I played the first two games back to back a half decade ago but bounced off the third game in part because it had a bad rap. Yes, there are some differences- but, frankly the don't matter. The little loading screens that break up areas are largely irrelevant. Only time they can be an issue is when someone was chasing you when you exited. The story is good, and has some creepy levels in thief fashion. The game also brings back many enemies and references to the previous games If I had two criticisms of the game I'd say it was too easy, and that loot is annoying to find on some levels. Also expert difficulty has been dumbed down in that it allows you to kill combatants. But that didn't affect the way I played so was still very fun. I was tempted to give this four stars- but, I enjoyed it. I'm glad I played it. And the thief games are some of my favourites ever.
I love the Doom series, even perpetual whipping boy Doom3. Had never heard of Doom64 until I saw it on GOG so jumped at the chance to play it. To be brief. It's a good addition to the series, lots of fast-paced game play. The graphics have been changed and improved, and there's a new boss, a variant Imp plus an upgraded Pain Elemental which lives up to the name. Arch Vile , Chaingunner, Mastermind and Revenant are all absent. There's a new gun, it looks cool but its sound and attack is pathetic. It can apparently be upgraded if you hit up the secret levels, might make it tolerable. Altogether, this is fair- though the lack of Arch Vile and Revenant are very noticeable. The levels of themselves are simply not as good as Doom 1 + 2. They're decent, but- they feel more simplistic and less polished. Also the music! Where is it? All you get is some ambient sounds which are at times cool but, huge miss here. Sorry. If you've never played Doom. Go play Doom. If you played and love Doom 1+2 and want more of the same, then this is a fine choice.
Just don't care for the game play- sorry. Gave it three stars because I recognize the quality.
The gunplay is fun, certainly- the enemy variety? Pretty cool. Bad guys, monsters & dinosaurs but where oh where is the ammunition? Enemies respawn infinitely but ammo is limited, the first level was fine but progressing on I simply ran out of ammunition and was trying instead to run past enemies. On top of that- there's a lives system, combined with a checkpoint system combined with a save place system. What? Any one of those would be semi-bad on their own, but all three combined? Don't understand it. The levels are also absolutely huge which would be fine if you could actually save the game. I love these FPSes where you live on the edge, like Doom when you're at your last scrap of ammunition and are given a few cherished bullets- but having zero ammo and trying to sprint back laser-gun guys? No thanks. I played it for a couple of hours but I think that's a wrap.
Played this on mobile. Haven't finished it, probably put about 15 hours into it. The problem I have with this game are two-fold. One it's repetitive. Your task, as player is to conquer three lands who have broken their treaty with you. The lands are all different with different societies, and that's cool- but the problem is the day to day tasks are much the same in each land: Fight your way across the border, then rebuild a fort, then kill a bunch of spiders/lizards/snakes/zombies/mirelings that are infesting some mines. And repeat this about 3-4 times per land, per fort- I didn't get to the second area so I'm guessing there might be more stuff to liberate there. And each area has an easy area, and a hard area separated by a physical border, and I think you're encouraged to conquer each easy area in a land before moving onto any of the three hard areas. The second problem I have is loot. There really isn't any. Most of the time on a quest you're not going to find a new sword, or fancy whatzit, instead you'll find a pile of rocks. Or a pile of wood. To supply your fort! In order to buy new gear you need to build a smithy, and then to get better gear you don't upgrade the smithy but you have to rebuild another fort and build another smithy there, and then another fort, and another, and another. All this for a couple extra damage points. It's just not particularly exciting. So- that's about the size of it. Repetitive tasks. Poor loot progression. The skill progression is fine, but- that's not enough to hold my interest.
Definitely scarier than the first game, and more challenging. Decent variety of guns and big fights don't feel too contrived, game also tries to break things up with vehicle and turret sections. Quite a bit of fun but the levels do get pretty samey- dirty concrete rooms with minimal lighting or hospitals/school environments- yeah we get it, scary stuff but the first game's office tower was missed- especially since the environment in the original seemed more destructible. Reborn is a tiny expansion- couple hours long at most with a massive difficulty spike for the final battle. Tries to introduce a lot of interesting scenarios like having no weapon but your fists or fighting powered suits in a breakable wall environment. Ultimately a fair bit of fun though I think the main campaign outstayed its welcome a bit.
After the atmospheric, but mediocre Quake and forgettable Quake 2, this felt at first like a real generic sci-fi shooter. And for the most part, that rings true. The plot is thin and bland, the game seemingly forgets about halfway through- the turret and vehicle sections are not amazing. But on the good side, there's a great plot twist about half way through, there's a good variety of guns and none of them feel weak, and also the enemy variety is pretty decent. I'm surprised this came out AFTER Doom 3, it feels technologically inferior to Doom- but this has more enemies to fight, at the expense of atmosphere and story. The railgun though, gotta say, not a great gun. It's got a 3 round clip and some common enemies take two shots a piece, at least playing on Hard. Very lackluster. In fact a lot of the advanced guns feel- subpar. I actually used the plain ole assault rifle the most. But all of the guns are useful in one situation or another, just not ALL situations. Overall it was a good bit of fun.
Having played Crysis 3 recently, it's nice to get a game about Psycho. There's some fun to be had in the campaign, but the story is not much to write about. Also the characters don't react enough to the events taking place, like when the island freezes over- nary a comment about any of it. No "bollocks, what happened?!". Just business as usual. Also I didn't have a clue what this meta story was with the four years ago thing. The game wanted me to think it was important, but because it's just audio- no visuals, it's hard to know exactly what's going on. Overall it's okay but there are better Crysis titles to play.
Can say nothing of the PC port. See other reviews for that. But as a game, absolutely amazing. Outstanding art direction and world building, engaging movement mechanics and combat. Decent skill tree, crafting. Only thing I could say is that I wish you could talk to more NPCs, even ones that didn't have anything of value to say. There's a good amount of NPC banter, but- can't generally talk to them. Instead can mostly talk to quest givers, merchants, or quest-related NPCs.
Don't believe that nonsense about being "half a game". The game isn't short, there's a lot of content. That said the ending is very abrupt and not very satisfying. It's less that it's half a game, and more that it has a poorly executed cliff-hanger. I think that the game also got flak for tackling racism. Personally I loved that aspect of the game, and it totally makes sense given the backstory. Unfortunately I heard part 3 got shelved by Square, but if and when it comes out I'll eagerly buy it up. Also wanted to mention I played this on XB1, not PC. So I don't know if the PC version has any problems.
