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Recent reviews by Slipgate

Showing 1-8 of 8 entries
No one has rated this review as helpful yet
1.5 hrs on record (1.0 hrs at review time)
I had an interesting gaming experience with this. I first took this as just a repackaging of the NES versions of Shadowgate, Uninvited, and Deja Vu, and while that's interesting I didn't think I needed to buy it.

Buuuut... First, yes it is absolutely the NES games. I played through Shadowgate again last night. But it's 'not' quite the same. it's the NES games, gone point and click. instead of navigating something that is essentially being the D-Pad to move the cursor around, you are literally moving the mouse around and 'clicking' things. So it's the NES game but you can much more rapidly interact with the game.

The visuals are the same, the sounds are the same, the logic and script etc. are the same. it's just that they managed to jury-rig in the game cursor moving with your mouse, so you can interact pretty fast. And you can absolutely save and load like the NES game did.

In the very corner of the screen is an Options thing you can click to do things like video settings for the games or exiting out or switching to play one of the other games.

I liked the point and click of the Mac Shadowgate, but other aspects of the original Mac game (inventory management for example) were kind of hard. This was nice to have a familiar version with more comfortable interaction.

They have put in achievements for various deaths. That's funny, but the downside is that there aren't really achievements for proper play. I finished Shadowgate from start to finish and got no achievements for that. 😛(There is for example an achievement for you setting yourself on fire in the game, though. Something I did back in the day and will do again soon to get the achievement here.)

Note that this review is based on an hour of play, launching it and re-playing NES Shadowgate in an hour. NES Shadowgate is a game I once knew well enough that I used to be able to run through it without saving, though this time it'd been long enough that I didn't go that fast or that risky.

I didn't 'play' Deja Vu or Uninvited in this yet, but I've seen enough to know they'll work just like Shadowgate did - i.e. the NES game but with the point and click interaction.

As someone who has his NES Shadowgate cartridge (and a working console to play it on) in the house, this was still nice to get for how I could play the familiar game easily. This would also be true if I was an owner of the other two games in this set, which I'm not... or rather, I wasn't until now. :) (I played Deja Vu back in the day but Uninvited is something I still need to play.)
Posted February 25, 2023.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
0.8 hrs on record
Hey,

So this isn't a very long visual novel as such, but it's interesting. I knew already it was 'brief' and had a message to it from others' reviews, but it was longer than I thought it would be. (Also, it's free, so what's the big deal?)

The author has certainly crafted enough that a longer-form story is within their grasp and I'd be curious to see it.

But there's an extra touch here. It's not suggested by the one achievement in the game, but there is some purpose to replaying the game. There are three paths to take and there's some dialogue content unique to each, and at least in one case a location unique to one. I actually thought there should be an achievement based on this - truly seeing ALL the game paths and not just the one.

Also: Seeing how he managed to write script that reconciled the interlocking mix and match of different segments of the game was pretty interesting. The only script oddity caused by it can be written off as the main character mentioning he wanted to buy some things to the girl off screen or before the events of the game.

Kudos to the creator of this.
Posted January 23, 2016.
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2 people found this review helpful
2.8 hrs on record
There are some games that build themselves around a gimmick, and if you don't enjoy that gimmick for very long you quickly part ways with the game. There's another game (not this one) that has goofy control that was funny at first but that I wasn't really willing to cope with to actually finish that game past its second stage.

In this case, this game does a lot of jokes about the bad DLC practices that happen a ton in some modern gaming where, instead of true bonus content you can buy if you want more, they nickel and dime you for things you need to enjoy the game in the first place. There was a point in the game where I saw the reviews that said the makers drew the game out too long and the joke gets spent up and trying to complete everything becomes tedium instead, and I could see that they had felt the game had outstayed its welcome on its gimmicks.

I could understand that perspective but not personally share it. While I won't try to get every single achievement (I've got all but two of them, and seeing what those two are I don't think I want to get myself out of sorts getting them)... I really enjoyed the jokes this game pulled and the bits of commentary it did. It turned its DLC jokes into actual gameplay mechanics in some cases, and each thing it had you 'buy' or do felt like a little unique bit of commentary under the overall DLC subject or in some cases actually ended up being things you would buy with in-game money anyway like better weaponry. I personally got a kick out of the guy who said he had nothing to say now but would be important later - I've seen plenty of RPGs that did just that, and were less upfront about it.

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is I personally enjoyed this game and the different DLC jokes it pulled instead of feeling like it outlived its fun like some other reviewers feel. At the very least, it's inexpensive enough that you can give it a go and walk away when you personally feel sated without breaking the bank, even if your experience doesn't mirror mine.
Posted April 26, 2015.
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1 person found this review helpful
0.1 hrs on record
This game is just what it describes itself as - a two-sticks arcade shooter where you have limited lives and try to get as far as you can.

I was recently thinking about such simple "pick up and just be playing" games again, so this hits the spot. It's fun, and while it starts easy enough to warm you up (or to be OK to pick up for a young kid who's early to games) it gets more and more swarmy with each wave. I like that it's challenging enough for me to enjoy but that little family members who can't do major games can play something out of this too.

Note that I had the benefit of playing it with a gamepad where I used both sticks - I haven't looked at what the mouse/keyboard controls are, but with a two-sticks gamepad you move with the left stick and fire with the right stick. Like if you push the right stick to the left you're firing to the left, even if you're moving up and down. For those who haven't played two-sticks shooters, be aware that if you're moving down to get away from an enemy (for example) you'll want to adjust the direction you're pressing on your right stick as you go since the enemy is not on your left now but above you. (I realize this is a given to anyone who has played this kind of game before, but this is for those who haven't.)

I like this game. For the price, it's great. It also reminds me of when in the 90s you could find fun little gems in PC game software that weren't overly-done-up but that you kept going back to when you were at that certain aunt's house looking for something to do.
Posted April 11, 2015.
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48 people found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny
0.4 hrs on record
Night Dive Studios has been able to get the rights to F-19 Stealth Fighter and make it available again commercially like this, which is great.

You won't see a lot of playtime on this game on my account yet as of when I'm writing this review, but that's because I played this game bunches as a kid and as of this writing just launched this version to be sure it was working etc.

This was a fun game I enjoyed. It's a simulation in that there's a lot of things to keep track of (how you first successfully take off by actually getting the momentum and then getting yourself to lift off the ground, how you deploy chaff when being targeted, how you go after mission objectives and try not to be captured, etc.). I'm actually super happy it's available again like this.

That said, I recommend reading the game instructional material linked to from the game page. Back in the day, even I as a veteran player would sometimes forget which key would push the throttle to max or get the brakes to quit so that I started moving forward, and referring to at least jotting down some keys common to my play was useful since the game is spending visual space on your cockpit and not on what keys interact with that cockpit.

Also, recommend saying YES to playing with a joystick when you launch the game. The game is really played with a joystick with the keyboard having some supplemental actions on it that were too excessive for the two (at the time) joystick buttons. The way Night Dive has packaged this with DOSBox means current gamepads will work as your joystick if you wake them up before launching the game - whatever counts as the first two buttons on the gamepad or flightstick or whatever you have will be the two buttons that the game listens to.

I know Night Dive released Strife: Veteran Edition and I've heard their involved in rescuing other games that have disappeared from apparent ownership before... I'm glad to see this on here and I'm about to click on their link to see what else they've rescued so far. Kudos to Night Dive for bringing this out!
Posted April 8, 2015.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
6.3 hrs on record (4.2 hrs at review time)
Friends suggested this game as a birthday activity. It's pretty remarkable, really. At first it was kind of funny to be Captain and to be telling a friend like I was his commanding officer to scan something... but eventually we were operating like a real set of officers on the bridge of a ship! When another friend, in another turn where she was playing Captain, said in all seriousness "Come around to bearing 372 and open fire on the other one" I knew that something special was going on here.

This is a game you want to play with other people. In my situation I played it with some friends locally on their own computers plus a friend who joined us both in the game and over Skype so we could hear them and they could hear us.
Posted June 22, 2014.
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No one has rated this review as helpful yet
20.1 hrs on record (12.9 hrs at review time)
This is a fantastic game. The voice actors and the scenes opening and closing stages help bring the spirit of the show back to it, and the game wonderfully brings context to the stuff the NES original had you do. I definitely recommend this game, it's really fun whether you've played the NES game it's based on or not.
Posted August 17, 2013.
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1 person found this review helpful
9.9 hrs on record (8.0 hrs at review time)
This game is ridiculously fun if you pull out your old MP3 or audio CD collection. Try it!
Posted November 26, 2010.
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Showing 1-8 of 8 entries