Escape from Monkey Island is the freak misfit of the series, but I think it's very underappreciated. Well, understandable - it's not even a point'n'click adventure game anymore, in fact it doesn't even use the mouse - you do everything with the keyboard. The game is now fully 3D with pre-rendered backgrounds - it uses the same engine as Grim Fandango, and a similar control scheme. But while the controls in that game did not bother me very much, it's really bad here. Its awkward and glitchy. It takes Guybrush ages to turn around, and even simple things like observe your environment or turn right in a path can be a pain is the butt. BUT, if you manage to adapt to the crappy controls, it's a great adventure game, even a good Monkey Island game! The writing is good, the humour is there, the story is wacky with a lot of returning characters, the voice acting is superb, and the music is awesome too. There are some cryptic or tedious puzzles here-and-there, but overall it's a good challenge. I'd say give it a try.
Descent is a "first person shooter" in maze like levels and six degrees of freedom. Every mission you have one main goal: destroy the reactor core, then get the hell out. On your way you destroy robots, rescue miners and collect weapons. It's simple, but fun. The graphics is great for the time, the music is freaking awesome, the controls are buttery smooth, and it's just fun to blow up shit. It would be perfect, if not for a few very annoying things. Most of the enemies are using projectile weapons, which you can dodge, but there is a specific droid that uses a hitscan minigun, which eats up your armor in seconds, and you cannot avoid it. The other annoying robot is the one that uses homing missiles, which - you guessed it - cannot avoid. These two enemies ruin the game. It makes the run-and-gun awesomeness into a carefully-peak-into-every-corner and save-every-five-second chore. Other things I don't like: the game is not very generous with the health. By that I mean you can barely find any. There is a life system, so if you die, you respawn at the start of the level with max health (but you have to collect all your weapons and upgrades), so sometimes the best way is just to commit suicide in a safe spot then go forward with max health. It would have been cool if there are shield rechargers (like energy rechargers), or the enemies would drop more health. I really hate the droid respawner too, which spawns infinite number of droids (if the existing ones were not enough already). The level design can be confusing too, imagine Wolfenstein 3D mazes, but in full 3D. Fortunately, the map is very good and easy to navigate, so that helps a lot, but without that, you have absolutely no idea where even up or down is. There is a great source port for Descent called D1X-Rebirth, which I highly recommend using instead of DosBox. So all in all, awesome game, but HARD as balls with lot of cheap deaths and artificial difficulty. Proceed with extreme caution.
