Análises recentes de SaturdayMonk

As a package, Doom 3 -formerly known as the "BFG Edition"- is almost a must buy for anyone who even has the slightest inclination towards the series, its genre or style. While it might not be everyone's first choice regarding the ports of the first two Dooms -which is a sentiment I can understand and slightly agree by the way- even in their considerably bad or undesirable ports, they still are two shining examples when it comes to older games that actually and comfortably manage to fill the shoes of such hefty monikers as "Classic", "Old But Gold" or simply "One of the Best". They are just as fun as the first time I've experienced them on a sh*tty flash site and on top of that, with all the games I've went through my entire life taken account for, I may say that I've grown to appreciate them even more. They are that good.

So, why am I talking about additional games while trying to blurt out a review for the main one? Well, firstly because it is easy to praise those two once again and then, despite mostly enjoying 3, my opinions on it are not exactly clear-cut as them. On one hand I have several significantly long stretches of time where I had the time of my life clearing neatly designed room after neatly designed room of various brilliantly grotesque hellspawns whilst controlling probably one of the most enjoyable assortment of weapons seen in the genre, with each of them allowing different methods of approaching any given situation and enemy, bordering on immersive sim levels of freedom -still keeping the simplicity of the earlier games well intact at the core of it all though- while basking in the early 2000s futuristic visual design -that I'm very very fond of- and a well pulled off creepy atmopshere featuring masterful sound design topped off with a terrific final act both visuals and gameplay-wise. When you add the fact that the game is flawless on the technical front -a problem and glitch-free 1080p/144fps experience was what I had- suffice to say there is a lot of good.

However on the other hand, going through the levels gives this dreadful feeling of claustrophobia, so much so that initially after playing for a couple hours I had to put it down and didn't actually pick it up again for a week or two. Intentional or not, can't count that as one of the more positive aspects of the game. Then there is the wasted potential of the whole lore and story that was put together because even though they are both interesting and intriguing the way the whole narrative is conveyed ends up as a slog to get through. Almost every voice memo is one very depressed individual talking about how things are going awful and there might be something sinister going through and nearly every video clip is just another dull infomercial. I felt almost no incetive to check anything out to get another small, tiny, tidbit of information about what has went down between painfully boring non-essential coat of nothing-burger blabberings. I know the story holds almost the least importance in any Doom game but the waste of potential in this particular one hurts. But aside from everything, the biggest flaw has to be some of the unfair enemy placements. Majority of the game has well designed levels but every once in a while you open a door and face one of the harder enemies from which you're almost guaranteed to take one nasty hit. I know classic Dooms have similar stuff but in this one you have near no time to react and end up with a big chunk of your health taken away. Rest of the game has ample challenge and the atmosphere does the heavy lifting for the scare-factor so I fail to understand this design decision, it comes off as cheap and unnecessarily frustrating. There is a starking difference in terms of fairness between entering a room where an Arch-vile spawns a few seconds after, summoning more demons for you to deal with and turning a corner or opening a door and taking heavy damage which you have no control over. Nevertheless I have to say in the light of all the positives, anything I've meandered about up above just pale in comparison.

Because once you get into the groove, in the rhytm, you get used to the claustrophobia and start trying to plan one step ahead, which isn't tiring at all -hell- it's actually pretty enjoyable because every single weapon has a use and all of them are satisfying to use. During the abovementioned long sessions during I had the most fun, I was in that particular place of mind. But yeah, to start really enjoying the game there might be a small learning curve, especially if one's not the most experienced with previous entries of the franchise.

To round up, I want to talk about this as a package because aside from 1 and 2 there also are DLCs for the 3 and honestly, those are some of the best ones for any game I've played before. Especially after playing a couple DLCs that amplify almost everything I dislike about the main game they spawned out of, Resurrection of Evil and Lost Mission -ironically- felt like heaven. Both of them focus on one really enjoyable mechanic and felt like a more polished version of what the main game was meant to be, each fully deserving of your time. Then, similarly to the issue of lesser regarded ports of 1 and 2, BFG Edition of Doom 3 is also not very well regarded by some superfans but since the original one is also a part of this version, it's only a matter of choice and in my humble opinion, from everything I've seen about it, BFG Edition should be the go-to version if you are looking for a smoother and more fluid Doom 3 experience anyway. Hope I won't get ripped and torn apart for that opinion.

If you are one of the unfortunate souls that decided to read this to the end, thank you and I'd like to reiterate how much of a must get this whole package is and how much fun I had throughout every bit of the content it has. I recommend it to fullest extent.

Fun and arcade-y, co-op focused 3rd person zombie bashing with a "Bullet Time" mechanic which saves it from being completely run-of-the-mill. I'm not very well versed when it comes to multiplayer or co-op focused games so I don't know if being given a number of options to fine tune your game for the amount of people you are playing along is all that common or not but that's really useful since I only had one other person to play it with. I also appreciate how you can basically pop zombies' heads clean off like balloons with almost any weapon in the game because to hell with realism, that's why I'm playing these kind of games for- AND because all CoD games that are on the market that have "Zombies" modes have incredibly dangerous security flaws so I can't say that I had many other choices for wave based survival games against just plain old zombonis.

HOWEVER,

I don't know what causes it but the game is a nightmare to run on Windows 11, while I never had any issues since I'm still on 10 (and not planning to "upgrade" to an OS which is basically a dollar store version of Mac OS) my friend who already was -and still is- on 11 since it came with the laptop he bought, had chronic crashes that basically ruined an otherwise fun experience. His specs are well above the recommended ones, mind you. It's truly a shame because with in depth customization options and a decent enough and fun gameplay, we were having a lot of fun but he understandebly had enough of that bullsh*t and looking at the rest of the reviews, it looks like this wasn't an isolated incident either which makes it all the more frustrating. This needs to get looked into. So I sadly can't recommend anybody who made the mistake of switching to W11 -or didn't have any choice in the matter- to buy this. Other than that, it is a fine and mostly fun game whilst being nothing special and I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun with a friend or more but can't say the same about the single player side of it because I never tried it. That's it, thanks for your time.

Wow, this beautiful looking tech demo has some real potential if they end up fleshing it out!

Well, okay, I'll stop with the unfunny jokes and unnecessary shade-throwing and try again, here we go:

When Xen levels in Half-Life and aesthetics of Bioshock love eachother VERY VERY much-

Whatever

Anyways, while having interesting and fun ideas the game is indeed as barren as a tech demo and feels unfinished. Level design for example, even if purposefully done, is way to open that it ends up as casusing problems, for example if you wander too far away from the designated path you might end up softlocking yourself. However, I don't really think you'd want to wander in the first place as there is almost nothing, or at least nothing worthwhile to do in levels anyway. But I have to say, core aspects -especially the graphics- within the game aren't exactly what I'd call bad or unintuitive but it feels terribly unfinished both because of the abovementioned aspects AND the fact that there is almost no challenge, so much so that I had to make my own (not by softlocking though, just trying to reach places that initially looked unreachable, and I've succeeded most of the time... Hardly a challenge).

Nevertheless, I can't say that I haven't had a lot of fun with the game aswell. Despite not offering much substance, what it offers often ends up being fun and entertaining despite not being anything special. There were glimpses of brilliance but anything in between -mostly the long periods where you are left to find out where to go and what to do exactly since the "cardinal" (I guess?) hardly helps- really takes the whole experience down significantly. At the end, coming from the same developers who made Slender: The Arrival, I just wish it had the same amount of love and polishing that one got. From what I see from their recent updates, it doesn't seem like that they'll try anything creative like this one anytime soon either, shame.

Damn, this turned out to be way longer than I initially thought so here's a TL;DR: Game looks beautiful and has some neat core ideas but also has as much content and depth as a Koi pond.

(Before getting into anything else, if you are looking to find some reviews mentioning the game's performance since it is a bit of an older one, let me tell you that it works fine on my end. Read about full-on progression blocking bugs, unskippable and outrageously loud intros and even it completely refusing to launch but on my end I didn't encounter anything like that other than a couple of minor bugs that I mentioned down below. I was able to play it on stable 144 fps without any problems excluding some very rare stutters at the beginning of some missions and before and after the loading/"transition" screens, despite my horrible explanation you'll get which ones I'm trying to explain after playing it.)

If it was any other time I wouldn't have the patience to tolerate bullet sponge-y enemies, barebones boss fights, a less than ideal gunplay, mediocre level design and a slighlty disappointing storyline but while I don't know what got in me, I decided to play this on a whim and just can't say that I feel like I've wasted my time despite not having the time of my life playing it either. I'm unsure if my sentiments towards the game are caused by having had zero to none expectations about it before playing it or the fact that I haven't had (and stil don't have) the privilage of playing the first game but found the mid 2010s over the top edge and accompanying cell shaded graphics charming, thought the superpower abilities were mostly enjoyable even though they were not designed the best, sometimes don't work as intended and can be a little frustrating to control with keyboard & mouse and finally admired the voice cast as they've done their best to carry this otherwise okay-ish story with their great performances. If you are in a perfectionist mood -or hate Homefront since this is made by the same developers- definitely stay away at all costs because the game's woes can get to you rather quickly (and there are some minor bugs I've experienced that could've potentially softlocked me like enemies getting stuck under the ground, still damaging you while you can't fight back for example) but if you feel like you can gloss over some nuisances of an otherwise mostly enjoyable game get it on sale and enjoy your day with it.

(Additionally while not having played that portion of the game a lot yet, with the co-op PvE multiplayer you'll get the same bullet sponge-y enemies, boring bosses and less than stellar gunplay without your story mode Darkness powers but with some other mildly entertaining abilities in their place. Nevertheless, it can still be decently fun with some friends as most things in life tend to be.)

Crashes frequently. Gave it a second chance but did it again, not gonna try once more. I was basically forcing myself to finish it anyways because despite the story seemingly going to some intersting places at times, the way it is being drip fed made me more irritated and confused rather than getting me intriguied. Also remember initially hearing about this a while before it came out and how it was one of the earlier games to use EU4 to its full potential, looking impressively photorealistic and all that jazz but actually playing it now made me realize no matter how realistic, going from one dingy crack house to the other trying to piece together a heavily convoluted story while occasionally getting forced into some shoddily designed stealth sections still don't make up an enjoyable gameplay loop. You are given a potentially fun arsenal to deal with your enemies but they fall short at the end because firstly, they needed a lot more polishing and then sometimes it is just better to not attempt to reinvent the wheel and instead put a minimap at the corner of the screen if it is going be disappearing anytime I get behind a cover, making it basically useless. Can say the same about the "smartphone interface" in general too as it could've been interesting potentially but even just turning the flashlight on can be a chore at times and honestly if I can't look at the minimap while having it on anyways, just give me a good old flashlight with the abovementioned classic minimap placement so I can at least have some fun, y'know. Anyways, this could've been a decent Condemned/Soma/Deus Ex hybrid with some heavy tweaking here and there but at the end it's just an undercooked and frustrating waste of potential that for some reason can't go on for two hours before crashing out of nowhere.

It's a good looking remake which runs just as greatly but that's the only purely positive thing I can say about it. Boss battles, mission design, level design everything is just so painfully dated, it hurts. It's grindy, side missions sometimes depend on luck and I can even say the same about some of the main ones as well, boss battles are painfully unbalanced therefore unfair, stealth is there and can be fun during some moments but it's just barebones so doesn't offer much, saucer camera and controls can actively work against you, you are weirdly underpowered which makes wreaking havoc -AKA having some fun- basically a non-possibility unless you work your *ss off for some upgrades... No amount of raunchy, silly jokes, fun parodies or cheeky references can make up for these faults in my opinion. For example I can very well tolerate all the dialogue being left untouched therefore being in low quality since maybe they didn't have the budget to re-record those but something I can't show the same amount of tolerance is trying the same level over five times to finally beat it because I got lucky or having to repeat a mission involving over three to four steps just because developers lack the design sensibilities to put in a simple checkpoint after one of the steps. Don't recommend it and since I bought the second one as well before playing this, I dread what waits for me in that game. Fingers crossed for a better experience.

Thematically it reaches a new ceiling regarding how violent/disturbing/gory a game can get so it lives up to its predecessor and I like that kind of boundary-pushing myself, no matter how tone-deaf it can seem. Alongside with some pretty good visuals -even for today- it has some decent atmosphere and since I'm very much into the the series' lore, I like the story as well. Nevertheless, that same story has such a chokehold over the gameplay, it hurts the game very poorly overall. The general "back-and-forth" idea when it comes to the presentation must've seemed neat on paper -and there were times that I appreciated it during my playthrough as well- but the final product just suffers a lot from it.

Firstly, "chase" sequences have lost all their depth and since there wasn't much of it present anyway in the first place, they feel painfully shallow. You're just simply forced run the other way; no tactical door blocking, no room for actual stealth, no alternative paths, just boring running with such a sorry excuse for a "sprint" speed which makes it more frustrating than scary and heavily scripted. When you add how dark the game can get, you just cannot possibly figure out where you have to go or what you can interact with in order to progress -slight shimmering or barely visible bloods trails don't really help- so many times I just let enemies kill me so I can respawn since almost every time you're dropped back into the game looking at the general direction of where the game wants you to go.

It's a shame because there were certain moments that during them I felt geniunely disgusted and horrified because not only the visuals are good but also voice acting performances and sound design are both respectively top notch so some plot points end up very effective and unforgettable. I still recommend this because the series is still its own beast on many aspects but I only expected Red Barrels to build up from the relatively high point they'd have reached with Whistleblower but instead they chose to threw the very improvable gameplay over to the wayside for their narrative experience to shine which fails to happen on a consistent basis unfortunately, because of the repetitive and at points uninspired ways they've executed it.

In conclusion, it isn't the biggest waste of potential and still can work on numerous ways for many people but it could've been much better too if each part of the game got the same amount of care and love they both deserved and desperately needed.

Has the classic Double Fine charm, some of the dialogue are pretty funny and visual gags are top notch with great timing as well and finally has very cute visuals but it ends up a bit repetitive and performance issues are a-plenty. I probably fired up the game around 3-5 times at best and had problems around 3 times: Once there was no sound, another time I got an error message (first time I tried to play btw) and then it just refused to work as I got an unending black screen which "fixed" itself after I've restarted my pc (verifying game's files or the good ol' Alt+O didn't work, it just crashed when it wanted to so I was forced to do that as a last resort). Also can't really forget that it isn't really keyboard&mouse friendly as it felt really awkward trying to navigate within menus and movement controls also came off a bit weird to me as well. Nevertheless, I stuck with the game and had fun mostly and it is great that this is a game that any and all age groups can play and enjoy however I personally don't know any kid who can put up with these controls and most importantly those prevelant performance issues which is very sad. Maybe if they have the time and resources some folks at Double Fine can take a look at it and patch it in the future but I don't know. I still recommend it but with a heavy pinch of salt especially if you don't have any patience regarding optimization/performance issues.

The bow that ties up the whole series. Gameplay wise it feels like a little exercise that developers tried in order to see what they could do within this setting and the series, so it's not perfect or the most enjoyable experience but again the all-encompassing and conclusive nature of it makes it a necessity to play it if you are a fan of the series. A DLC being so decisive and important for a game (and this time an entire series) will never feel okay on my end but it's what it is.

Without this you can't really say that you've seen all of Bioshock Infinite. If you'll play it, this (and of course the first episode) is a must get.

The first stepping stone of the two-parter redemption arc of Bioshock Infinite. It's ironically a breath of "fresh" air as it goes back to the roots of the series, giving us a much more traditional Bioshock experience here and that's just great. The added "noir" style is also a treat and I was just like a spoiled little brat at a candy shop just mesmerized and ecstatic at the beginning (you'll understand). I'm not the biggest fan of DLC content that just make-or-brake a game but in this case it's not only worth going through it but also a necessity to understand and enjoy the beast that is Bioshock Infinite, in its entirety.

If you are gonna play the main game, this -unfortunately- is a must get. Without it and of course Episode 2 everything will feel uncomplete.