I originally played the shareware version of this that came on my Duke Nukem 3D CD, back when that came out and I came back to it to try and complete the game. The game is decent. Everything works as it is supposed to. The art style is pleasing and the music, although not abundant, has some real bangers. The only problem is that after playing a few races I noticed that all the tracks play very similarly and it has very little real variety. The AI is of the rubber banding type so no matter how much you hit them with the weapons, they will be back on your tail in no time. It has a nice range of difficulties, including a kid mode. I'm sure young kids would love this game as an entry into gaming as it is very forgiving and the bright animal characters are great. On the other end of the spectrum you have Champion difficulty which they made unfair to the player. I loved the Champion difficulty as I had to try some interesting stuff to win each set of races but still, I finished everything in less than 3 hours. The only thing that caused me a very minor issue is that playing on the keyboard has a set up of arrows for turning, ctrl for firing, and alt for accelerating. Windows 10 has a shortcut of ctrl/alt/arrow for flipping the screen, which confused the heck out of me at first. After realising what was causing the screen flip, I used the numpad arrows instead which doesn't cause the problem. All in all, it's fun for a short while but don't expect too much out of Wacky Wheels.
This game really shines in the setting and story. It's bleak and unforgiving in the best way possible. Fallout is not trying to be your friend and you will die many times before you get the hang of skills and combat. No comedy here, this story takes itself very seriously, which is something modern gaming seems to be unable to do. I give this game 5 stars on story, setting and characters. Now for the flaws. There are many bugs which will mess up missions for you. Many of the skills are somewhat pointless since they're rarely used, and on your first playthrough you can easily find yourself stuck due to your choices on what to upgrade. It doesn't do feedback too well and I was often left wondering why something had happened or what exactly was expected of me in certain missions. Make no mistake, this is a difficult game but I love that about it. It really nails the post-apocalypse wasteland feel by making you feel incredibly fragile until later on in the game. If you even have a passing interest in RPGs, I would recommend you play Fallout as it's a classic and the story and atmosphere are worth putting up with the minor irritations. I found out after playing that this is a censored version which removes children and changes certain language. While it would have been a joyful moment had I been allowed to fire rockets at a bunch of helpless children, I don't feel like the story was negatively affected by their ommission. There are plenty of adults, mutants, animals and robots that you can mercilessly slaughter in cold-blood which the censors are quite happy about.
I only bought the game to replay through Allied Assault and I completed the game on all 3 difficulties. I'm using a Windows 10 laptop with Intel graphics and the game ran mostly very well with rare crashes. Check the forum for help with getting it to run properly on Intel cards and also advice for playing in widescreen. They got everything right here; atmosphere, missions, level design, music and sound effects, and the respect for the subject matter. The only thing they screwed up pretty badly is the AI. While they act well in their attempts to manouevre and fight you, they unfortunately will hit you constantly from very long range, mostly before you even have a chance to see them. The game tends to play better in close encounter missions because of this and the sniper alley mission is notorius because of this. The Siegfried forest is even worse although doesn't get mentioned as much, probably because many people rage quit at sniper alley. That said, the game is worth a playthrough on easy just to experience the very enjoyable and fast paced action and what is basically Saving Private Ryan in a game. The Omaha beach landing is lifted straight out of the film. For anyone who likes a real challenge, I'd recommend hard mode. It was a real struggle getting through and there were certain sections which felt almost impossible but ended up doable with just the right tactics and some very quick and accurate shooting. Definitely one of the toughest games I've ever finished.
The game is enjoyable and striking a balance between expansion, defence, and native relations is well balanced. There is a way to play to go for extreme high scores but for people who just want to win the war of independence, there are many styles that can work, even at Viceroy difficulty. So why did I rate it 2 stars? The game is beset by bugs and limitations that are incredibly frustrating until you understand them and work out ways to deal with them. First of all the myriad bugs will do odd things to you that can cause you serious problems depending on what happens and when. Then there are the limitations such as the hard limit on units you can have on the world map. I believe it is 256 which sounds like a lot, but on higher difficulties you will need a large military since the King's forces are very large. When you hit this limit a lot of strange things can happen which involve losing cargo and unit production, which is a massive hit if you spend £5000 on a Frigate only for it to not appear. There is also a limit on Colonies but this is relatively high and I never came anywhere near it. The limitations can be worked around once you understand them but that contributes to the final problem...micromanagement. There is no unit grouping so you'll be moving units one at a time and dealing with the limitations adds to the slow drag that the late game becomes. There is also no unit naming so keep a pen and paper handy to keep track of what everything is doing. There is no way to view European commodity prices when trading with the natives which again leads to needing a good memory or, in my case, avoiding it entirely. Despite it's problems this is a game which certain people will love but for most the problems will be too frustrating. Worth it at the price just to read the fantastic manual with the overview of the people and history of the period including the awesome art. The reference card and in game Colonizopedia have many errors and can't be trusted.
This game has got very little depth to it. Some missions will require a little bit of thought but, most just require you to wait for the enemy agents to charge you while you mow them all down. There really is no tactical element to this game even if the mission briefings would have you believe otherwise. I do love the look and atmosphere of the game. The cities really do have a dystopian future feel and, especially considering when this was released, feel very alive with all the police and civilians moving around. You can have some fun with this and on a technical level it works exactly how it should but it gets repetitive very quickly. worth buying on sale if only to experience what is considered a historically significant game. The American Revolt expansion is absolutely ridiculous. Whoever made it seems to have spent about 10 minutes just making it ridiculously hard and nothing much else. Most of the missions (Possibly all) are played on the same maps as the original American missions, just with different scenarios. The enemy agents have had their speed and accuracy upped to ridiculous levels and everyone, including police and guards, has top of the range weaponry including lasers and gauss guns. I kind of enjoyed it just for the ridiculous challenge and it's also quite funny to see rockets firing off from everywhere across the map while squads of agents run around on fire and screaming. To give you an idea of the difficulty, one of the first available missions (Alaska) is failed in around 20 seconds if you don't act. Not for most people, but if you like a challenge, this is it.
There is a reason Doom still has a thriving community to this day. This game is fast, action packed fun. Nothing feels better than blasting a bunch of enemies with the various weapons, which all have a different purpose. The best thing is, increasing the difficulty just makes it more fun because you have more targets, and the rocket launcher & BFG really come into their own with big groups of enemies. There are some bugs with secrets in Thy Flesh Consumed (The Ultimate Doom chapter) which mean you can't get 100%. I spent ages playing blind, trying to 100% the game but after a long time, had to look up a secret guide for some levels, only to find that certain secrets cannot be activated through normal gameplay. A minor issue though. Everyone should play this game 1) As a piece of gaming history to see where 3D shooters really took off and 2) because it really is just a spectacular game which is better than 90% of modern releases. I didn't play the enhanced edition but the original alone is worth what GOG is asking.
I had a lot of nostalgia for Theme Hospital, having played it as a child on original release but, returning to it today showed up all the gameplay issues that I didn't remember. The install was fine and the game ran well technically. I didn't experience any issues or crashes during my whole play time (A full run through of the game on hard mode). The problems are all gameplay related. There are many misleading or vague statements in game and in the manual which leave you scratching your head as to what decisions to make. After playing for a while you realise that some guidance has lead you down the wrong path. There is way too much reliance of pop up messages which take you out of the game for 2-3 seconds at a time. This doesn't sound too bad until you get a busy hospital with messages popping up every 5-10 seconds. There are a few minor gameplay bugs which can nerf a level for you but the biggest one is the epidemic bug. Any hospital that has outdoor paths between buildings suffers from this and you have to completely adjust your hospital to avoid continuous, gamebreaking, fines. Th final major issue is certain items and rooms being completely detrimental to the running of your hospital even though you're constantly encouraged to build them. I won't explain which ones because that would be too much of a spoiler but I'm sure you'll work it out once you get to the busier levels and they cause major problems for you. You can get a lot of fun from Theme Hospital but playing it for more than a few hours will start to reveal all of the frustrations.
The game is stable and runs well. All the problems are with the game design. The enemies are all hit-scan bullet sponges which means you're taking damage no matter how you play, and on the higher difficulty levels it's a game of chance as to whether enemies deal 1 or 100 percent damage before they finally go down. The inclusion of the Bio-tech informants is one of the most infuriating game design choices ever made. These guys will annoy the hell out of you by getting in your way and you'll regularly take damage from enemy Bio-techs who shoot instantly upon being revealed. It has the admittedly pretty common issue of FPSs at the time of being very maze like and claustrophobic and modern gamers will struggle with not being able to turn and strafe at the same time. Maybe worth a quick run through on lower difficulties for the sake of nostalgia but I certainly wouldn't recommend trying to 100% it (The guy who made the secret areas quite possibly hates humanity) or playing on higher difficulties.
Wolf 3D holds up well for it's age but anyone who has played post Doom first person shooters is probably going to struggle with the movement in game. You can't strafe and turn at the same time which really takes some getting used to. Otherwise the gameplay is fine. You need to be careful as being too gung-ho will get you killed real quick. A few shots up close will see you go down. The environments can be a bit too maze like at times due to the limited wall textures making everything look the same, this does get better when you play the later missions as they added new textures to spice things up. If you have an interest in first person shooters, it's worth a quick blast through over the course of a few hours just to get a little slice of gaming history.
It's a shame this game has so many problems because the framework of a good game is there. You start off with your first park and the excitment builds as you place more rides and shops. more little people enter your park and the money starts rolling in. Things are growing and you're excitedly planning for some of the bigger rides. Then the bugs start kicking in. Little people wandering off in a well signposted park. Handymen disappearing from their routes, leaving a horrific mess in their wake. People walking the wrong way through ride entrances. It kills the fun completely. The other thing that kills the fun is the poorly thought out 'full' mode. Stock ordering is a nightmare. Buying shares is bad but thankfully easy to ignore if you buy all your shares ASAP. Only worth playing if you want to see what was a groundbreaking game in it's day. I had trouble with the game crashing randomly every 1-2 hours but I managed to stop this by turning off sound effects. The only problem is that sound effects are pretty important in this game to direct your attention where it is needed.
