Caltrops - Rants





	[quote name="Bill Dungsroman"][quote name="FABIO"]They said it was worth playing because that 25% was brilliant, and the level in hell was the best level in any game ever, but also that 75% of the game was tired and boring, and after the ONE awesome level in hell it's back to the boring service corridors of Mars station. The impression I got was the brilliant 25% was good enough to make playing the game worth it.[/quote]IMO, the Hell level is very good and easily the best level of the game, but boy is the letdown after you finish it tough. Also, you'll want to play Doom 3's Hell level before Painkiller's. Painkiller's rock. [quote name="FABIO"]I pretty much agree entirely with their review (I didn't with the Deus Ex 2 one). This game plays like a single player RTS campaign where you could get the hang of the whole thing in 15 minutes because you're a veteran of the genre, but still the game just starts out with 2 units and doles out a new one every few missions. 3+ hours into the game and I'm still shotgunning zombies and imps. I suppose there were some spiders I gunned down, but they weren't fun to begin with so they don't count. [/quote]Some spider encounters boil down to ammo management, since reloading in Doom 3 is excrutiatingly long - er, I mean <I>play-balanced for added tension</I>. The rest is just regressing to a doorway or corner and popping them one at a time. One of the great things about Half Life (that's Half Life 1 - contrary to Creexul's rants, HL 2 hasn't come out and annihilated PC gaming as we know it <I>just yet</I>) was the inclusion of boss monsters that played out like puzzles (the final Big Baby notwithstanding). Painkiller does the same thing. Doom 3, not so much. [quote name="FABIO"]They should have ditched the "trying to be System Shock 2 with scary scripted events" aspect after the first 30-50 minutes (at the most), the point at which they stop being scary (just like they did in System Shock 2), and shifted focus on being more of an action game.[/quote]Worse: SS2's events and data logs actually evolved with the story. Doom 3's did not; the order in which you heard them hardly mattered. [quote name="FABIO"]I just started playing Painkiller, and the full game is much much better than the demo. Blood + Serious Sam indeed. After coming off a session of Painkiller, I just can't go back to Doom 3's slow, repetitive gameplay. The only complaints I can think of are that it could use more than the one RAWKING guitar song, and every once in awhile it decides to take a break from awesome non-stop action and throw something boring at you like ninjas throwing stars at you from far away and you have to snipe them with weapons that aren't good at sniping. It's like hitting a jumping puzzle in Ninja Gaiden after chop sockying hordes of ninjas.[/quote]Qt3 is really hit and miss with their gaming endorsements, but Painkiller is a solid hit. I boughtthe game due to thier recommendations, and I wasn't sorry. I sure as Hell wasn't sorry buying it used for 20 bones while paying full price for Doom 3. [/quote]