Don’t worry Monkey, don’t listen to the three dudes who played FEAR for the stupid-ass story!
It’s not so much of the “stupid-ass story” that I missed, but in how Trepang2 apes FEARs combat, but ignores its design. FEARs combat sequences were deliberately designed and deliberately paced to put the careful player in powerful initial tactical positions and let things delightfully degenerate from there.
I gave up on Trepang2 early, when it locked me in a cluttered, badly-lit arena, and then turned into a wave/horde shooter that included a bullet sponge miniboss. I know kids like their “run around and spaz out like a weasel on crack” Doom Eternal shooters these days, but they’re not to my tastes.
Again, YMMV!
Fortune’s Run has released… on Early Access
However…
Yeah, see you around.
Oh, not for me then but at least they’ve taken an honest look at how long its going to take to leave EA and been upfront about it.
I played through the demo this indie Duke 3D FPS today. Some nice scripted events but I’m not a fan of the personality-free protagonist.
I didn’t feel that was a problem in the slightest, not for a one level demo. She’s pissed about her van getting blown up, she exclaims “oh, thank god” if you find health items when hurting - that’s already so much more personality than 99% of boom shoot protagonists.
My biggest quibble with the The Last Exterminator demo is the lack of enemy variety, otherwise it does a great job of channeling what was great about the first episode of Duke 3D.
Yeah, I assume because this is the first level the enemy variety and really everything is going to be simple. If you think back to Duke Nukem’s Hollywood Holocaust, it didn’t have a lot of enemy variety either.
Like most of these retro-shooters, the real strength here is in the level design. The movement feels a little slow though.
Live in 8 hours
Relevant shit
-Cultic new story level
-Demo of Phantom Fury
Dusk HD
Release date for Wrath Aeon of Ruin (Feb 24th)
Release date for Gunhead (Nov 8th)
Blood West Dec 5th
Selaco will start EA on May’24, with 25 levels.
Graven full release on Jan’24.
Forgive me Father 2
The Phantom Fury demo is not good and that’s a polite understatement. Seriously! While it looks like lots of effort went into making cool looking interactive environments and chunky, sci-fi weaponry this game is lacking the basics required for a successful shooter: specifically the shooting, movement and enemy feedback are all abysmal. I know that sounds like hyperbole but try it for yourself. I can’t think of another game where there’s such a bifurcated experience between looking the part of a solid retro shooter and playing like butt.
Baffled they felt confident enough to release something this early.
Rant aside, I’ve seen lots of people position the game as a rebirth of sorts for the DNF 2001 we never got, I guess because the trailer aped some of 3DR’s infamous vaporware’s setpieces.I hope one day some retro revival developer will try their hand at faithfully recreating the art style from Max Payne, Ghost Recon (2001), and DNF circa 2001 where they used digital photography for textures. That’s my jam, and without that blend of real world photos plastered onto lo-fi geometry it just doesn’t feel the same to me.
Kingpin, a controversial gangland shooter the guys who went onto make the RTCW campaign, is getting re-released later this year. It apparently includes lots of quality-of-life features not that you would know it from this bizarre before-and-after trailer:
I played it back in the day, but I thought it was meh.
I have read the same bad feedback about that demo in other places Tibbs.
Cryptark is one of my all-time favourites and while this looks… interesting, I suppose, I also think the presentation, from the brightly lit flat environments to the 3D character portraits is a step back compared to the original. Even the new voice work doesn’t quite hit right. I hope it turns out well but every trailer I’ve seen since it was announced has made the jump to 3D look strained.
Yeah that’s hilarious. I actually really enjoyed my time with the demo of Kingpin back in the day.
Hedon Bloodrite got an update yesterday and I’ve still got to get on to Bloodrite (chapter 2). The Crystal Heart (chapter 1) was absolutely brilliant. It’s currently 50% off.
What even was different? I’m sort of mystified at what I was looking at.
All I could see were slightly higher resolution textures, and that wasn’t obvious in real-time.
Another one, Agent 64 showcasing split coop/mp
Hahah, that looks glorious.
DLC announced for Prodeus, but this seems to take it out of “retro shooter” territory.
Oh and Ion Fury: Aftershock is finally coming out tomorrow.
That Prodeus trailer makes me feel vaguely disappointed. Not sure that’s the direction I wanted the game to go.