Recent reviews by acdcdave1387

I ALMOST liked this one, I was so close.

Pros:
So I got this because I wanted a good melee combat game. It does have decent melee combat for the most part. The animations are awesome and the hard hitting impacts really make it feel like a high quality Kung Fu flick. However, it really lacks a dodge mechanic. You can counter normal enemies but there are others that can't be countered the normal way. I've played melee combat games with worse fighting but I've definitely played some with better.
The voice acting is pretty good and the sound effects are largely good, at least for the melee fighting which is what matters most anyway.
Rather than just being a regular gangster like in most games of this nature, you are playing as an undercover cop which I think is a nice touch.
There are multiple ways of upgrading your character which is nicely employed.
There is a hacking minigame which I enjoy that reminds me a lot of the hacking game in Fallout but with numbers rather than words/letters. I enjoy both. If you hated the hacking game in Fallout, you might not like this either.

Cons:
This is a sort of GTA clone so you'll have to run from police sometimes but the streets are large and empty and the alleys aren't much better so it can easily turn into a 10 min long chase while you try to lure the cops chasing you into crowds of people to slow them down. It is annoying and incredibly boring.
Sprinting is very annoying when obstacles get in the way. You hold shift to run then press shift to leap over an obstacle...who thought that up? What's wrong with space like in basically every other videogame ever?
This is clearly made for consoles first and then ported to PC. Lots of actions are combined into 1 key. Example, the interaction key is the same one for countering. So if you are normally used to right mouse for countering but F for picking up an item off the ground, get used to it just being 1 of those to do both (among other things).
The game performs fine but it doesn't seem 'smooth' to me. The camera controls are very janky. Also, if you walk and try to look off to the side and simply use the strafe key, guess what...it isn't a strafe key, your character tries walking left or right so the camera constantly turns. That means you can't look to the side unless you stop and THEN look. Another residual of porting to PC from console without fixing this for keyboard and mouse players.
There sometimes feels like there is a tiny delay when countering attacks but other times not. It's not too off putting but if you play something that is truly smooth then this is quite noticeable. So in other words, I can't always tell if I am countering in time.
Car steering is WAY too sensitive and I can't find any way to turn off the dastardly radio. I think you can turn the volume down in the menu but I wanted a control to be able to disable the radio temporarily like I can do in something like Cyberpunk.

Overall - it's not a BAD game, just not well polished and too console-porty. If Steam had a neutral option then this one would fall there for me.

What a great game, so glad I finally got into it. I bought this YEARS ago but wasn't in the mood at the time and just sort of put it on the back burner. Do yourself a favor and do not make the same mistake.

Pros:
Very well optimized. I had the settings fully maxed out and never suffered a single frame drop or stutter the entire game.
The use of lighting and shadows is top notch which is exactly what you would expect with this type of game.
The stupid checkpoint saves might be infrequent but you can quicksave when you want and manual save too.
The voice acting is A+, not a single chump was hired. Terrific job there!
The sound effects are also extremely high quality. I love sound in a game so this could have been a game changer if the sounds were awful.
There was one particular chapter with a horror theme and they knocked it out of the park. These devs could easily make a horror game with what they pulled off there.
This is NOT a combat game much like the original games. You can fight to a limited extent but if you get ganged up on by more than 1 guy, then you are better off running. With that said, the combat isn't bad. Just don't expect a highly action packed experience.
The story is interesting. I wouldn't say that I LOVE it but I definitely enjoyed it. The ending was slightly anti-climactic but I won't spoil anything.
There aren't a whole lot of maps but they are very large and well detailed.
While there are only 8 chapters (8 maps plus the main hub map), making the game rather short, there are a large number of side jobs you can get from 1 particular character so there is increased replayability.
The difficulty settings are highly customizable so you can tailor the game to your desired challenge level.
The lock picking isn't bad. At first I didn't like it but once you get used to it, it is rather intuitive. They went for a more 'realistic' approach in which you have to lock up the pins 1 at a time but they magically stay up once you get em up. Obviously it is hard to simulate real life lockpicking but I think this is a decent approach. What matters is that the game is still running as you lockpick away which means you have to be fast to do it without being seen sometimes.
The AI is smart in a terrific way. If you open a door and they see it, they will take notice and come over to investigate. I don't recall ever seeing that in any game I've played. If the enemy comes across a torch that is out, they won't question it however if they see it go out then they will know something is up, re-light it, then enter an alert state and start looking for you.

Cons:
When you perform a takedown, there is seemingly no way to transition immediately into carrying the body somewhere. The animation even shows him holding the body for a moment to slow the fall but then just sets the body down.
You can put out candles and turn off light switches but you can't turn off a lantern? The game starts using lanterns more towards the end which can only be broken which makes lots of noise. It is artificial challenge thrown in towards the end for no reason and I don't like that sort of nonsense.

Pros:
The music is great and the sound effects are pretty good too. The voice acting is absolutely top notch, good hire choices for that. The story seems really interesting and the intro/prologue level was very intense.

Cons:
The engine performs very poorly. I get a lot of random stuttering, especially when turning. Given that this is an 11 year old game and my PC specs are so high, I think it is poorly optimized.
The combat feels quite janky. There is this odd half second delay from when I pull the trigger to when I hear the sound of the shot. There is a 'cover' mechanic in which you have to press a button and hold it to enter 3rd person mode and cover behind something. Normally in games like this, I ignore features like that and just manually maneuver behind something like a normal FPS only this one seemed to have more of a 'you have to use it or else' type of mentality like the 3rd Brothers in Arms game. In other words, I recall crouching down behind something that was my height and I couldn't see the enemy anymore at all and yet he was still able to hit me.
The game seems more oriented towards being a stealth game however the stealth isn't all that great. You can't lean over and look around a corner since they want you to use the ultra-immersion-breaking-magical-3rd-person-cover feature to see around corners. Takedowns literally cause the world around you to pause so your character is standing there choking someone or beating them up and yet anyone else nearby is frozen in time mid-stride and never hears a thing.
There is no melee attack either. Takedowns only work on people of course so if you want to destroy a camera or something then you have to shoot it, you can't smash it with your pistol.

I just couldn't get into it and wasn't impressed with enough of what I saw to recommend it in good faith.

FIrst off, get RealRTCW. That is the definitive way to play this classic.

Pros:
I love the tone that this game set for the Wolfenstein series. The creepy paranormal stuff truly made this a unique experience for the time period.
Several of the voice actors are incredibly good.

Cons:
The shooting mechanics are extremely dated by today's standards. Even compared to contemporaries of the time period. The sound effects are not great either but that is sort of to be expected from something of this age.
Games from this era often had a level in which you had to be silent and not spotted or the mission would fail. I DESPISE that. When I play a game like this I want to run 'n gun and not worry about getting spotted. There is nothing wrong with having some stealth but if you get spotted then you just blast your way through, otherwise constantly failing the mission means constant repetition which just makes me sick.
Speaking of, the stealth really isn't great. The enemies will almost always see you instantly whether you are crouched down or not.
Also, no surprise given the age but there are no iron sights so accuracy isn't really a luxury you'll experience often in this.

I know, there are way more negatives than positives but the game pushed a great series forward and created a tone that likely led to some great stuff in the future like FEAR. If you like games from the late 90s, early 00s then this is one you should play at least once.

This does a great job of improving the old game. If you are going to play this classic, it has GOT to be with RealRTCW

I can't recommend this game. It just seems too "flimsy" or something. It feels like they were in a rush and cobbled it together very quickly. Perhaps if you've never played any of the great shooters over the years then you might enjoy this but the shooting mechanics are quite poor, the game does not support ultrawide and the sound effects are very poor. There is a big limitation in the controls too, like there is no dedicated use button. Instead, the reload button is the use button. Yeah, a minor gripe but still what the heck?
Anyway, I like the concept, I really do. If there is a game that really deserves a remake, this is it. This was just poorly implemented at a time when they were really trying to capitalize on Call of Duty's success so they thought they could throw together a quick shooter to compete with FEAR and they missed the mark.
Also, why is it everyone in the soviet era speaks perfect English...even to each other...instead of Russian? Come on man, it can't be that hard to find Russian fluent voice actors.

FIRST OFF: Yes, get the game, but NO don't play it how it is. As it comes, the game is not good and definitely was a disappointment. What you will want to do is go to NexusMods and get a mod called Duke Nukem Forever Enhanced. This makes it play like it should have.

Pros:
Duke one liners and gorey nonsense. The level design is actually clever at times, especially at Duke Burger. The levels when you are shrunk are actually quite fun. Also, the holoduke is useful now. I swear that thing never helped me in the original game. The story is simple but effective for this goofy game. The voice acting isn't bad.
There is a surprising amount of environmental story telling and physics based puzzles. Technically there is no traditional save system which is a con but the pro part of it, there is an quicksave feature (not sure if part of base game or was added with the mod) so you can still save scum to your heart's content.

Cons:
The sound effects are bad which is a huge buzzkill since that is arguably the most important part to me aside from the gameplay itself. The weapons and explosions sound weak for the most part. The game is rather short and the ending felt anti-climactic. Duke even makes a joke about it as it happens...
Character movement isn't great. The base game is too slow and the mod I mentioned above improves that greatly but it still feels clunky, especially when jumping. So the numerous platforming segments are rather annoying.
If you install the mod I mentioned above, the game will technically run outside of Steam meaning you won't get Steam to clock time. If the game has achievements then they won't work but I don't know if it does and I don't care because I don't achievement hunt. There is a way to force Steam to get it to still clock time but I didn't bother.

Overall - The game is like Half Life 2 and Postal 2 had a baby and that mutant baby grew into this. You get a Half Life 2 style action adventure but with the ridiculous absurdity that you would expect from Postal 2.
Hail to the King, baby!

A friend of mine got this for me and, as a QA, I have to say it is right up my alley. It took me a bit to realize what I'm supposed to do but then it became quite fun to try and get by one "exit" at a time. Sometimes, it is downright creepy. Whoever thought up this little gem deserves some praise.

Not a bad game, I work as a medical QA in the real world so it is fun to see the hospital in action from a management standpoint. I enjoy doctor mode where you play as the doc and evaluate the patient to try and diagnose the condition in order to be able to treat them. However, the game gets repetitive quite quickly unfortunately

Pros: The sound effects are amazing. The chonk in the shotgun blast is so satisfying...
The whole look and feel of the game, along with the music, really makes me remember the old days of 90s gaming. They really did a great job encapsulating that era on this legendary game engine while keeping it feeling like a modern linear shooter.
There is plenty of cheesy dialogue and even a 3rd person mode for those that would want that.
The level design in terms of the layout is well crafted and makes even the most complex levels in the game seem easy to navigate. You'll always know just about where to go and what to do and there is little in the way of getting lost.

Cons: The level design in terms of the theme and scope is a little 'samey.' There aren't that many unique areas or anything, it just all looks rather the same as the first level for the most part. That isn't really a problem but when you've played stuff like Blood and Doom, it's hard not to notice it.
The enemy AI is really bad. If you open a door and see an enemy standing in the other room looking right at you, they won't seem to notice you until you've entered the room, unless you shoot them first. It could be a bug or just a game engine limitation but I don't recall having this issue in Duke.

Overall, worth it for sure. Excited to one day try out the Aftershock expansion.