I knew they were going to announce something during QuakeCon but I never expected this. Both games, fully enhanced, with options for some slightly tweaked levels to make them less tedious, wholly reworked soundtracks by Andrew Hulshult, and TWO WHOLE NEW EXPANSIONS! Also, 8-player split screen? WHAT? That is insane. I love everything about this. Heretic 2 next? Please? I need for that game to be made available again.
Before you can play Doom in the Doom mod, you have to walk around for an hour (no joke, an HOUR) listening to anime tier voice acting (not a compliment) with typos in the subtitles and some crappy exposition and annoying flashbacks about some girl your character knew when you were kids or something. There are some new assets created for this mod, which is nice, and some of the level design is actually quite good. But it also continually tries to be subtly funny by adding in references to other FPS games that just kinda falls flat for me (one apartment you come across early on belongs to a guy named Wolf N. Stein, and he lives in apartment 3D. I wish I was kidding). This works for other games, but not for Doom. There are these tedious train segments with a train car that looks like it came straight from Duke Nukem 3D (again, not a compliment) where you just have to sit there and do nothing. I think this mod was made with the wrong game for the wrong audience. If it was a Half-Life mod or something, it might work better. At least you still get to play Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3.
I’ve never played the original Gothic, but I do intend to soon. All things considered, I enjoyed this demo and I’m looking forward to the final release of the remake. I really like the graphics, the voice acting is great and the NPCs mannerisms set the tone really well, and I thought the sound design was really good as well.
This is the way you do a remaster. A whole new episode, Quake II 64 (which was essentially a whole different episode in its own right), fast and smooth performance, and it looks incredible, all for the price of a burger and fries. Other developers need to take note. Nightdive knocks it out of the park yet again.
Resident Evil 2 was my very first experience with the series, particularly the N64 port back in 1999. So this one has a special place in my heart. As good as RE1 is, I feel like 2 improves on it in just about every way. The zombies have a wider variety of models, the weapons feel better to use, the voice acting is VASTLY improved, and the characters have more depth. The audio mixing is still kinda bad, and with this port you still have to CTRL+ALT+DEL and End Task to exit, but those two things aren't a huge deal. Fantastic work.
First, this isn't the Director's Cut of the game. This is the original. The Director's Cut adds a randomizer mode as well as an easier difficulty mode, but that's about it. So this is fine. It runs really well. The only issue I've run into is that there's no exit from a menu. No way to even go back to the main menu without dying. To exit to desktop you have to CTRL+ALT+DEL and then End Task. That's annoying. Other than that, great work.
A collection of every official Doom WAD (and also Sigil, which is about as unofficially official as it gets) all in one place, on the KEX Engine, which is fantastic. It's free if you've already owned Doom or Doom II. It has mod support (but people keep uploading mods that are specifically designed to work exclusively with GZ for some reason). It's all great. Except the new episode, which is why I knocked off a star. Legacy of Rust is nothing but cheap bullshit after cheap bullshit and isn't even remotely fun.
Once again Nightdive gets it absolutely right. Doom, Doom 2, Final Doom, Sigil, and a whole new episode with new weapons and new enemies, all in one place, with mod support and actual online multiplayer. This is the way to do it. If I had to complain about one thing, it's that the Wolfenstein secret levels are still censored.
I got Graven back in early access when I first saw it announced on Realms Deep, and back then it was cool. The game is really good looking and absolutely nails the aesthetic and atmosphere it's going for. Combat was pretty unbalanced but I figured it was early access and they had plenty of time to work on that. They did not, in fact, work on that. In fact I feel like they doubled down on it, making it worse. I get that it's a dark fantasy setting and the world is supposed to feel dangerous, but there's a way to do that while still making the game fun and this just is not fun to play. They also removed the map from early access, making navigation an absolutely frustrating experience. Whoever was responsible for that decision sucks. I've heard reports of frequent crashes and soft locks, and while I haven't experienced any of those (yet) I have encountered some absolutely bizarre graphical bugs, mostly enemies just clipping through walls and floors. I want to like Graven. But I just don't. It sucks. Don't buy it.
This game is not for everyone. Technically nothing is for everyone, but I digress. Anyway this game can be extremely difficult to get into if you don't know what you're doing, even on pushover difficulty. I highly suggest finding a manual and maybe even a new player guide online. And follow that recipe book in your Goodies/Extras. You need to have at least 3 recipes from that book on your menu before any customers will even look in the general direction of your restaurant.
