Recent reviews by Punished_Waler

Is one of those DooM successor game, a bit complex, and on the Unreal engine for some reason.
First play this game back in 2020, beat it once, put it down, forgor about it.
It's fun, don't get me wrong, but back then I got more choices, and are not as cynical.

Fast forward to 2024, current year.
I am a cynical dic with a dead end job, so I decide to play another 16 hours...it is defiantly not because I recently find out the player character is actually a scantily clad tomboy gynoid warrior.

Oh and can't wait for the sequel.

It's FU€KING Half-Life, I don't need to say ♥♥♥♥.

Nominate for "Labor of Love" simply because recent event, sorry 2077.

Also HL3 when?

Game: $5. Bought in like 2011 or something.

The damage: Spend $100 on custom weapons and PM models, plus ~200 hours of my time wasted.

Okay, what's the plan?

Dear dev:
Why do you strive for for best OST in the Steam Awards?
Your OST is fine enough, but it is all about the game play for me.

As this is a game in which you play as a John Wu movie protagonist with slow motion, and a literal hand cannon.

I want my life back.

But to be completely honest, is not like I will do anything productive anyway.

WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE!?

It's fine.
But please notice one thing:

DON'T JUST PLAY THIS GAME AND THINK YOU KNOW HOW TO BUILD A PC.
Me assembling a computer in-game: 5 mins.
Me assembling a computer irl: 5 hours.

Also, the pricing is wacked.
My rig's in-game cost: ~$3100
My rig's irl cost: ~$2000
...then again, I live in Taiwan. Most computer parts are made here (or they contract China on it, same thing).

The Dark Souls of First Personal Shooter...except you can move better.

Why?
This game is hard, very hard.
Harder than Doom 2016.

But hey, I am not complaining. Despite how difficult it is, the fast combat made it more fun like that famous hard game know as Dark Souls.
Which for me, is just a test of waiting for the right time to strike.

But if you ever complain it is too hard, a bunch of elitist will start rag on you...since being good at very hard games is their only achievement in their pathetic life.

Just like Dark Souls elitist, except this game control so much better.

So I guess what I mean is Dark Souls elitist is the worst bunch on planet earth.

It is a third person metroidvania puzzle game, and it is cryptic as hell.
I only manage to beat 40% of it by myself, the rest I have to cheat, and not "a little".
It's "opens a walk though on my side monitor" amount of cheat I am talking about here.

There is little to no story to explain what is happening, or who you are...as I can gather from one play though: You are one of a cyborg/clone of thousands of identical ones that is manufactured in an Aperture Science-ish lab, and have to go "somewhere".
Escape, maybe?
You don't have a lot of context to begin with, but what do else to do when you are in a possibly underground base that do puzzle for the sake of "science"?

Now I know the term of "The Dark Souls of X" is getting old and just put Dark Souls players in another higher pedestal. So they can forget the fact that "Beating Dark Souls" is the only thing they "git gud" in their pathetic life." But this game is really "The Dark Souls of Third Person Puzzle game"...and I mean that more than one way.

The game is hard af, as I said before.
Other than that, the control is kinda clunky, you got quite amount of platforming to do, the existence of ledge grab helps, but is still hard due to the clunky-ness and "save feature" I will talk about later.
It is serviceable, satisfying when you manage to pull off certain jump/maneuver, otherwise it is frustrating.
The shooting is quite standard, head shot do more damage, but some enemy placement is f/u/k/cing cheap. Listening to their footstep is quite helpful though.

The "puzzle" in the game is basically figure out "where the f/u/k/c do I go" that kind of deal.
Lots of backtracking, some "zone" require certain items to beat, some doesn't. New comers can bumble in certain zone for hours trying to figure it out.

But the crowning jewel of why this game is hard is the limited save system. You can only save via in game disc in certain rooms like the OG Resident Evil. This make the already hard puzzle become brutal as hell, if you miss a jump after 3 hours of gameplay without saving, then you are fu/ked. There is a good reason that limited save system is history now. But sure they do bring up the stake of the game.
The one other thing similar to the OG Resident Evil is the limited inventory system, forcing you to only carry certain items. in harder difficulty you got lesser slot...and items. Although most save point have an item box that you can store items that magically transfer to the next item box...I figure that out after I check out the walk though.

Overall, this is a hard, but interesting game if you enjoy puzzle games that "make sense" (which I mean it doesn't have that kind of puzzle that require you to let a bird sing so a robot can fell asleep so you can sneak past it to grab a bucket in order to cook a bunch of gum and make a bridge out of it) Otherwise, you might have to use a walk though for 60% of the time...since once you use a walk-though. Is hard to stop using it due to the interconnected nature of the game.

Also the game have mod support that let you make custom map & stuff. Although a great chunk of them have been purged from the Workshop for "reasons"...yes, the exact reason you can think of.