Recent reviews by JoshN0S

Quite Possibly the best Half-Life/Half-Life 2 Mod I've ever played. (Non-Officially Endorsed, that is. Black Mesa is kind of hard to beat.)

The Story was amazing, had some twists and turns and even multiple endings. The gameplay clocks in at around 10 hours, which is literally 4 times longer than the first game, which was only 2 hours. This of course is taking in if you explore around a bit and play on a higher difficulty as I did. I'd say if you aren't much of an explorer, or play on lower difficulty, it'd probably be 7-8 hours, possibly even 6 if you casually speedrun it. There aren't many cons to the game, except for that a couple encounters feel a bit unbalanced (especially on Hard difficulty), two in particular, one early in the game, and one a bit later on in the game. This is good enough to the point I state approach this more as an actual game rather than just a mod.

I'll give it a 9/10.

Quite literally hard crashes my computer.
No idea why, but it does.

I've handled far more demanding games, and my computer's in fine shape.

I want to preface this with.... it's a great DLC.
Everything is fun, it's not as hard as Part 1, it feels it was toned down because people thought that one was too hard.
I enjoyed every bit of it, and the music was even better than Part 1.
The levels were also better I feel and more open.
It felt more Eternal like, there were also some nods to DOOM 2016.
The story felt good, DOOM Eternal in all it's glory....

And it concluded in a satisfying way. I initially gave this a negative review due to not properly understanding mechanics. But after figuring it out, I went through it just fine and it was fun as hell.
The final boss definitely will be hell on Nightmare, but it's definitely more than doable on Ultra Violence.

I just want to preface this with....

...Most of the negative reviews you will find about this DLC is people whining about the difficulty.

As someone who played the original game on Hurt Me Plenty, before playing it on Nightmare, and currently going through Extra Life mode on Ultra-Violence....

...I found the difficulty very pleasing to play through!
The only thing that really annoyed me was the "cube" boss battle. Because the way its set up while also having Pinkies chase you is kind of... bleehhh.. but I was never the best at dealing with Pinkies so that's probably my fault.

The final boss battle is pretty challenging too but it's definitely beatable.

Is it as good as the Main Campaign Story Wise?
No, not really.

Is the combat even crazier? Oh yeah, definitely.
The only real enemy I don't like is the "Turret"
But it's not like we didn't have "Turret" like things in the main campaign, so I can't complain too much.

Also, controversial statement I'm sure-

I liked the Double Marauder battle, it was fun.

The difficulty can definitely be a bit much for players who aren't quite as good at the game but have that mindset of "If it's not at least Ultra Violence, it's not DOOM" sorry to break it to you but you may need to lower the difficulty, I'm sorry that your precious egos were bruised, (not really, as a big DOOM fan, this fanbase is extremely toxic beneath the surface, just not as openly toxic as some communities. A lot of us have Egos the size of Texas and think anything below Ultra Violence is an absolute crime, but I say don't be ashamed if you have to lower it to Hurt Me Plenty. It just means "Normal" in DOOM Speak, and Normal is how some people like to enjoy games.)

On that note, when the DLC did release, there were some pretty big bugs, like the Wolf not spawning in the Blood Swamps, or getting stuck and not progressing, at the time, I'm not sure that bug has been fixed, but I will be playing through the game again soon, so I will find out then. Overall though, pretty strong DLC.

Definitely didn't see the ending coming, will be interested to see how that plays out in Part 2.

I give it an 8/10.

Could have served to be a little longer, but it was very fun for what it was.

So let me just preface this by starting with this:

This is the first time I ever completed a Half-Life Game
I grew up with Half-Life and Half-Life 2, but was in School during that time so never finished either,
I mostly spent my time playing Half-Life 2: Deathmatch with friends instead (1,700+ hours in that game)

So I went into this... somewhat blind. Anything after Surface Tension I pretty much knew nothing about.
Obviously the levels are changed up in some places but I could still generally recognize the layout up until after Surface Tension.

I have to start with, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I did NOT know the Source Engine could be pushed this far, ESPECIALLY in Xen's case.
It is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ BEAUTIFUL. It is literally on par with a game from the past 3-4 years when you get to Xen, and for the Source Engine, that is just INSANE.

The gameplay... it's so fun. I am a DOOM fan at heart so this was a little different, but I absolutely loved it.
I played DOOM Eternal this year, and I thought that was a shoe-in for my game of the year.
I count this game as a 2020 game as 1.0 did not come out until 2020, Xen was only in Beta Release in 2019.
But this, this was even better than that. I truly understand now why people regard Half-Life so highly after finally finishing one of the games for the first time in this remake of Half-Life 1. I am now going to play through every Half-Life game, start to finish because of this one experience and I have some pretty high expectations. I have every game, from the original Half-Life, all the way until Alyx in my library.

Everything about this game was pretty much damn near perfect honestly, the music could be a little hit or miss at times is my main complaint.

Overall though, this game will be the first game to ever beat a 9/10 in my life, not a perfect 10, as nothing will ever be PERFECT to me, but this game gets a

9.5/10

It is literally my favorite game ever after beating it only days ago. I never thought I'd play a game that would beat something like Metroid Prime 2 from my childhood.

The Level Design is of course excellent as it follows Half-Life level design nicely, while also putting some nice somewhat more modern touches to it in places, the skyboxes are absolutely beautiful, and in Xen they are just downright breathtaking. Overall this game is worth every penny.

I have hopes that one day this group decides to cover Blue Shift and Opposing Force, and Valve gives them the greenlight.

So yeah, Half-Life has now made a new lifelong fan.
Absolutely Stellar work, Crowbar Collective.

Let me preface, this is an edited review, for more detail now that the game's been out for over a week. Strap yourself in, it's the longest review I've ever done.

Let me start off by saying, This is an amazing game.

Let's start my review with Gameplay.
For weapons I'll mostly only be talking about the chainsaw in detail that way you can see how all the other weapons function in the game yourself, the Chainsaw I have gripes about is the only reason I feel the need to speak about it, there are also some new weapons in this game, so I won't be talking about those either, for the same reason mentioned above about all the old weapons. I will also be going into detail onto one particular demon that seems to have caused a bit of controversy.

I know I originally rated DOOM 4's gameplay a 10/10
By comparison, DOOM 4 today would probably get an 8/10 in Gameplay for me, by
comparison.

With this game having a 9/10 in Gameplay.
There are a few flaws here and there (such as melee being completely ineffective, unless you have the Blood Punch or the Crucible.) as well as I feel the chainsaw is relied a bit TOO much on, at least early on. Early on you will find yourself using the Chainsaw after almost every other Demon kill. The Ammo in this game is far more stingy than in DOOM 4. I feel that is also an issue. In turn though, the gameplay is more intense and even more fast paced than DOOM 4's. As for difficulty, this one can go two ways, dependant on how you play. If you are decent at games, or semi-decent, this one is harder than DOOM 4. If you are really good however, due to the new 1-UP feature in this game, you'll likely have an easier time in comparison to DOOM 4. If you really want a challenge, I suggest not grabbing a single 1-UP in the game, and playing at least on Hurt Me Plenty if you are good at the game, and Ultra Violence, if you are VERY good at the game. Or if you are a masochist, play Nightmare without grabbing a single 1-UP. Nightmare in general is likely easier than DOOM 4's due to the 1-UP option, however it's likely more difficult if you decide NOT to grab any of the 1-UPs.

As for the gunplay, the guns feel even more brutal than last time around, and all of them are very satisfying to shoot. The Pistol has been removed from this game, which also seems to lend to what makes the Chainsaw much more frequent than in DOOM 4.

As for the Chainsaw itself, I found myself annoyed by the mechanic a little for a couple different reasons.

Reason 1: The Chainsaw only has 3 Fuel this time, as opposed to the up to 6 you could gain in DOOM 4.

Reason 2: The difference in fuel usage. The ONLY time you will use 1 fuel is on Fodder demons, such as Zombies, Zombie Soldiers, Imps, or Gargoyles. ANYTHING Else, requires all 3 fuel. This feels like a huge mistake, I feel enemies such as the Arachnatron, Revenant, Hellknight, Carcass and Prowler should only use up 2 Fuel. And the rest of the Demons should use 3, like the Dreadknight, and both types of Mancubus. You'll notice I didn't include the Baron of Hell here. That's because in this game the Baron of Hell CAN'T be chainsawed.
Nor can various other enemies, such as the Archvile, or Tyrant/Cyberdemon.

Moving on from the Chainsaw, there are some new weapons in the game, one of which we know is The Crucible from trailers, and another that made me grin like a madman. But I won't say what the name of it is, nor will I go into detail about it.

There are even more cosmetics in this game than the previous, including custom outfits for Doomslayer in Singleplayer, and for the Demons in multiplayer.

And speaking of demons.....

The Marauder.

I've heard so much controversy about this demon and how it's not fun to fight and that it sucks, and blah blah.

Here's what I think.
Both sides have an argument.

The Marauder itself is a great enemy, with a specific way you have to fight it. It also has an amazing design and skillset.

However, the way it's put just doesn't work in a few cases. It feels more like an enemy that should have been either a one time mini-boss, or the sections it was put in afterwards should have been chosen better. It gets annoying when you have to decide either to focus on him, or the 20 other demons trying to kill you from other directions. His style of fighting just doesn't mesh well with other demons, but The Marauder himself? Great addition. He should have just been put in better spots, in my opinion.

As for the visuals, they are much more classic like. The saturation and visuals are generally brighter than DOOM 4, a bit more cartoonish I guess you could say, which was more grim and brownish by comparison.

I know a lot of people don't like the HUD, I personally find it nice. It's not as good as DOOM 4's in my opinion, but it's still a good HUD. If you don't like the multitude of colors, I recommend the Sentinel HUD color option, personally. You can change it to a few different options under UI Color Profile.

As for the visuals in general, I understand that may upset some people, but I personally love it, as DOOM was never a series I felt that was meant to be taken super over seriously, like for example, say Half-Life. It just felt like good fun with some story mixed in. Though despite this fact, DOOM: Eternal certainly does have quite the story to tell.

Also at the time of writing this review, the game does have a few bugs. The three I've run into most, is.

-Cacodemons randomly disappearing
-Doomslayer will lock in on punch objects, such as buttons, or cracks in the wall, this can actually cause him to be flung around if you approach from the right angle (this one is more fun than broken, though if you are unlucky, it could fling you off the level)
-The Game Crashes above High Settings. This one is the most annoying, I have a more than capable computer, but sometimes the game seems to crash at random when playing above High settings, especially if you are streaming the game. (Much more likely to occur during streaming, depending on what program you can use.)

Now... for the story. This part of the review will be very short, as I don't like to put spoilers in my reviews, I leave that to other people.

The story is... very confusing if you don't grab all the lore notes throughout the game. In DOOM 4, you could piece the story together even without extra lore bits, because of it's simplicity.

This one, if you don't make sure to collect every bit of lore that's in each level they appear, you may end up highly confused, or just not liking the story.

I personally liked the story from what I got, but I did not grab every lore note as I tend to do my first playthroughs casual like, where I just enjoy the game for what it is, then go back and collect stuff if I want to. And yeah, it left me a bit confused and honestly not entirely positive on it at all times. This game, the one thing I will I guess, sort of spoiler? It takes place more than 10 years in the future, as there is suddenly considerably so much more to it than what DOOM 4 gave to us, as well as some of the events we encounter. The year it seems to be taking place is around 2163, and DOOM 4 I believe took place around 2147-2150, somewhere around that time frame. But overall, I think the story is enjoyable, but it's just a bit confusing if you don't grab all those lore notes.

That concludes my review of DOOM: Eternal.
A worthy successor to DOOM 4
Overall, I find it to be a better game than DOOM 4, though there are some things DOOM 4 did better, though not many in my opinion.
I give the game a Solid 9/10.

As for final thoughts, the same as for DOOM 4.

RIP AND ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ TEAR, UNTIL IT IS DONE!


Update: 7/1/2020

I can now recommend this again with Denuvo DRM being removed!
Sad about the situation with Mick Gordon and id software though, but what can you do?

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Amazing. This is by far my 2016 Game of the Year, and I'd loved to have gotten my review out earlier, but couldn't.
This game is a very great tribute to the classic DOOM 1 and 2, and is just as much fun. The campaign is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 10/10 easily, and even though the multiplayer doesn't live up to it, I gave that a 7/10, despite my low playtime in it. I can't wait to finally replay this game, and have been chomping at the bit, but I need to go through the originals first.

Buy this game, and RIP AND TEAR UNTIL IT IS DONE!

I love Naruto to death, but this game just does not work no matter what I do.

It's the only game I've ever gotten "missing exectuable" for, and the problem does not seem to be fixable. I've tried every solution online and it still persists, so Alas, I cannot recommend this game.

Fun racing game, one of the only good ones for PC.

One of my favorite childhood games. It's definitely pretty challenging, and a great game for anyone who misses their PS2/Xbox. Recommend? Definitely.