Hello bluethief and fellow time travellers!

It is already another two month worth of time travels (and I am a bit late).

Just for clarification, if I recall it correctly, "Splinter Cell" released in early 2003 for the PC. Only the original XBox-version was released in the end of 2002.

Again, there are plenty of good old games to tackle for this time frame!

But obviously, my choice has to be my favorite two helicopter simulations that GOG.com has not secured from limbo, yet:
- "Search & Rescue 4" ("Search & Rescue: Coastal Heroes" in the US)
- "Vietnam Med+Evac"

Both (developed by InterActive Vision A/S) were originally released in late 2002 in North America by Global Star Software, and some months later followed their European release in 2003 by Just Flight Ltd.!

Like "Silent Hunter II" and "Sub Command" these helicopter simulators feature a large mission-based ironman campaign structure (no dynamic campaign in here), but in addition allow to access every terrain map and every mission individually.

The graphics are still enjoyable, with many details in and around the helicopters themselves, some remarkable details in the landscapes and volumetric clouds, too.

And most importantly the feature great flight dynamics including rotor blade down-wash, ground effects, auto-rotation, over-torque, stall due to rotor blade fin speeds, load/cargo influence on center of gravity, as well as, wind and other weather effects influencing the helicopters performance!

Oh, did I forgot to mention (once more) that they are civil helicopter simulators focussed on the title-giving search and rescue (SAR) missions instead of find and shoot/destroy targets!


To be honest, I am constantly playing these two simulators since I stumbled on them in our local videothek (similar to blockbuster) and first rented them, later buying the very same copies from the videothek, but I never finished the 'ironman' campaign with only a single pilot, meaning without a fatal crash.
Often, I just jump in any scenario or mission at will, sometimes even in chronological order of their appearance within the campaign.

Happy gaming and (re)visiting gems from the past!

Kind regards,
foxgog

Played Mafia last year. I found the lack of manual saving infuriating...and that damned race nearly made me quit the game, extremely annoying even on the easiest setting. But apart from that it's a pretty good game. The narrative is definitely above that of most games. I liked how the protagonist isn't a monster and you can identify with him to some extent...but he does monstrous things and clearly isn't a hero. The utterly bleak ending would be sad in most other games, but here it was really fitting imo.

Gothic 2 is another game I only played a few years ago for the first time. Good game, liked it much better than the first Gothic...but also felt strangely empty after having finished it (which took me over 70 hours). For me there's something unsatisfying about the Piranha Bytes formula, probably rooted in their neglect of providing a decent story (though many characters are interesting).

Jedi Knight: Outcast...deservedly a classic. But imo not as fun as Dark forces, the first Jedi Knight or Jedi Academy. Too many bizarre puzzles and irritating jumping sequences.

Played Warcraft 3 at the time, didn't like the focus on heroes. Neverwinter nights is something I bought on Gog, but couldn't get into at all...played about a third of Shadows of Undrentide, but it was very pedestrian compared to Baldur's Gate (also when compared to Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate, which is pretty good). The lack of real party gameplay totally kills it for me.

Have mixed feelings about Icewind Dale 2...on the whole, much inferior to the first game imo, with some extremely tedious sections. The prologue and the first chapter where you're fighting the orc army is good though, pity the rest of the game wasn't like that.

I think I will give BloodRayne a try. Should I playthe original or the terminal cut?

I still plan to play it, but Terminal Cut has better effects and is uncensored.

Also, Command and Conquer Renegade is missing from that list. An underrated FPS.

Vice City is just great. My favourite GTA of the PS2/Xbox era.

I never collected all the hidden packages, so I didn't know it would unlock a military helicopter :)

I believe you are correct. However, these thread are not only about PC games, but games in general, so we consider their original releases, no matter the platform.

Nice, addd them to the list and signed you up for them :)

I haven't played it but I'd say the Terminal Cut, since it's a new release and so it should have some QoL improvements and it's made to run on newer PCs.

You're right. Added, thank you.

Is this game worth it? I never played C&C because they're strategy games, but this one being an FPS has my attention.

Yes, you are a GDI commando fighting against NOD troops during Tiberium Dawn and you can even enter within buildings you construct in the strategy games. If you like C&C universe, you will enjoy Renegade.

I did complete another two missions in Splinter Cell. I just restarted the third mission and I was able to figure out what one of the problems was; there's a pipe you're supposed to walk across at the beginning of the mission, but if you try to walk onto it directly there's an invisible wall that doesn't quite work, so you can get through it by mashing the jump button and moving forward, but it doesn't always work and it's pretty frustrating. Instead, there's a drum you're supposed to walk around to get to the far side and just walk onto it from there. Quite annoying, since it wasn't obvious at all to me from the way the area was designed. I guess it's a small thing though.

After that, the rest of the third mission was surprisingly short and straightforward. I also played through the fourth mission, the CIA break-in, which was the most difficult so far. Some annoying objectives, but otherwise I enjoyed it.

I might take a few screenshots. The game does look pretty good for 2002. You can barely see Sam in this one.

They have quite a few games on GOG. I have no idea what the last one they added was though. Maybe they lost interest in GOG before they brought Chaos Theory to digital shops. Very lame if true, it would definitely do well here.

If you haven't gotten past mission 3 already, be sure to read what I posted above if you get stuck at the beginning on the pipes.

I've spent some hours with BloodRayne Terminal Cut and so far I really like it. I mean you play a sexy vampire and shred tons of Nazis and monsters to pieces. What's not to like???

Combat is rather hectic at times, but when it is, you still can activate the bullet time and everything is in slow motion. Which makes it a lot easier to dodge the bullets and attack the right opponents. I hardly use the guns so far, I mostly bite every human-like creature to death and slash everything else.

Right now I'm in the middle of the Argentina levels and the demons showed up. Makes things a little harder, because now you have to kill every opponent twice.

The one thing I don't like, is that it is not possible to save in the levels (only at the beginning). The levels are not very long, but I'm not really good at action games and it's no fun to replay the same level several times, just because you made a stupid mistake or missed an incoming grenade.

Strange, I posted in this thread and it still stayed on page two of the general forum for nine hours (and is shown as "2 days ago").

This is a test post to check, if it was just an unrepeatable bug or if there is something wrong in general.

Edit: It's back on the front page, so obviously things are working again.

I know nothing of the C&C universe, but this one seems cool. Will have to try it someday.

I guess the QA team didn't catch that one!
I'm glad you found out the problem and moved forward. Part of the fun of these games is also studying the environment and see the where one should/could go.


I think the last ones were the Brother in Arms series in the beginning of 2019. But ever since Ubisoft signed that deal with Epic, all their games have been Ubisoft Connect and EGS exclusive. Maybe they have a clause that says that they cannot release even old games on competing stores.

It's rare but it happens occasionally, not a particularly new thing, latest post time not updating.