Crit90
1995
Finished on 11/27/22. Granted, not my first playthrough (far from it), but this still holds up to me. E3 and E4 are on the weaker end of things, but E1 and E2 are still incredible playthroughs. Not marking as 100% complete as I missed the secret map in E4 on this particular playthrough, and I did not get all the secrets in every map, but yeah, it's DOOM. If you haven't played it yet, buy the Unity port on Steam for a few bucks and give it a spin. There's a reason why the modding community for this game is so big.
BEATEN
BEATEN
2011
Beaten 11/28/22, not 100% as I missed the secret map in episode 2 and did not get all secrets.
This is a great "what if?" on Doom, if map design was a bit more modern and "newschool". Expect more of a challenge, but not by much. Boss maps are a lot more exciting here and actually require you to use your brain unlike what you're used to in OG doom. Secret-hunting is fun and intuitive, overall recommended for fans of the original that want to get into mods without committing all the way.
BEATEN
This is a great "what if?" on Doom, if map design was a bit more modern and "newschool". Expect more of a challenge, but not by much. Boss maps are a lot more exciting here and actually require you to use your brain unlike what you're used to in OG doom. Secret-hunting is fun and intuitive, overall recommended for fans of the original that want to get into mods without committing all the way.
BEATEN
Beaten on 12/10/22, not mastered as did not visit secret levels nor did get 100% secrets on all levels.
Played on "pistol start" mode (meaning no weapon carryover from previous maps) on UV at first, switching to HMP aka normal difficulty later on in the run. I've beaten this game at least twice before, and each time I play it I find something more to enjoy about it.
The first 10 maps are probably the strongest out of all 3 thirds, with some fun gimmicky level design and clever encounters to show off the new roster. The SSG is a great addition to the weapon lineup and continues to be fun to use in player-made WADs.
Second 'batch' of maps aka maps11-20 are a bit weaker, but on the whole still fun to play and I actually like some of these maps more than the first third of the game. The arch-vile gets introduced, combat starts intensifying and you'll die more, and by this point you'll recognize the game is harder than its predecessor.
Finally, the hell levels. These are very weak save for a few maps here and there, they're just very inconsistent in quality and MAP28 in particular has a very unfair secret for first-time players that is mandatory to beating the map. The boss map as well is not well-designed and I had to look up a tutorial on YouTube to get the timing on the rocket blasts right.
Overall, Doom II is a worthy successor to its counterpart, but really what makes this game special is its modding community and all the userlevels and gameplay mods this game has spawned. Level design has quirks that some people will love or hate, it depends on what difficulty you're playing on, if you're using saves, whether you're playing continuously or not, etc...
BEATEN
Played on "pistol start" mode (meaning no weapon carryover from previous maps) on UV at first, switching to HMP aka normal difficulty later on in the run. I've beaten this game at least twice before, and each time I play it I find something more to enjoy about it.
The first 10 maps are probably the strongest out of all 3 thirds, with some fun gimmicky level design and clever encounters to show off the new roster. The SSG is a great addition to the weapon lineup and continues to be fun to use in player-made WADs.
Second 'batch' of maps aka maps11-20 are a bit weaker, but on the whole still fun to play and I actually like some of these maps more than the first third of the game. The arch-vile gets introduced, combat starts intensifying and you'll die more, and by this point you'll recognize the game is harder than its predecessor.
Finally, the hell levels. These are very weak save for a few maps here and there, they're just very inconsistent in quality and MAP28 in particular has a very unfair secret for first-time players that is mandatory to beating the map. The boss map as well is not well-designed and I had to look up a tutorial on YouTube to get the timing on the rocket blasts right.
Overall, Doom II is a worthy successor to its counterpart, but really what makes this game special is its modding community and all the userlevels and gameplay mods this game has spawned. Level design has quirks that some people will love or hate, it depends on what difficulty you're playing on, if you're using saves, whether you're playing continuously or not, etc...
BEATEN
2018
This review contains spoilers
Beaten on 1/10/23, I have beaten this game before but not on switch yet. not 100% completed as I did not get the bonus chapters after the end.
One of my favorite games of all time, easily. I love precision platformers so this is right up my alley. Getting used to analog controls when I'm used to playing on a D-pad or keyboard can be tough, but by the end I had pretty much mastered it. Least favorite chapter is 5 (sorry, it's fun the first time around but the more you play it just becomes aggravating, aargh!) and favorite is probably either 3 or 7.
BEATEN
One of my favorite games of all time, easily. I love precision platformers so this is right up my alley. Getting used to analog controls when I'm used to playing on a D-pad or keyboard can be tough, but by the end I had pretty much mastered it. Least favorite chapter is 5 (sorry, it's fun the first time around but the more you play it just becomes aggravating, aargh!) and favorite is probably either 3 or 7.
BEATEN
1992
Not bad for a simple gameboy platformer. I actually speedran this for a bit 2 years ago, fun times. Only took a single play session to beat, so I'm not complaining. Beaten on 1/18/23 without continues. Pretty easy if you know what you're doing, but first time players can expect to die a few times along the way. Overall, not too bad.
BEATEN
BEATEN
1996
What a pain to play through. Beaten on 1/21/23 on the HNTR difficulty (I had prior beaten up to map20 on UV but wanted an easier time this playthrough and to actually beat it) pistol starts saveless.
Messy level design, too many switch hunts and mandatory secrets, questionable design choices, ugly open spaces, the only reason I'm giving this a 2 is that there are some good maps sprinkled in there, albeit few and far between.
BEATEN
Messy level design, too many switch hunts and mandatory secrets, questionable design choices, ugly open spaces, the only reason I'm giving this a 2 is that there are some good maps sprinkled in there, albeit few and far between.
BEATEN
1992
Always a treat to come back to this one on a rainy or snowy day. Perfect to unwind and turn off your brain for an hour or two (depending on if you play on the bonus mode or not). First time checking this out on the SGB enhanced port! Very cool colors! Beaten on 1/22/23.
BEATEN
BEATEN
2022
Not sure what counts as beating the game, but I did get through all non-endless areas on Easy so... beaten on 1/23/23 I guess? pretty fun game, wish it had more areas or bosses, but I'm not a huge roguelike guy to begin with so I can't fault there being not much content despite the fact that, in theory, I could play this game for a few more weeks just unlocking things and getting achievements.
Overall, it has a good difficulty curve, final area was a bit bonkers but there's just so much to unpack with how the mechanics work for a game that I quite frankly had my time with, had the goal of completing it, and now I'm done so I'd rather not dig deeper into it.
Bullet hell mechanics are cool, there are some fun weapons and upgrades, just... not too bad, not too great. Middle of the road roguelike, not as good as, say, Nuclear Throne or Isaac but if you want something to scratch that shmup itch and still have the roguelike experience, give this a go. You might be a bit dissapointed at the lack of fresh content unless you really end up liking the game, but for what it is most players will have a good time.
BEATEN
Overall, it has a good difficulty curve, final area was a bit bonkers but there's just so much to unpack with how the mechanics work for a game that I quite frankly had my time with, had the goal of completing it, and now I'm done so I'd rather not dig deeper into it.
Bullet hell mechanics are cool, there are some fun weapons and upgrades, just... not too bad, not too great. Middle of the road roguelike, not as good as, say, Nuclear Throne or Isaac but if you want something to scratch that shmup itch and still have the roguelike experience, give this a go. You might be a bit dissapointed at the lack of fresh content unless you really end up liking the game, but for what it is most players will have a good time.
BEATEN
Pretty great megaWAD, unfortunately I forgot the first 3/4ths of the game because I am dumb and started this back in December and only just came back to the last few maps in January. Beaten on 1/24/23 MOSTLY on medium difficulty, save for the last few where I had to take it down a notch.
The latter hell maps, as the prior reviewer said, are a bit annoying to traverse and more puzzling than its vanilla counterpart (which I should say it is trying to emulate in style). Layouts are, for the most part, very polished and better than Vanilla DooM II, but these hell maps are a bit too confusing for first-timers. The icon of sin is a nice change-up from the base game, I somewhat prefer the fight here than in the base game as it has more of a puzzle feel to it and once you figure out how it works, it's easy, whereas in base D2 it's just kind of a "figure out how it works over time and get lucky" type of thing.
Definitely a very approachable megaWAD for anyone looking to get into custom Doom 2 maps. Just play on "Hurt Me Plenty!" to start as these maps are harder than regular Doom 2.
BEATEN
The latter hell maps, as the prior reviewer said, are a bit annoying to traverse and more puzzling than its vanilla counterpart (which I should say it is trying to emulate in style). Layouts are, for the most part, very polished and better than Vanilla DooM II, but these hell maps are a bit too confusing for first-timers. The icon of sin is a nice change-up from the base game, I somewhat prefer the fight here than in the base game as it has more of a puzzle feel to it and once you figure out how it works, it's easy, whereas in base D2 it's just kind of a "figure out how it works over time and get lucky" type of thing.
Definitely a very approachable megaWAD for anyone looking to get into custom Doom 2 maps. Just play on "Hurt Me Plenty!" to start as these maps are harder than regular Doom 2.
BEATEN
Beaten on 1/27/23, it only took a few days but this was after constant attempts on the final map saveless and my patience was wearing thin. Eventually I got an attempt to right up to the very end, but ended up dying and cheated in rage (turns out there was some health right behind the corner I died in so I was inches away from saving myself anyway). Glad to have this over with. Beaten specifically on the "Hey, not too rough!" difficulty, pistol starts saveless.
For what it is, UDTWID is really fun and arguably even harder than the OG ep. 4 (read: it is not fun for a mapset to be harder than one of the hardest doom expansions ever made, even on the easy difficulty). Designs are accurate, less flashy than DTWID or D2TWID and it seems the mappers focused more on imitating the classic style of what they were working with back then.
A good majority of the maps here are actually fun, and even on the ones I kept dying to over and over I at least had fun replaying them but E4M8 is such a slog to play saveless (which, yes; I understand is my own doing, that's why I played on an easier difficulty) because of its cryptic nature and brutal end encounters that it kinda turned me off the experience as a whole. After some fisticuffs with Demons on the secret map that I missed, I was finally able to say I beat this epic of a mapset.
Overall, it's another "The Way id Did" mapset. It's going to be harder than the original product. Am I still looking forward to 'Final Doom the Way TeamTNT did'? Yes, albeit with bated breath in fears of what horrors this team will cook up next.
BEATEN
For what it is, UDTWID is really fun and arguably even harder than the OG ep. 4 (read: it is not fun for a mapset to be harder than one of the hardest doom expansions ever made, even on the easy difficulty). Designs are accurate, less flashy than DTWID or D2TWID and it seems the mappers focused more on imitating the classic style of what they were working with back then.
A good majority of the maps here are actually fun, and even on the ones I kept dying to over and over I at least had fun replaying them but E4M8 is such a slog to play saveless (which, yes; I understand is my own doing, that's why I played on an easier difficulty) because of its cryptic nature and brutal end encounters that it kinda turned me off the experience as a whole. After some fisticuffs with Demons on the secret map that I missed, I was finally able to say I beat this epic of a mapset.
Overall, it's another "The Way id Did" mapset. It's going to be harder than the original product. Am I still looking forward to 'Final Doom the Way TeamTNT did'? Yes, albeit with bated breath in fears of what horrors this team will cook up next.
BEATEN
This review contains spoilers
Not too bad of a 3D platformer, and wow, I'm playing a game that came out recently for once? That's a bit of a shock.
Flawed story and the gameplay and audio can be a bit buggy on the PC release anyway. Quick playthrough for anyone that has touched videogames before (it's not hard at all, even the final boss was very easy). I like the metroidvania elements, however I have no desire to come back to this one whatsoever, I got my fun out of it, in fact by the Halloween stage I was getting pretty sick of it. Don't even get me started on the caveman stage! Dialogue is not fun if it's just caveman grunts and imaginary words for the entire level. Spongebob and Patrick's banter is funny enough to keep you entertained, and fans of the OG show will find enough enjoyment out of this through callbacks, but there's something for all generations of Spongebob fans here. If you've never seen the show or played any of the games, you might not get as much mileage and just see it as a mediocre 3D platformer.
2 things that irked me:
-Why is Pearl such a major character in this game? She's a BOSS on one level for crying out loud, and shows up in pretty much every level in the game. She has the most screentime by far for such a minor character in the show.
-This game suffers from repetitive dialogue from Spongebob every time he picks up Jelly or kills an enemy, it was getting REALLY on my nerves hearing "A lil' dab'll do ya!" for the 500th time by the time I was almost done.
Anyway, that's my venting. Aside from almost 0 incentive to replay the game and a copout ending, I really have no qualms with this game. It's short, you can beat it in about 2 days if you have enough free time, it's cheap enough. If you like the show, give it a go! Bear in mind I've never played the game this was a 'spiritual successor' to and probably owe it to myself to do that, so my opinions will probably differ from yours. But yeah, not bad. Beaten on 2/1/23 with a total playtime of 6 hours or so, not 100%.
BEATEN
Flawed story and the gameplay and audio can be a bit buggy on the PC release anyway. Quick playthrough for anyone that has touched videogames before (it's not hard at all, even the final boss was very easy). I like the metroidvania elements, however I have no desire to come back to this one whatsoever, I got my fun out of it, in fact by the Halloween stage I was getting pretty sick of it. Don't even get me started on the caveman stage! Dialogue is not fun if it's just caveman grunts and imaginary words for the entire level. Spongebob and Patrick's banter is funny enough to keep you entertained, and fans of the OG show will find enough enjoyment out of this through callbacks, but there's something for all generations of Spongebob fans here. If you've never seen the show or played any of the games, you might not get as much mileage and just see it as a mediocre 3D platformer.
2 things that irked me:
-Why is Pearl such a major character in this game? She's a BOSS on one level for crying out loud, and shows up in pretty much every level in the game. She has the most screentime by far for such a minor character in the show.
-This game suffers from repetitive dialogue from Spongebob every time he picks up Jelly or kills an enemy, it was getting REALLY on my nerves hearing "A lil' dab'll do ya!" for the 500th time by the time I was almost done.
Anyway, that's my venting. Aside from almost 0 incentive to replay the game and a copout ending, I really have no qualms with this game. It's short, you can beat it in about 2 days if you have enough free time, it's cheap enough. If you like the show, give it a go! Bear in mind I've never played the game this was a 'spiritual successor' to and probably owe it to myself to do that, so my opinions will probably differ from yours. But yeah, not bad. Beaten on 2/1/23 with a total playtime of 6 hours or so, not 100%.
BEATEN
2010
On this particular run-through of the game (my first logged on this site but I've beaten it multiple times before), I decided to go for as few deaths as possible and to go as fast as possible and beat the game in 1 sitting. I succeeded for the most part in reaching my goals, finishing with just over 300 deaths and in an under an hour.
Can't say much about this, go play it for yourself. It's dirt cheap, it has quick checkpoint resets so you can get right back up after a death on most screens, has some surprises in the progression here and there and the graphics and soundtrack are sublime. Not my perfect game, but almost nothing is, so...
Check it out! Beaten on 2/5/23 in the nick of time before the 6th hits with only 1 trinket. Great game to replay over and over once or twice a year.
BEATEN
Can't say much about this, go play it for yourself. It's dirt cheap, it has quick checkpoint resets so you can get right back up after a death on most screens, has some surprises in the progression here and there and the graphics and soundtrack are sublime. Not my perfect game, but almost nothing is, so...
Check it out! Beaten on 2/5/23 in the nick of time before the 6th hits with only 1 trinket. Great game to replay over and over once or twice a year.
BEATEN
2011
This review is for the singleplayer mode ONLY. I am playing the co-op and have beaten it before as have I beaten the solo campaign in the past as well, but this review is primarily going to be focused on the singleplayer.
I actually think a 4.5/5 is a low rating on this game for me. First time I played it, I would've given it a perfect 5, and then some. Over time it still holds up incredibly well, but the real 5-star game to me is the predecessor. In fact, that will probably be the next game I check out. The only things holding this game back are general lack of replay value (yes yes, I'm aware there's mods, and as someone that plays a lot of Doom (1993) mods I'm one to talk) and frustration that comes from forgetting how to solve puzzles but JUST barely having the solution etched into your brain. You'll always be thinking on your 2nd or next playthrough "I knew I beat this last time, it took me a while, I get the rough idea, but how do I retrace my steps?". Additionally, some story linear sequences just don't feel fun to go through again and again. At least with the puzzles you can have some freedom in your solutions from time to time.
Graphics, VAs, sound, all still hold up in 2023. If there's ever a RTX remaster of this like there was with Portal 1, I'd gladly play through it again. And that's a true testament to how good Portal 2 is. I just have my own nitpicks with it and I wish it were a better game, but it's sort of the kind of game you play once, want to play again, but the feeling is never the same. A pseudo-"Breaking Bad" of video games. Stay tuned for my Portal 1 review when I try to break down why I think that's the superior game.
Beaten on 2/17/23 singleplayer only.
BEATEN
I actually think a 4.5/5 is a low rating on this game for me. First time I played it, I would've given it a perfect 5, and then some. Over time it still holds up incredibly well, but the real 5-star game to me is the predecessor. In fact, that will probably be the next game I check out. The only things holding this game back are general lack of replay value (yes yes, I'm aware there's mods, and as someone that plays a lot of Doom (1993) mods I'm one to talk) and frustration that comes from forgetting how to solve puzzles but JUST barely having the solution etched into your brain. You'll always be thinking on your 2nd or next playthrough "I knew I beat this last time, it took me a while, I get the rough idea, but how do I retrace my steps?". Additionally, some story linear sequences just don't feel fun to go through again and again. At least with the puzzles you can have some freedom in your solutions from time to time.
Graphics, VAs, sound, all still hold up in 2023. If there's ever a RTX remaster of this like there was with Portal 1, I'd gladly play through it again. And that's a true testament to how good Portal 2 is. I just have my own nitpicks with it and I wish it were a better game, but it's sort of the kind of game you play once, want to play again, but the feeling is never the same. A pseudo-"Breaking Bad" of video games. Stay tuned for my Portal 1 review when I try to break down why I think that's the superior game.
Beaten on 2/17/23 singleplayer only.
BEATEN
2007
Beaten on 2/19/23, had meant to do it yesterday but some errands got to me.
So as to why it's better than Portal 2 to me: you can break the game. Portal 2 has glitches and alternate solutions, but in a casual playthrough you're not going to pick up on these. In Portal however, you can usually find at least 2 ways to approach most test chambers, and the linear structure of the game allows for a more cohesive experience that lets you really get warmed up to the mechanics of the portal gun and slowly learn all its methods of puzzling. This difficulty curve is incredibly smooth.
Basically what I'm trying to say is, while Portal 2 may be more cinematic in nature and probably more fun to play, with better graphics and voice acting, Portal is an old friend you can't forget because of how they haven't changed over the years. It has flaws, the camera can be atrocious sometimes and some of the puzzles in the escape sequence are a bit confusing to figure out until you realize it was right under your nose the entire time, but I suppose that's the fun of it! :)
So yeah. Perfect 5 for me, better than Portal 2 but I can see how others would disagree with me and I'm okay with that.
BEATEN
So as to why it's better than Portal 2 to me: you can break the game. Portal 2 has glitches and alternate solutions, but in a casual playthrough you're not going to pick up on these. In Portal however, you can usually find at least 2 ways to approach most test chambers, and the linear structure of the game allows for a more cohesive experience that lets you really get warmed up to the mechanics of the portal gun and slowly learn all its methods of puzzling. This difficulty curve is incredibly smooth.
Basically what I'm trying to say is, while Portal 2 may be more cinematic in nature and probably more fun to play, with better graphics and voice acting, Portal is an old friend you can't forget because of how they haven't changed over the years. It has flaws, the camera can be atrocious sometimes and some of the puzzles in the escape sequence are a bit confusing to figure out until you realize it was right under your nose the entire time, but I suppose that's the fun of it! :)
So yeah. Perfect 5 for me, better than Portal 2 but I can see how others would disagree with me and I'm okay with that.
BEATEN
This is indeed, a video game.
BEATEN on 2/20/23 as a joke.
BEATEN on 2/20/23 as a joke.