You can find my review of the core game on the page of the standard edition. There, I was much too forgiving. In reality, THIS version is a two stars, mindless grindfest, that version is just worthless. You see, I just reached a point at the core game (all characters were around level 34), where the game just ran out of quests. I was cruising the main map for more (all the measly 15 locations) for more. You see, at every location you can get quests (kill monsters, get a large amount of xp and gold) or grind ( kill monsters and get a very small amount of xp and gold). But the quests are numbered and after a while there's just no more for the level you're on. So you have to grind. To level up. Slooooooowly. After a while I just gave up. I told a friend of mine, who just laughed it off and told me to by the expansion, which provides a lot more quests to do. I decided not to. What this means, is that the core game is deliberately designed to force you to spend more money on dlc's to be able to even finish the whole thing. In my day we'd call this a scheme, today it's just a quintessential cellphone game design. This, supposedly "complete" edition now costs about as much as mass effect 2 on steam. Why would you even bother? Damn this garbage.
I loved playing pen and paper RPG's as a kid. The only limit of building incredible worlds to play in, was our own imagination. Yeah, there was also some rules and grinding and dice rolling, but that was merely a framework for our grand adventures. This game however is ALL about grinding dicerolling. It's a bare-bones tactical rpg experience, with little to no stories in between battles. The game is this kind of a tongue-in-cheek, retro-style nerd reference collection, which is cute, innocent but also a little tiresome. I originally bought this game for my phone, and I have to say, it was a fun distraction. Fast, quite strategical, turn based battles, very little text to read, lots of loot and slow but constant character building (mathematically, of course). And ideal little game to play on my way to work. On a PC however, there's not much reason to play it, when there are much better options out there (yeah, I have no idea why i bought it on steam as well. I guess it was discounted). The content here is just very limited. I don't know how much of it is automatically generated, I believe most of them are individually crafted - as most of them only consist of about three speech bubbles and a couple of encounters. When a game's this compact, the framework is this limited, little balancing problems (my level 20 priest became practically indestructible, spending most of his time healing up my level 21 paladin, who got constantly ruined in battle), the lack of variation, and constant grinding really starts to get into the way of joy. Also, though it's a pc port, there're still microtransactions available. It's not needed, and it messes up the flow and the economy, but the possibility is there. It really shouldn't be. All in all, we're not on the phone anymore, and this just doesn't cut it as a crpg. It's in the tradition of coffeebreak games, and if that's what you're after, then get this one. If you want more depth in an rpg, buy Wizardry 8 (for 2 dollars less).
I think I'm just going to repeat what everyone else is saying: Brilliant game, stupidly overpriced. Don't get me wrong, this game actually worth 10 bucks. On the other hand you can buy the same game on a genesis cartridge for half this price. If you don't have a genesis console, you could probably get one AND the game for about 20 or less. Same goes to the people moaning about this NOT being the SNES game's port. Buy it on a snes cartridge. It'll be still cheaper (yet, you're wrong, the genesis game is vastly superior).
In a way this reminds me of Goat Simulator and other such novelty games. Novelty "Toys" maybe? None of these can be really considered as "games" per se. More like sandbox toys in the vein of old maxis sims (which they also referred to as "toys"), only much more simplistic. Don't get me wrong, it's a fun little thing, where you can mush and bang together various pieces of... practically everything from waffle makers to tractor wheels and see if they fly or at least roll. And that's the basic premise. Certainly entertaining and well programmed, and the possibilities for designing "planes" and taking them out on a fly are endless. But that's also where the gameplay ends. There's really not much else to it. Right now, i'ts discounted and goes for under 10 dollars, which seems about right. Grab it and have an hour or so of fun, and forget about it for a couple of days. Then repeat.
Far into the future, a meteor hits Earth, a virus spreads and kills most of the population, pushing civilization back into a chaotic state, from which, the brutal cult, "The Order" emerges and takes over. Not too bright of a future. As a mercenary, with The Order on your back, you just happen to bump into a rebel team, called "The Front". From that on, it is your task, to find out the secret of the order, and put and end to their tyranny.... But who cares of story in doom clone? Well, this is possibly the furthest one can get from Doom, while still being Doom. Strife is one of the most amazing thing anyone ever did with the original doom engine. It is an FPS/Adventure hybrid, with slight RPG elements. You talk to NPCs, get quests, buy weapons, health and ammo, walk around this rather large hub-city, get missions from the resistance force, where you can choose between being stealthy, aggressive or diplomatic, etc. What's great about this game is that it is much of a freeform shooter, way before FarCry or Stalker made it a "thing", what's not so great is none of of it's realized all too well. Most choices storywise come down onto plainly "wrong" or "right" decisions, the whole game is a LOT more linear than it appears to be, and if you dare to take a sidestep, the game mostly just murders you. Screw the story though, it's a shooter! Well, the shooting is alright, but it's only really enjoyable on a handful of missions. The enemies are either few and far between, or way too brutal and unforgiving. The RPG aspects are also pretty weak. You can buy stuff, go exploring, you can even get into shady deals... which most times leads to you getting murdered. In conclusion: Doom is a better FPS, Under a killing moon is a better FPAndventure, and Daggerfall is a better FPRPG. Strife STILL has it's charm though. A very oldschool, indie, lo-fi charm. This version's an engineport with better controls and other updates. Recommended, but don't get your hopes too high.
It's the second game you're after. Both of them are pretty basic platformers, but Prehistorik 2 perfects all aspects of it's predecessor, and adds craptons of secrets scattered all over its levels. I'm only going to write about that game. Check out some online playthroughs, it's absolutely insane. Strangely enough, I recall finding out about many of those even when we played it back then. For some reason this game was very popular in Europe and my homeland, Hungary (well, it's a french game). The gameplay were solid, the graphics state of the art, and there are loads of little things that shows the effort and devotion the developers gamve (palette swaps between leves, different hazards, materials, traps, game-modes, vertical and horizontal levels etc.). But there are also some annoying bits to be acknowledged: given that it's a pc game, graphics this detailed couldn't have constant scrolling back then. It means, that as you move around, the screen slides to rearrange itself. It's surprisingly well done, but I imagine it might look and feel strange at first. Also, there's the problem with difficulty. Play only on EXPERT mode! If you chose anything inferior to that, the game will kick you back into the main menu before the very last (castle) level. It's not a bug, it even states, that you should try this on a harder setting!
... but not much else. As I said about the early SpaceQuest games, the origial Wolfenstein 3D is a milestone in gaming as well. While id didn't actually "invent" the FPS genre, it was the first to put most basic aspects of it place, many of which are still there, making it the most definitive of the early first person shooters. I'm already running out of good things to say about this game. It really haven't aged well at all. Though the gameplay itself was the fastest and most frantic of its age, even back then it didn't really have the content to give it a lasting appeal. The roster of foes and locations seems shockingly narrow today. Come to think of it, even the Catacomb Fantasy series was better at this (though technically vastly inferior). Don't get me wrong, Wolfenstein 3D can be a LOT of arcade-y fun for some time, as it is, at it's core, a mighty finely tweaked game, but it quickly overstays it's welcome - repetition kicks in very soon. I guess the reason we liked it so much back then, because it was a technical pioneer, a true marvel in that sense. Unfortunately, more than twenty years later, that's not really something to be "enjoyed", rather something to "praise" or "acknowledge". Spear of Destiny is more of an expansion pack than anything else (think of a DLC for the old days). Has some cool new content, lot's of new levels, but the same old problems come forward here as well, and you'll probably stop playing the game after five or six levels at most.
!!! NOTE - I haven't played the GOG version just yet, but finished the telltale-site version several times !!! For those of you not familiar with the whole thing: The story takes place in the walking dead universe (our world after a zombie-apocalypse). This time you play as Clementine - an 8-10 year old girl - trying to get by, getting involved in the life of other survivors. The game is basically a classic, inventory based adventure game, with MUCH simplified puzzles and a LOT of emphasis on the different choices you can make. The game is mainly an interactive, a character driven drama and is painstakingly kept in moral grayness - there are no "clear" or "good" decisions here. If you haven't played the first season, you should definitely start with that, followed by 400 days, and then top it off with this installment. You see, all your choices from those are registered here, changing some aspects of your playthrough. Some minor flaws: now it is already quite apparent, that your choices doesn't make THAT much of a difference for the most parts, and despite the brilliant writing, this does take away from the urgency of many situations. Also, the main character is somewhat hit and miss. While playing as a small child certainly amps up the tension and the feel of dread, I still think Lee, from the first season was a better defined character. On the DRM. I bought this game directly from the Telltale site when it came out, and it was broken. Broken because of the game's connectivity with the telltale servers was just unstable and messy. It just threw me out of the program, didn't realise my install as a registered version (I basically had to HACK my registry to fix it), in the end I had to erase ALL data regarding the games, deleting all my saves. For you see, telltale servers don't keep your save data. It's only for polls and DRM. Its dumb. So, hopefully THAT kind of thing is removed now which will make the game a flawless 5 star software.
