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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2020 23:40:24 GMT -5
Well, I played the other Painkiller games as well, even though I wish I didn't... Painkiller: Redemption [2011] for the PC Not much to say about this, they took 8 multiplayer maps and made 8 'levels' out of it. They're small maps, but they make them feel longer by putting around one thousand enemies in each of them. That many enemies just disrupts the balance Painkiller had and now it really reminds me of Serious Sam. Gets really tiresome to play. There's no story to speak of, but you do play as Daniel and Belial with their own set of weapons. Painkiller: Recurring Evil [2012] for the PC Definitely better than Redemption, but still not good enough. Now a couple of the levels feel a little less like multiplayer maps and more like actual levels. Especially Highway to Hell, which reprises the zombie apocalypse theme from Dead City. However, the other levels are still meh and there's only 5 of them. And still a few hundred enemies too many. Painkiller: Hell & Damnation [2012] for the PC It's a remake/reboot/sequel (?) of the original Painkiller. It was developed by The Farm 51, a Polish studios that was founded by some former people from People Can Fly. They abandoned the old engine and remade the game with Unreal Engine 3. It looks alright, but not good enough to warrant a remake since the original Painkiller still looks decent to this day. Most importantly, it feels like a Unreal Engine 3 game in the worst of ways. Blood splashes look fake, enemy models have a lifeless, weightless quality to them. Enemies don't have much of a punch and explosions are particularly wack. Very disappointing. There almost are no new levels to speak and to add insult to injury, half of the levels were released later on as DLC. General laziness everywhere. Remember the Colosseum level? It's back, but it has no gladiators or slingers in it, just swordsmen and crossbowmen from the Middle Ages levels. They couldn't be bothered to make actual enemy models that go for the theme of the map, even though the original level had those. Luckily, People Can Fly went on to make their own FPS powered by UE3, Bulletstorm (2011), which turned out pretty good.
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Post by Ex on Sept 1, 2020 0:07:24 GMT -5
@tsumuri
Honestly I had no idea there were this many Painkiller releases. Overall I'll say these games have decent graphics at least. But the only entry I've been interested to try is Painkiller Black Edition via GOG. I don't normally gravitate towards arcadey FPS, so I've still not tried it.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2020 4:56:40 GMT -5
The two points I wanted to get across were: 1) not to bother with any expansion past Overdose, which is a popular opinion even among fans; 2) not to bother with the remake since it's a lazy cash grab and it's worse than the original. There are actually people who prefer it to 2004 Painkiller, which is shocking to me.
That said, I realize Painkiller is not for everyone and it probably isn't for you. But it definitely is for me, unlike other 'arcadey shooters' like Serious Sam.
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Post by Ex on Sept 1, 2020 9:08:08 GMT -5
But it definitely is for me, unlike other 'arcadey shooters' like Serious Sam. Knowing your tastes somewhat by now, I understand why you enjoy Painkiller (at least the initial entries). "Arcadey FPS" turns out to be an actual genre on GameFAQs. Here's the PC list: gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/category/152-action-shooter-first-person-arcadeAlthough that list also includes games like ARMA, so I think it's not quite as narrowly defined as it should be. I can't remember if you've played these two or not, but if not, you might like them:
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2020 10:02:03 GMT -5
I did play Chasm: The Rift ( review) - rough around the edges but very interesting title nonetheless. I played a bit of Firestarter, seemed pretty subpar. I think that GameFAQs list is a tad too comprehensive, but then again, by now I'm pretty much aware of any FPS that isn't totally obscure and there's a tiny chance I might play one day. Although I might lose track of all the new 'old-school' titles coming out on Steam, there's an endless stream of them.
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Post by Xeogred on Sept 7, 2020 15:39:53 GMT -5
NeoRetro: - Shovel Knight - Axiom Verge - Blazing Chrome - Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night - Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon - The Messenger - Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight - Odallus: The Dark Call - Blaster Master Zero
- GunLord X
A new entry for my Neo Retro Favorites has landed. Beat the 2012 NeoGeo developed GunLord X on PS4 today at 1h59m, thankfully it has a level select so I was able to casually play this one over a few days and take my time enjoying some of these huge levels. I'm talking some 20 minute bangers. This game was made by like a dozen people from what I roughly counted during the credits. So this is definitely one of those games that fees like a 32bit era lost artifact. It would fit well in the Run n' Gun Club Retro right now but I know some don't want that. I'll just link to my Super Turrican (NES) thoughts here for reference. Because GunLord X is truly pretty much Turrican IV in everything but name and fascinatingly enough, it seems to harken back more to the Amiga games in design, rather than the more Western/Japanese influenced two SNES entries and Mega Turrican on the Genesis. This was so potent playing the NES port of Turrican alongside GunLord X, just literally felt like I was playing the same series. Huge labyrinthian levels to traverse, peppered with enemies to mow down in every corner. GunLord X has the gorgeous flair of 32bit era sprite based games, like Mega Man X4+, Symphony of the Night, and so on. The OST is incredible and definitely Chris Hulsebeck influenced. I even love how the tracks sometimes end, like the CD/redbook audio needs to repeat. Intentional or not, it just boosted the nostalgia feels here. While the NES Turrican lacked real reward for exploration, here it was worthwhile to find the "Big Diamonds" because collecting enough can expand your continue count. I think you have to be extremely thorough and find most of them though, because I found probably half of them and only got two extra continues for the whole thing. You often find lives hidden around stages too. You have a health bar with three hits, so you can sometimes get taken down fast or fall into a death pit, but lives will spawn you back right away. The main character sprite could look a little better though, or pop a little more compared to the rest of the backgrounds and stuff. I guess I only had issue with this in the first few levels, or got used to it. Platforming can sometimes be a tad tricky too, you have to be pixel perfect for some jumps from time to time. The guns are all awesome, with the Green/Bounce one being the best. It seemed overpowered, because mashing the button made it shoot out in like ~5 directions covering more ground than Spread itself, then holding down fire makes it a powerful two way beam. The other weapons didn't really seem to have two different functions like this. There was no grapple hook like in some of the Turrican's and I didn't miss it. You can still go into the cool ball mode and use that to dodge some damage sometimes or abuse i-frames. There was only one traditional shmup level and it was very short. I would have liked for that stage to be longer for another one! There was another scrolling stage on foot though. Then a jetpack involved stage. Some nice variety to spice it up. Here's the weird part, beating the game cleared out my save file. It said I unlocked some speed run mode but the only difference I noticed was a timer in the bottom right when starting a new game now. So I guess you just get to see your time in the levels now. But it's kind of weird you have to start over, even though it seems to save what Big Diamonds you find. Strange. All in all, this is absolutely my aesthetic and the difficulty was solid, not a cake walk nor frustrating, with an ear fill of incredible music, this joyous two hour run was a super cozy time. I can see this being thrown into my rotation of revisiting some of the Turrican's down the road.
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Post by Ex on Sept 7, 2020 21:20:04 GMT -5
XeogredGunLord X definitely looks legit. I'll certainly play it eventually. Hopefully the X version will get a PC port. I've got the game on Dreamcast though, so worse case I'd play it there. I remember CGR really loved this game:
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Post by Xeogred on Sept 8, 2020 2:41:50 GMT -5
I miss that guy.
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Post by Ex on Sept 8, 2020 9:06:24 GMT -5
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Post by Sarge on Sept 9, 2020 23:27:51 GMT -5
Not sure I'll add it to the total, but that's a Hard mode run of Streets of Rage 4 done. The more I play it, the I really do think it's worthy of the series name.
That last stage, though, gets nuts. Kept having issues in the castle area where there's just too many swords laying around. Man, get hit by one of those and it hurts. I only lost one life on my successful run, and that was at the final boss(es).
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