WizardX

Wing Commander: Privateer (DOS)

Good, but not Great

The Good
The gameplay is immersive. This is one of the few games where it's more fun to avoid the main plot and just concentrate on exploring, trading, and upgrading your ship. Getting to play blockade runner with a hold full of illegal drugs by dive-bombing a planet on full-afterburner with a half-dozen confed ships on your tail is still possibly the most fun ever offered up in a WC game. Plus the idea of being able to switch "sides" at will between several competing groups is nice - it's theoretically possible to be allied to the pirates, the Kilrathi, and Confed all at once. And the music was some of the best MIDI work they had.

The Bad
The gameplay is blatantly ripped from Elite. I'm still amazed David Brabden didn't sue Origin - every aspect of the game EXCEPT the plotline is straight out of that classic, even down to most of the specific items you can trade in. Also, it got mind-bogglingly difficult towards the end of the plotline, with missions that took more than an hour to complete and far more bad guys than was really necessary. (and the add-on mission pack took that difficulty and upped it further. I know VERY few people who managed to complete it.)

The Bottom Line
Want to play Elite 3.0? Here ya go. Skip the plotline and just explore.

By WizardX on June 9, 2000

Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi (DOS)

Equally influential follow-up to one of the most influential games of all time.

The Good
It used an upgraded version of the same engine that powered the first game, so the nearly-perfect gameplay is still there. The addition of the Speech Pack, adding full speech to all the radio transmissions during flight, gave it an element of realism no game up to that point had. (it was not at all uncommon to start talking to your computer in the heat of battle, when one of your wingmates calls to you) Plus, its use of cinematics and storyline were ground-breaking at the time - no other game had an immersive plot like this, although you had little control over it, outside of the branching mission structure. The first time many of us saw this, with full speech over the opening story sequences, was something of a religious experience.

The Bad
They altered the ship characteristics slightly so that everything took less damage to blow up. This meant more, faster-paced dogfights. I appear to be one of the few people in this world who prefered the slower-paced, more realistic battles of the first game. (less bad guys, but you could spend 10 minutes jousting with a Gothri trying to kill it) Also, the game was a bit on the buggy side, ESPECIALLY with the Special Ops 2 add-in, which appeared to have gone through approximately half an hour of rigorous testing before release. Finally, if you're one of those who viewed Sound Blaster as the evil dictator of the computer sound industry in the 90s, here's the game to blame - it's almost universally agreed that no one program inspired more people to go buy SBs than this one.

The Bottom Line
A definate classic. Not quite as good as the original, but darned close, and gameplay wise, probably still superior to everything that came after.

By WizardX on June 9, 2000

Wing Commander (DOS)

One of those all-time classics everyone should play.

The Good
I bought this on my 11th birthday, less than a week after it came out, based solely on a preview in a magazine I liked, to go with my dad's brand-new 386/16 speedster. (old computer gurus can chuckle now) Now, a decade later, I still play it, and despite going through four computers, it's stayed on the hard drive of every one. The gameplay is still possibly the best of the series, with slower-paced, more realistic dogfights. (instead of the two-hits-and-they're-dead mentality of the sequels, you had to really WORK to take out the ships in this one) The music was incredible for its day (and still extremely good if you're lucky enough to have The Kilrathi Saga and its reorchestrated, digital soundtrack) . This and the Secret Mission addons probably still have the most interesting missions of all of them. (my all-time favorite may be the "escort the friendly Dralthi" mission) Finally, this seems to be the most overall immersive of the games. Just from talking with fellow WC fans, we've got tons of great war stories from this (and some from WC2) but few (if any) from any of the other games. (mine is when I took out a space station in a Scimitar with every system down, no missiles, and only one gun)

The Bad
Not much. The AI wasn't that great, but it was probably the best of its day. I'm probably the wrong person to ask, though - I've played it so much, I can predict what the AI is going to do 90% of the time. The Secret Mission disks were incredibly difficult at the time (old WC fans still get a cold sweat if you mention the Gwenhyvar) but seem easy if you've managed to pull yourself through Privateer.

The Bottom Line
Probably one of the top-10 best games of all time. This is one any fan, especially one raised on new games like Freespace, owes it to themselves to play for the sake of history.

By WizardX on June 9, 2000

Doom (DOS)

Quite possibly the best FPS ever made.

The Good
What's not to like? You've got big guns + lots of flesh-rending baddies = blood, blood, BLOOD! To this day, it's still my favorite overall FPS, and whenever I'm stressed out, I just boot it up, turn on God Mode, and run around recreating The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. After half an hour, my ying and yang are alligned again. It don't get much better than that.

The Bad
Um. Good question. Oh, after version 1.4, they decided to make "Respawn" mode not work with the hardest difficulty level. That took away some truly psychopathic fun. And the books it spawned were a bad idea.

The Bottom Line
If you're sick of the latest 3D wonders making your Voodoo 5 card crash every five minutes, try this for a little while instead. You'd be amazed how great gameplay can overcome 64-bit graphics.

By WizardX on June 8, 2000