Annoying vehicle sections aside, the game stars off pretty strong, the level design is decent, doing covert missions and mowing down whole platoons of nazis is fun, and the orchestral score is as epic as I remembered it. Then I'm dropped into one of the most legendary missions in the FPS genre that single handedly kicked off the whole WWII shooter fad, and it's actually still pretty decent. "Man, this game is pretty awesome" - I think to myself. Unfortunately, however, right after Omaha, the quality takes a nose dive and the rest of the game is an excercise in frustration and poor design. It's incredible how badly it aged over the years. The first and second half are like two completely different games. The lowest point obviously comes during the sniper town mission where the only way to get through it is to save scum and hope you'll be able to figure out where the shots are coming from before you run out of patience. And don't even get me started on the ending. It was bad even back in the day. I didn't even touch the expansions yet but I'm already dreading playing them because I distinctly remember that the difficulty level drove me crazy even when I played them all those years ago. Honestly, if you want to revisit this game, don't bother playing it past the Omaha Beach mission.
Non-existent story and childish attempts at being mature aside, it's a genuinely solid retro shooter that introduced some interesting ideas for the time. The sidekick A.I. isn't perfect and gets stuck sometimes, which may be annoying but for the most part, it works fine and these guys are actually helpful in combat. Optional objectives and ability to interact with NPCs is also pretty cool but I thought it was under-utilized. Probably the first optional mission is the most intricate way this whole system was implemented but as soon as you acquire some useful guns, side activities become very rare and you'll be spending most of your time squeezing gats till the clip is empty. Regardless, it's an entertaining Quake 2-era FPS which deserves its place among the classics of the genre. The very same studio was later renamed to Gray Matter and went on to make an excellent Return To Castle Wolfenstein and you can feel some of this game in Kingpin.
I've heard a lot of bad things about the game over the years and actually found the description for modern releases funny but in all honesty, it's totally unwarranted. You just have to prepare for the fact that this is NOT Carmageddon 2. This game introduced enough tweaks to the formula to completely change the way it plays. While racing in Carma 2 was more like an afterthought and the meat of the game was to explore the giant maps, kill pedestrians, wreck opponents and cause overall mayhem, TDR 2000 puts a much stronger emphasis on the racing aspect. I can understand if that left a sour taste for someone who played the second game in the series and was expecting more of the same but let's be honest, Carma 2 wasn't without its flaws and TDR attempted to fix at least some of them. It became its own thing in the process. Whether you'll like it or not is still a matter of opinion ofc, but I think it's unfair to bash a perfectly fine and competently made racing game. Stainless Games are just being big babies about it.
As you might have read in some of the other reviews, the game isn't without its flaws. The critical hit system is completely random and makes the on-foot missions somewhat frustrating if you're not careful, the A.I. is absolutely brainless (both for the enemies and your companions), and some bugs will occasionally lead to cheap deaths. Honestly, though, my biggest gripe about this game is that it's too short. In the end, though, the most imporant question is that whether it's fun or not. And for me, the answer is most definitely YES. I always found it interesting that the game lets you do stuff any ordinary FPS would consider a mission fail. For example, instead of forcing you to reload a save when you start killing NPCs, it lets you figure out on your own that you either can't progress or you just unknowingly followed a different path in the storyline. And yes, there are multiple endings. The anime aesthetic is definitely unique and blowing stuff up in the middle of a city as a giant mech never gets old. The aforementioned critical hits make the on-foot levels a bit worse but once you learn to play it safe, it's not so bad. These levels are still a treat to play thanks to the satisfying gore and selection of weapons that all feel fun to use and fire with punchy sound effects. And with great sound desing also comes awesome music which is both appropriate for the game's theme and it creates a nice atmosphere. I'll admit that I have a big nostalgia for this game and playing it takes me back to these long nights when I only remembered that I was playing for too long when daylight started pouring into the room. But for any fan of retro shooters, this game will still be a curiosity and I guarantee that you'll have a good time playing it.
My favourite things about this game are definitely the presentation and music. Even though it's pretty old, it still looks gorgeous and it's really the little details that set it apart. Stuff like the shaky cam whenever you zoom on the burning engines or explosions, tiny thrusters firing on the side of the ships when they turn, the kinetic feeling of ships having to gradually reduce their velocity or the way they gracefully manouver during combat, etc. etc. It all looks and feels really nice and the ambient music only enhances the visuals. Nevertheless, I have to admit that I never got past the stealth mission since it was pretty confusing and I kept getting detected despite closely following the nav points. It was really frustrating and pretty much ruined an otherwise enjoyabe game for me.
First of all, I think you shouldn't approach Daikatana without the 1.3 patch installed. It is the only reason I finally decided to sit down and finish it. While it doesn't remove every little problem, it definitely fixes everything that kept me from playing this game all those years and adds a number of quality-of-life improvements. Right now, all you have to worry about is playing through the game. And how is it, exactly? Not bad, honestly. You just have to get through the first few levels before it gets going. The game starts off with literally the worst levels in the entire campaign so it does leave a rather sour taste, but things get progressively better after that. The entire first episode is pretty mediocre, mostly because of the small-hitbox enemies and useless weapons but as soon as you reach the second episode, it's a whole different story. I honestly enjoyed myself as much as with any other retro shooter from that era. You get better weapons, the enemies are cooler, and the environments look really nice, not to mention that level design gets way better. Second episode is definitely a highlight, although the third and fourth one are pretty decent as well. What I enjoyed about the game the most is the variety. Say what you want about John Romero, but with this game, he actually delivered everything that he promised back in the day. Without spoiling too much of the story, each episode offers a completely new set of weapons and enemies, and the environments are wildly different from one another. Despite the fact that it's probably the longest first-person shooter from that era I ever played (easily about 15-20 hours of gameplay), I never got bored due to how different each episode felt. The ability to level up either your abilities or the titular Daikatana also added to the enjoyment of the game. Once again, as long as you'll remember to install the 1.3 patch, this game is well worth your time if you're a fan of retro shooters.
I remember playing the demo of Redline over and over as a kid and back then, I was completely blown away by its combination of first-person shooting and vehicle combat. I was excited to finally play the full game and see what it has in stock after the first level. Nowadays games like that are a dime a dozen and probably the closest modern equivalent is Rage 2 since both games also share a post-apocalyptic theme but unfortunately, Redline aged very poorly and overall, it's hard to recommend even for a trip down the nostalgia lane. It would have been better if I skipped the full version and left my memories about the demo intact. One of the biggest problems is the fact that the game is programmed with 30 frames per second in mind which makes it rather uncomfortable to play and the first person view is almost nausea-inducing unless you use a patch to increase the FOV. The on-foot controls are sluggish and you'll often get stuck on the level geometry in tight areas and vehicle controls are rather finnicky and overly sensitive so no matter how you engage the enemy in combat, it is never fully satisfying. But the biggest problem this game has are the bugs, especially when it comes to level scripting. I quit playing after three levels because of the bugged mission where the game enters a failstate during a cinematic with a "mission failed" message because I destroyed the car, even though my ultimae goal was to drive it safely to my destination and then throw it into a lava pit. It's like the game remembered my first objective but then forgot about the other. I suppose that the post-apocalyptic visuals and destructive environments are still a plus but that's about it. Everything else, including the story, the music, voice acting, and OTT violence is a typical late-90s gutter trash that was trying to be edgy but ends up being silly. IMO Redline is not worth revisiting, even if you have fond memories of it.
So glad that Gearbox didn't completely abandon this game and re-released the original version, even though they were unable to remaster it like the others. The story is a bit of a deviation from the other games but not an unwelcome one. Instead of battling with nefarious empires for the future of your race and fulfilling ancient prophecies, you'll go toe-to-toe with a mysterious (and hella creepy) alien organism inspired by creatures from movies like The Thing, or Alien. It's completely different in tone from what you would expect in a Homeworld game but the mystery surrounding the creature and the ability to play as an underdog caste of the Hiigaran society really adds to the depth of the storyline and expands the lore in a satisfying way. The biggest improvement over the original in terms of gameplay was the time compression. Back in the day it was a real godsend since you could finally skip those excruciating moments when you had to wait for resource collectors to finish their job before moving on to the next level. There are also other quality of life improvements, like the lack of fuel on small fighters or new, useful ships like the processor, which is way more useful than resource controller from the original. The biggest issue that I have with this game is that the scripting can sometimes get buggy and it makes some missions unnecessarily difficult. TL;DR - GREAT GAME! You should definitely grab it if you enjoyed the HW Remastered Collection - just squint your eyes a little and don't pay attention to the low res textures on ships. The backgrounds still look beautiful, even today.
First game was pretty unique in its gameplay since it controlled like a typical, early noughties third person shooter but was largely focused on frantic melee combat. Bloodrayne 2, however, is more of a traditional brawler, very reminiscent of games like Soul Reaver or Devil May Cry. It actually makes a lot of sense because the main character was practically desigend for this style of gameplay. The only problem is - the game is an atrocious, buggy mess. The most imporant aspect in brawler games are the controls and they are just fiddly and unresponsive here, not to mention that even the most basic enemies are able to stagger you and kick your entire health bar down within seconds if you're fighting more than two of them at a time (which is almost always). It just makes Rayne feel like a total pansy instead of this badass vampire killing machine. The lock-on system and blocking also suck because you can only block the attacks of the enemy that you're currently locked on and all the others are free to kick you in the ass, staggering you and breaking your guard anyway - it's just useless and annoying as all hell. The only thing you can really do is to cartwheel around the place like a maniac, hoping that no one will be able to land a punch. Then there's platforming, which takes some inspiration from games like Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, except here it's also broken. Let's disregard the hilariously bad animations and ram-rod stiff posture of Rayne when she slides down the railings, the most annoying thing about platforming is that it fails to register some of your commands or does the complete opposite of what you intended, even if you thought your jump was right on the money. It's hard to recommend this game even to die-hard fans of Rayne. It's just incredibly frustrating and not very fun so trust me, it's not worth the hassle.
Even though Bloodrayne has some annoying problems and the combat is rather chaotic, you just can't help but to feel that juvenile glee while ripping nazis to pieces and watching half-naked vampire chicks with jiggly boobies kicking the living crap out of each other. Those design choices are the sole reason why this game transcended its own mediocrity and became a cult classic. I'm also pretty sure that it produced a whole generation of men who had to cope with very confusing boners during their puberty. Unfortunately, the game is really dragged down by a ridiculous spike in difficulty during the final act, even on easy mode. The vampire enemies are able to take away a full bar of health in less than a second if they gang up on you and it's BS cuz all they seem to do is awkwardly rub against you like its a glitch. Speaking of glitches, there aren't that many but they are just infuriating. They can even prevent you from finishing a level unless you cheat. I don't remember those from back in the day, so my guess is that the game just spazzes out on modern systems. Finally, the saving system is garbage because it allows you to save only during level transitions and some of the levels are pretty long, full of difficult fights, and cheap ways of killing you right near the exit. You'd be hard pressed not to put your fist through the monitor during those moments.
