Quite interesting worlds to explore. Really nice to have a game which lets you walk on/access pretty much every visible edge and surface reachable; no nasty invisible walls here! Theres a lot of varying themes including ancient mythology, sci-fi dystopias, and Lovecraftian horror. Overall there's a very magical and mythological atmosphere throughout most of the game. Some really nice suprises along the way to change things up and bring refreshment to the experience, mostly in terms of level design and interaction with the level. Neat effects and almost overwhelming surroundings sometimes, but in a positive way. The ray tracing plays an important immersive part; a big plus for incorporating this technology! The weapons are surprisinlgy interesting. One of which summons a black hole; how cool is that?! I like that there's several useful ranged weapons. This allows for classig, ranged, circle strafing combat. The enemies are usually as fast/almost as fast as the player; in other words the combat is rapid and straight forward. No disruptive combos or finishing moves/execution moves, thank God. It would be a plus if the enemy designs held a bit more personality and charachter, and their attacks would be more memorable. Player movement is delightfully fast and smooth. One complaint: the floaty movement makes platforming a bit annoying sometimes when precision is needed, though fortunately the player isn't too often subjected to such critical platforming. The sountracks of today tend to be comparatively less memorable to soundtracks of the old days. Although not as memorable as the sountrack of Hexen/Heretic, Amid Evil's score is on the better side, and I was positively surprised by its arrangements and melodiousness.
This is an in development review! The atmosphere, visuals and sounds/music works well in all situations and fits the game. Breakable objects, lore and an open world concept keeps the player interested for a while until you die and discover you loose gold because of that. The worst thing is, every time you continue the game after you've turned it off, you'll begin in the same place which is the town centre. It gets really repetitive to make your way from the town killing the same enemies and looking at the same environments while trying to reach the point where you last left off. This is a very pointless mechanic and prevents the player from feeling accomplishment and progression. The controls are really well layed out. They're responsive and its easy to navigate the world and control the main charachter. The weapons are quite underwhelming though, and it´s strange how there isn't a costfree ranged weapon. Having two different attacks with the staff is fun and being able to lauch a powerful kick at your enemies is a fun addition. A big thums up to the ladder mechanics; its really easy and fun climbing up and down ladders. Being an old-school FPS fan I'm not used to such luxurious and problem-free ladder mechanics, but this game does it right 100%. Being able to save whenever you need to, just like in old-school FPS titles which Graven clearly tries to be, would already ramp up the user experience a lot. It's a good this you at least respawn at the latest chechpoint whenever you die. However, sadly you can't geet hooked on a game which every time you turn on your computer and continue the game, forces the player to start way further back than where he left off.
A great horror FPS thanks to many things. The gameplay itself is quite simple, but fun: you use weapons and spell. Some spells are offensive and others related to abilities. The game is surprisingly long, and delivers what you would except from this sort of title: vast array of enemies, bosses, a good selection of weapons, many different sites to explore and a quite chilling and surprising storyline. What makes me return to this game once every second year, or so, is the unmatched atmosphere of the entire journey. It can go from creepy, to cosy, to adrenaline raising. Clive Barker's Undying delivers!