Recent reviews by blake++

I've played through all campaigns and gotten the full SW:RC experience. The reason it shows it as 1 hour on steam is because the widescreen fix that's available doesn't work with Steam (it uses a different .exe to launch).

As for the game itself, it's a good bit of fun. Obviously, it doesn't hold up like it did back when it came out. There are quite a few issues I have with it:
- Most environments are purely visual and don't offer any sort of different tactical experience (except for the solo levels, that was pretty interesting
- The squad command system is easily mastered and fully experienced within an hour instead of evolving over the course of the game
- All of the characters are very one-note and not interesting at all; I was hoping for them to grow and evolve as characters
- The only difficulty you should play this game on is hard; for a 2005 game, the "Hard" difficulty was incredibly easy
- The final level is underwhelming and what happens is just plain blue balls
- AI sometimes takes a mind of its own (eg reviving teammates on their own). It hurts the experience that you aren't commanding them to do so at all times, but it works for the characters and their strong ties
Some positives:
- Weapon swapping for your main arsenal is extremely cool
- Character designs work well for what they are
- Extra weapons from different species are often extremely useful
- Ammo is just the right amount of limited, forcing you to use different weapons and save certain kinds of ammo as much as you can
- Health refills are plentiful
- Enemies are interesting and varied

All in all, I would say it's worth a buy on a very good sale. If you're a Star Wars fan and played this as a kid, this is a great trip down memory lane that still barely holds its own. If you're not a Star Wars fan (like me), this is a decent game to pass the time with while playing a beloved classic so you can bond about it with others or just revisit it from your childhood.
This game definitely deserves a REMAKE (not a remaster), focusing on fleshing out all the mechanics and forming this game into what it could've been. Or a sequel just doing all that would be fine too I guess.

Well, I finished Doom Eternal on Nightmare (hardest difficulty that isn't deathless) plus all the DLC and Slayer Gates. Here's my review on everything:

Gameplay
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Doom Eternal is the pinnacle of FPS combat. It's a game that truly tries seasoned veterans of the genre and forces them to adapt and survive, while providing intense adrenaline rushes and feeling like an arena shooter. It's extremely punishing and extremely rewarding.
Eternal encourages using your entire arsenal in-game with its cast of enemies and their design, as well as the arenas. Certain enemies have certain weaknesses to certain weapons, which promotes you switching weapons all the time to do insane weapon combos to take out tough enemies. Minus a couple weapon mods (which they manage to make useful in the DLC), everything has a specific place and purpose. That's not to say that the base gameplay loop is repetitive with you using the same tool for every job when you fight a specific enemy. There's not only one way to take out every enemy in Doom Eternal. Proof of this can be found in some of the super skilled players that you can find on YouTube (and some videos discussing the topic can be found at Under The Mayo's channel).
Enemies are varied, with intelligent AI on every single one of them as well as insane damage. Even base fodder can kill you in two to three hits. However, the game gives you all the tools necessary to dispose of said enemies as well as dodge and avoid them.
Arenas are designed purposefully, encouraging movement by providing open or closed areas with several chokepoints. Combined with the enemy AI, every arena is turned into an extremely tense firefight and chase sequence while you attempt to dodge and weave while slowly chipping away at the horde.
In between arenas, there are frequently platforming sections that try to help you practice your platforming skills in preparations for use in arenas. Most of these are relatively easy to figure out and understand. A lot of people don't like these sections, but they're really not a bother and enhance Doom Eternal overall.
Sometimes, there are sections that serve more as just pure ambience or introductions to levels. They set the mood well while providing beautiful, inventive, and varied landscapes.

In Eternal, checkpoints are often and between each arena, and provided you have an SSD, loading times are fast so dying every time isn't that big of a deal. I wish there could be no loading screen at all, but I really can't complain when the game runs so well.
There are secrets to find all over, including lore, toys, cheat codes, etc, which are all viewable in your home base, the Fortress of Doom. In case you miss some earlier in the level, at the end of every level, you can Fast Travel to certain sections of the maps to grab any secrets you may have missed.
As well as guns you gain over time in Eternal's story, you are also able to gain skill points and runes to have passive or active abilities both on Doomguy and your weapons to improve your demon-slaying capabilities. These are earned by completing battles, both in the main story, secret encounters, and Slayer Gates (optional super hard arenas). You can also "master" weapons by completing a challenge. You will unlock a certain ability by doing it, ranging from extremely useful to the point of it becoming a regular part of your combos to having little impact on your overall playstyle. (The ones that really matter are usually pretty easy though).
The map system from 2016's Doom is improved upon drastically by becoming clearer and easier to navigate. I use it regularly and it Just Werks­™.
Tutorials are often shoved in your face to explain how enemies work and how to defeat them, as well as weakpoints. While this is good sometimes, it's not good all the time. I suggest keeping the tutorials off for everything past the first half of the base game, and referring to your codex should you need it.

Overall, the core gameplay loop of Doom Eternal, as well as the extra systems, are all purposefully designed to add to the experience through the use of maps, weapons, enemies, etc. You can feel yourself becoming more powerful and deadly over time. It's very satisfying, but takes a minute to get most of the arsenal and really get into what Eternal is about.

Music
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In case you don't know, Doom is a series famed for its legendary soundtracks, even moreso now with the introduction of Lead Composer Mick Gordon in 2016's Doom. Mick Gordon combines EDM, heavy metal, throat singing, and a bunch of other genres that I'm too stupid to understand to create another legendary soundtrack. While I would argue that 2016's Doom has a better overall soundtrack, Eternal has some highlights and still holds up on its own very well. Both enhance the gameplay by making you feel like a total badass and adding to the scene, which is really all you could ask for.

Graphics
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This game is one of the most gorgeous games I've played, and it runs like butter even WITH raytracing on. I never get dropped frames, I never get lagged out, and it's just perfect. The artstyle works really well, and enemy designs are thematically appropriate but distinct, so you know what you're fighting when you try and go for an enemy.
Some of the skyboxes are the most awe-inspiring things I've ever seen. The sheer scope and scale Doom Eternal is able to convey is staggering, and I commend the art team and developers for being able to create something so beautiful that runs on potato hardware.

Story
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Story is not important to me in a Doom game. If you're interested in that, there are codex pages you can pick up which explain the lore as well as in-game cutscenes and the occasional narration by friend or foe. What matters to me is that it creates badass scenarios, and it definitely delivers.
There are a couple over-the-top moments that make you cringe a tiny bit, but they're not that bad. You're able to feel like an absolute badass but not the Shadow the Edgehog kind.

Replayability
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Has a good bit of replayability IMO, but it's not something I want to replay. I got what I wanted out of Doom Eternal, and I want nothing more. If you want to play more though, there are community rulesets, apparently there are campaign mods, Master Levels (aka current levels that are officially remixed with different enemies to be extra challenging), and the base game with cheat codes and different difficulties.


A couple things to keep in mind if you decide to play:
1) If you play FPSes regularly enough to think of yourself as somewhat decent, you need to try Nightmare difficulty. It is the best way to play Doom Eternal.
2) Experiment. Try weird things out that you think might work. It could elevate your gameplay.
3) The Marauder isn't badly designed.

Overall, I wholeheartedly recommend this game. At full price? Sure. But it goes on sale so often that you'd be shooting yourself in the foot by not waiting for a sale.
I had fun, and I hope you do too.

Well, 2-3 years after buying it, I finally beat Doom 2016.
At first, I was really turned off by this game and its slow start. You don't have that many movement options, and your arsenal is quite limited. However, as you progress along, you gain access to more and more weapons, movement options, runes that modify your character's loadouts, etc. At a certain point, I realized that I was having WAY too much fun.
It's really just a solid FPS that takes a bit to get into its own groove (which no one told me about). Once you get there though, it is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ glorious. I even found myself being able to use every weapon (even the starting pistol) for its own niche use. While not as combo-y as something like ULTRAKILL, you will find yourself comboing together weapons as weapon mods often have cooldowns.

Couple things I was annoyed about:
Cacodemons do an insane amount of damage at close-range. I'll do a glory kill to get health back, and a cacodemon will kill me before I can get up. I suppose it's my own fault, but it'd be preferred if they waited a second after your glory kill before killing you.
The bum-rush ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ have a weak spot on their tail that makes them way easier to kill. This was not choreographed well in their design. Brighter visuals on the tail (like glowing green spots) would've done wonders to help me notice that this was the case. I didn't notice it until the final area of the game.
Some of the fights near the end of the game come in waves, where there will be an easy first wave and a harder second wave. A couple of times the first wave would last too long, so if you died you had to slog through the easy section again. It's not that big of a deal, but it's definitely mildly annoying.

I beat the game on Ultra-Violence, which is a great difficulty for those not experienced with Doom but well-experienced in other FPSes.
Definitely pick this up when it goes on sale.

Terrible controls for Valve Index Knuckles. I know it doesn't say it on the store page, but I got this game for free. So just so you know, the Knuckles don't really work with this game.

Truly the superior way to experience the original Half Life. A must have for any Half Life fan. Xen is gorgeously redone and features some awesome reworks to specific fights and sections. The rest of the game has been given a complete visual overhaul, along with streamlining some segments or improving others. And don't worry; they ARE improvements. You can tell how much care and passion was put into this project.
I played on Hard, which wasn't actually THAT bad. Bosses are a bit tanky, but regular enemies are fine. Also, if you buy this near the time this review has come out, be sure to use the public beta, as it improves some sections. I only experienced crashing two times in Xen, and since the game has good saving mechanics, I didn't lose much progress (if any) each time.
Get it at full price, and DEFINITELY get it if it's on sale.

I am quite the newbie to rally driving, and I have only driven a manual once in my life. That being said, art of rally taught me more about how to properly use cars and the differences between them than Dirt Rally 2.0 did. It may look easy, but it is quite difficult in reality. I can't comment on how the physics are compared to real life, but every car has real weight to it, and it feels good to go around corners. While I'm no expert racer yet, I think art of rally is excellent for bridging that gap and helping you learn. The career mode is quite fun as it takes you through the years of rally, forcing you to drive different years of cars on various tracks. Free roam has collectibles, which allow you to explore the tracks you've been on in their full form and unlock new free roam tracks. There's a global leaderboard as well. All in all, I would recommend this game at full price, and if it goes on sale, there is little reason to not buy it if you are a rally fan, or someone trying to get into rally.

This is THE current AAA VR experience. It has great gunplay with some decent fighting, but is mainly centered around methodical exploration. It is a must to play Half Life 2 and EPs 1 and 2 before you play this. Awesome physics with plenty of cool set pieces, interesting puzzles, and high octane moments. Also a pretty good soundtrack. The main downside is that it isn't longer, but you have community made maps if you want more. All in all, if you play VR, you NEED to play this game.

This game was recommended to me by a friend who knows I like Hotline Miami 1 and 2. I have 100% both of those games, and consider them to be my favorite games of all time. When I initially played through the game, I loved its story and atmosphere. While lightweight in amount of gameplay (normal mode story took me 3.5 hours), it was a gripping tale with distinct characters and excellent storytelling. Your choices feel like they matter, and I found myself immersed in the swordsman's role.
It also has a pretty good soundtrack. I didn't find it anything to write home about, but it was pretty good and had some awesome tracks I'll definitely be listening to again in the future.
HOWEVER, I have quite a few problems with the gameplay.

* Normal mode is far too easy; with experience in fast-paced games like HM1, HM2, ULTRAKILL, etc, I found I had to limit myself by not using the time shift mechanic unless a part was too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to avoid (eg machine gunner fires at you in a narrow hallway, you can spam click and get lucky or just use time shift). Turning down screenshake or hitpause doesn't make it much harder. (And no, I did not use it on a single boss)
* Rewind tapes showing you exactly what you did. You cannot turn this off until after unlocking speedrun mode. I can understand if someone wanted to view what they did in real time since they abused the timestop mechanic, but it's incredibly annoying for someone who doesn't use it. The "Skip Rewind" option never did anything for me. In fact, I don't know what that option even does.
* Left click to begin playing. Why is this a feature? Just show the title of the level and then let me play. It's super duper minor, but just a small annoyance.
* The game is really freaking short. Kinda weird. I took my time with the cutscenes. I could not imagine buying this at full price, especially when the story is not even over.
* Horrible obviously reused geometry (this resulted in intense frustration on hardmode)[i.imgur.com]
* You need to mash to get up. (I'm 99% sure this is a thing, I get up way faster when mashing). Why. The. EVERLIVING ♥♥♥♥. IS THIS A MECHANIC?
* Terrible key rebinding. I played this game with a keyboard and mouse. You cannot unbind roll from S + A/D, which results in constant misinputs if you use roll regularly on another key (like I did on E)
* Rolling picks up items (WHY?)
* Insane default controls (Is this supposed to be played with controller?)
* Inconsistent AI (cocking a shotgun would sometimes alert another enemy in another room, and other times would not)
* AI changing pathing randomly in normal mode (it doesn't line up with story; Chronos literally allows you to see how something will play out, enemies moving in random patterns does not make any ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sense)

I originally thought this game was quite good, but as I started a hard mode playthrough in search of some difficulty spike, these issues became quite pronounced. Levels were less about pure skill and were more about memorizing what inputs to do because of dumb mechanics as I explained above. I did not use time shift here either, and I actually found turning off hitpause and screenshake made the game easier.

Since I said I loved HM2, you're probably wondering why I love that game and not this game, since this game is much more well received than HM2. HM2's main issue is offscreen enemies and wide open spaces resulting in the game being unfair. However, I do not mind this unfairness as it doesn't relate to the things such as keybindings; the game is designed to be unfair. I do not mind trial and erroring my way through HM2, forcing to think on the fly if I stray from a plan or unexpected enemy pathing occurs. However, with Katana Zero's issues, most of the fault relies on the game having these issues rather than the player. It's not that I can't mash to get up, or can't deal with rolling being forcefully bound to S + A/D, or can't deal with rolling picking up items, it's just that I don't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ want to.
Because I feel this way, I cannot recommend this game.

ULTRAKILL. Devil May Quake. Need I say more?
...
Well, that would probably be a good idea.

ULTRAKILL is a hardcore super-fast FPS somewhat similar to Doom Eternal. It focuses on very fast gameplay, twitch shooting, good aim, weapon combos, etc. ULTRAKILL leans more into the combo system though, by literally including a DMC-esque combo meter, for doing specific tech and tricks.
It will feature 3 total acts, a prelude which is playable in the demo, and three ultra-difficult side bosses, and a infinite wave-based mode called Cybergrind. At the time of writing, the Prelude, Act 1, and one ultra-difficult boss is available. Getting a "Perfect" rank on all of these levels, as well as getting all secrets and doing all challenges took me 18 hours.

MOVEMENT
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Coming from a background of bunnyhop, I can say that I very much enjoyed this game's movement. You have a jump, 3 consecutive walljumps, three rechargeable dashes, explosion boost mechanics, ground pound, and tech for all of these moves that adds complexity to the gorgeous movement system.
And the best part? It's all intentional by the dev. Yes, hidden tech to exploit the movement system is encouraged by the dev (to a degree of course, he'll probably patch something that breaks the whole game).
There's a ton of nuance here, and it all feels so good to work with. I'd consider it better than Doom Eternal's movement system.

GUNPLAY
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All the guns and fists (no I will NOT explain) work together in harmony to encourage you to swap weapons all the time during combat to avoid waiting for cooldowns. It's similar to Doom Eternal (this review will feature a lot of Doom Eternal comparisons), but in this game you have unlimited ammo.
There are alternate weapons, alternate fire modes, alternate weapon modes, and they all manage to feel unique and purposeful while remaining simple, which is NOT an easy feat by any means.
I wish I had more to say, but they're just really good. My only complaint would be that the nailgun really just isn't as useful as the other weapons, but I still find myself using it quite a bit.

MAP DESIGN
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It's really solid. Lots of tight arenas encouraging you to soak up that sweet blood and absolutely eviscerate your enemies. Sometimes it opens up, other times it closes up. It's a varied combat experience, that along with the movement, allows for a lot of player experimentation and freedom. No complaints.

MUSIC
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Hakita (the developer) has some stellar taste in music. ULTRAKILL is populated by breakcore beats, blending together with a mix of heavy metal, classical, and noise music. I'm no music expert, so just look up the soundtrack and take a listen for yourself if you're smarter than me.
But needless to say, it sounds ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazing. It's really well done and varied without losing its cohesive style. It complements the combat perfectly.
My only complaint is that it's still not on Spotify. What the ♥♥♥♥ Hakita?

STORY
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Mankind? Dead.
Blood? Fuel.
Hell? Full.
For ULTRAKILL, that's all you really need to know. As you go along, there's more lore to uncover, mostly given through text-based terminals and scraps of dialogue from bosses. However, it takes a backseat to the actual game. No cutscenes at all here, unlike Doom Eternal. It's a "there if you want it" type thing, and I am all here for it.

MISC
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ULTRAKILL is packed with tons of easter eggs and secrets that make it a joy to play through, as well as secret missions which literally (extremely light spoiler talking about the nature of secret missions) are just missions that are genre-shifts. For example, one is a horror mission.

There are hidden extra bosses, jokes, secret goodies, etc. Exploring these tight arenas feels really rewarding.

There are plenty of settings to fine tune the game to your liking, including HUD customization, weapon position changing, PlayStation graphics sliders, etc.

CONCLUSION
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For an early access game, ULTRAKILL is jam-packed with so much amazing stuff that you'll be craving the next update by the time you're finished. Well worth the $20 already.
Play the demo. I won't need to tell you to buy the game, cuz you'll already do it after playing that demo.

This game is the very first game you should buy on Steam. Above all else. It is an orgasmic 2D RPG sandbox experience that looks great and plays great, with a great difficulty curve. For $10, I can promise you you will get more than your money's worth.