Nox it's a fun game. I was pretty nostalgic about it, as i remember playing it about 10 years ago, but i never got into it too much. Well, i kinda see why now. First of all, the game it's pretty good. General combat mechanics are good, the characters are ok, the story it's ok, you can follow it, but, for every positive thing, you have 3-4 negative ones that makes your adventure painful. First of all, the story. As i was saying, it's ok, but kinda deceptive. It starts out as this goofy story of an random trailer-park dude getting teleported into another world. And i'm ok with that. The biggest problem it's that the game it's getting serious and you're not getting the comedy that you would probably expect from that intro. Then, mechanics... Oh god, there are many things wrong here. Repair mechanics are a pain. Firstly, your gear broke up very fast. That would be ok if you could repair it easily. But you can't. There is no town portal mechanic, no waypoints. You pretty much hope that the current level will end into an town so you can repair. You need to cary more of the same type of equipment, to replace them if they broke. This it's an anti-fun mechanic imo. You have a nice weapon, well, you should preserve it and use an bad one, as you don't want to break your good weapon. Then, abilities. I only played as warrior. Most abilities are useless. I had to abandon game when i had to deal with a lot of wizards. It was impossible for me to kill them or at least go pass them. The only gap closer was imprecise and you are getting penalized for messing it up. The enemy scaling it's all over the place. You have an level where you one-hit everyone, you reach the boss, he one-hit you. Nox it's a good game only if you invest a lot of hours trying to get around the faulty mechanics. I recommend it, but with caution. Don't expect the game to be as good as it is in first 2-3 hours of play.
Akalabeth it's such an important game for the whole CRPG thing. It's a game that you can't ignore if you are interested about the subject, one of the first commercially successful CRPGs out there. It opened the path for most CRPGs we now know. Now, as far as the game goes, it's pretty much unplayable for "fun". It's frustrating, it's hard, it's obnoxious. The story it's pretty much all written in the manual, you don't have too much story to follow in the game, you basically need to find X-es on the map, do the dungeons and then follow the quest at the castle. Sounds pretty, but it's brutal. Everything you do in the game takes food. You pretty much need a whole country food resources to be able to move around wherever you want in the game. Dungeons are also painful. Most of the monsters you find are stealing your food. If you want to get into the adventure that is Akalabeth, you pretty much need to expect to die of starvation and start over. That's what you will be doing most of the time. Now, as i describe the game as an unplayable game, some might as why i would give it 5 stars. Because it deserves. At the moment when it was released, it was an awesome thing. Everyone should try it and view it as the piece of gaming history as it is. In this times, a game like it it's not intended to be fun, as you definitely have better choices. I'm really thankful to GoG that they made this game available as free download. Great job!
When i saw the description i was psyched. Mommy badger simulator you say? Count me in! Now, i was expecting pretty much from this game, based on how good reviews it got. But my expectations were shattered. First of all, my opinion is that Shelter it's not a game. It's similar with Dear Eshter and others. Your only necessary interaction is to guide the badger through the paths. That's all. All that thing with "feed the little badgers", "avoid the deadly bird" are not necessary. You can starve your siblings and let the mighty bird kill them all, you will have the same result in the end. I would call those kind of creations "interactive cinematic", it seems more appropriate. Now, the game design it's pretty poor. You have a lot of invisible walls, you can't climb on almost anything, you pretty much need to follow a path. That can be a hassle sometimes, as you don't have a mini map or some kind of guidance, as all looks pretty much the same, so you have that "well, i'll go back and try to find the exit" too. Now, why the game is mostly appreciate, it's due to artistic design. They opted for and polygonal look, but you also have some "modern" details. I'm fine with it, but i don't see how this can be such an important factor. And as i was saying before, everything looks pretty much the same anyway, so, what you see from print-screens, that's what you get and nothing else. Sounds again, are ok, they create an atmosphere. And i'm referring to actual sounds produced by the environment. The soundtrack it's nothing to write home about, not memorable, but it fits the "game". It took me a little over an hour to finish the game, and have in mind that i got "stucked" a lot due to poor level design, so it was an boring hour. If i would start over again, it should take me about 20-30 minutes. It's a poor "game", i understand the artsy approach, but that's poor too, as it's so repetitive and not so special once you saw the first few minutes of the game.
