This was the first mech game I had ever played, as well as one of the first games I beat as a kid/teen. The static art still holds up well, even if the pre-rendered clips are very dated. But that's not what we buy mech games for is it? No, we want big shooty mechs, and Cyberstorm delivers. I do have to say that I wish the game was a tad longer and had more mission variety. The progression of ranks is very quick so you don't really get a lot of time to experiment with the new toys you get before the next round of upgrades gets dropped in your lap. However, you can customize your Herc's (mechs) in whatever way you deem fit. The randomized terrain generator is also a bonus. If you are a veteran of modern mech games and nothing else then this one will feel a little lacking. But if you are like me and have hours of fond memories hunting down Cybrids then I'm sure you're just as giddy as I am that it is on GOG.
I bought Pharaoh in the store when games were still being sold in the bigger boxes. It was my first exposure to city building outside of the first few Simcity games. This has been one of my top five games of my entire life without a doubt in my mind. There were only two issues that I had with the game. The walker mechanics and combat. The walkers thankfully had roadblocks, but I still wish the had implemented a custom pathing system in Cleopatra. This is a very minor gripe, the pathing works ok, more of a personal preference. The second issue I had was combat. It is not well implemented and in my opinion shouldn't be in this game in the way it was implemented. I was fine with sending armies off to war, but defending a city was tedious and clunky. I always opted for the city building challenge when given the choice of two maps. That being said I still give this game a full five stars because the challenge of building a city and meeting the goals of each map is very satisfying and could take a couple hours per map. Very will narrated and the progression through the timeline, seeing the rise and decline of cities, is very engaging and you feel like you are integral part of the story. This is one of the few games I have sunk well over a thousand hours into over the years.
This was the first one of the series that I played and it was because of a demo disc (miss those) from PC Gamer mag. I fell in love with it immediately and bought the full game as soon as i could. I own the rest of the games and while 3 is the best, 2 will always be the first. Its kind of like your first significant other, it will always be special to me.
Ive played so many games that most blur together and are forgotten but there are several that stand out in my mind an that I keep going back to. AoW is one of my tope 5 games of all time and I have played it beginning to end five or six times now. This was release around the same time that Starcraft was really in its prime so a lot of games were over shadowed but never the less this game stood out. Not only is it beautiful for its time (still is) but the variety diversity of the available magic and minions really puts this one above the other games of its kind during the time. And one of the best parts is that there is no race that I dont like. All races have their fun units (ie the halfling rogue, elf centaur, etc) they all have something that can give you an edge and that makes it both balanced and exciting at the same time. And with two similar yet distinct campaigns it keeps me coming back for me. Maybe play a different type of hero with a different race, etc. I vote this as a must have for any turn based game fan. And I love GOG.com for supplying this and its successors!
