I expected something set in 1920s, maybe. Instead, it’s modern days, 1999, to be exact. Story resembles Condemned the most: the guy was a runaway as a kid, divorced after losing his son, returns to his hometown to attend mother’s funeral. Discovers that homeless people are going crazy, and some specops dudes killing them, while the police hunting for a serial killer. And of course he gets framed as that serial killer himself.
In addition to a regular inventory the character also has inventory of thoughts, represented as pictograms. This acts as both quest log and dialog options.
Narrative-wise, it’s close to Ghost Trick. If the character dies, he rewinds the time, getting another chance.
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Category: PC Gaming
Об играх
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Drifter
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Evil Islands
Completed Evil Islands.
The only good thing from Act 3 is that you can get a really good spear from one of the companions early. Otherwise, it’s the same critfest, if not worse. Either you crit and kill your enemy, or they crit you. My guess is that authors wanted it to be a stealthy game until the very end, but considering how well enemies see and hear you in the 3rd Act, it’s not very enjoyable. And it’s ridiculous that having maxed out melee, I still can’t land a hit on the Imperial Guardsman.
The last stretch has you deactivate a magic minefield. For some reason, they decided it’s a good idea that the only way to do that is to use two spells that you aren’t automatically given. And the only way to equip spells is to head back to town. way to equip spells is back in town. Have a great journey!
The actual story is surprisingly good. Zak is the male of the ancient race, which explains everything: how he lost his memory, why he ended up where he ended, why he was so attracted to the female of the ancient race. It’s just not clear why the curse is in the form of a flying demon. And it’s such a weird final boss. Even with all the levelling, and the armor given specifically for the final battle, it kills you in 2 hits. You have the Magician helping you, that hits it three times before he dies. So you just need to finish it off in the few seconds you have left.
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Evil Islands
I’d thought I’ll never reach that point, but finally I can take on a blue troll. It takes time, as I can only can deal damage with crits. But at least I can outheal troll’s damage. Unicorns are even worse, since I don’t have a defence from their lightning, and they can be hit only with a spear. One thing you can give credit for: it’s a rare RPG that gives you a reason to use something besides swords.
Reached Act 3. I understand what they did, but I don’t like it: random quest in Act 3 gives you more XP than your final quests in Act 2, two chests on the first map give you more money that you could have accumulated in the previous act as well. It brings you up to speed, but while I killed blue trolls an hour ago, I can’t kill a random guard now, and die to a bunch of rats as well. Diablo 4 level of bullshit.
At one point you need to sneak past banshees, because they are too powerful for you. The problem is, they move in unpredictable manner, and have 360 vision.
Also, during the escape half of my armour got broken, including pants, and you can only repair them in town. So I fought mindflayers bareassed.
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Evil Islands
Due to the XP splitting I resort to leaving my companions back in town before completing quests, to get all the XP. Speaking of companions, the knight is great because he has some enchanted armor you can get from him.
The game has an actually solid upgrade system, which is just isn’t explained well. You can disassemble any item you have, and reassemble it using superior materials.
Disassembling items usually costs money. But there’s a bug, disassembling broken items actually gives you ton of money back. Recycling in Middle Ages 🤡
Reached the mines. The game is decisively unfun at this point, I’m not sure why I’m even doing that to myself. Almost ruined my playthrough when a troll chased me in the “green elves labyrinth”. Either trolls move to fast or see too far, but it almost impossible to sneak by them in those narrow valleys.
Then there’s fight with the magician Deidra, that kills you in 3 shots, because lightning passes through steel plate, and my character couldn’t hit her due to her ridiculously high defence. The only thing that saved me was a lucky critical.
And the game is all about those criticals. Another thing that is never explained properly, but it seems they can do x3 or even x5 damage, so it’s often better just to focus on them.
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Evil Islands
The writing is very much edgy early 2000s, the closest I can think of is probably Gothic series. The hero is a bit of a scoundrel, despite being amnesiac, accepting his role only because otherwise he’d be lynched, and looking for any way to escape. While the villagers try to screw him, the Elder by setting bandits or orcs on him directly.
I struggled with rescuing the Witch’s granddaughter sidequest, so I decided I’ll get to the Magician, level up and get back at the orcs. Instead, I was propelled to the 2nd Act, looking for lost Mayan princess in the snows. It’s humiliation all over again, as Zak can’t land a hit on enemies. And the two new companions are Archer and Mage, which makes Zak a tank, a role he’s clearly unfit for, even with a newly available set of metal armor.
I begin to understand why people play this game solo, despite it turning into a boring version of Diablo. Since the XP is divided between all characters and only Zak is transferred between acts, he has 3rd of the XP he could have if he completed the 1st Act alone.
I was wondering why the game looks so… flat. Turn out, GOG version has shadows permanently disabled.
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Evil Islands
I almost dropped the game when the only quest I had was getting the gold back from the caravan. It’s guarded by overpowered skeletons, which spot you from afar. But at some point I just got lucky with their random patrolling.
The quest with the ambush provided full set of better armour, which did help to push through. It’s ironic how Diablo 3 had those pilars of light coming out of items, while here I have to go back to town to discovered I actually picked a magical helmet.
The experience system is quite weird. You don’t have levels per say, but your character HP does increase with XP. Most of the perks are extremely expensive and quite useless. At first I thought I’d take Sword perk, then I understood it gives same 5 points to attack as directly increasing the melee skill. The only amazing perk is unassumingly called Actions, and it’s a permanent 15% haste to both attacks and casting.
The money problem got solved from an unexpected angle. Skeletons you find in Dead City drop bones, a crafting material. And a lot of bones. By selling them, I got more money than from all the previous quests combined.
Also in the Dead City, a dragon gives you an Ancient Sword. Not much damage, but it constantly casts Weaken on enemies, which reduces their total HP, making them easier to kill. -
Evil Islands
I think I even bought the original game back in the day, but never managed to progress far.
It’s supposed to be a fantasy RPG, but it actually feels more like espionage stealth: you can crawl, target enemy limbs, characters leave tracks, and if they step into pool of blood those will be bloody, but can’t open your inventory outside of cities.
The fact that you can get injured in arms or legs also means that it’s a rare system where badly damaged character is less deadly, as arm injury halves attack and cast speed.
I wonder if I dropped this game because it didn’t work well on my weak PC, or because it was too difficult. Even a goblin can kill the hero pretty quickly at first. Maybe I didn’t understand you can pick a companion early on. Still, it’s quite brutal, with characters dying from a couple of critical hits. And monsters have infinite agro, so you can’t just run away.
The game has elaborate crafting system, which you’d expect from a post Minecraft era more likely. You buy blueprints and materials, so a stone axe can be crafted from both simple stone, whatever that is, or granite.
Money is very limited, as monsters drop almost nothing. I barely have enough to keep my equipment repaired.
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Red Alert Remastered
I mentioned AI in the Soviet campaign getting reenforcements from offscreen. In Allied campaign, it’s actually worse. First I noticed more planes coming than AI had airfields. Then in some missions it will drop flamethrowing paratroopers that decimate buildings, and don’t exist in normal game.
Allies have more missions than require you to get a spy into a specific building, which caused a few Mission Fails for me because I would destroy it by mistake.
With all that, as I suspected from the Soviet campaign, once Allies get helicopters, it’s game over for the Reds. They simply don’t have a good enough counter to that, plus Tech Centre that reveals the entire map.
Evidence and Focused Blast are probably the most unfun missions in the entire game. The first gives you Tanya, but doesn’t explain it, while the second is just a chore
There are a few interesting ideas: like timer carrying out between missions. But they are more annoying than fun.
In the last mission, AI cheats a little, using Nuke even while not having a silo anymore. But other than that, it’s as I expected: helicopters all the way. The fun part is when you destroy enough buildings, AI attempts a zerg rush at you. But I still had to hunt the very last civilian to complete it.
The only positive about the Allied campaign is the satisfying ending.
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Red Alert Remastered
After enjoying Command&Conquer Remastered less than expected, I didn’t plan to play Red Alert, but I ended up finishing the Soviet campaign anyway.
What surprised me is that the campaign of Red Alert isn’t broken by remaster, unlike Command&Conquer. Which doesn’t mean that the game isn’t broken: Soviet V2 being able to destroy power station in a single hit or target off screen is insane. On the other hand, same V2 have troubles with their AI, and would sometimes refuse to fire.
Major change is how engineers work: now the building needs to be critically damaged in order to be captured. Otherwise, engineer will just chip at its health. Which is annoying, as either the building gets destroyed by one of your units shooting at it or by enemy unit, because it’s badly damaged.
Either SAM sites were made weaker or helicopters stronger, but now you need multiple SAM sites in one spot to fend off helicopters. And Soviets lack any mobile anti-air, it seems, except Mammoth tanks 🤡
One interesting detail is that if you capture Allied Tech Centre, it will reveal an entire map by launching a satellite, and you can see the rocket.
Penultimate mission is unnecessary evil. Not because it’s hard, it’s actually easier that some previous missions, but because you have to capture radars tucked the the most faraway corners of the map. I had to build transport just to get my engineers to that last radar.
In the last mission, AI cheats a bit, bringing reinforcements from off screen. But I think those stop once you destroy some of the Construction Yards, although that never explained properly. Nothing like a cruiser popping up to blast your base. Speaking of cruisers, they are also sprinkled in such a way that they blow all bridges, so you have to take the longest path possible. Ironically, paratroopera really help in that mission, as they are quite effective against buildings.
Despite all that, it’s a far more reasonable campaign than Command&Conquer Remastered, and I enjoyed it, despite how much they like to start missions with you being in the middle of a fight.
Funny that despite all the plot being built around Chronosphere, Allies never use it against you. Maybe they had trouble with AI. -
Path of Exile 2
Compared to Diablo 3, I feel there’s less cooldown management, but more effect management. Diablo 3 had modifiers on skills, but here each skill has at least two modifiers. Enemies hit by poison start bleeding, enemies killed from bleeding explode, enemies killed while being electicuted electricute others, it’s all a chain reaction.
Balbala the Traitor was the first side boss that had me pause.
She has a pit in the middle that spits poison fog, and I kept dying from it. She throws coins on the ground, so I thought that’s some kind of a ward. But those coins are actually summon spots for her minions. In any case, returning to her after a gaining few more levels helped. Turned out, it’s one of the most important sidequests, as it allows for Ascendancy, or specialization, in other words.
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Command&Conquer Remastered
I decided to try NOD campaign after all, if only for the CGIs, but on Easy. The difficulty is as I remember it, but on the other hand, the difficulty also lowers the costs of units, so still not the original experience. You can’t step in the same river twice, I guess.
I remembered the iconic scene where Seth gets executed in the middle of the briefing, but didn’t remember what that was about. Turns out, he wanted us to attack the Pentagon.
Another interesting detail, not sure how canon it is, but on the other hand, the entire C&C universe went to shit, so canon doesn’t matter: Kane says he was the one who discovered tiberium and gave it its name.
I was always fascinated that if you capture GDI Construction Yard with NOD, you can build helicopters. It’s such a specific mechanic, as GDI doesn’t have its counterpart, and also there’s just the final mission that has two enemy bases, so by the time you capture a Construction Yard, it isn’t Mission Accomplished yet. Later, Starcraft will have that mechanic as well, but not any other Command&Conquer game, as far as I can remember.
NOD campaign is also weird, because it has 13 missions instead of 15 for GDI. And I’m not sure if it’s a bug, but Temple of Nod allowed me to build only a single nuclear missile, which I wasted, because I was used to firing Ion Cannon every few minutes.
The ending is weird as well. Suddenly, Kane talks about netrunners and cyberspace, and there are three hackers trying to pass GDI cybersecurity defences and getting fried. How did it turn into cyberpunk, suddenly?
Also, for some reason Kane captures the Ion Cannon to frame GDI. Dude, you have built a nuke already. -
Path of Exile 2
I might say it as well now, this is everything I wanted Diablo 4 to be. The linear progression means you don’t fight level 50 hedgehogs. And the fact that enemy bodies do not disappear until you leave the zone adds to the spectacle.
By level 15 I got my first unique item, and by “unique” I mean actually a unique: it’s a mercenary coat that emits smoke.
It is curious that they decided to add friction with identify scrolls and tiny inventory without autosorting, but you don’t have item durability.
The bosses are such a spectacle, even the side-quest ones, like the Candlemass, a gargoyle that comes to life. Or even the pack of dogs in the circle of grass.
The Mansion is very interesting, as it clearly mimics Diablo 3 Cathedral design where you descent down a hole, getting close and closer to the bottom.
And the Count boss is clearly swordwielsing man-horse from Bloodborne, only he’s swordweilding man-wolf (which also explains why we were fighting werewolves when we weren’t fighting vampires). Speaking of vampires, those are Darkest Dungeon version, insectlike with clear bellies full of blood. The game has many inspirations.
Anyway, beating the count brings us to Act II, which is of course set in… a desert.
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Path of Exile 2
I never managed to get into Path of Exile 1. Similarly to Titan Quest, the Greek/Roman aesthetics doesn’t appeal to me for some reason. Path of Exile 2 is another story: it’s gothic style is less of Diablo, and more of Warhammer.
I usually like to play as Paladin, but since there’s none available, I went with crossbow wielding mercenary, a bit like Demon Hunter from Diablo 3. WASD movement and roll almost turns the game into twin-stick shooter. And the fact that one of the skills turns the crossbow into a shotgun helps too.
The system where you need to pick a skill instead of getting one after a level up takes some adjusting to, but not too much. You can pick any skill, but the game does suggest you some that should be more useful to your class.
Such a surprise that you can put the game on a pause. I got use to ARPGs forcing you to be always-on.
The best part of the game so far are the bosses. They are amazingly designed, clearly telegraph their attacks, and as I’ve already learned, deadly.
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Tiberian Sun Firestorm
Completed GDI campaign. I think I’ll skip NOD campaign, as I’ve seen most if not all of the new NOD units already, and there wasn’t much new to begin with.
To the best of my understanding, both the GDI and NOD endings are somewhat canon, because when you start the expansion campaign for GDI, they say they lost contact with Philadelphia space station (because NOD shot it down), but they need to recover Cabal, NODs AI, from the ruins of the temple, which you destroyed at the end of GDI campaign. Cabal then quickly betrays you, and you have to put it down.
It seems that the pace of units getting experience has been increased, as in the Tiberian Sun, I rarely had a veteran unit,
The new GDI unit, Juggernaut, is awesome. It’s a better version of NOD artillery, firing three shells instead of one, albeit less accurately. There’s a mission where you need to pair it with GDI commando, Ghost Stalker. The only issue in that mission is the commando himself, as he’s unable to shoot up slopes 🤦♂️
Only the final GDI mission is really difficult, or unnecessarily evil, as you start extremely close to enemy artillery positions without many options to tackle them. Luckily there’s no time limit in this one.
One final surprise is that once you capture three key points, a huge robot appears, and you need to destroy Cabal before that robot reaches your base, as it destroys almost any unit in a single shot.
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Tiberian Sun
Completed the NOD campaign.
Once NOD gets artillery, it’s game over for GDI. The most overpowered artillery since Ground Control. It is even smart enough to deploy automatically once in range.
Story is still rough. You complete a mission, and the next thing you know, Slavic is captured by GDI, then rescued by Cyborg Commando. What is Cyborg Commando? It’s actually never explained.
The final mission is a bit underwhelming. It also has a timer, and I thought that after placing the 3 ICBMs it will just stop, and I would still need to deal with GDI forces, but no, it’s the end of the campaign. And I didn’t even get to try the UFO-like Banshees. -
Tiberian Sun
On one hand, it feels like I should have started with the NOD campaign, because Kain first introduced in it, and it has tutorial tips, which I didn’t notice in the GDI campaign. On the other hand, it still feels like I’ve started watching from the middle of the show. Who’s Hassan and why is he taking order from GDI? In general, it feels like the cutscenes for NOD were done by another person. Who loved to use the fisheye effect.
Generally, the campaign feels easier. I still hate the ion storm missions, though, because you don’t have a minimap, and playing RTS without a minimap is a pain. Then both “Salvage Operation” and “Capture Umagon” missions made me scratch my head, a lot. They both can be completed in a couple of minutes. I’m just not entirely sure how. In Salvage Operation, you’re given a meager force to capture the downed UFO and intercept a train, which is almost impossible, unless you know where the train stops, and then you don’t even need to capture the UFO.
And in Capture Umagon, you have about a minute to intercept her, which is incredibly hard. Unless you just know where the train appears, and then you can just bomb that place preemtively 🤡 -
Tiberian Sun
Completed GDI campaign.
Out of all the GDI missions, “Weather the Storm” is the worst one. You aren’t allowed any flying units due to ion storm, which means you have no way to counter NOD artillery. You also have no map.
And the last mission is though. The real problem is the time limit of 1 hour, otherwise, if would be as any other mission. The idea is that you reset the time limit by hunting the ICBM sites, but this isn’t explained at all. Once I did, though, it was bomber-time. In the final mission it’s quite pointless to destroy enemy buildings, as it’s able to rebuild them almost instantly, so you need to hunt the construction yards. And in fact there are 3 AIs and 3 separate construction yards, but you wouldn’t know that, because they are all the same red color.
As a kid I thought I don’t understand what characters are saying, because my English is not good enough. Turns out, the audio isn’t good enough: you often can’t hear the actors due to music and background noises.
Overall, I enjoyed Tibrian Sun much more than the first time, despite somewhat akward controls and terrible unit aiming: my Mammoth MK2 was firing at a target few steps ahead, and not hitting it, because there was some bump, while missiles would hit cliffs instead of SAM sites above.
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Tiberian Sun
The game works well on modern PCs, but since it’s not a remake, the control scheme isn’t modernized. You issue orders with LMB, you cannot select units of the same type with double-click, and the waypoints work weirdly.
As a kid, I completed this game, but didn’t like it. First C&C was straightforward, especially with GDI that had Mammoth tanks. In Tiberian Sun, everything was weird: you could build just one Mammoth, and it was this AT AT with a gauss cannon. NOD artillery couldn’t fire until deployed. Tanks could transform into turrets. And so on.
Now, though, I appreaciate it much more. Missions are like puzzles, and actually encourage exploration: you can find bonuses or alternative paths.
The way campaign is structured is interesting as well. You can do side-missions, that make the main missions easier. Although sometimes it’s hard to figure out which is the side mission and which advances the plot.
One aspect I don’t appreciate is the need to hunt down every SAM site and even destroy fences or complete a mission.
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Command&Conquer Remastered
I feel like as a kid, I missed a lot of the story. Like the fact that the government and scientists try to hide that tiberium is toxic at first, and soldiers getting infected as a result. Or that NOD uses a journalist for propaganda, claiming that GDI destroyed and orphanage. Or that the UN cuts funding to the GDI. The story is quite prophetic for ’95, I must say.
Honestly, I didn’t enjoy GDI campaign as much as I thought I would. Maybe it’s the broken balance, but I ended up running out of money all the time, while opponent obviously cheats, gaining more money from each harvester.
Ironically that I remembered Warcraft 1 being hard, and Command&Conquer being easy, while now it’s completely opposite, at least for the remakes.
I was enjoying the final mission, until Hand of Nod started firing. First, I don’t remember it being able to obliterate multiple buildings. And second, AI is able to use it twice in a row, erasing your base.
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Command&Conquer Remastered
I already praised the remake when it came out, but I only played it briefly.
The UI now supports production queueing for units and is divided into 4 tabs instead of 2: infantry, vehicles and superweapons are separate. You can now double-click to select all units of the same type, and also use more common nowadays RMB to issue commands, instead of LMB in the original. No waypoints for units or rally points for buildings, or attack-move, though.
The remake exposes how much old RTS games relied on AI being dumb. If you turn on the new AI, harvesters become a menace, since you can only produce infantry units in the early missions, and harvesters absolutely hunt them down.
Where I think the game breaks is in the commando mission. It’s a classic, you’re given just a commando with a sniper rifle, and need to sneak into the base the blow it. Easy day. But because of the new AI, the entire enemy base swarms at you.
I had to check that I’m not imagining things, so I actually downloaded the original Windows 95 version, and it is indeed much easier.
