The shooting is just incredibly boring in the game and despite it being open world it feels like you do the exact same thing all over again at the same looking locations. It looked good back then when we were all amazed by the rapid progress of the graphics but that is just what it was. A novelty. Nowadays you see the graphic is just very bland without any cham.
It is a fun game with a cliched story that you will guess immediately and falsified history with good Americans bombing Yugoslavia and bad bad Russians everywhere. For once I would appreciate if the bad guys were not Russians but if you just want to snipe and dont care about the storyline and historical accuracy it is an ideal game for you. There are just little things that are bad. You can't skip the annoying garbage scenes with good Americans and there is also no crosshair which sucks. Nevertheless it is a good game.
I wanted it badly as a kid in 90s and managed to play it only recently. The game was released at the time of Half-Life which made it virtually forgotten over night. At least now I can rate it without any nostalgia and I am honestly shocked how good it is. Above all it has amazing settings, atmosphere and sound design. The game is quite somber, they really managed to create a feeling of a very dark dystopian world. Apart from weapons you also have spells that are quite enjoyable to use even though you will likely use only the most effective one (energy ball) and the rest will be there just to spice the things up. It has also some negatives. To set the game up might be a problem. Use dgVoodoo2 if you experience any troubleshooting and I would also recommend to switch to 800x600 in which the game was designed to run and it runs like that by far the smoothest. The controls are clunky. I personally didnt mind it and found it quite charming. It is not terrible, it is just a bit different to what you are used to and it adds another layer of personality to the game. The real pain are boss fights however. They take ages to finish because every boss has incredible amount of HP. Another issue is there is at least one gamebreaking bug and you will possibly need to use a cheat code to progress to another level. Also note this is not a Doom like "run and gun" shooter but a more tactical approach is needed.
Bound in blood is good and so is Gunslinger but they feel somewhat limited in their range. You'll have fun with them but after you finish them you'll probably forget about them very soon. They simply put the most effort into the first game. Unlike its successors the first COJ has a memorable and coherent story spiced with some mystery and it does not feel like a rail shooter. It is cheesy, cliched and it is overall a great adventure with a good amount of variety in missions and enviroments. I was never bored. Apart from typical shooting missions you'll be fistfigting, sneaking through outlaw camps, hunting rabbits, climbing a mountain and eventually even searching for a hidden treasure like in a Good, Bad and Ugly in Indiana Jones style! There is always something interesting ahead. It is not an open world but the game does not make it look too obvious as you are often surrouned by huge areas so you have still that feeling of somewhat open world and there are few levels they let you explore little bit. The biggest flaw I can see is they went over the top with the main characters. Ray is just a cartoonish character and Billy just isn't too likeable partly because his dubbing is not very good. I wished someone just remade this. Duelling is not great either but it is not really as bad and boring as in the following games. These are just minor flaws in otherwise very enjoyable game. If you like westerns this one will certainly not disappoint you.
I missed the game when it was released and I finally managed to play it after 25 years. I have to say the game easily stood the test of time. It is visually very rich game with non-linear level design and spot on sound design. Weapons look also awesome. The resolution is low but the graphic itself is very appealing and there were no other FPS games in '95 except Teminator Future Shock that could really match the game in this aspect. The only bad level is the sewer level plus there are few places where you can get lost, namely the prison level. You can use cheat and easily skip these levels if you want. The rest of the levels are fun to explore and quite easy to navigate. The first level where you steal the Death Star plans and the last level where you fight the best Dark Troopers are probably the best of them. Once you have finished a level you can always replay it on a different difficulty. The game is not really hard even on hard difficulty. Before you play the game make sure you set the controls in a setup via dosbox. It is easy to do and it will make the game much more accessible for the most. There is also gas mask and flashlight binded somewhere on F1-F12 keys. You'll need to use it only once or twice in the entire game but it is must!
DF2 (5/5) is still fun from the start to the finish with a nice coherent story and huge levels. MotS (3/5) improved colours and jedi powers are now must in order to progress but unlike DF2 it suffers from huge difficulty spikes and it is filled with plenty of not so obvious puzzles and hidden paths so you might easily get stuck.
