Rise of the Triad (2013)

I own a system that can run Crysis in High settings and other Unreal Engine games like BorderLands smoothly (Radeon 4670 with 1GB of dedicated memory, Dual Core 2,4 Ghz, 4GB or RAM) and other games like Just Cause 2, and yet this one overheats my graphics card and make the game slow, even during the splash screens! As of now, if you're in need of a modern old-school shooter, I advise you to try Serious Sam 3, with which I've never had any issue. I might change my review if these issues get solved later.

How a "remake" that could have been good enough and respectful with original turned up to be a total waste of time and money. Summary: - Constant crashes: You'll expend more hours re-launching the game after a crash than playing it. - Very bad perfomance: How come, 8 years later, with a Ryzen 3600x and a RTX 3700, this game has still constant frame drops? With all that, you simply cannot finish the game like it happened to me: I've been trying, since 2013, in 3 different computers already...but it's impossible. I will have to uninstall it again...

It barely runs on my new HP system. The game can be completely "buggy" (a fact which is supported by a significant number of players). An amazing disappointment, considering how much I loved the original. Support was also useless. I got the feeling that they knew it was hopeless in many cases.

ROTT is a very faithful reboot of its source material, but therein lies the conflict. If you're a fan of the original and 90's shooters in general then you very well might love this because it's very much designed with the original in mind, complete with unlimited bullet weapons, dual pistols, all the classic missile weapons and powerups such as "Dog Mode," floating platforms, trampolines, and traps for days. You likely won't like it if you're unfamiliar with the original, you'll just think it's weird. The gameplay is fast and aggressive with no pretense of strategy. All you can really do is keep moving and keep shooting, just like a classic FPS. Graphically the game is behind its time so if you're a graphics snob then it won't be for you. It certainly doesn't come off as a AAA title. The game's attempt at humor works mainly if you're a 12 year old boy. There are a few in-jokes worth a snicker but otherwise it's just typical dirty jokes for the sake of dirty jokes. The characters are also quite profane. There are a number of shortcomings to keep in mind. The game IS buggy. I had to reload a save once because I couldn't walk through an open door and have repeatedly had to restart because I got stuck and couldn't move. Enemy hitboxes are spotty at best. A new weapon, a type of shotgun that appears unlisted in the manual, frequently fails to damage enemies even at close range and is a very inconsistent weapon as a result. The game is also annoyingly cheap at times in terms of ambushing you with a trap. Crushing you in a wall because you didn't know what would happen isn't a legitimate way of ratcheting up difficulty in my opinion. Most deaths will probably be trap related, or due to platforming deaths. The final boss is also exceedingly cheap. If he gets you it's often because you got stuck on him, or this unavoidable attack he does which pulls you toward him and usually into lava. Overall it's a fun love letter to the original, but it's not without its flaws.

It really have some retro charm. The gunplay is ok, the look and feel is ok too. But it's a low budget production and this you'll feel. Probably I really would have enjoyed it in the times when I used to play Q3A and UT99 for getting warm for CS league matches. Nowadays it's to fast for an "old man". I ran it on a N100 + RX6400 + Wine 8 in Win7 mode + Nine, no issues from the technical side.