You can listen to the OST here to see if you want to purchase it (Youtube video *not* made by me): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVSeIXSFTU8 I don't think the heavy metal song by Korn for the Elex II trailer is on this thing, this OST is made by Björn Pankratz ONLY. Nothing by Jonathan Davis, apparently, but somebody correct me if it's floating somewhere in the download itself as a bonus unlisted track. Just be warned, I nearly slammed the Buy button and it's a good thing I didn't. Sorry, Björn... Five stars just so I don't screw with the ratings.
Alright, THIS version is different than the PC/DOS version which I first played. Some sort of mashup between the console versions (which were first person shooter Metroidvanias, which this it as well) and the PC version (which was a FPS with linear levels you couldn't return to after finishing). Replay value is very high, you can go to levels over and over to shoot stuff for kicks. As you get more unlockables the game becomes gradually harder: traps are introduced into vases/crates/containers, you no longer have a crapstorm of health/ammo drops (going from "you don't use half of what drops" to "still plentiful IF YOU AIM"). I do have some issues which is why I've taken off 2 stars. Issues, plural, so stars, plural. 1. I can confirm there is no invert mouselook. You can invert gamepad look, but it doesn't affect the mouse and there is no mouse option. FOR NOW. The devs have confirmed this was an oversight and will be fixed in the next patch, but you may wish to wait for confirmation as it is REALLY hard to aim after decades of muscle memory. And flying enemies are extremely common, so aiming up/down is needed! No excuse for this kind of crap. 2. The last two weapons could have used an overhaul, or just given secondary fire to all weapons. Honestly, the Ring of Ra shoots... bouncy balls? Nightdive is at least being faithful, even to the pathetic aspects, but why? 3. I REALLY don't like the last weapon, The Manacle, in this version. The DOS version was much better, in fact it was the main reason I got this game, only to be disappointed. The DOS version spawned a cloud that teleported between all enemies in LOS and rained down lightning until everyone was dead or no more ammo: this version just basically shoots slow homing lightning that is like a shotgun version of the Cobra Staff (homing missiles). Redundant and uninteresting. Glad for modern controls! Cheats are: activate console, type "give" and Enter to see a list of spawns like "give weapons".
Interesting plot, controls a little like Abuse (not horror sci-fi like that game, though): mouse aim + keyboard movement. Gameplay is focused on combos. If you kill quickly enough without taking damage, you increase your combo counter: at 3 enemies killed, they start to drop health, at every 5 enemies killed (and the right perk) you get a "shield" so your combo counter doesn't reset if you get hit. It isn't difficult, no Devil May Cry SSS requirements here, but it does (for better or worse) force the player to keep moving and shooting instead of taking a breather and planning how to take out a room for more than 5 seconds. You can always go "screw the combo counter" and take your time, but if you EVER want to heal then you will need to use the combo counter up to 3. Not too bad. Weapons are largely quite interesting, but gameplay is a little repetitive. Each room feels really small to me and can be cleared in under 30 seconds (even some Boss rooms with the right perks and equipment on lower difficulty). HOWEVER, I am docking one star for an absolutely UNFORGIVABLE design choice along the lines of "it's a feature, not a bug!" You can visit 3 separate worlds, which are "comic books". You are playing a character created by a comic book writer, and the gist of the story is that he is thinking of retiring and you must convince him not to by having him "recall" your adventures over the years by playing the game. If you get lucky or good and complete the first 3 levels, you become locked into a fourth "world". It is absolutely a kick in the teeth with no experience or real way to level up, so you're pretty much screwed without warning. You are allowed to visit ONE comic book, but must start a new game, load the end world, then load the comic book. No breezing through all three books again for max XP runs with your toys. At the end of that comic you are forced to play the final realm or restart again, resetting your acquired items. Totally pointless.
Game is good, I like the everyone but the Barbarian. Necromancer is DLC, but worth it. Pros: - Nice mindless kill-everything-don't-die in endless mode, campaign isn't boring (while it lasts) - Good characters, fun co-op (unless you accidentally destroy the food, can turn into a real hate-fest fast!) - Strongly hated Diablo 3's always-online single player PC requirement, stupid BS. This kind of scratches my itch but YMMV. - Good for those who like action RPG combat, but eyes glaze over on the stories. Cons: - Really don't like relying on Galaxy. Better if you could just feed it an IP address and play with your siblings without all this crap. One star docked for this, I agree with others and DO NOT LIKE THIS TREND (4 otherwise). - Devs got lazy or cheap on levels. Campaign is good, but expect to blaze through ALL levels in like 10-15 hours after you learn how to survive. Random levels and replayability are why I bought this, but they didn't make nearly enough pre-made rooms to stitch together in early Endless mode. That's the key to getting roguelikes right, to COMBINE handmade areas with randomly putting them together and monster/item layout! Fail here, plus you always start fighting the zombie zone, then skeleton, then orcs/goblins, then tree things(?), then cultists, then demons. You have to fight through about 15 levels EVERY SINGLE TIME before the levels, gameplay, and enemy count become interesting. About 30 enemies on screen seems to be right, in about 3 waves. Beforehand you get 8-20 in the zombie levels, single wave per level, then stragglers here and there. Gets old real fast. - I don't like games that use controllers in general, but this game sure feels like it was made for one. Definitely has the twin-stick arena shooter vibe stronger than any other game I've played. 8 directions just won't do it most of the time. - Grim Reaper. Absolutely sucks the fun out of EVERYTHING. Stop spawning UNDER me when I'm swarmed and immobile, WTF?!
Good DLC, I actually really enjoyed it and leveled up everything I enjoy using. As you kill enemies you increase a counter to summon different things, which you select at the loadout screen (so no changing types later). First: YES, the counter maximum is 5 "summon ammo", BUT you can summon those and refill immediately when dealing with a swarm of enemies (if you can kill fast enough). So you CAN summon an unlimited number of minions, but only in swarms and if you kill fast enough. It's possible, but takes practice. -Melee skeletons, armored, alternate attack is a big guy that pops up and does an area explosion in front of you. Standard for all weapons except the swarm of suicide ghosts (below) -Swarms of deadly suicide ghosts, unusual in that you summon TWO per counter (10 at 5 "summon ammo"). Also changes your alternate attack to a wand projectile that explodes, slows enemies, and kills basic enemies in one or two shots. Very useful to stand in a corner and swarm/snipe/swarm/snipe with the exploding/slowing feature of the wand. Also, the ghosts don't seem to time out, so summon swarms and just walk through the level! My favorite. -Archer skeletons, weak, very good in certain circumstances but not often useful. Takes way too long to start shooting, usually get beaten to death if you don't have room or are dealing with ranged enemies (which fire as fast or much faster). -Brainwash all enemies in NORMAL melee area, NOT FAR. Pretty cool in theory, useless in implementation. Brainwashed enemies get killed almost immediately, are confusing to pick out from the ones attacking you, and turn hostile again in a few seconds. You can also hit "your" enemies, which are the closest ones by the nature of this skill. There is also a relic that does this already, so... Long distance melee attack takes some getting used to, but actually works great! Probably a lot harder if you played a real melee character for days or weeks then tried this character.
So the American propaganda machine is making games now? I dunno about others, but I play games to escape reality... Go play Tropico if you want to be a dictator, or better yet, be a hero!
I can't finish the first dungeon despite a gaming rig built in 2020 that runs everything else, including Cyberpunk 2077, every time I step on the platform and try to use the portal to finish the final room of the dungeon the game freezes with a black screen. Error message from debug log is: [1865.3] Lost focus [1866.6] Won focus [1877.0] Exiting Game [1877.0] AddPlaytime 569.7822 [1877.0] Unlocking achievement: lose_mission [1877.0] InvalidStateError: No stat data retrieved for user 48652917805821424 Galaxy.Api.IStats.SetAchievement (System.String name) (at :0) Milkstone.Game.GOG.Awards.GOGAwardManager.InvokeUnlocked (Milkstone.Game.Awards.PlayerAwardProgress pg, Milkstone.Game.Awards.AwardProgress award) (at <5ff5a9c230074bb59d976ee261aa2a5b>:0) Milkstone.Game.Awards.AwardManager.UnlockAward (Milkstone.PlayerIndex playerIndex, System.String id) (at :0) GameInit.UnlockAward (System.String award) (at <608784569ad54db2bcaa81427ff20017>:0) Logic.Campaign.CampaignData.MissionComplete (Logic.Campaign.CampaignMissionResult result, System.Boolean save) (at <608784569ad54db2bcaa81427ff20017>:0) StageScript.MissionComplete (System.Boolean won, System.Boolean reportMissionComplete) (at <608784569ad54db2bcaa81427ff20017>:0) StageScript.ExitGame (StageLoader+Sections loadSection, MenuScreenScript+MainMenuStartPanels startPanel, System.Boolean endMission) (at <608784569ad54db2bcaa81427ff20017>:0) StageScript.ExitGame () (at <608784569ad54db2bcaa81427ff20017>:0) GameInit.OnApplicationQuit () (at <608784569ad54db2bcaa81427ff20017>:0) [1877.2] NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object MilkUITween.PlayClipByIndex (UnityEngine.Animation anim, System.Int32 clipIndex) (at <608784569ad54db2bcaa81427ff20017>:0) DoorAnimator.Close () (at <608784569ad54db2bcaa81427ff20017>:0) DoorScript.OnDisable () (at <608784569ad54db2bcaa81427ff20017>:0) Broken piece of crap! FIX YOUR GAME!!!!!!!
Kingdoms of Amalur was the second game I actually couldn't take my eyes off of: after you stumble out of a corpse incineration room into the outdoors, it was GORGEOUS! Gameplay is awesome, similar to Devil May Cry "lite", crafting, open world, basically almost everything one could ask for. HOWEVER: KoA committed two cardinal sins, which Re-Reckoning HAS NOT ADDRESSED OR FIXED. First, KoA had an extremely annoying "feature" that locks enemy levels to your level when you enter the area, up to a maximum. The first game region you are in is the most beautiful, and you gradually end up in a barren wasteland that is crap to look at. However, I was level 50 and the early region maxs out at level 8, so I was one-hit-killing everything: then I started the DLC after finishing the main game and everything was pretty much dead by looking at it too hard. From the start! BORING! The Borderlands series and other games don't do this *for a very good reason*: replayability! And yes you are screwed: item drops are tied to the level of the enemy, not your level. There is no reason to revisit early areas ever. The game just shoves you through the most artistic places and right back out again, no time to enjoy the world itself. This poor choice is compounded by the fact that one of the most requested features in KoA was a New Game+ mode. Still not in Re-Reckoning, because nobody cares that the original was a half-finished game. I am sick of people making games demand more expensive computer hardware AND NOT FIX THE ORIGINAL ISSUES! Who the heck cares about a repainted car if the interior and engine are trash? Oh, and still waiting on the new DLC they promised when Re-Reckoning was released... In summation: the game is awesome, yet not one but TWO game development teams made/left boneheaded choices in that ruin the game's replayability. "But I want to feel like I'm becoming powerful", you say? Well, you'll regret their attempted implementation in this game.
It's a great game, but for some weird reason it feels a lot different and darker (occasionally vicious "humor") than my first game in this series, Path of the Furon on Xbox 360. Don't get me wrong, I like it a lot, but I am guessing the stories got lighter as the series progressed. This game is a remake of the first game in the series, Path of the Furon was the fourth by release date IRL. I found out the hard way that if you are expecting certain weapons (Venus Human Trap), items, skills, etc., you MUST make certain of which game you played. I didn't realize there was a whole series, so it was quite a surprise at first ("Wait a second, that didn't happen in the game I played...") I do hope they eventually make an actual new game instead of remakes, with actual open world gameplay (not just large-but-individual levels) and ALL the weapons (with a bunch more!) Here's looking forward to the Burrow Beast in the Destroy All Humans 2 remake coming in 2022!
Gunmetal, Battle Engine Aquila, and Scorched Planet. The first two on on GOG, but all three are the only vehicular combat games I know of where you can morph (aside from Transformers games, but... eh. This discussion will largely be ignoring those games.) Gunmetal is the only game where you transition from third person shooter (on foot) to third person flight sim. It had EVERYTHING I wanted as a kid: transforming, giant stomping robots, fighter jets, nuke cannons, swarm lasers, homing missiles, and lots of stuff to shoot in open world level environments. The only letdowns are the short campaign (less than a dozen levels IIRC) and no endless arcade mode, for which I dock 1 star because I was actually quite upset as a kid when I reached the end of the game. "What, that's it!?" Battle Engine Aquila has a longer campaign and more missions, but fewer weapons and it's not as pretty or engrossing to me (though it does have self-aiming turrets in walker mode). Scorched Planet can be had for free, but it can also be a bear to set up as it was released for DOS then mishmashed into accepting Windows and 3DFX Glide/Voodoo in various versions. Scorched Planet had similar-yet-slightly-worse graphics to Incoming. Overall Gunmetal is the best of the bunch for older games, and the later Transformers games released ~10 years later had very linear levels and pathetic transforming (for the most part). Oh, and if you're a Macross fan: GET THIS GAME NOW!!! See the video above, you even get missile massacres and homing lasers... without GunBuster's drama. Weapon sets depend on what form you're in (ground/air). Ground tends towards overwhelming firepower, aerial tends towards multitarget homing attacks. You can also transform in midair, fire a nuke, and turn back into a jet again if you want. Pure arcade action, interspersed with walking/flying between enemy hoard locations.
