What's better than Doom? More Doom! That's what you get in this pack. You get 32 levels of Doom II: Hell on Earth, 32 levels of TNT: Evilution and 32 levels of Plutiona Experiment. That's 96 levels. But wait, there's more! You also get 20 MORE levels in the form of "The Master Levels for Doom II!" Unlike the first three offerings, these levels are meant to be played ala carte, rather than part of a larger episode.
Quake 2 is an important game. It was iD Software's first post-shareware era title, it was one of the very first games to utilize 3D Acceleration out of the box, its the first FPS to include object-based gameplay and it was an early adopter of the WASD + Mouse control method. Quake 2 feels much more like a spiritual successor to Doom than the original Quake does, due the the fact that the gameplay is so fast paced. This Quad Damage Pack includes all of the content, so you'll still be plenty busy once you've beaten the main game. If you need your old games with a bit of polish, there are source ports like Quake 2 XP, which make everything look more fancy and adds widescreen support.
Its an interesting premise. WWI, with a splash of Lovecraftian horror. Its just a shame that the gun play is so clumsy. Most of the time I end up doing Melee attacks, because its so hard to tell if your gun shots actually connected.
Nothing beats Doom, but that didn't stop lots of developers from trying to make something like it! Planet Strike is a sequel to Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold, running on an even further improved version of the Wolfenstein 3-D engine. Now you have higher resolution weapon sprites, diminished lighting and an objective-based gameplay loop that includes finding a detonator, blowing up the security system for that floor. More enemy types per level are thrown at you now, with alien edits of the human-style enemies from the prior game being joined by several monster-type enemies. This is fun and well made, though a shorter ride than it's prequel. On the other hand that means it doesn't overstay it's welcome.
This isn't Worms. Its an abomination.
I'm not gonna pretend to care about the first two games in this collection, the Gauntlet clone and the prototype FPS game are nice extras, but the real meat and potatoes of this collection is the Catacombs fantasy trilogy comprised of the Shareware Episode: The Abyss and the two sequels, Armageddon and Apocalypse. Richly detailed, well animated graphics that show just how far 16-color EGA could be pushed. The sound design is spares, with either PC speaker or Adlib sound effects, and no music to speak of, save for a singular tune in the prototypical Catacomb 3D. The level design and gameplay are where the fantasy trilogy shine. Its fast-paced spell-slinging action, against hoards of zombies, bats, skeletons, sorcerers, demons, succubi and a host of other nasties. You'll explore worlds just as varied! Cemetaries, haunted forests, blazing hell-like infernos, underground water ways, dungeons and more. Each full of secrets waiting to be exposed. The gameplay is that same pick and play style you know and love from Doom, Wolfenstein, DN3D and other games of that era. Don't let the age of the visuals fool you. This is a solid collection.
The controls, while wonky are serviceable, mimicking the Commodore Amiga's one action button setup. These cannot be redefined, which is hella lame. The difficulty, even on the lowest setting is cheap to the point of being completely unfair. It does have a large roster of characters, so two player won't get stale. The voice samples are heavily compressed, but the music is decent. Even typing your name into the high score is contrived. But if you enter "hardcore" as your name, you can go back and play the game with invincibility.
GOG has a bunch of pirate games, but this is the only one you need. It has the open world feel, without the clunky controls found in titles like Sea Dogs. While you can't make your own character, You do get to guide his fate at every step. Do you concentrate on being a career pirate? Do you go on a quest of revenge? Do you save your family? Do you romance a governor's daughter? How many ships do you want in your armada? Its all up to you. This is one of Sid Meier's best games, and it will suck a lot of your time.
I'm not a fan of MK3, even if the DOS port plays very well. Okay, that's out of the way, not onto what makes this bundle really sizzle. You get an excellent port of MK2, the Midi music ain't the best, but with some sound font trickery, you'll be fine. Bigger, richer sprites and smoother gameplay than any other home port! Sorry SNES! Then you get the big enchilada, a port of MK1 that is as perfect as you're going to get, without emulation! It looks and sounds every bit as good as the arcade game. Especially thanks to the arcade game's soundtrack making it onto the game as CD audio tracks.
The most concise way to explain this game, is that it is to the original Rise of the Triad, what Return to Castle Wolfenstein was to Wolfenstein 3D. The developers did a marvelous job of presenting a case of "Where's what you get, if the source material was made with today's technology!" That said, this game does have some annoyances. Despite being able to really crank up the graphics detail on older video cards like my GT 220, and run blazingly fast, the game has stuttering and slowdown in a completely unexpected area, the cutscenes, which are just pre-rendered flybys of the levels, and in the motion comic cutscenes. These are not resource taxing, as they're just movie files. So it's a bit confusing. My other issue are the load times which can be very VERY long at times.
