1. Renegade Ops (PC)(Multidirectional Shooter)2. Borderlands 2 (PC)(FPS/RPG)3. Gunpoint (PC)(Puzzle Platformer)4. Robotrek (SNES)(RPG)5. The Tick (SNES)(Beat 'Em Up)6. Alien vs Predator (SNES)(Beat 'Em Up)7. X-Kaliber 2097 (SNES)(Action Platformer)8. Metal Slug (MVS)(Run and Gun)9. Shadowrun (SNES)(RPG)10. Quake II (PC)(FPS)11. The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang (SNES)(RPG)12. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (PC)(Action)13. A Story About My Uncle (PC)(Platformer)14. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (PC)(FPS)15. Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith (PC)(FPS)16. Catacomb (PC)(Top-Down Shooter)
17. Catacomb Abyss (PC)(FPS)18. Catacomb Armageddon (PC)(FPS)19. Catacomb Apocalypse (PC)(FPS)20. The Catacomb (PC)(Top-Down Shooter)21. Catacomb 3-D (PC)(FPS)22. EarthBound (SNES)(RPG)23. Quake II: Ground Zero (PC)(FPS)24. Quake II: The Reckoning (PC)(FPS)25. Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader (PC)(RPG)26. The 7th Guest (PC)(Puzzle)27. Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (PC)(RPG)28. Loom (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)29. Castlevania: Dracula X (SNES)(Action Platformer)30. System Shock 2 (PC)(Survival Horror FPS)31. Final Fantasy V (SNES)(RPG)32. Descent (PC)(FPS)33. Mortal Kombat 2 (SNES)(Fighting)34. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)35. Alien Shooter (PC)(Top-Down Shooter)
36. Alien Shooter: Fight for Life (PC)(Top-Down Shooter)
37. Alien Shooter: The Experiment (PC)(Top-Down Shooter)38. F.E.A.R. Extraction Point (PC)(FPS)
39. F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate (PC)(FPS)40. Among the Sleep (PC)(Survival Horror)41. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (PC)(FPS/RPG)42. Alien Shooter 2: Reloaded (PC)(Top-Down Shooter)43. Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (SNES via Super Mario All-Stars/Super Mario World)(Platformer)44. Star Wars Jedi Knight II - Jedi Outcast (PC)(FPS)45. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel: Claptastic Voyage (PC)(FPS/RPG)46. Risen (PC)(RPG)47. Shadowgrounds (PC)(Top-Down Shooter)48. Shadowrun Returns (PC)(RPG)
49. Mobile Forces (PC)(FPS)Getting close to the 50 spoiler cutoff.
Shadowrun ReturnsI went into this expecting a standup fight and got a bughunt instead.
Shadowrun returns takes the Shadowrun license but hearkens back to the style of the SNES game with its setting, characters, and viewpoint. The combat system has changed from real-time to turn-based(my girlfriend remarked on how nice it was that the enemy would stand there and let me shoot them), but I feel the game definitely deserves the "Returns" in its title; its a return to form for a classic roleplay that completely forgets the mid-2000s FPS and instead feels way more classic. And I had a complete blast with it.
To get into the game, first you have to build a character. I made a female dwarf named Meat who was a Street Samurai. For those not familiar, Street Samurai is a term from William Gibson's classic cyberpunk novel Neuromancer. In Shadowrun, the Street Samurai are the tanks, able to do lots of damage with a firearm and take a lot of damage. Let me tell you guys, Meat was murder. By the end of the game, she was super accurate and could knock the fang from an orc's mouth without him so much as noticing it happened. Other classes, such as the Shaman, Mage, or Decker, took a bit more to get used to with spellcasting, but once I figured out my way around the menu and actually got a couple of these types in my party, I was good to go. There is a fair bit of hiring parties in Shadowrun Returns, but I found the best choices usually consisted of some kind of caster and then other Street Samurai to round out my ranks. I brought a Decker a few times to let me hack into the Matrix, but the game tended to screw me every time I did this by either having no computers to hack or giving me a Decker somewhere along the way that was way better. It just didn't seem worth it to bring much else beyond muscle.
That's probably the biggest issue I have with the game. Stick with Street Samurai. Shadowrun Returns is mostly linear, so you feel railroaded, but you never know what you need in an upcoming mission. Because the need for a Decker was hit-or-miss and the game would always give me one when it was required, I eventually stopped using them. And outside of the few times when a Shaman was given to me, I stuck to a single Mage. Hell, the Adept I only used once when I was required(and I didn't enjoy his playstyle; melee just felt too reckless in a world where everyone else uses a gun), and I never bothered with a Rigger at all. In fact, I only saw one Rigger in the entire game that I know of(they use drones in combat, and I only saw one person with a drone). From what I could tell, the other classes were more expensive and just not as effective or useful until much later in the game, and by then Meat was dropping enemies so fast it didn't matter. And the final level requires you use guns anyway...mainly shotguns. In fact I think the final level is a joke, because you can get up to three characters armed with these super shotguns for taking down the big bag bug monsters, and unless you built your main character for it, none of the three have any proficiency with that kind of weapon.
Despite this, the game oozes style and charm, and every new karma purchase had an immediate benefit that I noticed. Plus I tend to prefer tanks anyway(I named my damn character Meat. Makes sense I would favor meat shields). And the world of Shadowrun is one that has always had great appeal to me, so I was happy to set aside any issues I had just to explore it.
Yes, Shadowrun Returns is flawed. I still had a damn good time with it. I look forward to revisiting this world in Shadowrun: Dragonfall.
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Mobile ForcesThis is a team-based FPS released in 2002 by Rage Software that uses the first generation of the Unreal engine. It emphasizes vehicular gameplay and multiplayer, but it still has a single-player "campaign" which consists of winning each of the gameplay styles each of the game's 11 maps, each of which has to be unlocked by earning a certain amount of victories. Once you unlock the final map, you have to continue going until you unlock a Congratulations screen. To do this, you have to play with and against bots. This creates issues.
First, there are a bunch of game modes, but many of them are similar. There are two traditional Deathmatch options: regular and team-based. And then there are the item-grab modes, such as Capture the Flag, Detonation, Safecracker, and Trailer. These involve you grabbing an item and then taking it to a specific point. Capture the Flag is pretty self-explanatory, but the others offer some changes. Detonation requires you find a key that spawns in specific places around the map and then use it in a device in the opposition's base, Safecracker has you shoot open an enemy's safe and then carry their gold back to your safe(before making you hold out), and Trailer involves you swiping a vehicle with a bomb attached and driving it into the enemy's base. Of all of these, Safecracker was my favorite because it rewards speed and precision: once one team succeeds in cracking the safe, the other team gets a chance to do it, but they only have as long as it took the first team, adding a new pressure to it.
But that's not all! There is also Captains mode, which involves you assassinating the opposite team's captain for points. And then there is Holdout, which ended up my least-favorite mode of the game because it took so long to play. In Holdout, you have to hold a point for a certain amount of time to win. When you first start playing the game, this time is 2 minutes. But as you work your way through the maps, this time requirement increases until eventually you have to hold the point for 12 minutes. Which means...you're going to be standing around waiting a lot. These were the last gameplay type for me to beat in most of the levels.
Of course, if you were playing with friends against people, this would be more interesting. But instead, you're playing with bots! Stupid, stupid bots. Generally speaking, one bot on the enemy team will be worth a damn. Beyond that, they're all idiots. During one of the Trailer modes, I watched a bot grab the trailer and then drive it into a wall. Repeatedly. For five minutes. I eventually grabbed a vehicle and rammed him into the doorway he was failing to hit. I watched one bot glitch out on a ladder, while another hopped out of his car, jumped on it, and then jumped back in repeatedly. This was all during that one game of Trailer. Every game I played on every map had this happen in some way. Every. Single. One.
The enemy bots would often do this too, so I would shoot them. Unfortunately I just don't care for most of the weapons in Mobile Forces, so even this wasn't much fun. The game requires you go through an inventory system to pick your weapons, but it always felt cumbersome to me. I tried all of the weapons and ended up sticking to the M-16 and the sawed-off shotgun because nothing else worked. The sniper rifle couldn't drop anyone fast enough, the machine gun required setup to use, and the rocket launcher just didn't do enough damage to make it worth using, despite being the only real weapon to use against vehicles. And there are a lot of vehicles in Mobile Forces, it's kind of the game's thing. As a result, I ended up using vehicles to get many of my kills, by just running people over. Repeatedly.
If you haven't noticed yet, I found the single player game annoying. In multiplayer I'm guessing this is way more interesting, and I admit that I had fun jumping around the levels and exploring them just to see where I could go. But I wouldn't recommend this to folks unless you plan to bring a dozen people to the party. It's just not worth it otherwise.