A pioneer in 3d platforming, this game is surprisingly nice for what it is, given the time it was released. Naughty Dog decided to go with a safer approach of more "forced" and "linear" platformers with lots of 2d sections and 3d sections like some older mode-7 style platformers from the past generation.

Still, I think that the 3d nature of it adds depth, and the low poly/art in it is truly pleasant to look at in my opinion. Naughty Dog and Insomniac back in the PS1-2 era were masters of low poly design and fluid animations. Character controls are nice and solid for the most part, it is not a slippery-sloppery hell of some other, especially early 3d platformers. Gameplay for the most part is simple in concepts, but often it is challenging enough to call this game a "heart attack simulator". The brutal difficulty is not something I miss from earlier arcade 2 platformers and run-n-gun games personally.

Still a nice title worth a try even today if you are enjoying this type of genre.

A nice little dungeon crawler for J2ME phones and BREW. Very neat for a mobile game - quite long and entertaining. Maybe, a bit simplistic and linear but still enjoyable.

I liked silly moments and liked the overall design and feel, how classic doom-style monsters were mixed with a custom-designed texture set, which reminded me about System Shock and Doom 3.

May recommend if you like Doom, or the dungeon-crawler genre and want to waste some hours on a silly videogame.

A very interesting title in retrospective. A game that came out in 2004, that feels like a late 00s-early10s blockbuster from the PS3-Xbox360 era. This game was kind of a precursor to all Gears of War and Resistance games. It indeed feels like "AAA from the future" in terms of presentation, style, and visuals.

Graphics are nice for PlayStation 2, and for 2004 in general. It is completely different from the early titles on the same hardware. And I can understand why it was so hyped back in the day.

Sadly, because of the hardware limitation, hard cuts should've been made to fit it all and it shows. This game has all the sins of ps3-gen FPS titles, but much bigger. Small levels, big loading times, slow character movement, 2-3 types of enemies on the whole game, re-use of sections of the levels.

More than that, the game starts with spectacle, but then kind of half gives up and turns into a regular average corridor shooter with spongy enemies you need to pass. And bosses, if I can even call them bosses, are no different.

Still, it is not entirely boring, it tries hard to change the environment and do the plot and cutscenes, but be warned that it might get very tiring in the 2nd half.

So after years of playing the Dreamcast version and PC heavily modded Dreamcast conversion, I decided to try actual DX, and on an actual GameCube just for the sake of curiosity. I remember I did not like how the PC version looked back in the day, but now it kind of surprised me.

Textures are less dirty and the overall color palette is more pleasing. Models of characters are nicer and better fit later designs. Water effects etc. are also better, and the addition of maps for the hubs is welcome as well.

Of course, this version has disadvantages and issues and just strange moments like city hall being a completely different building in the hub and on level, but I think overall this version is better, contrary to what people say.

It would've been even better if they had more time and budget for more changes and improvements. More changes in geometry, more HD characters - like a new model for Eggman, more improvements for animations, etc. But I enjoyed it for what it was.

This is the game from two eras: the era of spy movies and spy military adventures and things like that, as well as the era of limited 3d controls of weird or digital pads of the time.

In terms of presentation game kind of nails it: it indeed feels like movies "Speed", "True Lies", "Mission Impossible" and James Bond movies of the time. The presentation is a bit simplistic, world is more abstract. You can see the game's budget by seeing cutscenes made with in-game models. It is silly but I dare to say that I liked it more than MGS in that regard even.

In terms of gameplay, it is in the alley of first and third-person adventures and shooters on consoles of the time. The limits of the original digital pad forced alternative gameplay mechanics which I enjoyed for what they are. Don't expect it to be as simple as 3rd person FPS as Max Payne, but rather something in the spirit of Tomb Raider mixed with Golden Eye. I generally liked it for what it was, and how those mechanics were utilized. I used leaning and cover, learned to use aim, etc. Bosses and tactical situations force you to adapt to this game's gameplay mechanics.

Not a super hit, but very solid and enjoyable title from the original PlayStation. If you liked Medal of Honor 1 or Perfect Dakr on N64 - you may try this one.

One of the quite important games both for the RPG genre and the Might and Magic series in general. This game did a lot of things: moved from complex encounter-based combat to in-world battles. The primary platform became IBM PC with VGA cars, giving a huge step up from the previous base platform (Apple II). Music becomes a major part of the environment, the same as mouse-driven almost fully graphical-driven GUI.

Move to in-world combat where monsters move inside the world map, without any separation of combat-exploration modes, in the style of dungeon crawlers like Dungeon Master, same as the fact that this is a fully hand-made open world without restrictions where all monsters (except spawners) placed manually marked for me most major change in how CRPGs decided to approach their presentation afterward. JRPGs have not moved to this for decades to come.

Because of all of that, this game is much more acceptable than the first two titles for modern players and not the worst point to start exploring the series. Of course, later on, the same engine were built Xeen games, which are, arguably better in all ways - art, music, animation, game design of the world, and content, but MM3 still has its charm and its minor features worth to discover. For example, the game still has some of this MM2 cheese DNA with sometimes brutal monster effects, timed to specific day quests, more funny and goofy presentation of the world.

This game is hard to call perfect or give it a high score, but same time, I want to acknowledge what it is and what it tried to achieve (mostly, successfully). Can't recommend the Amiga port, it is a PC version cramped into ECS machines. SNES port supports a mouse, and, besides some censorship, despite lower graphical specs, very nicely re-drawn by artists who knew how to do their work. The Sega CD version has original portraits re-drawn in anime style and has added an intro inspired by the lore inside the original manual.

There are enough words said about Half-Life 1 as it is one of the most popular and known games of all time, so I will say some notes about the PS2 port specifically.

The port is awesome. As I understand, it is built upon an unreleased Dreamcast version. From here they took "lock on" systems which works nice for Dreamcast's single stick gamepad, but also not bad on PlayStation as well. A bit too clunky for modern standards, but it plays much better than the majority of PS1/Saturn games of the era, made for digital pads only.

Controls are fully configurable. There are multiple presets and the game allows you to customize your controls as you want. which is not typical for early PS2 games as well. The Separate category is special combinations, like the famous GoldSrc crouch jumping.

In addition to that, the game had a bit of enhanced GUI for gamepad, and widescreen support (lots of PS2 games did not have this option even at the end of the platform lifecycle!).

Besides a more or less known (sadly partially unfinished) coop campaign with secret vortigaunt mode, new models for NPCs, and some objects, the game is a faithful PC port that plays smoothly. The only major change in terms of level design was the enhancement of the Hazard Course map. Rest things are too minor to note in this type of review.

Can recommend. I played on SteamDeck... where the PC version has official support now, however, lock-on functionality and gamepad-friendly GUI sold me on the PC2 version via emulation.

So I finished the GameCube version of Serious Sam The Next Encounter. It was developed by another studio and was a console spin-off. It feels like a bridge between Second Encounter and Serious Sam 2 in a way of presentation and stuff. And I love SS2 so I guess I like this too.

It had different environments both in terms of locations (Rome, China, Atlantis, and final Sirius mothership) with different gimmicks and some enemy types unique to zones.

The rampage mechanic was a bit annoying tbh with sound effects and music change if you did 20 kills in a combo. Same as this occasional Humvee transport was sort of undercooked - SS2 did transport much better.

Some places looked low detailed, mostly some arenas and open spaces which is fine I guess for a GC game that also had a PS2 port. But Some interiors and locations in dynamic looked nice actually.

The game was tedious at times like all arena shooters, but in general, I more enjoyed it than not.

Some Enemies+interior+location combinations reminded me about another Serious Sam clone "Will Rock" - but Will Rock was... bleh to say the least.

Much better than the PC version. While it feels more janky to control and move than the PC version, which used (I presume) the Requiem Avenging Angel engine, this feels much more pleasing to look at, much more finished and doesn't have too much annoying backtracking. I adore its dark-ish atmosphere and overall mood. It could've been one of those "hidden action adventure gems from the late90s-early00s" but it is not really because the gameplay is still tedious and unfair, rather than challenging. It also isn't connected to the NWC Might and Magic universe and feels like a generic fantasy. Only things like the opening made by the same CGI team who did cutscenes for Heroes3/Might and Magic 7 etc. somehow connect it... a little bit

This is a very complicated game to talk about or give a score based on just numbers.

One one side, this game did and tried so many things which were never made after. It is also a symbol of now gone "Adventure era" universe, which lots of people love above whatever SEGA is doing now.

On the other hand, this game was and still is plagued with lots of core mechanics and engine problems which makes it feel and play like total jank, like an early 00s fan total conversion mod rather than a competently made big 3d platforming/adventuring video game.

Nice music, awesome atmopshere, diverse gameplay and memorable levels. Bad camera, not perfect collision detection, problematic implementation of moveset, some unpolished elements.

In addition to that, again bad translation and not cutscene re-sync for eng dub, play it on english. Play on Japan voice acting and if you are on pc - with re-translation mod.

In the end - nice experience if you want sonic from the era when he was together with humans in semi-realistic sci-fi world from 00s, with more free movement and with actual chao garden. But be ready for unexpected deathes and sometimes unfair challenge.

So I played Sonic Unleashed and decided to start with the PS2 version. And I am pleased to say that I enjoyed what I saw. Despite being "inferior" to the Wii version in terms of visuals, I enjoyed how it looks - it is one of those very late backward-ported PS2 titles from the time when people already knew hardware well enough to make pleasant environments and a nice overall picture. If you start to look very closely into actual game assets, you will see very low poly and low-resolution horrors, but from afar, as a whole, it transforms into more than its parts.

Regarding gameplay, it was the first major step towards the sonic we know today, with more forced events and more narrow levels, boosts, and other moves. However, this title in particular works for me much better than for example Forces or Generations gameplay-wise. PS2/Wii "Day" levels while strict and linear feel more open and free just because of their size and appearance. I find the segmented boost mechanic to be more interesting and complex than just regular "boost", I liked some new moves, some of which, I believe, are Unleashed-exclusive, like the animation of Sonic slowly crawling on its 4 legs, etc. Most Werehog levels are decent too, the downside is that actual combat in them is "press square to win" and it never gets complicated enough to be a problem just smashing everything. Burning wizards and electric flying things are rare exceptions. And since Werehog levels are long, you don't want to replay them. Especially ones with some boring platforming.

Regarding plot - yes, it's more cartoony, and I prefer the world from things like Sonic 06, Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow the Hedgehog (2005), or Sonic X, than Western-style cartoon presentation. But unlike the mentioned above games, this plot, even in this "cut down" version with 2D towns and characters delivered much better, and it is much longer and competently made. Compared to this, again, Forces or Generations feel so empty and shallow in this regard.

One day I will play the PS3/Xbox360 version and the J2ME version, but for now, I'd say that the PS2/Wii version is worth your time.

One of the best co-op action experiences out there and a very enjoyable third-person shooter. Very detailed and memorable environments, very good looking thing for its time. Good spectacle and diverse gameplay.

This is not your "survival horror" at all, keep in mind, that there are silly moments and silly style decisions, but not that much over the top compared to some other titles in the series.

If you want to play a plot-based good-looking third-person shooter in Co-op with a friend or your loved one - this is your choice. Just don't expect "Resident Evil 2" from this.

Very nice game and a good evolution of the 4th game in the series. Sadly, controls and mechanics are still tanky, like they were in the 4th game, the series has not yet decided if it wants to be 100% modern third-person shooter or retain some aspects of the "classic" series.

Like many games in the series, it starts relatively grounded (for what it is) but later goes to a more absurd environment and plot design ideas.

Still, a solid title to play with your friend or loved one in co-op on a lazy evening.

Actual 3d open world RPG Elder Scrolls game for the handheld device in 2004. Much more "true" elder scrolls than Blades or whatever they made for smartphones nowadays.

It has its plot, quests, characters, and atmosphere. I have not enjoyed previous installments of the "travels" series for J2ME mobile phones, but this one truly lives up to the "Elder Scrolls" name. It was a great and memorable experience, especially for a fan of late90s-early00s TES.

I recommend playing on an emulator since on the original N-gage device it works at a very low FPS.

One of these very underrated games which at the time set a new staple in the genre. Being released prior to Quake II, this game features environmental storytelling, hours of quality FMV story, and full support of first and third-person modes which you can change at any time and abilities.

Being made on a new advanced 3D sector-based engine it was a huge milestone for Lucas Arts. Production of the game was quite a high budget for the time - with tie-in books and concept art made the way Lucasfilm did it with the original trilogy of Star Wars movies and in the end lots of its parts have this "Ralph McQuarrie" aesthetic.

This game is also interesting being made with atmosphere of the 1990s Expanded Universe and its perception of post-endor and old republic before Lucas did his prequels. The game also features no movie locations or characters and does not even mention them, having its own atmosphere and its own story - the story of Kyle Katarn.

Sadly, physics, gunplay, and AI in this game are very janky, the same as force abilities. These were early steps for LucasArts in full 3D FPS and it shows that, don't expect smooth gameplay like from Quake 2 or Unreal. The game also doesn't work well on modern systems because of its old graphics API support and other issues, thankfully there is a modern open-source engine replacement for it which works smoothly.