Video Game Review: Quake: Dawn of the Machine

 

Dawn of the Machine is an official Quake expansion released by Machine Games to celebrate the thirtieth (!) anniversary of the classic shooter. It is, quite frankly, an amazing experience. Utilizing the tech that Nightdive Studios developed to remaster the original game, Dawn of the Machine features architecture that would not have been possible to design in 1996, lest your humble Pentium and 3dfx Voodoo explode. Tying together the three main thematic designs of the original game (Lovecraftian horror; dark fantasy; sci-fi shooter) while greatly expanding the scope of the levels. this is simply the best Quake has to offer. It's hard, too, people, in the way that classic shooters are hard. This expansions throws Shamblers at you like crazy, and you'll often have to manage your ammo to some degree since you'll face much bigger mobs than you did in the original episodes. But the eye candy on display just triggers my nostalgia so hard. Games don't necessarily need cutting-edge graphics when the level designers are so good at creating ambiance with basic dynamic lighting, which is added and heavily featured. Just check out some of these screenshots below. If you have any interest in classic shooters, download the remastered version of Quake (which is free for those who have purchased it in the past) and boot up Dawn of the Machine.

 

   

Video Game Review: Resident Evil Requiem

 

Resident Evil Requiem is Capcom's attempt to reconcile the various types of gameplay the series is known for. The first third or so of the game is a tense survival horror experience that evokes creeping around the Police Station in Resident Evil 2, albeit from a first person perspective like Resident Evil Village. The rest of the game is more akin to Leon Kennedy's adventures in Resident Evil 4. Both parts are great, however the earlier sequences involving Grace, a stammering FBI agent way out of her depth, are the stand out sections. Having been assigned to investigate a disappearance in the same hotel her mother was killed in (man, what a dick her boss must be), Grace finds herself kidnapped and taken to a crumbling hospital full of freshly-turned zombies and grotesque monsters that defy description. The Girl, a giant hag that tries to get the drop on you from vent shafts, in our Mr. X-like big bad. The Girl is creepy as hell, and she thunders around and wheezes through the darkened ruins, making circumnavigating her quite the thrill. She is heavily indebted in behavior to Alien Isolation's xenomorph, but there are no desks or lockers to hide inside, which is disappointing. As you wander through the hospital, you'll collect tools to help you unlock more of the place, and you'll struggle to manage your inventory. Every run outside the safe room is like a survival expedition, and it's classic Resident Evil. So when the game basically turns into Fallout 3: Leon Kennedy Edition, you might be a tad disappointed. It's not that these parts are bad--I actually really enjoyed upgrading Leon's arsenal while headshotting zombies--it's just such a difference from the earlier sections with Grace that it'll likely feel discombobulating. However, Leon's parts have their own highlights, including a tense climb through a falling apart skyscraper that evokes the bridge section from Half-Life 2.

Graphically, Resident Evil Requiem is a Triple-A title that earns its budget. Ray-tracing is used to great effect, and lights reflect convincingly on gleaming surfaces. All together, it's a really nice-looking game. I did encounter some stuttering during the Racoon City parts, but turning down Mesh Quality to low fixed it, and visuals didn't noticeably suffer.

Requiem is good, but it's about a fifteen hour game that lacks replay value and whose best parts come early. If you're a veteran of the series, it's probably worth it, but if you're looking for more than a mid-length single player adventure, then perhaps wait for a discount.

 

    

Video Game Review: Slay The Spire 2 (Early Access)

 

Slay The Spire 2 is the sequel to one of my favorite games of all time. Mega Crit have kept the formula the same--this is an iterative sequel to the deck-building rougelike original--but there's enough new variety to keep things fresh and just as addictive as the first game. The Ironclad, Silent, and Defect return, along with new characters the Necrobinder and the Regent. New cards have been added for the original trio along with a new mechanic for each. For example, the Silent now draws cards that have Sly, which means if they are discarded, they play for free. This makes drawing and discarding really powerful for her, along with the usual Shiv and Poison cards. The Defect has new Glass orbs that damage all enemies but lose power quickly and are not affected by Focus. Losing health is now very powerful for the Ironclad in conjunction with Rupture because there are so many cards that lose HP now, making Rupture the main way to quickly gain strength. As for the new characters, the Necrobinder is my favorite and perhaps the most powerful. She has a minion named Osty who takes hits for her as well as deals out damage. The Necrobinder can play cards that have Summon which gain health for Osty, and many of its damage cards increase their output based on its health. She also has a mechanic called Doom, which accumulates like Poison, but instead of taking health off per turn, Doom will only kill an enemy when it fills up the enemy's health bar. The Regent can Forge a Cosmic Sword to do increasing damage, as well as mine another resource called Stars. He's been my toughest character to master so far, as I've found his cards to be rather feast or famine.

    As for the game's progression, it's still a roguelike with three acts, with the final fourth act still in development. The first act can vary between a jungle and a seaside dock, with six possible bosses, while the second act takes place in a desert, and the third in the experimental halls of the Spire. I've found most of the bosses pretty good. My least favorite is the Queen, who binds many of your cards, letting you only play one per turn. The improved animation and effects are very welcome, and unlike the original, Slay the Spire 2 is a pretty game, even if you could run it on anything. Groups of enemies are more frequent, making it important to choose cards that hit everybody at once. There are more varied random encounters and way more enemies in all. The balance seems really good so far, although a few enemies, like the Hunter Killer that turns up in act two, could probably use a nerf or get turned into Elites. There's a ton of content here, far more than the first game. Having beat the third act with every character, I can say that for twenty-five dollars, I don't think you'll play a better game this year. I say this as someone who had no experience with deck builders before playing Slay the Spire. Don't even watch the trailer--just get this game. 

  

Video Game Review: Doom: The Dark Ages

 Doom: The Dark Ages is id Software's third game in their reboot trilogy that started with 2016's Doom. Technically a prequel, The Dark Ages shows what the Doom Slayer (uuggghh) was up to with his pals the Night Sentinels before he was sealed in a sarcophagus and opened in the first game. The tonal shift that occurred in Doom Eternal is back; unlike in Doom 2016, the narrative vibe is more Saturday morning cartoon than grindhouse horror rip and tear. And that's okay, I guess--John Carmack himself stated that a story in a video game is like a story in a porno--but the first game in the new trilogy hit the proverbial nail on the head so well with its contempt for bullshit narrative (the Slayer interrupts a droning monologue on how to carefully remove a piece of tech by just ripping the fucking thing out of the console) that it's ironic how far id have abandoned that approach. There's a turret setpiece, multiple giant Mech fights, and a cybernetic dragon to ride on in The Dark Ages, along with cutscenes featuring po-faced musclemen droning on about plot details no one in their right mind will care about. However, nobody is here for the story, and what's really notable is that The Dark Ages has pivoted its combat loops from Doom Eternal, which was a significant complication compared 2016's Doom. You no longer have to juggle armor, health, and ammo with the flame belch, glory kill, and chainsaw respectively, for fodder enemies will drop all three consumables when they die if you are low. Through the upgrade system, you'll eventually unlock a armor drop ability for the shotgun, as well as health drops for the ravager skull weapon, and an ammo drop for the mace. That's right, a mace--The Dark Ages's main selling point this time around is a melee system that features a throwable chainsaw shield that can parry projectiles back at the demons. The shield is a hoot, I will admit, and parrying doesn't feel that out of place in a Doom game, although fodder enemies probably shouldn't emit projectiles, since it's a little too easy to die from some little bastard spawning behind you as you battle the big baddies. The arsenal has also been tweaked, with two weapons of each type located in each slot. For example, you have two plasma rifles: the accelerator, which is inaccurate but fast-firing; and the cycler, which is slower but emits shock damage that can travel from enemy to enemy. Although all the weapons are useful and cool, you'll find yourself gravitating back to the basic shotgun for its armor shedding ability, as well as the plasma cycler, which just destroys mobs. The skull weapons (ravager and pummeler) are also good for crowd control, and the chainshot destroys armor, which really comes in handy. The super-shotgun, rocket launcher, grenade launcher, and nail gun weapons were used sparsely in my playthrough. As for the enemies, they have also been redesigned to fit the medieval theme. There are armored versions of the hellknight, macubus, and arachnotron, all of which need to have their armor heated up by damage and then busted off with either a melee shot, a shield throw, or a blow from the chainshot. It's a fun and challenging system, but not quite the FPS chess from Doom Eternal. While I liked Eternal, I think the Ancient Gods DLC pushed that combat system as far as it could go. Doom was never about difficulty, a la Dark Souls, and The Dark Ages represents a return to a more manageable challenge, although you can really customize and crank up the difficulty, if you're that sort of masochist.

The level design is pretty good, with the Night Sentinel maps being the worst and the Hell and Lovecraft-influenced ones being the best. Spoiler: Cuthulu himself makes an appearance and you even get to kick his ass, that is, after you battle your way out of his guts. Giant monster, Giger-influenced tentacles, non-Euclidean geometry--The Dark Ages has some creative imagery and wonderfully grotesque aesthetics comparable to Eternal's ruined cityscapes. Ray-tracing is mandatory for the game, although its effects were pretty understated, which is probably why it runs so well. With most settings close or maxed out, The Dark Ages manages a frame rate of around 70 to 80 frames per second on an RTX 3080 at 1440p using DLSS Quality upscaling. It doesn't seem to be in any way CPU-bound, and unlike your average Unreal Engine title, frame time graphs are smooth with not a stutter or hitch in sight. This is a nice-looking game that runs well, a true rarity in the PC triple-A space lately (I'm thinking of Oblivion Remastered and Spider-man 2, two titles I've played this year that have their share of performance issues). The Dark Ages might not be the best of the series, but it's a really good single-player FPS, and you got to hand it to id Software for changing things up again instead of simply putting out Doom Eternal 2. 

Screenshots below: