AMID EVIL
AMID EVIL at its core is a wonderfully rendered retro throwback FPS that beckons the nostalgic memories of games such as Heretic and Hexen and Quake with gorgeous environments, beautiful weapon feel and a majestic combat encounters.
However, I come to you today not focused on the weapons, the enemies or the aesthetics, but rather something truly gorgeous: the Difficulty Selection level.
Most games dare not be so bold with something so seemingly obtuse as a Difficulty Selection level where it is not as simple as clicking a rather comedic naming on a menu. AMID EVIL, in this regard, dares to be different. There have been other reviews left for this game with scathing remarks as to the “poor design” of the Difficulty Selection. I disagree wholeheartedly. For you see, the Difficulty Selection tutorializes the player of the movement mechanics and the weight of the Champion in such an elegant and silent way that most take for granted. To go for the Easy difficulty, it is straightforward and one could get by the challenge by only holding the “W” key on the Keyboard. This is Leon Zawada and Simon Rance’s brilliance coming into full display here. By having the Easy difficulty being so easy to access, it makes clear of the very nature of the room so as to not to cause further confusion with regards to the other options.
– Real player with 35.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dark Fantasy Shooter Games.
Amid Evil is strange, half of the game is some of the best level design, music, atmosphere, and art direction Ive seen in a game. The other half is a boring bland repetitive slog. Its a coin flip for which episode is which, but imo the best Amid Evil gets is worth the worst it can be.
– Real player with 16.1 hrs in game
Hedon Bloodrite
Hedon is a fantastically fun game that really seems to understand the things that made its inspirations great. The combat, map design, and general mechanics are excellent and come together in a way that’s rare even in some of the classics, and it avoids nearly all of the pitfalls that often plague FPS games.
In general, I’d say it reminded me most of Hexen or Hexen 2, but with better weapon variety and without having to travel through hub maps back and forth to shuffle items around or find out what a switch did. All the maps in Hedon are self-contained and there are enough signs, notes, and other environmental cues to help you navigate without needing any overt direction from the UI. The automap automatically marks locked doors with the symbol for the key you need to open them, and you can even place your own marks manually for other important locations you want to remember. There were a few points where the game’s pace slowed down a little too much or I was at a loss for where to go next, but never long enough to really bother me or spoil the fun. There’s a decent amount of platforming but it is mostly generous enough that I never felt like it was asking too much of me, and the game refrains from putting nasty ambushes in conjunction with limited mobility.
– Real player with 54.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dark Fantasy Shooter Games.
Hedon is an old school FPS game that tries to emulate the good ol' days of shooters, way before regenerating health and multiplayer only games, with 2D sprites mixed with 3D objects. This game tries to go for a balance between combat, exploration (Sometimes it gets a bit linear), and narrative, and I find that it works out pretty well. There’s a lot of fast paced combat and a variety of weapons to keep the slaughtering fresh.
Gameplay:
The gameplay is what you’d expect from a game like this. Lots of action, a wide array of weapons that all feel satisfying to use and some have different fire modes, and on the higher difficulties, waves and waves of enemies eager to tear you a new one. I admit I started playing this game expecting something way more linear and combat focused, like Painkiller or maybe Doom 2016, but I was surprised when I found out that there’s a lot of exploration and reading in this game. Some parts were a bit frustrating since some key items are quite easy to miss, sometimes I would miss an absolutely vital item because I’m blind, and sometimes I would pick it up without realizing, and I would spend a while running around in circles trying to find out what I missed. Some areas are particularily frustrating because of this, like that one point where you are stuck in a pitch black cave and you gotta move around trying to find your way out. The level that made me feel like this the most was the second one, I felt like it was way too big and open, and I still can’t remember the exact way after a few playthroughs, so I often end up skipping it. The later levels in the game start to pick up the pace in my opinion, and they start to get more into linear combat. The weapons all feel amazing to use, and there’s a second game mode called Bearzerk, where all of your guns are gone, but you get a few new melee weapons to make up for this. The game will also spawn dozens and dozens of enemies, and you are stuck trying to run at mach speed dodging projectiles and closing the gap so you can destroy them. It’s pretty fun. The game can be finished in about 4 hours, but I spent way more because I kept getting lost, at least the game gives you a map.
– Real player with 43.4 hrs in game
Combat Chess
I cant believe this is even on steam. This is an old game i played when i was like 9 years old. I am so happy i found it and for 5 bucks on steam.
Its just a really fun animated chess :) Good for nostalgia.
– Real player with 0.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Dark Fantasy 3D Games.
A knock-off of Battle Chess for all intents and purposes. Cheaper, though. Worth a try.
– Real player with 0.1 hrs in game
SAVAGE: The Shard of Gosen
Saw this game a while back, so when it popped up on steam as early access I decided to pick up, AND . . . its good, really good, combat feels smooth, nothing feels too over complicated. Although it does take a bit of time to pick up on the controls. The music is really good, the sound effects are good, the atmosphere is really good also, specially when it rains. Oh this game has a weather system and a day and night cycle btw. Which was a really cool touch I thought. The level design is a little “Crowded” and it might be my only real problem with the game so far, basically you get swarmed by enemies in a way. to many to fight at once etc. This is good in specific cases, like in forts, occupied caves and so on, but in the forests it gets a bit strange, kinda out of place idk, just my opinion. either way I look forward to the finished game and hope more people find it as it deserves attention i think.
– Real player with 12.7 hrs in game
I picked this game up on sale for about half off, so I won’t return it or anything, but I cannot recommend anyone else purchase it. I don’t want to disparage the dev, but there’s about nothing here. It’s about 15% of an SNES game at this point, and those games were pretty vapid as-is. There’d be a lot of promise if this was early access with only about a month under it’s belt. But this game has been been around for 6-7 years (over 2 years in EA on Steam). The dev seems to be active in doing updates, but I fear scope creep has handicapped his efforts.
– Real player with 6.4 hrs in game
Desecration of Wings
HIGHLY RECOMMEND Rating 9/10 (Adult Content, Epic Story, Great Battle Mechanics)
This is another excellent RPG Maker game that I recommend, except that this game has unique adult content. This game also have a very interesting and epic storyline and great battle mechanics which I will explain below.
1. Adult Content
The steam version of this game is the “sanitized” version, where the naughty bits are all censored. However, you can download a patch that will remove the censorship so you can watch the game in its intended form. So, the user can decide to have either the censored or the uncensored version of the game. The story is also interspersed with explicit description of erotic scenes.
– Real player with 69.3 hrs in game
So ‘The Last Sovereign’ won me over with Sierra Lee, being able to write a grand epic hours long with a likable protagonist, a harem of badasses, political intrigue and having sex scenes that don’t feel like the main selling point. Now they also made a pair of visual novels about a yandere which isn’t my cup of tea, another RPG and a runner that aren’t released yet and two other RPGs. So here’s one them.
Story:
In a world ruled by a group of Immortals, a prostitute and her daughter get up in an adventure that could lead to the end of the world. Also eldritch horrors and sex.
– Real player with 38.0 hrs in game
Necore Tower - Redux Edition
What an awesome experience! Very cool retro game. Very well designed and very well written. The sounds are awesome.
Very, very well executed!
Well done.
– Real player with 3.7 hrs in game
This is a very cool game by a very passionate and talented developer.
Great art and atmosphere with a deep story.
The way Necore is setup and designed, climbing up through the towers levels, keeps you playing more and more to see what’s next and revel the story as your progress.
I highly recommend you play it!
– Real player with 2.0 hrs in game
Lunacid
Lunacid is a first person dungeon crawler inspired by old FROMSOFT games like Shadow Tower and King’s Field.
Long ago a great beast arose from the sea and covered the earth in a poison fog. Now those deemed undesirable are thrown into a great well, which has become a pit of chaos and disease. You awaken in a moonlit subterranean world, having been thrown into the Great Well for crimes unknown. The only way out is to go further down and confront the sleeping old one below. On the way there will be many creatures and secrets to discover.
Arthurian Legends
The Greatest Medieval Retro FPS to date…
Okay, so listen, son! This is the most fun, most historically inaccurate, bonkers, no-nonsense, Arthurian slaughter-fest you can ever imagine in videogame format. It’s like if it was made in 1996, before it was lost and forgotten for ages until a young and brave archeologist dug it out from some old crypt in Ireland.
It is highly addicting and rewarding with full of opportunities created by the wide variety of weapons, spells, and items. It’s almost like an immersive sim in terms of how many different ways you can approach an encounter or problem. It is hard but fair, very reminiscent of Blood where you need to adapt quickly to tense situations yet always thread very carefully to succeed.
– Real player with 27.5 hrs in game
This is an excellent game for fans of classic melee FPS games like, yes, Witchaven I & II. It’s absolutely a hoot to play, the secrets are very well hidden, and there’s a real attempt at atmosphere going on. I almost wish it was more like an immersive sim (or at least a step or two towards Hedon) in including notes to read along the way, just because the environments LOOK like they’d have little stories to tell. Excellent work, there.
So, all of that said, let me focus on what needs improvement, starting with one issue/disclaimer.
– Real player with 26.4 hrs in game
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders
When I first played shareware version couple of decades ago I simply thought of it as yet another Doom clone the market was spewing out at the time. Played a few levels and didn’t think much of it except it being inferior to Doom. So I quit shortly thereafter as was the case with half a dozen other clones and thought nothing of it for a long time. Then couple of years ago I saw a LP on YT of a guy raging like a madman because the was getting killed in epically hilarious ways. Thought to myself to give it another shot with a different set of eyes this time.
– Real player with 51.2 hrs in game
Ever wanted to play a game set in one of the Frank Frazzeta paintings? Then look no further than Heretic. Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders is the first game in the Heretic & Hexen series, and along with ID software games, have been the main force of evolution in the first era of first person shooters. Each game from Heretic & Hexen series have introduced a design concept that all other FPS games have followed ever since. Heretic SotSR remains the most accessible and action-packed title in the series, set in a dark fantasy universe with 54 complex levels which will guarantee you 20 hours and more of pure hectic and frenetic fun.
– Real player with 26.7 hrs in game
Project Warlock
Love letter to the oldschool
Project Warlock is an arcade shooter developed by Buckshot Software as a nostalgia-driven tribute to times when a story in FPS games rolled as a panel at the end of the chapter. While John Carmack’s infamous quote “story in a game, is like a story in a porn movie” has been challenged countless times since the 90s, it does capture the essence of the shooters from that time. Meticulous, maze-like levels, armoury’s worth of guns and secrets behind a fake wall – gameplay was everything. A simple credo Project Warlock at large adheres to, while also adding few ideas of its own. By all means, it is a modern retelling of the classics, rather than an attempt at copying one, and it shows.
– Real player with 17.3 hrs in game
Okay, I would love nothing more than to give this game a positive review, because with such a cheap asking price and so many good qualities, I can understand why it has decent reviews. But difficulty aside, this game is riddled with glitches. Which is sad, because so much holds back what otherwise would be a solid game.
So, lets start with the good aspects:
The music, atmosphere, level themes, and graphics are amazing.
The price is insanely cheap.
You can tell a lot of love went into making this game.
– Real player with 11.1 hrs in game