I am *extremely* picky with newer games. Alot of them feel very rushed out, copy pasted from other games and monotonous. This game is different (as is its predecessor Shadow of Mordor), and insanely addictive. It does try to take the combat system's core from the Batman Arkham games but it feels much more satisfying imo. Enemies are brutally decapitated, upgrades and combos make you feel much more powerful. By the end you are an unstoppable force to be recon with, but you start out week. So every new attack you build, you'll feel like it was well earned. I've heard people say this game is repetitive but I've never really felt that way due to how immensely satisfying the combat is. It never gets old imo. The story is continued from Shadow of Mordor which in turn takes place in Tolkien's Middle Earth (most familairly Lord of the Rings); you are Talion, a ranger of Gondor. Your wife and son have been slain right in front of you by the black hand of sauron, trying to invoke the wraith of Celebrimbor, the legendary elf blacksmith who forged the one ring of power. Instead of the black hand taking his spirit in, the spirit infused with Tallon. Bonded by their common lack of suffering and slain families, they are set off to slaughter armies of Uruk orks and kill Sauron himself. This was SOM but this game continues where that one left off. It takes some lore-unfriendly changes, but overall it's still entertaining. Trying not to spoil too much. If you haven't played Mordor, play that first! Then come to this game. The overall gameplay aside from fighting armies of Uruks, is building armies and making rivals. This is the beauty of the nemesis system thats exclusive to this and the previous game. When an uruk leader kills you, their power increases slightly, so the fight gets a bit more challenging next time. Every uruk that kills you will remember the precious encounter, and killing revenge targets brings you more power. Theres also lots and lots of stuff to do. Go buy it!
Honored to say I was a tester for this! Also made a review video on YouTube under my name here. This is basically the original game with the same assets and audio redone in Unity. You'd be forgiven for thinking it's a remaster over a remake. Everything the original had, this one has as well as some great QOL enhancements. The color palette is greatly expanded upon, the layers are now more visible than before where you could barely tell what is in front of what (something that was a limitation of EGA graphics at the time, not a choice), there is now a compass to show you where the nearest pet is, notification to let you know when all the pets are saved, slightly smoother feeling controls, achievements, leaderboards, a new level editor with the ability to download others' levels, and much more. One of the biggest changes is the lives system being removed. The game is still pretty damn hard, but this helps make it a bit more forgiving. Instead, now you get a survival bonus score at the end of the level depending on how little you died, with 0 deaths giving you a higher bonus and 5 deaths giving you the least, and anything lower not giving you any survival bonus at all. Each level is now selectable from a book thingy. In each page you'll open up to the level you're on. You can flip back to see your stats on previous levels, with your highest achieved score and now objectives. For those that've never played it; Monster Bash is an awesome 2D platformer with a spooky/Halloween theme. You play as Johnny Dash, a kid that leaves his house to find his missing doggo, only to find it was taken by the vampire Count Chuck. Chuck has stolen all the pets in the neighborhood and wants to turn them all into the undead. So as Johnny, your goal through each level is to kill monsters with your slingshot, platform, collect candy, free all the pets in the level (required), and find the exit. It's pretty simple like most 90s platformers, but this one is a ton of fun. Go check it out!
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These are some of the better of the "weaker" Build Engine games. Don't let their reputation fool you - Witchaven 1 while janky, is still great fun, highly atmospheric, and a blast to play. One of the biggest issues was that the game's jumping physics are tied to the framerate, so of course this caused issues on many people's PCs and made it unplayable in some moments due to constant deaths from the horrible jumping. Luckily this GOG release uses a patched build and that's been fixed! It also has proper modernized controls. Though I personally use low mouse sensitivity so that might be something you'll have to adjust. And I prefer the SoundBlaster music so I had to change that in the settings. The game itself is a simple 90s FPS but instead of using guns, there's a focus on medieval swords and whatnot. This game's art style is something nightmares are made of (and I mean that in the best way possible.) Even though it's on an island, every level is drenched in hellish atmosphere and it's just awesome. Now Witchaven 2 is much more of a buggy mess and most of the time playing it dosbox is kind of a nightmare. Thankfully this version is patched as well and it functions as it was intended to back in the day, so that's a plus as well. The jumping still kinda sucks but I guess that's just how it was programmed. This game has some awesome music that surpasses the original and some cool new weapons, but gone is the insanely dark atmosphere and I found the level design a bit more boring. Still, if you like 90s FPS games with some melee combat, this one is worth checking out. All in all I say this is yet another GOG release done right. If you liked these games back in the day or anytime after, this is a no brainer to pick up! Though it is quite expensive considering its age and obscurity, and it's still not 100% perfect. But as someone who grew up with Witchaven 1 and still loves it to gory medieval pieces, It's a great release in my book. Grab it fellow Build fanatics!
Not going to take the time to review the games themselves. These are considered not only the first, but some of the very best 2d platformers to ever grace the DOS or PC systems. If you haven't ever played Keen for some reason, you owe it to yourself to grab this and play it. This and Epic's Jazz Jackrabbit are basically the DOS answer to Mario (this) and Sonic (Jazz). With that being said, let's go into this release in particular. It uses DOSBox of course, no other way to play it as far as I know aside from a VM which is way too much work. Dosbox settings are great and the games work perfectly, so all is good with that. You launch the Pack and at the startup get to pick which of the games you wanna play. As for what it comes with, I'm giving it 5 stars for what it does have rather than what it doesn't. This is *just* the first 5 games in the series. It's missing two: "Commander Keen Dreams" (aka the "lost" episode) as well as "Commander Keen 6: Aliens Ate My Babysitter!", what's widely considered the best of the series. It's a shame but it's not too disappointing, seeing as the steam release also doesn't include those. As far as I know it's only because those two had a different publisher: Dreams was published by Softdisk and Aliens was published by Formgen, while the original 5 were all entirely published by Apogee (aka 3D Realms). There was also one on the Game Boy Color but I think it's pretty understandable why that one isn't here. Is this worth buying? For about a dollar a piece, I would say it totally is. On sale for 1.50 is a serious steal for how good these are. Just keep in mind there are two games missing and in all honesty, just grab those from an abandonware site after grabbing this. All 5 of the games it does come with are great, and Goodbye Galaxy (episodes 4 and 5) are typically considered up there with Aliens Ate My Babysitter as some of the best dos based platformers ever. Do yourself a favor and play this!
This is imo one of the best games ever created. BUT I will say that this is NOT by any means going to be a game for everyone. There's no handholding whatsoever as far as the combat goes or the puzzles aside from cryptic hints you find in world notes. But as I said in my collection review, if you understand how Raven designs their stuff and enjoy the first Hexen, this one should be right up your alley. THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE THE EXPANSION DUE TO LICENSING ISSUES, YOU NEED TO FIND THAT ELSEWHERE. First off this works 100% out of the box using a 3DFX wrapper. Steam version does not work at all without extra setup. Controls are adjusted to fit modern setups. And thank Eidolon this version has the CD music working perfectly! Not to mention DRM free so this is in every way better than the steam version and you should grab it here. As for the game itself, if you can get past the insanely cryptic nature of the puzzles, this game nails almost everything else. Atmosphere, combat, resource management, sound design, etc Unlike Hexen 1, Tome of power makes a return! Enemies are in smaller numbered groups here but the AI is far more complex. Enemies will jump across ledges and pits to find you, will dodge side to side, etc it's quite crazy. The movement is the best I've ever experienced in any game.. take Quake 1's insane momentum and bunny hopping and crank it up a knob or two. Mix that with this game's speed boots or floating powers and you have some of the most chaotic DM matches you could possibly experience. Though you will have to fully understand how Q1 Engine movement works to get this down properly. All in all this is not going to be a game for everyone, but if you want a hardcore experience to brag to people about finishing this game is a great pick, and this release blows the steam one out of the water. The movement is a bit better here in vanilla than the source port Hammer of Thyrion but that's more user friendly. Also theres lots of fanmade stuff to check out ;)
Now now, hold your pitchforks. I too absolutely love Doom, but I've always felt this game always got unfair treatment of just being overshadowed as "medieval Doom". At the surface that's the first clear comparison... but once you really sit down and play the game, you'll realize it's more than that to give it its own identity. Oh and obviously yes I think this game is absolutely essential if you're even remotely interested in these 90s FPS games. For one, this game is fully playable on the hardest difficulty setting. All enemies are killable if you manage your resources perfectly, and none of them respawn or are almost inhumanely fast like Doom's Nightmare. This game was the first full FPS to feature the use of an inventory system. System Shock was before but it was a bit more of an immersive sim than a straight up fps. These items all serve a purpose, the most important one powering up EVERY weapon you have, giving them a sort of alt-fire. Unlike Doom's levels (which are still VERY well designed, but always feel like game mazes), Heretic's levels feel like real places you could see if you ever went into fantasy realms. Everything else was done so well.. the enemies are all completely different from one another, all very different from Dooms enemies so they dont feel like a mere reskin. All the weapons are useful in their own right and satifying, atmosphere is perfect, music is great, etc. Also this game originally had 3 episodes, SOTSR added 2, so you'll get a total of FIVE, each with 9 levels. That's quite a bit of content!! And if that wasn't enough, there are TONS of fanmade episodes and mods to check out :) Best way to play this game? I actually don't think GZDoom is it. There's some inaccuracies (even moreso with Hexen). Instead, use this game's setup file to change the music card to waveblaster and adjust the controls. Chocolate Heretic is a super close call too. The next best things are either ZDoom (for fan stuff) or Doomsday engine. Get this!
Okay, so first off I might be a bit biased. This is one of my favorite games of all time. Though a tad disappointed that it's just a DOSBox release. But very happy that they kindly included the music. -I WILL BE MAKING A FULL VIDEO REVIEW ON YOUTUBE FOR ITS ANNIVERSARY UNDER RDR.EXE- A weird note, this is the European version of the game for some reason, titled "Exhumed", NOT Powerslave. Hopefully, this gets fixed. (If you are a dev on this game please let me know and I can send the files as I have the original US CD) So there are 3 completely different versions of this game. Both console ones are more akin to Metroidvania style gameplay where you get artifacts to revisit levels and gain access to new paths. This DOS version here is much more of a straightforward FPS but it has better level design than either of the console ports, or any fps game period for that matter. I'd sit here for hours talking about these levels but they are HUGE in this game and super well thought out/carefully crafted. The music is some of the best I've ever heard in a game, all being composed by the talented Scott Branston. They're all very catchy oriental Egyptian/ambient tracks. The weapons are all useful for their own scenarios, even the basic revolver or the machete. This DOS version is also the only one of the 3 that has a voiced protagonist that spurs one-liners as he kills or takes damage. There's a good balance between enemy variety and encounters, some fun and cool looking bosses, etc. One of the coolest things that are also exclusive to this DOS version is that if mummies shoot a red orb at you, it turns you into a mummy and gives you a staff. With this, you slam it down and it kills every enemy in the room while you do an evil laugh. Amazing. I could talk about this game all day, but I gotta say this is an absolute MUST play if you're even remotely intersted in 90s fps games. My fav game on Build aside from Blood. For best experience, play this using PowerslaveGDX :)
This was a game I wasn't expecting at all. For the first time that comes to mind, a game that seems heavily inspired by Medievil/Medievil II back from the ps1 days! (Which happens to be my favorite PS1 game of all time, alongside Powerslave.) But I'm not here to review that game. Here you star an anthropomorphic... pumpkin?? named Jack. You'll be platforming, hacking and slashing your way through lots of beautifully designed levels as well as collecting items. I don't like this more than Medievil, though this is definitely worthy of being a game in the series if possible. Jack feels decent to control... at least with a controller. With a kb/mouse he feels kinda weird and this is very typical with newer games not being optimized well for PC controls at all. The gameplay and visuals seem a bit more inspired by the ME remake rather than the original which is both a good and a bad thing imo. Bad bc I think the old, more gothic Tim Burton art style appealed to the game far better than the more fantasy art style the remake had. But good because the gameplay shares more similarities and is more fine-tuned to hold up higher than the others. You can change the camera without Jack himself turning which I like since you can see his face if you want. Makes for some really beautiful screenshots. The mechanics are solid and the game overall is alot of fun. The levels are a bit more vertical than your average platformer, which I like a lot, and the characters/environments are just stunning to look at. The dynamic lighting, the glow effects of the water, even the colors around the world in shades of green and purple, it's all just pure eye candy. This might be one of my favorite games of the year, if not my favorite. So yeah, this is an awesome game but go into it with a slightly open mind if you're a die hard Medievil fan, and moreso if you liked its PS4 remake. For anyone else, especially to those who are dying for a good "new" 3D Platformer, this should be a no brainer!
