Summary for February 2024

20 years ago

My logic for the month was: if I have a new PC, with a new (-ish) OS, and a new gamepad, it would be logical to test it all with something familiar. Besides, something familiar is comforting, which is nice these days.

I started with Dungeon Keeper. Then I remembered this post and went from there. But not just to replay those four games, I also used them as jumping off points to look at other similar games. Oh, and I narrowed it down to games that are 20 years old or older, in addition to the usual restrictions.

Screenshot of a game showing just the beginning of a first level. There is a dungeon heart and a claimed portal, nothing built yet.

Dungeon Keeper is a very atypical RTS. Something of a god game, something of a management sim, something of a first-person shooter. At this point I do not trust myself to judge it properly, it is undoubtedly one of my favorite games. Except for a couple of levels that are actually evil.

KeeperFX is a good improvement, and works great in Lutris.

Muddy colored sky with floating rocks. We control a plane that looks like a dragonfly in third person.

Dungeon Keeper → Project Nomads is also an atypical strategy/action hybrid. You have an island that can go on a predetermined path. You build structures on it in a sort of RTS fashion. But you can also control turrets and planes, and there are even levels where you are mostly on foot. If you try to be careful, you will spend most of your time flying ahead and destroying enemies before they can even get to your island. Also, while it is clearly a huge stretch, I decided to put it in sailing games. Sure, your island is more like an aircraft carrier that you can barely control, but why not!

I have written a lot about Quake II.

Three lizard-looking aliens are playing some kind of dice game on the floor.

Quake II → Unreal had a lot going for it back then. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the negelect we see today from an apple-biting Fortnite maker, it would have been a series on par with id’s Doom and Quake.

We have a story of sorts, told through logs and books. We have interactions with friendly NPCs. Heck, it was even occasionally shown in promotional art that you could play as a woman. And it is a legit choice, not a hack, like in Quake II.

And, of course, it was a pretty impressive technical achievement. Huge maps. It had good gameplay tweaks (alt-fire for example). The multiplayer was not bad, much improved in Unreal Tournament.