OK. This game is soooo dated. So don't expect RTX4090-level graphics here. And expect that there if you are new to this game (or even if you played it some years ago but had a longer break) you'll get to a server with maps on which you have no idea what to do. That's normal, you'll get used to the maps and the objectives. Firstly, it's funny that GOG advertises this suddenly as a new free release when this game has always been free. This is a great game, build on a Quake3 engine, with a highly active once and still fairly active now community. That resulted in a plethora of mods and maps which will suit many different playing styles. You can find more "fun play" mods, you can find more "serious" mods. You can even finds servers and mods dedicated only to learning trickjumping and nothing more. Of course, the player base is not as huge as it used to be some 10-15 years ago but for a game of this age it's still pretty alive and kicking. There are still quite a few nice communities where you can find nice people to shoot ;-) It's of course worth reading some nice guide about recommended settings (which might give you some extra performance and better moving/aiming - the engine has its quirks). And then - just choose your online nick join a server and have fun :-) As people already pointed out - one of the strength of this game (and a source of frustration on some maps) compared to other shooters is that in vanilla play mode you need to complete objectives. And completing objectives usually involves several different classes of soldeirs. So it requires teamplay and doing other things than only simply shooing around (but shooting is still very important).
Well, I am biased because most 4X games simply look bland in comparison with the original first Civilization. I think only MoO caught my attention for longer. Anyway, here we just have more of the same typical 4X stuff, just with a bit annoying quirks in control and interface. Maybe it wasn't that annoying back on release, now it is, especially if you have comparison even with FreeCiv. The only nice mechanic is the unit stacking. And of course the resolution issue. Yes, you can set your screen even to 4k but it will look crappy (the gfx won't upscale so you'll have almost whole world on your screen at once and everything will be very small) and for the movies the game "switches" to another resolution but the effect is simply not there - the videos are playing somewhere off-screen. Nothing to write home about.
Well, Sierra's adventure games are, on the one hand, really quite big and sophisticated for its times but on the other - they can be very frustrating. Especially - the "classic" versions - for a non-native english speaker. So the first PQ games in the series can be hard to complete due to "technical" difficulty. Parts 3 and 4 are a bit easier control-wise but of course the gfx resolution (especially in PQ4 with the digitized photos) pixel-hunting can be troublesome especially that you don't get any tooltips. And finally - while most of the game is really well-thought, seriously themed and so on, some elements are more like from a Larry or even Monkey Island style adventure game. To be honest, I'm not sure if they are show-stoppers though since I must admit after some point I finished the games with walkthrough because of that (drumstick and mirror, seriously?). And one thing that you may or may not like - contrary to many adventure games, in Sierra's ones you don't have to do everything to complete the game. I understand that, especially in case of a police game, it's "realistic" - you don't have to talk with everyone and have gather all the tiny details as long as you have your main evidence but for a game it leaves you with a sense of... lack of fulfillment. So Sierra's adventures in general and PQ in particular are worth at least to be tried in order to see milestones in games history. (I know that King's Quest was before PQ but somehow I find the police theme of these games more accessible). But they might not get to be your favourite adventures.
Sadly, the game won't start properly on my setup (4k + 1080). It will switch the resolution on the secondary monitor to some smaller one but will draw a black rectangle with nothing in it on the main one. There is completely nothing inside the black rectangle. And nothing will convince it otherwise. I tried both GOG and Steam versions since I have both of them - and both behave the same. I'm not desperate enough to fight with this game just to make it run. Too many other games in queue to play.
At first the game seems interesting. Then it quickly ends. Meanwhile you get frustrated by controls and viewing angles. And realize that whole premise of the game is illogical. If you received it as a freebie, might be worth spending some time on it - it looks nice indeed. But it's definitely not worth paying for.
The game really feels like a modern approach to Prince of Persia. Most of the mechanics is there and then some. The gameplay is quite rewarding although a bit frustrating at times - some places you just have to go thorugh by trial and error. Although it features firearms you won't be using them very often. The ammo is scarce so you'd stick to your axe for most of the time. Which is good - it feels like the post-apo times when you have to manage your resources carefully. There is something off with the health mechanics - I usually quickly lose most of health points then play with just one point up to the next first aid kit. But maybe that's me and my style of playing. I know that people complain a bit about controls but they feel very similar (up to the "lag" with some actions) to Prince of Persia or Flashback so you could say that they fit in the genre. The mouse shooting somehow doesn't feel well done. Something doesn't feel right about it. The overall story is simple but gives you the needed motivation to go on. The game is not very long but pretty well done (although I had one spot when the game would go black screen on me; but when I passed it on fourth or fifth try, the issue didn't persist). I like the graphics. For a platformer (and the game is a platformer after all) they are very nicely done and dynamic. The fight feels a bit weird. It needs a lot of getting used to to get the hang of using the axe properly and compensate for its inertia and your dropping stamina. You learn that after all but at the beginning can be tiresome and you die often because of the fighting. So I remove one star for those little annoyances but the game is worth playing especially if bought with a discount (at the moment it's -80%)
The game for the most part is well written and quite consistent story-wise. But. But the puzzles are annoying. And some of them are just PITA. Luckily you can skip some of them. There are also some points I'd have never think of gameplaywise. After all - if you played the second game in the series, the third one is worth playing as well.
Interesting that some people regard this part as much better than the prequel and some as much worse. I tend to agree with the former. The first game of the series was unplayably annoying for me. This one improved greatly in terms of controls and overall UI feeling. Also the graphics are much less annoying (the 3D characters are much more detailed and look way better than in the first part). The riddles are quite ok, relatively logical (of course with that particular brand of point-and-click logic where if you need a number 4 Phillips screwdriver you can easily get away with using a torx wrench but that's normal with those games). Some of the minigames are a bit annoying, luckily, they can be skipped after some time of trial and error. The game does feel a bit linear but on the other hand it's rather impossible to get into a no-exit situation. After all - if you like point and click games, it's a solid one to try out. Especially if bought with a discount.
This game didn't age well. Unfortunately it's a game from that peculiar period when pre-rendered 3d models were considered top-notch gfx and game creators were showing them off all the time. So the pace of the game itself is sooooo slow and annoying that I can't bear to play this one through. And some interface choices are simply bad. Clicking several time on a suitcase to get subsequent items from it (and each one is soooo slow). No, sorry. Not worth my time.
