BioForge

The Good
This would be one of those games that you just past by on when you look at the shelf. Nothing particularly interesting about the box to that makes you say "Buy me...buy me...". This unfortunate lack of publication has Bioforge in the hall of overlooked games - section.

Combat is more of a brawl than fighting. It's either punch or kick in a very rugged way. Kinda cool actually, considering you look pretty heavy for an oversized cyborg.

If there were a game to describe certain respect of the graphics involved, this game would be it. Not bad considering the year of publication, the game had state-of-the art graphics then blended nicely with the surrounding animations.

Now one thing in particular about the game that should be appaulded was the in-game physics. This can be particulary seen when you are in combat, spesicially using laser guns. The lasers when fired 'bounce' off hard surfaces (e.g. walls) into other directions like a billiard game. Now this to my opinion is fascinating as rarely does the background graphics interact with primary animations such as the character. The fact that lasers bounce of any 'graphic' into a mathematical angle means that they made the background one big mathematical matrix. So the background isn't just for looks.

The Bad
I do recall at certain times being frustrated on what to do next. Lack of hints (or more possibly lack of IQ on my part) or connections between two events made it quite puzzling. There were often many occurences where you do the standard 'use every item you have on every object in the game' approach. Sometimes it works, often it doesn't.

Combat as I said was kind of rugged. Not many moves besides your punch and kick. Although laser combat kinda made up for it, It would be nice to see additional features in combat mode.

The Bottom Line
A good game, one worth buying if you happen to come across it.

The Good
The story is intricately constructed and reveals much over the course of the game through some pretty elaborate data files, (that's books to you and me.) It also develops very nicely, with you, initially being thrown right in the middle of it and wanting to find out what the hell's going on. The graphics were amazing at the time, Bioforge was one of the first games to feature texture mapping and damage skins on the characters with your character even going so far as to limp when wounded or collapse when near death. The puzzles are very well balanced and are nice and challenging so adventurers should be kept happy. The combat is also complex and once you get the hang of it, it can be quite fun...

The Bad
...The combat is also a little sluggish and often leaves you wide open for attack when it counts a double tap as two performances of the same move. The sound and voices are a little tedious because of repetition and lastly, the story doesn't finish properly and there was sadly no sequel so we never really get to discover what happens.

The Bottom Line
A highly underrrated action adventure with a sci-fi feel to it. It's story and puzzles should keep players occupied for quite a while. That is, if you can locate a copy.

The Good
This is an action-adventure of grand proportions. The game has an excellent storyline, and a demanding but effective way of evolving the intricate plot. The game starts out with you waking up in an alien jail, as a nearly finished cyborg, with no memory whatsoever of your past, or even your name. From here on, the player is left completely on his/her own. This is what makes the game so great. There is a constant feeling of threat. Weird experiments, weird aliens and weird machines all threatens to kill your character. The game does not tell the player or show the way in any obvious way. There are clues, in the many, excellently written, journals that are scattered throughout the base, but the game offers an immense feeling of freedom, and confusion for that matter, this is a difficult game. You become very involved in the poor character's destiny and because the plot is so good you really do everything you can to find out more. The character descriptions in the journals are excellent and gripping, and I haven't seen anything like it since this game. When the end finally comes, the character has gone through changes, been through a lot of disturbing situations and seen things no human has ever seen before. Afterwards the game leaves you with an empty feeling in your stomach, hungry for more. Indeed a grand adventure.

The Bad
However a great game, it is a VERY difficult game. It is a must to save at many different locations. Do not use only one save-file, because you WILL find yourselves in situations where you are done with, where the only option is giving up, loading a previous game and trying a different approach. This can be very frustrating, when you think you've done something right, just to realize that you should have done something else first, and therefore are doomed to a certain death. This sometimes adds to the suspense and the great feeling of constant threat, but sometimes it just makes you crazy. It is not fun replaying large parts of the game just because you forgot some little thing. After all, the cyborg moves very clumsy and slowly, which can be frustrating in itself, especially in the action sequences. Imagine trying to fight a space marine when your character moves like a rusty old garbage-can. I especially recall a very frustrating sequence when the character is attacked by some strange robotic shrimps. It was hell beating them up. These aspects can make the game harder than it needs to be. It is challenging as it is already. Bad controls and extremely difficult puzzles and the fact that you have to do certain things in the right order, with very few clues on what to do, makes the game a bit frustrating at times.

The Bottom Line
A grand action adventure with one of the best plots, and best character-descriptions in the history of computer games. A game that is actually gripping, disturbing and exiting all at once.