Panzer General II is the kind of wargame that looks, from a safe distance, like it should be cold, clinical, and a little smug about its own seriousness. Instead, it turns out to be a game about appetite, momentum, and the terrible pleasure of nudging a line of tanks, infantry, and artillery into just the […]
Postal, the original 1997 Windows and Mac OS release from Running with Scissors and Ripcord Games, is one of those games that arrived with a stink on it, then spent the next few years insisting that the stink was the point. And sure, in a narrow historical sense, it was. This was a top-down, isometric
Postal (PC, 1997) – Review Read Post »
Quake II is the kind of sequel that arrives wearing a hard face and pretending not to care what anyone thought of the first one. The 1997 Windows 95 original, from id Software and published by Activision, is less a simple follow-up than a statement of technical intent: no MS-DOS, native OpenGL support, client/server multiplayer,
Quake II (PC, 1997) – Review Read Post »
Raiden II is what happens when a shoot ’em up looks at the original Raiden, nods politely, and then comes back with more enemies, more spectacle, and a much meaner grin. On paper, that sounds like the ideal sequel strategy: keep the core loop, turn up the heat, make the screen feel busier and more
Raiden II (1993) – Review – Bigger, Louder, and Still Happy to Blow You Up Read Post »
This is one of those games whose reputation gets mangled by loose recollection and later packaging. Strip away the myth fog and what remains is simpler, cleaner, and, mercifully, more interesting: a vertical shoot-em-up that understands it does not need a million systems if it has one very good idea and the nerve to keep
RayForce (1997) – Review – The Beautiful, Ruthless Geometry of Lock-On Doom Read Post »