Reviews
Ghost Recon (2001)
A legendary tactical shooter
I have mixed feelings about Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon. The actual gameplay is just pure brilliance; Red Storm traded the arcade run-and-gun style of games like Quake and Unreal for realism (one bullet can actually kill you, enemy opponents take cover if fired upon and don't just run blindly into your bullets). These changes pose a different kind of challenge to the player without taking away any of the enjoyment. There is nothing that quite gets the adrenaline pumping like stalking your enemy knowing that one careless step or missed shot could end your soldier's life instantly.
For me Ghost Recon was one of the first games where the artificial intelligence of your team-mates and opponents were actually worthy of the tag – artificial intelligence. You're team-mates won't beat the missions on you're behalf, but are generally useful backups to have in fire fights and won't get stuck inside buildings or get themselves killed in idiotic ways too often. As hinted upon above, your enemies are competent adversaries (a Rambo walking around with guns blazing would only last a few seconds before succumbing to a head shot). My only gripe would be that their observation range seems somewhat short, while they react realistically to gun-shots falling around them, a lot of times they seem oblivious to any sounds further than 30 feet away. That said, being repeatedly killed by super intelligent & observant enemies would probably be no fun at all! At 2001 standards, the graphics were OK without being brilliant, and by today's standards they are not bad enough to detract from a good gaming experience.
So why the mixed feelings? The big letdown for me was the storyline. Yes there is a story, Russia invading Georgia in 2008 (how prophetic for a 2001 game!), but the implementation was distinctly lackluster. There are no cut-scenes to speak of, a weak low-budget intro movie and no end movie. Mission briefings consist of 2 maps and a brief written overview of what's happening in the global war effort along with your mission objectives. It's hard to know if your successful missions have any effect on the war effort as they are barely, if at all, hinted upon in the following mission briefing. In my opinion if they just called the game Ghost Recon and let you play the 15 missions randomly it would have made no difference to the experience, but because they plastered a famous novelist's name on the title I expected a bit more story for my bucks.
That said, if you are considering buying the game, you can't go wrong getting this title. This game will give you many thrilling hours of gameplay and as I understand the multi-player is also not too shabby. Oh and for the record, it didn't bother me that I couldn't see the barrel of my gun on-screen (a common complaint from other reviewers).
Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge (2001)
Yuri tries to take over the world, again...
That evil Yuri is at it again, trying to take over the world (cue evil laugh). This time using his own forces rather than those of the unsuspecting Russians to unleash some more of his evil mind-control mayhem on the world. As the official expansion to Red Alert 2, Yuri's Revenge is basically more of the same cheesy wacky game that you experienced in the original.
The biggest addition is that of the 3rd side – Yuri's forces- to battle the Allieds and Soviets. As expected, Yuri's forces rely on mind-control of their opponents and a careless commander can quickly find his forces turning on each other and being decimated by friendly fire. It's an interesting challenge to figure how to counter Yuri's mind control effectively but once you do, there is no plan B from Yuri as most of his units are relatively weak.
Yuri's revenge's single player campaigns are a bit more difficult than RA2's campaigns, but never so difficult that you will pull your hair out in frustration. Westwood also added some new units for the Allieds and Soviets, but I only bothered to try out a few of them, finding my old favorites from RA2 still adequate in most situations.
The new cut-scenes were a little disappointing, a number of them simply consist of a person telling you what happened and what you're mission objectives are. Scattered between the mission-briefings though, were a few good cut-scenes that were on the same standard as those in RA2. One strange quirk is the long loading times of missions, it was a big complaint back in 2001 – and the problem still persists on modern computers in 2009. Not sure how the programmers screwed that one up.
To conclude, Yuri's Revenge is a very competent add-on to the original RA2, and a must have for any RA2 fan.
Diablo II (2000)
One of the Best RPG games ever
When Diablo 2 was released in 2000, it didn't quite live up to most critics initial dizzyingly high expectations. But for me the proof of the games' star quality is in its longevity. Diablo 2 is still very popular almost a decade after its release with a huge following on Blizzard's battle.net. Given the fact that this was the first RPG game I've ever played and that I didn't play it until 2009 I wasn't burdened by high expectations and thoroughly enjoyed this game and spent many happy hours playing Diablo 2. Although Diablo 2 is far from perfect I give it a 10 for its ability to entertain and engage you for many hours.
The addictive hack'n-slash gameplay along with the ability to customize your character to suit your playing style is Diablo's 2 strongest points. You will spend most of your time just clicking on various monsters and your character will do the killing, this simple way of playing is oddly addictive (to most people anyway). The interesting part of the game is building up a character with various skills, strengths and weapons to deal with the progressively stronger monsters you will encounter as you progress in the game.
One of the games other strengths is its very forgiving learning curve, allowing a new player plenty of time to get into the game and build up a strong character before having to face some serious opposition. The game appeals to a casual player like me because you don't have to explore every aspect of the game to complete it, but have enough depth and intricacies for the hardcore players to explore who want to do more than just kill Diablo and watch the end movie.
A few things bothered me about Diablo 2. The one thing (that bothered a lot of other people as well) is the low quality graphics, even for a game released in 2000 it's just not up to scratch. The graphics were improved somewhat with the expansion pack so install the expansion if you want to play Diablo 2. The other is that I found one or 2 of the end-level bosses were disproportionally difficult to kill compared with the rest of the monsters in Diablo 2. There is no way to cheat to get past a difficult boss so you really can get stuck after spending many hours building a character who is just not good enough to get past one particular monster.
Overall, if you for some reason never played Diablo 2, it's still not too late. Pick it up from a bargain bin and give it a try!
Black & White (2001)
Overrated and boring
Oh crap! I despised this game. I won't even attempt to write a fair and decent review because I couldn't stomach more than an hour of this game. First of all, why must you as a mighty God) drag yourself along by your hand to get around??? Very annoying
Then you must get your little subjects/people to do mundane tasks like fishing and fetching wood (sarcastic) Whoop! Then you get a pet which you must train. (sarcastic) Whoop Whoop! Who cares that the pet has intelligence if training it is boring. OK I'll stop before I embarrass myself further
.
This game probably appealed to the type of people that enjoy reality TV shows and games like The Sims (incedently I hated that game even more). I thought I might enjoy B&W because it got good reviews and I enjoy games that test your brain power and not just how nimble you are with your trigger finger, but as I said previously – I couldn't stomach more than an hour of this crap.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 (2000)
Red Alert turns into a wacky cheesy B-Movie
Initially I thought that Red Alert 2's much maligned predecessor, Tiberian Sun wasn't that bad. Only when I tried out Red Alert 2 I realised how uninspired (and what a missed opportunity) Tiberian Sun really was. With Red Alert 2, Westwood Studios demonstrated that (for the year 2000 at least) they still were kings of the RTS genre.
Red Alert 2 featured some interesting changes compared to the original, for one the serious dark undertones made way for a wacky, cheesy B movie setting that doesn't take itself seriously at all, but luckily stop short of attempting a complete spoof of cheesy B movies. Personally I prefer the more serious stuff when I play war but Westwood seemed to have pulled this aspect off (if only just). The other big change for me was that the game was sped up considerably, Building, moving & fighting now happens at a much faster pace resulting in missions that are over much quicker than previously. Again, I actually preferred the slower stuff but you learn to adjust very quickly! Both the Allied and Soviet campaign's story lines are not exactly award-winning stuff but the cut-scenes are of high quality, fun to watch and does enough to make you feel involved in the story, it's obvious that the actors had fun doing the scenes (very much the opposite of the bored looking has-beens in Tiberian Sun), and it sure helps that they casted some of the best looking B-movie actresses around!
The gameplay is standard C&C stuff with some wacky & generally useful units added to the standard tanks and soldiers (tanks that disguise themselves as trees – I mean really .. :-). One of my biggest gripes with the original were that the Allied units were just weak compared to the Soviets, this time round they are must better balanced with Soviets relying more on brute force and the Allieds the ones with better technology i.e. Soviets are more durable but Allieds have better guns. Oh yes, and the new ability for your soldiers to garrison buildings is very useful indeed!
My biggest problem with the game is the A.I.(what a misnomer!) It doesn't seem to have improved at all since the original C&C in 1995. The A.I.'s method of attack basically consists of sending small groups of units to attack your base at regular intervals, and unless they overwhelm you before your defences are up and running this attacks amount to little more than shooting practice for your base defences. After a while the A.I. will then just give up and wait for you too release him from his misery. I believe one of the reasons Westwood sped up the game was to compensate for the useless A.I.
That said, no other RTS title released before or around the same time as Red Alert 2 were known for brilliant or event competent A.I. so I won't judge too harshly. Overall this was one of the better RTS titles I have played and I recommend this game as it is still fun even at 2009 standards.
Diablo II (2000)
One of the Best RPG games ever
When Diablo 2 was released in 2000, it didn't quite live up to most critics initial dizzyingly high expectations. But for me the proof of the games' star quality is in its longevity. Diablo 2 is still very popular almost a decade after its release with a huge following on Blizzard's battle.net. Given the fact that this was the first RPG game I've ever played and that I didn't play it until 2009 I wasn't burdened by high expectations and thoroughly enjoyed this game and spent many happy hours playing Diablo 2. Although Diablo 2 is far from perfect I give it a 10 for its ability to entertain and engage you for many hours.
The addictive hack'n-slash gameplay along with the ability to customize your character to suit your playing style is Diablo's 2 strongest points. You will spend most of your time just clicking on various monsters and your character will do the killing, this simple way of playing is oddly addictive (to most people anyway). The interesting part of the game is building up a character with various skills, strengths and weapons to deal with the progressively stronger monsters you will encounter as you progress in the game.
One of the games other strengths is its very forgiving learning curve, allowing a new player plenty of time to get into the game and build up a strong character before having to face some serious opposition. The game appeals to a casual player like me because you don't have to explore every aspect of the game to complete it, but have enough depth and intricacies for the hardcore players to explore who want to do more than just kill Diablo and watch the end movie.
A few things bothered me about Diablo 2. The one thing (that bothered a lot of other people as well) is the low quality graphics, even for a game released in 2000 it's just not up to scratch. The graphics were improved somewhat with the expansion pack so install the expansion if you want to play Diablo 2. The other is that I found one or 2 of the end-level bosses were disproportionally difficult to kill compared with the rest of the monsters in Diablo 2. There is no way to cheat to get past a difficult boss so you really can get stuck after spending many hours building a character who is just not good enough to get past one particular monster.
Overall, if you for some reason never played Diablo 2, it's still not too late. Pick it up from a bargain bin and give it a try!
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun (1999)
C&C fans deserved a bit more
I'm in two minds about Tiberian Sun. On one hand it's disappointing that a game that took about 3 years to develop featured so little innovation. It was very much another Red Alert, just with better graphics. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with a game that's just like Red Alert if you are a Red Alert fanatic! Like with the original Command & Conquer, GDI and NOD are fighting it out over control of the alien substance Tiberium (Why they need to go to war about it is a bit silly because Tiberium is replicating like mad and there is more than enough going around for everybody and their sisters). You can play either the GDI or NOD campaign, each campaign's storyline are told through cinematic cut-scenes which are linked to the missions you have to perform.
The GDI storyline is a bit of a haphazard mess that is difficult to follow and the cut-scenes aren't really convincing. Michael Biehn looks bored most of the time and James Earl Jones's role is reduced to barking orders while looking panicked, although to be fair to the actors, they aren't helped by the weak storyline. Westwood fared much better with the NOD campaign, the relatively unknown actors look like they are having fun and the storyline is much more interesting (I guess being evil is always more interesting).
The single player campaign's biggest shortcoming is again the computer AI, which is even worse than in the older C&C's. The computer seems distinctly disinterested in beating you and rarely attacks or defends his base in numbers. Tiberian Sun is definitely easier than its predecessors.
Since games like C&C don't really depend on good graphics to be enjoyable (unlike say, first-person shooters), Tiberian Sun is still worth trying out even though its about 10 years old by now. If you are a fan of the series or even if you haven't played Red Alert before and you are into RTS games like Starcraft its worth a try.
StarCraft: Brood War (1998)
An excellent sequel to the original Starcraft
A number of expansion packs lack the quality and focus of the original game, and one gets the feeling that it is just a cynical attempt of the developers to milk a few extra dollars out of fans of the original game. This is certainly not true for Starcraft: Broodwar, it is obvious that a lot of effort was made by Blizzard to produce a expansion that is on par with the original game. Starcraft: Broodwar felt more like a sequel than a mere expansion pack.
The storyline of the single campaign is as detailed and interesting as the original and a few useful units were added for each race. I only have two complaints, the first is that some of the missions are fiendishly difficult and there are a few times I had to resort to cheat codes to be able to finish the mission. My other complaint is the shortage of cut scenes, there are basically only one for each campaign. The developers took such a lot of effort with the storyline, why not follow it through with decent cinematics? Overall, if you enjoyed the original Starcraft, don't miss out on Starcraft: Broodwar, if you didn't, Starcraft: Broodwar is not going to change your mind because it is essentially more of the same.
Unreal (1998)
Good game, but not quite the "Quake-killer" it was meant to be.
When Quake 2 was released in 1997, it was the undisputed king of the FPS genre. That was until the release of Unreal in 1998, the first credible challenger to Quake's throne. For months debates raged amongst gamers on which was the only FPS worth playing. Eventually, neither of the 2 games could claim to be the clear winner of this debate, but with the benefit of hindsight is safe to say that while Unreal was technically superior to Quake 2, it wasn't quite the "Quake-killer" it was promised to be on release. The main reason was probably the high system requirements (for 1998) needed to run the game properly, without adding much to the existing FPS genre besides better graphics.
Yes, the best thing about Unreal is without a doubt its graphics, other reviewers on the site have described the graphics much more eloquently than I can, so I will suffice to say that quite a few times while playing the game I sat back and said to myself "Wow, this looks amazing! How did they do it??". The graphics have aged somewhat by today's standards, but I believe that along with Half-Life, Unreal's graphics set the benchmark for all FPS's at the end of the previous century. The other amazing thing about Unreal is it's AI. Enemies duck and dive out of harm's way, ambush you, run away if overwhelmed and even play dead. Rarely do one battle a Skaarj trooper or mercenary and leave the scene of the battle unscathed.
Unreal is unfortunately not without some frustrating aspects, one of the main complaints is the weak weapons available to the player. Quake's range of weapons complement each other, there is always intuitively a best weapon for any given situation. Unreal's developers could have done worse than simply copying the Quake arsenal into Unreal. In Unreal, enemies dodge your powerful weapon's projectiles with ease and require numerous hits from your weaker weapons to be killed. One or 2 of the supposedly advanced weapons are simply useless, and I completely ignored them. The bad weapons frustrated me throughout the game and probably made the AI appear cleverer than it really was.
The other disappointing aspect for me is that while Unreal ushered in a new era with regards to graphics and AI, this innovation was not carried over in the storyline. The storyline is simply the standard Doom/Quake formula of fighting your way through mazes filled with enemies searching for a way to open that darn locked door. The "story" is told by way of logs of fallen soldiers and books picked up along the way, resulting in a feeling of always being two steps behind the story's happenings and not actually being part of the story.
After the initial novelty of the good graphics had worn off, I quickly lost interest in the game and only bothered to finish it because I spent some good money importing it from USA (and some nice cheats really helps when you don't feel like running through the whole level again to look for that button that will open that pesky locked door). The FPS genre has moved on since the mid-nineties, and nowadays a game like Unreal is merely a novelty, but it's still obvious why it was such a hit back in 1998.
StarCraft (1998)
Not quite Command & Conquer, but worth a try
I'll start off by putting all my cards on the table, I'm a big Command & Conquer fan and am extremely biased when looking at any other type of RTS game. That being said, I actually found Starcraft to be a very different type of game and not really strictly comparable to C&C. Starcraft has a much bigger emphasis on micro-management as most units have some kind of special ability. Also armies are generally smaller with more emphasis on balance and researched abilities than size and power.
I am a sucker for a good storyline and here Starcraft delivers wholeheartedly, the manual reads like the first chapter of a bestselling science-fiction novel and throughout the single player there a number of interesting plot twists, I'm a bit bemused that nobody ever bothered to make a Starcraft movie! Also the developers can be commended for creating 3 opposing races with different strengths and weaknesses, but with no race that are clearly superior. This has certainly been attempted before (unsuccessfully) in other games but the Starcraft developers got it more or less right.
The area Starcraft didn't won me completely over was in the actual gameplay, your army are limited by available resources and most individual units are rather fragile and can quickly be destroyed by enemy fire, I spend lots of time fixing and replacing my battered army rather than planning battles! I also felt that the whole idea of researching abilities really slows the game down and because the AI opponent always start with a big head start you spend a lot of time waiting for research to be done to be able to match you AI opponent. Speaking about AI, Starcraft AI is certainly not up to scratch but this is true for most RTS games.
Overall, this is certainly an above average game and it's legacy and success speaks for itself. For me C&C is still the king of the hill but I won't miss Starcraft 2
Quake II (1997)
The benchmark for first-person shooters in the mid-nineties
Back in 1998, I spent countless hours death-matching fellow students playing Quake 2 on the university computer network. Its only in 2008 that I bought my own copy of Quake 2, and by now the game's age shows - but thanks to those nostalgic memories I'm extremely forgiving!
The single player campaign starts of with a quick introductory video to set the scene, and then literally drops you into the action. The programmers took the time to include something that resembles a storyline, but in those days the focus was really just on the game-play and killing stuff.
One of the first things that struck me about Quake 2, is how it improved upon it's predecessor in every conceivable way. Quake 2 features better graphics (outstanding), better physics, better weapons, better AI, better.... well better everything.
I loved the attention to little details in the game, for instance if you kill a monster, it will fall down but sometimes still manages to shoot off a few rounds before it dies. Also a lot of effort went into the weapons and each weapon has it's own strengths and weaknesses, like the rail gun (think the movie Eraser with Arnie) that will kill most enemies with 1 or 2 shots, but it's slow reloading times makes it a liability in a room full of angry monsters.
Quake 2 certainly does have it's flaws. The levels and monsters have little variation, and gets monotonous after a while. Combine this with the lack of a strong storyline to drive the game on, and things can get a bit tedious at times. And although the AI improved, the monsters are still not clever enough to make live difficult for even an average player like me.
I believe Quake 2 aged relatively well, and unlike its predecessor is still worth playing if you feel a bit nostalgic or if you want to see how FPS's looked in the mid-nineties. But certainly FPS's improved significantly since 1998.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert (1996)
A golden oldie!
I believe Red Alert is one of the few games of the mid-nineties that stood the test of time and that is still immensely enjoyable so many years after it's release.
Red Alert was released only year after the original C&C, having started out as a expansion pack but somewhere along the line Westwood decided to convert it into a full sequel. This shows because the 2 games have similar game-play, graphics and most of the units in Red Alert are exact copies from C&C. However where Red Alert manages to surpass it's predecessor is with the addition of much more interesting story lines, campaigns with lots of twists and turns, improved cinematic sequences and also a few interesting air and sea units which improves game-play.
The player can choose between the Soviets and Allied campaign, each side have different strengths and weaknesses, requiring the player to adjust his strategy to the suit his side's particular strength and weaknesses. The Soviet units are generally stronger, but more expensive and slower than the Allied units. The Allied units are quicker and cheaper, but lack the firepower of the Soviet units. The game is difficult enough to challenge the casual gamer and keep you entertained for hours without being frustratingly difficult.
An area where I believe the developers got it wrong was with the balance of strengths and weaknesses of the Allied and Soviet sides, the Allied units are simply not cheap nor fast enough to make up for their lack of firepower, a large Soviet tank rush would usually easily wipe their Allied opponents off the map. The dumb AI is also not much of an improvement from the previous game, and is actually quite easy to beat once you've got the hang of the game.
Criticisms aside, If you are a RTS game fan and never got round to play this game (which is highly unlikely) or just want to go for a trip down memory lane, this game will still be worth your money and time.
Quake (1996)
Great game-play, crappy story
It is difficult to give a fair rating for a game like Quake so many years after its release. Having played its predecessors like Doom and Wolfenstein 3D as a teenager, one can appreciate the massive improvement in the 3D environments, graphics and sounds that came with Quake, as well as being one of the first FPS games that allowed you to play death matches over the internet. On the flip side some of its successors like Half-life showed us how much more enjoyable a FPS could be if the creators take the time invest in a storyline.
For me, the lack of storyline in Quake is the biggest flaw of the game. Without any introduction the player gets dumped into seemingly random generated dungeons having to shoot various monsters and search for secret places. With no idea what I'm supposed to be doing there (besides killing and trying to survive), the game quickly bored me and after completing the first series of levels I just stopped playing because the game was not worth my time.
To conclude
The technical stuff (graphics, game play, music etc) 5/5 Pretty impressive for its time.
Storyline - 0/5 It seems as if the developers were still debating what storyline to use by the time game was published, so they just threw everything together, resulting in a disjointed mess.
Command & Conquer (1995)
Command&Conquer aged really well
I guess it is a bit irrelevant to rate a computer game 13 years after it's release. C&C's legacy speaks for itself. However, the only reason people would play it nowadays is because of nostalgia or out of curiosity. Mine was the latter.
I have never played a C&C game before and must admit that for such an old game it was thoroughly enjoyable.
Playing the game one quickly realises why it was such a hit 13 years ago, and even though graphics, gameplay and AI of RTS games improved considerably since 1995, it seems pretty cutting edge for the mid-nineties and actually aged relatively well.
I believe it's one of the first RTS game that introduced opposing sides where units were not simply copies of each other, but where sides were unevenly matched and had different strenghts and weaknesses. The game also had a strong storyline (unlike another hit of that time, Quake) and video cut-scenes(that were a bit rare back in those days).
For the single player campaign, the gameplay has a interesting balance in that it is fairly simple to survive the AI attacks on your base because the idiot AI insists to keep attacking your base with a small number of units at a time (a minor nuisance to a well defended base). But capturing your AI opponents well-defended base is sometimes extremely difficult without exploiting a quirk in the AI.
The stupid AI is C&C's biggest drawback, for example the AI pays little attention to protect his valuable (and expensive) harvester, and will simply replace it every time you destroy it. So by keeping on destroying the AI opponents harvester, your AI opponent will eventually run out of money, and you can take your time to conquer your now penniless opponent.
One last thing the Kane character (Joseph D. Kucan)- I just don't get it... Why does everyone say he is so scary/charismatic???? For me the guy is just kind of goofy, and I tried my best to be amazed by his presence.
Overall, an old RTS game that aged really well, is still enjoyable and worth a play if you haven't tried it before.
Thursday (1998)
Bloody Surprise
I really didn't expect anything good from this movie, but it immediately grabbed my attention with a brilliant opening scene. And the good stuff just kept coming! Casey(Played brilliantly by Thomas Jane) is an ex-drug dealer who's past caught up with him, and through the course of one day must survive a lot of baddies trying to kill him in his house(I especially enjoyed the Rasta Hit Man(Glen Plummer)) while trying to save his marriage.
I especially enjoyed the concept of the most of the story playing of in Casey's house. This movie is a good example of a great story not needing a big budget, it compares well with great `black comedy' mobster movies like The Whole Nine Yards and Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead. 8/10