If story is core to a cinematic gaming experience, then playing this game is "like ordering a pie, then finding out it has no filling". The gameplay elements are not bad on the whole, though there are plenty of spots that make no sense in a game that is supposed to hark to some kind of future reality. For instance, what idiot puts the safety and control mechanisms for a fusion power generator AT THE TOP of the actual generator? Nobody consulted with a nuclear engineer on this one, and it really clashes with the setting. Too many things were thrown in like that, purely for gameplay's sake. There's a lot of voice acting, and I didn't find any particular problems with any of it; the dialogue was good and the voices were convincing. The modeling, texturing, and graphical environment as a whole all worked well. When you're in a rover on the surface, it's not hard to imagine that you're driving on the moon. All the good parts are wasted on the rotten framework of what passed for a story. A devastating climate shift and an energy crisis have forced us to mine helium from moon rocks, build a fusion reactor (remember, in 2023 those don't exist) big enough for the whole planet's power needs, and beam the power a quarter-million miles through space to a receiver network on the planet? And the massive infrastructure of this system having been badly damaged, you are the one person sent to bring it all back online and save the planet? I'm familiar with a willing suspension of disbelief, but this is excessive. I don't know who wrote the plot to this thing, but it feels like it took maybe part of a busy afternoon to bang out the final draft.
These are terrible to play with the original executables, but there's a modern, open-source engine that will run all the 3D Catacomb games with a fairly current (and also configurable) control scheme. This makes all of the games much more enjoyable if you're looking to scratch the itch for nostalgia. The old idea of using the mouse for both movement and aiming is really cumbersome compared to keyboard+mouse, but first-person 3D games were a brand new concept. The engine I found (mentioned in the forums for this package) only works with this particular re-release, which is why I'm posting a review. I wasn't aware of the Catacomb series until after playing Doom, Doom II, and Wolfenstein. I remember being thrilled to find a 3D shooter that could run on my potato of a computer with 16-color graphics (had to borrow a computer to run Doom). There's a lot of old-school ideas here, and the game is simplistic at best. But if you're into retrogaming (or if, like me, you grew up with games like this), the Catacomb games are not to be missed.
It's an interesting story with a few twists. The company that owns and runs the station you're sent to investigate is flamboyantly evil, and everyone is gay. Seriously, the writers seem to have been slightly obsessed with making their characters homosexual, as if that is the future of the human race. Make of that what you will; it feels like a very tacked-on element to the story, sort of a "how can I make this more about me?" kind of decision rather than something a serious writer would do.
The high ratings are for the original Quake from players who grew up with it. The "enhanced" version here is technically inferior to the superb community offerings such as DarkPlaces. Legacy Quake plus a current source port is a great combination; I'm not even sure you can use the data files from this repackaging for such a setup, which more or less excludes the ocean of content created by players around the world and distributed for free since the 90's. The real soul of Quake is alive and well, and this is NOT it.
If you've played the predecessor "Stasis", you're already aware of the CAYNE corporation and what one reviewer called its "flamboyantly unethical" research projects. In a fashion similar to the progressively escalating insanity of the Mad Max film series, "CAYNE" carries the vicious depravities of this preposterously powerful research group to new heights. Trade the brilliant but unchained psychopath for a religious zealot who literally worships his employer, add more dysfunctional underlings and colleagues (all secretly competing, of course), and a positively psychotic element that I can't even mention without spoiling something, and you have the backdrop of this additional chapter. In another interesting twist, the protagonist is a young woman at full-term pregnancy. While the puzzles have their share of moon logic, if you've played a P'n'C or two, much of this little vignette should reveal itself. The one tip I can offer for anyone who really, REALLY doesn't want to consult a walkthrough is this: when you're stuck, try brute-force exploration. Combine everything with everything, look at every part of everything that can be looked at, touch everything that can be touched with everything in your inventory. Some of these solutions are obvious once you know them, but they would take some real clairvoyance to figure out. If you haven't played "Stasis" or the recent "Stasis: Bone Totem" and are on the fence about buying either one, "CAYNE" is a nice place to start, because it doesn't spoil anything, and it's free of charge. All things considered, it's a worthwhile title with an "Outer Limits" type of story.
If you like "Hollow Knight" and you have a taste for irreverent humor, "Bloody Hell" will definitely flip your satanic twinkie. For a randomly found freebie, there's plenty to like and nothing to lose.
I won't try to sum up everything this game is and isn't. However, I will say that for someone who only played the first MechWarrior (and never the tabletop Battletech games either), MW5 is a nice update and major expansion of an old classic. Expect a game that is part thinker's exercise and part visceral combat sim, albeit more the latter. First off, the feel of piloting a giant walking tank bristling with weaponry is palpable. But while the battlemechs are certainly lumbering hulks, they also carry themselves with a certain sleekness reflective of military hardware. They feel like they're designed to make mass-destruction-style combat easy and smooth. Second, the graphics and sound are excellent. Keep in mind that I'm speaking from the point of view of somebody who liked the original game, but even so, this installment is very solid. Performance is good too, all things considered. Third, the sometimes punishing gameplay feels fairly symmetrical. As big and powerful as your machines may be, your opponents are often at least as formidable, though not always. Many battles are just whatever they are, which feels more real and less contrived than some logical progression of challenges. The galactic map, as big and impressive as it is, has a familiar feel to it somehow. Being able to travel and choose actions and missions adds a layer to the game world. I spent a long time in MW1 just playing mercenary and building an overpowered fleet of Battlemasters, and I could do the same here. Last, the modding is a solid win. One can modify nearly everything about this game, from actual gameplay and missions, to models, visuals, and sounds. I liked the vanilla game a lot; I like my modded version even more. Letting the community make tweaks to a game is always a good choice, and I was thrilled to find the MW5 made it possible. I can understand the context that earned this game such a low rating, but taken on its own merits alone, for me it's an easy 5 stars.
Here you have a work that may at some level threaten to be a serious police procedural, but to even a casual observer, it will quickly become apparent that this game is fraught with wry wit and sarcasm. Prepare to have every decision simultaneously affirmed, questioned, and outright mocked by both the elegantly written characters and the protagonist's own fractured inner world. In the tradition of Greek theater, this game contains a story that may be as instructive as it is entertaining. Or in the words of George Bernard Shaw, "when a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth." As for the gameplay itself, "Disco Elysium" will either bore, overwhelm, or delight the player. It all depends on whether you like building a detailed character in ways that seem oblique. Waking up as an alcoholic amnesiac who is apparently also a brilliant and accomplished police detective with a very tame kill record for such a long career, you have to make numerous choices about how to move this character forward when there's nowhere to go but up. The game combines an engrossing story, brilliant dialogue (and exhaustive, top-notch voice acting for nearly every word of text), excellent artwork, and easy and relaxed play for a thinker's adventure that allows for multiple solutions to every problem--whether you prefer a rational path forward or moon logic.
Everything I could think of to say about this game has been said, but I want to add my vote. If you liked the previous titles by The Brotherhood, you'll love this. They've advanced the state of old-school isometric puzzle/adventure design just enough to add some new interest in play while still producing something you can run on the old potato PC you have tucked in the cellar. Artwork, story, and acting all meld to create an edge-of-your-seat experience that's very much in the spirit of its precursors.
