Re: Games Beaten 2019
Posted: Thu Dec 26, 2019 3:35 pm
First 50:
51. Valfaris - Switch
52. Unreal: Return to Na Pali - PC
53. The Outer Worlds - PC
54. MechWarrior 4: Black Knight - PC
55. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - PC
56. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided: System Rift - PC
57. MDK - PC
58. Pokémon Sword - Switch
59. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order - PC
60. Blazing Chrome - Switch
61. MDK 2 - PC
62. Heavy Gear - PC
63. Virtual-On - Saturn
64. Virtual-On: Oratorio Tangram - DC
65. MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries - PC
66. Metaltech: Earthsiege - PC
67. Earthsiege 2 - PC
68. Cthulhu Saves Christmas - PC
69. Starsiege - PC
70. Hedon - PC
Hedon is a new FPS built using GZDoom as its engine that takes a lot of inspiration from Hexen when it comes to its level design. It's a pretty solid Doom-engine game with good weapon variety and no real bullshit enemies, though it does have some rough edges. And it ends on a major cliffhanger, basically, the ending is like the ending of Empire Strikes Back in terms of "there is OBVIOUSLY more to come and the main conflict has not been resolved."
The basic premise is that you are a half-orc half-demon woman who is involved in her orc tribe's invasion of Hell to fight back the demons, but then something happens, she gets knocked out, and wakes up in the ice caves close to her home. With no memory of what happened she needs to make her way back to town, where she discovers that everything has been overrun by a vile cult and her sisters are dead (it's an Amazon orc tribe, just roll with it). The solution to this is murder.
The game levels are quite large and intricate, with care taken to make them feel like real places (akin to what Duke 3D did). In addition to your standard key hunt every level also has some sort of key item hunt where you need to put together SOMETHING that lets you progress; this adds some variety to your tasks, even if it's basically the same thing as a key and switch hunt. One thing the game does is give you a period at the start of the level where you just explore, without any hostiles. This helps you digest the aesthetics of the level before you switch into murder mode. The whole level design is quite reminiscent of what they did in Hexen, and the levels are about the same size (though without being split into a bunch of sub maps with varying aesthetics). So the ten levels each take between half an hour and an hour to complete. The levels also have a bunch of readable notes hanging around which help tell the story.
On the weapon side you have a pretty good selection. An axe, automatic rifle, a shotgun, a crossbow that fires explosive bolts, two kinds of grenade launcher ammos, and a spear that shoots hitscan bolts that are high damage. Each of these also has an alternate fire mode, though only about half of the alt fires are useful. The game also has a melee-only difficulty that completely replaces the ranged weapons with melee weapons and has enemies drop healing potions instead of ammo. Each weapon is good against some selection of the enemies, and you'll be constantly switching things up to both balance ammo consumption and to deal with what is thrown at you.
There are a few rough edges. The game takes advantage of the jump button added to basically every Doom source port to add in jumping sections which are very hit and miss. It's especially bad when you're platforming over lava or pits. The game also has a very mixed aesthetic; while the terrain is your standard Doom engine low-res textures all the sprites are a much higher resolution which makes them stand out in an unflattering way. The art for the sprites is competently drawn; it's basically the dev's DeviantArt made into a video game with pixel size limitations, so it can only be so good. Finally, and this is mostly a personal pet peeve of mine, there are sections where the game goes for the "let's just keep spawning shit for minutes on end" arena to punctuate certain moments. It's an excuse to wear the player down through cheap damage and the obvious ammo use.
On the whole it's a very solid retro FPS experience. If you're a fan of old FPSs this is another worthy addition to go with the general bounty we've gotten over the last couple years.
51. Valfaris - Switch
52. Unreal: Return to Na Pali - PC
53. The Outer Worlds - PC
54. MechWarrior 4: Black Knight - PC
55. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - PC
56. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided: System Rift - PC
57. MDK - PC
58. Pokémon Sword - Switch
59. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order - PC
60. Blazing Chrome - Switch
61. MDK 2 - PC
62. Heavy Gear - PC
63. Virtual-On - Saturn
64. Virtual-On: Oratorio Tangram - DC
65. MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries - PC
66. Metaltech: Earthsiege - PC
67. Earthsiege 2 - PC
68. Cthulhu Saves Christmas - PC
69. Starsiege - PC
70. Hedon - PC
Hedon is a new FPS built using GZDoom as its engine that takes a lot of inspiration from Hexen when it comes to its level design. It's a pretty solid Doom-engine game with good weapon variety and no real bullshit enemies, though it does have some rough edges. And it ends on a major cliffhanger, basically, the ending is like the ending of Empire Strikes Back in terms of "there is OBVIOUSLY more to come and the main conflict has not been resolved."
The basic premise is that you are a half-orc half-demon woman who is involved in her orc tribe's invasion of Hell to fight back the demons, but then something happens, she gets knocked out, and wakes up in the ice caves close to her home. With no memory of what happened she needs to make her way back to town, where she discovers that everything has been overrun by a vile cult and her sisters are dead (it's an Amazon orc tribe, just roll with it). The solution to this is murder.
The game levels are quite large and intricate, with care taken to make them feel like real places (akin to what Duke 3D did). In addition to your standard key hunt every level also has some sort of key item hunt where you need to put together SOMETHING that lets you progress; this adds some variety to your tasks, even if it's basically the same thing as a key and switch hunt. One thing the game does is give you a period at the start of the level where you just explore, without any hostiles. This helps you digest the aesthetics of the level before you switch into murder mode. The whole level design is quite reminiscent of what they did in Hexen, and the levels are about the same size (though without being split into a bunch of sub maps with varying aesthetics). So the ten levels each take between half an hour and an hour to complete. The levels also have a bunch of readable notes hanging around which help tell the story.
On the weapon side you have a pretty good selection. An axe, automatic rifle, a shotgun, a crossbow that fires explosive bolts, two kinds of grenade launcher ammos, and a spear that shoots hitscan bolts that are high damage. Each of these also has an alternate fire mode, though only about half of the alt fires are useful. The game also has a melee-only difficulty that completely replaces the ranged weapons with melee weapons and has enemies drop healing potions instead of ammo. Each weapon is good against some selection of the enemies, and you'll be constantly switching things up to both balance ammo consumption and to deal with what is thrown at you.
There are a few rough edges. The game takes advantage of the jump button added to basically every Doom source port to add in jumping sections which are very hit and miss. It's especially bad when you're platforming over lava or pits. The game also has a very mixed aesthetic; while the terrain is your standard Doom engine low-res textures all the sprites are a much higher resolution which makes them stand out in an unflattering way. The art for the sprites is competently drawn; it's basically the dev's DeviantArt made into a video game with pixel size limitations, so it can only be so good. Finally, and this is mostly a personal pet peeve of mine, there are sections where the game goes for the "let's just keep spawning shit for minutes on end" arena to punctuate certain moments. It's an excuse to wear the player down through cheap damage and the obvious ammo use.
On the whole it's a very solid retro FPS experience. If you're a fan of old FPSs this is another worthy addition to go with the general bounty we've gotten over the last couple years.