 |
|
Dec 31st, 2020 at 16:25:36 - Doom Eternal (PC) |
Upon completing Doom Eternal, I opened my Steam wishlist and deleted all other FPS games (except Wolfenstein II). Why bother playing them? Doom Eternal is a masterpiece.
Playing immediately after Doom (2016), the game has noticeable differences. I admit to thinking this was more or less a standalone expansion, but it is a new game. Somehow, it's even faster than Doom and I got my ass handed to me on Normal. After a few levels of slogging through, I turned it down to Easy. I'm a little disappointed in myself for not properly learning to handle Normal difficulty, but I was on a time crunch (had to finish before tomorrow and not get charged for another month of Game Pass!). I'll work on mastery another time.
Doom Eternal did away with Doom's pointless (joke?) walk and crouch buttons. Now Shift is a dash and C attacks with your chainsaw. Appropriate. You instantly have double jump and quickly get double dash, which is useful for all the platforming that Doom Eternal introduces. I enjoyed the platforming. It looks cool, letting you take in the massive and detailed environments during the outdoor sections. It's also useful for finding secrets, of which there are many. And it gives you a breather between fights.
Combat in Doom Eternal is more of a rock-paper-scissors style than Doom, when you could effectively use any weapon against any enemy. I disliked this at first, but it grew on me. Enemies have weak points, armor, and certain weapons interact differently with them. For example, you can shoot off the Mancubus's arms and the Revenant's shoulder rocket launchers, making them much less dangerous. You can Blood Punch (a new melee ability) the Cybermancubus to destroy its armor or the tank guy to destroy its tank bottom. The plasma rifle eats through shields and will cause some of them to explode, dealing AoE damage. It's far more important now to cycle weapons, weapon mods, and special attacks.
You will die and run out of ammo far quicker in Doom Eternal, making upgrades and smart use of armor- and health-spewing abilities also more important. One new suit upgrade you get is a shoulder flamethrower, which ignites enemies and causes them to bleed armor pickups. Kill them while on fire and they drop a lot of armor. Later upgrades allow the flamethrower to quickly recharge, even more quickly if you kill an enemy that is on fire. I realized at some point that to play on higher difficulties, you need to constantly burn enemies and cycle through attacks that give you health and ammo. Easy is really forgiving, which allowed me less frustration and to experience the excellent story.
I alluded to the good story in Doom but Doom Eternal's is better still. I had no idea there was a story worth telling in the Doom universe, but damn if that wasn't a major driver of me looking everywhere for secrets. Finding and reading Codex entries was a great part of the game.
Unlike Doom, Eternal never got repetitive. It's a longer game by a decent chunk of time, and far more varied in its pacing and environments. Whereas I could predict what Doom would throw at me in its arenas, Eternal had me constantly guessing. And it threw more and more enemies at me, which is probably the one complaint I had while playing. Sometimes it's super overwhelming the amount of enemies. Sometimes they'll back you into a corner and you die because you can't jump away. Sometimes one will spawn right behind you and kill you. Sometimes you'll run out of ammo at a really bad time. I don't like that there isn't a lowly infinite ammo weapon like the pistol in Doom. Here, you have to wait for your grenade to recharge (which is unlikely to save you) or hope your Blood Punch is charged; otherwise, if you run out of ammo, you're out of luck. I mean, I understand that the game is hard and that you should learn to ration it and whatever, but it sucked to (especially early on) be put in situations that you couldn't wriggle out of.
There are, of course, new enemies, and they are doozies. The Marauder requires some Dark Souls-esque finesse in dodging and attacking when it flashes green. The Archvile (who was in old Doom games but not 2016) is back and troublesome. He buffs enemies (a new thing to deal with!), which makes them super fast and strong until you kill him. Bosses are even more epic, tough, and fun. I will very likely buy this on Steam and play it again, or play the expansions, and play online some. This is one of the best FPS games I've ever played. The last two I enjoyed nearly as much are Doom (last week...) and Titanfall 2. Top tier recommendation.
add a comment  - read this GameLog  |
|
Dec 28th, 2020 at 08:51:04 - Doom (2016) (PC) |
DOOM is back! Doom Eternal is free on Game Pass, so I grabbed this one off Steam to play first. It's sooo good. It's bloody, frenetic, and nostalgic. A million times better than Doom 3, which I liked (the only game I have bought upon release besides WoW expansions in like 20 years), but which was more of a survival horror game. I'm also trying to reconcile this with id's Wolfenstein reboot. The one way Doom reminds me of that franchise is that there's a robust "encyclopedia" with descriptions of enemies, areas, weapons, and so on. I guess I won't have to read most of that in Doom Eternal! Time-saver! But Doom is MUCH faster than Wolfenstein, which is the main difference in gameplay.
So Doom actually has narrative depth now! You are, again, the Doom Slayer, re-animated on a UAC base on Mars by the scientist in charge of UAC research. The demons previously imprisoned the Doom Slayer in Hell after his earlier exploits there, and UAC expeditions into Hell recovered him. Why was the UAC in Hell anyway? An energy crisis on Earth! Commentary on how hot it's going to get here? Hot as hell! Anyway, another scientist has gone off the deep end and made a pact with the Demons. You pursue her through the facility and Hell itself and cause much destruction in the process.
Back to gameplay. Back to the speed of the game. It's the fastest FPS I've played in memory and really does remind me of old id games, Doom obviously and maybe Quake even more. Every mechanic and piece of level design encourages movement. Demons are highly aggressive. If you stand still, you will be mauled. You sprint by default and can hold Shift to walk (though why would you?). You can also crouch with C, though I don't think there was a single time in the campaign that this was necessary. Is that control command a joke?
Combat usually takes place in arenas. You'll enter an area, you'll hear a warning ("Demonic presence unstable" or something), demons will begin warping in, and you kill them all to progress. The only criticism I have of the game is that this formula becomes repetitive. Nevertheless, once I realized this was essentially an arena shooter, I at least understood what to expect. Various pickups (health, armor, ammo) are scattered around. Here's where it gets exciting though. You've got a bunch of guns, each with one or two mods that give them special firing modes, and you have a chainsaw and eventually the BFG-9000. If you shoot an enemy enough without killing it, it will get "stunned," at which point you can perform a "glory kill" by pressing F. The Doom Slayer launches forward for a melee execution. These are wonderful. When you perform a glory kill, the enemy drops health (and later, if you get the upgrade, armor too). They may also drop ammo sometimes. This is one way the game encourages movement (and risk-taking). Getting up close and personal is dangerous but rewards you with health, which allows you to continue taking risks. It's a brilliant loop. If you run out of ammo, you can use the chainsaw. Chainsaw kills spit out a ton of ammo. Chainsaw ammo is really limited though (as is BFG ammo).
So, you're in an arena, powerups and drops are all over, you're running, jumping, switching guns, avoiding attacks and killing demons like a pro. In the first half of the game, I was thinking, "This feels too easy." Later on, the game definitely gets harder. It's not that later enemies are tougher. For example, the Baron of Hell, the last non-boss enemy you encounter, never killed me. I always saved BFG ammo and one-shotted them every time. I suppose if I had missed, I might have been in trouble. You fight so many demons that you get good at devising strategies for each. Which weapons are best? What distance is best? What are their attacks? How much health do they have? How do you handle them when they are with other demons? Etc. Summoners are pretty annoying because they are fast and teleport around the arena, but they are relatively rare. By far the most annoying enemies though are the Pinky demons and their invisible counterparts. I hated these things so much and surely died to them more than anything else. They are faster than you (so if you think you can turn and run, you are wrong) and love to charge. Shooting them head-on does nothing. You have to flank them, which means avoiding their charges first. And they often attack in twos, threes, or fours, making it even more challenging. I hated these things so much! But back to the #1 Doom rule: Keep moving.
Some weapon modifications made combat significantly easier. For example, the rocket launcher has a lock-on mode that fires three rockets at a target. This made Revenants (previously a bit challenging due to their fast movement and flying around) pretty easy to deal with. The Gauss Cannon's powerful snipe upgrade kills Mancubuses in two shots and Cybermancubuses in three or four. Since those dudes are slow, it's easy to take them out from afar. My main weapon of choice though was the shotgun with the burst mod. You get mods by finding secrets, many of which are scattered throughout each level. You can also mod your suit (boost health, armor, or ammo) and acquire passive bonuses (like increased distance at which you can perform a glory kill or increase the amount of ammo that drops) by finding and completing "rune challenges," little speedrun arenas (kill x enemies or reach this spot in x time). I found and completed most of these throughout the campaign, and the more you do, the more you can equip (I had three).
Later in the game, you encounter a few bosses, all of which are neat battles. Only one was really hard for me (the Hell Guards). I had to be patient and learn their attacks. Key to this fight is realizing that you can interrupt them. But it is still tricky to keep track of two fast-moving enemies simultaneously! The Cyberdemon I may have killed on the first attempt. He was easy. Finally, the Spider Mastermind took two tries and wasn't very hard either. When you fight bosses, quickly figure out how to get them to bleed health and ammo (usually a BFG shot). There is a lot of BFG ammo around the Spider Mastermind, so she really shouldn't be a problem. But of course, I was playing on Hurt Me Plenty (normal) and there are harder difficulties.
Doom sets itself up for a sequel, which I am just about to begin playing! I have until New Year's Day to beat it and cancel my month of Game Pass. There are a few other games on there that I want to play, but they're all longer, or I know I want to own them (e.g., Slay the Spire), so no need for a subscription. One month and I will have knocked most everything out! Nice!
add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
Dec 23rd, 2020 at 22:25:54 - Hypnospace Outlaw (PC) |
This was a really cool one that I thoroughly enjoyed until about halfway through. If you're someone who plays GTA games and finds themselves in their virtual internet cafes or on your smartphone for half your playtime browsing the in-game internet, you will love this. It's basically a simulation of a desktop computer. Also, if you spent a lot of time on the internet in the late 90s/early 2000s. That's when I was in high school and college, so Hypnospace Outlaw's recreation of that era's netspace is brilliantly nostalgic.
The premise is neat. New technology allows people to access Hypnospace (and other "sleepspaces") while they're asleep. You are hired as an "Enforcer," someone who enforces the rules of Hypnospace. No harassment, no shady business dealings, no copyright infringement, no profane or pornographic things, and so on. You basically browse the internet looking for users violating the rules. When you see something, you remove the content and can eventually flag users if they have enough violations. You get paid for each violation you catch, so there's an ethical dimension to it. Do you bust people for minor infractions and make some cash or leave them alone?
Eventually you begin getting assigned "cases" where you have to do increasingly in-depth digging to get to the bottom of various complaints and tips. One of these finally threw me hard, Case 8, where you have to find some illegal music distribution and dig into some password-protected back end of the internet. Long story short, I used a guide for help (and learned that there is an in-game hint system if you type "hint" in the search bar), and after that I just sort of read the rest of the guide and browsed some videos instead of finishing myself because the meat of what I loved about the game--browsing webpages from 1999 and banning people--was over and it became a more difficult/tedious puzzle/detective kind of game.
I would have enjoyed continuing to devour the fake content. It is so spot on for the time period and the humor gelled with me. This was the era when everyone had a personal website, but they all sucked and had dancing skeletons and glitter on them. Teens were trying to be cool and old retirees didn't know how to use page editors. Through poking around, you learn who are friends and enemies, what's going on in the world, and learn about all sorts of drama between the users and the corporation that runs Hypnospace. There is a larger story here about hackers and sleepspace technology, but I found all the smaller connections more interesting.
There are various "communities" like Teentopia, which features a "cool" teen counselor who sings songs about not doing drugs; a spiritual community; a fantasy and sci-fi community; communities for various kinds of music; a community preserving the "good old days," and so on. The music in the game is so great. They created a bunch of genres (e.g., chillpunk, haze, flip-flop) and got some genius to write a bunch of songs, some of which are really funny or really catchy. The XMAS Medley is pretty great, and most of Chowder Man's songs had me laughing. This is definitely worth spending some time in for something different.
add a comment - read this GameLog |
|
Dec 21st, 2020 at 16:46:21 - Final Fantasy XV (PC) |
Burned through this fairly quickly, though possibly the shortest FF game I've played and definitely my least favorite. I finished it in just over 40 hours and that's only because I spent forever doing side quests and exploiting the leveling system. That's a big question I have about this game. Why is it so easy to exploit the leveling system? That's the number one thing I'll remember about this in the future, that I was level 65 doing level 20 story missions, that the game actually let me do that.
I'll talk about that first because it involves a couple of the game's systems. You gain XP like any other RPG, but it doesn't affect anything until you rest. You are encouraged to rest at campsites scattered across the open world, and if not there, then at rest spots in outposts. When you rest, by default, your XP is tallied as it is, but some rest spots grant bonus XP--up to double! You find a 2x XP rest spot pretty quickly in the game. So obviously you want to rest there, right? Obviously.
When you rest at camp, one of your bros, Ignis, will cook a meal. You're encouraged to rest at camp because you can eat one of these stat-boosting meals. And these can be legitimately awesome, boosting stats by a huge chunk for a long time. You can also purchase these meals at vendors. Early on, at the chocobo farm, I found that the vendor sells a meal that increases XP gain by 50%. So obviously you want to eat this meal constantly to have this buff all the time, right? Obviously.
What this means is that I spent most of the game running (driving, really) around doing side quests with a +50% XP buff, saving up tens or hundreds of thousands of XP and then resting for 2x XP for massive level increases. For example, the last one I did I went from 48 to 63 instantaneously. 15 levels at once! And those weren't the low levels that always go fast!
What this also means is that I was supremely overpowered for the entire game. Literally the entire game. Side quests were the only challenge because I did so many that some of them kept somewhat pace with me. The story missions max out around level 55, and I think that's the closest I was (when I was in the mid-60s) except near the beginning of the game. I often took hunts (a type of "kill x of this creature" side quest) that were higher levels than me, but by the end of the game, I had like two side quests that were over 65 (and one was 99, which I didn't realize until I attempted it and almost died. Quests were never near my level, so why would I check it?!).
So one of this game's biggest flaws is how ridiculously easy it is, unless you purposefully don't use meals or XP bonuses to your advantage. Even then, it's probably still easy because, while death happens, it's rare. To die, you have to get knocked unconscious (HP to zero) and then have your "second" HP bar deplete to zero also. You will have a zillion items that you can replenish nearly anywhere and use any time in battle, so there is no reason you should ever die. I died once but it was during a timed event where I ran out of time. I never died from, you know, battle. You can also set your companions to auto heal and they will help you up if you are hurt too.
Easy as the combat is though (and as much as I wish they'd taken cues from a Soulslike game), it's a lot of fun. It's fast and flashy and combos (link strikes) with your teammates are a joy to pull off. I never really got tired of fighting, which is one reason I did so many hunts. The main character can cycle between four weapons or spells and has various gauges to monitor that allow him to do (or command teammates to do) various special attacks. Your teammates' special attacks level up as they use them and I had them mostly maxed out without any problem whatsoever (again, overpowered). My favorite thing about the combat is "warp strikes," where you launch yourself to the nearest high point and then zoom through the air to attack faraway enemies. The farther you are, the more damage you do.
My other favorite thing is the bro bonding. It's kinda cheesy but I found it endearing and heart-warming too. The game is basically a boys' road trip. You and your three best friends go off saving the world in a car. There's the smart friend, the jock friend, the goofy dork friend, and you, the emo friend. They play right into their stereotypes, are voiced really well, and play off each other well. This is one part of the game that I thought I would suffer through, but was surprised to enjoy.
Now, the larger story in which their bro trip is embedded sucks. It's disjointed, dense, and was told so poorly that I rarely knew or cared what was going on. It checks all the video game story boxes: kings and royalty, wild west, mechs, zombies, demons, magic, research and evil scientists and experiments gone wrong, a vicious imperial army, prophecies, gods, and so on. You also, in the course of it, get to attack enemy bases, customize cars, wear outfits, gather resources, and do all the modern video game things too. I think they even added a multiplayer mode, which looked like Horde mode to me. There's also DLC that apparently is the only meaningful source of character development for your bro companions.
I could take any or all of those things to pick apart, but I'll stick with the one thing that seems to define the game: driving around in the Regalia, your royal car. I both liked and disliked this. I liked that it was novel in the context of a fantasy game (this game is all about fantasy in a realistic world, which was a neat idea). I liked customizing it, even if that generally just meant buying some decals at shops or going on some item hunting quests for upgrade parts.
But talk about restrictions! At first, you can't even drive it. Ignis (smart bro) has to drive. Fine. Except he refuses to drive at night (demons come out and he's scared). Super annoying. It forces you to camp or just wait out the night. Eventually, you either level up enough or hit a story point and he lets you drive. Awesome. But he still won't let you drive at night. Stupid. Eventually, you level up enough and Ignis deems you strong enough to drive at night. This is fine, except you stop every time you see a monster. You can't drive around it (even after you upgrade the Regalia to a giant monster truck). Stupid. Eventually, you level up enough so that you can kill any monster easily enough and it's just a minor inconvenience. But Ignis STILL makes you sit through dialogue with him every single time you want to drive at night, where he makes sure you don't want to rest somewhere instead.
When Ignis drives, you can fast travel (when you drive, it's manual). Fast traveling only works if you are going between places that you have visited before and discovered their parking spots. Otherwise, you have to sit there while Ignis drives in real time. This takes on average probably 5 minutes to get somewhere. I read about 100 pages of a book over the course of this game while Ignis drove around. And folded a lot of laundry, packed for a trip, ate meals. I mean, thanks for making video game time more productive, I guess, but damn. Was that necessary? Can't I just fast travel? Or drive faster?
Maybe this says something about the game as a whole. There are a lot of neat ideas. But the implementation wasn't always on the mark. I often found myself wondering why the game wanted me to do this or that or why this or that wasn't different. In the end, I sort of wondered why I'd stuck with it and played the whole thing. I think it's because I really was having fun doing all the open world stuff, even if I did read half a book while doing so. Then around Chapter 8 or 9 (of 14), the game railroads you into linear story chapters and you are basically done with the open world with little fanfare. Why did I spend all that time leveling up?! I didn't even need 10 of those levels! I was so glad when it ended (Chapter 13 is like 5x too long) and relieved to be done. It's like all of a sudden at the very end I was like, "This game sucks!" But it was just my late-game thought. I really enjoyed most of it, weird as it was.
Recommended? Not really, unless you have to play all the Final Fantasy games.
add a comment - read this GameLog |
