OK, maybe it just doesn't suit my likings but I found the game boring at best or frustrating at last. Firstly, I needed to wait some ridiculous amount of time for the game to load. I admit, that already set me up in a negative mood. Then I saw a game which couldn't make up its mind whether it wants to be a shooter, a tactical game, a strategy game or something else. I understand that someone wanted to do a "combo game" putting in elements of different genres but for me it just didn't click.
Well... to give the game just a negative review would be unjust because the game is kinda pretty and cute (although the characters design is ugly as hell). The checkpoints can be annoying but this "save" form is understandable in platform game context. If you could save every two seconds there would be no challenge whatsoever. The story is... well, a story. You need some background story for your hero. It's not the best one, not the worst. A bit silly but acceptable. The jumping and grappling mechanics are... fun but annoying. You very often keep hitting the object you're attached to disturbing your flight and causing you to fall. And there is no way to consistently predict whether you'll be able to grab something or not. You simply have to try and see whether you'll grab the next rock or fall short. Another annoying thing is that the game is very linear but in some places you have no idea where to go next. Make up your mind - either make an exploration-type game or show the player what to do. How was I supposed to know that suddenly after almost whole long level of giving me only very specific rocks to grab on to you'll suddenly decide that the ceiling is "grabable"? And the grapling mechanics itself... well, I'm biased because I'm a huge fan of all Bionic Commando releases. I loved the Bionic Commando grappling and swinging mechanics. It was much more fun than this game and much more predictable. But as I said - I might be biased here. So, long story short, the game can be fun to some extent but not as much as to justify full price.
I don't even know where did I get this game from. Some giveaway? Anyway, the game looks oldschool-nice at first glance but that's all nice that can be said about it. It's pointless, boring and most annoyingly - the transitions (even if you just alt-tab to desktop and back) are so irritably long and computer-freezing, that I won't be giving this game another chance. No way.
Got it ages ago on some sale and it waited patiently for its turn. What can I say? The game didn't age very well. The graphics look really dated and - most importantly - back in its days the game could have been forgiven for the way you control your character. Nowadays - it's a big no no. I assume they went cheap and didn't implement routing in the environment. That's one big drawback of this game. The other one is that it's annoyingly linear. It consists of several chapters that need to be completed in almost strict order to advance. And there's a bit of pixel hunting. And some minigames are frustrating. On the upside - the story is interesting and even though it's confusing for the most of the game it explains itself in the end. Good thing about the game is that you can't die so you can just happily explore your possibilities untill you find a solution. Remake with decent gfx and more up to date controls could be an interesting idea.
I remember having The Lords of Midnight back on speccy. I remember having no clue what it was about (those were the times when you'd have just a pirated copy on a cassette with no manual in Poland). Then I learned a bit about the game and thought that it'd be nice to play it one day. Well... It was an interesting experience to finally see what this game was about but I think this game along with its mechanics aged rather badly. If you loved the original then you might like it in a re-drawn mouse-controllable form. Otherwise you might find it a bit weird and not up to today's standards.
I understand that this game has a cult of sorts built around it. OK, might be ok for those who played it back in the days. Unfortunately, for me it's one of those games that I always wanted to play because I heard so much about but somehow never managed to. So I tried to play it never having seen it before and failed miserably. The controls were so strange that I couldn't force myself to using it. Sorry, there are too many other games to play to waste time on weird controls.
Firstly, let me point out that I'm reviewing just the original RB, not the RB3D. I'll have to find the time to launch it one day... Back to the RB I remember having absolutely loved the original game back when it was released. It was fun to play, you could adjust the difficulty as your skills progressed, you had a very nice career mode, pretty good flight model for its time. OK, when the successors came (AotP and AoE), I very much preferred them to the RB, but that's another story. With that in memory I sat to the RB almost 30 (gosh!) years later. And was disappointed. Of course I expected the graphics and sound but I didn't ezpect that the game would be unplayable. Maybe it's my keyboard (although I don't have issues with other games), maybe it's dosbox, but I can't fly using keyboard. It can't read simultaneous keypresses. So i tried mapping sticks on my pad to dosbox joysticks. Firtly, the game would se the joystick as permanently being in up-right position. But that happens on some computer and requires tweaking the config. Fair enough. But even after repairing said config there was no way to properly remap the controls. They wouldn't just fully work. And the flying using pad also didn't feel right. So - unfortunately, it's not very playable. At least for me. YMMV
I suppose the game was a novelty back when it came out (I remember a colleague from work playing it and recommending heavily). But it aged badly. The most frustrating thing is that it's way too lineral both in terms of general plot and map navigation as well as being for most of the time very short on choices how to tackle obstacles. And the game can't make up its mind - for example, some lights you can shoot and some you can't. And of course you don't know which are which beforehand. It can be worth to give it a try if you got it on some deep sale and just want to tick it off of your list. Otherwise - don't bother.
