DJSCheddar
Still sick, but the levels get a bit too wacky to be much fun by the end.
1995
The new fourth episode is lame and brings down an otherwise perfect game. Just play the original.
1993
I don't think the feel of this game has ever been topped.
1997
Was your favorite part of DOOM the switch puzzles? Did you play it and say, "I wish this was more like MYST"? Because boy do I have the game for you.
2018
The game that I always wanted DOOM and QUAKE to be.
Not fun, seemingly on purpose. It's like they sat around in a big brainstorming session and said, "Okay, what are all the different ways we can make a level annoying?" Every single one has a new gimmick and 90% of them suck.
1997
One step above a Newgrounds game.
Suffers from all of the issues of the core game, obviously, and also the typing is even clunkier than in the original THE TYPING OF THE DEAD. Still a funny mix of genres, though.
2018
This game is very well done, especially for a Triple-A reboot, but it has two major problems that hold it back from true greatness:
1) The "one take", no cutaways, unbroken perspective thing. This might work for something like HALF-LIFE, which only seeks to tell a tiny sliver of a much larger story, content to hint contextually at the rest, but using it to try to do this multiverse-spanning historical epic is a serious mistake. We're dropped right into the middle of this incredibly complex world of Norse mythology, and since we're shackled to the perspective of Kratos and his son for what amounts to one long day^, that means a whole hell of a lot of telling and not showing. Mountains and mountains of lore about gods, monsters, weapons, realms, artifacts, wars, and history are just barfed out at us in conversation ONLY, and even the main antagonists are only (incessantly) described to us, and never actually seen. They did probably the best they could within this framework, but I think it was a bad choice to begin with, despite the benefits to our relationship with the characters.
2) The entire game ends up feeling like sequel setup. I just KNEW from the moment they started talking about Thor and Odin THAT way, that we were absolutely not going to be seeing them in any meaningful way in this game. Heading towards the finale I was praying that they would find some way to deliver a satisfying and real ending beyond some stupid teaser but I knew from pretty much the first five hours that that was exactly how it was going to go. Through essentially every minute of the game, we are constantly being told of Bigger Things On The Horizon but it's crystal clear that they mean in the next one. That sucks!
The rest is pretty great though. Good combat, great small open world, respectable writing. This is clearly the best of the series and an impressive reclamation of a story and a character for whom a revival definitely needed some justification.
^this, by the way, makes absolutely no sense in context
1) The "one take", no cutaways, unbroken perspective thing. This might work for something like HALF-LIFE, which only seeks to tell a tiny sliver of a much larger story, content to hint contextually at the rest, but using it to try to do this multiverse-spanning historical epic is a serious mistake. We're dropped right into the middle of this incredibly complex world of Norse mythology, and since we're shackled to the perspective of Kratos and his son for what amounts to one long day^, that means a whole hell of a lot of telling and not showing. Mountains and mountains of lore about gods, monsters, weapons, realms, artifacts, wars, and history are just barfed out at us in conversation ONLY, and even the main antagonists are only (incessantly) described to us, and never actually seen. They did probably the best they could within this framework, but I think it was a bad choice to begin with, despite the benefits to our relationship with the characters.
2) The entire game ends up feeling like sequel setup. I just KNEW from the moment they started talking about Thor and Odin THAT way, that we were absolutely not going to be seeing them in any meaningful way in this game. Heading towards the finale I was praying that they would find some way to deliver a satisfying and real ending beyond some stupid teaser but I knew from pretty much the first five hours that that was exactly how it was going to go. Through essentially every minute of the game, we are constantly being told of Bigger Things On The Horizon but it's crystal clear that they mean in the next one. That sucks!
The rest is pretty great though. Good combat, great small open world, respectable writing. This is clearly the best of the series and an impressive reclamation of a story and a character for whom a revival definitely needed some justification.
^this, by the way, makes absolutely no sense in context
An aggressively average RESIDENT EVIL 4-like. It works fine (which, in comparison to RESIDENT EVIL 6, seems miraculous) but isn’t particularly ambitious in anything besides the new stat/equipment-based bonus mode, which is fun but grindy. The story is equally passable but crippled by some truly disastrous pacing, somehow making it feel both short and endless.
Maybe this was more impressive on 3DS.
Maybe this was more impressive on 3DS.
(boy I wish I could have been there for the meeting that made this game happen)
This is a big winner just on concept alone, obviously, but it's actually a pretty well fleshed-out and useful learning tool, if you can handle some quirks. Not to mention it's funny as hell.
It probably could have used a couple more passes in testing, as there are some occasional rough edges where they awkwardly bolted the typing gameplay onto the original THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 2 framework, and a few of the UI elements aren't as well thought out as they should have been. But these are minor annoyances at worst.
Beats MARIO TEACHES TYPING, that's for sure.
This is a big winner just on concept alone, obviously, but it's actually a pretty well fleshed-out and useful learning tool, if you can handle some quirks. Not to mention it's funny as hell.
It probably could have used a couple more passes in testing, as there are some occasional rough edges where they awkwardly bolted the typing gameplay onto the original THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD 2 framework, and a few of the UI elements aren't as well thought out as they should have been. But these are minor annoyances at worst.
Beats MARIO TEACHES TYPING, that's for sure.
A memorable standout amongst light gun shooters thanks to thoughtful design and some truly ridiculous English dialogue.
Great enemies for a zombie game, first of all -- instantly identifiable by their unique palettes and silhouettes to make crowd encounters legible at a glance once you get to know them. And every new monster you run across is always exciting because they're all so full of character. (You can tell the designers loved dreaming them up -- they're all given names in the instruction booklet.)
The levels are carefully designed as well with a unique setpiece every few seconds. It feels very stuffed with ideas, but that's not to say it's disjointed. When your game is only a half-hour long, you kind of need to pull out all the stops!
The English script and VO is, of course, a trainwreck, but that only makes things more fun. This isn't a game that takes itself particularly seriously in the first place. Although sometimes you think that it could! Some of the levels are quite intricate and beautiful, and the European setting and some of the goopier undead guys give off a bit of a Fulci vibe, which is welcome given that so many other zombie games seem so uninspired.
The shooting action is quite good. The regular difficulty seems tuned pretty well and enemies are powerful but never feel like bullet sponges. You're rewarded for skillshots on every monster type but you can also just shred them with enough rapid fire which is wonderfully gory and satisfying in its own way.
The Dreamcast port is a great example of a good home version of an arcade great. They added some training minigames, a boss rush, and an "original" mode that has tons of items to collect for subsequent playthroughs. Again, this is, by its nature, a very short game, but they put in quite a bit of effort to expand on it meaningfully for replayability's sake. I honestly don't know what more they could have done.
Possibly the best light gun shooter -- certainly the best I've played.
Great enemies for a zombie game, first of all -- instantly identifiable by their unique palettes and silhouettes to make crowd encounters legible at a glance once you get to know them. And every new monster you run across is always exciting because they're all so full of character. (You can tell the designers loved dreaming them up -- they're all given names in the instruction booklet.)
The levels are carefully designed as well with a unique setpiece every few seconds. It feels very stuffed with ideas, but that's not to say it's disjointed. When your game is only a half-hour long, you kind of need to pull out all the stops!
The English script and VO is, of course, a trainwreck, but that only makes things more fun. This isn't a game that takes itself particularly seriously in the first place. Although sometimes you think that it could! Some of the levels are quite intricate and beautiful, and the European setting and some of the goopier undead guys give off a bit of a Fulci vibe, which is welcome given that so many other zombie games seem so uninspired.
The shooting action is quite good. The regular difficulty seems tuned pretty well and enemies are powerful but never feel like bullet sponges. You're rewarded for skillshots on every monster type but you can also just shred them with enough rapid fire which is wonderfully gory and satisfying in its own way.
The Dreamcast port is a great example of a good home version of an arcade great. They added some training minigames, a boss rush, and an "original" mode that has tons of items to collect for subsequent playthroughs. Again, this is, by its nature, a very short game, but they put in quite a bit of effort to expand on it meaningfully for replayability's sake. I honestly don't know what more they could have done.
Possibly the best light gun shooter -- certainly the best I've played.
What a weird game. The developer's all-consuming desire to top themselves and finish off their trilogy on the highest possible note produced something impressive but bloated and wildly uneven.
First of all, and most confusingly, the fidelity of both the visuals and the sound are all over the place. You'll have a genuinely incredible-looking Kratos standing next to other characters who seem like they're straight off the PS2, and some of the voice performances (especially the Ghost of Sparta himself!) sound like their lines were recorded in one take on someone's old Talkboy.
The combat is more complex than ever, but most of the new weapons are totally extraneous, and the game is about twice as long as it should be. Even with how much fun combat was, I was begging for the game to end long before I got to the (honestly pretty unmemorable) final boss fight.
It's like every single idea anyone at the company had over however many years of development made it in, and they were all cobbled together at random with no standard of quality or polish between it all. Hits and misses, weird diversions, redundant and repetitive areas, shaky writing, desperately out-of-place fourth-wall breaks and game references ... I was baffled the whole time. But that's not to say it was a bad experience. If the combat wasn't so good, it might have been intolerable, but thankfully they had that foundation locked down well enough, so it was easy to see it through.
Less is more, guys!
First of all, and most confusingly, the fidelity of both the visuals and the sound are all over the place. You'll have a genuinely incredible-looking Kratos standing next to other characters who seem like they're straight off the PS2, and some of the voice performances (especially the Ghost of Sparta himself!) sound like their lines were recorded in one take on someone's old Talkboy.
The combat is more complex than ever, but most of the new weapons are totally extraneous, and the game is about twice as long as it should be. Even with how much fun combat was, I was begging for the game to end long before I got to the (honestly pretty unmemorable) final boss fight.
It's like every single idea anyone at the company had over however many years of development made it in, and they were all cobbled together at random with no standard of quality or polish between it all. Hits and misses, weird diversions, redundant and repetitive areas, shaky writing, desperately out-of-place fourth-wall breaks and game references ... I was baffled the whole time. But that's not to say it was a bad experience. If the combat wasn't so good, it might have been intolerable, but thankfully they had that foundation locked down well enough, so it was easy to see it through.
Less is more, guys!
2010
What a weird game. The developer's all-consuming desire to top themselves and finish off their trilogy on the highest possible note produced something impressive but bloated and wildly uneven.
First of all, and most confusingly, the fidelity of both the visuals and the sound are all over the place. You'll have a genuinely incredible-looking Kratos standing next to other characters who seem like they're straight off the PS2, and some of the voice performances (especially the Ghost of Sparta himself!) sound like their lines were recorded in one take on someone's old Talkboy.
The combat is more complex than ever, but most of the new weapons are totally extraneous, and the game is about twice as long as it should be. Even with how much fun combat was, I was begging for the game to end long before I got to the (honestly pretty unmemorable) final boss fight.
It's like every single idea anyone at the company had over however many years of development made it in, and they were all cobbled together at random with no standard of quality or polish between it all. Hits and misses, weird diversions, redundant and repetitive areas, shaky writing, desperately out-of-place fourth-wall breaks and game references ... I was baffled the whole time. But that's not to say it was a bad experience. If the combat wasn't so good, it might have been intolerable, but thankfully they had that foundation locked down well enough, so it was easy to see it through.
Less is more, guys!
First of all, and most confusingly, the fidelity of both the visuals and the sound are all over the place. You'll have a genuinely incredible-looking Kratos standing next to other characters who seem like they're straight off the PS2, and some of the voice performances (especially the Ghost of Sparta himself!) sound like their lines were recorded in one take on someone's old Talkboy.
The combat is more complex than ever, but most of the new weapons are totally extraneous, and the game is about twice as long as it should be. Even with how much fun combat was, I was begging for the game to end long before I got to the (honestly pretty unmemorable) final boss fight.
It's like every single idea anyone at the company had over however many years of development made it in, and they were all cobbled together at random with no standard of quality or polish between it all. Hits and misses, weird diversions, redundant and repetitive areas, shaky writing, desperately out-of-place fourth-wall breaks and game references ... I was baffled the whole time. But that's not to say it was a bad experience. If the combat wasn't so good, it might have been intolerable, but thankfully they had that foundation locked down well enough, so it was easy to see it through.
Less is more, guys!
1998
Funny, but overwhelmingly abstruse.