Reviews - Shockwave_S08

For those of us who have Steam Decks, and still have a copy of UT3 on Steam/GOG, this mod is an absolute godsend when it comes to adding proper gamepad support. Weapon wheel, single-tap dodge, fully-rebindable controls, FOV corrections for both game view and the first-person viewmodels, and splitscreen, foxMod is one you cannot afford to miss!

Doom 3: Enhanced Edition (formerly Fixed Edition) has evolved so much over the past month or two, offering an unprecedented amount of bugfixes and customizability that is far more than the sum of its parts.

You've got two versions to choose from in D3EE; one with ammo-rebalancing and one that keeps the vanilla ammo balance. In the case of the former, some ammo pickups give less ammo than before, the Chaingun's ammo belt is doubled, and the Soul Cube requires 8 souls to work, for reasons I'll mention in a bit.

In both cases, you'll find a slew of improvements that make the overall Doom 3 experience far more cohesive than it was in 2004/2005. Multiple audiovisual inconsistencies have been fixed, and the silliness of gibbing corpses with your fists and flashlight has been rectified. The flashlight now points at the absolute-center of your screen, instead of being offset to the right (as it was in vanilla). Weapons wielded by Z-Sec enemies now share the same sounds as your own equivalents. Hand grenades are far less "bouncy" than before. The Shotgun reloads one shell at a time now, instead of magically reloading two shells simultaneously. Even support for Arl's Lost Mission conversion was added recently, to make the experience truly complete.

Difficulty-wise, things have also been tweaked heavily. Armor damage-absorption is far more efficient on Veteran and Nightmare, and you'll definitely need every last shard and vest you find! Enemies hit far harder on these two difficulties than before, and even your average zombie can downright mess you up with a few well-placed swipes if you're caught unaware or reloading. The final fight with the Cyberdemon in the base game now spawns more enemies than before, as well as spawning Cacodemons, Revenants, and Arch-Viles mid-fight, to make this final section far less of a cakewalk than it was before; the ammo-rebance version of D3EE raises the Soul Cube's ammo requirement to 8, to compensate for this.

Overall, it's been a pleasure working with lost_acs to make D3EE the best it can possibly be, and I'm very much looking forward to all future updates to the project!

(Edited to take v3.1e, and possibly beyond, into account)

Strife Uncut is a less-than-1MB mod for "Strife: Quest for the Sigil" that digs up cut content from the original WADs and implements them seamlessly into normal gameplay, making the game feel more "complete" than originally shipped by Velocity and Rogue Entertainment.

First, the weapons: Three of the original weapons have had their functionality improved and streamlined, freeing up inventory space for other guns (Electric/Poison Crossbow, H-E/Phosphor Grenade Launcher, and the handheld Templar weapon, the Mauler). Other classic weapons have been rebalanced with clip-sizes (Assault Rifle, Crusader's Flamethrower), and two have entirely new fire modes (Punch Dagger - "Get Over Here!" Spear, Mini Missile Launcher - Heatseekers). The new additions to Strifeguy's arsenal include a Pistol with a laser sight (VERY handy for the early game; bring a special item to Macil to obtain this), the Disruptor (a low-power energy pistol that fires beams or pulses; take care not to overheat!), the Boltcaster (2-3x the Electric Bolt cost, but one hell of a punch to go with it), the Thrasher (an energy shotgun that easily disintegrates hostiles; great until you get the Templar's Mauler), and Landmines that can be planted or thrown at your targets.

As for Inventory Items, you now have a Food Bag that you can fill by snatching food from broken barrels and vases, and can be consumes to overheal up to 200% if you play your cards right; a remote detonator that works in tandem with planted Landmines, to disarm or turn them back on; "Ratsistance" that can be deployed as minor decoys against The Order; Acid Grenades that can turn the tables in tight corridors, spraying a poison cloud that quickly kills organic targets; the three-Totem system has been implemented, straight out of Veteran Edition, and getting all three rewards you with similar Herculean punching strength; should you have Harris' Offering Chalice upon acquiring a Totem, it's upgraded to the Healing Chalice, which can restore your life gradually at the cost of 50 Gold per use.

Gameplay-wise, much effort has been put into eliminating dead-end scenarios, with important NPCs being rendered unkillable until they've outlived their usefulness. You can also steal pretty much anything that isn't nailed down to quickly build up your Gold reserves. Bashing open wooden barrels or vases yields food and the occasional single piece of Gold.

New graphical touches have been added as well, with plenty of ambient light and environmental effects strewn throughout the entire game, making the world feel more alive than before.

The companion "StripeHUD" is a more-compact solution for a fullscreen HUD, though it does not differentiate between ammo types, nor does it show Gold and Food amounts. In addition, this HUD can only be used on GZDoom v2.1pre and above -- sorry, D-Touch users!

Other than the gripes about the HUD, this is one restoration mod that simply cannot be mjssed! Good job, Zaero!