I wasn't a PC gamer when this game came out, so aside from a previous playthrough that I dropped 3/4ths the way through a few years back, this is my first time with the game. You can tell why this is a classic. The graphics are drab and the cutscenes look like they were made with flash, but everything is super solid. The story is excellent and full of unexpected turns, the world itself is one-of-a-kind, the sound design is atmospheric and moody, the controls are tight once you get used to them, and the level design is some of the best I've ever seen in both realism (houses have kitchens, bathrooms, hallways that make sense, etc.) as well as how fun they are to play through. My gripes are few. One, the in-cutscene music is like knockoff Nine Inch Nails, or that one song from The Matrix everyone knows. It's supposed to make Garret sound badass, but it makes an already edgy game slightly comical. Next, although the engine is a marvel for the time, sometimes Garret has trouble walking up slopes. This forces you to run and make a ton of noise. Even worse, sometimes the game thinks you're trying to jump instead of scale a ledge. This glitch is like ringing the dinner bell for every guard in the level. Lastly, sometimes the game gives you bad directions. I get it: it's immersive that Joe Schmo who made your Crayon map heard from his mom's friend's cousin's ex-wife where the tresure is, but it's a pain in the ass to go through every guard for no reward with an added half hour of wandering around the same corridors you've aldready been through. Still, the game is stellar. I'd recommend it to literally everyone. There's a selection of difficulty options that even make this game easy enough for non-gamers in my opinion. That's rare for a game from this era. Plus lord knows it'll run on any computer out there these days.
No stick support, Xbox controller only gamepad support, no graphics settings, locked at 60 FPS, very few (if any) playing multiplayer. You might be able to fight through the M+K controls and have a good time, but I couldn't. It's a shame: the mechanics actually seemed fun and they used the license a lot better than most mobile ports.
Is it the best game ever made? I hope not. Is it trash? Absolutely no way. Cyberpunk is a deeply flawed game. Most people (who aren't looking to start shit) are going to be able to see through the flaws and find something really, really well crafted. The biggest flaw is the bugs. You will have to restart missions. You might have to choose between reloading an hours-old save or being locked out of a side mission forever. The state of the game, even a month out, is inexcusable. That's to say nothing of the visual glitches, which are everywhere. If you have a low tolerance for this stuff, come back in a year or even more. The gameplay itself is pretty great. You have a lot of options from quickhacks, to stealth, to guns, (even among melee weapons). I made my character a lightning-fast, robo-monk. The game basically turned into DOOM Eternal. Everything is flashy, fast, and fun. The choice is yours and there's a LOT to choose from. The loot is kinda middling. I like the fact that 60 hours in I know I can play for a few hours and get some even better gear if I wanted to. I'm not sure what the marketing was, (or who actually believes any of that shit anymore? Are you new to the hobby?) but what's here is great. Some people don't like the fact that your gear is constantly mismatched. I think it looks hilarious. I've never saved so many pictures of a character before. The story is middling. I liked the characters. Most people hate Keanu's character (which is a sign of a good antagonist,) but my biggest issue is delivery. You get absolutely BOMBARDED with missions in this game. It's absurd and there's no way to stop and do them all. So you come back, 10 hours later, and forget all the details. Everything blends together into dystopian, anti-corporate slogans. Even the main quests start to blend together. Add to the fact that this game expects you to read serious amounts of pulpy garbage, and I wish there was actually less to do. Less to see. There is a dire lack of focus.
DUSK is a magnificent shooter, regardless of your nostalgia with DOOM or Quake. The level design, art style, music... It's all here. I need not reiterate what others have said about it's old school credentials. There's a lot of new and unique things DUSK does too. The crystals of madness can turn a murder room into a snack break. There's no quad damage -- instead DUSK gives you a fire rate power up. Same damage increase, but it has the bonus of turning some of the crummier weapons into P90s. Some levels have water levels rising and falling; the level twisting and turning; non-euclidean geometry. It's been done in video games before, but probably not in a DOOM clone. Sometimes the throwback is like a Vietnam flashback though. The key hunting is has been a problem with these games since DOOM. Although the level design is mostly straightforward, there are absolutely levels where you just looking for the fucking red door and it's nowhere to be found. There's also the problem with weapon upgrades. There's very little reason to go back to the double shotguns after you get the super shotgun. The single pistol is maybe used to kill one enemy before you get another. Why even have the gimped gun in the game? Just start me off with the good one and put more enemies in the level. I thought there wasn't supposed to be any hand-holding. There's a few nitpicks too. The inclusion of the climbing powerup is awkward and slows down the gameplay for little gain. The Superhot powerup was completely a "wouldn't it be cool if we" thought that doesn't fit DUSK at all. Again: it slows the game down so you can avoid like, 3 damage shot of your 200 hp total. Lastly I found the bosses to be well designed visually, but none changed the gameplay. They're just bullet sponges you have to circle-strafe around. Yawn. I promise I love this game. It isn't perfect, but it sure as shit is worth your time. If you have any love for the shooter, you owe it to yourself to pick up DUSK.
My new favorite RPG. If you play games for the story, I can't imagine how you wouldn't love Disco Elysium. The setting isn't elves and dragons; the characters aren't the chosen ones. Saying what Disco Elysium isn't is far easier than saying what it is. I will say this: it's smart and mature. It's not afraid to wave dangerous ideologies or thoughts around like a loaded weapon. I played the whole game as a neo-Nazi conspiracy theorist who hated women. At no point did the game put up the guard rails and stop me, but neither did it take a sick pleasure in how I treated minorities or women. A few people agreed with me but many people hated me. My partner had respect for how I did my job, but vocalized his disagreement. There is no gamedev moral high ground. There are people in the world, you're one with more power than most, and there are consequences for your actions. The game loves to remind you that you're just a person with a badge. It's not afraid to make the player feel impotent. You will not see 100% of everything on one playthrough; you will not pass important checks. Thank God. Sometimes failing an important check is better than succeeding. I did karaoke... poorly. But my partner liked the raw emotion of me screaming in the mic. He respected me for giving it my all, despite being technically horrible. He even defended me. Was he lying? Not even a little. Come to think of it, there's a lot of bad singers I like in real life too. There's little human moments like that that make Disco feel real, and not just a theme park for the player. The different stats do a lot more than influence success/failure checks like these though. Their main function is to offer internal dialogue between the different personalities in the protag's head. Often hilarious, occasionally insightful, you interact with the world of Disco Elysium like a real person: through their senses, thoughts, perceptions, etc. I could go on forever about this game, but there's a word limit. Buy it.
Good old F.E.A.R. How does this legendary shooter stack up these days? Is it still a winner, or has it been left in the dust? It's a winner, for sure. The gameplay is just as stunning as it was back then: the slo-mo, the A.I., the bicycle kicks, and the shotgun! Dear God, this might be the best shotgun in gaming history! The A.I. isn't quite as sophisticated as people hype it up to be -- once you understand the tricks, you can see that it's a very, very clever smoke and mirrors show -- but I keep coming back to this game regardless. The graphics have aged less well, but they're still serviceable. The lighting is the clear winner. It enhances the otherwise bland models and dated textures. It's incredible how much work the lighting does. Play the outdoor segments of Perseus Mandate and be horrified at the outdoor daylight segments. Other than that, the particle effects can get a little extreme, even interfering with gameplay at times. The two things that haven't aged so well is the horror and the writing. I've played through this game half a dozen times and I can't remember anyone's name in your squad. To call it forgettable is an understatement. The expansions muddy the waters considerably for no reason. The horror, by today's standards, is primitive. They're all jumpscares: and not even very good ones. This was at a time when there were no "walking simulators" -- to have a game without killer gameplay was a travesty. The only other model I could think to emulate was Blood, and F.E.A.R. is MUCH scarier than Blood ever was. Lastly, the game comes with two expansions. Neither are very good; the second one is actually bad. "How do we improve this spooky corridor shooter?" "I know! We'll take out all the horror and make you fight in large, outdoor areas!" It doesn't help that the guns have crazy spread after a certain range. These two entries can be skipped without a second thought, but they're there if you need more classic F.E.A.R.
That sums up my ~20 hours in Redemption. What we have is a mildly interesting story mired in a soup of mechanical and design problems. No stone is left undisturbed: from the UI to the combat, and even the plot itself. This game has a derth of reasons to play. The two main characters are pretty good and multi-dimensional. Some of the music, particularly in the second half of the game, can be surprisingly catchy. And World of Darkness is always an award-winning setting. Especially here, where you get to play in two distinct time periods. Some people have issues with the dated graphics. I personally find the early 3D models to be charming, but it probably isn't your cup of tea if you grew up with something else. Sadly, everything else sucks. Hard. The gameplay is like trying to be an ARPG ala Diablo, but it has party mechanics like Baldur's Gate, but there's no pause feature to issue commands. So you're forced to rely on the AI that gets stuck on walls half the time in real-time. The game is easy enough to solo for 90% of it, but the other 10% are enemies that can one-hit you even with max stats and the best gear. And of course: there is no quicksave OR quickload. The environments can be hit and miss. A bigger issue is just how linear the level design is. There are ZERO side-quests; ZERO non-essential zones. Yet the AI can't seem to pass a field sobriety test without getting stuck in a wall. The whole world feels like a stage. There's LESS THAN 10 CARS IN NEW YORK. I know this isn't an immersive sim but try more than not at all, please. But all of this could be forgiven if the story was good enough. It's not. Aside from the leads and the love story between them, the plot is just to stop the big bad vampire. You start out killing rats in a silver mine for some priest. The-third-to-last zone is killing GHOUL RATS for a hacker. Fill in the gaps with more rats. It's just not worth it. Play Bloodlines again. Play WoD at your hobby store. Let sleeping dogs lie.
Darkwood markets itself as a survival horror experience first with crafting on the side. In reality, the opposite is true. Sure, there's a lot of horror game tropes here: the rigid movement and combat system (which are both fine,) the item management, the scarcity of resources. But these are only in service to the Minecraft-on-drugs night sequences when you're forced go to your base, barricade the windows and doors, and set traps for the zombies. The biggest disappointment I had was when I realized that the non-combat night sequences from the first hideout were never coming back. Doors opening on their own; the lights turning off; poisonous grubs appearing out of nowhere. Less is more when it comes to combat in survival horror. And the atmosphere is so stupendous in this game, it's a real shame they force you into combat every damn night (EVERY night, after the first house), just to destroy the tension. Despite what the army of epeen measurers will say, this game is pathetically easy. Why the contradiction? Because you can die without consequence on normal. Nights don't seem so scary when all you stand to lose is $150 you don't have. This is even truer in the daytime (when you don't risk anything,) meaning the best way to explore is with the regular plank with nails. Get a few hits in, die, run back to your corpse, rinse and repeat until all the enemies are dead. I have so many resources, there's no more room. "Play on hard," you might say. No: I want a balanced game from the ground-up, not an arbitrary '3 lives and then start over' life system like this is Atari. This gameplay loop is the problem. I don't have any desire to boot the game up and go to chapter 2. Not because I'm scared, but because I don't want to slog through ten more hours of this. If crafting games are more your style, you might enjoy it. But the tragedy is that the story, graphics, sound, and tone are all so good, with few exceptions. And you're stuck with the base building and melee combat.
Very reminicent of old school dungeon crawlers, with enough innovation to make it worthwhile. If you're a fan of the genre, I'd give Grimrock a try without hesitation. If you new, however, it might be a harder sell. Most of the mechanics are solid, but some of the big ones are pretty egregiously flawed. Chief complaint: the combat, at it's highest efficiency, comes down to singling out opponents and square dancing with them to the death. I remember I thought this game was so hard when I played it the first time because I figured using the real-time combat to avoid damage was an exploit. After your first ogre, you figure out pretty quick that the game is designed around this. Many of the puzzles also require some speedy reflexes. This wouldn't be so bad if the game didn't use a tile system with an arcane control scheme. I've got no problem with pixel-precise, twitch gameplay, but for God's sake at least use WASD if you want me to do this. If you can get past these (and some seriously annoying puzzles on the later floors,) the game is fresh and exciting. The magic system is simple, but surprisingly hectic during combat. The enemies are varied and the level design is excellent at catching you flatfooted. The alchemy system encourages experimentation. Character races/skills/abilities are all varied and are much deeper than they appear. It's not what I'd call balanced, but it's a singleplayer RPG so who cares? There are LOADS of secrets too, and there's usually something pretty useful. Although it's counter-intuitive, you'll want to jump down every hole you see. The puzzles are mostly pretty logical and don't require a lot of backtracking (except THAT one). The atmosphere is great, the tilesets are beautiful, the fire effects are stunning and the game runs well both in Windows and Linux! For such a budget price, it's hard not to recommend Grimrock. For veterans and curious newcomers who want a challenge, this is an easy recommendation.
Two Worlds looks and plays like an asset flip, but the sad thing is this game came out way before that was in vogue. The people look like toad-mutants, the music is uninspired, the gameplay is spammy, the bloom effects have to be turned off if you don't want to go blind, the enemies are generic, the setting is bog standard, the difficulty is all over the place, the AI is lobotomized, the voice acting is legendarily cringey, the story is non-existant until the final boss, and then after the final boss you wish it went back to not existing. In short: the game sucks. So why the three stars? 1. If you find two of the same weapon, you can duct tape (I assume) them together to make the same weapon, only stronger. This can be done an unlimited amount of times. Even on the rusty longswords you find in the beginning of the game. Kill the final boss with a +100,000 butterknife! 2. You can stack as many (of the same) enchants on these weapons. Now your +100,000 butterknife is a +100,000 butterknife that also does 300,000 fire damage! 3. Enemies don't respawn (except the ghosts at night). Literally go across the entire map committing genocide on every wolf, orc, bear, and human you come across! Remember to kill whole families so you don't leave any orphans! Nothing is more satisfying than showing up to a town to find everything dead, then laughing to yourself because you forgot you had no more need for non-butterknife-related objects in the town a few days ago and you assimilated them. So here's how to have a decent amount of fun in this game: kill and steal everything so you can find more butterknives and fire enchants in order to kill and steal everything. Is this a must-play game? No: it's not even a decent game, to be frank. Can you have fun in it anyway? Absolutely!
