AMID EVIL

This should be right up my alley, since I love 90's first person shooters like Quake, Heretic and Hexen, games that definitely inspired Amid Evil. It does a lot of things right, but also a lot of things wrong. The graphics are pretty nice and the soundtrack by wunderkind Andrew Hulschult is great. The levels are big, contain some well hidden secrets and have plenty of variation between them. But Amid Evil never discovers what makes those games that it takes inspiration from tick. It's like an amateur trying to make Gordon Ramsay's Beef Wellington for the first time. It might look like Ramsay's wellington, but it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. The weapons are weak, the hitscan enemies are spongy and the level design is all over the place. Episode 5 'The Forges' for example relies too much on platforming gimmicks, which results in a lot of trial and error. Starting over for the 20th time because you miss a timed platform is no fun whatsoever and screws with the pacing. Shooting only ever feels good and powerful when you active Soul mode (think Heretic and Hexen's Tome of Power), but it drains far too quickly. The boss fights usually involve a lot of circle strafing around a large arena and are way too easy to defeat. For some reason they've done away with fall and drown damage too, which is a stupid decision and takes away from the challenge. Amid Evil is only fun when you play it in moderation. After a few hours - when the nostalgia factor wears off - you will start to see all the warts the game tries to hide from you. Playing Amid Evil made me want to boot up Quake, Heretic and Hexen, so I guess that's a plus too? Anyway, don't believe the hype.

Shut up and take my money!

It's a game that takes everything that was good in early FPS games, and makes a work of art out of it.

Coming from someone that never played Heratic/Hexen and doesn't really care for western fantasy, this is one of the best "New boomer shooters" I've played. Very creative with its world and level design with brutal enemies and frantic encounters make it both a pleasure to both play and sit back and admire the scenery. Only negatives i can point to are minor. Absolutely surpasses Dusk in every way and the only new boomer shooter that I would say is better is Ion Fury.

Tag to include would be 'platformer'. No thanks, not what I signed up for. The FPS elements are good, but not great. The creativity and worldbuilding is a highlight, so too the soundtrack. But it starts out as a Hexen like (sort of) FPS and slowly descends into frustrating platforming. Level design is sometimes not intuitive. I gave up after getting a fair way through. Essentially, it was a chore.