Gothic 2 could be a great game. It also needs a metric f-ton of patches to propery run and that's a goose chase around some shady internet sites. It's basically more Gothic, both in good and bad. The good is that it still has incredible world building, atmosphere and overall good quest design, as well as a world to explore IF you bother looking beyond the horrible combat system and grind associated with it. Stuff is hidden, unmarked, so good luck remembering where the trainer for your sneak skill was located. Better look still to grind out the necessary levels to level the skills. Combat is jank and unfun. Combat against a single enemy is doable. Against two? Better save before because they'll swarm you and crit you to death before you can say cheese. It's also harder to single out enemies to fight them one on one because alarming one will usually aggro the whole group. Takes forever to get out of the early levels because the game is designed in a way to make your chosen one be a wimp. It's a harsh trial and error game, which is where safe scumming was invented. Keep that in mind if you get the game running at all.
It's more Boltgun. Contains 5 more maps, or 4 large maps and a big combat arena for 2 - 3 hours of fun. The 2 new weapons are useful and actually do some damage, unlike... say... the Plasma Rifle. Most enemies are still too tanky, Aspiring Champions are still jank, Plasma Cultists still blend into the backgrounds (and are more numerous), but at least the new enemies are a bit of fresh air. Havocs have missile launchers. Deadly, for you and them - you can blow them up with their own missile. Same goes for the new Plasma CSM variant. The Lightning Claw Terminators will rush you down, making them the tankiest melee enemy outside of bosses, they're a lot more dangerous than the regular variant. The Chaos Dreadnought is a new sub boss encounter. Not quite as tanky as the Greater Daemons but usually comes with extra baggage (in one case, a dozen Bloatdrones). Oh and the new enemies have better accuracy as well, so they will actually hit their shots. New maps look more varied as well, if the whole base campaign was like this it would have felt much better. However, the encounters drag even longer than the base game so if combat arenas aren't your thing this won't win you over either. It's good if you liked Boltgun and the asking price is fair, all things considered, but if you had problems with the base game you might want to reconsider as Forges of Corruption does not fix the issues with the game at all.
Boltgun has the foundation to be a very good shooter. Movement feels solid, the titular Boltgun is amazing, and the enemy design is straight out of the 90's 40k universe, bright and colorful. The same cannot be said about the visuals in general however. The maps often look the same and it's often confusing where you need to go because everything is covered in the same plaststeel walls and imperial containers. There's little evolution in themes as the campaign progresses. Map designs are mostly arenas with little sections connecting them. Might have been less of a chore towards the end if enemy design was better. Health and ammo is abundant except for some missions in episode 2. Doesn't make the end of the game too easy because of the insane amount of bullet sponges it throws at you. Enemies are bullet spongey. While in there's a lot of variance in theory, it doesn't feel like it. It's mostly various tiers of slow bullet sponges. Low tier enemies drop in one shot so at least it's satisfying to mow down a horde of cultists with the Boltgun. Notable exceptions to this are the Aspiring Champions who still hit before their actual attack animation plays (and they resurrect and are sneaky because sounddesign is all over the place), and the Plasma Cultists who are so dark they often blend into the backgrounds (they are about the only enemy who are designed this obnoxiously). Every enemy in this game save for the Plasma Cultists have stormtrooper aim. Boss encounters are cluttered with ads, sometimes to the point where it feels like you made it through by being lucky. Weapons are okay but feel weak. Plasma Gun should 2-shot most easy enemies like CSM, and I don't want to empty a full clip of Vengeance Launcher rounds into one Champion just to drop him. The game has the potential to be much better but a lack of design thought, balancing issues and lack of polish hold it back.
Resident Evil 3 is still a great game and much better than the disappointing Remake. However, going with the absolute OG isn't always better. While gog has done *some* improvements the game, this version has the horrible clipping and model wobbling effect that has plagued the pc version since its original release. Subtitles are missing in video and cutscenes, and the whole game still looks a bit washed out. Jill also can't get beheaded by hunters, so the game is part cut. I have experienced one crash but I attest that to the game really not liking alt-tabbing. They would have done much better if they had used the sourcenext version to work off of but instead said they wanted to go for the original, resulting in a not-optimal user experience. On the upside, the sourcenext conversion and HD mods are working with this release, and I have found no stuttering or dropped inputs. At this point this might be the best readily available version of the game considering that neither the sourcenext nor the gamecube version are easily accessible anymore.
So in theory this DLC is purely enhancing the base experience. + 1 new clan that looks weak on the outside but offers a number of interesting ways to build decks around - buffing units with their new mechanics, applying massive, persisting debuffs to enemies (potentially doing upwards of 1000 damage), or using a new egg hatching mechanic. + New events and cards enhance the base roster of clans and playstyles without becoming so much that it clutters the decks, there are still many ways to build around and mitigate RNG. + The new mechanic to sacrifice units and combine them offers some interesting ways to build that perfect road block level. However, there are two negatives to this... - some of the existing champions and clans are in need of a rebalance. Stygian in particular feels very underwhelming and very hard to work around. - the new super boss straight up nullifies any deck that builds around applying debuffs the enemy, making many cards and decks useless if you plan on taking them on. This is a huge negative point that brings down the DLC several notches for me.
It's a short and sweet throwback style swashbuckler. Don't play this as a soulslike or you'll be severely disappointed. Instead, you'll be zipping around the arenas, kick boxes into enemies and throw some wine at them to surprise them. Enemies are aggressive and will close in fast, while it's not the most difficult game it's still a bit challenging. It's lighthearted, good sense of humor, too. Graphics are good as well. Storymode is short, got through in about 4 hours, so if you want more out of it you'll have to dig into the challenges or the arena mode. There are, however, two things I do not like about this game. First, the camera. As most of the fights are in enclosed areas or arenas, getting boxed in is a problem, more so as it will box you in and enemies close in from behind. Second, the enemy lunge range - thought you just dodged the enemy attacks only to get lunged at from half a city block away. It's frustrating as it was probably my main source of death in this game, but coupled with the camera it leads to a lot of cheap shots by the enemies. 20€ might be a tough sell but it's still a fun game.
This port was unexpected but isn't unwelcome. It's easy to set up, runs very smooth and also comes with a few previously rare wads (and even a new one). It's very close to the og DOOM games, down to the enemies having infinite height. Comes with a few nice QoL features and accessibility features as well. However! It ties mouse movement to framerate and framerate is interpolated meaning that mouse movement may be stuttering and jittery, and sometimes objects may appear to stutter ingame as well. Improved textboxes accessibility puts text in huge, ugly black boxes and is on by default. Decreased screen flashing often makes it hard to make out whether you picked up a health or ammo item. The mod browser is bad. It doesn't differentiate between uploader and actual author, and it doesn't read whether a wad is actually compatible or not - some wads are using zdoom functionality rendering them incompatbile with this port. Search functions and snapshoting where you were when you clicked on a file also need vast improvement. I'd say this could become a great alternative to gzdoom because of how fast and fluid it feels but right now those things mentioned hold it back a lot.
It's a fun game with interesting core mechanics, all too often ruined by arbitrary RNG. Often enough there's just nothing you can do - 4 - 6 empty scan locations in a row, or getting 3 2 missile launcher gunships when you have no missile defenses ruin a good run quite often. It's unfortunate when the strategy choices are otherwise good, the game looks polished and the music is mesmerizing.
