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 First-Person 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
The Stalin Subway
The setting of this Russian-produced FPS turns out to be a specifical kind of joke, when the serious part of content is sticked to the comical one, so you cannot say when it’s switching to one part or another.
From one side, Orion Games thouroughly chose the weapon set, buildings' textures, the exact way of main protagonist, Gleb Suvorov - there are rumors that Metro 2 tunnels, for example, indeed have an entrance somewhere near the MSU, the nearest station to the LIPAN is indeed “Sokol”, in 1952 there was no “Tverskaya” station between “Ploshad Slerdlova [Teatralnaya]” and “Mayakovskaya”… The large weapon set is very accurate to the models which were in 1952, some inaccuracy comes from the work of a few weapons (PPSh-41 was an open-bolt weapon, not closed-bolt, e.g.), and the fact that istead of PPSH-41 and SVT-40 there would be a higher chance to have PPS-43 and Mosin 1944 carbine.
– Real player with 22.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best First-Person FPS Games.
The Stalin Subway, also known as “Metro-2”, which should not be confused with the famous AAA-serial “Metro”.
It is a very old (released in 2006) Russian FPS game, based on a fictional story of some hilarious coup d’etat plot of Beria (state security minister) with the aim to kill Stalin himself, by blowing the Vozhd away completely with an atomic bomb blast. One young KGB officer is raising himself against this plot, which results in thousands of killed soviet people. So, if you are eager to kill Ruskies no matter what’s the cause… you might even like it. The gameplay is typical for the late ’90s-early ’00s cheap FPS games… Especially if you’re familiar with Cenega or City Interactive products of the same age.
– Real player with 8.6 hrs in game
Battlezone 98 Redux
Important disclosure here: Prior to the release of BZ98R (and still to this day), I have been a player of the original game up until it’s final unofficial patch version 1.5.2.27 U1. This game is entirely based on this community patch.
People who have played 1.5 are going to feel differently about the game than people who last played it 20 years ago (1.3, 1.31, 1.4…). The same goes for people who had never played BZ98 in any form prior to purchasing this game.
This review involves numerous statements of objective fact but it was still written by someone who was playing 1.5 for years prior to the release of this game.
– Real player with 8710.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best First-Person Retro Games.
This is the best game you’ve never played. It’s the hidden gem of hidden gems.
Set in an alternate 1960s where the space race is just a cover for a cold war turned hot, the United States and Soviet Union secretly deploy massive armies into space in pursuit of an extra-terrestrial substance, bio-metal, that can be used to craft amazing and powerful weapons of war. The National Space Defense Force (NSDF) and Cosmos Colonist Army (CCA) do battle over control of the bio-metal throughout the solar system using hover tanks crafted from the precious material. Battlezone has some of the best sci-fi lore of any game- don’t skip over the briefings and debriefings!
– Real player with 321.0 hrs in game
Pathologic Classic HD
Hands down, the best game I have ever played!
Pathologic is a very ambitious, very unique, genre-bending, medium-defining video game which does things no other game has done before or since. It is also devilishly vague, extremely difficult, incredibly slow and takes place entirely within one small greyish town over a period of about 30 hours. But as you go on you realise its incredibly slow pacing, its single greyish location, its trudging from one place to another are all essential to creating such an incredible atmosphere and game.
– Real player with 117.1 hrs in game
This game already has thousands of reviews for it, and nobody is likely to read this one, so I’m not sure why I’m bothering to write it. Then again, I’m not sure why I bought this game to begin with, or played it, or dedicated myself to completing all three scenarios and collecting every achievement over 70 grueling hours. In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess.
Actually, I lied a bit there. I know why I bought this game, if nothing else. Like many here, I heard about Pathologic when its remake/sequel came out, and several popular YouTube channels featured intriguing summations of the game and declared it a lost gem. Despite their praise, though, the videos were almost pitched as dares, warning potential players about the game’s infinite rough edges, grinding difficulty, and uniquely eccentric approach to the relationship between the player and the game. Depending on how deep you go down the Pathologic rabbit hole, the fourth wall will be anything from ‘leaned on’ to ‘completely bulldozed.’
– Real player with 70.7 hrs in game
D: The Game
As a fan of the late Kenji Eno (R.I.P) and the now defunct WARP Studios games, I was really happy to see that D (WARP’s first game to be released outside of Japan) is now easily accessible on Steam.
D was originally made for the short lived 3DO in 1995 and was ported to the Sega Staurn, PS1, and MS DOS (which is this version). The gameplay is akin to 1993’s Myst, with the entire game being an fmv. Yet, unlike Myst, everything is fully animated. So if you want to get somewhere, you are going to have to walk there using a pre-set path. It’s kinda slow, but it really helps build the atmosphere.
– Real player with 4.8 hrs in game
I own this game on Playstation, 3DO, Saturn and now on Steam, and I don’t regret paying for it again, even though it hasn’t aged well, and even though this is a fairly mediocre DOSBox port.
D is an on-rails horror-suspense game from the 90s. You play as Laura Harris, daughter of Dr. Richter Harris, a famous physician who, for some reason, has suddenly decided to murder everyone in his hospital and disappear inside the building. You have two hours (in real time) to figure out why, with no saving, interactive movie-style.
– Real player with 4.1 hrs in game
FOTONICA
FOTONICA is an adrenaline rush, at the very least. A high speed running game with one button as the sum total of a player’s control. Don’t think of that as a limitation. Quite the opposite. Since this is first and foremost a sensory experience type of game, deriving much from little, it would be unfortunate if even the smallest part of a player’s attention were taken from the screen.
The player, as “runner”, travels very minimalistic landscapes. Some are vaguely identifiable, such as rooms in a sort of building. (The more identifiable the terrain, the faster landscapes seem to go by as the eye/brain connection struggles for context.) The runner also jumps, but I hesitate to call this a platformer. It does have platformer characteristics, such as the pink dots one attempts to acquire by contact. And the varying size and levels of platforms. Some game levels, in fact, are almost entirely platforms. These are generally the more difficult; as players struggle to attain the secondary goal, SPEED.
– Real player with 24.1 hrs in game
FOTONICA is a first-person platforming/running game developed by Santa Ragione. Become one with the speed of sound while you try to survive each level on every difficulty and try to beat your previous highscore.
| | Poor | Bad | Average | Good | Superb | Explanation |
| Design & Visuals | | | |
X
| | Minimalistic graphics for a minimalistic game, uniquely designed levels |
– Real player with 23.7 hrs in game
Shadowgate
Journey once more into the castle Shadowgate
Do you remember having a favorite video game that it seemed not many other people fully appreciated? One that you were completely obsessed with, spent tons of time with played over and over again, gathered every bit of information on it that you could? For some people, the games that they find themselves so devoted to end up becoming big series, with numerous sequels. For others, those games get periodic sequels and live on. And for yet others those games just sort of fade away, becoming forgotten in time.
– Real player with 141.9 hrs in game
Shadowgate is a re-imagining of the point-and-click adventure game released almost three decades ago, under the same name, on NES and Mac. Given these origins, your motivations for venturing into Castle Shadowgate are about what you would expect: you are a hero who must defeat an evil warlock. The graphics, music and the majority of puzzles have been reworked; new, voice-acted cutscenes and story elements have been peppered throughout; while the mysterious atmosphere and memorable locations of the original remain intact, along with the option to use the retro soundtrack.
– Real player with 37.5 hrs in game
Super 3-D Noah’s Ark
This game is probably the best game from the Wolf3d engine which you never heard of in the 90s. When this first hit steam and I came aware of it, I looked and instantly recognised the engine. I knew it was going straight to my wishlist and soon got it.
I didn’t play it at first for a few reasons. The screenshots show a hell of a lot of brown to rival Quake. Partly the religious side of things and you need to be in the right mood for an old game in the days when you have lots of other things you can play.
– Real player with 139.5 hrs in game
This is actually a really fun game. I’m having more fun with it than I originally thought I would be.
Super 3-D Noah’s Ark is a labyrinth FPS from the DOS era which used and upgraded Wolfenstein 3D’s engine. It added a few cool things like MIDI support and texture-mapped floors and ceilings. This version on Steam has been repolished and ported over to modern operating systems, so now there’s no need to use DOSBoX to emulate it!
The quality of this port is really good. The sound quality has been bumped up significantly, it can play in 1080p with true 16:9 aspect ratio (no stretching), the mouselook feels natural and it supports mods. This release also has achievements and trading cards, which is more than what most re-releases or remakes get.
– Real player with 12.8 hrs in game
Realms of the Haunting
Wow! What an amazing game! I’ve never played it before or back in the day so this was a first impression. It’s such a huge 20 chapter adventure of FPS, scares, puzzles, cutscene movies and story, that you get so engaged in it, it really feels like you are controlling a character in a movie.
The graphics are impressive for the time, the mapping especially is so well thought out and designed that I was always amazed whenever I arrived at a new location. It’s not all hallways and darkness, there’s such a variety of fantasy like locations that it never gets dull.
– Real player with 25.7 hrs in game
This game took me about 20 hours, I wouldn’t say it necessarily earns all of that length. You should know before you get into this that this is not really a horror game, it’s an adventure game where the first half has heavier horror elements than the second, which leans more into the surreal cosmic world that it builds up.
Most people’s gripe is with the controls, but honestly it only took me a little bit to adjust to the antiquated first-person movement, although you SHOULD absolutely read the manual before playing to get an idea of how to play.
– Real player with 19.8 hrs in game
killer7
amazing experience. truly nothing like it. suda really outdid himself and ive never been pulled into such a story so fast before. its worth every cent and if i could i would pay $60 for it.
– Real player with 45.1 hrs in game
this might be the closest a video game will ever get to “art” in the way that film is able to
play it
don’t look up a youtube video about it. don’t look up an article about it on google
play it
– Real player with 29.6 hrs in game