Reviews of what exactly? Of all the episode games or just LSN?

I would be a prime candidate to review LSN. I been playing that game for about 2 years until my subscription ran out and I didn't have the money to renew it to a dying game. Ranked up to the middle range Elite.

The thing is that while LSN turned a little more around being playable in single player in its later incarnation, it was a multiplayer game at the core. Take that away and the game is not really that interesting anymore...

I know there are versions 1.x, 2,x and 3.x of the game, with a few of the demo releases still available from the archived copies of the official website:

• Laser Squad Nemesis v1.x: LSNinstall.exe, LSNinstall-1-0.exe, LSNinstall-1-02.exe, LSNinstall-1-05.exe, LSNinstall-1-06.exe, LSNinstall-1-08.exe, LSNinstall-1-09.exe
• Laser Squad nemesis v2.x: LSNinstall-2-00.exe, LSNinstall-2-01.exe, LSNinstall-2-05.exe, LSNinstall-2-06.exe, LSNinstall-2-07.exe, LSNinstall-2-13.exe, LSNinstall-2-24.exe, LSNinstall-2-26.exe, LSNinstall-2-28.exe
• Laser Squad Nemesis v3.x: LSNinstall-FreeTrial-3-01.exe, LSNinstall-FreeTrial-3-02.exe
• Laser Squad Nemesis Beta: LSNBetaInstall-1-19.exe, LSNBetaInstall-2-02.exe, LSNBetaInstall-2-08.exe, LSNBetaInstall-2-16.exe, LSNBetaInstall-2-21.exe, LSNBetaInstall-2-33.exe, LSNBetaInstall-3-05.exe

Since I've never played the game in any form, which one(s) of these would you recommend to check out? I guess that some only have balance/unit stats differences, but there's also the thing that some of the versions are much larger than others (12 MiB vs. 6 MiB for example).

In other news, I've just confirmed that the Empire Earth demo only has the Byzantine Empire half of the full version's learning campaign, so it's off the list.

I've just remembered that the trial version of Dungeon Siege includes the entire first chapter (the game is divided into chapters). However, the trial version also allows you to play a bit further into chapter two, and doesn't have any real conclusion to the game - rather, the path is simply blocked at some point with a message that the player can't go further in the trial version.

Little fussy about the details here but I'd recommend the later versions. Without a multiplayer server the early version(s) are useless and the later versions introduced a single player campaign mode which can be interesting to play with even with the demo.

The archived pages also have the LSN game manual and a very in-depth strategy guide that's an interesting read on its own.

Yes, Crank's Grenadier Bible is a classic in this game. Can't play this game competitively in multiplayer with the Marines without reading it. Quite useless for single player though and it is relatively outdated for the latest versions since the Greys didn't exist when the guy wrote that bible.

It is worth mentioning that I've never been able to apply those tips to any good extent with the Marines. They were easily my weakest race of the 4. But don't try to face my Machina without prepping for a very hard fight though. :p

The Valhalla Classics games also follow the episodic distribution model with the first episode being free.