Majesty is one of those games that I buy on every online game provider there is, own the original disk copy, and actually own all the sound files/images/extras. I have a backup of a backup, just so that if the world goes to hell, and I'm in my underground bunker with my old backup XP machine fired up, I can get one last game in before the generator runs out of fuel. This is one of the games that are scheduled for a final play, before the world goes dark. Just like Dungeon Keeper, Majesty is one of the "It's like..." games of it's era which other games are compared and measured. Autonomous RTS/Sim games are rare, and with a slight comic flair at that, this game nails that concept in spades. What I mean by autonomous, is that you place your buildings, get your kingdom going, and kinda just hope for the best. You can place bounties to influence the heros to do your bidding, and they very well may - or may not, do so. With hilarious, awesome, and sometimes devastating results. Be prepared to lose, but learn how to win the next time. It's almost a puzzle game in that respect. Why do I love this game so much? There is some rose-colored glasses here. It is an old game, but it's dripping charm. Even to this day, the sounds that each type of hero makes are music to my ears. Their personalities carry the game in ways that none other have. Each unit/faction is unique, and for lack of better term "lovable" in their own way. They all have endearing traits. You can click on each and every hero, and they have an inventory. They have a spell list, and abilities. They have desires. And again, the voice lines in the game - you will love the elves. You will snicker along with the thief. You will feel your heart pound when the Paladins scream their battle cry and head into battle, saving the day. In closing - it can be frustrating. The difficulty is often you being "thrown to the dogs" early and often. Be patient, crank out some heros, and hope for the best!
This is NOT a game, per se - it is an experience. I'm not embarrassed to say that this game brought me to tears, just the sheer graceful beauty of it all. Every new underwater vista that opens up, every new species that you unlock as you travel back thru time, is brilliantly animated and breathtaking in it's scope. Stop and take it in, savor the moment. Explore everything that you can do with the controls - hang on the fin of a passing dolphin, stop and go into the "meditation" sequence on top of monuments. Toggle thru the views of each species, as you're in meditation. Take it all in, the scope of the environments and species are varied enough to last quite a while in each area. Dont buy this game looking for Subnautica, or something of that nature. There is no struggle, there is no conflict in this game. This is almost an underwater visual novel, and you are indeed a participant, but your role is passive at times. If you plow thru this game looking for achievement, you will be disappointed. Stop and smell the kelp, however, and you will find the closest thing to Zen a game has offered.
I was initially excited when I saw that DK2 was up on GoG, but after reading the reviews it was apparent that they had released a very poor version that wasnt working for most players. Totally bummed. It's always been a problem getting it to run on newer operating systems, I have a disk copy that wont even begin to cooperate with win7x64. So i skipped it for the time being. Today i broke down and bought it, desperate to play DK2 on my new laptop. I was hoping that they'd worked on it a bit by now, and I'm happy to report that it looks like they have! It works! And even at full resolution. That said, i couldnt simply run the game once installed. First, i had to apply the fix that was provided alongside the installation file download. Secondly, i had to dig into the Dungeon Keeper directory and run the "DKII-dx.exe", the other DK exe does not work for me. But yeah, runs great so far. But on to the game itself - yeah, it rules as it always has. You create the perfect dungeon, filled with all manner of loathsome creatures, and put the heroes that invade your lair thru the wringer. Train up the most badass monsters, and send them out against the enemy. Possess one of them, and lead the attack yourself from a first person perspective. This is a very unique title, and really the only game of it's kind. Well, besides the original which is great as well. Now lets go see if we can get that one going as well...
I had fun the first few hours of this game, then it slowly started turning into one of those "search every single pixel of every single surface" type games. Then, the puzzles themselves and the items you have to combine to solve them arent logical. Once again, now it's time to try every combination of everything together, then try all those combinations all over the place. I could literally re-do all the flooring in my house in the time it would take for me to solve all the puzzles in the game. So instead you consult the walkthru, and spoil the fun rush of solving puzzles which is the core fun of a game like this. As far as exploration goes - yeah, at first it's scary. I'll admit it. The titular scratches are ominous, and it's just a dark spooky old house at first. But after hours and hours of running back and forth over the same areas, combing every single damn pixel trying to find that one hotspot that will pay off, the fear turns to annoyance. It starts to feel like your just running around some dirty old house in the dark. With rats in the walls. Boo If you dont mind playing along with a walkthru the entire time, maybe it will be fun. That's not how I roll in an adventure game.
