Keeping the thread alive again by saying that I finally got my hands on Astro Bot on PS5 and even though I'm only an hour in, so far it's looking to be the best platformer and best Playstation First Party game since Sackboy: A Big Adventure. I'm absolutely on board the hype train now for this game. This features some of the sickest if not best physics simulation I've ever seen in a game that rivals Half-Life 2 but times a million. The Dualsense Features are very nice, the music is excellent, the graphics pop out and are vibrant, there's tons of callbacks if you're a big Playstation fan and just overall the gameplay, level design, power ups, worlds, boss fights, controls EVERYTHING in this game rules so far. If I had to nitpick it might be that potentially it may get tiresome using the Dualsense features over a longer period of play, but even then this is quickly becoming one of the best games of this console/game generation. Can't wait to play more.

It's time again to see how our gaming month was.

I actually had a pretty good month altogether. It would have been perfect if I didn't have one bad game in the mix, but it might be the best month in general of quality games that I've played.

Doom - 1993 (PC, 08/12, 10/10 - BEST/GOTY CONTENDER)
Forza Horizon 3 - (PC, REPLAY, 08/16, 8/10)
Cat Quest (PS4, 08/25, 8/10)
Kirby's Dream Land (NSO, 08/26, 7/10)
Severed Steel (PC, 08/27, 5/10 - WORST)

From bottom to top, Severed Steel felt like another soulless indie shooter that wants to copycat/be a clone of better games I could be playing right now. Take F.E.A.R, Titanfall 2 and other games that came after it like Shadow Warrior 3, Trepang2 and Turbo Overkill and you have this generic neon sludge of a game that's competent, but truly feels boring and lifeless. I don't have much to say about it tbh mainly because it's such a dull experience.

Okay, enough of that though. Everything else this month turned out much better. Kirby's Dream Land was pretty good and I found it to actually set a lot of the foundations of modern Kirby games despite the lack of Copy Abilities. But it made the bosses and fighting enemies so much more interesting by having to inhale things and then spit them out at enemies. Graphically there's lots that needed to be improved and I think by the time Kirby found his way to the SNES we did get what I felt was the classic Kirby look. The Super Star game might have remade this title, but trust me, the GB version differentiates A LOT from the Spring Breeze game on that package. It's certainly worth playing and it's not too long, only five levels total with the final being a boss rush.

Cat Quest was one of the highlights of my month. Again, thank you to Siver and Not_Conner for the recommendation, this turned out to be a very engaging and funny parody of the RPG genre withs tons of punny jokes and great satirical humor not to mention simple action gameplay that really gets interesting the more you level up. Graphically the NPCs leave lots to be desired but the game overall actually was wonderful. The side quests were awesome and the story at the end had some great twists that I certainly wasn't expecting. Getting the platinum trophy for this game though was tedious and required loads of XP Farming so I'm not really sure if I'm going to platinum the other two games. Maybe I will if I play coop with my sister.

And I replayed Forza Horizon 3 again. I'm shocked servers for this game are still up especially with how quickly they dropped servers for FH2. I will admit the game has too many moments where you'll be doing a PR Stunt and your score will get pissed on by a random car that comes out of nowhere meaning having to do it all over again and the bucket list challenges suck ass and it's no wonder they decided to get rid of them in favor of more serialized challenges in FH4 and FH5. But the world is beautiful, the driving smooth, the gameplay addictive, the soundtrack an all timer and those barn finds are just amazing. Truly addictive and a complete comfort game for me. The game that got me into Forza.

Last is Doom (1993) and why wouldn't it be? The game is timeless and pretty much perfect. I should have played on Ultra Violence though as Hurt Me Plenty is a bit too easy. Still, graphically it still holds up today with it's beautiful sprite work for enemies and incredible map design, gunplay is some of the best ever and there's a reason why the weapon roster has become a staple of many FPS Games since, music is kickass and this newly released version with Andrew Hulshult's remixes breathe new life into this game and it's just endlessly entertaining with tons of mods/WADs you can play. Everything about Doom rules still to this day and I will have to eventually finish Doom II one day and the other Episodes for Doom.

Next month is going to be pretty busy. I'm going to finish Cat Quest II and start Cat Quest III, then will also play Astro Bot on PS5 which is the game I'm REALLY excited about. I'm also looking forward to finally playing Visions of Mana and I'll probably continue to dip my feet into more Forza Horizon 3 post game and start the expansions. Oh, and I also wanna try to enjoy the sunshine while it lasts before the end of summer. Cheers!

I forgot to add a couple games to the thread, specifically Kirby's Dream Land and Severed Steel. To talk about them quickly, I will admit in my review I did on my profile I was certainly harsh on the game but it isn't terrible but there are SO many better games you can be playing. I'm realizing a lot of Indie Games at least from what I played are just copycats/clones of better games that I would rather be playing which I've become very disappointed by, but the Indie games I've loved were more refreshing and exciting and even if they did have elements from other games they made them feel new and unique. Man, I don't know. Maybe it's just me but the sweet spot for a lot of games nowadays seems to be in between Big Budget Blockbuster/AAA and Indie, so I guess the more middle ground of studios that are AA (I think that's the term?) like Flying Wild Hog, Ryu Ga Gotoku, Rebellion, Giant Squid, that kind of stuff. The stuff in between that those and other studios like them are currently doing the most interesting things that appeal to me right now. Anyways, it's a generic shooter that mashes Titanfall 2, F.E.A.R, Shadow Warrior 3, Turbo Overkill and a bunch of other games and doesn't do anything of it's own while having the most generic and dull neon mush of levels and lighting I've ever seen. (Okay, to be fair, Severed Steel came out before SW3 and Turbo Overkill, but I can't help but thinking how much better those games did with these ideas than this)

Kirby's Dream Land on the other hand was pretty nice! After not being that amazed with the Kirby offerings on NES and SNES too much, this Game Boy title is actually solid because it set the foundations of what a modern Kirby game is. Even without copy abilities it made battles and bosses more interesting and it's so different from the Spring Breeze game in Super Star that it's still worth playing on it's own. Graphically there was still lots to work out for characters, but they managed to introduce so many mainstays of the franchise so I'm pretty impressed altogether.

Kirby gets a 7/10, while Severed Steel gets a measly 5/10. Kirby is obviously one I can recommend and it's also short. I mean, Severed Steel is also short too but it's MUCH more boring and lifeless in comparison.

Yay, I'm happy Cat Quest turned out to be a good rec overall!

I'm currently starting Cat Quest II and from the opening hour of the game I think I'm going to enjoy it so much more. I'm literally hooked on this series now, so thank you again for the rec! I really hope in next few years we'll have a resurgence of Simple, Classic 3D Action RPGs. I very much want people who are not good at Soulslike titles to have a chance to get into this genre without being intimidated, but it's such a barren wasteland right now for titles rn. The only game I can think of that's coming out right now that's a simple Action RPG is Visions of Mana (which I'm very excited for) so it's a shame the roots of the genre have been abandoned. Again, that bubble is eventually going to burst though. So I'm holding out hope that we'll see more games that are like Oblivion, Kingdoms of Amalur and the like to make a resurgence.

Cat Quest
System: PS4
Developer: The Gentlebros
Publisher: Kepler Interactive
Genre: Open World, Action RPG, 2.5D



During the downward period of the year for me, I was recommended this by a couple people. Siver and Not_Connor both thought I should give this one a shot and it took me a while to get into it. But when the game really started to pick up, it became super great. Cat Quest is a rarity nowadays. Despite a third game releasing recently, the Action RPG genre has been dominated by Soulslike Clones far and wide. This mass production of this subgenre I find to be extremely harmful to the gaming market. Mainly because people who want something on the easier/more simple side are having a hard time finding games such as Kingdoms of Amalur, Kingdom Hearts, Biomutant and Borderlands, games that are 3D Action RPGs with easy to learn gameplay and controls that are filled with depth. Even if you take out tags such as Roguelike and Soulslike on Steam, you're left with a pretty barren selection of games to choose from. This is very sad to me as I love these kinds of Action Adventure/RPG Games that I'm now getting into and eventually, sooner or later that bubble is going to burst like it did with COD/Halo/Battlefield Clones of the Late 2000's to Mid 2010's.

With Cat Quest III being released recently, there's still some glimmer of hope for this genre to go back to it's roots. But that's a story for another day. And besides, this is more 2.5D than 3D. But the game itself is still pretty great regardless of my thoughts on the state of the Action RPG Market. It starts off as a parody of the RPG Genre. You have a seemingly generic bad guy you must defeat, wacky side quests that make you do redundant or idiotic things and even weapons and armor that are given to you that are completely useless (the Crappy Weapon is a good example of this). The game becomes repetitive in it's hacking and slashing in it's first 20 or so Levels you gain, but once the game hits that sweet spot of actually giving more depth to the hack and slash and spellcasting gameplay, it becomes a more intriguing game thanks to fights being more exciting in higher levels and the quests becoming more interesting as you level up. Such quests involve Santa Claws attempting to ruin Kitmas which leads to you attempting to save the holiday and his brother Santa Paws, a bush who becomes a resurrected dragon who lost his memory, angry at the loss of his kind in the dragon war and wanting to fight you, the character of Kit Cat the Blacksmith having you being an apprentice to her while bandits destroy packages of Prestige TV Shows of hers and the really cool King of the Catpital sending you on missions around the kingdom (his dialogue is really fun).

The side quests give the game so much depth to the world, but the main story also gets great with two major twists at the end I certainly wasn't expecting. But, it made the game more memorable because of that. I'm desperate for games with great stories nowadays and unlike many RPGs today like Pathfinder, Baldur's Gate III, Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader, Final Fantasy XVI and many series like Legend of Heroes, Mana, Tales Of and the like, you don't need 50-200+ Hours to get a pay off to a great story, this takes literally 4-5 Hours to complete which is so nice. Sometimes, I don't have the time or patience to play a BIG long game, so I want to have a quick and clean game that has a great story and nowadays that's rare to find when I'm searching for games. So obviously, the writing is a high point and so is the humor. The humor is very punny in an innocent, sincere and cutesy way but sometimes you'll have something edgy like our main companion Spirry, a Guardian Spirit telling someone who's hiding not to be a "Pussy" which made my jaw drop that a game that's probably rated E/E10 even has someone calling someone that. I would have preferred if he just said "Don't be a pussy... cat!" but whatever. The humor is still pretty fun and there's lots to enjoy with the side characters and content.

Gameplay wise, I feel the game gets better during the 90 Minute/2 Hour mark mainly because things like dodging, spellcasting, melee hack and slashing and all that becomes more intense and in depth. Picking four slots for one of the seven spells you unlock is hard and you never know which is going to lead you to victory. But it's so worth it because you can dominate enemies on the battlefield easily. Dungeons are pretty good and you get a nice loot high when you unlock treasure, especially if you go out of your way to get the key that unlocks gold chests. The graphics are acceptable for the most part. Some enemies do look a bit soulless and generic and the NPCs leave much to be desired, but the important characters are certainly nice looking and have distinct features to them. The overworld you explore is bright and vibrant with greens and blues everywhere you go as well and the controls for moving in a 2.5D space is smooth and doesn't have many problems.

Now, my issues stem from a couple things. First there's no blocking at all in this game. You can't block attacks with magic or a shield (since you don't have any) and it would have made combat situations a bit better if you just managed to block someone's attacks instead of dodging it all the time. But what really is annoying is attempting to get the Platinum for this game. It might look easy, but it requires tons of XP Farming to reach Level 99 which is one of the main things you have to do and some requirements for clearing monster filled dungeons are just irritating as well, like needing to level up lightning all the way in order for it to reach enemies you can't get to. Not to mention it just becomes tedious for 2+ hours just to get the remaining trophies. The requirements are easy, but they feel so tedious to even attempt. I did end up getting the Platinum (My 5th on Playstation) but I'm probably not going to attempt another Platinum for this series unless I'm playing with my sister in local coop.

Anyways, it's well worth picking up Cat Quest and the game is pretty cheap to begin with. It's a very enjoyable Action RPG with a small but substantial open world. great combat and spellcasting, easy controls to learn, solid worldbuilding and side quests and I forgot to mention, even the soundtrack kicks ass in this game. So I would very much recommend it if you're desperate for a non Soulslike/Roguelike Action RPG. Also, Thanks to Siver and Not_Conner for recommending me this game! I really got into it and now am going to play the entire series.

PROS:

-Acceptable Overworld and Main Cast graphics and character designs
-Humor is strong and very punny in a fun, innocent and sincere way
-Gameplay becomes more exciting once you reach higher levels
-Interesting Side Quests that are memorable and stick out
-Main story has some great twists and is just as engaging as the side quests
-Worldbuilding is intriguing and gives the world tons of life
-Kick ass soundtrack that is adventurous and lighthearted
-I fell in love with some of the characters as well

CONS:

-No Blocking mechanics/Shields making combat a bit less intuitive than it should be
-Getting the Platinum Trophy is very tedious
-Have to Farm XP just to get to the higher level quests once you've beaten the main game
-NPCs and many Enemies leave lots to be desired design wise

-TheAutisticGamer

Kind of playing stuff on and off. I'm playing Cat Quest and I'm like 3-4 Hours into the game but it feels like I've put in 20 Hours. But that's good! It means time goes by very fast when playing it. I'm currently planning on playing through the trilogy and getting the platinum for all three games since I heard that's very easy to do. In the meantime, I'm also taking some time to do more Forza Horizon 3 and get some festival upgrades and street races done. Not much to say, but I'm definitely having a good time playing the games I'm playing.

Oh, and I'm doing another run of Slayers X (CLUNKY BLAH BLAH OVERLONG TITLE) on I'm Awesome Difficulty (Hard Mode) and if that goes well, I might even think about doing a run on INZANE mode which might finally be a better challenge for me.

Forza Horizon 3
System: PC/Xbox One (Via Xbox Series X)
Developer: Playground Games
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios/Microsoft Studios
Genre: Racing, Open World



The Quickviews are back! I was beginning to feel some genuine burnout from the last few reviews I did, so for now I want to focus on more sharper, shorter reviews.

So at this point, I've replayed Forza Horizon 3 about three times at this point from beginning to end. But that doesn't mean the game is over when you hit the credits (which I think is the only game in the series to have an actual credits roll). By the time you've done all 5 Showcase Events, you still have plenty of things to do and find. More races, PR Stunts, Festival Upgrades, Street Races, Midnight Battles, Barn Finds and if you were lucky to get them, the two major expansions of the game not to mention all the DLC cars. And then there's the bonus boards and driving on every single road in the game and other curiosities to do like earning skill points to fill up the skill tree and getting wheelspins to get rare cars. I've already put another 17 or so hours into this game and there's a reason why.

My love for Forza comes from the quality of the content you're given. Cars control naturally and few are deemed useless for racing. It's heavily customizable so you can play at whatever skill level fits you. And just the amount of things you can do and the overall quality of that content is pretty amazing to begin with. Unlike the most recent Horizon game, the game slowly gives you markers on your map to find events and doing these events will help you get fans for your festival. Yes! You are the festival boss in this one and it's one of the most unique things about the game in general. Much of the game from it's races, showcase events and other types of gameplay opportunities makes it addictive to play just like any other Forza title. What really makes Forza great however is the overwhelmingly positive vibes the series has to offer. It's my comfort series for a reason and gives you the opportunity to try out blazing fast cars and classics that would be way out of the majority of anyone's price range. But there's also the soundtrack which this game in particular shines at. There's tons of artists that are recognizable, but there's also current artists that feel great. One of my favorite tracks in the game is Pizza Guy by Touch Sensitive which you can listen on the Future Classic radio station. It plays during one of the bucket list challenges and is the end credits song. The songs fit with the tone of the game and there's a range of genres that will fit any of your needs from pop, EDM, bass, alternative, metal, classical and rap.

So the game is addictive and overall it's totally a comfort game for me. However, I do have my specific issues with some aspects of the game. Basically, one of the flaws that's super apparent is what I'm going to call the "Pissy Slam." What is the Pissy Slam? Well, for some reason, if you're doing something like a Speed Zone or a Drift Zone, sometimes you'll not be alone on that road. Instead, cars will come out of nowhere making you slam into them, ruining your score, having to try again and make sure no one is on the road. The Pissy Slam also happens when you're trying to build up your skill chain which can be aggravating. And then there's the Bucket List Challenges. My god do I hate these things. Basically, they're challenges like reach a certain speed, drift to get this many points, arrive at this speed, race to this place in this certain amount of time. However, the majority of these are so badly designed and they're not fun at all. If the game gives me a set track to follow that's impossible to make it through on, meaning I have to go off track just to get to the destination in that time is not good game design. It's called lying. And they LIE a lot with these challenges. Some of them are piss easy as the Hard Drift ones can be done quickly by using the E-Drift function. But others including the infamous Bucket List #15 (which is so bad that they somehow updated after launch to make it even worse) requires extreme precision that basically means looking up a guide on how to do it. The Bucket Lists suck. That's a fact. And I'm glad Horizon ditched them for better challenges in later games that have their own stories and pay offs to them. If there's one thing I have to nitpick, I feel Keira and Warren are kind of naggy, ESPECIALLY Keira who has this kind of sarcastic tone to her especially later in the game. Warren is like that sometimes, but he's MUCH better as a character especially when it comes to the barn find segments.

The game can still be bought physically with a relatively affordable price. But for the DLC, you have to go looking for keys on third party websites to get them, but I wouldn't do that considering it's pretty shady. If anything, if you REALLY REALLY want to experience the game with all it's DLC and what not, if it's possible I would suggest modding your Xbox to somehow get it. I don't know if you can, but you could at least try it. Anyways, the game still has it's servers up and running and you can still download paint designs for your cars which is nice. Plus the highly customizable tune up builds you can get for free in this game. Anyways, Forza Horizon 3 is still pretty great to this day and I'm still going through it to unlock more of the events and upgrade my festival sites. And with it being 144 FPS on PC, it's so much nicer than the 30 FPS on Xbox.

Rating: 8/10

PROS:

-Soundtrack has a wide range to fit all types of listeners
-Graphics have aged well for a 2016 Game
-Gameplay is addictive and races are a total blast
-Cars control naturally and few are useless for races/events
-Big enough open world to explore with tons of quality racing and gameplay opportunities
-Servers are still up for this game compared to Forza Horizon 2
-Barn finds are the absolute best part of this game
-Just loads of positive vibes man

CONS:

-Random NPC Cars can ruin your PR Stunt Attempts and Skill Chains
-Bucket List challenges suck ass and I'm glad they ditched them after this
-Keira and Warren come off as sarcastic and naggy
-Delisted completely and the developers lazily refused to renew rights to keep it up

-TheAutisticGamer

I replayed Forza Horizon 3.... again. But I'm probably still going to play more after this considering I want to at least do every event and try to unlock more midnight battles and street races, not to mention replay the Blizzard Mountain and Hot Wheels Expansions again. This time I played it via PC since I bought this game digitally a long time ago and my god, it's so nice to have 144 FPS compared to the 30 on Xbox.

I mean, what can I say that I haven't already said? It's my go to comfort game/series. Every time I pick this game up I'm expected to feel great summer vibes and all around positive nature from the game and it's world and I still am impressed that it manages to do that even to this day. Okay, a couple things suck as I never liked the Bucket List challenges and doing PR Stunts/Skill Chains mainly result in a NPC driver on the same road you are on that shouldn't be there crashing into you and pissing all over your attempt. The majority of problems would be fixed in Horizon 4 (Buy now before it's delisted) but overall the game still rules. It starts you off slow with events but soon you'll progress to have major festival upgrades, a great garage of vehicles, loads of money with wheel spins with the bonus addition of rare cars, not to mention the array of events, PR Stunts, Street Races, Barn Finds, Midnight Battles, Blueprint Races and Championships you can do in this game. It's not like Horizon 5 where it just farts out every single event all at once on the map. To sum it up though, brilliant soundtrack, graphics have aged really well for a 2016 game, majority of cars control like a dream, the quality of all this content is pretty high and the game just makes me feel good inside. It's certainly a mood booster.

I will have to give it a new updated score of 8/10. I listed my major complaints (And trust me, those two complaints are major) but this is a game I'm still fond for. I love Forza and will always have a place for it in my life.

From the last month or two. I still have Visions of Mana and Astro Bot reserved but they're not out yet. I also forgot to post stuff from the Vancouver Retro Game Expo, but I managed to get 3D Dot Game Heroes for an acceptable price so I'm looking forward to playing that.

Anyways, I tried a bit of DBZ Kakarot and the game was overwhelming me with tutorial shit that I had to take several pictures of just to even follow along. I'll have to try it another day but the combat seemed promising. (BTW I never watched Dragon Ball in my life I just thought this would be something cool to try out). Cat Quest III is obviously the one that special considering it comes with a map of the entire game and a sticker set. Out of all the B-Grade Gamecube games I bought, Piglet's Big Game is the one I want to try the most. It's an adventure game I think. What can I say I love Pooh Bear and friends.

Doom (1993)
System: PC
Developer: ID Software
Publisher: ID Software, Bethesda Softworks (New Releases)
Genre: FPS, Old School Shooter, Science Fiction
Completed in 2:41:57



Wow. You would think having covered several FPS Games on this blog I would have talked about this a long time ago. The game that literally every Boomer Shooter developer is trying to rip off. The big one of all FPS Games. One of the most influential games ever. Well, sorry it took so long but I had an urge to play Doom again since it's been quite a while since I even played it. Basically, to put it straight, ID, Bethesda and Nightdive re-released Doom and Doom II as a package together with the Master Levels, TNT Evilution and Plutonia Experiment, alongside Sigil, No Rest for the Living and Legacy of Rust Episodes. It's free on consoles, although I'm not sure if it is on Steam. However, this new release adds WAD support for all those classic total conversions and Doom Episodes you want to get your hands on which sounded very appealing, so I finished Doom and yep, I'm just going to say it. This is one of the best games I've ever played. Maybe even still the king of FPS Games.

This review is going to tackle the First Three Episodes: Knee Deep in the Dead, The Shores of Hell and Inferno. There's a reason I didn't cover the final episode, Thy Flesh Consumed. It's mainly acts as a prologue to Doom II and it would have felt awkward to play that after having such a great cliffhanger ending in the third episode. So, lets talk about story for a second. Doom takes place in the future of.... I don't know, 21xx? I'll just say that. Basically, the main character famously known as Doomguy is sent to Mars after attacking a superior officer who ordered his unit to fire on regular joe civilians. I will say, that's quite unexpected for a character known to be a gigantic badass throughout the series. Genuinely seems like a great guy and was obviously fucked over by his superiors. Anyways, there's a demonic invasion on Mars and Doomguy eventually arrives there to find that everyone is dead and demons are running rampant. With nowhere to go, he decides to kick some ass with only a pistol and his fists at hand as he collects several weapons and attempts to stop the Demon Invasion. Will Doomguy be able to survive? And will he end up returning to Earth? Welp, all the answers are in this game.

So for a story, it's quite simplistic. It's not like there's no story at all, but it's quite in the background and is mostly set up to focus on the action. This is one of the first things that Doom HEAVILY influenced in FPS Games. The lack of story with only setup. There are interconnected pieces of text after you beat an episode, but the game mainly wants you to focus on a bunch of other things. Specifically, collecting colored keys and skulls to progress through levels, finding the exit to the next level and most importantly, killing demons who could tear a regular man to shreds. But this is Doomguy we're talking about! Doomguy has some weapons he can use. A pistol as said, a shotgun that's really nice for sniping at long distance, a chaingun that's good for crowd control, a rocket launcher with splash damage if he gets too close to the AOE, the plasma rifle, a powerful beam gun that shoots plasma beams and finally, The BFG9K, a super weapon that is used primarily for larger crowds or tougher enemies.

For me, Doom is pretty much a perfect game for numerous reasons. The first thing that's obvious right out of the gate is the controls and gunplay. You can't look up or down, but the game will aim assist your shots if enemies are below, above or far away so with the restrictions of the time, the game just feels natural to play in all respects. The guns in general are some of the best you'll ever use in any game ever. My favorites being the Shotgun, Chaingun and Plasma Rifle. The shotgun is so iconic that it's by far the most useful weapon in the game for almost any situation. That sound it makes and the power behind it makes it a legendary weapon in all of games. In fact, the gun roster is so excellent in fact that many FPS Games afterwards tried to clone the loadout you get. They knew Doom had such a great lineup of guns, but whether they used them properly in their games is another story for another time. In general, I can't think of having a single FPS Game that doesn't include a shotgun. Shotguns rule dude, I mean it. And Doom pretty much made them cool in my eyes.

So you have excellent weapons, but what about enemies? That's another influence there. Doom does extremely smart things with enemies. They'll start you off on the cannon fodder enemies like the rifleman, shotgunner, IMP or Pinky Demon who can definitely hurt you if you don't move fast enough, but one thing I should note about the enemies in the many things that make them great is something you wouldn't expect me to say. The Hitscanning ACTUALLY is appropriate for this game. Considering what they were working with, they had to at least make player damage work somehow, so Hitscanning was the option to go with. But it's never obnoxious, it's never frustrating and it never feels cheap. I played this game on Hurt Me Plenty Difficulty and I will admit, I feel I should have played on Ultra Violence cause I felt most of the game was a cakewalk. Speaking of difficulty, the 5 difficulties change player damage, how many enemies there are and on the hardest difficulty, how fast the enemies move and attack. Games today continue to use this structure sometimes in difficulty, but when you're playing Doom on any difficulty it just feels right. And when you fight the Barons of Hell at the end of Episode One, they indeed become regular enemies later. Doom continues to smartly implement this in it's games and I can see why. It makes you prepared afterwards to fight an enemy and know what they're weak against.

One of the things that make this game so amazing as well is how the levels are designed. To describe it the best I can, they feel very arcadey in a way. The game will showcase your stats at the end of a level which might be the case why I feel this way, but the levels are not gigantic most of the time, they feel nice and bite sized sometimes, and expansive but never overwhelming. There's something about opening a new door, wondering what's behind it and hoping it will lead you to go forward through the level. But the levels are perfect for the enemy encounters and firefights. The levels in general are fantastic because they know how to accommodate difficulty scaling while also being fun to explore in their own ways. There are puzzles as well, but I felt like I never had to use a guide at all and found if I looked around hard enough I would be able to find my way forward to the exit. Keys are planted smartly in areas that aren't obtuse and the amount of secrets you can find in these levels are insane. I've probably only found a quarter of them if I'm being honest, but that makes the game so replayable especially on harder difficulties because not only are you experiencing Doom a different way than before with the amount of player damage and enemies but you also have a chance to look for even more secrets!

And of course, I can't forget about MIDI Soundtrack. Now, Bobby Prince's score for this game is one of the best ever made. The opening level will have you pumped up immediately and some levels are atmospheric in their approach to the soundtrack, while others are banging tunes you wanna dance to. For this new release, I played Doom with Andrew Hulshult's new rescoring of the soundtrack. If you know me, I love Andrew's work in many games. From Prodeus, DUSK and AMID EVIL's Black Labyrinth Expansion, he's by far the king of FPS Composers right now. And his rescore of the soundtrack gives Doom new life I never thought could possibly happen. It's not his usual electronic mixed with metal, but he absolutely nails the classic 80's Metal sound that the MIDI Soundtrack was going for. I recommend playing the game with the Bobby Prince MIDI Score first, but afterwards I highly recommend playing it with Andrew's new soundtrack for the game. It's excellent. At Doom's Gate will immediately make you think of this franchise. It's at this point synonymous with it.

Now, Doom also is great for many reasons, but a lot of them are for how influential the game yes. The game is extremely fun as said and the game overall feels timeless, but the amount of influence it had on numerous aspects of the gaming landscape is undeniable. It was one of the first games to introduce graphic, realistic violence to a video game. Sure, it's tame today but back then, this must have been exciting and provocative and refreshing! Doom also influenced Online Multiplayer. While I'm sure there were some other online games before this, none of them took off more quickly than Doom's deathmatch and coop. And the modding community. Using WADs, people were able to make not just expanded levels or episodes of Doom, but they could even change the game entirely to make total conversions and trust me, there are some bangers out there for the WAD scene. I think most importantly, Doom popularized a genre at the time known as "Doom Clones." To call something a Doom Clone though today seems unimpressive and the word I would more likely use for games trying to copy or clone Doom would be "Rip Offs", considering it's all about style over substance with those games who try to imitate Classic Doom. A couple years later, with games like Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Doom II, Quake, Half-Life and Unreal, the genre eventually become known as First Person Shooters. And thus, the reason I love FPS Games today are because Doom made it credible. Doom made FPS games viable and there was certainly an audience for them. Today, there are Boomer Shooters, Military Shooters, Immersive Sims, FPS RPGs, Horror Themed Shooters, First Person Horror Games, First Person Art Games, 6DOF Games, Spellcasting Shooters, Modern Shooters that try to push forward new mechanics and better storylines...

You get the point. Without Doom, I wouldn't have fallen in love with Half-Life. If Doom didn't exist, we'd live in a very boring, worse society than we do now. Doom is such a great game as well because it brings people together. The love this franchise has is huge and the fact that people are still playing Coop and Deathmatch and making WADs and telling friends about these WADs are amazing. People are still being recommended Doom today. Parents are even introducing their kids to Doom because they loved it as a youth. It proved that Online Play done right could make you have friends from all around the globe. I absolutely find Doom to be a timeless masterpiece and one of the best games I've ever played. There's no excuses if you haven't played it yet. The game might be over 30 Years Old now, but it doesn't feel 30 Years Old. I love it. I will continue to cherish it for years to come.

Thanks for reading everyone! I had a great time finally talking about this legendary game. Expect more later!

Rating: 10/10

PROS:

-Hugely Influential in all categories
-The game still feels timeless even today and it's easy to pick up and play
-Absurd amounts of content waiting to be discovered with the modding community
-Extreme bang for your buck on this new package with Doom II
-Amazing MIDI Score and Excellent remix score by Andrew Hulshult
-Gunplay is brilliant and punchy and feels powerful
-Levels are simple, arcade like and fit the difficulty you play on perfectly
-Tons of difficulties for any player that changes enemy amount and player damage so no difficulty is the same
-So many secrets you're going to have to play the game hundreds of times to find them all
-Iconic Weapon and Enemy Roster
-Free on consoles
-Even after finishing Doom, you still have Doom II and it's numerous other episodes/expansions to go through

CONS:

Are you serious? IT'S DOOM FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

-TheAutisticGamer

My friend PhatPotato seriously cannot get into Final Fantasy. I've been suggesting to him to at least try XV as that is more action heavy compared to the other ones. So there's that.

For me, there's certainly a couple of franchises that fall into this. Earth Defense Force is certainly one I've talked about. I really enjoyed the first game but really felt myself losing interest after every entry afterward. The 5th game features some of the most annoying and hideously stupid cast of characters I've ever seen in a game and when the series completely went from fighting alien bugs to fighting god I completely lost interest and couldn't get into the other EDF Games after that. Why they didn't end on EDF 2025/4.1 is beyond me. Maybe the World Brothers games are more up my alley, but I don't know.

GTA is another obvious one. I just don't really enjoy how the game is structured. I know you can do anything at any point and just mess around in the environment but I seriously don't like that considering I could pretty much play the game endlessly without even touching main story and I would have no incentive to even care about the main story and since the games have cheat codes you can use to unlock a lot of cool things, it makes playing the story for me seem unnecessary. I like to have a more focused narrative. The only game that I even got far in that's like GTA is the original Saints Row on Xbox 360. I don't hate open world games and I'm getting more into them now but I just don't like GTA Clones like Just Cause, which is another series I've tried to get into but couldn't.

ARMA is another series that is just baffling to me. If the game requires you to use every single key on your keyboard and ALSO use different awkward combinations to even be playable, than the learning curve is WAY too high for a casual player. I get that it's a military sim, but we're playing as a soldier NOT a bloody mech!

The old PC/PS1 Tomb Raider games are just another that really makes it hard to get into. Considering the 5 PS1 games in that series use obtuse tank controls that make it awkward for platforming, not to mention I had a bad experience with compatibility on the first game attempting to play it on PC, it just makes it too cumbersome for me to really enjoy. I have played some of Tomb Raider: Legend though and I must say I did have some fun with that.

If we're talking about genres, I have a huge distaste for Soulslikes. For those who just want to play a regular 3D Action RPG that's new you basically can't. Every Action RPG now has to be a Soulslike and cannot be something like a Oblivion or Fallout or Biomutant or Kingdoms of Amalur. Honestly, maybe it's just me being stupid and dumb for only having tried a tiny bit of Bloodborne, but I cannot understand how people find excruciatingly hard = good because I would go nuts if I even attempted to play a game like Demon Souls. I like challenge, but that's going overboard. I also have to watch games that can affect my mental health and I don't think playing a Soulslike is a good idea to be honest. Although, I will admit there are a couple "Soulslites" I've been meaning to try such as Rise of the Ronin and Respawn's Star Wars Jedi games. I might try Elden Ring out of curiosity since I heard it's a bit easier compared to other games From Software makes. I just feel the overabundance of Soulslikes are restricting a certain type of player who wants a fun simple Action RPG that doesn't demand too much of you. I find it quite harmful to be mass producing this genre while ignoring a gigantic player base who can't get into this genre but want a good old fashioned 3D Action RPG. At this point it's just a matter of time before the bubble bursts on this genre and hopefully like FPS Games did with Boomer Shooters, we'll have a Classic 3D Action RPG/Action Adventure comeback.

Finished Doom (1993) since the game just got updated alongside Doom II with a bunch of new Episodes and some of the older ones two in one complete package. I rarely give 10/10s nowadays but god dammit, this is a perfect game. I absolutely love this game to death. Not only is it insanely influential and had people begging overnight for more of these games but it's a mix of all these things that make it excel at what it is. ID's Philosophy consisted of a setup but a lack of plot only in the background, it featured timeless but simplistic game design that made maps and puzzles never that cryptic or even frustrating to play through, they set up numerous difficulties which not only ups player damage but also how many enemies there are on said difficulty mode and guns that are brilliant, sound amazing and are extremely aggressive. Also adding to the fact of finding keys to unlock doors, numerous powerups along the levels and tons of secrets to help you get through the game, they've essentially built the building blocks for a masterpiece that others would imitate or attempt to enhance throughout the mid-90's. I think the reason so many Boomer Shooters fall apart nowadays is because looking back on Doom, that Philosophy ID had made the game SO MUCH stronger. Everything here is a perfect blend of ingredients. I have almost nothing bad to say about Doom. If only the Philosophy of other Boomer Shooter devs were much stronger, we would had been thrown masterpiece after masterpiece out of the gate when DUSK came out and dominated the niche. Sadly, many people are just copying Doom's graphics style, arsenal, enemies, and structure carelessly which is why I got so burnt out on the genre last year.

Doom is a masterpiece. A full 10/10 and the best game I've played all year. I didn't bother with Episode 4 because I thought Episode 3 ended the game perfectly to set up a sequel. Anyways, awesome game and will talk more about my thoughts on the backlog blog.

I haven't posted on this thread in a long time! Here's the last 5 Films I logged on Letterboxd.

Kung Fu Panda 4 - I don't even like this series mainly because of it's obnoxious OMFG AWESOME! humor and terrible scripts written by the hack duo of Aibel and Berger (although I liked the second one a lot, I don't know how they wrote that one) but, I will admit despite me going in with rock bottom expectations expecting the worst film like everyone said it was, it was kind of alright? I wish Awkwafina would do more live action roles as I loved her in movies like Quiz Lady. The whole extroverted animated character bit is getting a bit old at this point. But she's good in this! Not to mention the humor is less obnoxious and I got a couple laughs and there's some of the most creative action I've seen in the series thus far. Too bad the script is again, written by the hack duo and they basically used a script that was structured in cliches and tired tropes as in the first few minutes I predicted everything that would happen and I was right. It's okay. If you've seen them all you might as well watch this also.

E.T: The Extra Terrestrial - I saw this as a kid but remembered nothing about it but I'm glad to say that this movie is outstanding. Look, I'm sure Gandhi is just as amazing as this (it must be considering I love Epic films) but maybe this should have taken home Best Picture at that year's Oscars? One of the most humane films ever made. Astonishing all time great performance by the kid who plays Elliot. The characters are written realistically and are devoid of cliche and John Williams score had me sobbing hard during the final seconds of this film. I hope that a new audience will continue to cherish this film for years to come. One of the best ever made.

The Killer Meteors - One of the earlier Jackie Chan films where he actually plays a villain! I started my Jackie Chan Collection Box Sets Vol. 1 and 2 from Shout! Factory and this movie ruled. I was a bit worried considering it was directed by Lo Wei, who also directed Fist of Fury, which I consider to be one of the worst films ever made mainly for trying to make Bruce Lee who plays this reprehensible psychotic Garry Stu mastermind serial killer this amazing and honorable action hero while everyone around his character acts like morons. Thankfully, this film was great! Jimmy Wang Yu is the lead and he's awesome as the main hero. Very campy, very violent, filled with tons of exciting action, I'm definitely getting more into martial arts/wuxia films as we speak. Love it. It's on Tubi for those who don't have the two Shout Box Sets, but this is absolutely worth checking out.

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective - Sorry, but I REALLY don't find this funny. Annoying Dumb Dumb who Angers People = Comedy is never funny and never will be funny to me. Not to mention the last act of this movie is basically The Birth of a Nation but for transphobia and features characters acting like assholes because "*GASP!* the woman is actually a guy?! EW!" Very 90's in how tone deaf it is to such sensitive topics like LGBTQ+ people and also features heaping amounts of sexism that's grueling to get through. Jim Carrey is mugging the camera for 86 Minutes and it's truly unfunny. Don't get me wrong I like him, he stars in one of my favorite Christmas films with The Live Action Grinch from 2000, but this film just fails to hit the mark constantly and every time they try to humanize this douchebag of a main character they keep falling for the same sexist tropes! Ugh. Didn't like this one very much.

The Flame and The Arrow - This one's a historical action swashbuckler from 1950 with Burt Lancaster showing off his acrobatic skills as our lead action hero. It's basically Ivanhoe/Robin Hood for Italy, but WAY less meaningful than those stories. Instead of trying to stop Tyranny in a kingdom and focus on the clashing of different ideologies, it's mainly "MUH KID DUN GOT KIDNAPPED!" and Lancaster spends 90 minutes trying to save his son without much excitement. I wasn't very focused while watching this so I might have to watch it again but I certainly enjoyed the last half of the film where things got much more interesting with parts of betrayal, sword fighting and actual planning to save the kid. Unfortunately, falls into lots of sexism by having Lancaster kidnap the niece of the main villain, tie her up to a tree with a chain while him and his outlaw buddies go "HAHA! WOMAN!" *Facepalm*. Anyways, I have yet to be truly impressed by a Lancaster movie as this was my second feature. But it's certainly better than the god awful unfunny, over the top melodramatic role he gave in The Hallelujah Trail where he plays a character filled with contempt in a movie starring a cast where everyone's an idiot or a stereotype. (BTW, check out Elmer Bernstein's musical score to that film. Maybe one of the Top 5 Best Bad Movie Soundtracks of All Time?) I hope Elmer Gantry, The Crimson Pirate or The Leopard are the ones where he gives a standout performance.

I'm having a blast playing Medal of Honor: Airborne mainly because the ragdoll physics are hilarious when you shoot an enemy. There's only six levels in the campaign but they attempt to do something non linear with it so you can go to whatever objective you want to do first. The maps are pretty big as well and I'm just really enjoying people sliding and flipping backwards when I shoot them in the head. Okay yes, the game like a LOT of EA FPS Games are insanely buggy such as weapons models constantly disappearing, sound effects not playing, or collision problems where you get thrown to the other side of an area by hugging the wall, but there's so much there that I like. Michael Giacchino's score is excellent and lush and you never get scores for FPS Games like this anymore. There's cool details like shooting an explosive tank will have fire come out from the bullet holes put into it and if you die, you literally jump out of a plane again with your parachute into the level like you're playing as another soldier (well, you play only as one guy but still) Really entertaining altogether. I'm halfway through the campaign and just got to Operation Market Garden and I literally went "Oh no...." because having seen A Bridge Too Far, I know how this ends. And it doesn't end great.

Playing through Ratchet and Clank (2016) as I've had it on my backlog for so long. I'm trying to get comfortable with the controls but I'm already nearly two hours in and just did the Hoverboarding Cups after getting the Hoverboard. It was surprisingly easy, I got all of them on first try. The nice thing is on PS5 this game is 60 FPS which is lovely. I just got done fighting the Warship in the main story, so I'm still very early into the game. But I think it's starting to click with me now which is good.

Not much else I'm playing. I'm hopping between multiplayer games. Specifically Battlefield 2042 and Deep Rock Galactic. I reached Level 15 finally in 2042 but man was this so annoying to get working. Turns out it wasn't the game's fault, it was Windows 11's fault because you have to have the EA App launching with Admin in order for the game to even launch without giving you an error that makes you unable to get into it. I do have the game on Steam so the EA App is connected with my account. At least I can cross progress on both PC and PS5, the latter for playing games on Weekends with friends who are console owners. I'm trying to get some stuff done in Deep Rock as well, but most of my time has been spent on 2042 and have already clocked in 3.5 Hours into the game on Steam.

I guess I'll do the honors for the monthly thread this time.

This turned out to be a very productive but also VERY good month for gaming. 6 Total Completions making it the best of the year so far for me. 3 Games, 3 Mods (1 Mod a Replay)

SUPERHOT (PC, 07/09, 7/10)
Hatred (PC, 07/16, 4/10 - WORST)
Transmissions: Element 120 (PC, REPLAY, 07/20, 8/10)
Half-Life 2: Riot Act (PC, 07/22, 7/10)
Turbo Overkill - Full Release (PC, 07/27, 9/10 - BEST)
Half-Life 2: Rock 24 (PC, 07/29, 7/10)

Much of the games I played this month were of good quality and had some great things going for them. Hatred was not one of them. Manufactured Controversy to get people to play and overhype this not very good game aside, it's like a parody of what the developers set out to accomplish. Mr. Not Important is so edgy and has so many eye rolling one liners that even Infinite from Sonic Forces would wince at them. You go around killing endless civilians which gets boring, but most of the time you'll be killing endless police officers, SWAT units and Marines who have aim bot hacker lord skills that will get you killed in seconds. Getting health sucks ass in this game as the only way to heal is by executing enemies, but that's so inconsistent and most of the time you'll be shit out of luck. The game just feels overall pretentious and is wasted potential. I do think the idea of Isometric GTA where you kill everyone does sound like a good stress relieving time. Too bad they stick lives and continues all over the game and even then respawning sucks because you can't even respawn at different points in the map, it will kick you extremely far so you have to run all the way back to your objective. Bad game, forgotten for good reason.

SUPERHOT was good. Although in hindsight I dislike it a tad bit more and ended up changing the score to a 7. I love the dystopian cyberpunk feeling of the game and the narrative is very good. I also found myself intrigued by the style and originality, but I wouldn't call it a fun game to finish. Certainly worth playing for the interesting narrative and AR elements, but otherwise I feel this is more of a one and done situation.

Some of the Half-Life 2 mods I played were Riot Act, Rock 24 and Transmissions: Element 120. I always tend to replay Transmissions as it has such great atmosphere plus the Concussion Gun is a nice twist on the Gravity Gun. Not incredibly hard if you know what you're supposed to do and it's quite short since the experience goes for 30 minutes. Still worth it. Riot Act was probably the best of the mods I played this month that wasn't a replay. I had a great time seeing Half-Life 2's universe be expanded with a story involving Nova Prospekt from the perspective of a prisoner there. It's quite a challenge as well, but goes on for only so long. Although I am beginning to despise these obnoxious jumping puzzles where you have to stack shit on top of each other in order to get anywhere if you're clueless on where to go. Rock 24 is another mod set in a Prison, this time a collapsing one built on a rock! Certainly easier than Riot Act, but I do think this one is a bit more immersive than that mod. Plus the mod has some good custom music by the modders. All are worth playing, especially Transmissions.

Finally, best game this month goes to Turbo Overkill. A game I didn't like in it's Early Access Build but absolutely found to be a thrilling and pulse pounding time. It's not completely perfect as the game does outstay it's welcome (10 Hour Completion time), the game's obnoxious use of profanity is like if it was written by a kid who screams slurs in COD Multiplayer, plus some mechanics were certainly awkward to use at first and I was getting tired of it in the last 2-3 hours. But, this is like the best Boomer Shooter I've played in a while? Extremely fast paced controls, exciting and addictive gameplay/gunplay loop, managing upgrades, mechanics guns and alt fire modes was superb, the game's story has improved somewhat from the first episode, there's been loads of improvements from the EA Build and now things are much better with less game breaking bugs and better difficulty spikes on the easier settings. Music kicks ass as well. Haven't felt this much of an adrenaline rush since Doom Eternal. I'm glad this game got better during it's development.

I'm on a Forza kick again and replaying Forza Horizon 3, but I'll actually try to get some time in with Forza Motorsport 3 hopefully. I've been mainly using my new LG OLED evo C3 to showcase gaming, TV and films on it so who knows what the next game I'll play will be next. But I'm kind of thinking about playing Ratchet and Clank 2016 before Astro Bot comes out in September (which I reserved!). I also am picking up Cat Quest III and Visions of Mana this month in terms of pre orders, but Cat Quest III will have to wait a bit. Lets hope next month is just as good for gaming as it was this month.

I finished Half-Life 2: Rock 24 which is another mod for HL2 and it certainly had some really good things about it. The concept is really solid as it takes place on this decaying, collapsing prison built on a Island Rock which just made the game more immersive. The story was also nice and felt like a side story after Episode Two and I was surprised the mod made some jabs at contemporary gaming at the time. Some of the design is too obtuse and other times it's hand holding too much as well. The game also had some REALLY bad glitches in the second level where you're in your prison cell and the bars and other things like boxes pop in and out of existence.

Don't have much to say but I liked it enough. I'll give it a 7/10.

Turbo Overkill
System: PC
Developer: Trigger Happy Interactive
Publisher: Apogee Entertainment
Genre: FPS, Boomer Shooter, Science Fiction, Cyberpunk
Completed in 9:53:15



Once upon a time, a game came out in Early Access that I decided to check out. To be honest, I didn't like the experience too much. There was LOADS of potential for this to become a great game but it ended up having several severe issues including major design flaws such as falling off into the abyss not killing you, but sometimes it does that anyway, overwhelming difficulty even on the easiest setting, a stunning lack of checkpoints placed unfairly throughout the levels and not to mention bugs that took away major game mechanics that are integral to your success and a terrible story for what was only the first 1/4 of the game. So, I begrudgingly gave the game a 6/10 and had almost no hope that it would get better. Considering I have disliked many Boomer Shooters in Early Access, this seemed like it was going to be doomed from the start. And then, the game releases fully, I delay playing it for an entire year and when I play it, everything is MUCH better. I'm a happy gamer and it's a truly terrific game. The end.

That's how the tale would go if I was lazy, but you know me because I love to cover games in depth as much as possible. So lets settle in. I finally finished Turbo Overkill which is a Cyperpunk Boomer Shooter that I was very much mixed on in the EA Build. But there are massive improvements throughout the game. So I will attempt to explain in detail what has been improved upon and what doesn't really work.

First off, I'm going to go over the story quickly and just express some thoughts on that. The First Episode is basically the same except they recast a bunch of roles throughout the game in the Full Release. But to give you some context, Johnny Turbo is your typical badass silent action hero who is trying to do some jobs for a shady company because he needs brain surgery after being killed by bounty hunters? And so, Johnny carries this brain around with him that we find out about a bit later into the game, but that's not the point. An evil entity known as SYN has arrived and is destroying the world. Teratek sends Bounty Hunters to stop it, but one of them, Maw, backstabs them and uses energy to become a god. Johnny dies... again. This time with his brain been nothing but mush and is revived as mainly a cyborg of some kind by SYN to help stop Maw. With your AI buddy S.A.M.M, you travel throughout Paradise and eventually space to end Maw's tyranny and put a stop to SYN's dominance.

I'm going to spoil some ending stuff, but it's very minor I feel and more so is there to set up another game if they even do that (I honestly hope they don't though because you don't want to ruin something good with something potentially inferior) So Johnny saves the day, is taken by Teratek who wants to help him get his human body back by working for them. I feel Johnny is probably going to do so in general because it's a pretty good deal and their praising him like he's a deity or something for his work on stopping Maw and SYN. Besides, I'm assuming Johnny is desperate, so he'll want to give this a shot anyways.

I will admit I did play with the voice acting off so I can't really say if it's good or bad. But judging from the dialogue, I'm glad I didn't have to. One of the biggest flaws first of all I need to address is how the dialogue is handled. The game has plenty of random characters and all of them seem to shout out profanities in an incredibly obnoxious manner. I hope you like hearing Fuck, Shit, Asshole, Motherfucker, Mother of all Fucks, blah blah blah for 10 Hours because it gets old really fast and becomes annoying to read. In my last review, I covered Hatred and criticized it for being overly edgy to the point of parody. But at least with Hatred, that was their goal. Only some of it was bothersome and it did fit the tone it was going for. Turbo Overkill on the other hand is so overly edgy and genuinely obnoxious with it's dialogue that it sounds like it was written by a 10 Year Old Kid who screams slurs in COD Multiplayer. Honestly, maybe I should have turned the subtitles off considering I did that for the first episode and it made the story practically better.

Sad, because there are story beats and moments that feel great and there are certainly improvements to the story in Episode 2 and 3. And the game does tend to have a sense of humor about itself. It feels sincere, but it also feels like it's poking fun at other Boomer Shooters and FPS Games which I found fun. When it's just Johnny interacting with enemies and killing them or dealing with villains, it can get pretty goofy which I enjoyed. And Maw is a great villain but after his final boss form you have to fight SYN which feels a bit too much. But we'll talk about that later.

Lets talk about what Turbo Overkill is though! So you guessed it, another Boomer Shooter. But this is by far the most fun I've had with a Boomer Shooter in quite some time and it's a contender for the best game I've played this year. Not since Doom Eternal have I felt such a adrenaline rush. Some of it is simple, you get weapons, you kill enemies, you collect money to buy upgrades and use them at splicing stations, you collect keys and you open doors with said keys. But this game is much more than those things. Johnny has a chainsaw leg where if he dashes he can slice through enemies with ease. This is great for going down slopes or needing an extra speed boost to cross some gaps. You also early on can walk on some walls, but don't expect it to be like Titanfall 2 where it has momentum and weight to it. Later, you get a grappling hook and press E to use it while waiting for a slight recharge. Micro Missiles are also there and these are probably the ones I used the most out of all the mechanics. You hold the middle mouse, aim at targets and fire when ready dealing great amounts of damage. If you only target one big enemy, that will usually insta kill them. There's also Turbo Time, my least favorite aspect for the mechanics. You slow down time and get more accuracy to fire at enemies, but my main issue is that you don't move faster (like normal speed without it) during the phase, you slow down with it so gun shots will be slow as well. I really didn't enjoy this mechanic and rarely used it for situations until the end.

Weapons include dual pistols, a shotgun, a double shotgun, twin machines guns, minigun, rocket launcher, plasma rifle, telefragger (a futuristic sniper rifle) and a beam launcher. All of them have alt fires like the Twin Machine guns at later upgrades being an assault rifle, or the double shotgun becoming a grenade launcher, or the dual pistols charging up with primary fire to gib enemies unless you miss. With those mechanics and these weapons and fire modes, not to mention the several augments you can get to make Johnny a killing machine, the gameplay loop becomes super addictive. A lot of it has to do with the fast movement, platforming, use of speed in firefights and playing smart during boss fights. For example, what if I take on a group of big enemies? When should I use this mechanic? What's a good time to pull out this weapon? What's a good time to use alt fire on this enemy or that enemy? These things were smartly taken into consideration and I felt that a lot of the design of the levels, which includes numerous platforming segments worked magic. Obviously, the people who made this game wanted to take influence from other modern shooters like Titanfall 2 and Doom Eternal, but they did their own spin on this and ended up making something special. It feels original, but still derivative in a way that doesn't feel cliched.

And can I just say I don't get the hate for first person platforming? I literally never understood it. I've played FPS Games since I was 12 and literally there are so many games I play like Titanfall 2, the newer Doom Games, Half-Life 1 and 2 and several other shooters that include platforming sections that I'm very fond of and think it adds to the movement. Am I just the only person ever to be accustomed and comfortable with this? First Person Platforming to me has always felt good unless it's done badly and the majority of games I played literally had great first person platforming in them. I don't know if people are using controllers instead of Keyboard and Mouse (which would make it a worse experience for me in my books) or if they are just not accustomed to these moments, but I've always felt comfortable with them. I will admit that Turbo Overkill does have some awkward moments where you fall into the abyss and the grapple hook mechanic can be awkward to use at first, but once I got into the game a couple hours in it felt like second nature. So, if you don't like the parkour style gameplay in your FPS Games, I don't think you will like this.

I said the game has seen major improvements and that's true. Bugs have been fixed, the difficulty on Virgin Blood (Super Easy) has been adjusted and fine tuned to make for a more relaxing but tense filled experience, the checkpoints are much better (although some boss checkpoints might be overkill and frustrating on harder difficulties), falling into the abyss now just respawns you back to where you were instead of killing you sometimes and as mentioned, the story has improved somewhat. I heard they even fixed certain levels like with the Hoverbike that now feels more comfortable to control. In fact, the vehicles are very comfy to control. Whether it be the car, mech or hoverbike, they feel satisfying for both traversal and combat for some of these levels. You'll be using the car A LOT in the first episode where you have to fly over to certain buildings, but they never felt cumbersome.

The soundtrack is also killer for this game. The music really gets you excited for whatever you're doing next and can even be slow and thoughtful in some of the cutscenes. It's a very exciting soundtrack and I found myself blown away by some of the tracks here. Sure, it's no Andrew Hulshult soundtrack, but this music FITS right with the game even with it's own theme music. Graphically, I do think the game does look nicer than I gave it credit for. It's certainly not attempting to be just Quake or Doom again which I prefer when I play Boomer Shooters, but it's vastly colorful and the scope of the game is huge given the length of it. Just make sure to put Sharpness up to max in the settings otherwise it looks too soft and fuzzy.

Is there anything I don't really like about this game? Uhm, a couple things. It's not perfect. The game is nearly 10 Hours long from what I played and I felt very exhausted by the last 2-3 Hours of playing it. It certainly overstays it's welcome and nearly becomes a chore to finish with all the higher tier enemies becoming bullet sponges. The firefights also got tiring by the end and felt more difficult not in terms of challenge but in terms of endurance. I think the final Maw boss fight should have been the finale of the game. Besides, I think since you fight him in three forms it has to be the end or at least felt like the perfect conclusion despite SYN still being there. Every other flaw I've pretty much covered a couple paragraphs ago.

Is the game the best Boomer Shooter I've played yet? Well, no. I think DUSK succeeds more in every single category and is a more consistent game to play plus it's shoter and never runs out of steam. But this is by far one of the highlights of my gaming year. To put it simply, Turbo Overkill is like Doom Eternal and Titanfall 2 on crack. It's epic fast pace, lovely controls, addictive gameplay loop, killer soundtrack and major improvements from the EA Build make this a must play. I truly had a great time with this even if I wanted it to be over quickly. It makes me wonder why a lot more developers of Boomer Shooters aren't trying to do something as fresh or unique as this. I like that it's original, but I also like the fact that it wears it's influences on it's sleeves and uses them to make something cool and unique that makes it feel original and fresh. Probably the best game I played all year? Maybe. We'll see about the rest of the year. I heavily enjoyed it regardless. Good ass game.

Rating: 9/10

PROS:

-Extremely addictive gameplay loop
-Super smooth and fast paced controls
-Insanely fast gunplay and high octane action
-The game has a sense of humor and sometimes pokes fun at itself which I appreciated
-Killer Soundtrack that gets you pumped up for every single level
-Managing Upgrades, Mechanics and Guns are some of the best I've played in years
-Colorful Graphics and vast scope for a Boomer Shooter
-Improvements to game design and story with bug fixes
-Feels fresh and original while being derivative and old/new school

CONS:

-Obnoxiously edgy dialogue with constant uses of unneeded profanity
-Game overstays it's welcome at 10 Hours long
-Turbo Time is not very good to use
-Eventually becomes an endurance test to get to the end

-TheAutisticGamer

Hearing anybody refer to their 4K TV as ancient sounds wrong to me but I guess they have been around since 2012. Congrats on the C3! I've had a C9 myself for five years and I still love it. No burn-in after 20,000 hours either and it's my gaming PC monitor.

The C3 is a huge step up from my old TV. And I'm certainly going to be playing more of my Xbox because of Dolby Vision HDR for games, especially if you have Auto HDR set on the console. Very excited to try a lot of newer games on it, but looking at films and TV via streaming and 4K Ultra HD and Blu Ray also has been a real treat. Also, that's absolutely insane that you have that many hours on the C9! Does it have a time tracker? That's quite spectacular that you've put that many hours onto that thing. I only have a ASUS Rog PG279Q since maybe 2016 or 2017 and I still use it to this day. The 165hz mode is broken on it but I can still play games at 144hz fine which I'm totally okay with anyways. I wouldn't mine even downsizing to 1080p or upgrading to an Ultrawide 1440p monitor if the screen is just as good or better.

I finally finished Turbo Overkill. After being disappointed years ago by the Early Access Build, this game has seen a MASSIVE improvement in it's full release. Basically, all the stuff I complained about like unfair checkpoints, overwhelming difficulty on the easiest setting, bad story in Episode 1, bugs that make you literally lose game mechanics and inconsistent design flaws are all fixed up and the game is now a blast to play. I haven't had this much of a adrenaline rush since Doom Eternal came out in 2020. Now, I don't think it's the best of the Boomer Shooters and DUSK is a MUCH more consistent game in every category for me, but this is still exciting and thrilling. Extremely fast and fluent movement with managing weapons, mechanics and upgrades make this an addictive gameplay loop to begin with. I loved making Johnny into a badass and for the story, it's better in some respects but the amount of obnoxious profanity made this feel like it was written by a kid who screams slurs in COD Multiplayer. I did have voice acting off to alleviate this and focus more on the gameplay, so my rating probably would have gone down if I had it on. But everything here is awesome. Banger soundtrack, excellent gunplay and gameplay loop, it feels original while taking influence from other FPS Games and doing their own twist on things and it's a fast and frantic experience that is easily the best game I think I played all year. It's not perfect, but it sure as hell is a real treat.

Overall, I think I'm going to give it a 9/10. Finally great to play something awesome after spending much of 2024 playing disappointing and crap games. I hope to talk more about it in a backlog blog post so we'll see if I get to that.

The highest rated game I have with these qualifications is Giga Wing 2 on Dreamcast. I emulated the game of course since this is another obscure Dreamcast game that costs hundreds but I seriously love this one. It's probably the best Bullet Hell and Shmup game I've played and everything about it just is really awesome. I don't usually play Bullet Hells but this was one I have to absolutely recommend. It's too bad there's only three games in this series and the last one was only in JP and PAL regions (I did play it emulated though, although it's kind of a disappointment compared to the first two on Dreamcast) Not for everyone obviously, but there's loads I love here.

I'm back again! And I just wanted to get some things off my mind right now because I would feel better just expressing myself. First off, I've been incredibly concerned about my performance at work. It feels like I've been sick and haven't been there most of the time this year and all I gotta say is, I think I'm just having a not so great year. I talked with my lead/manager about it hoping she understood what I meant and had similar concerns as me and yes, she did. I was very glad and relieved however as that gave me comfort knowing that someone felt the same way I did. We did chat for a while and I had a thoughtful talk with her about why I might be feeling this way and she noted my anxiety throughout the year so far was pretty high, which made me tell her that I didn't think my year is going well. Thankfully, I'm going to talk with my HR and her about it this Friday hopefully to figure things out and will be seeing my counselor tomorrow which I'm happy about. I have to ask myself sometimes if I even like working at the library but I will be honest and say yes and some things have improved in major ways for myself there over the last six to seven months. So I want to continue working but told them NOT to have any more accommodations for me. I made it very clear to my lead about this.

That doesn't mean I haven't been happy at all this year as there were some bright spots. It's just the overall year has been kind of crap and I hope I'm going to have a turning point for the latter half. It hasn't helped that I've caught every flu and bug this year that was spreading as well.

Now, I wanted to talk about my gaming year so far and to be honest, it's been quite mixed. I found many of the games I played this year were not very good. A full list of them include Hatred, Battlefield 4, DUSK '82, Lunistice, South Park: Snow Day, a couple of Quake Expansions and Mario Vs. Donkey Kong on Switch. I feel like I've played more bad games than good this year so far so I had to count. Out of all the games I played, I counted 16 games I ranked 7/10 or higher (although it includes Yakuza Kiwami because even though the story falls apart the game was still very addictive) and I counted about 11 Games that had a 6/10 or lower rating. I have no clue why I have been wasting my time with such bad nonsense. Look, I don't mind reviewing bad games but I really get excited when I can talk about excellent or exciting releases that really captured my attention. Like last year, we had Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Lil Gator Game, AMID EVIL and it's expansion The Black Labyrinth and Macbat 64.

Unfortunately, a lot of the games that I did like this year haven't stood out. I will talk about the exception of one I'm playing right now, but currently the only truly enjoyable experience I had all year was playing the Super Mario Land games via Nintendo Switch Online and my replay of Quake. Although I did get a lot of enjoyment out of Shadow Warrior 3. There's just not much I'm really loving this year in terms of gaming. But I hope games like Astro Bot will certainly give me a highlight of the year.

I also wanted to mention something else entirely. Something really exciting:



Recently I finally upgraded my ancient LG 4K TV to the new LG OLED evo C3. And my god am I loving this thing. I just put in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy on 4K Ultra HD today and it looked insane. I also previewed some other movies like David Lynch's Dune, Blade Runner: The Final Cut, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and Batman and Robin. My opinion on how they looked has quite changed especially since this is a 55' compared to the 43' I had before. I think Final Fantasy looks a tad bit worse than it did on my old TV. Same with Batman and Robin, despite the movie having effects that still hold up to this day. I haven't checked other movies out that I need to look at like Migration and Space Jam: A New Legacy. You might be wondering about why I would even have the latter on 4K. Well, it's not a great movie to begin with but GOD DAMN does that movie look amazing on the format. A Modern Movie Shot on 35mm Film for a majority of it and it looks pristine as does the visual effects and animation. (BTW, the photo you're looking at is Wayne's World on 4K Ultra HD Disc)

For gaming, it's also quite good too. I tested Serious Sam 4 on my PS5 and the game looked awesome. I also been playing more of my Xbox Series X because of the fact that it has Dolby Vision enabled for HDR Games if you wanted to enable it which makes the colors much more richer. I can't wait to play Astro Bot and Visions of Mana on the system as for some other 1080p titles like Metroid Prime: Remastered. So far, it's a great TV. I love it and it's over a year of hard work that got me to get this TV. I also got a great 5 Year Warranty on it and a better price than usual, got it for around CDN $2300 and since the C4 is already on the market I ended up getting it for a bit less.

Anyways, Games! Lets talk about some.



This is probably one of the big highlights of the year for me so far in terms of gaming. You may have recalled a long time ago (if I remember correctly) that I was very disappointed by the initial Early Access Build of Turbo Overkill. I thought the checkpoint system was unfair, the difficulty too overwhelming, the story from what there was terrible and even encountered bugs that made me lose certain game mechanics. However, this Full Release has been quite stellar so far. Is it as good as DUSK, Titanfall 2 or Doom Eternal? I don't know, but it's certainly up there was some of the most fun I've had with a Boomer Shooter recently. Ultra fast movement, excellent weapon management, tons of interesting game mechanics and fast paced and awesome gunplay make this a must play. I'm about 4+ Hours into the game and still on Episode Two and the game is just a blast to play. I warmed up to the graphical look especially after turning up the Sharpness in the menu settings (The game presets on a really soft filter that looks distracting) and for Episode Two, I mostly have been playing with Voices off but Subtitles on just out of curiosity if the story gets any good. But there are some interesting moments I will admit like the thing Johnny Turbo (our main hero) carries around in that box is his organic parts which I found cool. But yeah, this is a truly awesome game so far. Massive improvement from the early access build. Can't wait to play more of it.



I'm back on a Forza kick and have been wanting to binge Forza Horizon 1-5 considering I never played 1, never finished 2 and have completed 3, but only scratched the surfaces of 4 and 5 even with it's expansions. So I decided to try Forza Horizon 1 out and I'm a bit mixed on it. You know what this game reminds me of from what I've played of it? Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory but the children are Douchebag Racers. Don't want a story in your racing game? Too bad, you get one here and it's bizarre. I will admit the lead who runs Horizon Alice having a soft spot for our bland silent main guy protagonist and wanting him to succeed at Horizon is honestly quite great. And I will admit, the races when I did get into the game were pretty fun and felt similar to many of the Horizon games after this. Although considering this is Xbox 360 hardware and was very limited for what they could do (And I will admit, I'm going to be really nitpicky here), I'm not a fan of how the game feels on rails much of the time. The open world feeling doesn't feel natural and most of the time you're on rails going to one destination or another as going offroad is basically non existent except for a couple parts of the map. Forza Horizon 4 and 5 really did a better job with giving you a very open world feel, even if 5's map is a chaotic nightmare of race and showcase icons.

Still, I'm hoping I'll eventually warm up to this one. You have to start somewhere right? Graphically it hasn't really aged well especially compared to Horizon 2, especially with the character models and cutscenes. I'll have to listen to more of the music to make up my mind if it's a good soundtrack or not. Anyways, I hope this game gets better.

And that's about it! Phew... that was a long one. But I did thoroughly enjoy writing a new blog post tonight. I'm glad I talked about things that were worrying me with my lead/manager at work because I can feel more comfortable that a stressful weight has been lifted off my shoulders. But I hope the coming weeks are going to be good and exciting. Anyways, thanks for reading as always and I'll talk with you later!

-TheAutisticGamer

I finished Half-Life 2: Riot Act, a small mod that expands upon the Nova Prospekt portion of HL2 and I certainly enjoyed it. These HL2 mods are like comfort food for me. They're fast, short, expands upon the universe in a much better way than the Episodes and oftentimes these mods can often be just really chill to play. I was surprised by a couple of things such as the pretty great voice actor they got for this mod who is miles ahead of tons of other Voice Actors who voice HL2 mods and in general expanding Nova Prospekt with this mod gives it much more life. There's a couple things I don't like such as the game lacking armor stations making it way harder than it should be and AI pathfinding while not as bad for Civilian/Resistance members in the OG HL2 is still inconsistent especially trying to get through antlions in tight crammed corridors. Some of the puzzles were also very obtuse and had to heavily rely on stacking boxes to climb places you would never think to go which was rather unsavory. But in general the firefights are still fun and the quality of the mod is higher than most.

So I'll give it a 7/10. Yes, there is a HLTB page for it so if you wanna install it you can do so from the site Run Think Shoot Live which hosts Half-Life 1 and 2 mods.

It seems this thread hasn't been posted on in a long time. Bringing it back with this one as I love to see what games people are playing and their current in the moment thoughts.

I'm currently playing Turbo Overkill at the moment and I got to say after being very disappointed with the Early Access Build being insanely hard on the easiest difficulties and trying to be like Doom Eternal but failing, I am pleased to say all my complaints such as the overwhelming difficulty, severe lack of fair checkpoints and bugs that take away major mechanics have all but been improved on. I did have to turn off voices and subtitles considering I didn't want to have to deal with another bad story and you know what? Turning those off makes the story kind of great like a silent film? The visuals on screen more than make up for the power of those scenes. But yeah, the movement is sick and the game is finally successfully attempting to be like Doom Eternal but with a Futuristic Cyberpunk setting. I don't really care for the soft looking filter the game has though. I prefer to have my 1440p titles looking clean and sharp and it's taken quite some time to get used to it.

I'm on Episode 2 and 3+ Hours into the game. I can tell this is gonna be a longer game than most FPS Games but if the fun I'm having keeps up this will surely be getting a 9/10 by the end of my playthrough. Love all the wicked fast movement, weapon management, the gunplay, truly this is turning out to be some of the most fun I've had with a Boomer Shooter in quite some time. I hope it can continue being as fun as it is without losing steam.

Hatred
System: PC
Developer: Destructive Creations
Publisher: Destructive Creations
Genre: Twin Stick Shooter, Arcade Shooter



PLEASE NOTE that this review will cover controversial topics such as terrorism and mass murder. I do not support any of the ideas or actions in this game and have been able to separate this despite parallels to real world events as a work of fiction. I wanted to just put a little trigger warning out just to make sure everyone knows what they're getting into before this review. However, most of the review won't focus on that and will instead be a bashing of this stupid absurd game. Hope you enjoy it.

You know, I don't think other than this game here there has been a game actually successfully released under the AO (Adults Only 18+) label the ESRB has. I mean, you have stuff like GTA: San Andreas with the Hot Coffee thing, but I think that was cut content? And then there's Thrill Kill, which got pulled from shelves and then was bootlegged by people. Also, Manhunt 2 on PC is AO, but there's no real way to buy that game on any site so mostly you have to look for cracks or torrents or direct downloads of the game to even get it running, IF it runs at all on Windows 10 or 11 without issue. Hatred however is unique as it DID officially release. The game was announced with a graphic trailer showcasing our main character mowing down civilians, brutally stabbing people, shooting them in the head in this black and white world of death and destruction. The game received notoriety and controversy and the hype machine began to build for this ultra violent Twin Stick Shooter. But when the game came out, it was panned by critics (and for good reason) Many found the game to be redundant, boring, overhyped, not fun, controlled badly and found it's paper thin plot to be parodic. So almost a decade later, the game has been swept under the rug and now no one seems to talk about it anymore.

Unfortunately, I was part of the hype train of this game. To have what was essentially a new version of the first POSTAL or an Isometric GTA where you massacre everyone sounded like a fun stress relieving time. But even when I finished it last night, I wondered why I even decided to be a part of the hype train when in general, Hatred is one of, if not the most redundant game I've ever played in my life. The only thing going for it really is it's concept of GTA/Postal but you murder everyone and the fact that the game could have been a great commentary on loads of things. The Developers wanted the game to be a critique of the Good Guy persona you play in every game nowadays. They also wanted to throw away political correctness to attempt to make something controversial of the likes of Doom and Mortal Kombat from the 90's. It's also apparently throwing shade at the idea of Games as Art, something I completely disagree on. Games are art and also can be performance art. But the game had so much going for it and then this is the end result.

I'm going to spoil Hatred's story right off the bat because there's not much to talk about. I thought the story would be kind of schlocky so bad it's good type stuff, but it isn't. Basically, the antagonist (AKA Mr. Not Important) hates the world! So he's going on a "Genocide Crusade" (WTF?) throughout his area and eventually decides to blow up a nuclear power plant to manslaughter everyone around town. Does he succeed? What do you think? OF COURSE HE DOES! The ending showcases him putting in a code to overload the reactors of the place, and guess what the code is? 666. It's so blunt and obvious I found myself kind of smiling at that, but other than that this is the main focus of the game. To get to this Power Plant and blow it up. It's so thin that the plot might as well have been written on a thin slice of skin.

So, Hatred is a Twin Stick Shooter in which you play as Not Important as said. You start out with an assault rifle and collect guns on the way to the power plant. You can carry 3 at a time and can also pick up body armor as well. Guns include a pistol, shotgun, SMGs, a rocket launcher and hand grenades, stun grenades and molotovs. The idea of the game is to mow down as many people as you can whether it be at parties, bars, houses, hotels, train stations, that stuff. The only way to get health is to do finishing moves/executions. However these are so inconsistent considering you never know when there's going to be a prompt. It's completely random which make tough situations even worse. You can get respawn tickets if you do side objectives like blowing up gas stations or destroying coffee shops. Some are harder than they sound, because you could be just going for a stroll killing everyone and then you'll be getting shot at by hunters in the woods.

The gameplay unfortunately is just as thin as the plot. The objectives are mostly the same and there are not many HOLY CRAP moments to really make the game seem provocative as it thinks it is. Not Important as a character is one dimensional. He cracks so many bad edgy one liners that even Infinite from Sonic Forces would wince at his attempts to be edgy. Not to mention a bunch of them are eye rollers. There's not really any other characters aside from Not Important but what he will have to face is the ridiculous legions of police officers, SWAT units and Marines that are on his trail. This is probably the main issue I have with the game in general. First off, the game does start off slow with it's enemies and there aren't many people that want to get in your way. But halfway through, the game becomes ABSOLUTELY ridiculous. The enemies seem to multiply by the hundreds and not even running down the street into another building will save Not Important's life. Many times you can be swarmed by the hundreds and at one point to my absolute dread, you have to raid a military base for C4. Guess what happened the first time I did? No? I died. A lot. Sometimes the game feels impossible to finish because not only do Marines spawn by the hundreds, but they also seem to have ultra confident AI and aim bot on, meaning they will ALWAYS hit you no matter what. It's like Hit Scan times a million.

Look, you have to find that sweet spot when going for AI. You can't have them be extremely dumb and inept (which surprisingly, can happen to enemies in general) and you can't make them ultra aim bot hacker lords who will dominate your ass. I played on the easiest difficulty possible which was Story Mode and even then I died maybe 20 times throughout the entire game. And it's not a long game either! There's only a handful of levels and if you are competent you can beat it in around 2.5-3.5 Hours. So not only do you have swarms of enemies that can aim bot you to death, but somehow RANDOM CIVILIANS ARE CARRYING GUNS TRYING TO KILL YOU AS WELL!? HOW!? I'm assuming this game takes place in America where gun control is crazy bad, but it becomes absurd that several civilians in town would just be carrying guns for no reason unlike the hunters who probably have licenses. I live in British Columbia, Canada where it's MUCH harder to get a gun license, so maybe it's just me finding the idea absurd when it could be realistic, but I just lost brain cells thinking about it.

In terms of the voice acting, it's atrocious. I hope you like every enemy screaming "DIE MOTHERFUCKER!" and "FUCKING DIE!" in your ears, because that's all you're really going to get aside from Not Important's groan worthy lines of dialogue. Even then, the quality of the voice acting is poor from everyone involved and seemingly there was quite bad direction as well. One of the other things dragging it down is it's pretentious black and white filter/art style. It comes off as extremely pretentious and feels like they're doing the same thing as a lot of those Games as Art pieces that they're trying to critique. I ended up playing with the Hatred Color Mod from the Steam Workshop and I will admit, it's an okay mod to make the game look good in color despite the poor representation of Unreal Engine 4 with the game. But it can be so dark at points that even trying to find enemies will be a pain in the ass. The game does have destructible environments somewhat so I will give it props for allowing you to ram your car through a house, but they can be more of a nuisance than anything while trying to traverse. And trying to find new guns to replace ones without ammo can be dreadful at points as well and sometimes you just don't have a good loadout to go up against enemies.

And the worst part of the game is that any message they were trying to convey is completely canceled out by how absurd, ridiculous and on the nose everything is from the dialogue, story, gameplay, insane enemy count and just overall doesn't work. There could have been a very smart game if it wasn't so brain dead with how it executed everything. But now we have a game where I'm going to be blunt, had it's controversy manufactured to bring in hype so people would play it. The only reason they made this game as violent as possible is to get people to notice and play it. And it worked for about a couple months to a year, but after that player numbers dried up and the game ended up being a complete bore. It's so redundant and you do so much of the same thing with poor controls that never felt comfortable to use most of the time that it just becomes a test of patience to see when the game is over.

Hatred will only be known in the gaming history books as the only successfully released AO game on the market. There is probably never going to be another game like this (Except maybe Agony's unrated cut) in today's day and age where our social climate is so different than it was back then. I will only look back on it for being an not so successful attempt to make a stress relieving Twin Stick Arcade Shooter with as much violence as possible. There are much better Arcade/Twin Stick games to play, so why even bother with this. It's not good to be honest and I'm going to certainly forget about it in the weeks to come.

Why have I reviewed so many bad games this year? This is quite odd. Anyways, hope you enjoyed the review. Talk to you all later.

Rating: 4/10

PROS:

-Concept could be great if done right
-Developers had a lot going in terms of it's messages and social/political commentary
-One or two moments made me smile
-Somewhat Destructible Environments

CONS:

-Poor controls that are not comfortable to use most of the time
-Extremely redundant gameplay where you do nothing but mow down enemies and civilians
-Manufactured Controversy to bring in players while hiding the fact that the game is actually bad
-Any attempt at commentary or messages has completely failed
-Absurd Enemy Count with ridiculously precise aim bot AI
-Even on Story Mode you'll die a lot
-Black and White Art Style is pretentious (played with Color Mod to alleviate this)
-Atrocious voice acting with even worse performance quality
-Why do all these civilians carry guns!?

-TheAutisticGamer