Max Payne
I was never a big fan of shooter games… that is until Max Payne. A long time ago, I used to suck at this - so I chickened out of such games. This game changed that, probably because I got into the story and kept trying harder to get to the end. Still, the only two games of this nature that have interested me are Rainbow Six and Max Payne.
The “R” rating for this game needs to be taken extremely seriously. Although they show Max Payne (player) being holed up in an impossible situation (thus what he does can probably be viewed as ethical), he is required to get out of a violent battle between mafia groups and politicians. There are also a lot of drug and sex references in the game. Obviously, not a game for kids in my opinion. On the other hand, kids these days are not all that innocent - thanks internet, social media, and smartphones huh? So, I will say that a kid should be at least 15 or 16 years old to play this.
– Real player with 33.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Classic Story Rich Games.
78/100
While I have greatly enjoyed beating this game multiple times throughout the years it is getting hard to recommend it now.
The main issue I have is I used three fixes to get the game to work and there was still no sound and got stuck on walls.
– Real player with 20.0 hrs in game
Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus®
This is honestly one of my favourite games of all time, I don’t usually do recommendations/reviews but I feel the Oddworld games have never gotten enough attention and I really encourage everyone to give this series a try.
The game is absolutely amazing, it deals with issues like consumerism, class, culture, race all in one and yet despite the serious tones the game never strays from humour or trying to take itself too seriously while still being completely relevant in today’s world. The game is a cinematic platformer, and you definitely feel the weight of everything you do in this game, whether you walk, jump, fall, hoist yourself up a ledge, roll, pull a lever etc, everything has weight to it and really feels like you are actually experiencing a world and not a game, yes it does take a bit of time to get used too especially if you are used to more traditional platformers but thanks to very responsive controls you will get the hang of it in no time, the game also mixes up a lot of action based sequences and puzzle sequences that require something known as gamespeak, inspired by point and click games these are essentially commands that you will use through the game to rescue your fellow Mudokons (Abe’s Species) or when possessing Abes enemies or the wildlife of oddworld you can use gamespeak to your advantage to make things easier.
– Real player with 74.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Classic Puzzle Games.
Nominated for the “test of time” award. This was my absolute favourite game when I was a kid and I still love it to this day.
It may be partly because I only owned about 3 games at the time but I must’ve sunk more hours into this game than any other.
The atmosphere and world are great, a dark story with just the right amount of humour. Abe is the last hope to free his enslaved people, who are forced to work in dangerous conditions by greedy slave traders who care only about profit, but if you get bored of all that you can press a button to make Abe fart, which causes all Mudokons next to him to take step back, and those further away to giggle.
– Real player with 73.7 hrs in game
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Free for everyone at the time of review.
Hardware: Win 10x64, 3570k mildly OC, GTX 1070, 16 GB, SSD.
Super laggy on my system; took me a full 30 minutes to complete a game advertised as 5-10 minutes. I see the system specs state “Windows 7”; I’m guessing this is either a Win 10 issue (some games lag badly in 8 / 10 that run fine in 7) or possibly the 10xx series video card.
I recommend taking a very brief glance at the videos before playing to see how fast the game is supposed to move. If the game is going to lag for you, it will start at the opening credits, which take so long to change screens (tapping an arrow key helps) that it feels like the game is locked up. Don’t press ESC; that instantly closes the game.
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Classic Experimental Games.
‘The hardest tumble a man can make is to fall over his own bluff’' - Ambrose Bierce
James Cox has adapted, as part of his ‘100 games in 5 years’ project, the timeless classic short story titled An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge written by Ambrose Bierce in 1890. It has seen many variations since its inception ranging from short story to full novel inspirations, radio screenplays including a Twilight Zone broadcast, TV drama/movies and even music videos including Bon Jovi’s song Dyin' ain’t much of a livin'.
– Real player with 0.1 hrs in game
Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee®
WARNING! THIS GAME CAN BE DIFFICULT!
But, AH! The memories! :D
The protagonist of this memorable tale is named Abe. A Mudokon who was born a slave and works for RuptureFarms, a meat processing factory. One day Abe discovers that he and his kind are to be sent to the slaughterhouse. Not only that, they will soon become the “new & tasty” delicasy on the menu! He decides that he better make a break from the Glukkons who hold him captive and decides to rescue as many of his fellow Mudokons as he can along the way.
– Real player with 18.2 hrs in game
My playtime: 14.1h (based on steam, game completed, bad ending)
Intro
Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee® is a puzzle game with a bit of stealth element where you have to dodge obstacles and avoid enemies to save your fellow aliens from being killed.
Pros:
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2 endings
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Secret areas
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Freedom to save or kill the aliens
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Puzzles are not too easy and not too hard either
Cons:
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Cutscenes don’t run smoothly
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Terrible controls
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Tile-based and slow movement
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Weird saving mechanics
– Real player with 14.1 hrs in game
DOOM 3
Phil loves DOOM 3, and the vanilla game is far superior to the BFG edition.
– Real player with 41.3 hrs in game
Has no gurls.
– Real player with 5.6 hrs in game
Thief: Deadly Shadows
I’m an unabashed long-time fan of the Thief series. I was excited to hear my favorite video games were getting a third installment. Then I played this…
The first time I played through this game, at every turn I sighed and thought bitterly about how such and such was different from this or that in the first two games. And almost every instance was different for the worse, not better. I finished the game with an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I’ve played it again before writing this review, this time deliberately putting the high expectation bar out of mind. The result has been a more enjoyable experience. It’s a shame but I suppose what I’m saying is that I enjoyed this game more when I lowered my expectations for it, ahaha. NOT RECOMMENDED.
– Real player with 91.2 hrs in game
I write this on the basis of not having played previous Thief games in the series. However, Thief: Deadly Shadows proved itself a firm favourite and true classic on my list (I owned the game on disc when it was first released but had to re-purchase on Steam so it was compatible with my current PC). It’s true that the graphics are now very obsolete compared to more modern titles - but it has been around for over ten years! - and I still have fond memories of exploring, stealing, sneaking, and eavesdropping.
– Real player with 79.1 hrs in game
HeXen: Beyond Heretic
IMPORTANT: This version of the game is in its native DOS state, and frankly that hasn’t aged well thanks to low resolutions and clunky controls. I recommend getting GZDoom to run this, put its compatibility mode on Doom (not the strict version, just the regular). For gameplay options, make sure jumping is enabled and crouching disabled, as levels were designed with that in mind. You can tighten up the shooting by turning autoaim off. To keep the art style of the game as it was intended, turn all texture filtering off, and use square pixel particles.
– Real player with 100.0 hrs in game
After far too long, I have finally completed HeXen. It’s the sequel to Heretic, but while Heretic was a fun DOOM reskin, HeXen gets away from DOOM’s influence and becomes more of its own thing, with multiple player characters, hub-based level structure, more puzzles, and a far darker tone. These changes bring plenty of pros and cons, and certainly create a unique experience.
There are three characters to choose from at the start of the game: the Fighter, the Mage, and the Cleric. (They have actual names, but they’re not worth remembering.) The Fighter is a melee character, the Mage is ranged, and the Cleric is a mix between the two. I played as the Fighter because I’d heard that he was the best, and it’s fun to just run around punching hundreds and hundreds of monsters with wonderfully cathartic gore and sound effects. The punch is the starting weapon (there are four total per class), and it’s strangely effective; I got by using it almost exclusively for about 60% of the game before the challenge ramped up enough to necesitate use of the other weapons. I may go back and play as the other characters at some point, though, because the game makes it clear that the playstyles differ enough to make repeats worthwhile.
– Real player with 28.4 hrs in game
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
Captivating Point and Click Adventure
I enjoyed playing through this game twice, I’d say that if you’re interested, you should pick it up.
It’s a story-based game inspired by the book of the same name by Harlan Ellison (who voices the character of AM in game).
–-{Graphics}—
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☑ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ Paint.exe
Good, but this game was developed in the ’90s, so you can imagine that the graphics will reflect that era. The graphics are not bad at all. I’d say that they still hold up somewhat and the graphics don’t take away from the game.
– Real player with 31.3 hrs in game
Make no mistake about I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream….it is NOT a horror game, at least not in the typical sense. It’s not trying to make you jump in your seat and scream in shocked terror. It has no interest in what many would call “cheap thrills”. Instead, what this game wants to do is provoke your thought-process. It is a very cerebral game, with dark undertones that force you to think about the dark side of humanity, and whether or not there is redemption for our fatal flaws. It isn’t afraid to present you with disturbing topics such as suicide, rape, even genocide, and make you deal with them. Although there is a tint of light-heartedness, 99% percent of the game is drenched in an atmosphere of hopelessness as you scramble to make amends for the characters' pasts in an attempt to thwart the diabolical supercomputer, AM.
– Real player with 17.6 hrs in game
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
Taking a step forward deep into the chaotic endless black desert of insanity.
Max Payne 2 eventhough it stands on common ground it really has many differences from its predecessor.
Something that made the hard core fans of the first game not like it too much at first.
However for me Max Payne 2 really stands out of the library and into my golden list of masterpieces and on the throne with the rest of my most fav titles ever.
The game has obvious graphical advancements engine-wise, physics-wise, texture-wise and gameplay-wise.
– Real player with 44.4 hrs in game
–—DISCLAIMER FOR WIN8/WIN8.1/WIN10 USERS——
I had several Problems with this game on Windows 10, but after some research, it runs fine on Windows 10.
1. Run in Compatibility mode (Windows XP)
2. Rename the install Folder to smth without spaces like: “MaxPayne2”
3. Then in your steamapps folder find appmanifest_12150 and edit the install dir line to match your renamed folder (you might have to close Steam to do this or restart Steam)
4. Disable Steam Overlay for this game
5. Make sure everything stays the same after Steam restart - sometimes Steam changes stuff back
– Real player with 35.4 hrs in game
Sanitarium
This is a weird game. The premise is that you are a researcher who discovers a cure to some deadly disease, but you get in a car crash and your head injury causes you to go insane. You wake up in some twisted insane asylum run by a mad scientist. A lot of the time you are totally sane and know what’s going on. But every time something traumatic or stressful happens, your character has a dissociative episode, and you are teleported to an alternate dimension where you need to solve some problem.
– Real player with 28.4 hrs in game
A 1998 point and click adventure originally created by an American company known as DreamForge Intertainment which unfortunately no longer exists and later thanks to a French company known as Dot Emu ( http://www.dotemu.com/ ) was ported to Steam and other mediums with achievements added.
While the game is no doubt dated graphically, the game has stood the test of time thanks to its superlative and artistic use of storytelling. Unlike cheap jump scares used in many stories today, the main story here and many of its sub plots concentrate on having the gamer enthralled with concepts teetering in the morbid and with adult themes that constantly confounds you with the creepy and bizarre mysteries that make you want to push forward and learn more.
– Real player with 28.3 hrs in game