SiN: Gold
Full disclosure: this is a game i was fortunate enough to play when i was 10 years old back in 1999, i thought it was the coolest thing at the time and i still feel relatively the same about it today, it holds a special place in my memories.
It’s 1998 the year of Half-Life, the folks at Ritual Entertainment know what’s coming and they want to get ahead of it. Enter “SiN”, a Quake 2 engine FPS with the spirit of Duke Nukem 3D ready to show the world what it’s made of. Unfortunately for players first impressions were not off to a great start, those who used mirror sites to download a demo on July 26th of 1998 were greeted with a CIH virus. Fast forward to the release in early November of 1998 only a week or two before Half-Life, bugs were plentiful and long load times were dreadful. To those dedicated enough to wait for patches or simply deal with the drawbacks, they came to enjoy a pretty solid romp through Freeport City.
– Real player with 120.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Action FPS Games.
On Christmas day, a close friend of mine gifted me SiN, the often forgotten Half-Life killer. Launching in a buggy and unfinished state due to Activision (of course), the game was not nearly as popular as it could have been. Thanks to Nightdive Studios however, the version sold on Steam is mostly stable other than a few minor graphical glitches. SiN was Ritual Entertainment’s first major project, coming hot off of the very well-received Quake Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armagon.
For a first attempt, this is actually pretty great for the most part. The gunplay is extremely satisfying and the weapons all feel great to use, with the exception of the laser weapons seen later in the game, which are pretty contextual in their use. Movement is pretty similar to Quake 2, but feels more slipperier, and the player seems to have a forward lurch to their jumps, even if standing still. This isn’t really a problem for the most part, other than the rare platforming segment but even those are pretty generous with the player. The enemy AI is a bit of a mixed bag. There are points where it’s actually pretty impressive for the time and seemingly reacts quickly to what the player does, and times where they get stuck on walls. I’m not entirely sure if this is just a bug or simply strange AI programming, so I will assume the latter. I found the boss fights in general to be pretty mediocre, with the final being the best. Most of them are just fine, working as intended but never being anything special, but the Eon and Peon fight is just utter BS and incredibly unfun. However, something Ritual did very well is the level design. It feels consistently very tight, giving the player a decent degree of freedom in how to approach mission objectives and feeling pretty fair for the most part. The mappers for this game cut their teeth on Quake and it really shows, as a lot of the same qualities that game’s levels had make their way into SiN. The lategame levels do suffer the same problem that most 90s FPS games suffer from however, being a severe drop in quality. While not nearly as bad as say, Doom 2 or Red Faction, I found myself enjoying it much less while playing through them. The levels are mostly really solid though and I can recommend the game on that basis alone.
– Real player with 40.2 hrs in game
Disney G-Force
G-Force has changed the way I think about life, before purchasing this game I was a hard-core racist, I never found myself going outside to see grass, I had never felt the warm embrace of a woman, after purchasing this life-changing game, it made me think deeply. This game has revolutionized my thoughts, I am no longer a raging racist. I attribute this to the character Mooch. The character Mooch is an open-minded loveable character, Mooch’s character provokes so much emotion, during my 3rd speedrun attempt, I broke into tears, seeing such a small creature have a massive impact on the game like that, makes me so happy, it shows that the little man still has a shot at making it big. It shows that no matter who you are you can do anything you put your mind to. Mooch has inspired me in so many ways, sometimes at night, I will sit at my desk, staring at pictures of Mooch he gives me inspiration he gives me the willpower to do what I want to do. Mooch has been there for me when no one else was. When I first purchased this game, I hated the thought of touching the grass, I hated the thought of an outside world. This game has shown me that there is more to life than just games, there is a whole new life outside. Although since buying this game I have been diagnosed with Insomnia, Bi-Polar Depression 2, Schizophrenia, as well as a host of physical illnesses, like partial paralysis in my lower body. Aside from that, my mind has never felt better, I feel mentally aware and feel as if I am ready to take on the world. Sometimes at night, I think about how I can achieve greatness and how I can leave my mark on this world, and that is by playing this game that is by finishing this amazing game. As one of my good friends once said “The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don’t.”, This game showed me that I don’t have to suppress my thoughts I don’t have to act like a normal person I can be who I am. This game has changed my life for the better, I still hope one day I will be able to feel the warm embrace of a woman.
– Real player with 1028.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Action Story Rich Games.
THIS IS ONE OF THE GREATEST GAMES EVERRRRRRRRRR
–-{Graphics}—
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ Paint.exe
—{Gameplay}—
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It‘s just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Starring at walls is better
☐ Just don‘t
—{Audio}—
☑ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ Earrape
—{Audience}—
☑ Kids
☐ Teens
☐ Adults
☐ Human
—{PC Requirements}—
☑ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boiiiiii
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
– Real player with 93.4 hrs in game
Dusk 12
Dusk 12 is an awful game, that’s also plagued by some insane technical problems.
Story:
In Dusk 12 you play as two different characters, a soldier and a human infected with a virus which turned him into a mutant. The soldiers goal is to plow through mutants and soldiers to get a secret lab and the mutant is on a quest to figure out what happened to him.
If what I described doesn’t make sense, well it’s because it doesn’t. The story is insanely hard to follow, to the point where I actually got confused on what was happening as the game jumps from one character to another and the story points that happen make no sense and make the story insanely confusing. Also it doesn’t help that when the characters speak to one another you can’t understand anything they are saying as the volume for it is either too low, or other audio from the game itself is interrupting them.
– Real player with 19.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Action FPS Games.
Now, I’ll be the first to say but I actually LOVED Dusk 12. It’s a crap game, there’s no denying that - it is a really bad first person shooter but that badness is something special compared to a lot of other crap first person shooters. Orion Games have a way with developing games. While what they have made is almost universally crap, there’s a huge dose of special charm to it that a lot of other bad games just can’t seem to replicate. It’s adorable and hilarious how it tries to be a good game, the dialogue is hilarious, the voice acting is laughable, the story is ridiculous especially with its WTF twist ending and the cheesy music that plays throughout - there really is a lot to love here. But as I look at what’s been made here, I can tell love was put into the game, while the developer’s incompetence speaks for itself you can tell they wanted Dusk 12 to go somewhere or at the very least, gain some kind of cult following. And I can safely say, I loved this game - had a smile on my face the whole way through and made me laugh quite a few times. And being interested in weird, obscure games, this was a must buy for me the second I saw it.
– Real player with 12.1 hrs in game
Iridion 3D
I purchased this game merely due to nostalgia for arcade super scrollers like galaxy force 2 and it turned out to be a pretty fun game, but warning for potential buyers is that this is a straight up GBA port with nothing new added and looks kind of blurry all blow up on a big screen. One more knock against the game is the fact there is no ability to save and you have to rely on passwords. The game still is a fun arcade shooter, but don’t expect anything close to a remaster.
– Real player with 3.4 hrs in game
I honestly never expected to see this game on steam. Iridion 3D is one of my favorite games of all time. The game is a launch title for the Game Boy Advance, which is something to keep in mind about this game. The game uses a pseudo 3D effect in order to create a unique Shmup game that i have never seen an attempt to replicate the style of. While the pseudo 3D style can be very akward at first, if you are able to adapt, the game is a very fun, while short game. While some may feel the fact the game is short is a flaw, i find it adds to the ease of picking up the game for a quick playthrough. As a launch title for the GBA, the game has some audio oddities, along with issues due to developers still learning the limitations of the platform. all in all, if you can get past the flaws and get used to the pseudo 3D style, it is a very fun game.
– Real player with 1.7 hrs in game
Iridion II
my favorite gba game maybe the best im very godlike at it
– Real player with 10.0 hrs in game
Fun shooting game with interesting visuals originally on the Gameboy advance. While I recommend the game let it be known that it is a very straight forward port with little to no changes. The control scheme is a bit counter intuitive if you are playing on an Arcade stick so rebinding through steam is likely a good idea for most.
I still recommend the title and it is especially impressive given the time and hardware for which it was originally released. I do have a CRT monitor to play games like this so that does a long way in making the visuals pop. As mentioned in a negative review it would likely scale rather poorly to higher resolutions on lcd monitors.
– Real player with 6.9 hrs in game
Garfield Kart
“I don’t think any word can explain a man’s life,” says one of the searchers through the warehouse of treasures left behind by Jonathan Arbuckle. Then we get the famous series of shots leading to the closeup of the word “Garfield” on a kart that has been tossed into a furnace, its paint curling in the flames. We remember that this was Arbuckle’s childhood kart, taken from him as he was torn from his family and sent east to boarding school.
Garfield is the emblem of the security, hope and innocence of childhood, which a man can spend his life seeking to regain. It is the green light at the end of Gatsby’s pier; the leopard atop Kilimanjaro, seeking nobody knows what; the bone tossed into the air in “2001.” It is that yearning after transience that adults learn to suppress. “Maybe Garfield was something he couldn’t get, or something he lost,” says Lyman, the reporter assigned to the puzzle of Arbuckle’s dying word. “Anyway, it wouldn’t have explained anything.” True, it explains nothing, but it is remarkably satisfactory as a demonstration that nothing can be explained. “Garfield Kart” likes playful paradoxes like that. Its surface is as much fun as any mascot kart racer ever made. Its depths surpass understanding. I have analyzed it a frame at a time with more than 30 groups, and together we have seen, I believe, pretty much everything that is there on the screen. The more clearly I can see its physical manifestation, the more I am stirred by its mystery.
– Real player with 8108.5 hrs in game
When I was 18… 18 years old, I saw for the first time in my life… I saw an image of clarity. I saw a comic strip… a three panel comic strip that, though simple as it seemed, changed me… changed my being, changed who I am… Made me who I am…
Enlightened me…
The strip, Garfield, the comic strip was new… no more than maybe a month and a half since inception, since… since coming into existence… and there it was before me in print, I saw it… a comic strip… What was it called?
– Real player with 5068.5 hrs in game
Little Big Adventure
An absolute classic adventure/platformer game, not the sort that you see get made anymore.
I really loved it many years ago and still a great game to this day.
Originally it was released on steam with just the newest version but after lots of feedback the classic version was added.
Both versions are good but play out differently, The enhanced edition is a little more simplified but also easier to control (moving around and attacking).
It’s worth checking both out and playing through them.
It’s a little unfortunate that you can’t unlock achievements on the original (Dos) version, so if you want them you have to play the enhanced edition.
– Real player with 82.3 hrs in game
Edit: Thank you for listening to us DotEmu! This review has been revised due to post-release changes to alleviate some of my and others concerns.
It’s fantastic to finally see the original Little Big Adventure on Steam! The “Enhanced Edition” now available on Steam contains a port of the mobile version along with the original emulated in DosBox. I really recommend getting this version not due to the mobile port, but rather due to the original bundled herein.
If you have never heard of this games series before and do not intend on playing the mobile port there isn’t much more to say; stop reading now and get this gem! You won’t regret it.
– Real player with 29.0 hrs in game
Metal Wolf Chaos XD
tl;dr: Arcade Armored Core. Fast, furious mech action with a ton of customization, lots of hidden depth, and a focus on old school arcade-style high score chasing and replayability.
Yeah, yeah, President of the United States in a giant robot, blow up America for great justice. If you’re looking at this store page, you already know the bonkers pitch, and you probably know that the tone of the game really is as ridiculous as it sounds. But how does it play?
You control an ultra-agile mech running, jumping, boosting and flying around to complete objectives that are all fundamentally “blow up something or other.” Early levels may have you blow up all the enemy encampments in an area, but later levels can involve racing through a timed sequence to blow up a reactor, or playing hide and seek with a giant spider mech to blow up its power station (and then blow up the mech itself), or fighting against a group of enemy mechs in order to blow them up. Though all this might seem repetitive, the level designs and subtle differences in how you’re expected to blow things up really do give each level a distinct feel, and the sheer act of blowing things up never stops feeling great.
– Real player with 39.8 hrs in game
A bare-bones re-release and remaster of the game with a few issues (including a locked frame-rate due to its console origins) but aside from that, it should run on a toaster and is perhaps one of the craziest, most nonsensical and downright ridiculous mecha games around, done by From Software nonetheless. The story is pure unadulterated insanity or how Japan views or thinks the US works. Dialogue here is above the proverbial “so bad it’s good”: this is voiced, people SPOKE those lines. You just don’t get this level of madness anymore and I applaud them for it.
– Real player with 36.7 hrs in game
Have a N.I.C.E day!
Good, but a flawed version
This likely is the only legal way to get a copy of this game that plays nice with modern systems. It’s worth noting however that it misses the music and doesn’t upscale very well. I experienced some flickering and misplaced “hitboxes” in the wacky menus.
If you can live with that and just want to revisit this classic arcade racer then go ahead, it’s still good fun for an afternoon of nostalgia.
P.S.: Played through Wine on Linux, so displayed playtime isn’t accurate.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
MegaRace 1
Wow. This brings me back. Instant-buy.
For 3 bucks I could relive a major part of my childhood without fussing with getting my really old copy to run, just launch and go - with controller support (ish)
It’s great. So many great memories and Lance is just too funny. Even today it still plays well.
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
So for the positives the game does have rebindable keys, and works well with a 360 controller. And the game is at least playable but you can really tell this is the first in the series as it feels like a collection of half finished ideas.
Really it’s more of an on the rail shooter than a true racer, as you only ever 1v1. Add in some bad power up balance as well as limited tracks and cars to unlock.
So although it’s not totally awful and it is at least playable, I would only recommend you pick this up as part of the megarace pack and not on its own as the limited content will quickly wear thin.
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game