NetHack

The Good
What's likable about this game? Well, you have to go back waaaaay back in time to understand. Back in the time of green CRTs. That's right, the yellowish beige monitors connected by a serial cable to a Unix server in universities back in the early eighties. I'm no historian, but from what I can recollect is that back then, people relied on a few Unix games, notably one named "adventure", but these were text-based adventure games. Rogue came in with a more complete full-screen interface, then came hack, then came nethack.

What is likeable about nethack? Well it's an easy way to get back to that period, with a game that has been ported to many platforms and is still developed. The game is complex if you like high learning curves.

This is a handy game if you want to impress your friends by showing that an obscure operating system such as DG/UX or Tru64 can actually run a game instead of a business application, although Nethack is not what I could call a modern game.

I haven't played it enough to qualify it as a classic. I compiled it in my box and tried it out of curiosity. But it has a big following which makes me believe that there is more than meets the eye. Time will tell.

The Bad
Absolutely horrible and hard to master interface, but having been introduced to Unix systems in the nineties under the X Window influence, it's probably just me.

The Bottom Line
Nethack (and its ancestor, Rogue) has been best described by a Unix admin friend of mine many years ago as "The game were you fight with a semi colon".

So if you enjoy fighting semi colons, this game is for you.

The Good
Everything. Control, Script (that is, if you call it a script) characters, random generation, all the monsters, all in all, it is a very well-done game. Some might argue "Oh, the graphics suck." So what? Who ever said Graphics were everything? At first, I thought it looked a bit strange, but the tiled (graphical) version attracted me towards it, and I was hooked. I even know of kids who like this game! There is so much depth to how it works, I mean, how many games are there where you can wield a cockatrice corpse and turn people to stone with it? Or, how many games are there where your pet will rob shops for you, and where you can pray? Also, how many games use 75% of the letters on the keyboard, with extended commands, in addition to the arsenal of functions already available? And how many games can send you your e-mail while you're playing?

The Bad
The difficulty can always be a pain. Explore mode is alway available, though! And it's a great way to learn the game without dying at experience level 2. I still don't see how anyone could beat it without backing up save files, as Nethack deletes the save you were working off of (that is, if you saved at all) when you die, and dying can happen fairly often. Also, there is no in-depth story to it all, which would be nearly impossible, as content is randomly generated. And yes, the graphics are inferior, but hey, There's always Falcon's Eye. Also, there is hardly any sound, as music is only played while you use instruments, and even then, I couldn't get my soundcard to work...

The Bottom Line
My personal favorite computer game. A truly edifying gaming experience. Definitely not a game that you want to play because of its superior graphics. A very fun game. If you think it looks strange, and don't play it because of that, it's your loss, as you are really missing out.

The Good
It is comprehensive: it has great scads of races, of items, of dungeons (quest levels, a Sokoban game, the Gnomish Mines &c.); even the kitchen sink. It never gets old: just when one thought one knew it all, some new thing leaps out. After NetHack, every other game pales and is boring.

The Bad
It is hard, probably the hardest game I've ever played. It'll keep drawing you in and killing you off. Just as NetHack has more items, monsters and types of levels than other games, so too it has more ways to die: being killed outright; starving; choking to death; eating too much food; poisoning; petrification; being crushed by boulders; falling down stairs; donning an amulet of strangulation; and so on and so forth. It is a tough game.

The Bottom Line
Well worth playing. It's available for nearly every platform, and there's even a GUI (Falcon's Eye, I believe) available. It requires thought and consideration--there's no such thing as an unfair death (or any other negative occurrence) in NetHack: it's always winnable, and always possible to think one's way out.