Recent reviews by Traumaturgy

Maybe it was good many years ago, but for today standards its very bad and annoying.

I dont think I like it. Im not a fan of roguelikes truth told, because they all feel like grind. But because its a shooter I wanted to give it a try. Unfortunetely this feels exactly the same and becomes boring quite fast.
It has some cool moments, some awesome weapons etc. But at the same time game can be very frustrating, if you dont get any decent weapons. Some enemies are borderline broken if you dont have top tier OP weapons. Some of these levels just cannot be done with tools provided (like levels with red crystals (sometimes elite- armored) that summon other enemies, have like million of hp- enjoy fighting them with white pistol or whip).
On the other hand if you get good weapon like grenade/rocket launcher with cool affixes and its a breeze. I know its RNGesus will, but still i dont like gameplay that is so utterly unbalanced.
Played to world 3 and I dont have any incentive to continue. Levels feel samey, random events are annoying. Id rather play another 'normal' not randomised boomer shooter.

I almost finished 2 acts, but it didnt grab me so I uninstalled.
Menus are ugly, saving/loading is so slow it just discourages you from playing. Choosing weapons/items is cumbersome and clunky. Ammo (durability) is so low that literally after 3 enemies your bastard sword is useless. Enemies are spongy, and gameplay feels slow and floating, maybe its technical issue with performance or fps, but it just doesnt feel good and crisp like shooter should.
Another problem is either with hit detection, or randomness of weapons. Sometimes you kill basic enemy with one headshot throw of axe, but sometimes you need 3 or 4 for the same enemy. Why is that? And when your limit of throwing axes is like 9 its a problem.
Difficulty is also strange, on normal it feels really tough, while on easy its trivial. Balance is off.
Overall game is kinda boring and bland, there are no cool enemies, no cool environments, levels just drag on.
I dont know, it just didnt work for me.

I wrote a negative review after hour of play, but I felt it wasnt fair, so I played more. Now I have over 9 hours, I ended act 1 so I can review it again. Sadly after getting a bunch of fresh quests with no direction, and having to backtrack the same areas for 15th time I just lost desire to play and cant give it positive score.
There is a good game hidden somewhere there, but its unfinished and dragged down by so many strange design decisions and bugs it baffles me.

PROS:
- Atmosphere is great
- Hitting zombies with enhanced staff to make them fly is cool, and exploding enemies are always fun

CONS:
- no map (its not game breaking, you can play without map, but quest descriptions are so vague (no quest markers either) that you dont know where to go and what to do most of the time, which is very annoying and tiresome)
- no save system (after quitting you start at hub and have to backtrack, which wastes your time)
- identity crisis (game wants to be exploration game with riddles like Hexen2, but also fast arena shooter like new Doom, and it has elements from souls/metroidvanias like respawning enemies, losing currency on death, tools that open areas- this mix while awesome on paper doesnt work here very well)
- total lack of balance, some enemies are spongy and/or very fast for how bad your weapons are, and how slow and clunky you are, also game throws more and more of them, by the end of chapter 1 there are so many high tier enemies in already visited areas its really hard to kill them all. Game doesnt give you required tools- you are slow and ammo is scarce and it ends fast (and its on normal difficulty). Its better just to run past enemies than fight
- game feels clunky
- tons of bugs- like floating items, items from chests spawning on terrain, sometimes impossible to get
- to jump higher you have to crouch mid air- im a boomer so i get it, but why is it present in this game? its 2024, not 1997
- annoying restrictions- like stamina (in fast paced shooter? with a lot of backtracking required), or inventory (if I have 2 main weapons, arm crossbow, staff, spell book and health potion, I cant use mana potion [even from menu], because I dont have space on my belt, so I have to drag it from inventory to belt and then use- WTF, its pure nonsense and waste of time)
- overall game feels quite messy with its lack of focus and direction, and really unfinished, with hints of scrapped ideas everywhere (rpg sheet). I heard act 2 is much smaller than act 1 (like half of it), and act 3 is barebones. I suspect they put 1.0 version on it because they dont want to spend more resources on it. So lets say its finished and move along.

Some of these flaws can be fixed by patches I guess, some unfortunately either cant be fixed or require months of hard work. My prediction- its not gonna happen.
I cant recommend this game. Better play something else, something finished and fun.
I wanted to love Graven, but I dont even like it.

I dont even start about 3DR situation. They are extremely untrustworthy, with many projects started, that probably will never be finished, or be 'finished' in sorry state like Graven here. I put them and Slipgate on my black list.
They taught me well to not buy any Early Access games ever again.

DRM snuck into single player game? Get lost capcom

Lately was replaying some old shooters with mods etc. (Quake 2 remake, Real RtCW, Wolf2009) and tried Q4, i just couldnt get into this. I played it as a kid but didnt like it then and i still dont like it now. I know why- boring levels, spongy enemies, weak weapons, bad sound design, and all this 'squad' gameplay which is errand-boy go there do that. No atmosphere of loneliness.
I dont recommend this one, worst in Quake series.

Another awesome classic from the past, this time with enhanced graphics as a free update, and version of Quake II 64 (which actually is pretty good and worth playing).
It also contains 2 official add-ons (which werent made by ID and maybe thats the reason they were not very good tbh, with a lot of sponge enemies or super annoying turrets) and mappack Call of machine (pretty bad with uninspired level design, lack of sf atmosphere and many tanky enemies which is a slog to play). So these are imo worth playing only for hardcore fans, the rest can skip them.
But main Q2 game and 64 version are well worth the buy, or replaying on modern PC. These game never gets old and is fun as it was 25 years ago. Recommended.

Underrated, but imo one of best souls-like out there. It takes place in space station orbiting near black hole. There is this strange atmosphere of ancient secrets of dark space, loneliness and horror. Level outside station is dark space in astronaut suit is awesome.
Mechanically its as close to DS as it could be. + mechanic of jumping.
Recommended for fans of Souls and SF.

Great game, Emperor approves!

pros:
- 40k
- bolter is awesome
- killing heretics and demons
- just pure fun
- awesome graphics and tons of gore
- you feel tanky and at the same time agile, like true SM
- no mtx, season passes and modern politics
- killing tons of heretics

cons:
- sometimes you seek exit for too long, maybe map or directional marker could be added? or some distinct visual clues, some corridors look the same in every direction and there are moments in chapter 1 its easy to get lost
- reused bosses
- why Blue boys again? give us someone else, there are so many cool chapters
- i tend to waste my best green grenade on weak enemies :(
- no permanent weapon upgrades

Overall- I strongly recommend, its pure fun and cons are small and negligible. Emperor would be proud.

Really cool game. It took me about 3hrs, but i didnt rush. Enjoyable experience. I hope for expansions or player made content.