Tag: great soundtrack

O tempora: Heretic + Hexen

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O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.

Just as it was the case with the original Doom titles, I’ve only played a little of Heretic in the 90s. My proper “formative” FPS experiences, I suppose I can call them that, happened later with Duke Nukem 3D and Half-Life. And for one reason or the other, I never had much desire to revisit the “Doom clones” from Raven Software, even as they became the “reliable mid-budget game developers” during the 2000s and 2010s, before being completely absorbed by Activision and turned into another machine to pump out Call of Duty content. Plus, I’ve heard horror stories about the level design of Hexen, so I wasn’t really keen to experience that either.

But, in what appears to have become a yearly tradition, Nightdive Studios have created yet another remastered release of the classic FPS titles that are running on some version of id Tech – Heretic + Hexen. “As you remember them” collection of both titles, both of their expansions and with two new expansions on top. And I’ve decided that it was finally time to experience what if Doom was fantasy.

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In love with: Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater

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Half a year ago I was revisiting the Metal Gear series with the Master Collection Vol. 1 that is now finally in a good state, and was pleasantly surprised by my experience with MGS3. Up until that playthrough, I had more respect for the entry than love and have far preferred the first and the second games. But the replay has shown Snake Eater in a new light to me, which was one of the main reasons I’ve decided to grab Metal Gear Solid Δ (Delta): Snake Eater. At the end of that previous review I wondered if Delta will be the better way to experience the game. And now I can definitively say – yes.

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O tempora: Gex Trilogy

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O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.

My taste in platformers is something some consider unnatural. Despite growing during the era when platforming games of many variations were the dominant genre of games, there were not that many I actually liked. Mario games? Nope. Sonic games? Kinda, but not really my thing. Mega Man? Nah. Classic Castlevania titles? Also no. I admire and respect a lot of entries in those series, but the closer it gets to being just a platformer or action platformer, the less likely I am to enjoy the game, usually. Especially with 2D ones. Exploration focused games, like so called “metroidvanias” I do love. But if it’s just about jumping or jumping and shooting, especially if the game is supposed to be challenging – not for me.

And while there are a lot more 3D platformers that I like, it’s not a gigantic list as well. It lacks Mario, for example. But it does include Gex: Enter the Gecko – a game I have considered to be my favorite 3D platformer for the longest time. So when this game, as part of the “whole” “Trilogy” of Gex games was announced to be re-released, I was super excited. It didn’t need to be a remaster or a remake, just a very good re-release (emulated or not) of the original titles. Gex Trilogy is not quite there, though I’m still happy it exists.

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Thoughts on: OFF

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Closer to the end of the 2000s the independent game development scene was starting to bloom. Independent developers have been doing it for a very long time by that point, but the mix of availability of tools and the evolution of the internet changed the game. People didn’t consider the commercial releases for their games yet as often as they do now, so a lot of genuinely impressive, influential and highly praised titles were released completely for free. OFF was one such title – originally released in 2008, completely in French, it was a surreal horror themed RPG made in RPG Maker 2003 with a memorable soundtrack. And a couple years later, with few unofficial fan made English translations, the game started going rounds around the internet and was often a target for then rising popularity of Let’s Play format of recorded game playthroughs on YouTube.

And now in 2025, after years of being talked about and influencing other developers, the game is officially translated into English, ported to Unity and is available as a commercial release. A faithful recreation of the original project with some improvements and some side-steps.

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Thoughts on: Old Skies

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If you like point and click adventure games, you have seen the Wadjet Eye Games logo at least once or twice in the past 15 years. They have developed and published some of the best adventures of the past decade and have been one of the most prominent users of Adventure Game Studio. And ever since I’ve decided to try the Blackwell series back in 2013, I was never disappointed with a release developed by them since. Even when it was short and simple like The Shivah or The Blackwell Legacy, or as rough around the edges as Blackwell Unbound. Their Unavowed from 6 years ago is easily one of my favorite adventure game titles ever. So to say that I was excited about Old Skies is to say nothing. And yet, somehow, this game was easily the least enjoyable title from Wadjet Eye Games I’ve played.

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Happy about: World of Goo 2

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Many many years ago there was a cool website called Experimental Gameplay Project, that, as I didn’t even realize at the time, was full of university projects (specifically of students from Carnegie Mellon University). There were lots of short but very memorable and fun little projects, some of which were just silly fun like Attack of the Killer Swarm, On a Rainy Day, Gravity Head, Tower of Goo or Super Tummy Bubble! (which is basically Suika Game decades before the actual “Watermelon game”) and some were more mysterious and strange like The Crowd. The team behind this project would later form Tomorrow Corporation, but even prior to it, they’ve collaborated on other projects. One of which was done by a mostly two-man team at 2D Boy. The game was a fully realized idea previously shown in Tower of Goo – World of Goo, which was released in 2008 to huge critical success and become one of the earliest biggest examples of independent developer success stories (at least from the critical reception perspective).

Yet, despite the success, following that game up with a direct sequel would’ve been strange. It felt like a more or less well developed idea and its “story” was quite simple. So it made sense that Tomorrow Corporation worked on different puzzle titles that continued some of the themes and ideas, but played very differently. However in 2024 World of Goo 2 was released on several platforms (but with odd exclusivity deals on PC). With the latter being finally over, I was able to complete it and while I have enjoyed it quite a lot, I have to say its existence still feels strange.

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Thoughts on: Wizordum

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While there have been a lot of classic FPS titles coming out in the past decade, the usual expectation of them is that the title will take Doom or Quake or Duke Nukem 3D as a reference point and then evolve the ideas from there. Wizordum does things differently. For one, its main gameplay and level design reference point seems to be something more along the lines of Wolfenstein 3D and Rise of the Triads, so gameplay area is far more “flat” than what Doom introduced with stairs and elevators. For another – instead of looking and sounding like a typical classic FPS, it instead goes for epic fantasy atmosphere. So, think less Hexen and more Might and Magic VI. Which is probably the main reason I decided to stick with the game til the end, because as an FPS title, it isn’t particularly exciting.

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Revisiting Grand Theft Auto V (Enhanced)

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Ten years ago I’ve experienced Grand Theft Auto V for the first time. My opinion on it was very positive, but somewhat underwhelmed – not by the quality of the game itself, but rather by how evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, it all felt. Again, it wasn’t really much of a fault of a game that it couldn’t quite follow up on the previous entries (especially the first three 3D games) in terms of their inescapable impact on the entire game industry and defined an entire genre. But either way, in 2015 I felt very pleased with the game, but not too excited. Now with the Enhanced version of the game being out, I’ve decided to revisit the entire series with this new playthrough of GTA V being the final title. And surprisingly, I’ve found myself loving the game a lot more than I did ten years ago.

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O tempora: Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered

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O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.

Almost precisely a year ago, I’ve experienced Tomb Raider I-III Remastered collection and my thoughts on it were conflicted. One one hand, it was the best way to experience three classic titles in the influential franchise. On another – all games apart from the original weren’t that good and collection itself had some questionable choices made. As a result, I was quite curious about what Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered could be, given that I already considered The Last Revelation the best classic TR title and liked most of Chronicles. These were the games I’ve played a lot and the games that, in my opinion, aged a lot better. The collection includes The Angel of Darkness as well, of course, that I did not expect much from this re-release, given how dreadful my first and only experience with the game was over 20 years ago. So, how did it go this time? In some ways worse with the collection itself raising a lot more questions.

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O tempora: Sonic Origins Plus

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O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.

I watched my friends play Sonic games a lot, I played Sonic games a fair bit, the style, the soundtracks, the Knuckles himself… So many memories about these games that… I don’t love that much, if I’m honest. I’m not much into platforming games in general, unless they focus on exploration and/or puzzle solving, so despite the era of games I grew up with having so many great (and not great) examples of the genre, I didn’t play a lot of them much or at all. But after replaying Sonic Generations for the Sonic X Shadow Generations release that I really liked, I was in the mood for more Sonic. So after giving Frontiers a try and getting frustrated with it after a few hours (even though it has so many things done so well), I’ve decided to finally play Sonic Origins with the Plus expansion. And this return to the classics was somewhat predictable, but still necessary for me.

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