Seneste anmeldelser af Salamand3r-

I'll tell you a little story about Quake 2.

Way back in the dark ages, Doom came out, and it was good. I played Doom, and I like it.

Then the Holy Trinity of Build arrived, and it was more gooderer. Like Doom before, no fancy 3D accelerator was needed.

Then came Quake. I didn't play it much then. I was busy looking at mostly-nekkid ladies in Duke3D. And I knew that to get the best out of it, you needed one of them fancy new 3D accelerator cards.

So I skipped Quake - who cares about Lovecraftian horror anyway?

Then I was out chillin' with my homies, listening to some Rammstein as we were wont to do. At some point while swapping between Herzeleid and Sehnsucht, a friend produced a mysterious green CD with a familiar-yet-different stylized "q" emblazoned on it. The first track was garbled noise, but then the sweet, sweet strains of metal boomed from the $10 boombox.

I knew I had to play the game.

I bought Quake 2 that day. Being limited to a Pentium 120mHz with a Cirrus Logic 1mb 2D chipset, it was all software, all the time. 320x240, baby. 5-15ish FPS.

I played it like that for a couple of years. Scrimping and saving for a luscious Voodoo card.

Then one day, I was just about fully ready to commit - get myself a new IDT Winchip 233mHz (drop-in socket 5 upgrade) and a new Voodoo. So I went over to BestBuy to drool a bit (yes, BB used to have a very robust PC part selection). On the shelf next to the Voodoos was a mess of yellow BestBuy tape that said "open box - $79.ish". Scraping the tape to the side a bit, I saw the name, something I'd never heard of - Diamond Stealth III Savage 4 32mb. 32mb must be better than 16mb in the Voodoo, and with that discount I'd be able to get the Winchip for an all-around upgrade.

I dropped the most at once I ever had before on a single PC part purchase, and bought my first 3D accelerator card.

Long story short, I bought my first GPU and first major PC investment just to play Quake 2 in glorious 800x600 at 40+ FPS.

Worth ever penny, and every second of gameplay was glorious.

20 years later, I bought my latest GPU for more than most whole systems cost these days just to play that same game, at 1080p60 with RTX on. Literally, the Q2 RTX demo videos brought me back 20 years in nostalgia, luckily with a bigger bank account.

Just like last time, it was worth it. Every penny.

If you own an RTX card, download this. Get Quake 2 for the few bucks as well and enjoy one of the greatest shooters of all time - even after over two decades - with the technological marvel of fully path-traced rendering.

I may not play as obsessively as I did back then, but ever second of Q2 is still glorious id shooter perfection, this time with another technical marvel adding a new sheen of freshness.

The game was free, but it cost me around $1300 to play at a reasonable framerate - and it was still worth every penny.

Memberberries are a powerful drug.

A massive evolution over Doom (2016), and a massive improvement.

The combat is more fluid, the movement is more dynamic, and the entire package is, for lack of a better word, intentionally designed.

Doom (2016) suffered from a lot of legacies, both technically and in design. It was in great part built from mechanics and assets recycled from the cancelled Doom 4, often uncomfortably grafted into a more action-forwards experience. It also was in many ways restrained by the Doom 3 serious take on the entire Doom universe. I also have no doubt that there was a certain "play it safe" directive pushed by Bethesda.

Doom Eternal feels like a competent team was given license to built a game that was just that - a game.

Not an art piece, not a simulator, not an immersive "experience", but a game. Designed to challenge and entertain, with well defined, well balanced, well polished mechanics.

Everything that was added or changed from D16 was for a reason - and always a good reason.

Bringing platforming back to the series instead of long hallway trudges of Doom 3/D16 (and yes, classic Doom had platforming - you just didn't have a jump button and it was the jankiest ♥♥♥♥ in history - don't believe me, think back to the Icon of Sin room in Doom 2) was an excellent decision.

The story finally got off of the Doom 3 "let's pretend it's real world" ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and went back to the insane, over-the-top lunacy that Doom 1 and 2 supplementary material are so famous for. It's perfect Saturday-morning-cartoon, 80s Flash Gordon, Masters of the Universe schlock, and it fits Doom like a glove.

And if you don't like it, another difference from Doom (2016) is that virtually all of it can be skipped - you won't get trapped with Hayden lecturing you in his office for 5 minutes in this game.

Borrowing mechanics like dashing from other shooters and spectacle fighters added mobility without the corresponding requirement of enlarging level design by absurd amounts that would be required by a straight speed increase was an ideal way to do it.

Resource management, always a key of id shooters, was honed and tightened up to be something you generally can't just breeze past.

Graphics, while not the most cutting edge, are still a distinct improvement. The performance is incredibly scalable, and downright stellar on anything that meets the base technology requirements (i.e. Vulkan support).

Sound design is excellent - Doom (2016) was mixed and balanced for mid-range audio solutions, and it showed in the lack of subbass and range in the sounds. Eternal's sound effects are in a different league on better audio setups.

Music is...well, it's Mick Gordon: Doom (2016)'s Greatest Hits, with a lot of Mick Gordon: I'm really tired of doing music for Doom thrown in there. Controversy aside, Eternal's combat music is generally just not as good as D16, although the ambient tracks are equal or better.

And finally, the now vanishing elephant in the room, Denuvo anticheat.

It was a non-issue in a technical sense - providing no more vulnerability than graphics drivers. It was borderline in a consumer courtesy sense, as it was clearly defined, it was announced before launch that it would eventually get anticheat, and as far as anticheat goes, it was one of the most tame (in terms of causing other system problems) brands in existence.

And as of now, its removal has been announced. Welcome back, cheaters. Yay.

No game is 10/10, and no personal 10/10 will apply to everyone.

For me, it's a solid 9/10. For the average shooter fan, it will be divisive. Love it or hate it, everything in the game has a reason to be there, and as a complete package it sets a high bar for actual game design.

Doesn't really need a review. The de facto gaming PC benchmark. It sucks that new modules like Port Royal count as DLC though - new features like that should come free to current owners.

Of all the throwback shooters in the recent past, this is the one that I've enjoyed most.

While I don't have a ton of time to spend in it, every time I load it up I get happy nostalgia for my younger days playing Heretic until all hours.

Well recommended for classic shooter fans who don't want the drab, brown palette that many seem to be going for these days.

Doom, in all possible ways that Doom 3 wasn't.

At the current prices, no reason not to pick it up.

I'll review this from two perspectives - a technical review based on my personal experience using a WMR headset, and then a review of the game as a VR title.

First, regarding WMR - disregard the "Notice: Requires the HTC Vive virtual reality headset. See the VR Support section for more info.". FO4VR not only runs on WMR, it has official specific keybinds for the WMR controllers.

However.

It is currently broken out of the box, with decals and some shadows rendering in the reverse eye, resulting in an extremely uncomfortable visual effect. It's hard to say whos fault it is, MS or Bethesda, since there are currently two workarounds, one involving forcing Steam to download an older .exe, and the other adding a config setting for WMR. Both are easy to find on Google, so I won't link them here (if Steam would even allow the links...).

Aside from that, the game runs beautifully on WMR, and the dedicated keybinds are excellent - they make full use of the controller in a way that makes me wonder how people can play with Vive or Oculus wands - WMR combines the sticks from Oculus with the touchpad from Vive, and both are fully utilized. I played FO4VR when WMR still used the stock Vive binds, and there just weren't enough buttons. Almost everything was contextual, making the PipBoy navigation, and even normal tasks like being able to loot, shoot, and move at the same time rather tedious.

Bear in mind that there doesn't seem to be any documentation on the keybinds readily available, so you will have a learning curve.

From a performance standpoint...eh, it's still Fallout 4. No matter how beastly your rig, to get it to both look great and perform well will take some work and a few compromises. No matter what your system, you WILL drop below 90FPS. Whether that bothers you or not is subjective. For WMR users, I highly recommend using Motion Vector Reprojection - again, Google how to enable it.

Currently I am running it on a 2700X/1080Ti with 32gb of RAM. With Motion Vector Reprojection enabled, the experience is a buttery smooth 90FPS, with 210% supersampling.

Don't bother with low spec PCs. You will have drops below playable and into motion sickness domain, OR you will have to reduce quality settings to an extent that take away the magic of playing Fallout in VR.

Fully maxed out, with a few texture mods, the world is awesome to behold, especially if you are very familiar with Fallout 4 to begin with. Walking into Diamond City or the Prydwen or the Institute and actually "being there" is an incredible experience, as long as the visual fidelity is intact.

It isn't a great VR game - simple, arcade-y titles are still the best objective VR games - simple, high framerates, and build from the ground up for the medium.

But using "however" again, it creates a world so close to our own that it is the closest to complete immersion that I have yet found. Not losing yourself in amazing gameplay like Beat Saber or Space Pirate Trainer or Gorn might invoke, but actually experiencing an alternate reality.

It still has the issues of normal Fallout 4 - utterly stupid story, poor animations, and an action focus, but they can be easily overlooked for the world that you can explore.

You will need a few mods -

More Accurate Weapons - removes most of the RNG for shooting, which makes VR play a lot better
Pipboy VR Light - makes the Pip-Boy behave like a flashlight
Live Dismemberment - a must if you are using melee. Hitboxes are so well set up in VR that you really need it
True 3D Sound for Headphones - actual proper positional audio

Any other mods are personal preference. I recommend basically anything you would use in standard Fallout 4, with an emphasis on textures - assuming you have enough VRAM.

All-in-all, as much as I despise Fallout 4 as an entry to the Fallout mainline series, it does make an extremely fun VR experience.

It's worth it, even if you only play a few hours.

No longer really accurate.

It will give you a good indicator how lower-end arcade-y titles will play, however with the rise of VR titles like Fallout 4 VR, Elite Dangerous, and newer more intensive titles, you can't really know what to expect based on this benchmark.

Still, fine if all you are looking to ascertain is performance for games like Space Pirate Trainer or Gorn.

Edit for Next Gen:

Put it back in the oven for a couple of months, then I'll review it. Right now, it's a technical mess.

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Original review:
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First, let's get this out of the way.

TW3 is a good game. In terms of production values, I would even say it is a great game.

But it isn't the 10/10, greatest game of all time, amazing graphical achievement that a lot of the bandwagon (and indeed, the gaming press) claim.

Let's clear up the first myth - that TW3 is an RPG. In the broadest sense, yes. It is more along the lines of a JRPG than a true Western RGP, as it drops you into the shoes of an established character with established traits and abilities. While you free to make moral judgements that will influence the story, Geralt is still Geralt. No matter how "good" or how "evil" you play it, in the end Geralt is still a gruff, oddly charming rogue with a heart.

It's more akin to an action adventure game. If you are looking for an open-ended RPG in the tradition of the old Black Isle games, the Elder Scrolls series, or the more conventional Western RPG fair, you won't find it here.

All that said, the narrative is phenomenal, and the progression system does allow a reasonable amount of customization - although there are paths on the skill tree that are objectively better for every possible use case. It does a good job investing in the world, so long as you can sync youself to the character of Geralt. If you can't get into his head, you won't be immersed.

The graphics - well, they're good. Some parts of the game are truly spectacular. But what you have is a game that is extremely good at hiding flaws. Repeated/tiled ground textures are common in areas light on foliage. Billboard foliage is still billboard foliage - it's the same thing we saw in the 3DMark '01 Nature demo, and although the texture resolution is higher, it still doesn't look all that amazing. Character models and animations are a huge cut above the oft-compared-to Bethesda RPGs. Hairworks, well in my opinion rather silly-looking on Geralt, is great on animals and monsters - not least because it covers up some hideous texture work. A myriad of post processing does a great job of covering up gnarly textures and low-poly geometry.

Don't get me wrong, for a game of this size and scope, the level of detail is amazing, but it isn't graphically perfect by any stretch, nor does it truly break any new ground.

Performance-wise, it is still a mixed bag. It was not horrendous at release, but there were issues. Most were sorted out, and excluding the use of nVidia Hairworks (there are open source options that could have been used, and look better), the game does perform admirably considering the level of detail.

Combat is a poor portion of the game though - much like the infamous videos of TF2 being played on a keyboard with only the "W" key installed, TW3's combat is simplistic to the point of tedium. You can generally two-button everything in the game - dodge and attack are all you ever need to do, even movement is generally optional. You will basically never need oils. You will seldom use any potions above the default healing potion. Mac over at Worthabuy on Youtube covered the almost comical limitations of the combat rather well - I suggest checking out his videos.

The lack of potion usefulness leads us into crafting - it's generic. That's really all there is to say about it. There are blueprints to find, supplies to find, things to make. That's it. At least TW2 had a somewhat immersive meditation screen at which to craft.

I'm not saying it's a bad game, or that anyone is wrong to like it, or that anyone is an idiot for listing it as their favorite game ever. But those are subjective. Objectively, it is not a 10/10 game.

My only real gripe with the game is with CDPR, their marketing, and the way they handled critics.

First, the marketing - they made a gigantic PR stink about TW3 releasing as DRM free on ALL platforms. They day after that amazing announcement, they made a quiet forum post that only the GoG version would be fully DRM free - they didn't bother to send the correction to the gaming press. Most publications never updated the original story. This was to score free publicity points, and has provided fanboys with a couple years of "good guy CDPR!" in regard to DRM, when it is, in fact, patently false.

Second, the way they handled critics - while giving out free copies is not unusual, and is good practice, the extra lengths they took with "influencers" like Angry Joe were downright ludicrous. "Influencers" were flow to Poland (free), given red carpet treatment, wined and dined, given exlusive tours and access, and from the looks of some of the pictures and footage of the events, probably got some tender "escorting" from some pretty damn attractive ladies after the events. While this really isn't that unusual in some industries and some circles, it's way overboard for gaming journalists and Youtubers - if this is the only company that has ever done this for you, subconciously you WILL favor their product, considering again, this is not standard treatment.

Third - they ♥♥♥♥♥ a lot of reviews. One of their second-wave sales marketing points was "most GOTY awards of any game in history!". Problem is, a huge amount of those were fake. From websites that never did a single other video game review (seriously, one of them was a Polish wheat farming equipment website), to domains that only remained registered for a single year, purchased under PO boxes by non-existent companies. The entire thing was a sham and a hoax.

All-in-all though, a decent game - it is hamstrung in a few areas by poor quality assets, and marketing was pure jackassery (oh, I forgot to mention the advertised Steam Machine support that never materialized....) and lack of real depth, but it is still an amazing experience in the gaming world.

Let me be clear - I preordered this game at Babbages in 2001 (unlike the famous Slash000 example, GameStop did not honor my preorder reciept). So I did start the game with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.

Yes, you can point to the original 2-weapons limite (later patched to 4), the confused design, the odd linearity, the dated graphics, the vehicle sections, and objectively you have what could be called a bad game, or mediocre at best.

However, within that mediocre game, there are still gasps of greatness. The shrunk-down levels, particularly at Duke Burger, and unique and incredibly fun. The vehicle sections, while not the most engaging, are sill playable. And the first one, again shrunk down and driving an R/C car, is downright creative. The shooting is solid, with the feel of the original Duke3D weapons maintained well throughout. The nods to the history of the series are executed in the perfect tongue-in-cheek style. And the Ego health system, while evocative of the Halo shield system, is still a stroke of genius.

And the there's Duke. While some may take issue with Duke getting out of breath after short sprints, or the fact that he clearly has laid off the roids since he can no longer carry the entire National Guard armory with him, it doesn't matter. Duke Talk is still voiced by the incredible Jon St. John, and while many of the references are dated, they are dated to a time period that the target audience for the game will remember. While the line "I'm your huckleberry." won't be a reference many millenials will get, it still made me laugh out loud (possibly becuase I had watched Tombstone a scant few weeks before I played DNF).

It isn't a masterpiece, but in my opinion, neither was Duke3D. Duke3D had the virtue of being the first mainstream shooter with a real protagonist, and with adult content. The subsequent Build Engine games were better shooters (Blood and Shadow Warrior come to mind), the concurrent id titles were both mechanically better, and once Quake came out, graphically lightyears better, but Duke was the first of a new genre. He made a strong protagonist in shooters a "thing", for better or for worse.

For me, it was worth paying for the game twice - once as a preorder, and again on Steam, just for the positives I've mentioned, and for nostalgia.

If you didn't play classic Duke3D at an impressionable age, it isn't likely going to be for you. If you are expecting purely classic shooter gunplay, it isn't for you (the concessions to modernity are to pervasive).

But, if you are looking for a healthy does of 'memberberries bringing you back to the mid-90s, pick it up on sale.

Balls of Steel.

Ignore the politics. Play the game.

The quotes and vignettes that people are calling "SJW" are largely being taken out of context, and are not relevant to the gameplay whatsoever.

Gunplay is excellent. It feels a bit more oldschool that Doom (2016) simply because of the greater amount of hitscan enemies. Love'em or hate'em, you are going to be seeing a lot in this game.

The new dual-wielding mechanics are nifty, but clunky. I would have preferred the ability to create a custom weapon wheel with "loadouts" or something similar to make switching a bit more refined.

Sounds and music are satisfying. Although Mick Gordon has also gone heavily electronic, which many people hated in Doom, the soundtrack is not as agressively present and blends with more than it dominates the gameplay.

As to bugs, I haven't had any. That isn't to say others haven't, but they are not universal. And so far, the majority of them are being solved by doing a DDU driver wipe and fresh driver install - something that any PC gamer should be doing regularly anyway.

There are some oddly gnarly textures though, and that doesn't seem to be a bug; rather an artistic or aesthetic choice. A mind boggling one, but there we are.

There is more than 7 hours of content as some are claiming. If you play on a reasonable difficulty, take time to explore for secrets, and do a few side quests, an 80% or so completion run should take you around 10-15 hours. 100% on a higher difficulty will probably take closer to 20.

Two timelines, and multiple upgrade paths may add some replayability, as the different upgrades will emphasize different playstyles.

Overall, solid 7/10. Probably not worth it for non-fans at launch price, but a solid game.