Chasm: The Rift

The Good
Combat is very lively. Monsters are animated well and AI is above average, certainly better than that found in some of the other games from the same era. Monsters have more than one attack mode which they probably need since you can blast their limbs off. With the more powerful PCs we have now, playing this game at 640x480 with smooth frame rates is a total blast! Click on the link in the Related Sites section to see an example of gameplay.

The Bad
Its a DOS game so making it work in XP has been a pain in the ass. Fiddling with the compatibility mode settings made it run, but the problem was that it would crash when loading a level after a mission briefing. Everybody suggested Dosbox (currently v0.73) but that way you can only get a decent frame rate when you play at low resolution and that sucks. Eventually, what I did was that I would run it on Dosbox first, load a level and then save the game. Then I would run it in XP compatibility mode and load the game, thereby skipping the mission briefing. Other than that, everything works ok with no crashes during actual play. Its also a good idea to save a game before level completion. That way you won't get stuck if the game starts the next level with a mission briefing. Wish someone would just release a patch for this.

The Bottom Line
There were a lot of great games released back in the 1990s. It was a revolutionary time in the PC gaming industry what with Microsoft pushing to get people off DOS and onto NT, consumer priced 3D-accelerators taking off on the backs of big name 3D games like Quake and online head-to-head type games starting to become a worldwide phenomenon. Some games like Chasm The Rift, just didn't get the opportunity to really shine but if you're willing to put some elbow grease into it, you'll probably get a chance to see what a real 90s classic PC game looks like :)