I had the chance to sit down with the 3D Realms Anthology on Steam this week. Is it worth taking a look at? That depends on your age and/or what type of games you’re into. This particular collection of games dates back as far as the late eighties.
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What’s included?
- Alien Carnage / Halloween Harry
- Arctic Adventure
- Balls of Steel
- Bio Menace
- Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold
- Blake Stone: Planet Strike
- Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure
- Crystal Caves
- Dark Ages
- Death Rally
- Duke Nukem
- Duke Nukem 2
- Duke Nukem 3D
- Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project
- Hocus Pocus
- Major Stryker
- Math Rescue
- Monster Bash
- Monuments of Mars
- Mystic Towers
- Paganitzu
- Pharaoh’s Tomb
- Raptor: Call of the Shadows
- Realmsof Chaos
- Rise of the Triad: Dark War
- Secret Agent
- Shadow Warrior (Classic)
- Stargunner
- Terminal Velocity
- Wacky Wheels
- Word Rescue
- Xenophage
There’s a great mix of games in here for all ages really, including some good learning games for kids. However, modern day children probably won’t care too much for the dated style of games like Math Rescue and Word Rescue.
If you enjoy old classics like Chip’s Challenge, you’d probably enjoy Crystal Caves and Secret Agent will throws some classic side-scrolling/vertical gameplay at you, mixing in puzzles and item collecting to keep you busy. One of my personal favorites (which I hadn’t play before trying this collection – Wacky Wheels. As soon as you boot this game up, you’re going to remember a ‘slightly’ popular SNES game that released two years prior to Wacky Wheels, but it’s missing some iconic characters. However, track design is pretty similar to that other kart racing game so needless to say, it’s fun.
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Duke Nukem already has its reputation so there’s not much I have to say. If for some reason you haven’t played it – I truly feel you should give it a fair go. Duke 3D is really an awesome game with great comedic value and fun gameplay. Even with dated graphics, Duke games are pretty impressive looking and they’re extremely fun to play.
Since I hadn’t actually played many of these games prior to this collection, I’ve been going in pretty open-minded with low expectations. Having said that, I’ve found some that I consider as being super fun, and others that I really couldn’t care less about. Of course, one mans’ garbage is another mans’ treasure… and nostalgia can play a huge part in what you think of this collection.
A number of these games resemble popular classics, including Blake Stone, Terminal Velocity, and previously mentioned, Wacky Wheels. But, what they lack in originality, they make up for in fun factor. Think of Blake Stone as an add-on to Wolfenstein 3d in a sense… more great gameplay in all new levels, or a new skin perhaps.
The 3D Realms Anthology – Steam Edition is priced regularly at 43.99 (CDN) which isn’t too bad considering what many classic games go for these days… check out the PlayStation Store or Nintendo e-Shop and you’ll see just how much you’d spend to get this many classics.
