(Updated 2000 Oct 20)
Gizmo's Game Reviews
Notes:
Index:
Carmageddon
Good fun. The sequel lacks the fun of the original for some reason.
Sports Car GT
Excellent graphics, and pretty hard. I was doing donuts in the grass without
even trying.
Need for Speed 3
I couldn't play it at better than 640x480. It's pretty fun, though not two
generations better than NFS1, which was by far the best driving game for
its time (out of those that I played, anyway).
Nascar Revolution
A disk hog, and I can't even get it to recognize my joystick. I don't like
digital driving using the keyboard, so that isn't tolerable.
AMA Superbike
The graphics are excellent.
Viper Racing
Good graphics without being particularly resource-demanding. It's a nice
feeling to turn on all the bells & whistles, at 1024x768 resolution, and
still get around 50 frames per second.
Redline Racer
A fair game in terms of difficulty. After figuring out the controls, I was
immediately competitve on the medium setting on the easy tracks, and sucked
on the harder ones. The game advertises graphic crash scenes, but I have
the misfortune of preferring the first-person camera angle, where I am not
permitted the out-of-body experience of watching myself from the outside.
EA SuperBike
The graphics are only okay. It doesn't take full advantage of hardware acceleration,
so I have to play at 640x480 with not all the bells & whistles on. The game
is rasonably hard; it takes me three to five attempts to win a race at the
easiest level when I try a new track. There are many tracks, ten or so,
and you don't need to have achieved some skill level to try one out.
Aliens vs. Predator
Pretty fun. You can choose to be the Alien (cool), Predator (cooler), or
Marine (kind of boring). In the early levels you're basically obliterating
hopelessly overmatched troops, which is quite satisfying.
Jedi Knight
I haven't gotten very far yet. I'm looking forward to devloping Jedi powers,
and I'm dying to get my hands on a light saber.
G-Nome
A mech game. The interface is nice, although I haven't gotten very far into
the game.
Quake II
I didn't like the original Quake, I have to say, in that it wasn't morefun
than Doom. Quake II, though, is a *lot* of fun.
Starseige
Compared to G-Nome, the other mech game I've played a little, better graphics
(it came out quite a bit later) and a good learning curve. I bought it out
of respect for its successor, Tribes.
Thief
This is a fun game: a first-person shooter where you don't necessarily shoot,
a kind of thinking man's first-person shooter.
Tribes
I was pretty addicted to this game, a networked combination of a mech game
with paintball, on a 3-D obstacle course, and you can fly. The basics are
simple, but mastering the weapons is probably a full-time endeavor.
Unreal
I got this with my Sound Blaster Live! Value Card. There are some scary
bad guys, and the quality of the sound magnifies it. The engine is Quake2-like.
Prince of Persia
The graphics and animations are excellent, but the game engine annoyed me,
in that the default camera angle is not ideal.
Redneck Rampage
I like the idea of the game -- i.e. shootin' up stuff -- more than the actual
game, much like Deer Avenger. The mission objectives were not very clear.
Sin
Fun, but after a point, I needed to look at strategy guides on-line to beat
levels. That became annoying.
Heavy Gear
A mech game that I didn't take to. I would have liked a couple of easy missions
at the beginning to get my feet wet, but as it was, I had no clue.
Cybermage
This was from a few years ago. I liked the idea of the game -- a first-person
shooter with superpowers in a comic-book setting -- but the mission objectives
were pretty vague.
Starfleet Academy
The controls were okay, but the mission objectives weren't clear to me,
so I didn't stick with it.
Wing Commander Prophecy
Having played a lot of TIE Fighter, I was surprised that this game didn't
feel the same. It's good, but I haven't gotten very far.
Descent FreeSpace
It feels like a souped-up version of TIE Fighter, which is a good thing.
It's easier than Wing Commander Prophecy.
Descent III
It's basically the same as Descent I or II with modern graphics.
Triple Play '98
I got it to potentially be able to play on my LAN, but I haven't tested
it yet. It's better than the other baseball games I was able to play on
my P100, like Hardball or Tony LaRussa. ESPN Baseball was the previously
the most fun baseball game I had. ("And the whiff...")
NHL '99
I was impressed. It's very detailed, and the game play is fun.
NBA Live '99
I didn't like this game as much as the DOS Celtics vs. Lakers or Super Nintendo's
Techmo NBA. NBA Live seems to concentrate more on one-on-one basketball
rather than ball movement.
Armored Fist 2
Out of the three or so tank games I've played, I like this the best. The
action moves fast enough to keep me interested. The controls are good, but
the inability to customize them is a little frustrating.
F-15
I never put much time into detailed flight sims, so I put a lot of reliance
in the training missions. The training in F-15 is quite thorough.
Luftwaffe Commander
For a game engine that's a couple of years old, the graphics are pretty
nice.
Team Apache
Excellent graphics, nice controls, and challenging but not futile difficulty.
Wargasm
It has engines for attacking on foot, by tank, maybe by air also. The levels
were pretty boring in the beginning, so I didn't stick with it.
Fighter Squadron
This is a World War era flight sim. At the expense of accuracy, I would
like something equivalent to radar or an omniscient "wingman," rather than
be bored looking around for bad guys while on patrol.
Total Air War
There's something to be said for a good tutorial, and this game didn't have
one. An ideal tutorial walks you through step by step. Instead I found myself
taking a page of notes before each mission. Also, some of the buttons didn't
do what they were supposed to do. It's too bad, because maneuvering was
easier than in some other flight sims.
Falcon
I had heard good reviews for years, and they are aparently justified. Flying
dumbly is remarkably easy. The tutorial is more than thorough (with a brick
of a manual). The game lends itself to superficial hacks who just want to
shoot nearly defenseless targets or those who want campaigns.
BladeRunner
I don't like adventure games, but my liking the movie probably is offsetting
that. There is enough in this game to keep me interested. The implementation
for the image analyzer is outstanding; I want one in real life now.
Interstate 76
In driving games I always want to be able to shoot. Now I can. The soundtrack
is pretty cool too.
Diablo
Amazingly robust for a game that requires less than 100 MHz and fits on
a single CD.
Final Fantasy VII
The most addicting game I've played in a couple of years. I had to get off
of the game cold-turkey. It's a video game, but I actually get into the
plot.
Phantom Menace
Annoying because I couldn't control the camera angle. There were often times
where people I couldn't see were shooting at me. The Dreamcast version looks
cool though.
Warcraft
Like Carmageddon, I like the original better than the souped-up sequel.
I spent many a Saturday trying to beat a single level.
Braveheart
There were too many things to control. It was like a combination of Sim
City 2000 -- which I was terrible at -- and a Myth-like battle field. It
was a disk hog also.
Rites of War and Chaos Gate
Both are from the Warhammer series. I'm not a fan of turn-based games,
and these two were especially complicated for a novice such as myself.
Risk
Faithful to the board game, and the AI is reasonably hard. I have a cheap
version of Risk from one of the CDs where you get a bazillion games, and
I win over 80% of the time; not here though. One silly aspect is that for
multiplayer games, both computers need a copy of the CD.
Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty and Commandos: Behind Enemey Lines
Fun, but hard. Basically, you're running a squad of highly specialized
soldiers, i.e. The A-Team or Bridge on the River Kwai, but during WWII.
I can't even beat level one on BtCoD, so I got the previous incarnation,
BEL.
Axis and Allies
More complicated than Risk, but seemingly arbitrarily so. The complexity
didn't make the game more realistic or more fun; the reverse, rather.
Rebel Assualt II
Several years old, but a game I was addicted to. I actually perspired because
of this game. It's a good way to test a joystick; that's for sure.
Future Cop and Nuclear Strike
My guess is that these two games are by the same writers. Basically, you
go around in your vehicles and blow up stuff and opponents who are completely
overmatched. That's pretty cool.
Frogger
The first level is a souped up version of the old Atari game. Subsequent
levels are in a true, 3D environment.
Send questions or comments to Gizmo
This page is Lynx-enhanced.