This game shares the spot tied with UFO: Aftershock for my first games ever I needed to get a video card to play properly. It was so awesome seeing how much faster I could get my PC to work by modifying and upgrading it that experience was the basis for me getting my PC tech license. Off to the game, different from the original in a lot of ways. My buddy actually prefers the original himself. I prefer this one, slightly higher resolution, better graphics and effects, and the gameplay suited me for what it is. You have to make a dungeon that can attract creatures you want and utilize them in an odd manner to win. You cannot control them like C&C or other plain RTS games, you have to coerce your creatures to do things for you. Keep them motivated and happy and they will gladly fight to the death for your dungeon. The dungeon construction is very detailed for when the game came out, and many games don't get to that level of construction detail today (apart from minecraft and other sandbox based games) and DK2 is a gem for it's time. Sadly my disc came with trailers for a DK3 that never came out because Bullfrog was shut down during development.
Title of review says it. This is one of the worst "hype' games I have ever seen. Everyone I talked to loved it except the people who like the games I like. And even a few of them said it was ok. I tried it and was just saddened by the fact that in terms of gameplay this is World of Warcraft singleplayer mode. The flashy graphics and fighting system only appeal for 30 minutes before you figure out children can do this. Really what sold the game was the women card collection thing and a bunch of kids who got sucked in just because you can get a woman to bed down so easily in this game. Sure it's empowering to some people, but it's just a sad th9ing to me.
As the title says, this isn't the best turn-based strategy I played, but it's not bottom of the bucket either. The second game doesn't feel right, it feels like it was included as an afterthought. That is no problem though because I paid $6 for the original M.A.X. I read about it on another site and was shocked a game this old wasn't abandonware yet, then I found it for sale and bought it. Don't regret that buy, the first game is 4-stars but just including the second game left a bad taste in my mouth and knocked the review down to 3, I wouldn't pay for M.A.X. 2 if I could help it.
This game was aces in one exact niche of gaming, and that is the "put your brain on cruise control and look at the virtual death" niche. No, you don't need a brain for this one. And not in a bad way, this is a sort of coffee break game you can pick up and rip things apart for 15 minutes then come back to work slightly more relaxed. The only game that surpasses this one in this exact gaming niche is the sequel, but I'll argue the sequel makes you think more because you got more objectives and have to look for hidden items. Main reason this one gets a 3 star is because the second game is available for cheap right now, but once it hits GOG I'll buy it again.
This game is still being supported by OWSupport, a team of people who made stabilizing patches that also enabled them to make a new master server of their own for online play. That means you're not getting an ancient game that has balancing issues since the 90's. The game itself is near perfection. I like how you have very limited resources, one of them being man power. You lose a person they are gone. You spend too much on vehicles but have no drivers then you wasted tons of resources, on the other hand you don't have enough resources for vehicles but too many skilled drivers then you force those drivers to be unskilled soldiers, not the best use of them. Very tricky to learn the game but in the end it's an experience from my early teens I never want to let go of. The only nag is the missions are sort of predefined, there is little randomization at all in the missions but enough that the enemy might attack from east instead of west before your last save, little things like that but for the most part missions are the same. Link to OWSupport site for latest patches and multi-server news: http://www.owsupport.com/
I spent probably 10 hours to beat this game on the SNES, but nowadays with my memory it takes 4. Not worth $10 to me, would've been better as a $6 game from GOG instead of $10. Still, great adventure game. OnEscapee is almost identical gameplay but is a better game and it's freeware so there really is little point to buying Another World until the price goes down, that's just me though.
I was raised up loving guns and wanting to be in the military, but to make a long story short a knee injury stopped my dreams. Then comes this game which now makes me yearn for the mercenary life. I heard about JA2 for years and never got to it even though I was an XCom fan, even bought it on Steam on sale one day for cheap and never got to it, it was simply backlogged. I got this on the recent Holiday sale cheap enough and decided enough was enough, I got 2 digital copies of JA2 and it's expansion and I might as well try it out. Heck the GOG version was DRM free, nothing to lose but a little spare time. Now over the past week I repeatedly smacked myself for not hopping on this game long ago. The game is great as-is and is a very good, fun, long campaign. You can play the campaign a few times through with various tactics like 'tons of cheap mercs with pistols' or 'a few high-end mercs with uber gear' and all the variations in between. You can start with Drassen, or ignore the airport and go straight for the hospital, all kinds of options are available from a strategists point of view. Add on combat that seems to play out in a fun yet not overly unrealistic fashion and you got a mix that's a winner. I will also note that the 1.13 mod adds a new level to kit. You now have only a few pants pockets on mercs and their hands to hold things, and you must equip holsters, riggins, and backpacks of various kinds and sizes to store extra kit. Plus it adds hundreds of new guns, remote detonators for bombs, mines, grenades, dozens of sets of armor, and much much more. It's also much harder and I would say play vanilla JA2 at least a week before delving into 1.13 because once you try it there is no going back. Overall only thing killing the 5 star rating is the fact that even with the newest patch JA2 still has a few prevalent bugs and annoyances, and the community patch fixes some of the problems but adds a few new ones on top of the ones left over. So minor bugs aside perfect game.
As a kid I scantly followed UFO theories and was fascinated by the stories, but there was no real interactive way to go into the stories. Then I found UFO Aftermath. Remember, this was when the game was new, no patches, and my PC could barely run it on Windows 98. I still loved it. It also sparked my interest in military sci-fi and let me know from then on that I am a tactics game buff. The story is great, I won't spoil any of it. It's just a good story to this day makes me wonder why a book hasn't been made like this. The glossary of weapons, equipment, and research descriptions is more than enough for any sci-fi fan and entertaining on it's own to read. The AI is ok, not the best but you can tell certain enemies have certain preferences in combat. Cudgels seems to sneak around and hide when not engaged in combat, but as soon as they get a clear shot their lack of a brain shows and they shoot at you. Morelmen are non-sneaky versions of cudgels, etc. and all act for lack of a better word like wild rabid animals that wanna get you. But this is not a critique of the AI, as I think these are brainless creatures (a few are based off earthworms!) in the first place so it makes sense they act like they this, and may be an attempt by Cenega to simulate the behavior of such critters. There is a ton of guns, there is a lot of equipment, and a huge global map yours for the taking. I played through a few times and it's always fun. I come up with new tactics or revise old ones, but each time I play it's never exactly the same. For a last word I will mention in the options you can choose to start in Europe or America, Europe is easier as it's more territories in a smaller area meaning less flying times for your aircraft but America is what I choose for a challenge.
