Cecil Run
Cecil Run is a Unity asset flip for a basic 2D retro pixel endless runner/platformer. Usually asset flips are really sufficient reason for any game to be classified immediately as a cheap nasty cash grab (and there’s no exception here), but there’s more, and it’s worse.
The “developer” decided to try cash in on the despicable acts conducted by Walter Palmer, disgraced American dentist, who tracked and killed a beloved wild Lion from a national park in Zimbabwe, by luring it from the park then shooting him. This horrific act is appalling, and I’m only relating it to provide context for this awful game. The developer making a sick joke of an atrocity is completely reprehensible, featuring Cecil and the disgraced dentist, Palmer, in the game. Imagine doing that just for a nasty cash grab on Steam.
– Real player with 0.1 hrs in game
Asset flip apparently, so obviously dont' recommend it.
If the game dev were donating the proceeds of the game as part of “the message” he is trying to make with the game then maybe that’d get a pass, but as far as I’m aware this is still just a cash grab.
Music and sound affects are cool though.
– Real player with 0.1 hrs in game
Adventureland XL
I played the original Adventureland alongs with many other Scott Adams’s Interactive Fiction games back in the late 70s and loved them. As soon as I heard I could play Adventureland again with my kids and grandkids I purchased it right away on Steam. It brought back so many good memories for me and the new version is even better now using the Conversational parsing engine!
– Real player with 13.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Cult Classic Narration Games.
Revival of the classic, plus much much more :). Great game for both seasoned and new adventurers alike :)
– Real player with 8.4 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
Read More: Best Cult Classic Atmospheric Games.
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
Hyperplex 3D
Cool retro game. Used to play it when I was a kid and loved it.
It is pretty chill puzzle/arcade-like game. Some of the levels require planing, but that is part of the fun.
– Real player with 21.6 hrs in game
The Supaplex remake in full 3D. Looks and feels quite different, but it’s still Supaplex, with its 111 levels.
There are quite a lot of remakes of this classic arcade/logic game, but adding an additional dimension to the graphics after so many years make it totally worth to replay at least some of the levels.
– Real player with 6.1 hrs in game
Pentasma
Excellent version of an arcade classic: Defender \ Stargate. Smooth and fast gameplay. Best played with an Xbox controller. Addictive!
– Real player with 272.8 hrs in game
This is basically a brilliant fan remake of the arcade classics Defender and Stargate (aka Defender II). If you have any nostalgia or even a passing interest in those games, then this is a must own. Long live Williams Electronics and Vid Kidz!!
– Real player with 43.9 hrs in game
Raptor: Call of The Shadows - 2015 Edition
Very poor port of an old DOS game.
Positives:
+Classic top-down shooter with currency system and upgrades.
Negatives:
-Some achievements have trouble working correctly. This requires you to do the achievement over and over again before it finally unlocks.
-Mouse function does not work very well at all. In windowed mode the curser can go outside the window and your ship will stop responding. The mouse also gets hung on imaginary objects at times requiring you to move it around real fast to free it.
– Real player with 12.3 hrs in game
Not great, not terrible
(applies to both original game and the port)
My young self first played this classic in ‘95 in shareware format (only 1st sector) and it left me in awe. How could it not when all my previous top-down scroller-shooter were the ones from ZX Spectrum. Raptor had great graphic, sounds, rocking music and a real plane (as opposed to shapes glued together forming a flying blob that I experienced earlier). I finally completed the full game in 2006 which was the last time I played it before now.
– Real player with 5.3 hrs in game
Wolfenstein 3D
Note: I strongly encourage following this guide to setup the ECWolf source port, which allows for full resolution support, including widescreen, automapping, and normal strafing controls. Additional mods can be introduced at that point, if desired.
An OG FPS classic, players should be warned that playing the vanilla game without a source port in the modern era is a harrowing experience with wonky controls and increasingly labyrinthine levels which are brutal to navigate due to there being no in game map. Basically, the vanilla experience has not aged well. However, if you run this with a source port like ECWolf you can enjoy it in all its glory and fully appreciate how much of a masterpiece of the genre it truly is.
– Real player with 13.6 hrs in game
I did not expect to love Wolfenstein 3D. I expected a game with nightmarish mazes full of hitscan enemies. And I was right. However, I was wrong when I thought that I would not like playing through it. It took me many hours of playing the game to actually understand why I enjoy it and don’t find it grossly outdated, despite its age.
Wolfenstein 3D game loop is straightforward: find the exit from a maze, find keys to access it, shoot anyone standing on your way. Manage your health and ammo to stay alive and be able to fight. After you have completed the first level, you have seen the whole game. There are six chapters, each containing nine levels and one secret level. In the end of every chapter, there is a boss.
– Real player with 12.7 hrs in game
Knights and Merchants
Great Nostalgia, as I played the original game ~2000 when I was a kid. If you already played this game, you can’t do much wrong buying it again, it contains both campaigns (The Shattered Kingdom [TSK] & The Peasants Rebellion [TPR]) which should take ~50hrs of raw speedrunning if you still know the concept of the game.
There is a problem though: This is NOT the original game from 2000! It’s a remake with a hell of new bugs and changes (esp. if you played TSK and didn’t own the Gold Edition)
Some things I noticed:
– Real player with 148.3 hrs in game
If The Settlers and Dark Souls had a love child, it would be Knights and Merchants.
I never got to play this when it was originally released in 1998, and I regret it, but the mistake has now been rectified!
K&M is an old school RTS/city economy builder hybrid. The concept is simple, the graphics a little dated, but still good enough, the sounds are simple and your minions make cute little comments when ordered to do something. The UI is easy to understand and on the surface, it seems a simple game.
– Real player with 140.4 hrs in game
Rise of the Triad
There are 2 options to follow when a developer decides to do a remake: either it remains true to the original, including (the quite possibly dated and obsolete) gameplay or it gets modernized to today’s standards becoming only slighty reminiscent to its predecessor. The best way to go of course is the successful combination of the 2, something like Doom 3 . The creators of Rise of the Triad chose the first option with all its benefits and risks and while it can’t possibly compete with present day story-driven FPSs, mainly due to the unique nature of the original game, it still manages to remain an enjoyable first-person shooter.
– Real player with 37.3 hrs in game
If DOOM (2016) and Shadow Warrior (2013) could be comparable to the success of Shovel Knight by how they deviated from the guidelines of the old-school FPSs, choosing instead to resonate the nostalgic memories into a new game, then Rise of the Triad (2013) is a case of where it adheres entirely to the classic formula with graphical differences. Some might argue that this is to the detriment as the original Rise of the Triad wasn’t without its own share of issues the reboot inherits.
As someone who enjoys the shattered expectations that ROTT brings to old-school FPSs, it has always baffled me how this game never got wide acceptance in spite of its flaws. If people can accept what kind of old-school FPS experience it wants to be, and not what people assume from these games, there is a great experience to be had that keeps true to what people love about these old-school FPS. It’s not a perfect game nor is the foundation it is built upon without its issues; however, most complaints about the gameplay come across as misunderstanding the niche appeal of ROTT and how it manages to stand itself out from the other FPSs of the past as well as the present.
– Real player with 27.4 hrs in game
Blood: Fresh Supply™
Of the holy trinity of Build Engine games BLOOD is arguably the best one!
TL;DR: BLOOD is fast, intricatly designed, extremely fun to play, and also really hard. The Level Design is great and the maps flow into each other seamlessly. The Enemy Design is perfect, each enemy type is distinguishable and requires a different approach, which leads to an infinite amount of possible and engaging encounters. I recommend this game to anyone with an ounce of appreciation for FPS games.
BLOOD is my favourite FPS game of the 90s and one of my favourite video games in general. It may not be as influential as Doom or Quake, but it has a special place in my heart due to its charm.
– Real player with 52.2 hrs in game
I genuinely enjoyed this 90s shooter more than i enjoyed Doom Eternal this year. ‘Nuff said.
– Real player with 46.0 hrs in game