"Everything seems murky and drab, with fog drenched over everything." God yeah the Turok series has always had a thing, nay, a fetish with fog :P In fairness for performance reasons but now it probably just has to be there to "be" Turok. 

This will be a fairly short review of the past two hours that I just wasted playing Serious Sam 3.

Take everything that was good about Serious Sam, throw it away and release. That's how Serious Sam 3 was made.

When the most fun thing about your game is the sound the protagonist makes when pulling the head of a common spider enemy then you know you are doing something wrong. When your players spend more time wandering around and getting lost in your maze-like levels than they do fighting enemies, then you know that you probably need to making a few changes here and there.

We kept thinking it was going to get better, but it didn't. Maybe it does 3 hours in? 4 hours in? Not worth any more of my time to find out.

And since when was Serious Sam about story? Why the fuck are there cutscenes?

Shit. 

Yeah the start is really meh, it does get better 3 or 4 hours in actually, but even then it's still not as good as the previous entries. :(

Haven't finished it, but there were a few pretty cool fights.
All the dust smoke that appears when you shoot at stuff is annoying cause it blocks the view so much.
Also the new enemies soldiers with hitscan weapons suck, especially considering they aren't brightly colored like the other monsters so they blend into the environment and are hard to spot. 

Thanks for posting that review of cybermage, it looks really crazy from those screenshot. Also, that cyberpunkreview.com site is pretty intense :) I've got some film recommendations from them that look exciting (Ghost in the Shell) 

you are in for a treat! I can also recommend Patlabor. akira is way to fucked up and weird for my taste. 

It is seriously special. 

FFS DWARF FORTRESS. 

http://thyfleshrenewed.com/how-knee-deep-in-zdoom-could-be-improved/ 

They got a shitload of criticism and arguments all the way through the dev process and after the release, compared to which the negative reactions to RMQ seem mild. But, indeed, there are quite a few similarities between the two. And naturally, in Doom there are strong "newschool" and "oldschool" factions which clash when it comes to the question of what the game can be vs. what it should be.

I enjoyed KDIZD, but I can see where the critics are coming from. The levels are indeed often a little over-reinterpreted and -expanded, and the large number of new monsters as well as the unnecessarily high difficulty can easily put players off. Yeah, the mod has some serious skill balancing issues, because the guy who finished the levels gameplay-wise is a hardcore player who didn't put enough consideration on properly implementing difficulty settings. 

�To Exit, You Will Need the Red Key, Blue Key, Silver Key,
Lavender Key, and Seafoam Green Key�"


Is that a joke? 

There are indeed several occasions where you need to find all six keys to proceed or exit the level. 

 

this game needs a sequel! 

Not entirely sure but I think the rights might be stuck in limbo after the publisher went bankrupt during development of the sequel.

Didn't know that any info was released but apparently this piece of concept art was:
http://www.gamespot.com/enclave-ii/images/227770/ 

Also didn't you make Enclave, bear? 

http://www.johnliberto.com/

I did all of Enclave by myself! ...or rather I started to work at Starbreeze when they were wrapping it up and played around with the content a bit but never contributed to the game. 

http://www.retroblazer.com/ 

Gameplay perfectly matches the visuals. Mad satisfying weapon impacts on the bad dudes.

Love the textures and the general colour scheme, and they nailed the retro-doom-neon style, very coherent, in a crazy sort of way.

There's some good money to be made with this I reckon. 

http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=60603

...derp? 

anyone played? It looks so good, but I'm not even an RPG guy, and almost borderline-casual, so I'm worried it will just be too much for me. 

be in limbo :( 

@Drew, I played non stop for 2 months before Christmas. It is the only game I have destroyed a PS3 controller out of frustration because of how the game treats you. If you can imagine every possible cheap, retro game trick imaginable, the game has them all and then even more! Every level is harder than the last, there is no easy part.

It is a game that punishes the player for being in the wrong place, taking on too many mobs and not playing carefully. (running through the levels are bad). It also has a lot of permanent consequences to your actions which can truly fuck with your save game, which you only have 1 per character.

Once you treat every encounter with caution, then the game is easier to understand. All mobs have set patterns, it is just a matter of time to learn them all and exploit their weaknesses. The environment is equally as dangerous as the mobs, plenty of places to fall and die and plenty of invisible stuff (you need to discover the pain yourself)

Some boss fights are horrible one shot mechanics, that if you are in the wrong place, you die. Most bosses have a trick and some even have defined waves and patterns. My personal favourite was the spider boss but the variety and style is amazing and you even get AI help on most of them (if you want, your choice)

The RPG elements are really strong with the usual overdoes of stats, levels and even special guilds you can join. There is also the chance that some idiot will invade your game and try to kill you while you are fighting mobs (totally sucks but some people love it). You can also get people to help you with bosses which is awesome. (co-op at its best)

I have completed the game twice and eventually stopped on my third play through once I got all the weapons and items. There is a really cool crafting system that exists but I highly recommend you check out the wiki because mistakes in crafting can cost you dearly.

Even thou it has so many negative components it really shines on its combat depth and richness of its environments. It is not a game for the fainthearted and extremely frustrating to play without the help of the wiki. 

thanks for that in-depth response! Definitely giving me a push to get this apparently amazing/horrible game! 

thanks for that in-depth response! Definitely giving me a push to get this apparently amazing/horrible game!