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Post by KGRAMR on Apr 10, 2018 20:56:13 GMT -5
We need even more Retro FPS or games similar to Doom 4/2016. I'm just so tired of seeing Call of Duty wannabes or yet another hero shooter. Don't even get me started on Battle Royales...
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Post by boomer on Apr 16, 2018 16:49:56 GMT -5
I have played these games
DUSK is the ugliest of the bunch, but it's the most fluid and bullet-hell-esque since almost every enemy is projectile-based and you can actually complete each level on the highest difficulty without taking a single hit. Not many first-person shooters can claim that. The movement is smoooooth, it feels just right, and it also lets you slide under bullets, which is the coolest fucking thing. Or sliding through an enemy the exact moment you gib him with the shotty. Only problems are that the first episode is too easy because enemy aggression is rather lousy as you are often given loads of space to dodge the fast incoming projectiles in, the second episode remedies this by introducing some necessary enemies to the mix. The level design itself can get quite creative, especially towards the second episode, though in terms of combat it can be rather weak
Ion Maiden is ok. The levels at offer are quite nice, but everything else, from the weapon to the enemy types are bogstandard. Annoyingly the enemies are pseudo-hitscan, so dodging enemy fire can be rather inconsistent. There's so many fucking secrets with too many armors inside them, they tend to unbalance the game way too much. My biggest complaint is that the signature Bowling Bombs are lobbed instead of thrown, meaning you need to do some ridiculous vertical compensating just to throw a bomb over a railing instead of at it. This is a preview campaign where most of the weapons aren't even introduced, most weapons don't even have alternative fire modes yet, and these levels won't even appear in the main game, so I can't fully judge the game yet. The latest update introduced an arena survival mode, but it's incredibly boring because you're given infinite ammo and you need to go out of your way to find enemies, it's shit like this that makes you appreciate Devil Daggers more in hindsight.
AMID EVIL I just didn't like at all. From an exploration standpoint the levels in AMID EVIL are the strongest out of this whole resurgence, but the combat itself is Painkiller-levels of sleep-inducing. Too much free space and projectile-based enemies/chaser enemies results in too much backpedaling as switching between weapons depends on which you feel like using and which weapon has the most ammo currently available for it rather than picking the best weapon for the current situation. And even then the weapon balance is total wack, the Azure Staff and Sword are useless compared to their stronger Trident/Star counterparts, there are vague unintuitive enemy-specific weapon resistance everywhere, the BFG-like weapon has way more ammo for it scattered around than it ought to have, and the self-damage range for the planet launcher is way too big and doesn't correspond with the size of the explosion at all.
Worst part is that every four levels a new enemy set is introduced, resulting in copious reskins, wasted enemy type potential, and the worst is episode three with its bulletsponge golems, bulletsponge flying flamethrower masks, and ridiculously fast cannon fodder spectres. There's also a Soul Mode which temporarily upgrades your current weapon, which is done by filling up your energy bar with the souls of fallen enemies. However, the activation of Soul Mode is solely tied to the Fire Button, so if it's full and you have to shoot you have no option but to waste a Soul Mode charge. According to some explanations of the developers, they just had no idea how to balance it out, and instead settled on forcing players to activate it every now and then, even though knowing when to use your Hyper Break Mode is half the fun of these systems. The art direction also abused saturated colors way too much, I had to use the monochrome filter to make it bearable.
Overload is shaping up to be really good, and is definitely the most underrated of the current retro FPS resurgence. Though that's due in part of Descent often going overlooked whenever retro first-persons shooters are brought up, which Overload is a spiritual successor to. Featuring excellent enemy AI capable of dodging and leading shots (they can even react to your flashlight), loads of enemy types to mess your day up, and all kinds of levels with their own themes and literal twisters. Not only does it nail the basics of Descent, but it also improves upon it. Matcens are no longer infinite or indestructible, and when they are shielded, said shield can be disabled by destroying a nearby shield generator. Enemy homing missiles are replaced with slower but more numerous homing mines. One of the more common enemy types only uses hitscan from close-up. There's a smash attack which acts as a break-out move and a stun. You have the option to forsake trichording in favor of higher single thruster speed. And your basic missiles aren't slow.
It also features an upgrade system which I normally look down upon, because usually these kind of upgrade systems are about which upgrades you want first since you'll all the useful ones eventually because of a highly generous point economy, but in Overload you actually have to make a permanent decision between two different upgrade branches for a weapon, which you can't switch between and actually adds some weight to your decisions. It also relegates upgrading between levels, so you don't feel constantly obliged to pause the game in order to look at some upgrades.
I'm kind of appalled that the only worthwhile upcoming first-person shooter releases are those aping the classic ones, it's as if people ran out of ideas and can only turn to the past. Eventually this retro throwback bubble is going to pop and people are going to want to see something new. Heck, Doom 2016 could have kickstarted a new subgenre had it not botched its own execution so badly, there's a reason why it's rarely dissected in gaming analysis channels.
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Post by mainpatr on Apr 17, 2018 11:46:01 GMT -5
If the indie world want to keep doing retro style FPS games , they should be looking to games like Perfect Dark and Goldeneye instead of Doom and Quake.
It's the same problem that indie platformers and action games have. Too much 8-bit, not enough 16-bit or 32 bit.
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Post by JoeQ on Apr 17, 2018 11:51:38 GMT -5
Heck, Doom 2016 could have kickstarted a new subgenre had it not botched its own execution so badly, there's a reason why it's rarely dissected in gaming analysis channels. Now I'm curious. I just played that recently and while I do have a few minor issues I enjoyed it immensely. |
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Post by lurker on Apr 17, 2018 12:07:13 GMT -5
Yeah, unless he meant the previous Doom game and not the most recent one.
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Post by boomer on Apr 18, 2018 10:17:38 GMT -5
Heck, Doom 2016 could have kickstarted a new subgenre had it not botched its own execution so badly, there's a reason why it's rarely dissected in gaming analysis channels. Now I'm curious. I just played that recently and while I do have a few minor issues I enjoyed it immensely. I wrote about it at minor length on the Doomworld forums which I'll link here in order to avoid taking up more screen space than necessary. Basically it's got an identity crisis going on on top of suffering from AAA-itis and the developers experimenting a lot design-wise by trying to mash Doom with character action games (and even then I'd say the levels themselves don't experiment enough). I'm confident the sequel will be better now that they have a direction figured out, but who knows. Trying to tell an AAA developer to not include upgrade systems of some sort in their game is like telling your dog to not eat the turkey on the table while you're gone. I'd be surprised if for the sequel they actually replace the canned animations for Glory Kills with a more fluid shoulder bash like they kind of did in Doom VFR. |
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Post by JoeQ on Apr 18, 2018 10:55:08 GMT -5
Now I'm curious. I just played that recently and while I do have a few minor issues I enjoyed it immensely. I wrote about it at minor length on the Doomworld forums which I'll link here in order to avoid taking up more screen space than necessary. Basically it's got an identity crisis going on on top of suffering from AAA-itis and the developers experimenting a lot design-wise by trying to mash Doom with character action games (and even then I'd say the levels themselves don't experiment enough). I'm confident the sequel will be better now that they have a direction figured out, but who knows. Trying to tell an AAA developer to not include upgrade systems of some sort in their game is like telling your dog to not eat the turkey on the table while you're gone. I'd be surprised if for the sequel they actually replace the canned animations for Glory Kills with a more fluid shoulder bash like they kind of did in Doom VFR. Read your longer post and you have valid points, particularly considering the exploration/combat-split, combat arenas and the needlessly bloated upgrade systems. I enjoyed the game (and I think you did too), but you're certainly not wrong with any of your criticisms. I would add that, while I definitely don't want Doom 3, cutting out any horror elements completely was a bit too much. |
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Post by akumajobelmont on Apr 29, 2018 4:39:18 GMT -5
You guys and gals might wanna hold out on Apocryph.
For some utterly bizarre reason, the game was given a full release on Steam yesterday, but it is indeed only an alpha. There are 4 levels for $20, which is pretty shitty. The devs have promised a May update with a 'big portion of additional content' to be added. Which would be fine if it was Early Access, but it's not. Something about this stinks - it's shady AF.
From my own experience, the game is even more buggy now, and has way more issues than the Alpha Demo did. The level design was never spectacular, but the first stage is fun enough. After that, it becomes pretty boring. These are rooms, platforms and just random shit thrown together with no rhyme or reason. It's a big, fat AVOID for now.
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Post by lurker on Apr 29, 2018 12:57:45 GMT -5
You guys and gals might wanna hold out on Apocryph. For some utterly bizarre reason, the game was given a full release on Steam yesterday, but it is indeed only an alpha. There are 4 levels for $20, which is pretty shitty. The devs have promised a May update with a 'big portion of additional content' to be added. Which would be fine if it was Early Access, but it's not. Something about this stinks - it's shady AF. From my own experience, the game is even more buggy now, and has way more issues than the Alpha Demo did. The level design was never spectacular, but the first stage is fun enough. After that, it becomes pretty boring. These are rooms, platforms and just random shit thrown together with no rhyme or reason. It's a big, fat AVOID for now. Sounds like what happened with the Friday the 13th game. |
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Post by Gendo Ikari on Apr 30, 2018 1:09:05 GMT -5
Even the negative reviews for Amid Evil on Steam notice a core gameplay that seems solid enough, but the devs forgot you have to ship something else with it, apparently. This also doesn't bode well for the future of the game, because you now have to seriously doubt the game will ever feature what they promised (30 levels, has currently only 3, and not even great ones).
The devs also seem to have no clue about marketing. Telling the promised May update is included in the price sounds, to me, like they are mocking whoever shelled out $20 for this pre-Alpha with not even the honesty of putting the Early Access label on it.
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Post by akumajobelmont on Apr 30, 2018 3:11:25 GMT -5
Even the negative reviews for Amid Evil on Steam notice a core gameplay that seems solid enough, but the devs forgot you have to ship something else with it, apparently. This also doesn't bode well for the future of the game, because you now have to seriously doubt the game will ever feature what they promised (30 levels, has currently only 3, and not even great ones). The devs also seem to have no clue about marketing. Telling the promised May update is included in the price sounds, to me, like they are mocking whoever shelled out $20 for this pre-Alpha with not even the honesty of putting the Early Access label on it. You mean Apocryph  Yeah, I left a negative review - I don't do that often, only when something seems shifty to me. The core of the game is indeed alright, it's just that everything built around it is so clearly unfinished. Climbing stairs requires jumping each one. The AI is pretty terrible, and enemies get stuck on the geometry a lot. There's many more flaws - I could be here all day listing them, but I won't. I don't begrudge the developers for not knowing marketing - there's plenty of Early Access games (BallisticNG etc...) that have done the whole thing perfectly without it. I just don't understand how you could release an alpha in place of a full game, and then expect customers to understand why they're getting a fraction of a in-development game now, and more later. That is quite literally the definition of Early Access. The mind boggles. |
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