Rise of the Triad - Dark War

When you look at screenshots from Rise of the Triad, your brain might glitch: surely this isn't from those Apogee guys? This isn't Commander Keen with pigs? But it is. In 1994, the studio decided to try something they were itching to do — and out came the craziest shooter carnival that the nineties DOS scene ever needed.

The plot is mundane. You're an agent of a special unit tasked with stopping terrorists across levels packed with color, secrets, and bizarre decorations. But the shooting mechanics aren't the reason to play. The reason is the stuff that flew in the blood — magic weapons, power-ups that turn you into a god with four arms, and an atmosphere that almost everyone overlooks today.

Call it "the wild nineties unhinged." The sounds when you collect items, the translucent textures, the flashes of light — it's all bonkers. The controls are tight, jumping and shooting run smooth even now, and the designer clearly understood that a shooter without humor falls flat. Here you'll find weird statues, funny messages, and you sometimes get the sense that the developers were having an absolute blast. The levels are mazes where you'll discover plenty of optional spots, but they're worth exploring.

The graphics are dated — pixel art like Commander Keen, just bigger and more colorful. The sound remains the strongest element; the music and effects carry that strange punk-rock vibe that'll stick in your head. The level visits are brief, but densely packed. After a few hours you've seen what the game has to offer, and suddenly it's this "little" game that fades from memory. Nowadays almost nobody knows it, which is a shame.

It's a title that needed to be even weirder to be remembered. It should be cult, yet it vanished among regular gamers. It plays better than many other shooters from that era — more precise, funnier, with measurably less tedium. If you love unfiltered madness with a vision that's purely weird, Rise of the Triad is your perfect pick.