Probably showing my bias against fighting games here, but this is another fighting game that I couldn’t get in to. I was actually pretty surprised about that as SC2 is one of my favourite fighting games of all time. I really enjoy the use of weapons as it increases the variety of the characters move-sets and makes the game simpler tactically. For example, a character like Kilik is quick and has great range with his long staff. This makes it pretty clear how to play as or against him as soon as you pick up the game and thus easier to get into compared to a lot of fighting games.

Soul Calibur IV brings back some of these characters and introduces some new ones keeping the weapon based combat and large character variety mostly the same. It also introduces some new characters including some star wars characters and a character creation mode. These additions didn't really appeal to me, the new characters are fine but the star wars characters really don't fit into the game. Another aspect of the game which is a let down is the boring game modes. The game has a very short and bland story mode, with little story and a tower of souls mode which is not as exciting as it seems. The tower of souls is just another multi fight mode, with all the fights set in similar boring square arenas. Now, combat wise SC4 is decent. The fights have a nice ebb and flow and are quite tactical if perhaps a little slow for my liking. Yet, this doesn't really make up for the rest of it's flaws. A fine fighting game that probably should have been a great one. In the end, I would rather just play SC2.

After making it my mission to play through as many iconic FPS games as possible, I gave this game a go shortly after the release of the remaster and hated it, resolving to never play the damned thing again.

Fast forward a few months and I gave it another try, and I'm glad I did.

First of all, I love everything about how the game looks, feels and sounds. Digitized actors are a fetish of mine, and I adore the bizarre and often hellish liminal spaces the game makes you inhabit.

My first issue is the weapons. They look and feel good, generally. But the machinegun is so much more useful than anything else in the game that you'll only be switching off it if you have ammo to spare for one of your special weapons (almost all of which are explosives.)

This means that while it's cool to dual-wield pistols, you never feel the need to. And many of the more interesting special weapons are lost in the crowd amidst one another, reduced to serving the same purpose of nuking the stronger enemies on sight.

Then there's the level design which is labyrinthian, obsessed with hidden switches and invisible touchplates and obnoxious traps.

That being said, the game does several things I adore, particularly with the way it handles having multiple playable characters. And the powerups, while often annoying on purpose (shrooms and elasto come to mind) are a fun novelty.

There's also so much character to everything, for better or for worse. The game is ridiculous and doesn't take a single moment of itself seriously. And I never got tired of seeing a cultist get down on their knees and beg for mercy.

It also has an absolute banger of a soundtrack.

In summary, I find myself endeared to the game despite it's problems. And I just might play it again someday with another character or try out the new episode.

Amazing remaster of a already great game, easily the best way to play this game in my opinion. There's a lot of content here, and most of it is good, although I didn't really care for the shareware episode too much, it felt too slow paced and didn't give me enough weapons and enemies to play with. The main part of the game is great, and there's a new episode called The Hunt Continues that's pretty good as well. It took me about 20 hours to play the shareware episode, the main game, and the new episode while getting all the steam achievements and I think that the game overstays its welcome if you do all that. But the main part of the game is easily my favourite part and it alone is worth the price in my opinion. I also loved how you can use the soundtrack from the Rise of the Triad remake, which was awesome. I will say though, that the new lighting option makes the game harder by restricting how far you can see while enemies can still shoot you just as easily as before from far away, I had to turn this setting off because it made the game much harder for minimal gain. All in all, this game is weird and I love it for that, I highly recommend it.

I will slowly pick away at EROTT but for now I'm saying it is complete. It's a pretty unique shooter that has a lot of good going for it though I think all the tanky enemies while having to use the MP40 gets quite tedious. The new episode suffers from that the least as the map creators recognized this and provided a nice cathartic monk killing level. It's cool that it's basically an advanced Wolfenstein 3D 2, I just wish there was a shotgun because again killing things can be tedious, as well as almost everything being a hitscanner. Also some of the most annoying (but funny) sounds in gaming. DOOM is my FPS GOAT but wow this OST is probably better than DOOM.

Before describing games and campaigns included in this release, I have to say that this current port is a masterclass of ports. Four campaigns (one of them is brand new one) + level editor and custom campaign with Steam Workshop support, multiple settings, including UI settings, 3 sets of soundtracks, alternate SFX sound, restored alternative enemies, that were cut in the original game, every level has designer's name written down. And they nerfed Monks, with option to undo it! It's absurd amount of love and care to a – let's admit it – mediocre shooter.

RotT is an interesting beast. It's hard to grade this game. One one hand, its revolutionary for its time because of the high variations, 3D elements and dynamic lighting. Oh, and one of the first games that allows you to dual wield pistols. But on the other, it's stuck in the past: Wolfenstein 3D engine, thus only 90 degrees walls; most of the locations are blending together; combat certainly feels like Wolfenstein 3D (not always, but mostly); low variety in enemies (5 out of 10 common enemies feels the same in their behavior and moves) unnecessary life and point system since game allows you to save. And all of this came out after Doom 2. Game still have certain appeal. Variety of explosion weapons, powerups and powerdown, ability to fly, gimmick to rocketjump before Quake (which is necessary for good ending in original campaign), it helps to differentiate this game from others.


The Hunt Begins is a short campaign with 11 levels, which was shareware version, showcasing environments, basic gameplay, some enemies, pover-ups. Nothing to say about it, it can become a little boring before final level, which introduce Triad Enforcer. Best enemy in the game, constant threat and annoyance. Most of the enemies you can stunlock in hurt animation so they cannot do a thing, but not this lad. And they throw 5 or 6 of them right at the fake end of the final level.

Dark War is the main original game, with 30+ levels. Pretty decent for the most part, some levels are interesting, some traps and enemy placement is engaging, but this package is a little uneven. One level will take you 10 to 15 minutes, short, tightly designed and sometimes even beautiful, but another level will be tediously long, confusing to navigate with very detailed map, sometimes enemy placement is way too dick-ish and some secrets are almost impossible to find without humping every wall. I was growing tired by the end of the campaign. Highlights: little gimmicks like heating food with explosives to recover more HP, bosses, especially the NME (i have no idea how people back in 1995 – with little to no experience in shooters – dealt with him), platforming and gimmicky sections like The Room level.

Extreme RotT, at least in this port, is more interesting. Yeah, most levels are gimmicks, but because of it, levels are shorter and more focused than original ones. Well, i didn't play it on max difficulty because I still have some love for myself, only on Normal, and that made experience way more tolerable. Because this is a cruel campaign. Most of the traps in Dark War designed to caught you off-guard and give you some room to deal with ambush. Traps and even normal encounters in Extreme RotT designed to kill you. This is very unique, a lot of staff you see here feels like user created levels that found out about certain tricks and gimmicks in level editor. But no, this is pretty much equivalent to commercial release of Kaizo Mario World, and Tom Hall and Joe Siegler are laughing at your misery. And funny I mentioned Mario, game sometimes has a certain feel of 3D platforming before 3D, in a good and in a very bad way. I still had more fun with this than with Dark Wars, levels are never overstaying their welcome, they are mostly short, I think this format suits RotT better. But Lord help you to go through levels blindly or without cheats. Hmm, maybe one day I should do it on hardest difficulty...

The Hunt continues is a brand new campaign from New Blood stuff. Good, if a little bit long, levels, most of them wrap around itself pretty nicely, fine traps and enemy placement. Showcasing some new stuff like new lighting settings and effects. Very good addition.


I'd say i gave this game too much time (30 hours to complete every campaign), but I do not regret it. Maybe it's better to appreciate this game through videos, since game can drag on in some places. Watch Civvie 11 or something idk. Oh, and listen to the soundtrack from Lee Jackson (and a few from Bobby Prince), this is 10/10 soundtrack. And Andrew Hulshult's 2013 RotT soundtrack is a banger, also included in this port. Maybe not the best game, but pretty interesting experience.

An ambitious combination of first person shooter and Metroid-like backtracking exploration. Only let down by it being such an early rendition of the idea. Its ideas are a bit half baked owing to it being a trailblazer rather than an iterator. I feel like someone revisiting this idea of a run and gun metroidvania could make something truly great today.

But, man, what's here is still pretty darn good. There's really nothing else like it. The Egyptian setting is still unique today, the sprite work still totally beautiful, the core metroidvania-lite design rarely touched on in the FPS genre.

If you play it, play it on normal. The original game didn't have any difficulty settings so the highest ones here were added in just for the port. The game isn't exactly designed around them and the developer doesn't recommend them for a first time player. Go ahead on normal. It's a little breezy, but that's OK. It's really fun to blast apart some mummies and whatnot.

This game is an oldie but a goodie.

It was a pretty good DOOM clone with really interesting pacing of levels and secrets. It's not going to blow your mind, but it will impress you with the thought put into the design of the levels.

It's not that long of an FPS, even for it's time. It is however really cool and still worth the try if you like boomshoot.

Pretty good! The concept of an FPS adventure in the sort of hub-and-spokes layout, where revisiting levels with more growth is part of mandatory progression, is novel and interesting. Doesn't have a ton of staying power beyond that unique design, but the game's also pretty short so it doesn't wear out its welcome.

Now, I've never played the original Powerslave, but I do feel like some of the remaster changes don't quite fit right. Some of the team doll boosts make parts of the came cumbersome and difficult, and Pharaoh-level enemy changes don't feel like they were done super well. I guess I just need to play Powerslave EX and see what it's like.

From a historical perspective, this is pretty cool. The integration of unlockable traversal mechanics into a more straightforward kind of 90s FPS level design is impressive, all the more so years before the concept of "metroidvania" would begin to crystallize as something that could be applied across genres. The level design itself is quite good as well, quietly communicating secrets and guiding the player to understanding when there's more of a level to explore and when you need to come back with more mechanics. The enemy design is a little shaky, which makes traversing through the world more of a pain than it could be, but it's not too bad.

This was also my first real 90s FPS—I've never sat down and played through Doom or Quake—and I think that era of the genre (or maybe just the genre entire) is not entirely my thing. I didn't finish this not because I was getting frustrated, but because managing the fights and my ammo/health balance was just exhausting. Still a good experience to have, though!

>Looking for a new Doom-like
>Ask in forums if PowerSlave is any good
>Users don't understand
>I pull out illustrated diagram explaining what good progression, enemy and level design is
>User laughs and says "it's a good game sir"
>Buy game
>Its a metroidvania

TF2's situation in 2024 reminds me of a comic i read (not saying the title otherwise spoilers) where the main character dies and goes to heaven, and in heaven he meets god; who is this fat slob that doesn't do anything about all the terrors on our planet. the mc suggests he pays attention to the world and god says- "OOOOH, SORREEEE!! i only created THE UNIVERSE!!! your'e right i should be out running LAPS."

its obv im comparing gabe to god. the news, infestation and crimes i hear about on TF2 genuinely disturbs me. i understand online playerbases dwindling down and eventually dying but atm i dont see this ending well for us. hot take but i think we need to pull the plug, its not that i want TF2 dead but lets be real: do we REALLY expect valve to do anything that requires a moderate amount of effort? idk these are just my 2 cents.

edit: just to add so i dont come off as someone that doesnt care: my ideal wish for this game would be for valve to hand it off to fans that can manage the entire game system (ie: zesty jesus, uncle dane, or just good willed people)

Enslaved is an extremely ambitious and flawed game. In an era where color was all but gone from the popular games media of the time, Enslaved commits itself to vibrant colors and varied visuals getting the most from Unreal Engine's ability to represent both mechanical metallic textures, apocalyptic city-scapes, and varied greens and reds. For that, I think the game deserves praise. Beyond that, the narrative and gameplay choices made in this game will make you wonder if Neil Druckmann of Naughty Dog fame was a big fan of the game since the dynamic between Monkey and his traveling companion/enslaver Trip feels eerily similar to a certain post-apocalyptic game released three years after Enslaved's original release.

With that out of the way, I think gameplay is another thing to talk about here. Ninja Theory pushes for a lot of variety in their encounters throughout the game with shooting, stealth, basic platforming, and melee combat sprinkled throughout this 6-8 hour story. Although these different elements are ambitious, the game has many shortcomings on the gameplay side. Admittedly this comes from the perspective of someone who played on hard for my first runthrough. The melee combat is extremely basic and at times feels frustrating as the lack of variety for handling multiple enemies shows its ugly head in the most difficult encounters. In fights with more than 3 enemies the game feels borderline unfair when Monkey's combat feels extremely slated towards single-target attacks. You have your basic fare of light and heavy combos with a few options including a terrible wide sweep, a heavy charge for breaking blocks, and finally a block and dodge roll with a few frames of invulnerability for defense. This kit feels good in single fights but with groups and more aggressive enemies it feels terrible. Next, let's talk ranged combat. Monkey has a staff with the ability to shoot two types of projectiles: a stun which locks enemies down for a second and a plasma beam which does damage. If you upgrade Monkey's damage with the staff the shooting goes from a chore to a joke where you can one-shot most enemies in the game. The melee combat was so mediocre at times I often tried to whittle away at the mechs with ranged attacks when I was attacked by large groups. The way Ninja Theory avoids or balances this issue is by heavily segmenting the game into melee bits where no ammo drops and ranged bits where most enemies are untouchable by melee and ammo is so plentiful that it may as well be infinite. This is a very poor way to split the game because it makes Monkey's kit feel separate instead of parts of a full arsenal. It also makes the upgrade system odd because until you hit a proper shooting segment you have no reason to invest in that tree at all.

Upgrades aren't the only thing that feels like it was half-developed. The whole partner system in the game felt undercooked and so strangely implemented that it bordered on frustrating at times. The ambition of that system was too much for the game in my opinion. I think the best example of this is how the game handles healing. Your partner, Trip, carries all of your healing items you can use mid-combat. You can hold multiple full heals in the game via Trip but the problem is these are only usable when you are near her. The game often splits you from her to perform cooperative things like puzzle platforming or combat where she hides in the back so I do not understand where you're supposed to use those heals. It honestly frustrated the hell out of me when any time I thought to try healing, the game decided I was too far from Trip to use these things. I beat the entire game without ever using that healing system because the upgradable health regeneration ability further undercuts this central mechanic of having a cooperative AI buddy who can do unique things.

A final thing to critique is the narrative. The strongest portions of the narrative are the shifts in the relationship between Trip and Monkey. The actual overarching plot gets extremely loose in its back half and goes from somewhat compelling to a complete trainwreck by the end. The epilogue might be the dumbest thing I have ever seen in a game that up to that point barely felt like it had any primary antagonist or threat besides an abstract slaver group responsible for the mechs you fight throughout the game. Fair warning on that, do not expect high art when it comes to the narrative or anything like that. I was just kind of here for the vibes anyways.

In all, I do not hate this game but there is a lot to critique or find issue with which is always the case with highly ambitious games like this. I think for the time Enslaved is an impressive game with a lot of interesting attempts at doing something unique. That ambition also feels like its downfall at times so buyer beware if you go in expecting a masterpiece.

Aside from some repetitive combat and sometimes-problematic script, Enslaved is surprisingly good!

As an adaptation of part of Journey to the West, it's extremely loose, but the character design and animations are fun and engaging.

It never feels like you're EXACTLY in control, since things like your movement speed are highly contextual, and the platforming and combat puzzle challenges are extremely rote, but you're in charge enough to feel like you're actually playing the game, and its short (but not too short!) length means you don't really have enough time to get frustrated with it.

Andy Serkis is great as Monkey, making a pretty middle of the road script more fun than it deserved to be.

I'm sad I missed this when it was new! It's not doing anything special and it doesn't have much to say, but it's the kind of reasonably solid, reasonably entertaining 18-hour game that nobody seems to want to make anymore.