#this is still id software after all; one of their biggest three franchises is the series all about beating up fascists

[pikkish]

I'm new to the fandom, just played 2016 and Eternal in quick succession. Eternal's DLC left me really dissatisfied, but I can't really explain why or how. Based on that poll you made, it's clear you've got some Opinions on the writing, so I was hoping you would like to share them? I feel like I need someone to mull over that whole story with. You can message me privately if you wish!!

Hi there! Welcome to the Doom fandom! I hope you enjoy your stay here more than you enjoyed TAG's writing! And you're more than welcome to come yell with me about Doom and its related games any time!

You're more than correct in your assertion that I have some Opinions about modern Doom's writing, in fact, I have quite a few of them. Most of them can be summed up as "the writing is just plain bad," which is probably also the reason you're unsatisfied with it. It's inconsistent, it regularly sacrifices coherence for the sake of something that looks cool for trailer shots, it has a lot of details that very much could be interesting plots but are simply ignored after their first mention, and at least a few more things that I'm forgetting, it's been a little bit since my last playthrough of TAG and these are just the major ones off the top of my head.

Take Hayden, for example. In 2016, he's the classic egotistical, powerful CEO of a major weapons industry, who maybe didn't necessarily intend to get a ton of people killed, but now that he has, he's gonna stick to his guns and insist he's still in the right, this was an unfortunate accident, but what he's doing is necessary, for the good of humanity, can't you see? He's the good guy! He's just trying to make things better! And he's dedicated to this course well enough that he's willing to betray the man who's there to save him, and boot Doomguy back into Hell at the end of 2016.

Then you get to Eternal, and he's inexplicably changed his mind for no good reason? And it's not like he's learned his lesson and has become more humble for it; sure, he got his rear handed to him by demons, and he emphatically states that the creation of Argent Energy is an "unholy union" that "cannot continue," but at the same time, he still acts constantly like he has everything under control and heavily implies that, were he in charge, this situation wouldn't be so bad- as if he weren't in charge when it got this bad. It's like they wanted him to have the exact same attitude (and therefore, ability to deliver dramatic voicelines) as in 2016, but didn't want to commit to him being a villain, so they just went "ok! he doesn't like Argent Energy any more," and went with it, then never felt the need to explain how or why this complete shift in attitude came about. As a result, it feels like Hayden has no clear motive or goals, and falls pretty flat as a character in general.

And then, to take it into TAG, there's the Seraphim, and don't even get me started on how much I hate that that's his name, "seraphim" is the PLURAL form of "seraph," it's like how "Guy" is a real name but then if they decided to name a character "Guys" instead, and it drives me crazy-- whom they go to some lengths to confirm is, in fact, the same person as Hayden, but then, despite the fact that Samur is sick and dying from the moment you revive him, for some reason, Hayden has to turn back into Samur. I suppose there's maybe some indication that Samur and Hayden are actually different people implied by Hayden referring to the Seraphim in the third person through the beginning of the Atlantica level, but there's still never any explanation given for that, whether they are or aren't the same person, or why you need to bring Samur back in Hayden's place.

And then, you beat Samur up, and guess what? He immediately stops being relevant to the plot and is almost completely forgotten. And that's a recurring theme in modern Doom! Olivia Pierce and the Khan Maykr both share the same fate, the moment they're dead, they practically just stop existing. Sure, there's the statue of Olivia in Nekravol, and, like, a single mention of the Khan in one of TAG's codices, if I remember correctly, but personally, to me, both of those feel more like the devs giving you a wink and a nudge and saying "haha hey, remember them?" like it's more of an Easter Egg than them actually having any significance.

And then there's the whole mess that is Davoth. Admittedly, having the Divinity Machine be fueled by his power, and Doomguy being enhanced by that power is thematically appropriate, what with the whole reason Doomguy wins being that he's even angrier than Hell. I also think something like the Divinity Machine and Dooomguy becoming superhuman did have to happen eventually, because how many times can one man singlehandedly beat back the whole of Hell itself before he stops being just some guy? But I don't think it was executed very well.

For one thing, I don't think it was a good move to imply that Doomguy always was some sort of pseudo-god super entity right from the start. Sure, like I said, he did inevitably have to stop being just some guy, but him being just some guy was a good bit of the charm of classic Doom in my opinion. All we knew about him was that he loved his pet rabbit, and was more willing to punch his commanding officer in the face than follow an order to shoot civilians. And yeah, if you take that, and also assume that the story cards are Doomguy's own internal monologue or at least a representation of his attitude, then you can't really say he was ever a blank slate character, but he was still just some guy, and he was relatable for that. And going "well, actually, he was a godling from the very beginning" just doesn't feel very good in my opinion, and feels like a big retcon besides. (And we'll get to more "well, ACTUALLY" stuff in a bit, but first I wanna finish up the tangentially Davoth related stuff first.)

All that aside, if we take it at face value and say sure, Doomguy was always something a little more than human, always destined to become the ultimate warrior, rather than making himself into the Doom Slayer by surviving Hell, then there's still not really any reason for Davoth to have looked exactly like him, beyond going "you-- but EVIL!!" for the drama of it. I think there was maybe one codex entry that says Davoth's whole soul-stealing operation was for the sake of providing his own people with immortality, which is to say, he was fighting to protect his home or something to that effect, so an argument could be made that his looking like Doomguy is an attempt at exploring "this is you, gone too far, this is you if you ever let go of your morals, this is everything you risk becoming," but, again, it's mentioned like... once, in one codex, and never explored or elaborated upon further. If I remember correctly, Davoth himself never even acknowledges this, it's just the codex entry, and he just goes on about how he'll kill Doomguy and destroy everything he ever loved. If they really wanted to make him a sympathetic villain like that, then they should've actually given us the opportunity to feel that sympathy for him. Let me see the people he's trying to protect- is it an idyllic paradise, oblivious to the lengths being gone to to keep them comfortable? A broken, dying people who should have gone extinct long ago, but for this thievery of the lives of others? I know Hell is supposed to be Jekkad, corrupted, and even in theory, that's fine- you could say Davoth's become so ruthless in pursuit of this immortality for his people that he's blinded himself to how it's also destroyed that which he was attempting to save- but you can't really see that. It's still just Hell, not really any sort of remnant of something worth saving.

And speaking of that. Trying to make Davoth a sympathetic villain at all feels like a bad choice to me. Doom is about fighting demons, about carving a bloody war path through the ultimate evil of Hell itself, and about feeling viciously satisfied about doing it. Making it about a desperate man who can't accept that he failed to save what he cared about, and making about killing that man before he does any more damage in attempting to do what he's already failed to do just doesn't feel good the way the rest of Doom does. And beyond that, TAG doesn't even succeed in the emotional gut punch that would come from it, had they managed to make Davoth into an actually sympathetic villain. It's like they're trying to strike a balance between the gratuitously violent and exhiliratingly triumphant feel that Doom is known for, and an emotionally impactful story, and as a result, both end up landing somewhere between mediocre and just plain bad.

I don't have a good segue into this bit except to say it's coming back to the "well, ACTUALLY," thing I mentioned earlier, which is: there are a lot of parts that feel a lot like a six year old kid is just making up the plot on the spot, like, for example, "Doomguy LAUNCHES himself out of a CANNON and he has a MAGIC SWORD and a PET DRAGON that carries him to the MAGIC CRYSTAL in the MIDDLE of the PLANET." Granted, these ones are pretty small and relatively inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, and, yeah, okay, they do look pretty cool. But they don't really... fit? Yeah, it's not like classic Doom didn't have this too, In Doom I alone, Doomguy gets pissed about not getting a reward for beating up the barons, practically just jumps off the side of Deimos, and then finally gets to go home when a secret teleporter just opens beside him after Hell decides he's "too tough" for it. But that all fits in classic Doom, because it's not trying to be a serious, grimdark story. Classic Doom is goofy, and it knows it, and it doesn't try to be anything else. But modern Doom tries so hard to be a very serious, dramatic story and also keep the sillier bits of classic Doom, and- yeah, okay, I already made this point once, but here it is again- it ultimately kinda fails at both as a result.

But then there's the bigger of these, namely VEGA. You spend the majority of both 2016 and Eternal with him as your main companion, and, as far as I can remember, there's never really anything to indicate that he's anything other than what he's introduced as, a sentient AI, created to help manage the Mars base. And then you get to the end of Eternal, and- after basically making you sacrifice him for a second time- with next to no buildup, go, "well actually, he's the god of the bad guys." And I'd complain about that plot thread also being brought up and then dropped with no further elaboration, except they do elaborate on it, and that's basically all that TAG is about. They spend the whole of TAG 1 telling you how VEGA is the god of Literally Everything, and how he made Davoth, then didn't kill him when he started to get out of hand, and aren't you MAD at him, for making all your problems, for being too merciful with his own creation that he loved, and don't you just wanna DESTROY the thing that would give him power again?

And then you get to TAG 2 and they spend the whole time going "WELL ACTUALLY it's DAVOTH who's god and VEGA STILL couldn't kill him and he's been LYING to you this ENTIRE TIME." It almost feels to me like a bad fandom interpretation to justify not liking a character, except worse because they're actually the ones who made the character and wrote the story, and I'm not entirely sure why they intentionally tried to make VEGA a helpful, likeable character, gave him a backstory that arguably makes him more sympathetic than Davoth, and then went "actually we hate him now and are gonna do everything we can to try to make you hate him too."

There are definitely more things I could bring up, like whatever the whole deal with the wraiths and the World Spear is, and probably a handful of other things I'm forgetting, too, but it's getting late and I gotta get up to go to work tomorrow. At any rate, thanks for stopping by and giving me an excuse to finally yell about these things! Feel free to stop by and chat with me about video games whenever you want, I love getting to hear other people's thoughts on these things just as much as I love getting to give my own.

[ranger-report]

Thoughts On: HEXEN II

After developing two fantastic games utilizing the id tech 1 engine -- also known as the DOOM engine -- Raven Software found themselves once again at the forefront of technological advancement when their neighbors id Software released a little game called Quake. Using a brand new, fully 3D rendered engine, Quake revolutionized first person shooters and PC gaming graphics. After the successes of Heretic and Hexen, Raven was deep in the throes of developing a third game in their dark fantasy series, this one titled Hecatomb. Sadly, this game never came to pass, as John Romero (who’d had heavily helped develop the previous two games) left id Software to found his own company, abandoning Hecatomb in the process. At this point, Activision Publishing acquired Raven and the rights to distribute future games they developed. Activision told Raven that they wanted to see the Heretic and Hexen games split into two separate franchises as both games were different in gameplay styles. So rather than a final third game to wrap up a trilogy, ideas from Hecatomb were then split between Hexen II and Heretic II. While this yielded mixed results, we’ll look first at Hexen II, a game that was highly anticipated upon release, and whose legacy is an uneven yield.

The story this time around is that the third and final Serpent Rider, Eidolon, has taken over the word of Thyrion. Separated into four lands, Thyrion is infested with Eidolon’s minions, and it’s up to one of four warriors to take him down: the Crusader, Assassin, Necromancer, and Paladin. What’s neat about this premise is that each of the warriors comes from one of the four lands --  Blackmarsh, Mazaera, Thysis, and Septimus, respectively. And each land has a different cultural theme -- Medieval European, Mesoamerican, Ancient Egyptian, and Greco-Roman, also respectively. Also very interesting about this setup is that each land is being ruled by one of the Four Fucking Horsemen of the Apocalypse -- Famine, Death, Pestilence, and War also also respectively. Off the jump there is a lot going on here, a lot more detail than the previous two games about the worlds and what is happening. This works to the game’s credit in attempting to set up a distinct world for this entry in the game series, but somehow, it falls a little flat. In previous games the player encounters a variety of monsters and enemies that all carry over from hub to hub, level to level, giving the player a chance to learn their attacks and be aware of how to defend themselves. There’s also overarching aesthetics that maintain a steady, immersive feel to the worlds presented. Hexen II’s decision to split the hubs into unique lands works against it, as each land as its own unique enemies and aesthetic and architecture. Just as the player has a chance to get used to enemy tactics and tricks (thanks to some stellar AI work), those strategies are abandoned as the next world is loaded up with new enemies and new look, throwing the player off and breaking the immersion. As much as I tried to get into it, what it ends up feeling like is the standard issue Water World, Fire World, Sand World, etc of old NES platformers. This is not to say that the worlds aren’t good looking, however -- Raven modified the shit out of id tech 2′s textures and polygonal aspects, crafting a still-gorgeous game which takes full advantage of the technology.

Progression here is also slightly different from the previous Hexen, but is a very welcome course change. Each character class has different skills and abilities, and as you play through the game, you’ll gain experience and level up. Returning from the previous game are the fact that each class has their own four weapons, using 1) no mana ammo 2) blue mana 3) green mana and 4) both mana. As usual, the fourth weapons need to be assembled from pieces in order to be used, but what overpowered destruction they bring. My favorite class is Crusader, whose skills and weapons focus on defensive measures, but his ultimate weapon is the Light bringer. It fires a steady stream of what can basically be called pure light, burning through any enemy in a matter of seconds, and the drain on Mana is negligible. It’s possible to reach the max level of 12 through the game, and each character receives a new passive ability at levels 3 and 6. It’s always nice to notice that you’ve gained a level during the adventure, but it usually happens well after the fact. I had a difficult time hearing the audio cue to let me know that I’d leveled up and now had extra health, or new ability. I had to go into the revamped inventory screen, which now shows key quest items as well as the current items in your pocket.

In fact, Hexen II’s biggest immediate suffering is that there seems to be a lack of feedback. There’s little in the way of gratifying sound or feel whenever your attacks land, which is doubly frustrating when most attacks are ranged and as far away from the very deadly monsters. Up close and personal melee attacks seem to have a weird range, sometimes being able to hit at different distances, but it’s hard to know exactly how and when that’s going to happen. The inventory system is fine, objects work they way they’re supposed to. Most of the problems come from the early usage of id tech 2. Quake is not a game designed around interactivity, despite Hexen II being the exact opposite. id tech 2 takes away the Action button, so you walk into panels or switches to operate them, no button mashing required. There’s also no minimap, so navigating become a trying issue. But projectiles in this game don’t seem to have an impact; there’s no oomph to it, similarly to Quake’s monster who rarely stagger when hit. This is a problem because multiple times will occur when you’re firing rapidly at damage-sponge enemies, wondering if you’ve hit them enough to count, counting each shot, watching your steadily diminishing mana fall away, waiting hoping praying that this isn’t another time where you’re going to be forced to use the melee weapon, and then they are suddenly dead and you didn’t know they were close to death. It’s not as frustrating in the early levels, where you’re Level 1 and Everything Hurts and Everything Takes A Lot To Kill. But by Level 9, there are bigger, badder, more horrifying enemies who soak up so much damage that it feels like a Thoroughly Epic Duel every single time. This, perhaps, is meant to make up for the fact that -- unlike Hexen which sent waves of hordes of squads of monsters at the player at once -- Hexen II lobbies much fewer enemies at a time. In fact, I’m hard pressed to remember any time I fought more than five at a time, and even that is a generous number. But since each of the enemies are so much more resilient, anything more than three becomes an exercise in dodging and weaving and running for cover in order to get in a few shots and quaff a drink from a healing elixir, because these fuckers hit, hit hard, and hurt harder. Especially the Four Horsemen, who are so intense and difficult that I was convinced for a moment that the game was building up to a boss run near the end that would have been insurmountable. Fortunately, thank fuck, there wasn’t. And yet, while the increased difficulty of the enemies comes with the bonus of impressive AI (most notable in the Were-Jaguar warriors, who leap and roll and attack like real human opponents), it also comes with the downside of empty stretches of pathfinding. Where in Hexen enemies would respawn with abandon in an effort to wear down the player, Hexen II seemingly keeps a limit on the number of enemies involved on a map. Once they’re dead, they’re dead, which then makes wandering around afterwards an exercise in frustrated boredom searching for clues and hints to the puzzles.

Speaking of which, while feedback and aesthetics are weak points, if there’s anything that the game truly bounces players out of the game, it’s the puzzles. Blackmarsh is host to one of the most infamous puzzle glitches in the series, possibly in all RPG gaming, the solution to which is based on how your character enters a particular courtyard. Depending on which turn the player takes, this will then spawn a clue in one of three locations based on your entry point, along with the necessary quest item in one of three locations after gathering the clue. However, the clue itself can be accidentally destroyed. It can also be missed entirely, and if you don’t find the clue you can’t go directly to the quest item location knowing the solution -- it can only be solved in the order of clue, location, item. So if you somehow miss or even destroy the clue itself -- and Hexen II is rife with destructible items holding hidden mana and health so chances are you’re breaking a lot of shit -- you’re out of luck. I discovered this far, far too late, and had to start the whole game over because I didn’t have a recent enough save file that I could utilize to go back to. Thankfully, this was fairly early on in the game, but it serves as a brutal low point that comes back to haunt the player in the Egyptian levels, where a maddeningly opaque puzzle involving time travel and astrology nearly drove me to a walkthrough and early onset baldness. Elsewhere, puzzles are item-based rather than key-based like in Hexen, which revolve around gathering items, transporting them to a location, and then receiving either a new item or a key. Sometimes these items need to be altered or transmutated; the game is questionably vague about what is necessary sometimes. Fortunately, despite the veiled hints, most fetch quests are simple enough to solve. But the lack of enemies giving way to empty hallways and corridors makes those fetch quests empty and tedious, moreso than they ought to be.

Hexen II isn’t a bad game by any means. It’s very much a product of 1997. New technology, advancements in PC gaming, experimentation with new control schemes and movements, a lot of games at the time featured both innovation and frustration in equal measure. Hexen II is a solid game at its core, with great direction from the returning team, a great soundtrack, fantastic graphics and sound design, and RPG progression. But all of these upgrades come at the cost of a more simplistic version of Hexen that is somehow trying to have the straightforward run-n-gun gameplay of Heretic and the brutal dungeon crawl of Hexen. Puzzles suffer, shooting mechanics suffer, and immersion suffers. What it ends up being is Hexen Lite, not as good as the original, but fine on its own. Would I go back and play it? Sure, at some point I’d love to, but it didn’t draw me in the same way that Hexen did, not even as much as Heretic. But it’s a Quake engine game (which I’m a sucker for) and a 1997 game (which I’m a sucker for, goddammit), and despite its flaws it represents a moment in gaming which I can’t help but be nostalgic for. Your mileage may vary, but be advised that there are other, bigger, bolder versions of this experience that Hexen II has inspired, and while this may have inspired quite a few, it hasn’t aged as well as its predecessors.

Next up: we close off the Thoughts On series of Heretic/Hexen games with Heretic II. And if Hexen II was a different experience in order to differentiate itself as a unique series, Heretic II goes above and beyond to set itself apart....for better and for worse.

[alexalily]

RANKING OF VIDEO GAME MOVIES - PART I

At some point earlier this year, I decided that watching all of the video game adaptation movies would be a good idea. It was, in fact, a bad idea. You know how video game movies have a reputation for being bad? Yeah, that's not wrong. Well, mostly. I've been keeping a ranking going as I watch them (because arbitrary rankings are fun to do) and I'm sharing the current state of it here, now, today, for you.

This first post has a bit of catching-up to do, future posts about this will probably be in increments of ten films at a time but first we need to establish the list as it is now with the first 30 pieces of fine cinema. Let's take it from the top.

The "Legitimately Good" Zone

Okay, this is only mostly the "Legitimately Good" zone. The first seven of these are actually, really, genuinely good movies and I think even pretty solid adaptations of their respective source materials! Resident Evil (2002) is a great horror-action-thriller that I think does a pretty solid job of evoking what's good about the early RE games without trying to make a direct recreation of any of it. Monster Hunter does a similar thing and if you haven't seen it you totally should!! It's actually really good and doing this write up is making me think it might actually barely edge out RE for the top spot! The extended sequence in the first half of Milla Jovovich and Tony Jaa failing to communicate but still finding ways to work together to prepare to hunt larger monsters is great. It does end up with a weak ending that is very obviously baiting for a sequel but everything up until the last few minutes is extremely good!

Resident Evils Retribution, Extinction, and Afterlife are all very solid horror-action movies that all diverge more and more from the source material but after the first two movies it was clearly doing its own thing with the franchise and I think that's fine! I think that's good, even! More video game adaptations should be like the Milla Jovovich RE movies: gesture to the games in ways that aren't overt and cheesy but have the confidence to do their own thing. This list wouldn't be so dire if people weren't such absolute cowards.

Tomb Raider (2018) is, just like the previous three RE movies, a solid flick. I don't have a particularly deep knowledge of the Tomb Raider lore or really have much reverence for the series but this movie has a version of Lara that is closer to relatable and a lot of fun to watch. Making her a young broke millennial is a fun twist! The biggest issue with the Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider duology is that her version of Lara is insufferable. Rich, privileged, white, snob who thinks archaeology is a fun hobby and has zero respect for the cultures she steals from. No thank you! And yet despite that the first of her movies is here in number eight because it has several fun set pieces. Just look the actual tomb raiding scenes up on YouTube or something, they're a pretty good time and it'll save you like an hour or so.

Dead Rising: Watchtower was the real surprise out of these first ten. This is one that leans into being a bit of a B-Movie but the Dead Rising games have so much B-Movie energy to them that it works out really well. The scenes where they craft goofy weapons and then kill a few dozen zombies with them actually work because the whole movie has a fun tone to it. They're clearly having fun with it all the whole time!

RE: Apocalypse could be argued as the worst of the top ten but also it has a scene where Milla Jovovich sprints down the side of a skyscraper to get the drop on some unsuspecting guards and that whips ass, actually. It's almost the least-good of her movies but it's still fun enough.

Doom: Annihilation was another surprise for me. I assumed the direct-to-streaming movie that was publicly disowned by id Software was going to be a bad time and it was only kinda bad! I'm not going to try to tell you that it's secretly amazing or something but it's way better than I expected it to be! And it's not just because it's an action movie with a hot woman kicking ass at the center of it! It maybe mostly is that but it's not the only reason!

The "Kinda Good But Also Kinda Bad" Zone

I feel like the Silent Hill movies have a reputation for being abysmal movies and I'm here to tell you that Silent Hill (2006) is not abysmal at all and is actually pretty good! It actually really nails the vibes of its source material, maybe better than anything else on this list. It's just unfortunate that the story and dialogue are as weak as they are or else this could've been a strong contender for one of the top spots. People are right about Silent Hill Revelations 3D though. That movie is some real trash-garbage. Zero vibes, no good writing to speak of, Pyramid Head isn't hot enough, bad visual effects. It makes the fatal mistake of trying to do a (somewhat) direct adaptation of a game (Silent Hill 3) but you really, really, simply cannot do that! It just doesn't work! You can't transfer that experience from one medium to another effectively! The fact that a movie this bad is still in the middle of the list should be somewhat chilling to you, dear reader. Hold on because it only gets worse from here.

Doom (2005) is, I feel, pretty widely regarded as one of the better video game adaptations. People really love that first-person sequence. I'm here to tell you that they're right about it being an okay movie but wrong about that first-person bit (which was actually the weakest part of the whole movie). It's a lot more Aliens than it is Doom but I think that's alright. It's got some big B-Movie energy but I don't think it's exactly aware of that. The Rock is legitimately good in his role and I think Rosamund Pike does a good job with the scraps she's given. I'd honestly say it's about as good as the other Doom movie but that they're both enjoyable in wildly different ways. No, that doesn't make sense but this is my blog so I make the rules.

Okay, this is the first entry with an asterisk. Biohazard 4D-Executer is a 3DCG animation short film that had a limited showing in Japan (but somehow ended up on YouTube with English subtitles). When I started actually doing this ranking, I intended it to be for live action movies but since I had already watched this beforehand I threw it on the list just to be slightly more complete. I may add more CG stuff in the future but my to-watch list is just live action stuff for now. Anyway, 4D-Executer is a fun ten minutes and worth putting up with the 360p video quality for.

Hitman: Agent 47 (2015) is the first movie on this list that I have very little memory of. He gets hired to kill someone and there's a conspiracy and they crash a helicopter into a building? I think it ended in a way that suggested they wanted to do a sequel? I remember thinking it was a generally fine, if kind of bland, spy-action movie? Who knows.

We reach the end of the Resident Evil franchise with Welcome to Raccoon City and The Final Chapter. Raccoon City is the bad sort of adaptation that feels like a generic movie with a coat of paint thrown over it. A zombie woman bangs on a glass door to try to get Claire, starts yelling "Itchy Tasty!", and then dives through the glass door. It just throws out references to the games with no reverence for their context within their actual games. It may as well just occasionally put screenshots from the games up on the screen for you. "Remember the thing you like? This is that, right? :)" The Final Chapter, on the other hand, is a terrible ending to Milla Jovovich's sextet of Resident Evil movies. It throws out a lot of what the first five movies built and takes in way too much inspiration from Mad Max: Fury Road which changes a lot of the vibes of this movie into something completely different. Also, as someone who is photosensitive, there is a five(ish) minute long fight scene in this one that I literally cannot watch because the constant flashing lights are so uncomfortable to look at. It does some interesting things with the story but too much of the ending is just actual horseshit for it to be a satisfying ending to the series. And yet we're only halfway through the list.

Need for Speed has a few fun car stunts that, as far as I know, were all done practically. Even driving the car off a cliff and having a helicopter catch it! That was wild! Unfortunately, everything else is terrible and this movie is some hyper-dude-bro garbage. There's a few moments that try to recognize when some men are being shitty but it's usually just in service of letting other, different, men be shitty in other, different, ways. It's extremely funny to me that a major plot point of the movie is the idea that a modified Ford Mustang would somehow be on par with various European Hypercars from Lambourghini, McLaren, Bugatti, and Koenigsegg. Anyone who knows even a little bit about cars knows how laughable that is. And it's almost definitely why the Mustang gets trashed two-thirds of the way through. (Spoilers, I suppose)

Dead or Alive is a horny game franchise and the movie is no different. It feels like 90 minutes of excuses to oogle hot women in skimpy outfits. There's some alright fight scenes in this but I nearly had to tap out at the beach volleyball scene because I felt gross for watching this trash-ass movie.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life gets two special honors here: the first movie with two colons in the title and the second on this list that I don't really remember much of! I think they got rid of a lot of the cool practical sets and effects from the first Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider movie and instead have questionable CGI for it. Other than that, I don't think I could tell you what happened here! But I do know it's bad!

The "Actual Dogshit" Zone

Okay, I may try to speed it up a bit here because this post is getting a bit long but also because, looking at these last ten, I think I've blocked large parts of these out of my memory. We're nearly done, I promise, this is almost over. Just gotta get through the worst part now!

Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness has an asterisk on it the same as 4D-Executer does because (a) it's CGI and (b) it's a miniseries, not a movie. I don't remember much but I remember not liking it! I think I may have fallen asleep during one of the episodes.

BloodRayne and BloodRayne 2: Deliverance kind of run together in my mind. I don't remember why I ranked the second one above the first. The only solid memory of either of these is that the first one ends with a YouTube-esque compilation of all the gory kills in the movie but it's seemingly framed as Rayne thinking about everything she went through to get to the end of that movie and it was extremely dumb in the bad way. I have just recalled that the second one is cowboys vs vampires and you know what that's a solid idea, that's probably why it's above the first one. They're both dogshit but the second one is slightly less so.

Alone in the Dark is barely watchable. It's bad in nearly every way a movie can be but, somehow, bafflingly, it waits to get that bad until the second half. The first half is an okay-but-kinda-bad movie and it's like they then decided it was time to really stink up the place. It's got terrible action sequences, a miserable plot, awful dialogue, bad acting across the board, awful direction, disorienting editing. It's almost as if Uwe Boll is bad at making movies. Hmm. I don't really know much about the Alone in the Dark games so I can't say if this is a good adaptation but I'm going to assume it isn't. I thought it was a series of old PC games about a funny lil guy in a spooky mansion? These movies are extremely not that.

Tekken has some good fights in it. Which, for a movie based on a fighting game, you'd think that'd carry it quite a bit. But unfortunately you would be mistaken. There is a sequel (sorta?) that I desperately need to get my hands on because I need to know how bad it gets. I need to know.

Hey, remember when I said Dead Rising: Watchtower was surprisingly good? I thought that meant that the sequel would be similarly good but Dead Rising: Endgame was actually surprisingly bad! All that fun, goofy energy in the first movie is completely gone and this zombie movie barely has any actual zombies in it. It's a deadly serious conspiracy movie about the government and scientists and fucking whatever who cares this movie sucks shit.

BloodRayne: The Third Reich has a premise that should be a slam dunk: hot lady vampire kills the shit out of a bunch of nazis. And yet here we are at the bottom of the list. It has all the similarly amateurish movie making of Uwe Boll's other movies but also it feels incomplete. It's like you can watch the budget dry up in real time as you're watching. Some shoddy editing makes a vain attempt to cover that up but it's pretty apparent that they ran out of money (or willpower, who knows) to actually finish this trash.

Have you ever heard of Dead Trigger? Because I sure haven't. Apparently it's a wildly popular first-person shooter mobile game! 100 million downloads popular! And yet this movie was the first I heard of it. This movie has the fun anecdote that the original director quit on the third day of filming and after that Dolph Lundgren and the new director had to do an emergency rewrite of the script to try and salvage the movie. The only good parts of this are the one or two times Dolph has fistfights with people because it turns out that dude is pretty good at fighting on camera (even though the people he fights are not and it very clearly shows). Oh, and this has the distinct honor of being the second movie on this list where the game developer very publicly disowned the movie and distanced themselves from it as much as possible! Congratulations!

Six or seven years ago I had the foolish idea to watch all the video game movies and didn't make it as far in as I have this time around. But I did make it to The King of Fighters. Kind of. I made it about to the supposedly-horny-but-mostly-awkward locker room scene with Vice and Mature and then shut it off there. This time I made it to the scene after there, where Vice and Mature fight a hockey hooligan (???) in a smoky alleyway, before turning it off. I hope I'm not a fraud for not being able to stomach the worst of the worst on this list.

Because I did it twice. Alone in the Dark 2 is another movie that I physically could not watch because of the flashing lights. It wasn't like Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, though, where it was just a short fight scene. This movie has flickering lights nearly constantly throughout the 30 minutes I was able to make it through. It really felt like they were trying to cover up low production values and shoddy editing. You can't see how bad it is if you can't see anything else! Nothing I saw (or attempted to see) in that first 30 minutes made me think anything in the rest of it was worth watching so I tapped out of that one too.

And now for the part where I reveal that this is all a ruse! You have been bamboozled! This isn't a list of 30 films! It's actually up to 37! The list posted here today is old and I will be making a new post in the near future once I get up to 40 movies watched! Haha! You have fallen right into my trap! Future posts about this ongoing project won't be nearly as long as this one was but the movies won't be nearly as good as most of what I talked about here today! So look forward to that!

[aion-rsa]

What Went Wrong With Dwayne Johnson’s Doom Movie?

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When Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson took to the stage at the Amway Arena in Orlando, Florida on March 29, 2008, few could have predicted what would come next.    

The budding action star was there to induct his father and grandfather into the WWE Hall of Fame, however, at times, his speech felt more like an impromptu comedy roast.    

“There was big controversy with the WWE and illegal torture,” one convoluted gag began. “Apparently they would find Iraqi insurgents, tie them up and make them watch DVD copies of The Marine.”    

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John Cena, who starred in The Marine, was in the audience that night and took the ribbing in good humor, with his exaggerated on-camera reaction spawning what would come to be known as the “John Cena oh s**t gif”.  

Johnson wasn’t finished though.  

“By the way I made Doom. Did you ever see Doom? Well, you probably didn’t and it’s okay because nobody else did either.”    

Cue laughter.   

Nearly three years on from its release, The Rock could finally laugh about Doom. No one had been laughing when the film first debuted in October 2005 to rank reviews and a poor box office return. 

Film critic Richard Roeper was among those to tear into the film.  

“The performances are awful, the action sequences are impossible to follow, the violence is gratuitous, the lighting is bad and I have my doubts that the catering truck was even up to snuff.”   

He had a point.   

Largely filmed in a series of identical-looking and poorly lit corridors of a generic space station, Doom had the look and feel of a bad Alien knock-off.  Worse still, it bore almost no resemblance to the source material.  

Johnson may be the biggest film star in the world today but back then he was still just another wrestler trying to make the leap into movies. In truth, he was fortunate that Doom didn’t torpedo his chances in the way countless misfiring movies had for other aspiring wrestlers-turned-actors.  

So where did it all go wrong?  

Arnold Schwarzenegger and ILM

Film adaptations of popular video games are famously fraught with difficulties.   

You could probably count the number of good video game movies on one finger – Paul W.S. Anderson’s Mortal Kombat, before you ask.    

But id Software, the developers behind the pioneering Doom franchise, had been hopeful of bucking the trend back in 1994 when Universal first purchased the film rights.   

“I think Doom would be easier to write a script for than, say, Street Fighter,” business manager and co-owner Jay Wilbur told PC Gamer.   

Wilbur’s vision for the movie certainly sounded appealing.   

“I see Arnold Schwarzenegger with all the Doom garb on, Industrial Light & Magic supplying the special effects and the story would be something along the lines of Arnie stationed on Mars when the dimensional gateway opens up and demons flood in…So everybody’s dead – well maybe not everybody, you need a little human interaction and comic relief going on. But mainly, just non-stop seat-of-your-pants sweat-of-your-brow action.”   

Fusing elements of Commando, Total Recall, and the later Arnie effort End of Days, Wilbur’s sketch of a Doom movie sounded perfect – but there were issues from the start.  

According to former CEO Todd Hollenshead, several potential scripts were vetoed by id Software for failing to stay true to the source material.  While Schwarzenegger was approached, plans for the project were ultimately shelved in the wake of the Columbine High School massacre and negative press it generated around the game.   

Doomed Casting

It would be almost a decade before interest in a movie version would be rekindled by producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura and John Wells, who obtained the rights after footage from Doom 3 was shopped to agents from Creative Artists Agency.   

Di Bonaventura enlisted David Callaham, then a novice writer in Hollywood, to pen a script based loosely on a handful of ideas he had pitched during a chance meeting.   

Schwarzenegger, by then, was not only significantly older but also busy as Governor of California. Alternatives were explored. One rumor, neither confirmed nor denied, suggests Vin Diesel was in the frame to star. Ultimately, however, it was Johnson who ended up landing top billing.   

Not that anyone was complaining. Johnson was largely a B-movie star up until that point, making Doom a good fit to potentially take him into the big leagues. There was just one problem though – The Rock didn’t want to play the good guy.   

Producers had originally slated the WWE star to play the film’s main protagonist, Staff Sgt. John “Reaper” Grimm. Johnson had other ideas, though.   

“When I first read the script, and read it for [the part of] John, after I read it I thought wow John is a great character and, of course, the hero of the movie,” Johnson explained at the 2005 San Diego Comic-Con.  “But for some reason I was drawn more to Sarge, I thought Sarge was, to me, more interesting and had a darker side.”   

He agreed to star but only in the role of Sarge, leader of the film’s Rapid Response Tactical Squad sent to Mars and someone who ends up becoming the principal villain.   

Karl Urban, fresh from featuring in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, was cast in his place in what represented the first major misstep.  

Watching the film back now, it’s tempting to wonder whether Doom might have fared better had the two switched roles.  

After all, Johnson has carved a sizeable niche as an all-American good guy in the years since, while roles in Dredd and The Boys highlighted a darker streak to Urban’s repertoire.  

It’s certainly something Wesley Strick, who served as script doctor and ultimately co-writer on the film, concurs with when the notion is put to him.  

“That would work better,” he tells Den of Geek.  “I think you are onto something there. The swap was his idea though and this is all with hindsight.”   

Blame Superman

An experienced screenwriter with credits on Arachnophobia and Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear, Strick ended up working on Doom as an indirect result of Tim Burton’s failed Superman movie.   

“Lorenzo [di Bonaventura] was head of production at Warner Bros when Tim Burton asked me to come onboard for Superman Lives,” Strick explains.    

“Tim and I and Nicolas Cage cooked up this whole scenario for a Superman movie and we would often walk into Lorenzo’s office to do battle with him, essentially, because he was stubbornly opposed to almost every idea we had,” Strick says. “Consequently, Lorenzo and I really butted heads and sometimes it could get quite ugly…I felt like I might have burned my bridges.”

With Superman years in the past, di Bonaventura called Strick to gauge his interest about working on Doom.

“I really wasn’t interested,” Strick says. “Just because I knew nothing about the game. But I have two sons and they were teenagers so there was a lot of enthusiasm from them. They told me to look into it and were excited about the idea of their dad working on this video game movie. Any project you can do where your kids are involved and excited is fun. So that appealed to me.”   

Strick was also sold on the film’s director, an exciting young Irish filmmaker called Enda McCallion. McCallion had made his name with a series of striking TV adverts (the Metz alcopop ‘Judderman’ campaign) and music videos for the likes of Nine Inch Nails.  

He was being tipped to follow in the footsteps of filmmakers like Jonathan Glazer by transitioning into features.   

“Enda was this up-and-coming new Irish director who was hyped to me as a visionary and someone who was going to bring something very original to the movie. It wasn’t going to just be this piece of product.”   

Big picture stuff

Strick was tasked with simplifying Callaham’s script to ensure it translated into a workable schedule and, crucially, that it could be made within a modest budget of $60–70 million. That meant cuts.  

“The producers looked at it and tried to put together a schedule and realized it was too complicated,” Strick says. “So, I read it and came up with a simple solution. In Callaham’s draft the marines kept going back and forth through this portal. Three times or something. It was unnecessary. They would go over there and then chase back and then regroup and then return to Mars or whatever. I said no, do it once and be done with it. I also had a list of a couple of monsters I thought the movie could do without.”   

The decision to cut several monsters familiar to Doom enthusiasts was a contentious one among fans, with Callaham’s original script featuring both the Cacodemon and Arch-Vile among others. Strick had been through this kind of process before though.   

“This is sort of the big picture stuff,” he says. “You can get a lot of shit from fans when they feel like you are trespassing on their genre and I think that happened to an extent on Doom. People were like ‘how dare you’.”   

He cites his experience on Batman Returns as an example of when the fanboys miss the point.   

“I hadn’t read a comic book since I was 12 and I loved them but I was 37 then,” he says. “Way past comic book age. In my mind, that’s okay because you’re trying to write a movie, not a comic book. You don’t want a comic book fanatic on a job like that – what would they bring to the movie?”   

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Despite ringing the changes, one sequence Strick was determined to retain from Callaham’s script was the five-minute first-person shooter sequence.  

“That was one bit I wanted to keep in no matter what. It was just funny. It had a great attitude and visually it was just delightful. If anyone ever proposed cutting it, I would argue strenuously against that. It was a great idea. Real, in your face.”   

All Change

By the time filming commenced in Prague in the winter of 2004, however, Strick found himself working on a very different film. McCallion had departed the project for reasons unknown. He didn’t respond to our request for an interview.   

In his place came Andrzej Bartkowiak, a seasoned cinematographer who had recently branched out into directing in the early 2000s, helming a trio of Jet Li action movies.   

“I was deeply disappointed when Enda left the project,” Strick admits. “It became the thing that I was assured of at the beginning it wouldn’t be. A more conventional approach to a movie like that. I don’t know what kind of movie Enda would have made but at least there was the possibility with him that it was going to be something special.”   

Strick was also having to contend with issues elsewhere.  

“When Doom moved to Universal, a guy called Greg Silverman became my executive on the project and he didn’t like me. He just always gave me shit,” Strick says. “Once he told me everything I had portrayed about the marines and their tactics was inauthentic. He wanted real, genuine, marine combat tactics.  I went back and did loads of research, read books like Jarhead, and really immersed myself in the whole marine mindset. I did a rewrite where I fixed all of the combat stuff, so it was genuine US marine combat protocol. And he hated it. I tried to explain that was exactly what was happening in Iraq, but he was just like ‘nah’. So we ended up going back to the fake stuff.”   ​

It’s an anecdote that hints at that dreaded but all too familiar issue on disjointed projects of this kind – studio interference – and Strick wasn’t the only one experiencing frustration. In the run-up to the film’s release, his co-writer Callaham had begun interacting with angry Doom fans online, who had heard rumors of the film taking liberties with the source material.   

Writing in a lengthy open letter defending his screenplay, the young writer managed to make things worse.    

“Let me assure you…, that the themes and elements that you love about Doom are ALL represented strongly in the film…just with some new twists,” he wrote.   

Few were convinced, however, particularly after he went on to claim he had watched a “bunch of strangers bastardize” his original vision of the film.   

Strick has some sympathy.   

“As soon as you engage in a fight on the internet, you’ve lost. I don’t think Dave realized that until it happened, but he got the shit kicked out of him by Doom fans. He was determined to defend himself and his movie against all comers and they just kicked him around. But he got back up and got moving again.”   

Callaham certainly did that, going on to pen The Expendables and, most recently, Wonder Woman 1984.  

Strick remains philosophical about his experience on Doom and still has cherished memories of taking his sons to the premiere [“they were in awe of The Rock” ].   

Positives and Negatives

“I thought the film was pretty good. Particularly in the sequence where it becomes like the video game. It’s the one great thing in the movie. Ironically, it’s a movie but it’s at its best when it devolves into pure video game action.”   

Bartkowiak took the brunt of the criticism for the film’s visual issues – visual effects wiz Jon Farhat took charge of the much-lauded first-person shooter sequence.  

Things would get even worse for the experienced cinematographer-turned-director a few years later with his next film, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, which pulled off the ignominious feat of being an even worse video game movie.  

Johnson rode the storm though, eventually hitting A-lister pay dirt with 2011’s Fast Five – a movie that breathed new life into his career and the Fast & Furious franchise as a whole.  

Today, Johnson is able to laugh about Doom, recently claiming its failure was the result of a “video game curse” he successfully broke with Rampage. The jury is still out on that one.   

With a different director, more ambitious budget and the right stars in the right roles, Doom could well have ended up being a great video game movie – but Strick thinks making a truly great video game movie “is next to impossible.”  

It’s about narrative,” he explains. “In a movie, we’re taking you for a ride whereas in a video game you are in the driving seat. So they are two conflicting and competing ideas for what makes a story engaging. Sit back, relax, we’re going to entertain you versus you’re immersed in an environment that you control. I don’t know where you find the center for that where the two opposing ideas co-exist. That’s possibly why the video game sequence is so good. It took on that paradox. You’re watching a video game movie that’s a simulation. It’s a kind of reminder of what the movie could never be.”   

The post What Went Wrong With Dwayne Johnson’s Doom Movie? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[tortuga-aak]

The best multi-platform games you can buy

The Insider Picks team writes about stuff we think you'll like. Business Insider has affiliate partnerships, so we get a share of the revenue from your purchase.

The Insider Pick:

Whether you have a PlayStation, an Xbox, or a Windows PC, you can play any of these great multi-platform games. Our favorite titles include “Doom,” “The Witcher III: Wild Hunt,” “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard," “Metal Gear Solid V,” and “Overwatch.”

The game industry is at an interesting crossroads right now. PC gaming has become hugely popular over the past decade or so, with many people even building their own custom machines. As a result, consoles makers have increasingly had to compete with stronger and more regularly-updated computer hardware. Many gamers still prefer consoles due to their lower cost and convenience of use, but there’s no arguing that these systems, by their nature, lag a bit behind PCs when it comes to delivering a bleeding-edge graphical experience.

Since the Nintendo Entertainment System, game consoles have typically followed generational releases with new ones coming out every five or six years. We may be witnessing the end of this traditional launch cycle, however. In an attempt to close the gap between gaming PCs and consoles, Sony and Microsoft have offered more frequent hardware refreshes with machines like the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X. These units, while still technically falling within the current console generation, boast beefed-up hardware that allows developers to push them further and stay up-to-date with modern trends like 4K and VR – features that have been available on PC for a few years now.

This ongoing arms race between console and computer hardware has also seen a notable decrease in the number of system exclusives. The PC, Xbox, and PlayStation each have their own libraries of unique games that are particular to each platform, but we’re increasingly seeing games released across multiple systems. Compare this to a decade or two ago, when the vast majority of games were exclusive to one platform and these “multi-plats” were far less common.

If trends hold, then more frequent console hardware updates and multi-platform gaming appear to be the future of the industry. This is good news for PC and console gamers alike: Players who love the pick-up-and-play convenience of consoles don’t need a beefy custom computer to play the latest AAA titles at high resolution, and dedicated PC gamers now get to enjoy many franchises, such as Final Fantasy or Metal Gear Solid, that were just a few years ago confined to specific platforms like Nintendo or PlayStation.

The sheer number of multi-platform games available today makes it difficult to narrow it down to just five. And although things like DLC and micro-transactions have caused their fair share of controversy in the modern industry, one thing is clear: There have been some truly awesome titles coming out recently from developers around the world, and the past few years have been great for gaming.

In this guide, we’ve done our best to smoke out what are arguably the five best multi-plats available on the PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 so you can enjoy them all no matter what system you prefer.

Read on in the slides below to find out why we love “Doom,” “The Witcher III: Wild Hunt,” “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard," “Metal Gear Solid V,” and “Overwatch.”

The best first-person shooter game

Id Software

Why you'll love it: Id Software’s 2016 “Doom” delivers all of the insane and over-the-top FPS gameplay that made the original famous, offering the classic first-person shooter experience that gamers have been craving for years.

There are few games that can be called “legendary,” and id Software’s 1993 classic “Doom” is certainly one of them. Although it wasn’t the original first-person shooter, “Doom” remains perhaps the biggest pioneer of the genre and has sold more than 10 million copies to date.

The game is still revered today for many reasons: Its intense high-speed run-and-gun play style, its sprawling open level design that encouraged exploration, its famous silent protagonist (known only as “Doomguy”), and, naturally, its over-the-top violence, which was relatively unique — not to mention extremely controversial — at the time.

Id Software has developed a number of successful sequels and re-releases over the years, but the studio’s pledge to return to the original formula made 2016’s “Doom” the most ambitious of them all. “Doom 3” was the most recent release before then, and while it earned high praise from gamers and critics, it traded the high-speed shooter gameplay for a more fleshed-out narrative and a brooding survival-horror atmosphere. In contrast, the new “Doom” was built from the ground-up to capture the spirit of the golden days of first-person shooters, and at this, it truly excels.

A full reboot of the franchise, 2016’s “Doom” once again takes place at a research facility on Mars where a portal to Hell has been established. Doomguy (now referred to as the “Doom Slayer”) is a legendary demon hunter who has been trapped and kept asleep by the forces of the underworld. After the armies of Hell invade, you, as the Doom Slayer, are awoken and tasked with repelling the incursion and sealing the portal. All the classic ingredients are there: Familiar demons, familiar weapons, and the familiar fast-paced and violent gameplay.

But “Doom” is more than just an old-school FPS with a new coat of paint. This pony comes with a few new tricks all its own, like vertically-oriented level designs that take advantage of Doom Slayer’s new-found jumping and climbing abilities — a far cry from the original game where Doomguy couldn’t even look up and down, let alone jump around. The open stages encourage exploration in true Doom spirit, standing as a refreshing counter-point to many modern shooters which send you running from cover to cover down long corridor-like levels.

Another new combat element is the “Glory Kill,” which allows you to perform brutal melee executions on wounded enemies which yields extra ammunition and health bonuses. There are no recharging shields or health packs for you to rely on here. Instead, Doom Slayer heals his wounds only through violence. There is also no cover system that encourages you to hide behind obstacles or avoid fire – everything forces the player to keep pushing forward, making for a fast and furious experience that harks back to first-person shooters of decades past.

“Doom” stands as a gory, adrenaline-fueled triumph of old-school game design and is proof positive that in a sea of modern shooters, sometimes all players want to do is rip and tear.

Pros: Fun and fast gameplay exemplary of the glory days of first-person shooters, an intense metal soundtrack, and excellent level design that rewards exploration

Cons: Somewhat repetitive campaign, a lackluster multiplayer suite, and the extreme violence may be too much for some

Buy "Doom" on Amazon for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, or Windows PC for $29.99

The best action role-playing game

CD Projekt Red

Why you'll love it: A great story, excellent combat, and a breathtaking open-world make “The Witcher III: Wild Hunt” one of the best action role-playing games of all time and easily the best entry in CD Projekt Red’s award-winning series.

The Witcher series has had an interesting run. The action-adventure role-playing franchise, developed by the Polish studio CD Projekt Red, came out of nowhere in 2007 with “The Witcher” (the studio’s debut), which became a sleeper hit.

It went on to spawn two successful sequels: “The Witcher II: Assassins of Kings” greatly expanded upon the original, adding an enhanced combat system and more dynamic open world, while “The Witcher III: Wild Hunt” masterfully perfected these elements, earning its place as one of the greatest gaming achievements in recent years.

CD Projekt Red has stated that “The Witcher III” will be the last game to feature Geralt of Rivia — the titular “Witcher,” or monster-hunter — as the main character, and it’s the perfect game to cap off the trilogy. The plot of the series is based on popular fantasy novels by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The player, as Geralt, is tasked with bringing down a myriad of dangerous otherworldly creatures as he tries to find his daughter, who is herself being hunted by a supernatural force.

“Wild Hunt” drops you into a wide-open world — more than three times larger than that of “Skyrim” — and lets you tackle the main storyline at your leisure, giving you plenty of freedom to explore and complete the many side-quests available throughout the game. You control Geralt from a third-person perspective, duking it out with enemies both human and non-human utilizing a variety of melee and ranged weapons along with a number of magical attacks. The hack-and-slash action-adventure gameplay is layered with an RPG system that lets you level up your character, strengthening your skills and unlocking new abilities.

The gameplay is fluid, fun, and challenging, but where “The Witcher III” really stands apart is in its epic world design. With “Wild Hunt,” CD Projekt Red set out to redefine sandbox games by creating an organic, breathing, dynamic world that “lives apart” from the player character and his actions.

It worked: The realm of the Northern Kingdoms feels more real than ever before, equally dark and beautiful, and it truly comes alive with changing landscapes, ecosystems, and human communities. You don’t just feel like a character who was dropped into a static game environment of pre-programmed NPCs, but instead like a smaller part of a larger, truly active organic world that moves and evolves around you.

The breathtaking visuals, wonderfully-designed living world, great action-RPG gameplay, and well-written story are all capped off by a fantastic soundtrack executed by the Brandenburg State Orchestra using older instruments to create an authentic late Medieval/early Renaissance sound.

“The Witcher III: Wild Hunt” is also a meaty game: The main story alone will take you around 40 to 50 hours to complete, but all of the side quests, included DLC, and ample opportunities for exploration (which you will find yourself doing a lot) can keep you busy for well over 100 hours.

Pros: A huge and dynamic open world that truly feels alive, compelling story and character writing, excellent action-RPG gameplay, breathtaking graphics with masterful art direction, and a superb orchestral soundtrack

Cons: Some bugs and optimization issues (although this has mostly been patched), too many minor “fetch” quests that interrupt the main story, and the violence and sexual themes are not suitable for young players

Buy "The Witcher III: Wild Hunt Complete Edition" on Amazon for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, or Windows PC for about $27.99 on sale or $59.99 originally

The best survival-horror game

Capcom

Why you'll love it: “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard” represents a true return to fundamentals for Capcom’s long-running survival-horror series, delivering all of the atmospheric terror that defined a whole genre while still managing to put a modern spin on a classic formula.

In 1996, Capcom released “Resident Evil,” a classic that defined an entire genre of survival-horror games. Many developers attempted to imitate it with mixed success, and after a few well-received sequels, even Capcom grew weary of the standard formula it had created. “Resident Evil 4,” while massively popular, signaled a major change in focus for the series away from brooding slow-paced gameplay with a focus on scavenging and survival towards a faster, more action-oriented style that felt more like popular third-person shooter games.

A few lackluster sequels to “Resident Evil 4” were met with a lukewarm reception from players and critics. Gamers increasingly clamored for a new entry in the series that was true to the experience of the originals, and thankfully, it seems Capcom finally took the hint. Enter “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard,” a triumph of game design that heralds a much-needed return to the fundamentals of survival-horror that Capcom had largely pioneered.

As popular and beloved as the original Resident Evil formula was, it was not without its criticisms. The third-person view with pre-rendered environments came with a control scheme that felt clunky and awkward at times, especially during combat.

For “Biohazard,” Capcom instead implemented a first-person view (the first main entry in the franchise to utilize this, although a few unsuccessful spin-offs had tried it before). This goes a long way in addressing the problems with the old control scheme while greatly enhancing your immersion into this terrifying game-world.

The setting of “Resident Evil 7” will feel instantly familiar to fans, dropping the player into an old mansion that harks back to the setting of the first title. Instead of zombies, however, this house is inhabited by the bizarre Baker family along with bizarre humanoid creatures known as the “Molded.”

The player, as a man named Ethan, must use whatever means available to survive — stealth, caution, and escape are the focus here rather than combat, although you do get a number of melee weapons and firearms. Ammo is precious, forcing you to scavenge for it along with first aid supplies, adding to the tension and to the oppressive sense of danger and fear.

The return to the slower pace and exploratory gameplay also sees the return of the classic puzzles that the player must solve in order to proceed, but sadly, these are sparse and easily overcome. The boss battles also leave something to be desired, although this is not enough of a detriment to mar the fantastic atmosphere and edge-of-your-seat gameplay. “Resident Evil 7: Biohazard” is a true sequel, not a reboot or re-imagining, and some familiar faces appear near the end of the story to help out Ethan.

The final scene even alludes to the existence of a re-formed Umbrella Corporation, so it’s safe to say that Capcom is far from finished with this series or its story — and as long as the devs stick to the excellent formula of “Biohazard,” then fans of Resident Evil have a lot to look forward to.

Pros: Immersive and terrifying survival-horror atmosphere, a true return to the classic roots of Resident Evil, a great VR mode, and the new first-person perspective works extremely well

Cons: The puzzles are too easy and too few, the boss fights pale in comparison to the rest of the game, and it’s definitely not recommended for the faint of heart

Buy "Resident Evil 7: Biohazard" on Amazon for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, or Windows PC for $49.99

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[jmsebastian]

From PC to Playstation: Dark Forces

While conversions of popular PC games to home consoles have been a popular way to expand the audience of some of gaming’s most classic titles, taking something designed for play on a home computer and adapting it for different, often less powerful hardware, has always been a challenge. This was especially true in the 90s, when the processing power of PCs was beginning to grow significantly and dedicated hardware designed to enhance graphics performance was pushing the PC as a gaming platform further and further into the future. PC games could afford to experiment, be more complex, and take advantage of the multitude of possible player inputs. Home consoles, instead, largely focused on streamlining the gaming experience into its simplest form so that it could be enjoyed by a mass audience.

Some PC games proved far too popular, and the potential to increase that popularity by porting it over to a home console meant that platforms like the Super Nintendo saw ports of Wolfenstein 3D and Eye of the Beholder. In this series, I want to explore ports that were designed for the Sony Playstation. Being such a popular console guaranteed that it would receive a handful of the most popular PC games of the era. How those conversions went varied, but the results were interesting, and in some cases, quite impressive.

First up is LucasArts’ Star Wars: Dark Forces. Developed for the PC and Macintosh platforms, Dark Forces was the Star Wars universe answer to DOOM. Although it used its own engine (complete with some forward thinking additions like jumping and crouching), the look and feel of the game certainly resembles Id Software’s behemoth on much more than a cursory level. Despite it being very obviously a DOOM clone, it stood out as a well designed title in the first person shooter genre. The fact that players got to take part in a side story in the Star Wars mythos meant that there would have always been some audience for this game, but Dark Forces isn’t a game overshadowed by its franchise. It’s level designs, controls, and mechanics are all the result of game designers who understood what made for a good shooter.

The Playstation was the only home console to receive a port of this game, which, looking back, probably has something to do with its extensive documentation and its use of the CD ROM format for games. Right off the bat, Dark Forces on Playstation suffers from some of the classic problems that console ports of PC games do. The graphical fidelity of this version is not nearly as high. At first, it looks quite comparable. The HUD and weapons are quite detailed and look pretty much the same as they do in every version of the game. The problem really begins with distance. Objects not immediately in front of you are really blurry. Most of the time, you don’t really notice it, but when the wall textures feature a lot grey and black, and you run up against Imperial enemies that share those colors, you have to be really careful you aren’t stepping into a firing squad simply because you couldn’t make out the shapes until you were on the business end of a blaster rifle.

(PC)

(Playstation)

The fidelity might not be so hot, but the draw distance is actually quite impressive. Where many Playstation games opted to shroud the surroundings in black to keep the number of drawn polygons down to a minimum at any given time, Dark Forces doesn’t really suffer from that problem. This is because the game is not truly 3D in much the same way DOOM isn’t. While it has some cool features, such as being able to look up and down, or have rooms built on top of each other, the polygons in the game were mostly aids to the illusion of 3D rather than being used to create true 3D environments. Most of the objects are just sprites, which is really noticeable when you get a good look at Moff Rebus from level 3. Strafe in front of him and he will eerily keep facing you, regardless of your position. Though the Playstation is mostly known for ushering in the 3D era of console gaming, it manages to accommodate the original level designs of Dark Forces, complete with enemy number and placement. There are a few coloring differences, perhaps as a result of the available palette compared to PCs, but the issue is very minor and ultimately has no meaningful impact.

(It’s creepy that he does nothing while you are shooting up the droids in his hideout.)

Though the levels are complete, the performance of the game probably suffers because of it. There isn’t anything as egregious as the slowdowns in the original King’s Field, but the frame rate does take dips now and again, particularly during firefights with multiple enemies or while running from area to area. Overall, the game plays quite a bit slower on Playstation. If you’ve played the game on a computer, you’ll definitely notice the difference. Even if you haven’t, it’s likely that even after a few minutes, you’ll notice that your shots aren’t firing off as fast as they did a second ago, only to see them speed back up once everyone’s dead. Thankfully, the nature of the shooting action largely mitigates this. Accuracy is not an especially crucial skill. So long as you are pointed at a target, your ammunition will track whichever is closest to the center of your gun. This means you’ll see your lasers change direction from shot to shot if you are shooting at multiple enemies that happen to be standing next to each other. Auto aiming tracks in vertical plane as well. This feature is by no means an implementation of the Playstation version, specifically. Though the Jedi Engine introduced some useful improvements over previous first person games, such as being able to look up and down, they don’t do a whole lot to alter the gameplay. It would be great if the Playstation version was able to match the graphics and performance of computer versions, but for those who had a Playstation as their only gaming platform, minor performance problems were a small price to pay in order to shoot up Storm Troopers.

The 2D nature of Dark Forces also benefited the all important task of remapping the game’s controls. The PC version features a standard control method. The arrow keys move Katarn around the levels, holding Alt allows for strafing, Shift lets you sprint, Control fires your weapon, and the number row gives you quick access to your arsenal. As part of the enhancements made in the Jedi Engine, Kyle can also jump or crouch, abilities which are put to good use in the level designs. There are a fair number of mechanics to take into consideration, but the Playstation controller plays nicely with all you can do.

Probably the most challenging task to pull off is crouching, which requires the player hold down Toggle (R2...hehe), then press Triangle, which is usually reserved for jumping. This does limit the game in a way that the computer versions are not, since crouch jumping was perfectly possible before. This doesn’t really change the game in a fundamental way, of course, but it is an unfortunate casualty of the conversion. Several other hotkeys were relegated solely to a menu screen.

The map, headlight, goggles, and gas mask all had individually mapped keys, which is standard for PC games. For the Playstation port, pressing Select brings up this menu, where you can toggle each item on or off by navigating to it and pressing right or left. It’s a simple menu and works well, as there aren’t really enough options to make the navigation arduous. Which item you need to use in game is also fairly obvious as you play, so preparing ahead of time means the need to go into the menu doesn’t feel like it detracts from the experience much.

Unfortunately, the weapons do not have their own menu, meaning that changing them is mapped to a single button. Pressing Circle will cycle through every available weapon. Early in the game, this is no big deal. You have your fist, a pistol, and then very quickly pick up a blaster rifle. You can juggle these three (ok, really two) options quickly, allowing for the preservation of ammunition without risking getting blown away mid-fight. As the game progresses, this becomes much more of a chore. Aside from your two main laser weapons, you pick up thermal detonators, pulse rifles, a bizarre mining gun that shoots green balls of energy, and an arm cannon. These weapons don’t all use the same ammo, and managing your resources becomes more and more important due to some enemies being immune to some weapons. Having to find the right gun by pressing Circle, then encountering a different enemy that requires different ammunition to kill can make fights a real headache. This limitation is easily the biggest drawback to playing the Playstation version. For players who like to carefully go from area to area, picking off baddies one or two at a time, it’s not too big a deal, but if you plan to replay the game on a harder difficulty setting later on, and your familiarity with the game increases, the time spent prepping for individual enemies can add up, adding to the already slower experience of the console version.

Few computer conversions are going to be perfect when put on a platform that they were not designed for. Dark Forces is no exception to that, but nor is it an example of why PC games should stay on PC. While the game is a truly great title in the first person shooting genre, at a time when games of that type were all over the place, having it be exclusive to home computers would have been a real shame. Without the need for analog control to move or look around, or hyper accuracy needed to conquer the shooting mechanics, the Playstation is a great home for Dark Forces. Sure, it’s simplified in a few ways, and of course it suffers from being unable to push the same number of pixels to the screen (though, I think it actually does the computer versions one better in the music department), but the game is still exactly what it needs to be: an exciting way for Star Wars fans to inhabit the role of a Rebel operative and take on the Empire with as many laser blasts as they can muster.