Forsaken

The Good
You have to look at Forsaken in the context it was created: Descent on steroids. It's not meant to be deep, strategically challenging, or even fair: It's a hoverbike-blasts-everything universe, and Forsaken allows the player with even a 1st-generation 3D accelerator to go nuts and shoot at everything that moves. In that context, it delivers.

Not that 1st-generation people get to have all the fun: If you have a decent accelerator, a force-feedback joystick, and a subwoofer, prepare for carpal tunnel syndrome.

The Bad
Forsaken suffers from the same problems that all shooters do: If the enemies get too hard too quickly, the player gets frustrated. Assume that you'll get frustrated about six times an hour while playing.

The Bottom Line
If you want to shoot, then shoot! Forsaken is not supposed to be a deep, philisophical experience. :-)

The Good
Great graphics for the time, and even now they look quite nice. Multiplayer is an awesome experience and it comes with a good number of maps, which are rather well designed for multiplayer mayhem. Mini-nukes!! A high "BOOM, TAKE THAT, BCH!" factor.

The Bad
Lack of add-on maps for multiplayer. (This can be attributed to the game being 3D.. community 3D map editors were unheard of at the time.)

The Bottom Line
What the some reviews of this game seem to forget is that Forsaken was released during the great LAN party boom of the mid- to late-90's and was therefore designed primarily as a Multiplayer experience. Single player mode really only exists as a way to train your skill before you jump into the fray with your friends. Six years later, I'm not sure if you'd go for this or something like Descent 3 for a similar experience, but if you do try Forsaken, there's plenty of opportunity to have a great experience.

The Good
As 'Descent 3' appeared to have been terminally delayed, and sidetracked by the otherwise-unrelated 'Freespace' series, this was produced in order to update the concept. Technically, it's stunning - the graphics whizz by attractively, and there is a neat implementation of water at one point. Gameplay-wise, it's adequate - it isn't at all deep, and revolves around shooting things lots, and it doesn't take too long to finish, either. It's fun for a short while, and then you forget about it.

The Bad
On the other hand, the shallow gameplay gets to you after a while. The game lacks any kind of character, either, being a mish-mash of borrowed cyberpunk ideas.

Worst of all, however, is the fact that the bad guys materialise from thin air, always in the most obvious places, at the most obvious times. Playing the game therefore becomes a matter of entering a new area, shooting at the bad guys, moving to where the next lot will appear, triggering them, and shooting them.

The Bottom Line
Shallow, fun, brief shoot-em-up fun. Like 'Incoming', all sound and fury without much substance.

The Good
I do have to admit the 3D engine looks extremely good...

The Bad
... but the controls are terrible, gameplay just gets to you after three seconds, and the game itself simply has no point. The sound effects are really, REALLY annoying too.

The Bottom Line
Just stay away from it...