Look, I know GoG did not wrap this in dgVoodoo2. I can't explain that. As others have said, dgvoodoo2 is open source and I believe the author just wants credit somehwere as he's one of the OG dudes from 3Dfx. GoG obviously went their usual lazy route and bundled the game in the first wrapper they found on google that was open source. I was shocked at how only 640x480 in 8 bit color was available in the video modes when I first ran the game, yes. Then I went "oh well, I 'm going to have to do my old man thing of downloading a proper wrapper like dgvoodoo and throwing it in the game folder for them..." Sure enough, throw in the lastest dgvoodoo2 D3D DLL files right next to the game's EXE and boom; resultions up to 800x600 I believe and 16bit color depth is restored. The framerate and everything else is smoothed out too, obviously. I know googling the latest dgvoodoo release and throwing it in the game folder is a pain but it took me about an actual minute which I didn't think warranted a 1-star review. Other than that initial laziness on GoG's part, this game is pretty cool. I'm shocked I don't remember it from back in the day. Playing it for a couple hours it's definitely something I would have enjoyed. It's also from that exact 2.5D era that looks like genuine 2.5D with sprites moving on top of 3D backgrounds. Plays a lot like Loaded on PS1 with more story and RPG elements. Very fun.
Like most of Nightdive's work, this is hampered by "the decisions of the original developers." Those guys were clowns that made some bad decisions in 1994, why honor those bad decisions? What about those janky, rushed, hardware-limited design choices is so sacred and worth preserving like using sparse checkpoints instead of quick-saves? I don't get nostagic at 40 going "oh boy, I have to go all the way back and get that key again just like 1994!" No one does that except sperg developers who are so self-congratulatory they are always "honoring" each others "vision" even if that means a lot of nuisance, wasted time and any lack of quality of life improvements explained away as "honoring the intention of the original card table of haggard idiots from 1993." What's there is exactly what you got on th Playstation and Saturn playable in 1080/60 on modern hardware. That's what you get, no more or less. I think that sucks. Respect my time by throwing in easy QoL like quicksaves, stop being difficult about stuff like that Nightdive...
I bought this garbage mod on Steam, where it used to sell for quite a bit more, and was told when it dropped it gives one the Heretic and Hexen vibes. That is not at all the case, this is just too broken and inocoherent on a design level. Rekkr is much better than this mod. The free Doom mod Ashes 2063 is much, much more impressive and does things with the Doom engine that look like Ion Fury. The Aliens: Eradication TC is free and also amazing. This is as lazy and derivative as the rest of the developer's work. Don't be fooled that its like Heretic, only insofar as it uses the Doom engine. The way this boring and frustrating mod is so overrated is baffling.
The five star reviews are developer PR. People should know that PR firms with thousands of underpaid employees that look like call centers are hired to write five star reviews for failing games, movies and albums. They inevitably start with "don't listen to these other idiots..." If you actually enjoyed the game, you wouldn't have to attack opthers right out the gate in your own review. Shills and PR agents do this. I own the Hitman games on the consoles and they're fine, I guess. But the feckless, milquetoast shills that mewl "meeeh if you overlook the DRM meeeeh" are actively contributing to the degradation of what makes GoG distinct from other platforms: no DRM. If GoG games now require online connectivity, what is the point of pointing up with it's terrible interface, lack of matchmaking, lack of controller support? All of which are inexcusable sloth from GoG's whiny internal devs, I grant you. "Muh carpal tunnel!" This review section doesn't even have a spell check. GoG Galaxy doesn't support cut-and-paste. Seriously, you guys bring in DRM before fixing any of these things? Are you four Swedish guys around a card table playing Go Fish? Get to work. Keep DRM of GoG, it's the only thing that makes it superior to other platforms. And employed shills of any kind are human garbage whether they care or not.
Meatspinner.
I prefer the feel, mechanics and atmosphere of Quake 1. I'm playing through Quake 4 again right now with my own tweaks and it only drives home where the series went awry, as Romero himself point out; Quake 2. A few recent games like Dusk and Amid Evil are pretty close to bringing back that old Quake 1 feel from before the switch to the Quake 2 / Doom 3 aesthetic. 1C themselves also has Wrath going on which is actually coded in the original Quake engine, but they are taking a REALLY long time to finish it especially given they are life-long Quake modders. This game, even at this this early stage, is more what I want from a Quake clone. The mechanics are simplified enough and the atmosphere engaging enough that I can immerse myself. It's not heart attack, "soulslike" difficult and it doesn't have a bunch of stupid, pointless Doom Eternal style gunplay gimmicks. I wish more Quake clones were like this one. My only gripe is it uses save stones. Please, add a quicksave key like F5. Please. As an old man...
Yes, many mechanics in this game are as simple as they would have been in an earlier era of FPS. I'm fine with this as an older gamer and really find those mechanics refreshing within such a great looking universe. I'm not getting the hate on this one. The graphics options are very thorough and DLSS really helps fine tuning things. I thought this game was a huge step up from Deathwing and plays a bit like a combination of the recent Doom games and Metroid Prime of all things. I recommend this game to fans of the Turok franchise who don't need everything to be super innovative gameplaywise. This is one of the very few "next gen" looking games to me on my rig. Thanks devs. Sorry for goofballs.
Hexen didn't have many fans back in the day but I was one of them, People back in '94 complained that is was too open world, if you can imagine such a thing today. But it was "open world" in a very realistic way to me. The key you needed might simply be lying in the woods somewhere and you have to go get it. Or you just have to try every switch to leave a dungeon. This feels like the direction the devs are going and I appreciate it. I assume there will be one hub world that has several items or keys required to unlock compartments of it. For those complaining this isn't an "immersive sim," go immerse your head in the toilet. Sometimes you have to create your own immersaion while the game simply provides a convincing atmosphere. I love what the devs have created so far in terms of the town and the cartoony gloom and the general ambience. I have a feeling this game will be received in a similar way to Hexen which is a shame. Try to accept the somewhat slow pace of discovery and get into the crickety/spidery/foggyness of it all.
For the first hour or two of the game, you really feel like this dev understands what older gamers want from an NES throwback. I doubt most people who played the NES back in the day want games like this and Cyber Shadow to be hard and janky and stiff in ways that only make gaming worse and terrible. No one should WANT to be throwing their controller or pounding on the couch in rage. After completing the transition from 8-bit to 16-bit in this game, I can say that the difficulty spike is disgusting just before the transition, and almost made me quit the game forever to avoid cortisol giving me a heart attack. I personally consider devs intentionally raising adrenaline and cortisol, which causes heart disease, murder. So while this dev is slowly killing us all with completely unecessary difficulty that goes far beyond anything the NES could have thrown at you, I'm sure he's also fobbing off cirtics with "then don't play the game." Fine, and this review will be here to warn away anyone else that values their health and the genuine enjoyment of their free time. You have to love that psychotic egomaniac replies most devs give when they deliberately anger customers so much. What is with people over-rating this game? Especially compared to Cyber Shadow? Most of the dialogue literally laughs at you for putting up with how overly frustrating everything is. Like the dev or devs are actually mentally torturing you for losing your money. Especially with that heinous mechanic of having the little blob follow you around counting the times you die. Seriously, what is wrong with these devs? That transtion in graphical style should have been the end of the game. And it is for me. I'm done with it. And you human garbage didn't even include a difficulty setting. Off to a game that actually wants me to enjoy it.
This game is gorgeous in 1440p, I'll say that. The controls feel fluid and its fun just to swing your weapon with that huge Whoosh. But as others have said, your mileage is going to very on this F'ing pointless hyper-difficulty all the Zoomers are into these days. I consider intentionally raising the cortisol in other humans murder. High cortisol causes heart attacks. Frustrating games raise cortisol. Thanks, devs. You absolute monsters.
