I got the sudden urge to replay the Impossible Creatures, campaign of which i never finished. The game still holds up graphically.
Main menu theme is as catchy as i remember.
Yeh, it's a pity the game becomes boring after a while (you'd even like not to optimize and double down on the weird shit, but the missions become a boring grind). I was sorta surprised, considering the pedigree. I've never finished the campaign too, after a point it feels like a
chore and not a game.
Speaking about chores....
I wanted some relaxing game, and started to lazily checking the GoG catalogue searching for some old TB game. Then my eye falls upon
Fallen Haven (1997, Micomeq) this weird French Canadian TB sci-fi game. It's relaxing as fuck, even if the depth is arguably
below some mobile games. Two factions, humans and aliens plus some generics to fill space, and you go on the strategical side conquering provinces, building bases, managing research and dropping dropships. Everything works and is
very very relaxing. I can't repeat how comfortable it was, the interface was nice, the funky techno music proper. Nothing
special or original (well, one can guess that having you choose how to deploy Dropships is fairly novel). In the end game you get some nice tech like nukes and the last maps, if you let the enemy fortify enough, are rather challenging but fun. After failing the first assault but crippling the enemy defenses (bases are
permanent, and
permanent is also the damage you deal to them and I had a B-team ready to follow up the first failed assault that
nonetheless managed to cripple the alien nuke defenses, letting me nuke a comfortable landing zone and then mop-up) I finished the game, and, seriously, one of those cozy feelings you get in playing, dunnow, Fantasy General for the first time.
Ohh, there's a sequel.
Fallen Haven: Liberation Day (1998, Micomeq) is like..... I am a huge fan of Missionforce: Cyberstorm, and Cyberstorm 2, like M.A.X. 2, was a
mess of conflicting ideas that crippled a sequel. Liberation day is a sequel that .... cuts a shitton of the nice stuff the first game had (dropship, research, permanent bases, secondary weapons for units). instead you get a single base par continent and your research is tied to capturing enemy research labs (secondary objective in missions, and you get a fixed number of research points and you have to upgrade every single unit type by itself instead of the first game's "generic" categories).
In theory, Liberation Day has
four factions and every mission is hand-crafted, compared to the almost "skirmish" feelings of the first one. Thus you play the first set of missions, and hey, it ain't as good as the first one, the balance is iffy, Overwatch reigns supreme and indirect fire weapons make a mockery of balance, but hey... then the further you go you start to ask what the fuck were the mission designers
smoking. Have fun winning a mission with limited resources
and limited turns when you get random spawns of suicidal bombs right in the middle of your troops. The AI can call paratroopers right in the middle of everything you have, hope you got AA, and nope, you can theoretically do the same but the maps are carpeted in enemy AA and they don't have to worry about resources. In later missions the enemy has up to
500% your points value in troops and you have to run to them and pray the RNG is merciful. Ah, yes, there are four factions, but you fight
three at once on the same map meaning that in later maps your limited set-up has to deal with
three different kinds of opponents, each one covering the weak points of the others.
What broke me was a mission with "special biological units", enemy worms that could leisurely eat an entire army worth of firepower, before lazily breaking your gunline, eating your AA, and then the enemy air would cripple you. Fuck it, time to cheat to see the ending. Not proud of it, but
seriously, what the fuck, Micomeq. What the fuck. Not even Panzer Corps with its "you do the puzzle my way or you die".
