HawkeyeSolo
2001
There are games out there that have a cult following, most of which you presume deserve so as they are hidden gems. Tis could be something like Shadow Warrior (1997), Blood, Get Even, XIII (2003), and what have you. But THIS is lost on me. Why people like this game so much, is something I can't figure out and probably never will. It's not a bad game, but my god is it slow and clunky.
It's an FPS, probably one of the slowest. If I had to describe it, it would be Half-Life, but it's on Mars, it's slower, and the lore and world is way more boring. It takes place in the future where workers of a corporation known as Ultor decide to rebel against them given the incredibly poor working conditions and sickness going around.
In terms of gameplay, it is very much like Half-Life. All the weapons you carry have some kind of secondary like Shadow Warrior (1997), except most are useless.
You have a Baton which is slow, doesn't do much damage, and the secondary, a taser, requires batteries and it guzzles the whole thing before you ever actually stun an enemy. A pistol with a silencer as a secondary that you only have to use once in a stealth section. It nerfs the pistol so badly it will take maybe 6 shots before you kill anything.
There are two assault rifles and snipers. Once you acquire the second of both guns there is no reason to return to the first because they're that much better. To be fair, these are the two most practical in the whole game. The assault rifles fires like normal, but has secondary for more accurate shots at long range. However, this is almost worthless because you get an SMG with an assault rifle secondary that takes the same ammo. (These weapons are a fucking mess.)
A shotgun which functions and looks exactly like the one from Half-Life. A railgun which is a railgun. Then there are the three most useless weapons in the game. The flame thrower and rocket launcher, while not bad weapons, are useless due to how scarce ammo is. Then there's the riot shield. It is so terrible it will take you 13 hits before you kill an enemy. The only reason this weapon seems to exist is because you need it to avoid getting insta-killed by an enemy with a rail gun.
Now one thing I think most people associate Red Faction with is the geo-mod technology which this game is the earliest use of. This is something that allows the player to blow holes in walls, floors and just about anything, allowing some advantages in game. Is what I would say if it did. There is almost no scenario where blowing open a floor or wall gives you some kind of tactically advantage. Technologically impressive, tactically unnecessary.
I keep saying how slow the game and that is very apparent in the movement which feels too slow for the kind of game on display, there is no enemy variety with you fighting the same Ultor enemies over and over again, the level design is pretty flat, and the only thing that keeps the game from being incredibly boring are the two stealth and vehicle sections.
The stealth is poor and the mechanics established are pointless most of the time. It's the most basic stealth in that you wear a disguise, keep your distance from guards and cameras, and keep your pistol holstered to avoid detection. That's basically it. There are only two missions and they're very straight forward. Well, except one.
In the second stealth mission you have to get to Cryptek's secret lab and you need a access card to get through. To get this, you need to get it from the administrator, but you can't get into his office if you just b-line straight to it because the guards will be alerted. It turns out that you have to receive a brain from a room that's out of your way, give it to the surgeon in OR, take it to cryogenics, to which then you can get into the admins office as you need the admins signature. If you don't know about this beforehand then you'll be lost as to what to do.
The vehicle sections are actually not bad and allows you to blow up and kill many enemies. These mostly serve as a way to get somewhere, not that different from the vehicle sections in Half-Life 2. Except these vehicles actually control much better, oddly enough.
If you wanna play a good version of this, just play Half-Life.
It's an FPS, probably one of the slowest. If I had to describe it, it would be Half-Life, but it's on Mars, it's slower, and the lore and world is way more boring. It takes place in the future where workers of a corporation known as Ultor decide to rebel against them given the incredibly poor working conditions and sickness going around.
In terms of gameplay, it is very much like Half-Life. All the weapons you carry have some kind of secondary like Shadow Warrior (1997), except most are useless.
You have a Baton which is slow, doesn't do much damage, and the secondary, a taser, requires batteries and it guzzles the whole thing before you ever actually stun an enemy. A pistol with a silencer as a secondary that you only have to use once in a stealth section. It nerfs the pistol so badly it will take maybe 6 shots before you kill anything.
There are two assault rifles and snipers. Once you acquire the second of both guns there is no reason to return to the first because they're that much better. To be fair, these are the two most practical in the whole game. The assault rifles fires like normal, but has secondary for more accurate shots at long range. However, this is almost worthless because you get an SMG with an assault rifle secondary that takes the same ammo. (These weapons are a fucking mess.)
A shotgun which functions and looks exactly like the one from Half-Life. A railgun which is a railgun. Then there are the three most useless weapons in the game. The flame thrower and rocket launcher, while not bad weapons, are useless due to how scarce ammo is. Then there's the riot shield. It is so terrible it will take you 13 hits before you kill an enemy. The only reason this weapon seems to exist is because you need it to avoid getting insta-killed by an enemy with a rail gun.
Now one thing I think most people associate Red Faction with is the geo-mod technology which this game is the earliest use of. This is something that allows the player to blow holes in walls, floors and just about anything, allowing some advantages in game. Is what I would say if it did. There is almost no scenario where blowing open a floor or wall gives you some kind of tactically advantage. Technologically impressive, tactically unnecessary.
I keep saying how slow the game and that is very apparent in the movement which feels too slow for the kind of game on display, there is no enemy variety with you fighting the same Ultor enemies over and over again, the level design is pretty flat, and the only thing that keeps the game from being incredibly boring are the two stealth and vehicle sections.
The stealth is poor and the mechanics established are pointless most of the time. It's the most basic stealth in that you wear a disguise, keep your distance from guards and cameras, and keep your pistol holstered to avoid detection. That's basically it. There are only two missions and they're very straight forward. Well, except one.
In the second stealth mission you have to get to Cryptek's secret lab and you need a access card to get through. To get this, you need to get it from the administrator, but you can't get into his office if you just b-line straight to it because the guards will be alerted. It turns out that you have to receive a brain from a room that's out of your way, give it to the surgeon in OR, take it to cryogenics, to which then you can get into the admins office as you need the admins signature. If you don't know about this beforehand then you'll be lost as to what to do.
The vehicle sections are actually not bad and allows you to blow up and kill many enemies. These mostly serve as a way to get somewhere, not that different from the vehicle sections in Half-Life 2. Except these vehicles actually control much better, oddly enough.
If you wanna play a good version of this, just play Half-Life.
This game is supposed to be a reboot of the original Dead to Rights. Not sure why this exist since most never really cared for the original or the DTR franchise in general. I will give this game the benefit in that it has decent voice acting, over-the-top, brutal takedowns, decent graphics for its time (although hasn't aged well), and a decent story that's an improvement over the original. My only complaint is how underdeveloped the characters are, which is shame since they have potential to be good characters.
Unfortunately, that's all I can really say that this reboot does right because this game is worse than the original. As I said, the story is decent and the visuals don't look all that good now, but the gameplay is what really holds this game back from being at least decent.
Where the original was ripping off Max Payne (not just in gameplay but also plot) this reboot decides to be yet another generic third-person shooter from the late 2000s that clearly takes "inspiration" from Gears of Wars. Despite that "inspiration", the combat is very boring, mainly because of how easy it is and how clunky and unbalanced the shooting is since the enemies are bullet-sponges. Funniest thing about the gunplay is how broken the blind fire is since it hits enemies dead on meaning it's more accurate than aiming.
This game also poorly attempts to combine the elements of third-person shooting and beat'em up. This is a combo that the Dead to Rights franchise has been trying to make work since day one, but it never has since previous games would abruptly have you enter an area with no weapons and fight people; I think the one thing that amazes me is the inclusion of a combo list, which isn't necessary since the basic combos do just fine against enemies. The beat'em mechanics also happen at the same time as gun fights, which just showcases how bad the AI is since those with no weapon will run straight towards you allowing you to gun them down and some will stand completely still. I even had some spawn behind me.
There's also some other inconveniences like how there's no grenade indicator or the fact that when you aim down with the sniper, it zooms in on the crossairs instead of switching to a scope view.
Now, one staple of the DTR franchise is bullet time, which has been turned into Focus mode. Focus mode is dull to use in comparison to bullet time since it seems to be nothing more than a crutch for the player since you take less damage, do more damage, and get headshots more easily.
It's not surprising that this game killed this franchise. In fact, what surprises me more is how long this franchise went on for, especially considering how little they improved over each new entry. Dead to Rights: Retribution is bad, and like many reboots that came before, failed to take the franchise to new heights. I have no doubt that this franchise will forever be ingrained as Max Payne's less talented cousin who dreamed of being just as cool as him.
RIP
Unfortunately, that's all I can really say that this reboot does right because this game is worse than the original. As I said, the story is decent and the visuals don't look all that good now, but the gameplay is what really holds this game back from being at least decent.
Where the original was ripping off Max Payne (not just in gameplay but also plot) this reboot decides to be yet another generic third-person shooter from the late 2000s that clearly takes "inspiration" from Gears of Wars. Despite that "inspiration", the combat is very boring, mainly because of how easy it is and how clunky and unbalanced the shooting is since the enemies are bullet-sponges. Funniest thing about the gunplay is how broken the blind fire is since it hits enemies dead on meaning it's more accurate than aiming.
This game also poorly attempts to combine the elements of third-person shooting and beat'em up. This is a combo that the Dead to Rights franchise has been trying to make work since day one, but it never has since previous games would abruptly have you enter an area with no weapons and fight people; I think the one thing that amazes me is the inclusion of a combo list, which isn't necessary since the basic combos do just fine against enemies. The beat'em mechanics also happen at the same time as gun fights, which just showcases how bad the AI is since those with no weapon will run straight towards you allowing you to gun them down and some will stand completely still. I even had some spawn behind me.
There's also some other inconveniences like how there's no grenade indicator or the fact that when you aim down with the sniper, it zooms in on the crossairs instead of switching to a scope view.
Now, one staple of the DTR franchise is bullet time, which has been turned into Focus mode. Focus mode is dull to use in comparison to bullet time since it seems to be nothing more than a crutch for the player since you take less damage, do more damage, and get headshots more easily.
It's not surprising that this game killed this franchise. In fact, what surprises me more is how long this franchise went on for, especially considering how little they improved over each new entry. Dead to Rights: Retribution is bad, and like many reboots that came before, failed to take the franchise to new heights. I have no doubt that this franchise will forever be ingrained as Max Payne's less talented cousin who dreamed of being just as cool as him.
RIP
2012
Anna is a game I found way back in 2012 when I saw the likes of Pewdiepie and Markiplier making Let's Plays on it. When I saw this on PS Now, I somehow remembered it and wondered why no one really talked about it much. After playing it, I can see why.
Anna is a puzzle, horror game. While there are many horror games that have these elements, the game is dedicated to the idea of puzzle more than anything. What I mean is that, this game is more of a puzzle game with horror elements than an actual horror game and not a good one.
This game is probably one of the most boring horror games I've ever played and I have yet to play Ju-On: The Grudge. While it has decent atmosphere, much like Ju-On (a literal haunted house simulator) nothing ever hurts you. Things just change around you, but nothing ever hurts or attacks you. In fact, nothing ever actually poses any sort of threat.
On the puzzle side of things, it's not all bad. Some of the puzzles are actually pretty good like the colored leaves puzzle. However, some are outright confusing mainly because they have no indication on how you would solve them. For example, there's a part where you have to clear dark fog in a room using a lantern, but it isn't pure enough to get rid of it. So, you have to take the two color leaves that you used in the previous puzzle, put them in a mantel, and crushed them up to create electrum dust to make the light more pure. In no way does the game indicate that you can use the leaves again as all the other leaves burned to ash.
I think the stupidest thing about this game is the story. You're suppose to unravel the story as you progress, but it's not worth it. So to summarize as best as I can, the plot is that a man with amnesia goes to a sawmill, where the man remembers killing his real wife after she defiled Anna's statue. At the end of the game he finds the statue, along with dolls of his children, in a small chamber. As the tunnel to the chamber caves in, he realizes that he will stay in the chamber forever, but he does not care because he has "Anna" with him. This isn't some joke, all this happened because a man fell in love with a damn statue, which is probably one of the dumbest plots to any video game. Now this is suppose to be the true ending as the game has eight different endings, but don't worry if you don't want to waste your time, the game isn't long as it takes about half an hour to beat if you know what you're doing.
With that out of the way, let's talk about the other aspects of this game. Graphically the game looks cheap, even on PC and looks like someone turned the resolution of the textures down. The soundtrack is decent and when I played this game, I thought there was only one track that plays, which was the same acoustic track over and over again. Upon further research, I found out that there are 11 tracks it's just that they only play one track while solving puzzles. And while it sounds nice and gives off a warm and calm atmosphere, I'd like to hear more than just that. The movement is sluggish as it feels like the character has three legs. Finally, the sound design is also bad as some sound effects sound too compressed or just a little too loud.
In short, if you want a puzzle horror game that's actually engaging, just play something like Omori, or Witch's House, or Mad Father, or Corpse Party, or any other puzzle-based horror game that's far more interesting than this.
Anna is a puzzle, horror game. While there are many horror games that have these elements, the game is dedicated to the idea of puzzle more than anything. What I mean is that, this game is more of a puzzle game with horror elements than an actual horror game and not a good one.
This game is probably one of the most boring horror games I've ever played and I have yet to play Ju-On: The Grudge. While it has decent atmosphere, much like Ju-On (a literal haunted house simulator) nothing ever hurts you. Things just change around you, but nothing ever hurts or attacks you. In fact, nothing ever actually poses any sort of threat.
On the puzzle side of things, it's not all bad. Some of the puzzles are actually pretty good like the colored leaves puzzle. However, some are outright confusing mainly because they have no indication on how you would solve them. For example, there's a part where you have to clear dark fog in a room using a lantern, but it isn't pure enough to get rid of it. So, you have to take the two color leaves that you used in the previous puzzle, put them in a mantel, and crushed them up to create electrum dust to make the light more pure. In no way does the game indicate that you can use the leaves again as all the other leaves burned to ash.
I think the stupidest thing about this game is the story. You're suppose to unravel the story as you progress, but it's not worth it. So to summarize as best as I can, the plot is that a man with amnesia goes to a sawmill, where the man remembers killing his real wife after she defiled Anna's statue. At the end of the game he finds the statue, along with dolls of his children, in a small chamber. As the tunnel to the chamber caves in, he realizes that he will stay in the chamber forever, but he does not care because he has "Anna" with him. This isn't some joke, all this happened because a man fell in love with a damn statue, which is probably one of the dumbest plots to any video game. Now this is suppose to be the true ending as the game has eight different endings, but don't worry if you don't want to waste your time, the game isn't long as it takes about half an hour to beat if you know what you're doing.
With that out of the way, let's talk about the other aspects of this game. Graphically the game looks cheap, even on PC and looks like someone turned the resolution of the textures down. The soundtrack is decent and when I played this game, I thought there was only one track that plays, which was the same acoustic track over and over again. Upon further research, I found out that there are 11 tracks it's just that they only play one track while solving puzzles. And while it sounds nice and gives off a warm and calm atmosphere, I'd like to hear more than just that. The movement is sluggish as it feels like the character has three legs. Finally, the sound design is also bad as some sound effects sound too compressed or just a little too loud.
In short, if you want a puzzle horror game that's actually engaging, just play something like Omori, or Witch's House, or Mad Father, or Corpse Party, or any other puzzle-based horror game that's far more interesting than this.
2005
One of the first things you have to ask with a film-to-video game adaptation is: How well does it adapt said film? It could either go well like it does with the Star Wars Episode III, the Harry Potter games, and even most of the Lego games, or it could be something like Amazing Spider-Man 2 or even worse, Rambo: The Video Game. This game is the latter.
For one, the game uses footage from the movie, but doesn't use it effectively. Instead of letting them play out, it just uses bits and spurts while having Christian Bale monologue over them, almost like he's trying to give a synopsis of the events of the film itself. It also ignores or doesn't address certain key elements. These include: Bruce's fear training, Rachel and Gordon's introduction, how Bruce came to fear bats, and ect. I will give it to the game for how accurate the character models look to their real life counterparts; the game as a whole looks great and they managed to get most of the actors (except Gary Oldman) to be in the game and they do a pretty good job. The same can be said about the extras.
On paper, there's a lot of interesting aspects of the gameplay. One could even argue that this game could be credited to be ahead of its time and may have even inspired Rocksteady for their Batman Arkham series since this game is meant to be a stealth, beat-em up that has you use stealth against armed thugs. Unfortunately, the execution of these mechanics are an entire different story.
The combat is very basic and clunky since all you do is kick, punch, do some special attack, and then maybe do a finisher. The camera also doesn't zoom out to show all the enemies instead it locks on to one enemy, which means you can't see when an enemy is about to hit you. There's also no enemy variety, meaning you fight virtually the same enemy all the time.
The stealth is where it introduces two fear mechanics. "Area Fear" and the Reputation meter. The Fear meter is supposed to indicate how scared enemies are in the general area, which also determines how weak they are. I think the weirdest thing about this is when a terrified enemy will see Batman as a humanoid bat creature, which doesn't make sense since this form of Batman is only seen by Scarecrow when Batman doses him with his own toxin in the movie.
The Reputation meter is supposed to infer how scared enemies are of you, the more scares you pull, and things like it, but it's pointless since it's all scripted. In fact, it works more as a progression meter since the closer it is to being full, the closer you are to the end of the level.
The stealth can barely be called stealth. Nearly every stealth section is scripted as you have to either wait for a guard to turn around to do a takedown or throw a batarang to knock something over to scare enemies. The reason you scare enemies isn't just to fight them. It's because of the fact that you can't fight armed thugs period so you have to scare them and when you do they drop their weapons and the weapons disappear. The fact that these guys drop their weapons when a crate drops directly in front of them is laughable and just stupid.
The game also seemingly steals mechanics from Splinter Cell, as you can climb pipes, lock pick, use gadgets to hack devices like cameras, and you even have an optic cable.
Everything I mentioned above is quite literally, all you do throughout the entire game. You fight people, move to the next area, scare people then fight them, do some climbing, rinse and repeat. The only levels that were even remotely fun were the Batmobile levels.
In these levels, you get to drive the Tumbler and despite the goal just getting from point A to point B, the controls are fluid, you feel powerful being able to just almost immediately wreck cars, and it feels nice just zooming through the levels at blistering speed. Sadly, there are only two levels that involve the Tumbler and supposedly they weren't made by Eurocom, but instead Criterion, who made the Burnout franchise. Although, there is Time Attack, which is where you have to drive through previous levels involving the Tumbler and beat a set time. My only issue is how frustrating it is to complete because in order to beat the time you have to constantly use nitro to even have a chance to win and what doesn't help is the number of sharp corners you have to turn. If you don't want that, you can replay these missions whenever you want. In fact, they're the only levels with a level select as the game as a whole doesn't have one.
I don't really blame Eurocom for such a mediocre title. Seeing how the levels got shorter towards the end, tells me that they were on a time limit. That's not really abnormal for movie or TV licensed games, but I think that can summarize this entire game. It's just another movie-based cash grab from the 2000s.
For one, the game uses footage from the movie, but doesn't use it effectively. Instead of letting them play out, it just uses bits and spurts while having Christian Bale monologue over them, almost like he's trying to give a synopsis of the events of the film itself. It also ignores or doesn't address certain key elements. These include: Bruce's fear training, Rachel and Gordon's introduction, how Bruce came to fear bats, and ect. I will give it to the game for how accurate the character models look to their real life counterparts; the game as a whole looks great and they managed to get most of the actors (except Gary Oldman) to be in the game and they do a pretty good job. The same can be said about the extras.
On paper, there's a lot of interesting aspects of the gameplay. One could even argue that this game could be credited to be ahead of its time and may have even inspired Rocksteady for their Batman Arkham series since this game is meant to be a stealth, beat-em up that has you use stealth against armed thugs. Unfortunately, the execution of these mechanics are an entire different story.
The combat is very basic and clunky since all you do is kick, punch, do some special attack, and then maybe do a finisher. The camera also doesn't zoom out to show all the enemies instead it locks on to one enemy, which means you can't see when an enemy is about to hit you. There's also no enemy variety, meaning you fight virtually the same enemy all the time.
The stealth is where it introduces two fear mechanics. "Area Fear" and the Reputation meter. The Fear meter is supposed to indicate how scared enemies are in the general area, which also determines how weak they are. I think the weirdest thing about this is when a terrified enemy will see Batman as a humanoid bat creature, which doesn't make sense since this form of Batman is only seen by Scarecrow when Batman doses him with his own toxin in the movie.
The Reputation meter is supposed to infer how scared enemies are of you, the more scares you pull, and things like it, but it's pointless since it's all scripted. In fact, it works more as a progression meter since the closer it is to being full, the closer you are to the end of the level.
The stealth can barely be called stealth. Nearly every stealth section is scripted as you have to either wait for a guard to turn around to do a takedown or throw a batarang to knock something over to scare enemies. The reason you scare enemies isn't just to fight them. It's because of the fact that you can't fight armed thugs period so you have to scare them and when you do they drop their weapons and the weapons disappear. The fact that these guys drop their weapons when a crate drops directly in front of them is laughable and just stupid.
The game also seemingly steals mechanics from Splinter Cell, as you can climb pipes, lock pick, use gadgets to hack devices like cameras, and you even have an optic cable.
Everything I mentioned above is quite literally, all you do throughout the entire game. You fight people, move to the next area, scare people then fight them, do some climbing, rinse and repeat. The only levels that were even remotely fun were the Batmobile levels.
In these levels, you get to drive the Tumbler and despite the goal just getting from point A to point B, the controls are fluid, you feel powerful being able to just almost immediately wreck cars, and it feels nice just zooming through the levels at blistering speed. Sadly, there are only two levels that involve the Tumbler and supposedly they weren't made by Eurocom, but instead Criterion, who made the Burnout franchise. Although, there is Time Attack, which is where you have to drive through previous levels involving the Tumbler and beat a set time. My only issue is how frustrating it is to complete because in order to beat the time you have to constantly use nitro to even have a chance to win and what doesn't help is the number of sharp corners you have to turn. If you don't want that, you can replay these missions whenever you want. In fact, they're the only levels with a level select as the game as a whole doesn't have one.
I don't really blame Eurocom for such a mediocre title. Seeing how the levels got shorter towards the end, tells me that they were on a time limit. That's not really abnormal for movie or TV licensed games, but I think that can summarize this entire game. It's just another movie-based cash grab from the 2000s.
1992
I find it very interesting to go back to the games that inspired entire genres or first installments of beloved franchises. I've come to find out that the games that inspired and are first installments generally don't age well, however, there are some exceptions like Halo: Combat Evolved. Wolfenstein 3D is sadly not the exception.
Now when I say "haven't aged well", it doesn't mean those games are bad, but they do prove to be a lot harder to go back to as games of the same genre or games a part of the franchise improve and expand upon what came before or what inspired.
Wolfenstein 3D in this case is known as the grandfather of the FPS genre (said every journalist site) and the classic Boomer Shooter design we have all come to love. It established many things from having multiple weapons on hand, the run-and-gun design, the idea of having pushable walls, revealing secrets, and was even the first game ever to have you fighting Nazis.
The game is broken up into 6 episodes each with 9 levels and one secret level, with the 9th level being where you fight the boss of the episode.
This game is interesting as it isn't like other Boomer or Retro Shooters as the enemies don't come at the player at once, instead most are separated by rooms, most likely to encourage stealth. B.J. himself doesn't have much health and can easily be killed. When I first played this, I thought running around wouldn't be a good idea given how fragile B.J., but after going back to it a second time, I realized I was just being an idiot and not playing the game right. Although, there is one thing that makes the game kind of bullshit. If an enemy gets the drop on you and shoots you at point-blank range, you will almost certainly lose over half your health. Which gets REALLY annoying.
The Mutants are the most infamous of this due to their total lack of an "aiming" state (in other words, they'll immediately skip to shooting instead of having to raise and look down the sights of their weapon). They're also good at getting said drop on you due to them making no sound at all. The reason for this lack of "aiming state" is primarily because they have guns mounted to their chest. This in turn, makes them the most annoying and worst enemy in the game.
The AI is actually impressive for its time. Enemies pursue you outside of their room, opening doors in their way, reacting realistically to your presence (shouting something in digitized German), hearing gunshots, and reacting when shot are all things that weren't common in enemy AI at the time.
One of the biggest issues with this entry is the lack of a map, which means you can get lost mainly because of how lots of areas look the same with the game using decoration as a way to differentiate each room and the level design consisting of mostly mazes. There is also no distinction between what's a normal wall and what's a secret. In later games, you can tall what is and isn't a secret if there's a misaligned texture or a crack in the wall. This forces you to touch every single wall until you find the right one. If you do want a map you can use the ECWolf source port, which comes with an automap feature.
Let's talk graphics. For a game from 1992, it had pretty impressive graphics and sprite work for its time and actually holds up pretty well today. The environments on the other hand, are the thing that hasn't aged well as they recycle many kinds of walls from brick to stone to dirt, which gets a bit tiring to see after awhile and is boring compared to future FPS games.
The weapon selection is also really limited by FPS standards as there are only four weapons in the whole game. A knife, which is useless since you need to get in close proximity with an enemy, giving them plenty of opportunity to shoot BJ up close and deal massive amounts of damage to him; even if you do manage to injure an enemy, you need to stab them multiple times before they die, and other enemies will still be alerted to your presence when you stab an enemy. A pistol, which is the starting gun and is really weak as per tradition. A machine gun, which does sizable damage. And finally, a chaingun, which is the most powerful gun in the game and does good work of enemies. Even if you have all these weapons, it's pointless to use anything other than the more powerful gun since they all use the same ammo making your arsenal even more limited.
The controls are also an issue. They're pretty stiff all things considered and feels as if you're floating instead of walking or sprinting, but that's not the only thing wrong with the movement. If you've grown accustom to playing games with mouse controlling where you look and keyboard controlling you're movement (like many have today), you'll come to find out that you can't strafe sideways like in a modern FPS. Even when using mouselook (you have to hold down a separate key to strafe, which also prevents you from looking left and right). Fortunately, this has been corrected on the unofficial Open GL port.
I've always found it interesting to go back to games that inspired entire genres, but there's a reason why most don't really go back to them. I feel like this game is a prime example as to why. It was very impressive at the time, but has been outdone by its successor. Despite this, it's still a decent game.
Now when I say "haven't aged well", it doesn't mean those games are bad, but they do prove to be a lot harder to go back to as games of the same genre or games a part of the franchise improve and expand upon what came before or what inspired.
Wolfenstein 3D in this case is known as the grandfather of the FPS genre (said every journalist site) and the classic Boomer Shooter design we have all come to love. It established many things from having multiple weapons on hand, the run-and-gun design, the idea of having pushable walls, revealing secrets, and was even the first game ever to have you fighting Nazis.
The game is broken up into 6 episodes each with 9 levels and one secret level, with the 9th level being where you fight the boss of the episode.
This game is interesting as it isn't like other Boomer or Retro Shooters as the enemies don't come at the player at once, instead most are separated by rooms, most likely to encourage stealth. B.J. himself doesn't have much health and can easily be killed. When I first played this, I thought running around wouldn't be a good idea given how fragile B.J., but after going back to it a second time, I realized I was just being an idiot and not playing the game right. Although, there is one thing that makes the game kind of bullshit. If an enemy gets the drop on you and shoots you at point-blank range, you will almost certainly lose over half your health. Which gets REALLY annoying.
The Mutants are the most infamous of this due to their total lack of an "aiming" state (in other words, they'll immediately skip to shooting instead of having to raise and look down the sights of their weapon). They're also good at getting said drop on you due to them making no sound at all. The reason for this lack of "aiming state" is primarily because they have guns mounted to their chest. This in turn, makes them the most annoying and worst enemy in the game.
The AI is actually impressive for its time. Enemies pursue you outside of their room, opening doors in their way, reacting realistically to your presence (shouting something in digitized German), hearing gunshots, and reacting when shot are all things that weren't common in enemy AI at the time.
One of the biggest issues with this entry is the lack of a map, which means you can get lost mainly because of how lots of areas look the same with the game using decoration as a way to differentiate each room and the level design consisting of mostly mazes. There is also no distinction between what's a normal wall and what's a secret. In later games, you can tall what is and isn't a secret if there's a misaligned texture or a crack in the wall. This forces you to touch every single wall until you find the right one. If you do want a map you can use the ECWolf source port, which comes with an automap feature.
Let's talk graphics. For a game from 1992, it had pretty impressive graphics and sprite work for its time and actually holds up pretty well today. The environments on the other hand, are the thing that hasn't aged well as they recycle many kinds of walls from brick to stone to dirt, which gets a bit tiring to see after awhile and is boring compared to future FPS games.
The weapon selection is also really limited by FPS standards as there are only four weapons in the whole game. A knife, which is useless since you need to get in close proximity with an enemy, giving them plenty of opportunity to shoot BJ up close and deal massive amounts of damage to him; even if you do manage to injure an enemy, you need to stab them multiple times before they die, and other enemies will still be alerted to your presence when you stab an enemy. A pistol, which is the starting gun and is really weak as per tradition. A machine gun, which does sizable damage. And finally, a chaingun, which is the most powerful gun in the game and does good work of enemies. Even if you have all these weapons, it's pointless to use anything other than the more powerful gun since they all use the same ammo making your arsenal even more limited.
The controls are also an issue. They're pretty stiff all things considered and feels as if you're floating instead of walking or sprinting, but that's not the only thing wrong with the movement. If you've grown accustom to playing games with mouse controlling where you look and keyboard controlling you're movement (like many have today), you'll come to find out that you can't strafe sideways like in a modern FPS. Even when using mouselook (you have to hold down a separate key to strafe, which also prevents you from looking left and right). Fortunately, this has been corrected on the unofficial Open GL port.
I've always found it interesting to go back to games that inspired entire genres, but there's a reason why most don't really go back to them. I feel like this game is a prime example as to why. It was very impressive at the time, but has been outdone by its successor. Despite this, it's still a decent game.