Recent reviews by Gim

Overall, it's a fun platformer with some neat ideas that, for me at least, was worth the $30 price tag. I give it a 4/5.

The original version of this game was one that I played a lot when I was younger. I love the original but it wasn't without its fair share of issues, which I am happy to say this remake not only fixed but went above and beyond with.

Controls are buttery smooth and no longer come with some of the peculiar elements of the original (short jumps off of helipads, picky moving platforms causing pac-man to slide off, general ledge grab wonkiness, etc.). I have two complaints, though. The first is that Pac-man no longer maintains momentum in his movement. This was something I could overlook until the Funhouse, where those physics were a key part of the platforming challenge in most of the stages. The second is the pause before a butt-bounce. Bouncing around the original was a lot of fun and it sucks to see it kill the flow of movement to the point of slowing the player down and even making ricocheting between bounce pads significantly less enjoyable.

The biggest improvements come to the bosses. Anubis Rex was borderline unplayable in the original and King Galaxian was enough to give you carpal tunnel, but both have been updated and changed to not only be playable but enjoyable and generally more interesting. The same can be said about all the bosses in the game, these are simply the two largest examples for me.

Some will be disappointed that the music features no remakes but I am more than satisfied with the uncompressed versions of the original soundtrack. The Space world has never sounded better.

Visuals are nice and clean but I am a sucker for the PS1 aesthetic so I can hardly be unbiased. I still prefer the chunky look of the original and while having a retro mode with the old style graphics would have been nice, I think that may be asking too much for a $30 remake of game that I never thought would see the light of day again to begin with.

Here's to hoping for a Pac-Man World 2 remake!

I played this release immediately after marathoning the Megaton Edition to get myself hyped for the new episode but after loading into LA Meltdown, the input delay immediately soured my impressions of this redux. And yes, it stops if you turn off V-Sync but then you get visual bugs and/or audio popping. On top of this, things like cycling through weapons with the mouse wheel became a massive pain in the ass.

While it's nice that they redubbed Duke's lines, all the other audio is still the old bitcrushed stuff and sounds horribly out of place on top of just being delivered poorly. The new visuals kind of ruin the experience for me since I'm a fan of the older style but the game is nice enough to allow you to pick between duke-isms and graphical styles.

It's too bad that the game actually plays like ♥♥♥♥ when there's so much effort in all the other areas, it makes me real hesitant to play the new content. Speaking of content, it's also unfortunate that the 3 expansions included in the Megaton Edition are not paired with this game, Life is a Beach was standout.

If you really want to play Duke, I'd hunt down a key for the Atomic Edition. It's a lot cheaper than the Megaton Edition. All you're missing are the 3 expansions, of which only Life is a Beach is good.

Stay away from this version.

Finally fully finished a run of this game so I am now able to give a complete rundown of the game.

This game takes the normal formula of an XCOM game and twists it to fit the guerilla warfare style of the story. While this is refreshing and forces to player to play far more offensively and aggressively there are some issues in doing so that I feel were not ironed out before launch as was left up to the modding community to fix.

Story:
The story opens with the Commander being rescued by his old advisor and reveals that Enemy Unknown/Within never happened at all and that it was a series of simulations done by the aliens immediately following the instant surrender of Earth after they captured the Commander. The story continues to unfold with the game and the decisions of the player but every so often key parts of the story open up and show that the aliens are actually doing bad things to humanity rather than actually helping them and culminates on a final assualt.
A lot of people had a problem with how the first game was relegated to simulations but I find that outcome not only logical but hilarious considering that only 10% of people even beat Enemy Unknown at all with how easy that game is. My problem is that the stance of the aliens is barely explored at all throughout the game and only does get explored on the final mission.

Gameplay:
The gameplay is still the same at its core as it was in Enemy Unknown but with added features and elements. The main feature added is the Concealment mode. This allows your team to move around without enemies heatseeking them until you open fire or enter their field of view, which in turn allows you to set up an ambush.
Along with concealment, some new features were added along with some new goodies, too. A lot of classes have been reworked from EU and gun attachments that augment how a specific soldier operates and new explosives and armor have been added as well. The main problem with the gameplay is how Concealment works logically with some of the timer missions. Why would they rig their own supplies to explode when they don't even know that XCOM is in the area?

Graphics and Performance:
This is where the game really falls apart. While the game as a whole looks pretty good, it performs like absolute ♥♥♥♥. With a 970 memecard, I was getting huge frame issues on max settings even after the patch. Turning off ambient occlusion and reducing AA to FXAA helped a lot but there were still issues that caused it to dip into the 40s after turning off some partical effects as well.

Audio and Music:
The music is still roughly the same as it was in EU but sounds a lot more triumphant upon a victory than before, mainly due to being a tiny rebel force fighting a huge alien force that has the planet in its grasp. The audio is about as standard as it gets but voiceovers can NOT be skipped and during retaliation missions, Bradford never shuts up and continues to repeat the same unskippable dialogue over and over each turn.

Other:
There isn't much else to talk about aside from the modding community. While Firaxis left a lot of issues in the vanilla game, they made modding tools very open and acceisble to the community and they have done wonders for this game. From adding small aesthetic mods to full blown mods changing how Concealment and timers work, the modders have done good work and have effectively fixed all the issues of the game. This does not excuse Firaxis for releasing the game in the state it was, but it allows players to easily change the game to either their liking or just enough to fix some issues they have with some game mechanics. Keep it up, mod community. You guys do good work.

Epilogue/tl;dr:
Even with all the graphical and gameplay issues, the game is still solid and adds a great deal more content to play with and against and any issue a player might have with the game can be fixed with the click of a button in the workshop.
WARNING: Adding a mod to a campaign and then removing it and attempting to continue playing will result in an error and bypassing that error may result the campaign corrupting or becoming unplayable.

I give this game a solid 8/10 and recommend it to anyone who is a fan of XCOM, new or old, or strategy games in the vein of XCOM in general and would recommend those that aren't to at least give it a good shot.

good