i heard of this game many years ago, i'm so happy to finally play this classic underrated gem. this is Clive Barker's most successful attempt into making a video game. horror fans know him for creating the Hellraiser franchise and the cult-classic film Nightbreed. it's a gothic horror-themed first-person shooter in the same vein as "Heretic", "Quake" and "Nosferatu: Warth of Malachi" (which is another underrated gem). very atmospheric, dark, suspenseful and has some of clive barker's gothic vibes. the plot takes place in the 1920's about the protagonist patrick galloway returning to ireland to visit an old friend and helping him discover his family's disturbing involvement with the occult and the supernatural. the game heavily focuses on the dual wielding weapon/spell mechanics. on the left hand you use you're standard weapons suchs as pistol, shotgun and later gain even a supernatural weapon (kinda) and more. on the right hand you do magic spells, invisible eye spell too find clues, ghosts and glow in the dark, a projectile spell to kill and more. it does take time to get used to but when you do it's a breeze. however, the game is not perfect. it has pacing issues. it starts out very promising, but the story progresses it goes back and forth and gets lost in itself, the loactions don't really blend well and you don't really get to know much of the chracters. the only way to understand some of the characters and the lore is to read the journals, letters and diaries that are scattered around the levels. the other thing is this game runs on the epic "Unreal" engine, which was a big deal at the time, but it does make the game a bit dated, on the one hand the level design and backrounds are beautiful even on an old engine. but on the other hand the character models especially in close-up are very early 2000, which is a shame. overall this is one of the best FPS horror-themed games i played.
Army Men is of my favorite PC games growing-up, along with "Army Men II" and "Toys in Space" but i had no idea (at the time) that the PC version of "Army Men: World War" is so different from the common PS1 console version, which itslef is very poorly made game. this along side "Army Men: Air Tactics" are the last good games in the series, then they shift from PC to consoles and the games got worse and worse to the point of shovelware. the PC version of this game is the only good game in the "Army Men: World War" sub-series. in this game you don't play main protaginist Sarget Hawk, instead play a regular squad commander and you lead you're sqaud in the frontlines to stop the global threat of the Tan Army. the game tone is alot darker and grittier then the other games, and also kinda returning to it's roots of the original game, being more grounded and realistic. the graphics, mechanics and gameplay are almost the same, but now it's opional to switch into diffrent solider and take command from him, even if the main squad commander dies. all the familiar things from previous titles are back. the game can be difficult but with practice it's very fun game. it might not be as great as Army Men II (in my opinion), but its still a good game. thank you GOG for bringing this title a second chance to modern PC's.
Army Men was one of my childhood favorites, with simplisitc war story of the green army vs. the tan army based on the long-running popular plastic solider toys which itself heavily based on WWII. old-school isometic tactical shooter with some strategy involved. you play as Sargent Hawk, you're mission is to kill as many tan soliders, help you're squad and sabotage any tan operation to prevent them from winning the war on the plastic world. this game doesn't take itself too seriously despite being more grounded and realistic then the later games, voice acting is very corny and the plot is basic as they come, but the focus is on it's charm and uniqueness as you play small plastic soliders in a big war. i tried so many years to run it on modern hardware with no luck at all, it's common with alot of mid to late 90's PC games that can barely run on anything post Windows XP. the fact it this finally playable on Windows 10 is a blessing.
i have so much nostalgia for this game, Time Commando was a product of it's time, it was part of the early-to-mid 90's 3D action games for PC on CD-ROM "push" with fast processing power on CD with higher quality music, graphics and runs full-motion CGI cutscenes (keep in mind this was in 1996 still during the CD-ROM craze). i got this game when i was young on my Win 95, and i was blown away at the time. i used to play this game a lot. my original disc stoped working when i got Win XP and i eventually tried the PS1 version, a solid port but the audio glitches and inferior controls made it difficult to enjoy when compared to original PC version. the plot takes place in the near future of 2020 (the same year i'm writing this!) in a high-tech military tatical center, when a super computer that can do combat simulations from any time period for military purposes, gets infected by a dangerous virus and protaginist "stanley opar" the S.A.V.E agent has to go inside the computer, go through virtually reality simulated time-periods and stop the virus before it's too late. it does remind me of "Tron" and "The Lawnmower Man" with a time-traveling twist. on the technical side this game didn't age very well, the stiff controls, low-quality pre-randered back-grounds, very liner, short lengh, old school FMV cut-scenes. it plays similar to the original "Alone in the Dark", but more polished, fast-paced, focuses on the action, less stiff movements and more playable. aside from that it's a very fun action game, you go through different time periods in chronological order from prehiostoric times all the way into the future, using weapons from that particulare period, sometimes finds secerts in those areas, the soundtrack is awsome fits the time periods very well, some peroids levels are better then others, "Medieval", "The Wild West" and "Modern Wars" comes to mind. very recommanded for old-school games.
i played this game alot when i was very young on my old PC, and liked it back then but when the times have changed it hurts this game even more especially when compared to the excellent "earthworm jim 1&2", even nostalgia won't save this game. Earthworm Jim 3D is a mediocre 3-D platformer at best, this was not made by original developers and it shows. with "meh" graphics, unispired levels (with some exeptions), the music is a mixed-bag, bad collision detection, sloppy controls (which took a while just to get used to), but the broken camera and the frustrating and cheap boss battles are the reason i never want to play this game again. the only good thing about the game is some of the earthworm jim charm and offbeat humor is still intact but falls flat when compared to the prevoius two.
