I am reviewing the product in its current 1.0 release. Possible future patches will have influence and I will update this review when the time has come. I have played all the LOK games and I still remember having a blast with SR in the 90s on my Pentium 200 MMX and Voodoo GPU. Already back then the game had some gameplay issues and unfortunately these were carried over to the remaster, so one can say it's a trully faithful remaster. And to be honest, it's a good game and perfect for replaying these games on modern systems. I am focusing here more on SR 1 as I haven't played SR 2 remastered yet, also I think the original is running perfectly fine on modern systems with relatively low effort on modding. This is the reason I straight up jumped into SR 1. Who played the original, knows what to expect. A classic 90s action adventure with a healthy mix of action and puzzle solving though the most of these are quite easy or simple push-some-block kind of. The good: - Remastered graphics are quite good and the new models look also detailed and much better than the original. - Smooth gameplay - Sound and music is faithful to the original and they kept the dynamic music, which was absent in the PC version. - Restored never-used-before features like the night / day cycle - New QoL features like map and a tracker for found upgrades and some goodies like some videos from behind the scenes etc. The bad: - Crashes, for me quite easy to reproduce. Human Citadel and the area where you have to activate the light tower to get a glyph. Always when changing from Maretial Realm to Spectral Realm. - Lots of clipping errors, textures blend in, geometry blend in - Controls are sometimes quite sensitive which makes precise platforming difficult (this was also the case in the original) - Camera issues, clips through geometry, obscures view, precise platforming is difficult. - Sound bugs Unfortunately I can't write that much. I am not affected by the night/day darkness bug at least.
I am a TR fan from the beginning and eagerly awaited every TR release in the 90s. Played on my Pentium MMX with a Voodoo card. Seeing the very classics remastered and mostly true to their roots is making me very happy. I don't mind that some textures may look a bit strange, neither do I care if there are tons of graphical options. The old ones neither had much options beside resolution and some Z-Buffer stuff. Tank controls play as they should, sound and atmosphere is as it should be. Remastered graphics are nice and I like them. The save bug has been fixed and I have no issues with sound whatsoever. Game runs stable, fluid animations. The frame pacing issues on the PC version mentioned at Digital Foundry are indeed here, but *for me* it's not an issue. Surely this will be fixed as well. The game just released today and the save bug has been fixed on that very same day. Thanks to the devs for remastering these games.
I have mixed feelings about this game. Basically it plays 95% like ST and there is not much interesting. Currently at mission 3 and it's becoming boring. I played ST a lot, several play throughs on all difficulties, collected badges. This feels heavily like an add-on except the time period & location is different. The charactes until now are the same (ability wise) as in ST. Only their special attacks are rotated. Hector = Oshiro Mugen but lacking lure abilities, instead having a bear trap and can whistle which Yuki had in ST. Doc McCoy is basically the old man from ST who had a sniper rifle, but actually is also a sniper but has lure ability. This time around the game is easier that ST. Hints and tips around every corner, even giving suggestions how to neutralize targets. I haven't found any option to turn this off. I needed far less loading than in ST. Just 3 times. It doesn't catch me. I really like to like the game, but as a ST veteran it lacks variety and feels like playing a DLC to ST. Pros - great music - new features like move freely among the crowd & danger zones - fluid gameplay & control & camera is not obscuring things Neutral - replay of played level at the end of each mission Cons - way too much influence from Shadow Tactics, feels almost like a reskined version of it - graphics, if zoomed in, it looks bad, low polygon count on some assets - hand helding, too easy - sometimes buggy detection (you're in the green area but enemy does not react) This game is surely not bad and this is my personal opinion. For me it's simply boring. If people like it, that's fine. 3 stars because I expected to have a game which is inspired by ST and has its own mechanics but got a game which is ST with very few improvements.
I was really looking forward for this, because I love the original Commandos 2. I really hoped this would be a faithful remaster, optimized for modern hardware with new high-res textures and so on. I won't buy the game because of the stupid censorships as this takes a lot of its authencity and simply looks stupid. I can understand that they removed the swastikas as this is published by a german company, but still WHY remove the japanese insignia from the planes? Last year the german government allowed Nazi insignia to be shown in video games for the very first time. Wolfenstein has been released with all symbols intact. So, again, why not Commandos 2??? I'm polish myself and I'm old enough and educated enough to know the difference between cruel history of the 3rd Reich and a game which is for entertainment. There is no glorification of the Nazi regime by trying to replicate that time period in a game for authenticity. It's the same like in Sudden Strike 4 there is the so called "Balkenkreuz" instead of swastikas. This is not authentic and at least for me ruins the fun. They are using the "Reichskriegsflagge" with a "Balkenkreuz" inside for the german campaign. Such thing never existed. Me too will try the HD mod being available for some time now and simply play the original, which still I have lying around.
Somehow it reminds me of the old days of Ghost 'n Goblins. It's hard indeed but neither cheap nor unfair. Struggled a little bit in the beginning but was able to quickly adapt to the enemy patterns and beat level after level. The graphical style is cool and I'm eagerly waiting for the DLC to be released. Game plays best with Xbox Controller and it runs very smoothly even on dated hardware like my MacBook Air 2014 (on which Windows 10 is installed).
After the godawful Darksiders III, which I tried to play but found rather boring and stopped playing not even reaching the second boss, I hesitated in purchasing this one. Watched reviews and still wasn't convinced if I should buy it, mostly because of the new camera and gameplay style. Eventually I bought it and boy, I'm glad I did it. Yes, the camera is different and yes, sometimes you don't see enemies behind scenery, but this can be easily fixed and I'm sure the devs will fix it. They just need our feedback on this rather than stupid complaining. Platforming isn't that hard, I have no difficulties whatsoever. You just need to time the jumps and know in which direction to jump. That's all. By the way, I'm playing it with a Xbox controller and find it very fun to play that way. The game runs solid at 60 fps on a GTX 970 and Intel Xeon E3 all on Ultra settings, no crashes or game breaking bugs. There are little clipping issues, but nothing game breaking. The map is helpful but the missing mark of your current location makes it a little bit difficult to navigate, but again, I think this will be fixed. I like the graphics style and the drawn cutscenes look cool and somehow fit into that overall picture. Already finished levels can be revisited which adds to the longevity of the game, at least for me, as I like to explore every nook and cranny of a level. IMHO, don't listen to the people who complain that DS G isn't a Diablo clone, it isn't and it never wanted to be that. It's just plain action and fun in the Darksiders universe. If unsure, wait for a sale, but give it a chance. I did it and do not regret.
At least on my system (Windows 7, 64Bit, 64GB RAM, GTX970, Xeon CPU, SSD) it crashes when playing a single track several times with no changes to ship or mode or lap number etc. This ruins the experience for me as any other games run smoothly and with max details on. The latter challenges in story mode become harder and that's fine, but I not always get managed to reach finish line with good enough placement for progression, so I need to retry. Then suddenly it crashes for no obvious reason. That's frustrating because one fights for being winner and then BOOM....FU game. If not for the technical issues, I would give 5*....but sorry folks, stability matters.
