jboy,

Thank you JBoy and yes, we should thank Jurij. I used to include a thank you with all my reviews, but over the last year or so I've tried to cut down on the size of the reviews. If you remember a couple of years ago I was considering stopping my regular reviews as it was taking up a considerable amount of my spare time and other projects I have on the go were suffering; but in the end I opted for a shorter format. Stay safe and again thank you.

Whiterabbit-uk,

Whether positive, negative or mixed, you have always been gracious and appreciative in your reviews and write-ups, Stephen. I was not singling anyone out but just wanting to say thank you to jurij and remind people of his/her generosity.

Your efforts here over the years don't go unnoticed. That you continue to help facilitate these offerings, review. advise, recommend, answer questions, etc. is greatly appreciated.

Be well!

jboy,

Hi JBoy,

Thank you for your kind words.

I try to be fair minded over most games given away, unless a game has no merits whatsoever and which is very rare - I think the last one I gave a negative review to was a really basic breakout that was badly made full of bugs and no fun to play; breakouts are one of my all time favourite arcade games.

I always try to see the positives in a game. The first computer game I purchased new back in the early 80's was a text adventure called 'The Island of Artuan', which was on a 3 inch floppy for a system called the Einstein 64 by Tatung. I think they are credited with the first floppy with a hard shell, but theirs was only 3'' as opposed to what became the standard, which was 3.5''

By today's standards the game was pretty dire, with no more than 10 poorly drawn images amongst the text adventure. Apart from it being quite short, you could easily hack the game and find all the secrets, plus it cost a lot more than the average AAA game does now.

In fact, if you take account of inflation as it was way back in the early 80's, it cost £25 back then. Apparently that's equivalent to around £65 now; so, in fact, I paid double the price of an average AAA game today . The point I'm trying to make is that I can appreciate the effort that has gone into most games; even those that use proprietary game engines where no programming knowledge is required and you basically cobble together your games from pre made modules.

I think a lot of younger gamers haven't experienced the evolution of games, from very pixilated flat graphics with no true 3D worlds, only isometric representations of a 3D world, plus sound effects etc were pretty dire compared to the surround sounds you get in most decent AAA games these days.

I love the latest games, but I still got the same buzz from those early and very basic games. I think that's why I tend to write positively when I review most games. It's very rare that I would completely lambast a game.

Stay safe and again thank you for your kind words. It's community members like yourself that have kept me tied to this site as a volunteer since it's inception back in 2006.

Whiterabbit-uk,

Sure thing, you're very welcome.

I understand about "the same buzz"! There was a thrill playing some of those older games because the technology was still in its infancy and what seems like nothing now was often gasp-inducing back then. Even Pong and Tetris were amazing at one time! As was Pac-man! I remember being enthralled with Zork which was, I believe, the first computer game I bought on discs. Myst was another. Though I've got to say, I still love playing on a good ole classic pinball machine when I come across one!

jboy,

I agree; I remember when I played Dungeons and Dragons and Tunnels & Trolls around a dining room table with some old school friends back in the late 70's and early 80's. We'd start every Saturday afternoon and stay up playing all night into Sunday afternoon. We'd take turns at being Dungeon Master and would design our own dungeons. I'd spend weeks creating a dungeon and even made up models of weapons and create potions from various sweets and drinks; negative ones would be bitter or sharp like salt or lemon juice, others would include that moon dust that exploded in your mouth. I can also remember when digital games started to appear; I would dream of being able to play Dungeons and Dragons in a first or third person perspective. At the time I never dreamed of the way it would eventually turn out; with almost life like clarity these days. As computer power increased so did the realism.

I was big into electronics as a teenager and young guy and built several large projects such as a synthesizer (on the lines of a MOOG synthesizer) It took me over a year to build using plans from an old practical electronics project that ran on a monthly basics for 12 months, each month would introduce a new part of the synthesize for example Ramp Generators and Sample and Hold circuits. I got generous donations from my grandmother to pay for the various components I needed to build each of the circuits. She funded most of my projects back then. Luckily I had the use of a fabrication unit where all the front panels were made and then sent off to be spray painted, then I'd label each switch, light or control knob with letraset before covering it with clear varnish.

One of my projects was a meditation unit that could pick up αlpha and βeta waves from your brain. I imagined being able to control things with my brain; which apparently has become reality. I'm sure as that tech' evolves it will somehow be incorporated into future VR technology. Even Haptics will become more evolved and be incorporated until we will experience so many of our senses within a digital world. I believe all of these will be practical in our life time.

I've still got a hard copy of Myst; when I first played it I was amazed at how real it looked. Even today it still looks pretty decent, though I reckon a revamp of the graphics would be popular amongst older gamers who remember playing this game when it was fist released . :) You can get the complete editions on Steam. I'm still missing Myst III and Myst IV from my Steam collection. I've not played it since 2012, but I'm (thanks to your reminder) going to reinstall it today. I have III and IV in a complete hard disk collection of the Myst series including Riven; but it's stashed somewhere in the attic or loft areas of the house (together with hundreds of other hard copies of games, most of which I've since re-purchased when they've appeared on Steam.

As for Pinball games. I love 'em to bits. I've got most of the ones on Steam, though I'm missing some of the more recent releases for Pinball FX, Zaccaria Pinball and The Stern collections. One of my favourite series are the 20+ year old 3D Ultra Pinball games all of which are available for free via various abandonware sites. They are now quite dated graphically, but still have some excellent and innovative game play for pinball games. You do require DOSBox to play them. There's a useful tutorial in the Game Discussion sticky section of the forums telling you have to use DOSBox in conjunction with the old program Norton Commander. I've linked some of my favourite titles that are available for free below:

3D Ultra Pinball 3: The Lost Continent
3-D Ultra Pinball: Creep Night
3D Ultra Pinball: Thrill Ride
3-D UltraPinball: NASCAR
Adventure Pinball: Forgotten Island

Old-games.com also have all of these, but you have to pay a subscription to be able to download them. The advantage with Old-Games.com is that they have incorporated DOSBox into a lot of their games, which makes it easier to just download and play them. Still other abandonware sites allow free downloads of all the 3d Ultra Pinball games.

Whiterabbit-uk,

Good stuff, Stephen!

Whiterabbit-uk,

BTW, thanks for those pinball game links. Though I must confess, I have no idea how/what to download them. I'll try to figure it out.

Exxoplagiate,

Hi Exxoplagiate,
Thank you for taking the time to post your comment, it's appreciated. I agree with a lot of what you said about this game, but I do think it does have a place in some community members game libraries,. Personally I have far superior zombie, monster shooters so don't keep these Jurij games. I think they become very tedious after a while. Okay, if you play them for 10 minutes or so they are okay. The graphic as you said was quite decent, but the bugs in the map, i.e. being able to walk under water, and also keep the enemy at bay as they do not enter the deep water as well as other issues spoils what could have been a decent introduction to the world of shooters for those who've never played one. The pistol is definitely overpowered and some of the others such as the snipe rifle are under powered.

During Steam sales you can pick up older AAA games such as Men of Valor (one of my all time favourite Vietnam FPS games) for less than what this is being sold for over on itch.io.

Again, thank you for your feedback.

p.s. there are other zombie/monsters, but they don't appear until the second or third wave. For me, the most impressive thing I found about this game was when I first booted it up and appeared just outside the pumpkin field and was quite surprized by the clarity of the environment as well as the lay out. As usual though, as soon as the monsters appeared and I could walk under water and walk through parts of the environment, things went downhill. It becomes a bit of a grid after three or four waves; then for it to reset after only six or seven waves to the first wave just spoils it completely. That said and as mentioned in my short review, it's a good coffee/tea break game if you only play it once in a blue moon. :)