I wanted to play this game ever since I saw it on a gamer magazine's cover back in 2000. Almost 20 years later, Messiah is still a unique gaming experience. You control a cherub named Bob, whom God sends to Earth to clean up the corruption and sin among humans. The game takes place in the far future in a cyberpunk environment. With Bob you can possess people in order to solve puzzles and shoot your way through the levels. I really like this idea - every NPC has different weapons, clearence level or purpose, so you have to possess the right NPC to progress. The graphics is quite good for the time, and it's fine even today - there is something timeless in early 2000's game graphics. Great atmosphere, too. The story is interesting and unique. But as for the gameplay... it's sad that the GoG version is full of glitches. I encountered crashes, no sound during certain cutscenes, and no music at all... (except for the Fear Factory songs, which are rad, but you can only hear them in the menu and during action) Also, you have to download the widescreen patch, which is not included in this version. The controls are jittery and unresponsive. The turret controls are horrendous. The game uses an auto-aim system during combat, which is fine, but zero tactics involved in the shooting - you pray for you kill the enemy before they kill you. You cannot avoid any gunfire, and you die very quickly. Possessing people is kinda annoying, because if anyone saw you doing it, they immediately start shooting at you. When you are not protected by a human body, you are very weak, and get killed after a few shots - expect to die a lot in this game, so save often. Oh, and you cannot possess enemies from the front (at least on normal difficulty), so if anyone started to shoot you, you are fucked. So Messiah could have been a great classic, if not for the bad controls and numerous glitches. I still recommend to play it, but armor yourself with some patience, or you won't have a fun time.
Shogo was the first game to use Monolith's Lithtech engine, which later gave us such classics like No One Lives Forever, Aliens versus Predator 2 or FEAR (and some not-so-great games like Blood II). I have never played this as a kid, so I have zero nostaliga-factor for this game. Having played 21 years after it's release, I have to say that it's not very good. It's a story-based shooter with an anime theme, but I really couldn't attach to any of the characters in the story. The cutscenes are just ridiculous, the characters are standing in one place like morons with their basic pose, no animations whatsoever. What I liked about the story, that it has two endings, and you play completely different levels based on your choice. You alternate between on-foot combat and mech combat during the game. I think the mech sections are the highlights - they have cool weapons, and they can even transform into a fast-moving tank. The explosions have nice particle effects, and overall it's fun to blow up shit. You can choose between four different mechs, but there is little-to-no impact on the gameplay, so it's kinda pointless. The on-foot combat is very basic. You have quite a few weapons, but only the machine guns are useful. And here comes the frustration part - the enemies have split-second reaction time, and they can kill your ass faster than you can yell "FUCK!", even with full health and armor. In medium difficulty! There is a stupid "critical hit" system, which is completely random, and if an enemy scores a critical hit on you, you are instantly dead. Nice. So there is a chance to die under one second with max health, if the game decides it so. Combine it with the inhuman reaction times of the enemies, and you get a frustrating, trial-and-error gameplay, where you have to savescum all the way to complete the missions. I don't really recommend this game, if you value your sanity. Play the later Monolith titles instead.
Nowadays there are a lot of games claiming to be "old-school" and trying to mimic the classic FPS giants. There are only a few worthy instalment in my opinion, but AMID EVIL is definitely one of them. It borrows everything that was awesome in Quake, Heretic, Hexen and Painkiller, and fuses them into one dope game. The level design is fantastic, the music kicks ass, the weapons are fun to use (for god's sake, there is a weapon that shoots planets, how cool is that?), the combat is fluid, fast-paced and skill-based. The game uses the UE4 engine, so it runs like a dream. The graphics is pixelated but looks great at the same time - especially the lighting is beautiful. So what are you waiting for? If you like the aforementioned classic FPS titles, there is no reason not to play AMID EVIL, like, right now. Support the devs and New Blood Interactive in order to bring us more awesome titles like this!
Jill of the Jungle was made by Epic Megagames, the company that brought us such awesome titles like Jazz Jackrabbit and Unreal. But this one is... not that good. I have two main complaints: the controls and the level design. The controls are clunky and awkward, especially the jumping (which you do 90% of the time). The level design is all over the place, some levels are OK, but others are torture to get through. You weapons are lame and hard to hit enemies that are on the ground. I know it was released in '91, but Commander Keen was already out, and it had better graphics and much smoother gameplay. I like a few things though: the music is nice, and it's cool that you can transform into animals to fly, swim or jump higher. The game is free, so you can give it a try, but there are much better platformers around.
