MOO, it at least feels like you are able to significantly affect the direction your diplomatic relations take; be pro-active and give small token gifts, exchange tech and keep in touch, and they'll like you. Build armies and stay a loner, and they'll become wary and probably attack you. Another thing which in itself is simple but lends to surprisingly large strategical possibilities are the victory conditions: victory by being elected president, or victory by eradicating all other races. The neat thing here is that as the balance of power shifts in favour for or against a nation or another, the best strategy also shifts: is it better to butter up your competitors to get their vote, or smash them with your fleet? It is possible to win the game with diplomacy and quick expansion only, or with pure violence. But best results are often yielded with a combination of both. I find these victory conditions make up for more interesting strategies than Civ's build spaceship first/kill everyone. Getting to choose your race is also nice; each race excels at something and is in turn weaker at something else, meaning you have to either choose the race to suit your playing style or adapt your strategy to the race. I usually pick the Silicoids because I can't be bothered with all those pesky colony bases for different environments. One of the most appealing aspects of the game is your space fleet: you get to design your ships by selecting weapons, engines, ECM and computer systems etc., and command them in a combat mini-game which is very much similar to, for example, Heroes Of Might And Magic - also in the sense that cunning strategy can sometimes grant victory to the inferior force. Having to design your own units makes combat and military tech research feel very different from Civ, where new tech automatically gives you certain units. The best thing about MOO is that each field of the game - exploration, micromanagement of resources and population, fleet design, diplomacy and combat - is FUN! And they tie in so well together that it doesn't feel anything at all like managing a handful of loose strings; as I wrote above, everything affects everything else in some direct or indirect way, but rarely in a manner so esoteric you can't figure it out. This makes running your own little space empire extremely addictive, fun and rewarding; seeing your underdog empire turn the tide of battle against the invading Meklars thanks to that superior new ship design you devised, your clever strategical thinking, good resource planning and sneaky combat tactics feels like you actually achieved something. And in a way it feels just as good on those occasions the AI hands your ass to you - this game can put up a real fight. And you also get MOO2 for the same price, which is an added bonus. But for me, the real gem in this package is the first game, the second being very much obscured by the sheer brilliance of the first game. Sadly, there are some minor issues with compatibility; sometimes the graphics may start flickering and you cannot load a game from the main menu, and sometimes loading the main game screen can take inordinate amounts of time... but nothing too major.
