The best thing I can say about LOL3 is that it was much better than the reviews led me to believe. The engine actually isn't bad, the game is colorful and the environments are diverse, so things don't get boring. I appreciated that it was usually pretty clear where to go and how to proceed, and the puzzles were pretty logical, so I didn't find myself constantly stuck like I did in LOL2. Although the game did swing a bit too far in the other direction, many of the environments were a little too linear. Combat and movement are also both fine, so this game is a fairly enjoyable journey gameplay-wise. One disappointing thing is that in LOL1 and 2, beautiful prerendered scenes would appear organically when you visited certain locations. However LOL3 mostly cut these out, there are cutscenes when you visit a new level but nothing tightly integrated like the past games. The NPCs suffer greatly from this, being horribly animated sprites instead of live-action CGI like LOL2. The biggest letdowns for me are game length and story. First, it's way shorter than LOL1 and LOL2, it feels like maybe half the length of those games. This may be because the previous games were epic tales with many twists and turns, but the story in this game is very straightforward: You have to visit five different realms to restore order to the lands. There are no real major twists or interesting wrinkles to the storyline, all cards are laid on the table from the beginning. Fine story for an action game, not so much for a story-driven RPG. But the worst part is the way they completely ruin the characters we loved from the previous games: Eric, Gladstone's greatest warrior, is portrayed as a weakling, a horrible Patrick Stewart impersonator plays a soulless Richard, and Geron, one of the most interesting parts of LOL1, is also ruined. It's no surprise they didn't make a sequel to this game, after they had ruined all interesting characters and closed off all interesting plotlines.
I have to preface this review by saying I am a huge fan of the so-called "Doom-clones" that came out during the 90s. I love this style of graphics, and I have played a huge number of these games, hunting down even the most obscure. However, until now I had not played the original Doom from beginning to end (to be honest, I found the demo kind of boring). Having finally played it through, here are my thoughts: Good: + Excellent engine, so much better than Wolfenstein + Core gameplay is fun and fast-paced + A few nice touches (monster infighting, corpses can get crushed by doors) + Some of the enemies and weapons are well-drawn Bad: - Virtually no story, what little there is doesn't make any sense - Too few enemies - only 5 regular types - Enemy design not very innovate - either a humanoid demon or a floating head - Lighting seems off - darkness drops off too slowly, bright lights don't pierce the darkness - Level names/intermission pictures seem exciting, but have nothing to do with the actual levels - Music quality ranges from decent to poor, often doesn't fit the level - Sound effects are functional but pretty basic - Level design seems fairly random, not much correspondence to reality - Very simple gameplay gets a bit repetitive - Textures and objects are fairly generic and seem randomly thrown around the levels - Very little attention to detail on the levels, few truly memorable locations - Nothing new in episode 3 or 4 except one lame boss - Ending is a major letdown overall Basically, Doom is a great tech-demo, but it doesn't have all the components needed to make a great game. It seems like it was rushed out the door in order to secure its place in history. Later "Doom-clones" improved things massively, with compelling storylines, huge numbers of really creative enemies, awesome music & sound effects, and most importantly, highly detailed and immersive levels and artwork. Doom has a great engine, but all in all it's not really that good of a game.
If, like me, you haven't played a recent LEGO game before, but were looking for a fun Batman experience, be warned of the following: - No characters ever speak. This robs the game of any interesting storyline or character development, and turns the villains into just different skins on the same character. A major disappointment in a Batman game. - This game is really designed for 2-player coop, with all the puzzles designed to test how well Batman and Robin cooperate (e.g. one holds a switch while the other crosses). In single player mode, the AI takes control of the other character, which basically means you only get to solve half of each puzzle, the other half is solved automatically. It also means in many cases you will get frustrated at the inept AI (in one case it got me permanently stuck in a level and forced me to restart). - The game is designed for gamepad. Mouse is not an option, and keyboard is very poorly integrated, with some puzzles (as early as level 2) being next to impossible to complete with a keyboard. This means if you want a proper coop experience, you need two gamepads. - Combat is pretty bad. The best strategy is just to run up to an enemy and press the attack button, after which the enemy will instantly disintegrate. Using the Batarang in combat is ill-advised, since it is so cumbersome to control. - It's impossible to lose and are no stakes. After dying, the game will instantly resurrect you in the exact same spot an unlimited number of times. This leads to some of the most unsatisfying "victories" ever. Overall, a bad game that doesn't in any way feel like Batman. Avoid.
I loved the Monkey Island adventures and Day of the Tentacle, so I was really looking forward to this game. I was assured my many other reviews that it would be really funny, with a lot of memorable characters and all the hallmarks of a great LucasArts adventure. But this was far from the case. The characters are for the most part bland and uninteresting, there's maybe one memorable character (the chief's wife), the rest are soulless props just there to advance the plot. I was expecting to fall in love with Sam & Max, but while there are a few nice moments it's hard to get a sense of who they are as characters. The humor falls flat, aside from a few lines. A lot of the time there isn't any attempt at humor beyond the characters being in strange situations. Monkey Island is about a thousand times funnier than this game, which I wasn't expecting. The plot is paper-thin, among the worst I've ever played in an adventure game. The game is spent visiting random, disconnected locations across the country trying to find an escaped bigfoot. There are no real plot twists, revelations, or interesting conflicts that arise. If this was made into a movie I would fall asleep in the theater. The puzzles are nonsenical: A walkthrough is really needed since the solutions rarely make sense and it's unclear what needs to be done next. There are no dialogue puzzles which made Monkey Island (and so many other P&C's) fun. The interface is really bad. Often I couldn't control the characters, since they moved in the opposite direction from where I clicked. One of the best parts of these games is trying absurd combinations and hearing witty retorts, but Sam would always say "I can't use that" or similar. Also, I should note that the save/load/options menu has been replaced with the terrible SCUMMVM system, which really detracts from the game. To top it all off, the game is very short. In sum, a really poor adventure. I don't understand why it was rated so highly.
