Happy Life
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Are there any old-timers here?
I stumbled upon this title randomly, and I liked it. A "retro" shooter with Quake-like mechanics, in a style reminiscent of Blood. Pretty standard weapons, but the combat is very enjoyable and fair – enemies only have projectiles or melee attacks, and none have hitscan.
What I really liked was the level design. The levels are initially very simple, almost not labyrinthine, like in shooters from the nineties, and stylistically they are very well done. This non-labyrinthine aspect initially bored me a bit, as I was used to complex maps from old shooters, but by the second half of the first episode, the maps became more interesting in this regard and much more interesting in terms of external design and atmosphere.
And then I played episodes 2 and 3 and was surprised by how different they are from the first one, and from each other. There are creepy, claustrophobic maps in abandoned factories, with separate locations in complete darkness, where you can barely make out the outlines of the rooms with a flashlight, and wide, bright maps, and all sorts of futuristic complexes, and gravity-based gameplay, and references to the first "Thief" in the style of a mad aristocrat's mansion (which won't mean anything to anyone, because no one played it), in general, there's everything. And all of this is within perfectly balanced limits, not too long, not causing irritation, fatigue, or disorientation. And all this set of levels, spread across three episodes, fits into a kind of complete plot-storytelling canvas – simple, but good and atmospheric, an order of magnitude more tangible than in some shooters from the nineties.
Juicy shooting, decent weapon balance, pleasant movement, atmospheric soundtrack, and beautiful maps.
9/10 – one or two more episodes would be very welcome, but as it is, it's very short, I finished it in a couple of evenings.
Then I tried amid evil from the same company. It's like Heretic/Hexen, but I absolutely didn't like it. Very boring maps, boring enemies – a knight riding a knight, boring weapons, boring items, in general, a total mess. I played a couple of maps and dropped it – it wasn't even close to Hexen or Heretic.
This failure left my revived desire to play retro shooters unfulfilled, so I played through the classic Shadow Warrior, which I had never played before, and "replayed" the first Quake, which I had played a lot but didn't finish. Now, after that, I finally finished all the main shooters from the nineties and can calmly make a tier list of them:
Blood >>> Doom 2 > Doom 1 >> Hexen > Heretic >> Duke Nukem 3d > Shadow Warrior >> Quake.
Some boomer might notice that I didn't add Redneck Rampage (it's total garbage) and no sequels except for Doom. This is because I was highlighting the first, most iconic iterations of these shooters, and besides, the sequels are too different from the originals and came out closer to the end of the nineties. I don't think I ever finished Hexen II, there's too much emphasis on sneaking around – you can see the transition into the 2000s, into a terrible 3D with a focus not on mechanics and not on a labyrinthine design, but on quest-like level design, I didn't like it. I haven't played Heretic II and Blood II at all, but they are supposedly garbage. Quake II is not bad, but again, it has already deviated too much from the old design.
Why exactly in this order? Very simple:
- Blood is the best, and there's no arguing with that, it's the best in everything – level design, atmosphere, style, cool and diverse weapons, the best main character, in general, it's all top-notch, and it came out a bit late, and it took into account the experience of all its peers;
- I might be called a Doom fanboy, because I explored them thoroughly both as a child and as an adult, but I think they objectively deserve this place for their style (futuristic bases, hell and demons, biomechanics, normal modern weapons), for their juicy graphics, for their most interesting and intricate levels, for the overall feeling of the game. For me personally, in the entire series, including Doom 3 and Doom 2016, there wasn't a single part that I didn't like;
- Hexen walks a fine line in that they split one large arsenal of weapons into three fantasy classes, and you play the same maps for each character, but nevertheless – I enjoyed playing through them all, it's just very well done;
- Heretic could probably be higher, because it's close to Doom in mechanics and to Hexen in setting, but... I don't remember much about it, even though I played it from cover to cover less than ten years ago. Well, it's just Doom in a fantasy setting, nothing more, nothing less, and it's hard to compete with Doom's setting and atmosphere when you're fantasy;
- I played Duke Nukem after Blood, so it didn't fare very well on this tier list. Being a pioneer on this engine, it's just worse in everything – both in mechanics and in setting, and it gave me less aesthetic pleasure than the titles before it, although objectively it's good – the level design is a seven, the weapons and enemies are decent;
- Shadow Warrior is a step down from Blood and Duke on their engine, and objectively worse than both of them for many reasons. First, you can count the types of enemies on the fingers of both hands, and one hand will be occupied by the same ninja, but in pants of different colors (like with different weapons and health). Secondly, the weapon set is boring – out of all the weapons, I used 3.5 in 90% of the time. There is something interesting and unique, but why do you need it when it's easier to throw a grenade around the corner or out the window, and in melee, shoot with an automatic shotgun, the cartridges for which lie in all corners. Thirdly, the maps of the first, longest episode are very boring, more than half of the maps are just plain gray-brown temples, it only becomes more interesting in the second half of the game. Fourthly, the items are boring – bomb-bomb-bomb, half of them are useless. In general, I didn't like it very much. They should have made all the levels like in the second half. Stylistically and in terms of setting, it's probably more amusing than Duke, but that's all. By the way – sometimes I didn't know where to go and walked kilometers around the map, which is very surprising for me in 2019;
- Quake I is just garbage. Castle-castle-castle-sewer-sewer-sewer. Few weapons and they are boring, again, few enemies and they are boring, really few, and closer to the end, the developers just put the biggest ones in front of you one after another. Not particularly challenging, rather tedious and slows down the gameplay. The level design is labyrinthine, but in a bad way – just a pile of the same corridors-halls without anything, but with tons of water, and swimming is completely uninteresting. I can't remember a single interesting moment in any of the levels, even though I just replayed it. Also, the double-barreled shotgun is garbage. In general, it's a dumpster tier.
Very important post, 2019
I stumbled upon this title randomly, and I liked it. A "retro" shooter with Quake-like mechanics, in a style reminiscent of Blood. Pretty standard weapons, but the combat is very enjoyable and fair – enemies only have projectiles or melee attacks, and none have hitscan.
What I really liked was the level design. The levels are initially very simple, almost not labyrinthine, like in shooters from the nineties, and stylistically they are very well done. This non-labyrinthine aspect initially bored me a bit, as I was used to complex maps from old shooters, but by the second half of the first episode, the maps became more interesting in this regard and much more interesting in terms of external design and atmosphere.
And then I played episodes 2 and 3 and was surprised by how different they are from the first one, and from each other. There are creepy, claustrophobic maps in abandoned factories, with separate locations in complete darkness, where you can barely make out the outlines of the rooms with a flashlight, and wide, bright maps, and all sorts of futuristic complexes, and gravity-based gameplay, and references to the first "Thief" in the style of a mad aristocrat's mansion (which won't mean anything to anyone, because no one played it), in general, there's everything. And all of this is within perfectly balanced limits, not too long, not causing irritation, fatigue, or disorientation. And all this set of levels, spread across three episodes, fits into a kind of complete plot-storytelling canvas – simple, but good and atmospheric, an order of magnitude more tangible than in some shooters from the nineties.
Juicy shooting, decent weapon balance, pleasant movement, atmospheric soundtrack, and beautiful maps.
9/10 – one or two more episodes would be very welcome, but as it is, it's very short, I finished it in a couple of evenings.
Then I tried amid evil from the same company. It's like Heretic/Hexen, but I absolutely didn't like it. Very boring maps, boring enemies – a knight riding a knight, boring weapons, boring items, in general, a total mess. I played a couple of maps and dropped it – it wasn't even close to Hexen or Heretic.
This failure left my revived desire to play retro shooters unfulfilled, so I played through the classic Shadow Warrior, which I had never played before, and "replayed" the first Quake, which I had played a lot but didn't finish. Now, after that, I finally finished all the main shooters from the nineties and can calmly make a tier list of them:
Blood >>> Doom 2 > Doom 1 >> Hexen > Heretic >> Duke Nukem 3d > Shadow Warrior >> Quake.
Some boomer might notice that I didn't add Redneck Rampage (it's total garbage) and no sequels except for Doom. This is because I was highlighting the first, most iconic iterations of these shooters, and besides, the sequels are too different from the originals and came out closer to the end of the nineties. I don't think I ever finished Hexen II, there's too much emphasis on sneaking around – you can see the transition into the 2000s, into a terrible 3D with a focus not on mechanics and not on a labyrinthine design, but on quest-like level design, I didn't like it. I haven't played Heretic II and Blood II at all, but they are supposedly garbage. Quake II is not bad, but again, it has already deviated too much from the old design.
Why exactly in this order? Very simple:
- Blood is the best, and there's no arguing with that, it's the best in everything – level design, atmosphere, style, cool and diverse weapons, the best main character, in general, it's all top-notch, and it came out a bit late, and it took into account the experience of all its peers;
- I might be called a Doom fanboy, because I explored them thoroughly both as a child and as an adult, but I think they objectively deserve this place for their style (futuristic bases, hell and demons, biomechanics, normal modern weapons), for their juicy graphics, for their most interesting and intricate levels, for the overall feeling of the game. For me personally, in the entire series, including Doom 3 and Doom 2016, there wasn't a single part that I didn't like;
- Hexen walks a fine line in that they split one large arsenal of weapons into three fantasy classes, and you play the same maps for each character, but nevertheless – I enjoyed playing through them all, it's just very well done;
- Heretic could probably be higher, because it's close to Doom in mechanics and to Hexen in setting, but... I don't remember much about it, even though I played it from cover to cover less than ten years ago. Well, it's just Doom in a fantasy setting, nothing more, nothing less, and it's hard to compete with Doom's setting and atmosphere when you're fantasy;
- I played Duke Nukem after Blood, so it didn't fare very well on this tier list. Being a pioneer on this engine, it's just worse in everything – both in mechanics and in setting, and it gave me less aesthetic pleasure than the titles before it, although objectively it's good – the level design is a seven, the weapons and enemies are decent;
- Shadow Warrior is a step down from Blood and Duke on their engine, and objectively worse than both of them for many reasons. First, you can count the types of enemies on the fingers of both hands, and one hand will be occupied by the same ninja, but in pants of different colors (like with different weapons and health). Secondly, the weapon set is boring – out of all the weapons, I used 3.5 in 90% of the time. There is something interesting and unique, but why do you need it when it's easier to throw a grenade around the corner or out the window, and in melee, shoot with an automatic shotgun, the cartridges for which lie in all corners. Thirdly, the maps of the first, longest episode are very boring, more than half of the maps are just plain gray-brown temples, it only becomes more interesting in the second half of the game. Fourthly, the items are boring – bomb-bomb-bomb, half of them are useless. In general, I didn't like it very much. They should have made all the levels like in the second half. Stylistically and in terms of setting, it's probably more amusing than Duke, but that's all. By the way – sometimes I didn't know where to go and walked kilometers around the map, which is very surprising for me in 2019;
- Quake I is just garbage. Castle-castle-castle-sewer-sewer-sewer. Few weapons and they are boring, again, few enemies and they are boring, really few, and closer to the end, the developers just put the biggest ones in front of you one after another. Not particularly challenging, rather tedious and slows down the gameplay. The level design is labyrinthine, but in a bad way – just a pile of the same corridors-halls without anything, but with tons of water, and swimming is completely uninteresting. I can't remember a single interesting moment in any of the levels, even though I just replayed it. Also, the double-barreled shotgun is garbage. In general, it's a dumpster tier.
Very important post, 2019
My sword, my trusted ally, unphased by my aspect.
