I started playing with the steam release and it just felt off. Despite running at my refresh rate it didn't feel smooth at all, so i downloaded vkQuake and HOLY SHIT ITS A VIDEO GAME.
I did about 1.5 episodes tonight.
to be honest, I think i like Doom more, somehow this game feels less polished?
The actual movement and gameplay are phenomenal, super duper smooth and responsive and just fun. bouncing grenades off of walls, blasting enemies with a big ol shotgun, and even just jumping is a hell of a lot of fun.
but the enemies themselves felt very.... eh?
for what its worth, this has nothing to do with art design, quake is a very different art style to doom and the actual enemy designs are great. although aside from melee attackers, the only ranged enemy that i can actually go "oh, they're attacking me" is the shambler. I can't tell if the ogre is attacking me, i have no clue what those flying guys are called but i have no clue when they're attacking me. I just strafe and hope for the best.
I also don't mind the more gritty and down low sounds, the weapons all sound super punchy and great, but i can't hear any sound cues that would be important to me. not only do i not SEE attacking enemies but i can't HEAR them either. gone is the very distinct teleporter sound from doom and in its place is the same "shoomp" stock sound that mario 64 uses for stuff like entering the secret slide. its quiet, not very distinct, and honestly kind of out of place.
Another thing i noticed was the enemy behavior, which seems like a direct downgrade from doom. They do not seem to have an infighting threshold, and just swap targets to whoever most recently hit them. They don't seem to have reaction time because they attack nearly as soon as they see you. I got killed by a fiend that teleported into existence and instantly attacked me one time. fun.
in fact, most of my deaths are to fiends, which is guess is... fitting. I have no clue how much damage they do, because sometimes it feels like 1 damage and sometimes i think i'm at full health and armor and then i'm dead in 1 second. it feels... wrong.
Another thing i noticed which kinda bugs me but probably is completely intentional is the way the game is balanced. I'm playing on hard mode, so maybe this is a hard mode thing, but enemies take so many god damn hits.
The ogre is the main enemy all over the game and they take 3 super shotgun shots or 3 rockets. 3!!! with that ammo in doom i could kill a single heavy enemy or several smaller ones. Quake's enemy design feels like its meant to be quality over quantity, but they end up being boring when there's just one of them so they tend to put you in tight hallways or against 4 or 5 different enemies. Which still isn't as much as doom, but whatever, maybe it was a hardware limitation moving to 3d.
If it seems like i hate this game, i really don't. I wouldn't have played for nearly 3 hours, past midnight, nearly through 2 chapters if i didn't. I do really like the game, but i just... don't like it as much as doom
