Recent reviews by BlackSpawn

Review At A Glance

Pros:
* Chaotic, fast paced gameplay
* Bash your friends over the head with grievous, nasty medieval weapons!
* Beautiful, cartoony graphics and smooth animation
* Satisfying combat and gore
* Great sense of humor
* Just pure fun!

Cons:
*Single map
*Multiplayer only, not many players at the time
*Bots are pretty buggy

Conclusion:
Barbarian Brawl is a fast paced third person perspective multiplayer brawler with a great sense of humor. It is the prototypical party game; ideal to dish out some virtual damage on friends and family. Controls are responsive and intuitive, and gameplay has enough intricacies to keep it interesting for countless hours. Sadly, game servers are routinely empty, so it is nearly impossible to drop into an on-going game. Bots are buggy at best, commonly getting stuck in different spots of the map. At this time, if you want to go for a fun ride, you'll have to invite and bring your friends. I recommend this game only if you have friends that have a copy or if you are willing to grab one for a few friends. Otherwise, you are better off waiting for the game to build a community or should hold off until bots are more functional.

In Depth Review, Proceed with caution!:

Story:
Barbarians are angry and hungry. They enjoy bashing things into oblivion with a varied assortment of weapons and they need ham, lots of ham. You and your barbarian adversaries spawn in a village rigged with multiple environmental hazards and terrain; ideally designed with hand to hand combat in mind.

Gameplay:
A barbarian's goal is to annihilate every other opponent, and to hog all the ham. Destroying other barbarians is the most common source of ham. Don't ask me what ham is made of! To accomplish these goals you will have to be elusive and time your attacks/blocks to match the refractory period/attacks of your enemies while avoiding environmetal hazards.

There are 2 game modes: Free for All and Team DeathMatch. Up to 20 players can play at once. Overall, the gameplay is satisfying. There is no walking or crouching, only running while wielding your blunt or bladed weapon. Spacebar is default for jump, and the control of the character is tight and responsive. The jumping and landing are "sticky," which makes it easy to jump over and off of structures, allowing for maneuverability and better control of your player. While fast paced, its easy to be accurate and its fun to dart in and out of danger to get those hits in. After you destroy your opponent, you can kick around their remains and their weapon.

Controls are straightforward. The left mouse button is default attack button; a click results in a weak, quick attack while holding the button allows the player to do a charged, strong, slower attack. Right mouse button is default block, Q key to Stun and E key to heal. Each time you heal, you use 1 unit of ham. Controllers are supported and mappings customizeable, my XBOX 360 controller ran flawlessly.

Several power-ups that spawn during the course of the game: Berserk orb and a Ninja orb; these increase the power/damage of your hits and the speed of your player, respectively. There is also Ham, which only spawns in a designated portion of the fight map (Gladiator combat arena). Ham gives you points which you can use to buy weapons. A ham counter on top center of your screen marks the time of the next Ham spawn.

Additionally, there is a random pink cloud that spawns in designated portions of the arena. Staying in this cloud will either heal your wounds over time, at a faster pace than they would otherwise, or give you Mega Damage.

Design:
On game start, you are asked to choose EU or US servers. Even though either EU or US server games will contribute towards your steam achievements, ham and character unlocks accrued are specific to either EU or US servers. In other words, your character unlocks and ham will not cross over between regions.

Visual polish abounds. The characters and the world have a cartoonish, yet detailed look. There are six characters to choose from, all meticulously desiged with a distinctive look. They have different Max Health, HP regeneration, Damage per second and Speed attributes. There are 11 different weapons, with different damage and speed attributes. Reach attribute is not described but also varies between weapons. The game is beautiful at higher resolutions.

Even though only one map is available, it provides a wide range of terrain and locations. This allows for good variety in combat, terrain can be both foe or ally. Flats, grassy knolls, village huts, fences, bridges, narrow passageways, a round gladiator arena and a small forest are all encountered in the single provided map. These structures can provide both defensive and offensive advantages. Additionally, there is a small, deadly lake.

The environment is riddled with a cornucopia of hazards that spice the gameplay up. There are snapping bear traps, stationary wooden poles with rotating blades, guillotines and spike traps. These are always located in the same location of the map, so getting to know their location can again provide an advantage, as you can lure unsuspecting opponents into some of these traps. Its always fun to hear a "Snap!" go out behind you as an enemy attempted to catch you unaware.

Sound:
The music is epic and does complement the game appropriately. Sound effects are crisp and also fitting. Both accomplish their job without many whistles.

Replayability:

At first start, only one of the 6 possible characters is playable. Playing with different weapons and strategies is rewarded with character unlocks. Each character has a description of the actions necessary to unlock it. Moreover, the more you play, the more ham you will accumulate. Ham is the currency used to buy weapons. The wide range of characters and weapons allows for some experimenting and interesting combinations to mix/match fitting attributes. The gameplay is simple but small details such as powerups, healing clouds, hazards and terrain spice up the game and keep it fresh for a while. Sadly, there is a single map. This map does contain many different types of areas and terrains, yet, a variety of maps would increase replayability immensely.

If there was an active community, replayability would be medium/high. Although it can get repetitive, it is great fun to smash other barbarians, especially if these are friends. As it stands, it is hard to find a populated game server/lobby.

It is fairly easy to get to 100% achievements in this game, a Steam guide is available and instructs how to do this in under 3 hours. Game has a total 6 steam trading cards and provides 3 drops.

Conclusion:
Barbarian Brawl is a simple, fun, yet addictive multiplayer brawler. Even though there are bots that technically allow for single player, these are quite buggy and too unreliable to make for an enjoyable single player experience. Currently, game servers are quite barren and it is rare to find other players. The game is truly at its best when you are playing against friends. I recommend this game if you have friends that have a copy or if you are willing to grab one for a few friends. Otherwise, you are better off waiting for the game to build a community or should hold off until bots are more functional.

Review at A Glance

Pros:
Grand-daddy of full 3D First Person Shooters
Gripping, visceral, atmospheric soundtrack
Inventive, diverse level and enemy design (Lovecraftian)
Addictive multiplayer gameplay, with myriad iterations/mods; alive to this day
Unparalleled, dark, medieval, ghoulish atmosphere

Cons:
So many Source Ports and MODS, which ones to choose?!!?
****Steam version does not include the game's original Soundtrack, easy online fix available****

Conclusion:
Essential gaming for fans of First Person Shooters; cemented the id Software legend. Most popular game engine of its time. If you don't have this already, what are you waiting for?! For current generation play, I recommend one of the common source ports, such as Ultimate Quake (DarkPlaces+).

In-depth review, not for the faint of heart: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here":

1996. DooM had introduced "Deathmatch" to the popular lexicon three years earlier. id Software managed to capitalize on the addictive nature of online multiplay, while advancing the technical limits of FPS gaming. What followed was the most popular game engine of its time, and it revolutionized online multiplay. Engine novelties included polygonal models, fully 3D environments, easy tools for Game Modding and hardware 3D acceleration. Quake may single handedly be the game that made a cutting-edge graphics card an essential component for the modern PC gamer. Unique gameplay features included bunny hopping and rocket-jumping. Game emphasis was on the online, multiplayer experience, utilizing a client-server model rather than peer to peer, the preeminent model of the time. This model allowed players to create and mantain a session, while additional players would be able to join or leave at any time, without disrupting the game.

Story:

BAHAHAHAHAHAH!! Story?! Pffffftt. Don't let it get in the way of an epic, legendary, awesome FPS game. Beat the 4 episodes and collect the rune at the end, solve environmental puzzles, kill everything with a pulse...or rather, that moves! 'Nuff Said. There is something resembling a story that was thrown in to provide the semblance of a gaming thread.

Gameplay:

Fast paced, bunny hopping, rocket jumpin' non-stop, edge of your seat, deathmatchin' action. Gameplay intuitive enough to allow a beginner to jump in and start fraggin', yet, complex enough to allow a bustlin' pro scene to develop, and spawn a successful franchise. Responsive controls allow you to float through inspired levels and maneuver your character, even when airborne! Weapon selection established the standard with a good variety of now conventional, classic weapons; including the revered Shotgun, the seminal Rocket Launcher and the mighty Lighting Gun. Weapon balance and choice, depending on level design and range of combat, had never been this intricate.

Design:

Iconic palette hard on black/browns with excellent use of lighting and shadows for emphasis and scares. Weapon design is a bit blocky, by today's standards, but sits nicely with the dark, medieval theme. Enemy/monster designs are inventive, with great variety, and a multitude of baddies that attack from above, at ground level and in the water. At the time, probably the only other big title that offered hazards with such a degree of freedom of movement was "Descent." Enemies appear as something out of a medieval demonic nightmare with a hodgepodge of humanoid, hellish Lovecraftian creatures coming at you and wielding a good array of weapons and attacks. The color palette and enemy design allows for baddies to pop out of dark corners and portions of the level, setting up multiple scares, providing a racemic mixture of action and horror that is hard to match.

The level design, with its gothic architecture and variety of environmental puzzles and hazards, resulted in classic levels that would eventually be ported to multiple other engines and games.

Sound:

Immaculate, crisp environmental, creature, character and weapon sound effects that were mostly concocted/mixed in-house by the talented id crew utilizing innovative techniques and processing. Trent Reznor/NIN soundtrack provides a chilling backdrop with industrial, ambiental brilliance that peppers the game with a pumping, blood curling soundtrack, which seamlessly potentiates the dark visuals and sound effects.

Replayability:

The online multiplayer experience is at the core of Quake. It would offer more options than any other FPS at the time and, out of the box, would allow for Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Cooperative Play. It would also allow for Time and/or Frag limits. After some time, popular free modifications included Team Fortress and Capture the Flag modes. The transition to a Client:Server model would permit a server to run continuously and for players to drop in and pop out of the game, without interrupting it. This dramatically improved the chances of finding a working game. Moreover, whereas most multiplayer experiences at the time emphasized 1:1 or games of up to 8 players, Quake allowed up to 16 simultaneous players in its original iteration; resulting in unprecedented chaos and murderous destruction.


Conclusion:

Quake is a legendary, classic game from FPS greats, id Software (id Tech 2). The Quake engine fueled the upcoming games for a generation and set the blueprint for FPS and online gaming. Dark atmosphere with ghoulish, sadistic enemy design set in a medieval, gothic world full of environmental dangers and light puzzles. Online experience is the core of the game, and would shape the FPS landscape for the foreseeable future. If you enjoy FPS, horror, inventive level design, Lovecraftian creatures, NIN/Trent Reznor or are just interested in gaming history, you cannot go wrong with this game.