First of all if you want to run Nox on a Windows 10 machine you have to go into the installation folder, find the game.exe and set the compatibility mode to Win98/ME. For that makes the game work even though I have to start it two times (back to Windows on first game start) after booting up my computer. When the game starts it runs fine though. Regarding the game itself I have to say that even today 23 years after it was first released Nox still looks quite beautiful. Visually back then this was stunning for an ARPG game and it was ahead of games like Diablo 2 which released the same year. In terms of gameplay and map/world design Nox was also better than its competitor. It provided quite a bit of interaction with the environment which also other ARPGs at the time didn't have which was achieved with static maps though which unfortunately reduces replay value. The story premise is pretty good. Unfortunately they didn't use the full potential of "guy from our world being transferred to magical world". Jack just accepts his fate and becomes a silent protagonist who just goes through an adventure. So outside the intro and three different endings depending on the class you pick, the transfer between worlds doesn't play any role. Based on the class selection you also start in different areas and have some different early and mid game sections. The last section of the game is the same for all three. The game is pretty fun though and doesn't take itself to seriously. Equipment is static in terms of what and where you find it and there are some problems towards the end as your equipment breaks and there is no way to repair it without a vendor which no longer appear in the last 15-20% of the game. So Nox is a mostly story driven ARPG game with a bit different controls than other games in the genre and more static progression. Good value but unfortunately it never got a successor from Westwood. Would've been great to see what they could've done with a Nox 2.
Disappointment is the word I'd use to describe this game. I've basically waited two years before buying the game giving the developers enough time to fix what was initially wrong with the game. And unfortunately from what I can tell they failed. Cyberpunk 2077 is a buggy mess. I've encountered problems with the graphics, game crashes and massive performance issues. Ray tracing is completely pointless in this game as even as with an RTX 3080 and equally powerful hardware in the rest of the setup the FPS drops to completely unplayable levels (10fps and lower). I had to disable ray tracing completely to get usable performance and even then after some time the game performance drops sharply when I open the map and inventory for no reason. Driving cars and motorcycles in this game is painful. I think that the person who designed this has never driven a car before or handled motorcycles. Also to me the game looks ugly. It's not that the graphics are bad. But the design is just ugly. The characters are mostly ugly, the cars are mostly ugly and especially the city is ugly. This is especially a problem when you consider that there is also some sexual content in the game. How can I get into this stuff when I think the characters involved are ugly? Everyone also seems to be on some kind of fetish trip. Also outside of the city being ugly it's not actually designed so that I'd believe it to be an actual city. Everything just feels misplaced and tinkered together to somehow make it fit. Street design is horrible. If this was an actual real place, traffic would be a nightmare and you'd have LOTS of traffic accidents. The main story line is overall pretty short with a disappointing ending. About 15% of the game is the main story. 30% is side missions. And about 55% are gigs which are simply "place X is filled with enemies." => neutralize someone/get item/upload virus". Braindance functionality is barely used (wasted). Also the game teases a lot of things but doesn't deliver.
