DJSCheddar
1997
Setting aside that it's as ugly as sin (partly, but not totally on purpose), this game fumbles just about every single FPS fundamental, making it borderline unplayable. Weak guns, way too many enemies (all of them spongey), huge labyrinthine levels with no flow whatsoever, and too many useless powerups. It also squanders the capabilities of the Build Engine with drab, flat levels and essentially no interactivity with the environment. It's like a Bizarro Universe DUKE NUKEM 3D -- going for more or less the exact same thing but botching it on every level. Real amateur hour stuff here.
For being essentially "Star Wars DOOM", this game is WAY better than you might guess. It handily captures the original trilogy vibe with a great MIDI version of the soundtrack and very well done, on-model art.
Beyond that stuff, the genre fundamentals are tight as well. Good weapons, good movement, fast, light pace. More plot and mission objectives here than in the average 1995 FPS but that doesn't bog things down. And most of the level design is believable and non-maze-y (with a couple ill-advised exceptions including a memorably annoying sewer level).
Again, given the mission of "make DOOM, but Star Wars", they did a pretty impressive job and it's hard to say how it could have gone much better. Holds up!
Beyond that stuff, the genre fundamentals are tight as well. Good weapons, good movement, fast, light pace. More plot and mission objectives here than in the average 1995 FPS but that doesn't bog things down. And most of the level design is believable and non-maze-y (with a couple ill-advised exceptions including a memorably annoying sewer level).
Again, given the mission of "make DOOM, but Star Wars", they did a pretty impressive job and it's hard to say how it could have gone much better. Holds up!
Boring and busted.
The first hour of this game involves you trying to turn the lights on in your new house, calling your agent for help, missing the electrician at the front gate, calling your agent for help again, checking the fuses, calling your agent for help again, and then looking for candles. Maybe it gets super duper scary right after that, but I will never know! Terrible controls, broken hotspots, and insanely slow and awkward pathing through the house made it tough to give it even that much time.
The first hour of this game involves you trying to turn the lights on in your new house, calling your agent for help, missing the electrician at the front gate, calling your agent for help again, checking the fuses, calling your agent for help again, and then looking for candles. Maybe it gets super duper scary right after that, but I will never know! Terrible controls, broken hotspots, and insanely slow and awkward pathing through the house made it tough to give it even that much time.
1997
I think you can file this one under 'noble failures'. They made an honest effort -- hand-drawn animation, an attempt at real storytelling, fun easter eggs, a logical and realistic progression of levels -- but they just couldn't pull it off. In the end, no matter what the vision for the game may have been, the result is ugly and not fun to play.
The shooting combat is tuned very poorly, making the game much harder than it needs to be. On the medium difficulty, your character can only take about three hits, and your enemies can peg you from all the way across the map if you don't see them first. Due to the Old West setting, they're all hitscanners that look roughly the same, so there's no good way to approach any combat situation besides crawling along at a snail's pace and hoping you catch them unawares.
Beyond the gameplay, the window dressing isn't any more impressive. The character graphics are mostly hideous scanned-in sketches and the story is somehow both perfunctory and overdone at the same time. It's all just a miss.
Hard to believe this is from the same company that made STAR WARS: DARK FORCES a couple years earlier. I don't know anything about the production but it seems to me like this had to be rushed or something. There's ideas but no polish or execution. Shame.
The shooting combat is tuned very poorly, making the game much harder than it needs to be. On the medium difficulty, your character can only take about three hits, and your enemies can peg you from all the way across the map if you don't see them first. Due to the Old West setting, they're all hitscanners that look roughly the same, so there's no good way to approach any combat situation besides crawling along at a snail's pace and hoping you catch them unawares.
Beyond the gameplay, the window dressing isn't any more impressive. The character graphics are mostly hideous scanned-in sketches and the story is somehow both perfunctory and overdone at the same time. It's all just a miss.
Hard to believe this is from the same company that made STAR WARS: DARK FORCES a couple years earlier. I don't know anything about the production but it seems to me like this had to be rushed or something. There's ideas but no polish or execution. Shame.
1996
An absolute masterclass of weapons, movement, and especially level design, even if the latter two episodes don't quite live up to the near-perfection of the first one. A huge leap forward in FPS thinking.
Also -- and it should almost go without saying -- one of the finest video game voice performances of all time.
Also -- and it should almost go without saying -- one of the finest video game voice performances of all time.
Way ahead of its time, obviously, and made with a lot of love and ambition behind it. The amount of unique art is really impressive, and although most of it is a bit generic, it's all very polished.
As a game, though, it's not the most thrilling. It's more interesting from an academic standpoint than it is to actually play.
As a game, though, it's not the most thrilling. It's more interesting from an academic standpoint than it is to actually play.
Everything like this got wiped off the face of the universe the second DOOM came out, obviously, but this is a meaningful improvement on WOLFENSTEIN 3-D and pretty damn good in its own right!
Good art, good (goofy) sound, interesting ideas like items in boxes, enemies lying in wait as items, teleporters, a goddamn MAP ... not everything works perfectly (like the enemy who can get stunned and then get back up) but it all hangs together and makes for a fun time.
I remember playing this as a kid post-DOOM and not really giving it the time of day. I imagine that's more or less representative of the entire gaming public, lol. And that's a shame! It's much better than I expected, revisiting it.
Good art, good (goofy) sound, interesting ideas like items in boxes, enemies lying in wait as items, teleporters, a goddamn MAP ... not everything works perfectly (like the enemy who can get stunned and then get back up) but it all hangs together and makes for a fun time.
I remember playing this as a kid post-DOOM and not really giving it the time of day. I imagine that's more or less representative of the entire gaming public, lol. And that's a shame! It's much better than I expected, revisiting it.
Unfortunately overcomplicates things a bit compared to the first one.
It's great that the new map is always onscreen, but the rotation and the resource-based zooming to search for secrets both suck, and it kind of broke the game for me. All the other new content is either frustrating (invisible enemies), tedious (another layer of objectives in each level), or lazy (weapon and enemy reskins, with new voice samples just being the old ones played backwards).
Even as the SPEAR OF DESTINY to the original's WOLFENSTEIN 3-D, this is a minor letdown.
It's great that the new map is always onscreen, but the rotation and the resource-based zooming to search for secrets both suck, and it kind of broke the game for me. All the other new content is either frustrating (invisible enemies), tedious (another layer of objectives in each level), or lazy (weapon and enemy reskins, with new voice samples just being the old ones played backwards).
Even as the SPEAR OF DESTINY to the original's WOLFENSTEIN 3-D, this is a minor letdown.
A respectable enough effort for a solo indie guy's very first game. Everything could use a little polish. The quest design and how the world map works make everything kind of muddled and slow.
Yeah, you're gonna need to do a lot better than this to justify your game where you play as a superhuman cop beating homeless people to death with lengths of rebar.
2003
Insanely dated and juvenile. Parker and Stone themselves would cringe.
... buuuuuut, you can't deny that they made a fun sandbox to screw around in. Rewards exploration and lateral thinking at every opportunity. Very playful design underneath the toilet stuff.
It's worthwhile despite itself.
... buuuuuut, you can't deny that they made a fun sandbox to screw around in. Rewards exploration and lateral thinking at every opportunity. Very playful design underneath the toilet stuff.
It's worthwhile despite itself.
2014
A nice-looking, fun toy. Very short and easy. Could have done without the minimal but nevertheless very tryhard 'story'.
what if every other level of DOOM was connected to E1M1 by teleporters and the blue key for E1M4 was in E1M5 but to get to E1M5 at all you had to solve a MYST puzzle in E1M2
what if you had to play DOOM with a pen and paper handy
what if they made HERETIC again but about 10% as much fun and the combat was an afterthought and the arsenal was divided among three separate characters and the real point of the game was episode-spanning puzzles
what if you had to play DOOM with a pen and paper handy
what if they made HERETIC again but about 10% as much fun and the combat was an afterthought and the arsenal was divided among three separate characters and the real point of the game was episode-spanning puzzles
1994
One star for sick music.
1997
Despite representing the pinnacle of Build Engine art and level design, this still ranks under DUKE and SHADOW WARRIOR for me. Something about the balance has always seemed slightly off. The starting weapons and the low-tier enemies are too goofy, gameplay-wise, and I feel like that keeps me from finding that comfortable FPS groove like I can in those other two. But even so, there are moments when this one delivers pure mayhem on a level that nothing else from this era can touch.
Still a minor classic, even if it's the least of the big three for me.
Still a minor classic, even if it's the least of the big three for me.