Reviews - mastermaniac

There are some good ideas here, but none of them are implemented very well. The mod is *extraordinarily* buggy, and the bugs run the gamut from minor to major.

It's crashy, cludgy, and wonky as heck, but the bugs aren't what ruins this mod. What *really* seals its fate is the idea at its core. Ever play multi with someone who drives you utterly insane with babble like "man, this game would be great if there were no shotguns, and every gun were like this sniper rifle?" Or that, reversed? Well, that guy (whoever he was) made a mod, and it's this.

The designer decided every style not single-saber is the "wrong" way to play the game, and therefore made a literal mockery of dual and staff blades. As in, they're not just somebody's idea of "nerfed" or "balanced" (cringe), but actually and factually made functionally useless, as to pretty much kill you out of spite for picking them. I wish I were kidding.

He also hated "Strong" single stance, too, because strikes from that stance are *extremely* slow to the point where you just laugh watching them go. Everything not Normal or Fast single stance literally just got slowed down, and worse than that, the attack-canceling "feature" kicks in all the time, aborting your strikes before they ever launch, because they take too long to complete. Why? Because if you move in another direction before the swing's "done," your attack ceases as a "feint." *Why?* Because there's a directional blocking feature which sounds awesome, but literally doesn't work properly.

So basically, this is Jedi Academy: Jimmy Bob's Perfect Balance Edition. Play the way he plays: because it's the RIGHT way. I could go on, but there are likely space restrictions. Feel free to check the comments, because I reported more issues than listed here - and that was back when I thought I might like this mod, too.

High quality weapon models complete with functional iron sights, and camo patterns out the wazoo. If this were a modern game, this would be a paid DLC. This gentleman is providing top-class content for a classic game, free of charge.

Gave it a fair shake. I just don't like it. While stability is much improved from earlier versions, the Misery-inspired content is still just no good, for all the same reasons it was never good to begin with.

Dying every five minutes from massive radiation exposure just because you strayed two steps close enough to a radiation source to trigger a full-on red dose isn't even remotely realistic, nor is it good gameplay. This might not be the case everywhere, but the Great Swamp is a disaster. You're absolutely fine standing next to the water...just don't stick a pinky toe in. One wrong step and BOOM CATASTROPHIC GAMMA RAYS ENTER YOUR SOUL. This is not how radiation works, nor should it be. It's massively annoying.

The "you're injured" effects that kick in at about 35% health are overblown and ridiculous, which is funny because I actually like effects like these, generally speaking. They're just *too much* here. Essentially, once you get to that point, you're pretty much screwed - you can barely move, you can't see, your vision literally goes almost completely black. Basically, 35%-40% of your health bar is a lie. It practically doesn't exist.

The NPC skins are actually bad. Not only do they not look that great, they're actually world-breaking. Gotta love the leather-on-tracksuit bandits. Very nice. I feel like I'm playing a Youtube version of the Zone. Ahh nuu cheeki breeki, rite? *sigh* I've heard reports that there are assets straight up ripped from other games in here, too. I mean, like, in a completely world-breaking way, stuff like Metro and Fallout. I can believe it now. It's optional, though, so it's not really a big deal.

The graphics are muddy, washed-out, and straight-up ugly. The only positive is increased - and adjustable - grass density.

The stupid minutia of the Call of Miserable Dead Air and Other Such Derivatives is present and accounted-for here. Dozens and dozens of grainy, colorless icons you can barely make out against the inventory background cluttering up your backpack, absolutely everywhere. Every little thing is a badly-hacked in chore. Weapons drop as fossilized rust-and-dirt facsimilies of guns, even though they were perfectly-working bullet hoses a second ago, when the AI was using them against you. Everything is ludicrously expensive, an excuse to pretend at gameplay substance through sheer grind. Ammunition is laughably overpriced. You can't "go local," either, because picking up discarded weapons in a firefight just won't work. The guns are gene-locked to rust into dust the instant you pick them up. Books can be written on how stupid this is, and how badly this kind of non-gameplay needs to go away. I'll let somebody else write them. Suffice it to say, it sucks, and it's not what STALKER ever was, or should be, about.

I understand the nature of a free-play mod kind of necessitates artificial carrots dangling from artificial sticks to make up for the apparent lack of progression, plot, and goals. So far, there's not much left in most mods but the acquisition of gear. This is a fundamental flaw that is better addressed with something more meaningful than making said acquisition of gear miserable, slow, and silly-stupid.

There's no easy answer to the problem, I'll admit, but this is definitely the *wrong* answer. I didn't fall in love with STALKER because I liked grinding bits and bobs, and STALKER didn't get a big international following for that reason, either. So while "softer core" mods like base CoC have apparently "easy" progression and a lack of atmospheric story-based content, Misery-style mods just have stupid progression, bad gameplay, dull repetition of basic tasks without satisfaction or meaning, AND a lack of atmospheric story-based content.

I did like the radio mod, though. There's that.

Basically STALKER - All Stars Edition. A fantastically-built free-roaming tour through every monster-infested hellscape you've visited throughout the series, and even a few you haven't.

The experience is just plain fantastic. Of course, the free-roaming focus means this is more about the experience of just being a Stalker in the zone, trying to make your fortune. If you're new to the series, I recommend playing the mainline titles first to get the story experience (feel free to skip Clear Sky - ugh, the bugs) before playing CoC. And you should *definitely* play CoC.

It's utterly mind-boggling how the devs of this project managed to cram *so much* into Call of Pripyat's engine, while still managing to offer an impressively stable, feature-complete experience. In terms of gameplay, the features you see here make for a game very close to GSC's original vision. It's near-perfect.

I always considered Doom 64 to be the true Doom 2 - before Brutal Doom came along and seized the mantle for real. Focused on tricks and traps over boring, endless waves of enemies (Doom 2 sucked), Doom 64 was cryptic, cerebral, and super-creepy.

Brutal Doom 64 takes some of the core BD features and carefully applies them where appropriate so as not to spoil the grim moodiness of the original. There are some minor gripes here and there, but for the most part this is a great leaping-off point. I really hope Sarge continues pour his unique brand of creativity into this project.

The maps have all had a detail pass. Atmospheric lighting is everywhere. The air looks heavy, thick with rot and gunsmoke. Doom 64's dark ambient soundtrack sends thrills up and down your spine as lightning lashes across hellish skies, and thunder rumbles over the blast of your shotgun. So far, it's looking like this is what the original team intended if only they had the same level of tools and talent.

It's not perfect, though. Some of those imperfections come from the source material. The monster designs are hit and miss. Some look great - zombies, imps, pinkies, the Pain Elemental. Others look like rejects from some canceled Donkey Kong Country project - the Barons and Cacos in particular look more hokey than intimidating. Seriously, what's up the the chains on the Caco's skinny little arms? Hopefully Sarge and company get get some better sprite art for those two. The new Revenant looks pretty bad, though. Can't blame the source for those. Doom 64 does get credit for the most terrifying Cyberdemon, though.

The new behaviors for the "nightmare" variant enemies are great. They're a blast to fight. That brings me to the other problem myself and some others have so far: BD 64 is closer to vanilla than base BD, and for some of us vanilla is now far too tame compared to BD. BD gave us lots of options and lots of dynamics, lots of new variables, new enemy behaviors and such. BD64 seems lacking by comparison. But of course, this is early - things can change, and I have every confidence in Sarge. I watched BD become pretty much a standalone game, objectively better than the original by every metric. I couldn't be happier that Doom 64 is being Brutalized next.

Brutal Half-Life does what it sets out to do, brutalizing Gordon Freeman's iconic journey through Black Mesa in much the same way Brutal Doom overhauled its namesake. And like Brutal Doom, this mod augments the original experience whilst deftly avoiding the pitfalls of being too overwrought or extreme.

Far more than being a simple gorefest, Brutal Half-Life touches on sound, models, and animations, making several across-the-board improvements to the vanilla game. Good thing the mod stuck with the low-poly, original models as a base, too, because the amount of carnage displayed on-screen has been ratcheted up to eleven. It's clear that BHL pushes the GoldSrc engine to its limits with its numberless bullet holes, blood sprays, and flying body parts. Even small details like the light emitted by laser tripwires have been tweaked to offer a more appealing look, belying the engine's age.

Models have specific hit locations, and can be dismantled piece-by-piece even as a death animation plays. How this was achieved boggles the mind, but the effects are definitely appreciable. There's just nothing like smacking an enemy soldier in the face with a 40mm grenade and watching his legless, mangled body pitch through the air, trailing blood. The effect is infinitely more visceral - and satisfying - than the simple Quake-style gibbing that took place before. It's surprisingly arresting, and gives the chunky visuals an unexpected gravitas, even realism.

Not the least of the mod's improvements is that beating someone to death with a crowbar actually feels like beating someone to death with a crowbar (or at least as much as I'd like to know), especially when using the chargeable secondary fire mode to slam enemies to the ground over and over again until they willingly give up the ghost. The new kick attack is a welcome addition, even though in its current state it's a bit too spammable. The MP5 now features a subtly improved viewmodel, complete with charging handle, and also sports a brand-new reload animation that plays when you completely burn through a magazine. A small but noticeable detail that gun nuts such as myself are sure to appreciate.

Of course, being realistic doesn't mean you have to be about real*ism.* We have a shotgun that throws enemies through the air like something out of a John Woo movie, which is definitely fun, and the Colt Python tears enormous chunks out of whatever it hits, which is even more fun. And then we have the BFG 9000 from Doom making a cameo appearance, and it's every bit as godly as you'd expect.

For a beta, the mod is brimming with features, and I must say, the majority of them are a definite improvement to the original. Of course, there are little nit-picks. For one, though I appreciate that the MP5 has actual recoil now (as in, it's no longer laser-accurate at any range), I feel that the weapon is simply too inaccurate in general. At least the first shots should be fairly on-target, sheesh. I also feel melee attacks should never produce full-body gibbing. It was silly before, but alongside BHL's improvements it looks even sillier today. And being very early, crashes are going to happen, even though I must say the mod is surprisingly stable overall.

To wrap this thing up, YES, you need to try Brutal Half-Life. I adore it. I want to see more of it, and it's got me playing Half-Life all over again for what must be the hundredth time. I knew that I was hopelessly enchanted the moment I dumped a magazine into a Vortigaunt and watched its limbs get sawed off one by one, Fallout-style. It's good. It's very good.

We all love the sweet symphony of chaos that is Doom. Brutal Doom ratchets up the volume, blasting your speakers with thundering explosions and the screams of the dying. Brutal Doom is an orchestra of mayhem, and it sounds so, so very sweet.

Far more than a simple "violence mod," Brutal Doom expertly touches every aspect of Doom's combat, with such a high degree of precision, respect, and care that the professionalism of its creators is immediately evident. So many mod authors trivialize the spirit of a game by going nuts without inhibition. Brutal Doom does not.

Brutal Doom adds layers of complexity to the Doom experience, which together very simply make Doom a better game. Full stop. Combat is no longer merely about pointing in a direction and holding the trigger. Battles are much more nuanced, and the player has more options than ever - and the same goes for the enemies, too, who are smarter, faster, tougher, and more interesting by orders of magnitude.

Monsters will surprise you with new, unique behaviors such as dodges, lunging attacks, and gruesome executions. You haven't played Doom until you've seen a Baron rip apart a friendly Marine and throw his corpse across the room and into your face.

You can approach combat carefully, by taking precise shots with your rifle's sights from a distance, scoring deliciously gory headshots, or you can wade into the melee with the mod's greatly-improved brawling weapons. The old id philosophy of each gun being inherently "better" than another does not apply here - the player can pick a favorite and build a playstyle around it. It's fantastic. Every weapon is awesome in its own way, and that even counts for your BARE. HANDS. Pick up a Berserk kit and you can RIP AND TEAR like never before.

In summary: Brutal Doom is a flawless 10/10. Everything Doom did, but better, louder, and more fun. As a long-time Doom enthusiast, I can say with conviction that this is the way the game is meant to be played, & I cannot play w/o

Mmm, guns. I love guns. If you're like me, and you enjoy shooting hellspawn in the face with a healthy variety of authentic-looking and fun-handling firearms, you're sure to love Op: Inhuman.

Things I dig:

+ You've gotta admit that the Cowah Doody franchise sports some pretty darn fine weapon models. This mod captures that aesthetic authenticity perfectly with its lovingly captured, silky-smooth sprites. The amount of work that I'm sure this entailed boggles the mind. In short: them guns is pretty.

+ Every firearm has its own unique feel. Very impressive. Although most guns in CoD handle like hitscan lasers, the weapons in Op: IH hit hard and feel great, with just enough kick to make handling the recoil a fun challenge, without being a pain in the ***.

+ That flashlight, OMG, it is so very good. How do I get this in every mod ever?

+ All that Brutal Doom loveliness, but with more guns. Delicious.

+ The quick kick feels good and weighty, and noticeably different from the original BD. More in line with how I think it should behave.

+ There's a *lot* of challenge to be found playing this mod, at least on the higher difficulties, thanks to the more demanding weapons.

+ Sound effects are crisp and mostly appropriate.

Thinks I dig less:

- Minor graphical issues with nightvision goggles, and the occasional non-critical bug, like a single shot grenade launcher that can be loaded with an insane amount of ammo and execution moves that sometimes have strange results.

- Smudgy, ugly weapon pickup icons.

- A lack of a proper "inventory" system, or otherwise some sort of weapon menu, makes handling this game's myriad of weapons a chore. Sometimes, I'd just dump all my guns to "start over."

- The DoomNukem visor HUD is a neat idea but is in some ways aesthetically unappealing.

- It seems difficult if not impossible to mix this mod with others. But I'm a noob, anyway.

- Left-over screen elements (like unused perks) and script errors lend a beta feel.

- Meh shotguns.