Senaste recensioner av Mein_Leben!

It's fine, though I'm waiting for the full game to give a proper opinion

Ahh, Prodeus. The definition of a mixed bag in terms of gaming. There's so much to like in this game, however there's an equal amount that I don't like that balances it out. The more I play of this game, the more its issues stand out and annoy me- and the user maps *really* make its problems stark as mappers tend to push for the harder side of things, and going harder tends to use some of the more annoying aspects of the game.

OK, so you play as... Produde? IDK. The story seems to exist but I have no idea what the hell it is. Something about you being an agent of Prodeus? Whatever that is. And Prodean energy is a thing? and something about regular enemies and the blue ones not liking each other? IDK there seems to be little effort being put into actually contextualising what's going on with effort put more towards making maps with flow. Which in terms of boomer shooters scans, it's more about the gameplay than telling a story.

Map design is this game's biggest strength. The devs have said that it takes about two months to make a single map and frankly it shows. They're large yet easy to navigate (without feeling like a glorified corridor). The use of simple gimmicks as in Marksman really give the maps character and variety, which helps because boy is there little variety in terms of the textures used. There's a little too much tech base and rock aesthetics and on the whole the game is far too red. It's less an issue for the campaign maps as there is a little variety, but since mappers can't use their own textures the ones they can use are starting to get a little old.

Onto the game's biggest weakness- the enemies. It suffers a problem- what is good isn't original and what's original isn't good. The regular enemies are far too similar to their Doom counterparts, with equivalents to zombies, shotgunners, imps, pinkies, chaingunners, cacodemons, pain elementals, and lost souls. I haven't bothered learning the actual names of the enemies because a- there's no bestiary for me to get the names and b- eh I don't really care. There's also what I refer to as the electric enemies which are the same as regular ones except they're blue, shoot blue projectiles and are tankier. Meh. The electric enemies infight with the regular ones, however standard infighting Doom style doesn't seem to happen. There's also several almost boss-level enemies, like the one with wings and that big red guy. What are their names? I don't care. Plus floaty blue guy and there's probably another that I can't remember.

There are several enemies that are designed to make parts of the map inaccessible. The projectile of the cacodemons and what I call Running Cacodemons have a projectile that bubbles away on the ground for some time before disappearing, and the latter explodes on death with the same effect. The hazmat enemies also explode with the same denial of area effect. When used well, it can be really good- it encourages situational awareness in terms of where the player can move in a given space. Used poorly it means I have to sit and wait while the only corridor to the next part of the map becomes available to me again. Both happen in the campaign, the latter happens way too much in the user created maps. Stop putting running cacodemons into tight corridors people, it isn't challenging it's just annoying.

The difficulty selection seems poorly thought out. Aren't boomer shooters supposed to have different enemy spawns depending on what difficulty you choose? Doom had three settings for enemy placement with other differences in terms of ammo placement and damage. This game simply made the enemies tankier as you went up in difficulty which is ehhhh. Just making enemies bullet sponges isn't fun, it's lazy, Instead of having the 8 or so selections it just needs four with actual meaningful differences between them.

The weapons are all good, there's a lot of them and they all have their own particular use. I tend to use the shotgun and dual smgs the most, though the chain lightning gun gets a good workout when there are crowds of enemies. The quad shotgun is good when taking on the heavier enemies (with a long reload to balance its high damage output) and the plasma gun is fun especially while using its homing attack. Really the only gun I don't rate that highly is the chaingun as your reduced movement speed while using it makes it difficult to avoid projectiles. There are more guns on the way from what I gather so it'll be interesting to see how they fare in the game itself.

And lastly, there's the checkpoint system. It sucks. Oh but they put in a level that gives you wave after wave of enemies without any checkpoints! Yeah, no that doesn't solve it. These 'throw heaps of enemies at you and say it's escalation' is simply annoying and not fun at all. Why there isn't just a quicksave button I have no idea. I don't care about getting a high score.

Anyway.

While this overly long review is more gripes than praise I do insist that on the whole I do enjoy playing it. I wouldn't have put over 60 hours into something I don't like playing, after all. It's just that every good element seems to be balanced out by something bad. It's worth checking out for the campaign alone, and dip into the user created maps as there are some really impressive ones in there

In Doo Meternal you play as the Slayer Man (number one ticket holder for thrash metal band Slayer) we he tries to get everyone to listen to the instrumental djent he's recently gotten into. However, some priests don't like his tastes in music and send his minions to stop him, including Fireball Gollum, Fat American Fire Guy, Anorexic Jetpack Man, and Goat Man.

After killing the priests who condemned his music, Slayer Man (spoilers!) goes on to kill a large white Christmas tree ornament and a monster from Power Rangers that Rita already made grow. Also the monster has access to a giant gym and never skips leg day because it's always getting stronger with its massive gains. You stop its access to protein powder in order to make it possible to defeat it.

You also save a robot man because you like listening to his voice.

Possibly the horniest game I own.

The Senran Kagura girls have been transformed into animals. Oh no! Luckily their ample breasts are unaffected because the game would be a hard sell otherwise. You, an unnamed person who happened to be in the room at the time, needs to help them by hitting 'peach balls' at them until they turn back.

Yeah it's a flimsy story but honestly when you need an excuse to have anime girls sit on a pinball machine... it'll be silly. The game leans into the silliness though, which makes it fun

Performance wise it suffers from stuttering which is a problem because it always happens at a bad time.

There are only two tables which... ehh, not great.

A reasonable walking simulator. A few minor gripes- she walks incredibly slow, and there are times when I'm waiting for the dialogue to finish so I can continue the game. Overall though it was good- it told the story it needed to tell without overly padding it out or resorting to silliness.

A good horror game. It's somewhat short, though lengthened by its use of different endings (one of which I haven't unlocked yet). The simple art style lends itself well to horror, as it allows imagination to fill in the gaps in a way that's incredibly effective. That combined with great sound design makes for a creepy atmosphere that can get under your skin.

A word of caution: If you have an issue with imagery of people being hanged, I'd advise you stay away from the game. Hanging is very present throughout and is a bit of a theme.

I *still* remember seeing images from this game in PC Gamer magazine and being blown away. I tried to play the demo that came on the cover CD, but sadly my computer couldn't run it. Fast forward to now and it can run on my computer and I really enjoy it. The guns are well implemented and the level design is interesting (though there are times when I had 'what am I supposed to do' moments). I've had fun playing it so far

A solid sim city style game. Interface is easy to learn, workshop integration allows for continual community engagement, and the expansions add something worthwhile to the game (though I do only get them when on special).

Downbreak is a variation on the minesweeper game. Instead of having to clear the mines, you need to use its gravity mechanic to get to the bottom of the map. While it still has an element of luck involved, the use of abilities and lives helps reduce the frustration somewhat. Gameplay is varied through the use of several different 'curses', which do things like invert the numbering, make only the uncovered parts of the map visible, or sand obscuring parts of the map.

Gameplay is extended through the use of infinite, classic and challenger modes, though the design of the maps makes classic incredibly frustrating as it causes far too many 'coin flip' situations.

The mini games are a mixed bag, with some enjoyable and others I really hate (the one with the hands jugging the cubes is just awful). I'm fine with their existence unlike some people who play this game, but it is a case by case basis with this.

Ahh, the days of FMV being the future of gaming. I was introduced to this game a long time ago by a friend and I'm glad to finally get this off my 'games to finish' list. It's a fun game, with the performance of Chris Jones really holding everything together. The graphics were- for their time- really impressive, and the way you could walk through the environments really pushed the genre forwards. It looks terrible by today's standards, but they did a good job with what they had to work with.

The controls are terrible. Your movement is controlled by the mouse with the arrow keys letting you look up or down. Even with sensitivity turned way down it gets difficult to control movement at times. The menus and interaction system was good though, and dealing with solving puzzles was straightforward. I have two sequels on my GOG account and I've made a start on both and the controls are greatly improved on both so it looks like they learned from this one.

The story was well executed, and was more than an excuse to get you from one puzzle to the next. It is an FMV game after all, and the use of live action sequences to tell story and get exposition was executed well. I remember everyone going nuts about FMV at the time, and it spawned systems like the Sega CD and the 3DO, which tried to capitalise on what was seen as where gaming was going. Then Half Life came out and set the course for more in game and environmental story telling. I'd say the right choice was made, even though I do to a point enjoy these sorts of games.

A hearty recommend, though mostly out of nostalgia sake. If you like puzzle games I'd point to Overseer or Pandora Directive as ones to do instead of this one, mainly due to their better graphics and more intuitive controls.