Not much to say, this game is very much what you see is what you get. Yeah it borrows a lot from DOOM and others, but the good level design and satisfying guns make for a great time. There's even an included level editor and browser, so you can play lots of high quality community creations as well.

A couple major issues: the checkpoint system is too forgiving, you simply respawn without really losing anything, so I recommend playing on hard or even very hard so enemies can actually cause an inconvenience (You can switch difficulty anytime). Final few levels drag on, and theres no ending, it just teases the DLC while also having a really lame boss fight.

Despite a couple problems though this game was a really good time, not everything needs to reinvent the wheel, just being really good at rolling can be enough to be worth the time.

I dropped the game with like maybe half an hour of playtime left. It's not a terrible and unplayable game, but it is so incredibly boring. What we have here is a less interesting RE2Remake where they tried to make it more action oriented by throwing more ammo your way and giving you a barely noticeable dodge move, but not anything much beyond that so it's just kinda clunky.

There's like 3 puzzles which are barely even puzzles, the level design is aggressively linear, the music barely exists, no enemy is more than a minor 10 second inconvenience, the story was really unengaging and Nemesis is scripted 90% of the time which really makes him infinitely inferior to Mr X. I actually mind that it's TOO LONG for how boring to play through it is, what a way to drop the ball. Only positive I found was that the atmosphere in the city is really well done, but once out of the first area no eye candy would distract me anymore.

Another case similar to REKKR, not in that these games are very similar, but in that both fill the same niche. They both feel like something that could have come out back in the day, Zortch feeling like something you could get right in the middle of the year 2000 and see it turn into a cult classic, with smooth gameplay and a silly story and setting.

This game is impressive to me in so many ways, the custom engine in use here has wonderful vertex lighting, funky early 2000s physics and extremely smooth movement. The developer has focused a lot on optimizing this engine for as many systems as possible, and can apparently run on single core CPUs. If you have issues with it, report it, they seem to get to work on it really fast.

Another impressive aspect is the enemies, there's so many of them for a game that's of this sort and it still has more enemies than DOOM as well. They're also so mobile, a lot of them can jump around (or fly) so fast and with such precision that they can really flank you and surprise you. I had a lot of fun engaging in the encounters in the hard difficulty, I recommend jumping straight to it if you're already familiar with this kind of game, which you most likely are if you're looking into playing this one.

The levels aren't too long, having 20 of them and they're usually ~15 minutes and boss levels are only up to ~5 minutes long, while they can be confusing and there's no map system, if you look closely there's signposting to follow and you shouldn't remain lost for long. This game is pretty good at pacing and not overstaying its welcome.

Only thing I found kinda questionable at first was the sprinting being very modern, but later on I realized that if it was like DOOM where you can shoot while running you'd just be too unstoppable, so I understood why this decision to lock your weapons was made.

This game feels really authentic beyond its aesthetic and is clearly the product of passion. It's an impressive showcase of how to create something that feels just like a lost gem from the past without falling into the same issues that a lot of the games from the time had, and also it's so cheap that it's hard to say no to it. Please buy it, it's great.

It's good, actually.

I'm someone that got really disappointed, frustrated and baffled with Wolfenstein II, and even though this game is still not what I wanted, I was able to really enjoy it for what it is.

Playing with my bestie, and even doing some offline play, there was a good amount of fun to be had. The level design was handled by Arkane and as such we have very open ended, but not outright open world, levels, with lots of shortcuts, items to find and different encounters to get into.

Most of the game will be spent doing side content instead of the 5 story missions at hand, but I really didn't mind cause that's where the strenght is this time instead of the story. The gunplay is nearly identical to Wolfenstein II except now placed in levels that aren't frustratingly small or unfair, and while you can't dual wield as many guns, the upgrade system (which isn't actually grindy) can make any gun very reliable, especially the machinepistol and shotgun, so that it isn't missed at all.

The RPG mechanics in this game aren't actually that deep. Some enemies will not scale to your level from below so you need to get some level ups before getting to certain encounters, but you always have the option of finding an alternative route or taking them down with some more challenge. Leveling up actually doesn't take much effort, and even just running around shooting anything will net you some good XP. The guns are upgraded with currency you find or get from completing missions and you get more than enough to have a decent arsenal in the first couple of hours. What's most important is getting your skill points and weapon upgrade coins spent, you don't even have to think too much about it, just look at what you like and get it. As long as you actually upgrade whatever, enemies will not become bullet sponges and the game actually remains fairly balanced.

Something very worth noting is that everything scales for each player independently, both on their level and difficulty setting, so asides from those few encounters with enemies that have set levels, playing with someone that's not on your same level will not drag you down, this feature is actually extremely well implemented and I'm surprised it's never mentioned.

The big thing where this game fails in comparison to other Wolfenstein games as of late is story, but really not due to "cringy" protagonists (I really thought they were fine, and way less annoying than any real teenager I'm likely to find), but simply due to it being a very straightforward and short plot. That's really my only big complaint, the story could have been better, but it's not nearly as terrible as Wolfenstein II's (seriously, THAT should be your example of tone inconsistency making things hard to take seriously).

I guess I should mention the microtransactions too, and I'll just say, they're so easy to forget while you're just playing and are never in your face. Very few select items are tied to it, none of them relevant to progression. CAPCOM has been doing way worse on their singeplayer games for years, so if they can do that I just find this case very inoffensive.

I quite enjoyed playing this, both with a friend and alone, and certainly think it's worth at least a run on especially with how cheap it usually goes for on sales now. I think people are too harsh on it because it's not Wolfenstein III, but it's at least way more consistent than II with decent level design, an actual final boss, and characters that aren't pissing on New Order with their writing. I actually hope Wolfenstein III adopts the more open ended design and considers a lighter tone like found here if they're still gonna go with what II was doing. Either way, please chill, this game wasn't made to replace Wolfenstein III and it's not the future of the series like many wanted to assume it was just to be angrier at it.

Postal: Brain Damaged was a surprise for me. Being into Postal 2 and Paradise Lost mainly, I am still not very attracted by Postal 4 and when this got announced I thought it'd be a neat side game but not much else. As it turns out, it's simply amazing.

Color me surprised by how solid this is! The start of each episode is just a tiny bit slow, but once it picks up the game is some of the most fun I had with arena boomer whatever shooters in recent years. First level is too open imo, but all the rest are way more focused on the arena design.

The arsenal is really fun, all the guns have some use AND are just fun in and of themselves, even your basic shovel-chainsaw and not so smart pistol remain viable guns throughout the entire game. It's true, we have guns blatantly taken from other games, like the smart pistol from Titanfall and the SSG from Doom Eternal, but they are really well implemented here so they don't feel off at all (and with better thought than they'd have in Eternal!).

Speaking of the arsenal, I feel like explaining what the Pussy Launcher really is like as even I misunderstood it at first. It feels clunky when you first get it, but once you get how to get into the habit of shooting 3 times behind enemies and then pulling the projectile back towards them, it's basically an infinite ammo gun. I do think it's worthy of being your final gun, as proper use is extremely powerful, please don't overlook it.

This game also has HUGE enemy variety, each map up until around the last 3 introducing new enemies for you to fight. Many of them are variations of each other, but they're still distinct enough so that mixing them up in combat makes for a good balance. My favorites must be the silly asylum enemies, what with the lobotomized ones and gone rogue medical staff.

I guess I should talk about the humor. It's still a Postal game so it's not exactly particularly funny, and it's mostly interesting for the absurdity rather than humor. But I have to say, I don't get why people think this is darker than 2, in my view it simply has jokes and references that hit too close to recent times (mainly 2020-2021) and will age out like Postal 2 did eventually. The dream setting is great though, it allows the developers to blend in way more stupid things without it being inconsistent.

Corey Cruise does the main Postal Dude voice this time, and it's great to hear him be the main character in a good game. Rick Hunter is in here too, but his lines feel phoned in, similarly to 4, makes me wonder if he doesn't like being the Dude anymore.

My only problem with the game was the kinda slow start to each episode, but nothing can be a high forever, and the fact that I encountered a rare save bug that prevented saves from being created until you restart the game. This happened twice and I only found 2 other reports of this so I doubt it's common, but my preemptive measure was simply not letting the game run for more than ~20 minutes or at least rebooting it after each level. I doubt most people will encounter this though, or at least I hope. It lost me around 40 minutes of progress, but at least the gameplay is solid enough to not let that be too frustrating.

Overall this was a fun surprise, it's simply a well designed and engaging shooter with a crazy theme. Personally it's my favorite Postal game now and I highly doubt 4 will take that place whenever I get around to it. It's definitely the most functional Postal game despite that bug I encountered as it at least never crashed or dropped in performance by 105% for no reason, not to mention that it's a more traditional kind of game so it's definitely going to be appealing even to those that hate the usual Postal brand. I recommend this game to any FPS game player that doesn't mind edgy jokes that are already aging in relevancy, really, it's just good.

A flawed, yet cathartic, gem.

I'll start by saying that I haven't watched Hard Boiled and am mainly familiar with John Woo through cultural osmosis and some movie clips, so I won't be commenting on how the story works as a sequel to Hard Boiled, but it doesn't have any returning characters asides from the lead if you care about that. Also not touching on the multiplayer cause it's dead.

This game is the result of a development studio working under a sinking publisher trying to translate the "gung fu" style popularized by director Woo, and previously partially represented in videogames by Max Payne, into an interactive spectacle. It's probably easy to say that this is a Max Payne rip-off, but with the little I've seen of the director's movies, I think this game was going to end up playing like this regardless of if Max Payne had done it first or not.

So what is this really like in practice? Well, there's some problems. A lot of the actions in this game, in terms of movement, are either automated or guided. You automatically vault over low height objects like tables, and things like jumping on rails or taking a zip line down only work when the game thinks you're in position and highlights the point at which the action starts, where you're supposed to press the jump button. Another thing that's automated is the slow motion Bullet Time, here named Tequila Time, which will automatically kick in during acrobatics or when aiming under cover as long as you have some Tequila juice filled in the bar.

The way I described those things may even sound really bad, but the interesthing thing about this game is that once the level design clicks in, it all works. Instead of always being a linear affair where you're pushing forward through small groups of enemies, often in corridors, like in Max Payne, Strangehold will throw you into combat arenas filled with cover, jumping points, usually two floors and many entries for dozens of enemies to ambush you. It's in these moments where you're improvising where to jump to, seeing your bullet time kick in, stacking up combos with kills as you take cover, jump and vault around where the game shines.

The developers worked on the engine to get some of the most impressive destructible environments you'll ever see. So many objects can be destroyed, enemies come at you from all angles, the walls get chipped away by bullets often losing you your cover and you must keep that murder momentum going to fill up your Tequila Powers to use Tequila Bombs. The Tequila Bombs are special abilities that require you to kill enemies to fill their bar, and they're all useful in some way. First you can heal, then you get to use a precision shot, followed by the ability to get 30 seconds of invulnerability paired with unlimited ammo, and finally, a sweeping circle shot move that kills every enemy in the area. In later levels, the game will be throwing you so many enemies that you will need these in nearly every fight to survive, and so keeping your meter up to have a reserve of powers at your disposal compliments the otherwise basic gunplay.

Unfortunately, this game falters in the pacing and variety department. We have what's called "standoffs" which are basically shooting QTEs where you stand in place and must dodge slow moving bullets making sure you hit the target. The standoffs are pretty clunky, and will often lose you health no matter what you do, luckily we barely have a few of them throughout the game. The other part where they drop the ball hard is in the second level, a linear affair where you must tick off objective targets to destroy to progress and it closes off with an overly long and mindless turret section. It creates a terrible impression of the game after the decent first level that actually had a cool combat arena, but luckily the game never falters like that again. It's just unfortunate that in trying to create variety, they simply kill the pace.

But all in all, this game is extremely cathartic. Played for 4 hours and 49 minutes to see the end, so it wasn't longer than it needed to be considering that shooting is all it has, and seeing my stats of how many people I killed and property damaged I caused in that time was great. After you finish up a fight, you leave behind an incredible trail of destruction as a result of all those bullets and explosions you used to survive. There's no other game quite like this that I know of, which is why I'm willing to overlook the flaws in favor of just taking it all in and enjoying it.

We need more like this, this is a great attempt at translating an action movie over to video-game form and another game that can work out the issues it had, led by a developer with more resources to work with, would simply be perfection under the right circumstances. The game is up for purchase on GOG and it's practically given away during sales, I really recommend checking it out if it looks cool to you at all.

It's a pretty good sequel to Silver Thread. Unlike its predecessor, the ending you get is determined by a hidden points sytem. Instead of choosing between what's actually just 2 options, you must make sure your actions and choices are on the right track so the mystery is actually solved. Showing the wrong piece of evidence or using the wrong logic will lose you points, and cost you the real ending.

There's more characters and both Alicia and Beaford return. The game's still really short, but there's a bigger opportunity to flesh out the characters and set up things for the next chapter. If you liked Silver Thread's vibe but just wished there was that little bit more to its gameplay and story, this is exactly it, and it even sets up more to come.

I didn't vibe too much with the base game of Ion Fury, it felt like an overly drawn out game that was lacking in variety and had a really underwhelming final level. This expansion fixes all of that.

Levels are still sprawling, filled to the brim with secrets, but the game doesn't draw out for long. There's more enemy types and the designers are way less afraid to throw tougher encounters at you that aren't just spammy. To add on to this, we have the hover bike sections which are really fun. I was disappointed when it turned out that only the first one is like an arcade driving game, where you have a timer and have to avoid obstacles, but even just using it as a regular vehicle in normal levels was cool.

Had a great time with this, they designed a way better paced campaign with this and the final boss even is an actual enemy. I'm still not the fondest of the characters and all, but the game itself finally clicked for me when I gave this DLC a go, great fun.