Star Wars: Dark Forces

Star Wars: Dark Forces is an old friend of mine, unfortunately it is a friendship long past it's prime. Although it was first released in 1995, I initially played this game a year or two later on the PS1 It remained among my favourites for years, however it is now dated, so very, very, dated.

The easiest way to describe this game would be Doom in the Star Wars universe: an FPS where you go through levels, set as labyrinths modelled after Star Wars set pieces. You shoot stormtroopers, and a wide array of other bad guys, with the goal to stop yet another fiendish Imperial plan. The game offers a wide array of guns and grenades and a great difficulty curve for getting to know their power and uses.

You think the Stormtrooper "Armour" is meant to be an ironic term?

Although the game was updated for sale on Steam a couple years ago all they did was integrate DOSBox into the exe so the original game will run on modern systems with very little fuss; personally, I think they could have saved themselves the efforts. Even if you ignore the graphics, searching and rerunning levels to find keys and switches is not a great use of your time.

10 years ago I would have highly recommended this game: it was fun, it was well built, and it added to the universe canon. Today, the game is a hotbed of archaic styles controlling, horrible graphics (this was actually built for pre Windows systems), and an ear-splitting soundtrack; don't even get me started on the motion sickness aspect via the switchable "head-bob" feature.

If this game was remastered with HD graphics and an updated control scheme I'd play it again and give it an easy 10/10. In its current form I'd give this maybe 3/10, and it's getting nostalgia points to get that high. If you have time to waste and a burning need to see a little remembered corner of the Star Wars universe, it'll do, but that's about it. The Force is weak in this one!

Jewel Quest

Not going to beat around the bush with this one, I'm not enjoying it. Jewel Quest is actually a series of games, Jewel Quest, Jewel Quest 2, Jewel Quest 3, and Jewel Quest Mysteries, pretty much the same game over and over.

This is essentially a Bejeweled game with a small twist, matching the gems on the board change the background tiles, change all the tiles to complete a board and move to the next one. The first 3 games are pretty much the same thing, although 2 and 3 give the extra twist of creating and matching gold coins, which just makes the levels a pain in the ass. Mysteries changes things up a bit by adding in the old "Find Crap in The Junk Pile" gimmick.

Screencap courtesy of Steam

The gamplay is solid enough, although there is little to drive you forward other than completion of the game itself, which isn't for me. The game just didn't grab me.

I'm going 3/10 on this one, nothing wrong with it, but nothing right about it either. It's a better option than some games I've tried, but not by much.

Eets

I don't know where this game came from or what it's even supposed to be, Eets was literally unplayable.

Crap!

I installed this game twice, both times I got the output above, links are clickable but give no usable information. I don't know if this is supposed to look like this, but I do know I have no patience to fight with it.

0/10, end of story!

Wizorb

Wizorb is not what I was expecting at all, but that doesn't mean I don't like it. At 2.99 full price it is impossible to argue with the value, and it doesn't hurt that it's kind of fun.

Starting it up looks and sounds like a high end 8 bit graphic RPG, but what you get is an RPG crossed with Breakout, an interesting mix to say the least.

All the fun of balls being thrown, with all the heartache of missed catches.

The basic story is you play a wizard who is helping to rebuild a kingdom after an invasion, battling demons makes money that will be used to rebuild, and the battles are fought by you transforming into an orb and being flung against the environment. Like I said, not what I was expecting.

I'm giving this one 9/10, it got extra points for being cheap, but I find myself genuinely enjoying the game, there's something to be said for this style and it's good to see someone innovating.

Rocket Mania Deluxe

Rocket Mania Deluxe is a fun game, there is just no other way to put it; it doesn't hurt that it's cheap either.

Game is simple, you've got a series of fireworks on one side of the screen that you need to set off, they are connected by fuses strung across tiles that need to be turned to make the fuses connect to the fireworks.

Fireworks, that is all!

There are a couple of different game modes, such as a Tetris style game where fuse lengths drop from above, a timed "Classic" mode, but the Strategy mode, where you have a set number of matches to light fuses but earn more for multiple matches, was enough to keep me going for hours.

I can't find a flaw with this game, it's a straight up 8/10, top marks for a casual game.