I played these a loooong time ago, so maybe I view them through rose-tinted glasses. That said, here's how I recall them. First of all, props to whoever titled the series: - 'ey mate! I'm working on this high-fantasy rpg series, but they're also gonna be adventure games where you have to investigate a series of murders as a detective. What should I call them? - Erm... Legends of... Murder? - Brilliant! The title encapsultes how these work: a very basic rpg system (fixed monster encounters, loot, spells, attributes, leveling up, a top-down exploration-view) fused with an illustrated text adventure (inventory, searching, an actual plot, puzzles, rich descriptions through text and using the keyboard for everything - though there's not a lot of typing). Mind you, there were number of hybrid-games back then, where they tried to join different aspects of different genres, as the tropes of which were yet to be set in stone (heck, there have been text adventure-rougelike hybrids some years earlier). This one is somewhat closer in theory to our modern sensibilities when it comes to narrative driven rpgs, as it's heavier on the story an lighter on combat than many of it's contemporaries. Then again, it's also very close to adventure games - both, for example, are mercifully short. You can finish each in an afternoon or so. IF you play attention to every little detail. It also helsp if you're psychic. Both games are murder mysteries where you're to find the culprit. In the first you fart around a large castle trying to find who killed the king, in the second you fart around a small town, trying to find who killed a young wizard-student - and in neither does the game hold your hand. Maybe it's because I was a kid, but I recall I had to use walkthrus since I honestly didn't understand how the final solutions made any sense. I think the games are still approachable today if you don't mind the antiquated interface and have the patience note-taking.
I already reviewed "Gate of Doom", and told there, the sequel was better, and hoped to see it here. Now it is here. It is a fantasy themed, isometric brawler, and very similar to the first installment. But it is, indeed, the better one of the two. It has better graphics, more variety, and better flow. That said, I find it a little more difficult. Also, as much as I like the isometric view visually, the occasional platforming is really annoying this way (and it is much harder to find the right plane from which you can hit enemies). All that said, this is a fun, flashy arcade game. Not much else to say. I say, buy it at a discount. I'd love to get BOTH titles for 7 bucks, but this price is a bit steep for only one of the games.
An important notice: This isn't a game for everyone. If you were born after 1995, you may not enjoy it, you may not even care for it at all. That's not a pass of judgement on my behalf, more of a fair warning. If you're born before 1990 on the other hand... Get ready for a hard-hitting nostalgia-overload. The game supposedly takes place on a dream-web, called Hypnospace. A fictional internet-client people use in their sleep around 1999. It's meant to emulate the real-world golden-era internet of the late 90's (but made to look even more primitive). With chatrooms, webrings, tiled backgrounds, animated gifs, personalized homepages, webcomics - and the spirit of adventure and exploration. Back in the day, the Internet was a wild-west. There was a general sense of excitement, all kinds of information was suddenly available, people from around the world could be reached with the click of a button, and you felt like you can bump into hidden treasure on every corner. "surfing the web" opened up a whole new world: endless, colorful, densely populated, mysterious, wonderful, unpredictable and maybe a little dangerous. Mechanically, this is a puzzle game: there is something sinister behind Hypnospace, and you have to investigate. Your tool of choice is your desktop, and your mighty web browser - with some special administrative privileges. The story is interesting, but the main thing that keeps one captivated is Hypnospace itself. It absolutely captured how it felt to experience the golden age of the internet (at least how I remember it) - before the large corporations ate up and uniformised everything, before online "news" were the alternative and not the norm, before cybercrime became rampant, before you were getting more spam than actual emails, before social sites turned ugly. Call it nostalgia, but this game reminds me of more exciting, and more innocent times. Times that has passed, but can be glimpsed at through Hypnospace Outlaw.
Last rites is a semi-forgotten 90's fps about shooting zombies. It's also semi-interesting and semi-enjoyable for several reasons: the good: - amazing atmosphere. Reminds me of 80's horror movies (Carpenter meets Romero). - you really feel like you're in a 100% corrupted, 100% opposing place. The feeling of being "in the wrong place at the wrong time" on the empty nighttime streets overrun by zombies really gets under one's skin. - The places you visit kinda-sorta resemble real places. - The graphics aren't bad, the animations have personality. - The mission briefing artworks looks amazing. - The music is fittingly dark, minimal and electronic. - the controls are tight, and mouselook as we know it know is fully supported. Remember, this was only about half a year after quake came out. - you have a bunch of allies with you who try their best shooting all the zombies around. Now the bad: - Gameplay is basic. You do have objectives, but it's mostly shooting the same foes, trying buttons and getting lost. - You really feel like a rat in a maze. It's very easy to get lost. There's no map (only what you find on a wall), just a radar. At best it gets boring really fast, at worst you'll get turned around and never find your way again. - The places you visit look insanely samey, grey and indistinct. Everything kind of resemble a concrete warehouse. - though the foes and friends are nicely drawn, the resolution doesn't help, and they tend to look and feel kinda similar. - mission briefings are just plain text over a pic. - the music will get on your nerves while being lost. - while it's relatively easy to get around and shoot, jumping is a little sticky, and opening new paths can be a problem as most of the times you barely see what you interact with. - your allies are a suicide-militia. They'll run headfirst into action and get killed. You'll get no penalty for that, thank god. I do have a soft-spot for this, mainly for the mood, otherwise it is rightfully forgotten.
Epic space opera with needlessly complicated, yet very generic setting? Check! Action focused space-ship combat sim with the emphasis on "action"? Check! FMV? Errrr.... let's be generous and check... Budget? ... No, I cannot, in good conscience check that box. Engaging and fun? No. So, this was a first person space action game that came out in '92, two years before Wing Commander 3. In some ways, it's halfway between WC 2 and 3. Ion other ways, it's less enjoyable than WC 1. Let's elaborate: The game has FMV (full motion video) story-sequences, that tie the missions together. They got made in '91 or '92 so they look like that. They must've looked impressive for about a month or two when it came out, but today it just looks really badly made. Which it is. The missions themselves are pretty straightforward first person space-shooter fare. Except: the apparently game sports Newtonian physics. Meaning you can accelerate indefinitely in any way, since there's "no gravity". I guess it's more "realistic", but it doesn't really work in a game like this (it works way better in the Independence wars titles, since those games were much more about simulation). The fights tend to get short and deadly. But that's because most of the time spent in missions spent engaging the enemy and trying to reengage it when you inevitabelly zoom past it. That counts for maneuvering. As it's way harder to hit an enemy, the game has an autopilot-system. And about four other autopilot-systems above that. I recall switching between those, and almost never using plain-old manual controls. This is a weird, transitional game that never clicked with me. It has 3D space-ships (yet not textured), it has FMV (yet, only a few frames, and all look terrible), it has cd sound (yet only a few tracks and clips and all sound horrible), it has advanced physics (though they turn most of the gameplay into "staring at flickering pixels on a black backdrop). Again, this one's for collectors only.
In the time of the great 90's free-for-all, where even the "largest" game dev companies only had a handful of people working for them, and they usually worked on one game for about a year, a year and a half at most, shovelware was just as crappy as it is nowadays. Only, at those times, we just accepted defeat when we had these games, since we didn't always had many more games to play, and we also just didn't really know any better. About 25 years later, when we can practically play any of the games that accumulated in the past two decades and a half, the lack of any redeeming qualities about Body Count is absolutely shocking. When it comes to games that are "Technically playable", this is near the very bottom of the pile. The notoriously hacky Capstone really outdid themselves with this one. This is an FPS with: - A way more primitve engine than that of Doom, though coming out a years after it, - Assets stolen from Doom - Difficulty, that"s not challenging just unfair, - Insane repetition, - A crazy number of sewer levels, - Braindead AI (for both your foes and allies), - Damage distribution that makes no sense, - Ugly, confusing and nonsensical level design (and design in general), - Gross graphics and seizure inducing effects, - Cryptic UI, - Boring, unrewarding gameplay, - Crap sound, - Really weak and out of place ending, - Bugs that still present after 25 years. These are just a tip of the iceberg. Pretty crazy to think how okay we were with this kind of atrocious scheming back in the days as kids. If you want to buy this, for whatever reason, buy it heavily discounted. The publisher should probably donate some of the funds coming in from old Capstone title sales to charity.
I bought this game years ago, when it came out. Drakensang 2 is one of my favorite CRPGs, and I was craving some more Schwarze Auge. This game is taking place in the same universe, supposedly, but it is entirely different. You play as Cairon - you can customize his abilities, but not much else. As opposed to the Drakensang games, this is very much a rather linear action RPG. Mind you, it has sidequests, you can chose your side between factions and characters sometimes, but the story itself puts you through from hub to hub - your progress is entirely linear. It's more of an action game with simplified rpg elements. And for that, it's quite alright. Combat feels a bit stiff though, and makes the game feel more unfair than challenging. I beat the game, so it's not that bad, but it isn't great either. The story is a bit weird. You're trying to save your sister, and she's constantly hitting on you. You also have to option confess your love to her. Spoiler: later it turns out she's not your real sister, buut still... it's just strange. The general mood of the game is much darker than the Drakensang games, and the art is more realistic as well. The story is more serious and edgy, but that doesn't mean it's better written. At all. Though it seems like all I'm doing is bashing the game, I actually think it's quite alright. I have a soft spot for budget CRPGs. If you share my fondness for such games, you might want to give it a go.
Gate of Doom aka Dark Seal is a fun beat'emup arcade game, played from an unusual, isometric/top-down prespective. As in most of these game, you go around beating up hordes of foes with your chosen class (though you walk in all 8 directions and your weapons actually have range), and fight really spongy bosses. You can pick up a lot of items that affect your character slightly and there's powerful magic to be used. That's it really. Gate of doom is an okay game. I like it. It's great to see it here, becuase it's also very obscure. The sequel, Dark seal II, aka Wizard fire however is much better known and loved - mainly because it's definitely the better game of the two. It looks better, sound better and plays a little smoother (but I also find it much harder). That said, the games are very similar to each other, only tthe second one is a bit more enjoyable - but none of them brilliant. Just good. I'm sure there's a very simple explanation why Dark Seal 2 is not here (something to do with licensing, I suppose), but it would've been a much better deal.
