Apogee Throwback Pack Review

Apogee Throwback pack
Developed By: Apogee Software
Published By: Interceptor Entertainment
Date of Release: July 1, 2013
Price: $9.99 (Free of you preorder ROTT 2013!)

In the year 1995, the First Person Shooter genre was going strong. Wolfenstein 3D... Doom... Heretic... They all put id Software on the map, and defined the genre. And then Apogee Software blew the FPS concept to tiny bloody chunks, and rebuilt it into something totally ludicrous. Enter Rise of The Triad. Starting out as a sequel to Wolfenstein 3D, Rise of The Triad was revamped into a whole new experience. Featuring five unique playable characters, a massive arsenal of deadly firepower, an actual narrative, dog mode, god mode, shrooms mode, one incredibly deadly baseball bat, enemies who begged you to spare their lives (before flopping over to play dead so they could stab you in the back as soon as you turn around), and enough ludicrous gibs to earn it the billing of "most violent game ever", RoTT was an amazing experience when played alone. Add to that the amazing "COMM-BAT" multiplayer experience, it's pretty clear that Rise of The Triad hit a home run.



But let's head back to a time two years before Rise of The Triad came to be. In 1993, JAM Productions created a new game franchise centered around a hero named Blake Stone, and had Apogee Software publish it. A sci-fi thriller to the core, Aliens of Gold saw the titular secret agent Blake Stone facing off against his nemesis, an insidiously corrupt and morally bankrupt geneticist named Dr. Pyrus Goldfire. Technologically it built on the Wolfenstein 3D engine, adding in new features such as friendly NPC characters, working vending machines, and most impressively for the time, floor and ceiling textures. Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold actually managed to beat id Software's Doom to the market by one week and achieved modest popularity because of it, but was unfortunately overshadowed by the explosive popularity of id's smash hit.



The release of Doom and subsequent decline in sales of the first Blake Stone did not faze JAM Productions however, and in the following year of 1994 they released a new entry, Blake Stone: Planet Strike. Picking up immediately after Aliens of Gold, Planet Strike continues Blake's pursuit of Dr. Goldfire and this mutant army. Not only did it introduce more levels, more weapons, and more monsters, Planet Fire also included a fully functional automap feature, a handy too for those who tended to get lost in the mazelike levels. It's a more than worthy conclusion to an awesome as hell duology, and it definitely earns its place in this fine compilation.



When you take these three classic games and compare them to the stale FPS games of this generation, it becomes quite clear that a helluva lot more consideration was put into the level design and gameplay back in the days of yore. These three oldschool masterpieces gain massive amounts of replayability from the fact that back then the devs took time to design secrets and challenges to keep players coming back for more, unlike today's cookie cutter cinematic borefests. Another thing that is clear is how much time and effort Interceptor put into polishing these gems so that they shine on modern PCs. They are all lovingly wrapped in a DosBox-based frontend, and run natively in widescreen from the get go, no need for fiddling around with configuration to get these oldschool beauties running. They've even thrown in the original Rise of The Triad soundtrack, and the Extreme RoTT expansion at no extra cost. So what the hell are you waiting for, get yer ass on Steam and buy this beautiful pack of games. Better yet, pay an extra $5 and get RoTT 2013 as well!