Sammy the Hammy

I've got 3 hours solid out of it so far. Please note - only three hours as yet, this review is subject to change as I play it more.

Such a blatant doom clone has never before been made (or is it a duke clone?)

Overview

It has, posisbly, the most laughable excuse for a doom-clone story line since, well, doom. You are 'the l33t warrior' from the future, who was so butt kickingly good, that when they discovered that they could only send one man back, it had to be you.

So, start up the training mode. ALREADY annoyed by the 'are you serious?' tagline, pick a difficulty level. Stlyish subtitles ('for those who have never played an fps before') but not as good as doom.

The game eases you into things slowly - first pistol troopers (sorry, beheaded magic missile dudes or something) at long range, then ones with mutishot, then a demon - then a door.

Slowly it teaches you not to go near powerups (the game likes spawning new enemies. This is fun at first, but very grating later - maybe the game should be played fov 359?)

Get to the first boss, see a room with a big thing in the middle, some monsters round the edge, and something sparkly on the other side.

Instincts cut in 'sparkly things cause pain! They spawn more monsters! Kill everything FIRST' and the computer gets sarcastic "Wow, you killed the boss WITHOUT using the rocket launcher? Now why didn't *I* think of that?"

Realise that the game isn't going to ever be consistent, sometimes you'll be best off rushing into a room, and sometims you'll want to stay well back.

Then the training gets to a stage which I figured would be the end of it, a escending lift, in darkness, in fog, with enemies (some invisible) spawning in waves.

Nope, there's more after that. Collect an ankh (which doens't appear to actually do anything) and continue with more of the same gameplay.

The screaming enemies are, again, funny at first - but grate rapidly (they are just sooo loud)

Well, realising that training doens't have an end anytime soon, I start it up in story mode.

Whee, more of the same. And that damn computer won't shut up telling me about guns and enemies and so on. Gah. It's as bad as the Q2 one.

Wonder why the game seems to hink that machinegun ammo should be rarer than shotgun ammo by a long shot.

And get out of the first trap, and the second trap and the... yeesh, either your combat tactics computer is thick, your character is thick, or these ambuscades are VERY clearly marked. And yet, still, there is no way to progress except by triggerring each in turn.

Lots of episode four quake style secrets. (Subtly hidden passages behind things, not so many secret doors as such)

And get out into the sunshine, remember why the engine is so lauded, pity the repeating sand texture, fight a few enemies (it's so much easier to trigger singletons outdoors, the detection radius, for non-scripted events, sucks) and... oh boy - it's a mech. Blue, it's a vulture - croteam are in for a suing here :)

Blummin easy to kill from range though - it has fairly slow moving weapons fire that you can JUMP, and doens't take much to go down.

Wonder why the game keeps throwing rocket ammo at me....

I finally died in a huge room that kept spawning new stuff - you get cornered and surrounded by demons (well, they call 'em something else) and it just slowly wore me down.

So I respawn, and it does it again - I *like* this difficulty curve.

This is a game that is sticking to a tried and true formula. The health powerups are straight out of hexen, the armour is from doom - only it's Q3 style shards that take you over the max, not doom style helmets.

Health maxes at 100, with an absolute max (for those things that take you over it) at 200 - same for armour.

The only thing I'm slightly worried about is multiplayer - with such huge areas it's likely to turn into a plasma-gun style firefight, but with such slow movement, no one will be able to close range. Still, it has co-op, which ought to be fun.

Good points

Engine isn't terribly slow, weapons are fairly responsive, and work as expected.

Introductory puzzles nice and simple, bosses satisfyingly huge (though overly easy to kill, a room full of normal monsters is harder than the early bosses) lots of hidden secrets.

Graphics are 'wow' pretty in places, and consistently at least good. Lens flare is over used, but the blinding is deliberate.

Monsters are 'as expected' although mobile barrels were a nasty surprise.

Music is thumping - and I don't even normally LIKE 'thumping' music.

Some amount of decent visual humour, more audible humour.

Bad points

The little computer, though very occasionally funny, is just annoying, and I don't need it popping up notes like 'you got a new gun' ffs - I KNOW what a DBS does...

Still, it's reports of "maybe you should push that button" put it into 'sarcastic talking cat' territory.

The other problem is that the character is so slow - and slows down from the merest brush with a wall. Which, when I am so so used to wallrunning that I use it to dodge - is a problem ;)

The weapons sound awful (UT style chaingun) and the creators really have a 'he cleared the room - spawn 14 more' strategy, which gets thin after a while.

You HAVE to have wickedGl if you want to be able to read the text, and this breaks the editor. Gah.

Lots of options - too many. This game has every downside of quake engine games, in terms of being a pig to set up.

In engine cut scenes, tomb raider style, whenever you change level. They aren't veyr good, and the walking animation is messed up.

Middling points

It's ALL in egypt? Yeesh - I suppose this is only episode one of a 'made for expansion packs' game - but really.

It's got a monster which drops from two very well aimed single shots, or a close up DBS blast, has only a close range attack, and has an 'invisible' option... My brain screams 'doom clone' but my eye says 'candy'

Over all