90s FPS vs Reboots – A Blast from the Past Special

On Doom’s 25th Birthday, FBT compares the Doom-era to its reboots in yet another of his excuses to replay old shooters and bitch about new ones.

Happy Birthday Doom! Thanks to you, FPS is one of the most successful genres in gaming. As I’m fond of saying, Doom was gaming’s Jaws moment, the moon landing; it was bigger than inventing the wheel, discovering fire, evolving opposable thumbs. It was the Big Bang of gaming, and I cannot understate this – the Doom era was the Rat Pack to modern FPS’s One Direction.

What became known as the Doom era lasted until Half-Life. Five or so glorious years of carefree shooting. While both Doom and Wolf managed sequels after Half-Life, the era was over – until 2011 when Duke Nukem Forever finally (crash) landed. What followed was a sudden resurgence; between 2013 and 2016 Wolf, Doom, Shadow Warrior and Rise of the Triad were rebooted; I avoided them all as cynical cash-ins on marketable names after the horrible DNF; it ruined it for everyone. But now they’ve transcended their origins to become new franchises. They must be doing something right. Am I being a Doom-era snob?

For me, the only way a reboot is going to work is by recapturing the spirit of the original; it has to take me back to the first time I heard an Imp growl and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. That’s a tall order for the modern reboots; I have a hairy back now. But, why do the new games have such big reboots to fill? What is it about that era that I hold so dear? Can the original Rat Pack still pack the Vegas Sands or have they been reduced to Cannonball Run II? We all know Doom is the Chairman of the Board, but who is Dean Martin and who’s Peter Lawford? And who from the remakes is Harry Styles and … the other guys?

Dosbox is at the ready and I’m all out of gum.

The Past – Wolfenstein 3D

Like everyone, I was astounded by Wolf wayyy back in 1992 as I mowed down ‘Mutti!’ crying Nazis. But even then it looked a little basic. It was the work of mad genius, but I never felt like I was there. I was exhilarated but I was never in it, never connected to it. It’s the one I went back to the least, quickly overtaken by Doom; I can’t imagine this has aged well at all.

Yeah, this has aged; I want to bang on about the good old days, but this isn’t the good I was hoping for. I’m smiling, I’m enjoying it, but that’s mostly my memories talking, remembering that time – literally, I just remembered I played this on a Time Computers PC.

The missing floors and ceilings, a compromise to keep BJ moving make the game samey and impossible to disappear into; it’s just corridor, room, Nazis, repeat. It’s bright and cartoony, and while levels change, W3D really is a proof-of-concept. FPS had never been done properly before and it feels wrong to moan but Wolf is a tutorial. It’s also over 25 years old and still deserves respect, but that adulation is for what it did for gaming, not what you do in the game.

More than any other Doom-era game though, Wolf kept going. Aside from the sequel, there was Return to Castle Wolfenstein, where BJ goes Call of Duty, followed by Wolfenstein, which no one talks about. Then, the Castle laid dormant until Machine Games moved in.

The Blast – Wolfenstein The New Order

This is what Hollywood calls a Soft Reboot, continuing story elements but resetting the world. Whatever it is, it’s a shame it’s called Wolfenstein. Had it just been The New Order, I might have liked it more. After an opening that sees BJ leaping between crashing planes, getting chased by huge mecha-dogs and taking down Nazis in intense trench fights, our hero takes shrapnel to the head and gets stuck in a locked-in state just long enough for the Nazis to take over. Waking up, BJ regains his considerable strength, links up with the hottie nurse that’s been sponge-bathing him and joins a rebellion in this new world order. I mean, Wolfenstein New Order.

The one thing I can’t get past with W:TNO is BJ’s internal monologue. It’s like listening to Max Payne’s Podcast. BJ never shuts up with his introspective mumbling and now he’s all emotional and awkward? Soft reboot is right. When he gets shot I expect him to shout “I’m a vegan”. BJ should be Austin Powers or Demolition Man, a man out of time but with a unique approach that this new world needs; having BJ on ice for a decade meant W:TNO had an opportunity to explore the differences between the original bad boys of FPS and the modern sensitive heroes. It could have been a great commentary on how shooters have evolved, but instead, BJ is just an arm in a theoretical world run by Nazis. And it’s horrible.

Scenes like infiltrating a concentration camp just feel … off for a game that originally ended with us fighting Hitler in a mecha suit. People in fly-infested bunks, emaciated and crying for food isn’t Wolf – a scene in a cattle-train with screaming people bound for the camp while catching a glimpse of an uber-bitch Nazi holding a baby by its ankles and brandishing a whip is a grave moment – but nevermind ‘cos BJ’s dual-wielding machine guns, piloting mechas and popping into space; is this a Tarantino-style revenge shooter or Schindler’s List The Video Game? Early on our hero takes a chainsaw to a tight-lipped Nazi and that’s fine, but when BJ falls asleep and dreams an original level I’m reminded of why I’m supposed to be here – fun. There’s not much of that in this new world.

W:TNO is, actually, an incredible game. Its compelling stuff and there’s some great characterisation; BJ and the nurse have an awkward romance (and some hefty sex-scenes) and the resistance are all believable. But it’s not Wolf – even though I was unimpressed with W3D and this is immeasurably a better game, it’s Wolf in-name-only.

The Past – Doom

To explain the effect Doom had on me; Doom was the game that got me back into gaming after I discovered girls instead. Doom is better than girls, that’s how influential it was.

Still, eventually I got bored with it. I started to find the levels wearying, the designs too stark once the initial shock wore off – it was the Clones’ fault. Blood, with its storyline and style, Duke and SW with their humour and self-awareness, Doom started to feel samey. But after all the clones I replayed it and … whoa. This is FPS. I gave up on girls all over again.

I can bitch about the blocky creatures, the repetitive art design, the never-changing slog to find keys but the thing is … the levels are timed to the pixel like some satanic ballet; every single creature is a classic, the art design is perfect, and it’s never dull finding keys – seeing that end-board with the location replaced with a red splash; I did that. Every now and then a level reminds me of some 1990s song, tv show or hangover, but Doom is so well judged I forget I’m playing something 25 years old. Rather than become cute like Wolf, it’s still an intimidating, dangerous game. This is how you do it.

That ‘Doom feeling’ isn’t in its dark corridors; it’s something you get while playing. id knew they were on to something and it’s that enthusiasm you feel, it’s still palatable now. It’s somehow got charisma. See, Chairman of the Board.

I should follow with Doom 3, as it was a ‘soft reboot’ but I don’t want to. DOOM 2016 was the real reboot, it promised to recapture that Doom feeling. Let’s see if it’s better than Girls.

The Blast – DOOM

The reboot is 68Gb; the original was 28mb – I have mp3’s bigger than that. Surely, with that much weight to it, with this legacy to emulate, it’s a better game experience? Nope.

It does look so real it makes you feel uneasy – but weird uncanny-valley realism doesn’t make a scary game; it’s urgent and shouty, the creatures so busy posturing that it becomes a grind. Doom was a moshpit – DOOM is commuting in rush-hour. It’s a punishing game but missing the recklessness, the way the original would hype you up enough to consider punching a Hell Knight. By missing the sense of excitement, fun, the sheer bravado of the original it’s just a by the numbers shooter, closer to CoD Zombie than Doom. You just spend all the time surviving arena battles and that wasn’t where the original’s intensity came from.

Further missing the point of the original, in firefights we have ‘glory kills’ where a dazed imp or whatever can be brutally killed up close during a QTE. Meh. Half the time you’re so swamped you can’t reach the downed guy anyway and an incessant glowing and flashing is just annoying. Doomguy didn’t have time for this kind of crap and it gets worse – the original has secrets but this time Doomguy is also hunting for fricking collectables as well as suit upgrades, and weapons can be improved by completing challenges; Doomguy didn’t need those, he already was the best. He was John Maclane, John Spartan, John Matrix, John Rambo, John Wick. Not John from accounting who needs all the help he can get. How do you misjudge a character who didn’t even have any characterisation?

Doom was the daddy of shooters; DOOM is doing a dad dance. There’s nothing new here; this is not the good-old-days and it’s not giving the modern era a kick in the ass the way Doom did. This isn’t a reboot of the original, it’s a reboot of the original’s reputation. It’s just marketing. It’s infuriating – so much so, my original playthrough ended in a rage quit and so did this replay. The biggest mistake though is unlocking a classic-era level. That’s just triggering me to go back to the original again. I should have played Doom 3.

The Past – Rise of the Triad

I was not a fan of RotT when it came out. The cheap-looking digitised effects, the blocky movement of the enemies, and the basic level design – plus, we’re assaulting an enemy base, why has it got coins floating everywhere – and platforming?! This is a First Person Shooter not First Person Mario. RotT felt like a thrown together cash-in clone.

It’s not got any better. There are some advancements like character selection and enemies faking their deaths or begging for their lives while bleeding out, but the world looks cheap and digitised like an arcade rail shooter. There’s an interesting deviation when it comes to weapons though – you get infinite bullets and dual-wielding and alternative explosive/magic weapons instead of an arsenal, but it feels easy – endless bullets or rockets; more than a match for what I’m facing. Traps, trampolines and floating coins mostly.

About the only fun I have in this game is watching the enemies fall into their own traps. Why is this castle so insanely dangerous? The trampolines let you propel yourself forward or back but rather than a new shooter mechanic it’s only there to collect more of those bloody coins. There’s power-ups but in Doom they’d give you health bumps, invincibility or let you punch like a rocket, here we can turn into a dog. It’s bordering on a kid’s shooter.

I had it mind RotT was a subtle parody but it’s not, it’s just childish and not in a juvenile way like Lo-Wang’s antics. It’s just horrible. It’s not a clone – because it’s nothing like Doom. For the first time I’m actually hoping the reboot strays from its source material.

The Blast – Rise of the Triad

Well, this follows the original pretty closely. Great. The one time I wanted it to deviate … And then … this is a contender for best reboot of the bunch. RotT is the only one to actually remind me of the era; it captures that wild attitude, the unexpected mayhem.

There’s so much carnage to be had, but rather than DOOM’s scraps or Wolf’s atrocities, this is just mad fun. The weaponry works better this time and even the traps, as nonsensical as ever, are fun to navigate and trick baddies into. It’s no longer a kid’s game, it’s a big kid’s game. This is what I remembered. I’m having the same fun I had 20yrs ago.

RotT has really pulled out all the stops – not to reinvent the genre but celebrate it. It doesn’t have any of Wolf or DOOM’s big-budget shininess or epic-ness, and maybe that’s why it’s so good. It’s bolted together, low-fi, smoothed over and a bit cheeky – I’m gonna go play it again. This feels weird but, a reboot wins this round?

The Past – Duke Nukem 3D

Doom might have been the biggest and best, but it was unrelatable; a nameless arm that was knee deep in the dead? Doom gave FPS a reputation, but Duke gave it a personality. I loved Duke. To me he was a perfect parody/love-poem to the Arnie and Sly heroes of the 80s meets Roger Moore-era Bond. And his game was equally awesome. Freed of Dungeons, Castles and Hell, Duke shot through recognisable locations filled with interactive stuff while spouting movie quotes and quips, and women swooned. He was my hero.

DN3D has so much going on unlike the minimalist Doom (or the cluttered RotT); I’m having a great time drinking from toilets, using jet-packs and air-vents, and playing with myself in a time when men were men and women were strippers. Oh.

Admittedly, the flashing strippers and porno theatre feel little schoolboy ‘look, boobs’ now but Duke does tip the strippers and doesn’t make lewd comments – if you shoot them Aliens appear to kick your ass, and it’s not like DN3D created strippers or porn theatres. Not the strongest argument and I’m just trying to convince myself but perhaps Duke isn’t all bad. But that unfortunate element aside, it’s fun to inhabit a super-cool ultra-hero, modern games don’t really do this anymore. Come on!

Thing is, DN3D’s distractions hide a fairly generic shooter and that really comes to the fore once we leave earth for a space station. Away from a real world you realise level design is not 3DR’s strength and they covered it with novelties; aside from the interactions, Duke did have the most varied weapons – who can forget shrinking and stomping enemies? And you never get over the first time he finishes that space boss, pulls down his pants and takes out the newspaper … Still smirking like a schoolboy. But as a shooter, it’s not that cool.

DN3D is great fun but it isn’t up there with Doom’s experience. It’s a bit of a Michael Bay game, shouting without saying anything, but it was a real leap forward for FPS, environment-wise and Duke is still my hero. He needs some sensitivity training, but still. And then …

The Blast – Duke Nukem Forever

Duke Nukem Forever will go down in history for many reasons. Okay two reasons; it’s huge development cycle and being irredeemably shit. Those alien bastards.

The only possible defence you could mount for DNF is its satire; if you’re offended by it, you’re the joke. There are elements that bolster that argument; scenes, references, dialogue and bits of silliness clearly send up Duke and his reputation but you can’t just go ‘it’s parody’ and excuse a level where we search a strip club for a vibrator to have sex with a stripper. Or the “Alien Abortion” game. Or the Glory Hole. Or the twins Duke is dating. Or that sequence. I’ll get to it later (and not much further).

As a game it sucks. It’s graphically uneven and for every fun sequence like a shrunken Duke navigating the Duke Burger there’s dated, uninspired levels – and that doesn’t mean DNF is the throwback I’ve been looking for because they’re either confusingly non-linear or rail-shooter straight with crappy scripted sequences. It’s like playing Steam on shuffle.

Duke is the worst victim though. It’s either mocking him or deifying him and when we meet his incestuous, maybe underage twin girlfriends we don’t think ‘rock n roll’ we think Duke’s a groomer. He’s arrogant now rather than cool and whereas his ego was justified in the original and even a little playful, now he’s just a dumb, misogynistic jock dickhead rewarded for deeply unpleasant behaviour. Thanks DNF, you made me dislike Duke.

So, I reach the infamous level. An Alien nest, where Duke gamely kills women before aliens can burst out of them – fine, that’s in the original and makes some sort of sci-fi horror sense. Except in the original they were cocooned and muttering Aliens’ ‘Kill me’; here they’re topless hotties and that’s not all that’s on display. Duke finds random boob growths in the walls and can give them a hearty slap for a reward – while saying “strange silicon lifeform”. It’s not juvenile, it’s not commentary, it’s just … embarrassing. But then Duke finds his girlfriends, similarly cocooned. As they beg forgiveness for being raped and make abortion jokes, Duke quips ‘looks like you’re … fucked’ – No Duke, you are. Fuck this. Rage Quit.

I don’t get how this happened. More so than BJ, Duke would have been an ideal character to parody moral-choice worrying lead characters, and it’s so offensive I want to believe that was the intent. But without some context, some wit, this is up there with Custer’s Revenge.

The Past – Shadow Warrior

Shadow Warrior wasn’t a Doom clone it was a Duke clone. FPS was moving fast and SW was an innovator at the time. But in retrospect, Lo-Wang was a backwards move.

Lo-Wang is not Duke. We could forgive Duke as he was riffing off the macho alpha males of cinema, but Lo-Wang is a misogynistic asshole. Terrible dad-jokes, repetitive lines (“Time to get erased hehehehe”) and some of the creepiest reactions to female NCPs this side of Benny Hill’s Madcap Chase, Lo-Wang is more No-Wang. There’s moments like a showering woman returns his flirt with machine-gun fire but mostly he’s cornering static buxom anime girls and making sexual overtures that would make Austin Powers blush. It’s clear 3DR were trying to be controversial for controversy’s sake after the accusations levelled at Duke and when he’s not being creepy he’s tittering at everything; we’re playing the class clown here. When you want a silent hero it’s not a good sign.

The game itself is a mixed bag. The levels are a lot richer and have greater depth than Duke’s, with recognisable locations and Japanese imagery, but there’s a lot of backtracking and the fights are boring and repetitive. It’s got no direction, no urgency and Lo-Wang’s clowning doesn’t cover the faults the way Duke’s cool did. There’s some major improvements though; 3D creatures, vehicles, multi-depth design, alt fire and puzzles; all of it wasted on an uninspired game and a git of a hero. Modernising a guy who should be on the sex-offenders list is going to be a tall order. Lo-Wang Forever?

The Blast – Shadow Warrior

Setting itself up as a prequel, Young-Lo-Wang is a cocky henchman ordered to get an ancient katana for his boss’ collection, but the deal goes south when a horde of demons storm the place. A spirit called Hoji explains the katana is no ordinary sword – it can slay immortal beings who rule the demons, making the sword’s master their master … Hoji agrees to help YLW claim the sword in return for a favour, and we’re off.

It’s a master-stroke setting this before the original; freeing itself of LW’s past (future) misdeeds, SW succeeds in making YLW palatable; he is full of himself and during the game develops his recognisable persona and look but leaves the perving behind. He’s a really fun, brash character and the dynamic with Hoji, a trickster-like spirit is great. This is damn good. Where it’s less damn good is in the fighting. Guys, you rebooted the wrong game.

YLW walks into an area, then hordes of creatures pour out of everywhere. Once clear, the exit opens. This is Serious Sam. It is all in good fun, and the battles are frenetic, set in intricate and clever levels (not that you get a second’s breath to consider anything tactical), and it looks amazing, but it’s exhausting and not really the style of the Doom era shooters. I know I bitched about the original having dull fights but now you’re just being silly.

Still, kudos to the devs for keeping LW recognisable but respectable – without turning him into BJ’s mumbling softie. But like Wolf, it’s as modern as they come; YLW has skill trees, special moves, magical abilities and uses money to upgrade weapons – but it is reminiscent of the original where it counts, and of all the reboots, this might be the best ‘reimagining’.

A Blast from the Past?

So are the originals still better? Yes … but … maybe the 90s FPS era isn’t quite as bullet-proof as I remembered. Still, did the era need rebooting?

No. They didn’t add anything, let alone took you back to the era and made you realise what’s missing in modern FPS. But the bigger issue is their success encourages the industry to keep looking back not forward. We need new, imaginative FPS experiences not reheats; if they keep punting new titles masquerading as our heroes we won’t see original, forward-thinking games like Mass Effect or Bioshock anymore; how long before their publishers decide to reboot them rather than chance something as untested as they were on release? DOOM has a sequel incoming and Lo-Wang returned; Wolf got a sequel, with a third announced; Wolfenstein Youngblood, which is a spin-off … when will it end?! The industry needs to find new ways to shoot people.

Thankfully, Redneck Rampage, Blood and Heretic were spared reboots, so they can remain perfect in my mind; otherwise my steadfast belief that the Doom era was the best time in gaming would be seriously shaken by some of those replays … but it was the best time and the innovation, the energy, the originality is still there. The Doom era was basic, but it was more than the sum of its (gibbed) parts.

What I loved most about this old vs new playthrough was the reboots that got closest to that era, RotT and SW both came from indie outfits; just like id and 3DR were. They weren’t developers under the watchful and marketable eye of major publishers, they were gamers making games for gamers. SW and RotT reminded me of when we’d excitedly type ‘doom.exe’ into DOS and that’s what I was looking for. Those guys should have rebooted Duke (ironically, RotT’s devs started out remaking DN3D before Gearbox put the kybosh on them); anyone who can make Lo-Wang less reprehensible could reign in Duke without neutering him. Shake it, baby!

Carmageddon Max Damage

a rage quit review

Carmageddon is FBT’s Spirit Animal. The reboot puts it down.

In the late nineties, there was a new breed of unapologetic video games; they didn’t signal the end times as the media and parents feared, they did something better – agitated the bland gaming landscape and forced it to grow up, get good. And now, yet again, the game industry has become corporate, cautious, careful. While most games from that original era sold out or burnt out, we have the return of the baddest of them all – the first game to be banned by the BBFC, the game that sent the Daily Mail into meltdown, the game that let you run over pedestrians – Carmageddon. When Carmageddon Regeneration was announced I was more than a little excited. Time to kick modern gaming in the cunning stunt.

I was more than a little disappointed when C:R was released. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it but it was … meh. How could Carma be meh? Everything was there yet my beloved free-roaming, ped-killing, opponent-exploding Die Anna had become … inoffensive. I got bored. Bored! The power-ups were cartoony, the level design dull, the cars lacked that oomph, even the peds seemed indifferent to being run over. The original was Never Mind the Bollocks, this was Flogging a Dead Horse. I didn’t Rage Quit, I just got fed up and never went back. Until I saw Carmageddon Max Damage. A second chance. I was buying this.

Yes, I was stupid enough to buy the Carma Reboot twice. Max Damage is the premium version of Kickstarter’s Regeneration. Damnit. Is this karma for liking what the Daily Mail called a ‘sick death game’? Let’s see if Max Damage hits the spot.

The cars are all there, and the first track is the original’s Maim Street. Get in. I chose my beloved Die Anna, rev the Hawk and aim for the flag-waving guy. As I sail over the first hill, ready to become death … it feels a bit pointless. I’m having an existential crisis. Was the Daily Mail right? Have I become so desensitised that I’m unmoved when I run over a cheerleader? Have the past 20 years of ultra-violence been a gaming form of Ludovico? I look for Anna’s grinning face. Having a compatriot to all this mayhem will bring me back – no in-game Anna? Whoa. I hit the handbrake to swerve into the Peds. The car comes to a slow stop like I just performed an emergency brake in my driving test. The Peds all saunter off. Okay. Time for extreme measures.

I find the stadium and the electro-bastard ray is where I left it; but taking out the NFL teams and the crowds isn’t doing it either so I decide to get into it with the other cars to see if that livens things up, but it takes an age to find them let alone get into a fight, and I don’t get that screaming, out of control feel as I pootle along – you used to build up insane speed, bounce, careen, flip out of the map, land on a passing grandad or take out an opponent by accident; it was raucous, unruly, exhilarating, and Die Anna would woo-hoo along with you. Now neither of us are.

It’s a very empty game and nothing much happens by accident, but the problem is the original Carma’s attitude has become part of free-roam driving the same way Doom’s once dizzying action and grisly violence are embedded in modern FPS. Saint’s Row already aces this. It’s not dated, it’s just not necessary. But it’s not just an age thing. It’s also a not-very-good-thing.

The levels are boring to drive about in – they’re fun-looking, like the Area51 or the reworked classic levels, but miss that gritty, grimy feel; they’re much bigger and expansive than the original but that makes them less intense, unfocused. You don’t have those death-runs, those games of chicken. They’re also cluttered and uneven, causing the car to bounce around and that’s when it really starts to grate.

The Eagle and Hawk always felt like they wanted to get away from you in the original, and they were sturdy enough to let them. But now, with their wafer-thin build, they handle like they’re filled with helium. There’s no torque or grip, no sense of weight; how did a game released in 1997 better realise banger cars than the remake 20yrs later? You’re forever missing targets and sticking the corners, never just taking off. Getting a powerup requires a careful three-point-turn. Suddenly I’m being … careful. Still, we’ve still peds to kill. Well, no, because the cars have the turning circle of an oil tanker and alongside the ‘careful now’ handbrake you can’t lob the car about and catch peds on the fly – it’s rare see grandad fly off the bonnet in C:MD. On top of that, and this is a real Rage Quit moment …. it’s not about running people over anymore. Yes, a Carma game that’s not all about running people over. Did the Daily Mail develop this?

To have any real chance of progressing you have to play challenge missions; reach a ped or location first, destroy the most cars – basically all the stuff that requires precision driving and responsive cars. Great. All that happens is an opponent, who is a precision driver in a responsive car, reaches the goal first and the new target is halfway across a map that isn’t much fun to drive across and you’ll get beaten to anyway. FFS. What else?

In the original, you got money in-game and the time you finished with was converted into more to spend on car improvements. Now it’s transformed into XP which unlocks the levels, while upgrades are purchased with coins hidden in the game. Coins?! I’m Die Anna not Mario. I’m on a treasure hunt?! Plus, in the original, unlocked improvements could be attached to any car you stole. Coins upgrade cars individually now, which is a waste because most of the opponent’s cars handle worse than the Eagle. That it, can I quit now?

Thanks to the crappy cars and uneven levels, when you do get a Power-Up it’s over before you’ve had a chance at some fun, and the actionable powerups are no better. Because Anna is seemingly in a neck-support (understandable) you can’t aim them, only fire from the bonnet of your impossible to manoeuvre car. Why can’t I free-look/aim!? And the reward bonuses are thin on the ground, as if the game’s less aware of your actions; ‘Nice Shot, Sir!’ is a rarity no matter what you send flying into Peds, while ‘milk it’ pops up every time I hit a cow and ‘recycled!’ gets yelled when I knock a ped off a bike. I get it. And “wrecked’em” wasn’t funny the first time, let alone on every opponent kill, in every level, every time.

That’s it, I can’t take anymore. They got running over people wrong? They had two goes at this! Modern gaming can relax, this isn’t going to shake things up like the original did, even when you have the option to run over a man in a wheelchair – outrageous! Nope. Maybe in 1997 but now its desperate. I’ve done worse in better games that didn’t depend on outrage to be relevant. I would consider myself immature, juvenile, a man-child at a push but this just doesn’t work anymore as a concept, and as a driver game it’s pretty poor; the original still works because it’s a better game and because I remember when it was wrong. I love a throwback, a retro, a return, but if you’re going to return, have something to say. Something other than “I was in the war!” and think that’s still funny. It’s not Rage Quit, it’s Age Quit.

2015 Regeneration | 2016 Max Damage

Developer / Publisher Stainless Games

Platforms; Win (Steam/GOG)

Alien vs Predator (2010)

a second wind review

FBT cheers for the underdog in Aliens Vs Predator

Somewhere in space, the Weyland/Yutani corporation has uncovered a Predator training ground. Activating the Pyramid and triggering a huge EMP blast, Weyland sets in motion a series of events – well, one event told from three points of view; the eyes of a colonial marine, the infrared of a Predator, and … however it is that Aliens can see without eyes.

Starting out as a Colonial Marine, we’re circling a planet after a distress call about a research lab being overrun – and a xenomorph may be involved. As our drop ship departs, another ship decloaks and attacks. Crashing on the planet – which does a brilliant job of calling to mind LV-426/Hadley’s Hope – the survivors are scattered. Our hero, ‘Rookie’ is ordered about by Corporal ‘Tequila’, a Vasquez-lite who needs us to find our CO so he can order a rescue. As soon as we’ve done all the usual ‘turn this on’, ‘shut that down’ missions while fighting through Xenos, Tequila realises the only way out is through – as in, the Alien nest, and we all know what’s in one of those.

The Marines section is ultimately a by-the-numbers horror FPS that coasts on our love for Xeno, but the Aliens do elevate it, as does the attention Rebellion gave to reflect the original movies; there’s tons of references, nods and subtle reminders of where all this started. It doesn’t help that our hero is about as generic as you can get though; Rookie should have been cut from the same cloth as Hicks – at the very least, Hudson – but he’s largely Freeman with a pulse rifle. He gets the movie-standard flame-throwers, Smartguns and motion trackers – sometimes blips will disappear and you can’t be sure the aliens have left or just stopped moving; but it’s standard FPS fare – if it wasn’t for those movie-moments that motion-bleep wouldn’t be half as scary.

There’s nothing wrong with the Marine section, but throughout the checkered history that is AvP, humans were always the bridesmaid, never the Queen. They’re not who we’re here for. The Aliens are fast and scary, use stealth and sheer-number attacks, skulk in shadows, run along the walls and ceilings, but it’s not all shock-scares; there are some great stand-up fights to please the Hudson in all of us. Problem is, we never really feel like we’re in an Alien movie (and even less a Predator movie – they barely feature); just a regular shooter and AvP relies a little too heavily on button-mashing – Aliens recoil from a bop on the nose? – have Rookie do an auto-fire with a shotgun while yelling ‘eat this!’ when you hit melee instead! If Shepard can auto-melee when Geth get too close, why can Rookie? And you get pop-ups telling you to ‘hold’ to dish out a pistol-whipping – how much more of a hint do you need than huge teeth rushing at you?

Strangely, the nest isn’t the end for Rookie’s run-through. Once out the other side we have Weyland-Yutani to stop, further removing it from the AvP stars we bought this for. It’s just about getting the hell out of there. Meanwhile, the Predators are trying to get in.

Pred’s mission is fairly straight forward – to contain the outbreak. Of course, it’s not as easy as it seems, but not because of the Marines, Weyland’s plans or even the aliens. It’s because for a Predator, it’s not very good at predatoring. They’re all about tactics, yet there’s nothing subtle about constantly going back to the menu to figure out which button does what – everything requires a button, everything; nothing’s automatic or intuitive – to even leap you have to press two buttons; the Predator is a stealth hunter, a master tactician – it should be fluid, automatic, a pleasure to kill – you’re a creature who’s turned hunting into an art-form but it’s like the Predator’s suit is running Windows 98; “aim the shoulder cannon – Are You Sure?” Oh, and the Aliens can see through your cloak. They’re supposed to be the ultimate prey, their rite of passage, how are the Predators not better prepared? They’re not even acid-proof so you’re constantly taking splash damage.

And when it’s not the woeful under-preparedness, it’s personal admin. Weapons, shield and cloak all pull from a central power source which drains so rather than treating this like a sport, you’re distracted looking for power outlets. Is Pred wearing a Nanosuit from Crysis? And when it is powered up, it’s useless – in heat mode Pred can’t see Aliens, but in ‘Alien vision’ it can’t see Marines. Normal vision makes it hard to see either. How is that super-predator behaviour? You’re always flicking, it’s like watching an 80s music video. I’m constantly taken out of the “Predator” moment – no marine is going to mutter “She says the jungle … it just came alive and took him” when they see me flaying about and falling out of trees. Dillon had it right; bullshit, it doesn’t make any sense. Neither does Pred’s plot.

As other Predators go off to conveniently act as mini-bosses in the other storylines, Pred gets off easy; he’s tasked with destroying the Aliens which Rookie did for him, then turns his attention to destroying the Pyramid for no real reason since it’s all destroyed anyway – one of his pals gives birth to a Predalien and that’s the only bit of business Pred has really; and it turns into a platforming bounce-around over lava. Tactical.

The only thing that makes the Predator stand out is its spectacularly OTT trophy kills. Get close to a marine/alien and you can execute the kind of kills even the movies avoided, with blood and vertebrate spraying everywhere. But even that seems a bit daft. The skulls are trophies of the hunt, not the kills.

The Alien on the other hand, doesn’t have anything to prove.

It’s odd that the Alien is given the best storyline out of all of them. It’s even odder that they’re the best character, the best gameplay and the best reason to even bother playing this. I expected old hissy to be the least satisfying but it’s a whole other level. Referencing Alien Resurrection, we’re in a clinic breeding Aliens. As the scientists collect chestbursters from test-tubes attached to the victims, they notice the sixth specimen is missing. Turns out ‘Six’ smartly chose to burrow back into its victim and leaps out of the mouth to escape. Although the attempt fails, Six catches the eye of Weyland and is spared, only to grow up as a lab rat, trained as a bioweapon for Weyland.

When Wayland opens the Pyramid and triggers the blast, it shuts down the lab and Six breaks out, frees it’s stable-mates and decimates the facility. Then we’re off to rescue the Queen and create a new colony where we all live happily until some marine decides to come clomping through looking for the exit.

Six is just brilliant to play. Being an Alien is constantly thrilling, clever and tactical; the Predators are, when not player-controlled, a serious threat to Six as are the Marines – in the open Six is exposed, but it’s not a stealth game. You have to be as aggressive as strategic and lying in wait for a Marine then leaping out is the stuff of Dietrich’s nightmares. Obviously, it’s all close-quarter fights, flinging claws, tails and teeth but it’s so clean and efficient. You can crawl over walls and ceilings (either auto or triggered, take note Predator), see through walls (again, Predator?) and be an ambush predator (Predator). It is so much fun and to top it off, Six also has an army of Facehuggers. If you pin down a human you can impregnate it instead. Eugh. Six also has ridiculous trophy kills, a POV shot from inside the mouth. Where are their eyes?!

Conveniently, Six is distracted by the Predators (not our Pred; no idea where he went during Six’s mission, likely stymied by a four foot-high wall or gone to charge his suit) while Rookie takes a shortcut through the nest, and due to his actions, recapturing Six becomes Weyland’s focus as everything goes to hell – the scene is set for our generic hero, anti-hero and non-hero to finally meet as we all head to the same final showdown. In the sequel. Which never happened, leaving our heroes on aggravating cliff-hangers. Sure that layabout Predator was happy about that.

Six itself is constantly referred to an exception and more conniving that it’s brethren, and the ending implies a reason for that increased intelligence; it’s annoying that Six was only one third of the game, it’s the absolute star of the show. It’s as if Rebellion took Ash’s line about Kane’s Son having a hostility matched only by it’s perfection and made that its character-arc; I become death, playing more dangerously than I have in years, bolstered by the sheer reputation of the Xeno. It’s completely impossible for me to relate to or impress emotions onto it, and usually I’d complain about not understanding a character’s motivations, but here it’s freeing and compelling. It is the ultimate non-human character to play, literally alien, and that you’re tortured and manipulated in the opening scenes gives you a revenge angle that lets you be a total badass.

While Rookie is a seen-it-all-before shooter with just enough franchise cap-doffing to get away with it, Pred’s should have been like the original movie, with one squad to take out in a game of cat and mouse, or at least a black-ops cover up, leaving no witnesses. He’s cool-AF in the cutscenes but clunky-AF when it comes to game-play. I’m supposed to be ‘El diablo cazador de hombres’ not ‘el diablo jugando como mi madre’.

Another frustration is how linked yet unaffected the separate missions are. They do all impact each other but only in the cut-scenes – Rookie’s faceoff with the Queen has a huge impact on Six, who derails Pred by facehugging one of his pals while Pred … actually not sure Pred does anything to inconvenience the others. It would have been much more interesting to see choices you make affect the others. I’m not asking for Aliens Vs Predator: Mass Effect edition, but a little cause and effect would have gone a long way – we know the Aliens and Predator universes; we know what’s in the nest, what Pred has on his wrist; the idea seems to be you need to play all three stories to get the whole picture, but it’s obvious. We’ve seen it all before. Except Six. It was something else. AvP would have worked better as just A.

An Alien-only game where we have to establish a nest, cocoon folks, raise kids, control lower-caste drones while keeping the colonists unaware and later keep the marines at bay would be awesome; so many ways this could have gone. As it is, AvP is a 3 out of 5. Occasionally a Six.

2010 | Developer Rebellion Developments | Publisher Sega

Platforms; Win/Steam, PS3, X360

DOOM

A Rage Quit Review

FBT gets mad at DOOM. Not Doom, DOOM.

Doom changed my life. It turned me from a gaming fan into a gamer. It was the vanguard of grown up gaming and the games that followed it were something else too – the Tomb Raiders, Elder Scrolls, GTAs, MoH, Max Payne, CoD and so much more all sprung from Doom’s quantum leap of an experience; it didn’t invent FPS – but it was gaming’s Jaws.

Aside from the ill-judged Doom 3 in 2004, Doom has been dead a long time, talked about only by aged hardcore gamers as where they made their shooter bones, and ignored by pubescent brats who scurry about in CoD Online. But in 2011 amid stories of failed restarts, id’s new owners Bethesda announced ‘DOOM’, a sequel-reboot that would return to the classic FPS era. That era died for a reason, but if any franchise can breathe new death into FPS it’s Doom. Or can it? No.

Since Doom II’s ending, UAC has found a way to provide alternative energy for earth by syphoning power from Hell while bringing back various trinkets, including a mysterious sarcophagus. One scientist makes a deal with the demons and opens a portal letting them invade. The sarcophagus opens to reveal ‘Doom Slayer’ (Doomguy to you and me; I think). And with the story crap out the way, let’s get knee deep in the dead.

I can see why this game required specific driver updates and the soul of your first-born to run. It looks utterly fantastic, practically photo-realistic; a real Doom? Bring it. It’s one of the most grotesquely beautiful games I’ve even seen, like an Iron Maiden album cover come to life. The detail is extraordinary and it ‘feels’ solid to play (especially for a Bethesda game). There’s brutally quick fights, the demons are relentless and you don’t get a moment’s peace, but then – and I never thought I’d say this – DOOM gets boring. Not boring in the sighing, fed up kind of way, just so relentlessly repetitive that I start to see past the shouting and growling and realise there’s nothing here, just the same fight over and over and I kinda just … switch off to it.

It’s certainly loud enough and busy enough to keep your attention; instead of Doom, DOOM calls to mind Serious Sam or Painkiller and while the creatures (including a few old buddies) are noisily aggressive, all their clowning about trying to be scary means the exact opposite happens. They not intimidating, they just get progressively bigger and the once hellish mixture of flesh and mechanics is now like a Halloween party at Cyberdog. On top of which, there is nowhere to hide, nowhere they can’t get you, nowhere to be tactical, no opportunity to actually be a badass Hellkiller and act heroic – it’s a party with a bunch of goths; I just hold down fire until it’s done.

Despite the sense that DOOM is trying to be a desperate struggle to survive, it’s novelty driven. You’re in the middle of a brutal fight only to be pulled out of the moment to trigger a ‘Glory Kill’ where you over-murder an Imp. They’re annoyingly insistent. The Imp crumples then flashes, demanding your attention. I don’t have time, I’ve got a hundred more of the screechy little divas to deal with, just die already. Knowing they’ll recover – especially the bigger ones – means the Glory Kills become your focus and you get cut to ribbons just to reach it and perform the kill. And doing so gains you health and ammo – both of which you sacrificed to reach the fecking half-dead undead in the first place; you’re just maintaining a status quo when this was supposed to be Iron Maiden. They are brutally cool once you get there but somehow they should be more automatic, like Indy making short work of the sword guy not reliant on you reaching them in one piece; Bethesda’s Skyrim/Fallout managed wicked little animated kill shots, why can’t those happen mid-DOOM? Bethesda’s games are incestuous enough as it is, they didn’t think that moment would carry over? Doomguy kicked Hell’s ass twice already (I’m pretending 3 didn’t happen), why isn’t he cooler? If he can pause to fist-bump an original Doomguy toy he finds, why can’t he dispatch a downed Imp from a distance? And … Collectables? In Doom? FFS.

Glory-Kills are not the only way DOOM distracts you; there’s transporters that send you to an Arena to do battle and unlock upgrades, while weapons can be upgraded by accepting challenges. Why the hell am I trying to kill 100 imps in a minute with a shotgun just to unlock faster shotgunning? Doomguy can unlock upgrades for his suit by pillaging the bodies of other Doomguys; Doomguy never got better, he was the best, I don’t want to piss about looking for inconveniently placed dead buddies. I thought this would be a brilliant, well-observed retro throwback not Call of Duty Zombie mode full of distraction fodder.

There’s the original weapons, including the BFG – which is hobbled by a lack of ammo – and some new toys but the biggest insult is the chainsaw is now a standard weapon you need gas for – using it gains a much higher yield of health and ammo; which you lost by equipping the Chainsaw and meleeing in the middle of a moshpit.

For those who argue FPS is a very narrow genre and you can’t expect more than point and shoot, I have one word; Bulletstorm. It may have been uneven, unoriginal, daft and had an idiot for a main villain, but it did this kind of frantic firefights right – and kept it fresh; if I can be completely overwhelmed and still trying to kick an opponent into a cactus, that’s a good shooter. And Bulletstorm had better glory-kills. It’s about balance; if you’re not going down the Bioshock route, a pure FPS should be traumatic but you come out the other side with boasts, with hard-won victory stories. DOOM is just a loud, overwrought arena fight that thinks calling itself DOOM is enough. It’s not unfair, it’s just not fun; in Doom you had fun kicking ass. This is just endless ass.

After reaching another hellish location, and disinterestedly fighting my way through, I find a secret – much like Bethesda’s Wolfenstein easter egg, the secret takes me all the way back to where it started; an original Doom level. I enjoyed playing the original level so much, going back to the reboot was too much to bare. It’s a sign when a game reminds you of how bad it is. Rage Quit.

DOOM was the darling of the critics on release, who argued it recaptures FPS’s 1990’s glory days. No it doesn’t. It really doesn’t; it’s the biggest insult to Doom’s legacy; it’s derivative, not of Doom but of modern shooters, which is unforgivable. This is the house that Doom built and this game is just squatting in it. You can’t recapture Doom, but this isn’t even Doom-era, it’s the kind of corporate nonsense that the original id would have pissed all over; it reeks of market research and focus groups – it’s as shiny as it is shallow – it doesn’t even have those jokey insults when you tried to quit. Quit? Yes, with added Rage.

2016 | Developer id Software | Publisher Bethesda Softworks.

Platforms; Win, PS4, XO

Road Redemption

A SECOND WIND REVIEW

FBT returns to Road Rash with the ‘spiritual successor’ Road Redemption. They don’t make them like they used to.

Road Redemption sprung from a Kickstarter project to remake Road Rash. Over the next few years, via Steam’s Greenlight and early-access, Pixel Dash Studios and EQ-Games attempted to fashion not just a game, but a return to those times. But this isn’t quite how I remember it.

Road Rash was awesome; a titan in the classic era of mayhem on the roads – alongside Carmageddon, Driver, the Madness series and the original GTA, RR was morally wrong and beyond fun, one of those early nineties games that got the Daily Mail in a tizz and we all loved because it got the Daily Mail in a tizz. You know a game is good when the first thing you recall about it was running over grannies. The ‘clunk’ when you hit someone with a bat – the bat you’d just taken off them, then kicked them into a passing car. Taking out the cops and running over de-biked opponents. Getting thrown off your bike and skidding for miles before getting run over yourself. Making your way up the ranks, from Rat Bike to Super Bike. Road Redemption attempts to recapture those days. Ballsy.

This time around, instead of an illegal street race, there’s something of a purpose. Like we need one. But it’s a great, sly nod to those text explanations at the start of Doom, giving you vague justifications and context then letting you lose. Or maybe it’s just daft; a mysterious biker has offed the leader of a local bike gang, who then post a huge bounty on his head. As he races through various biker gangs’ patches, they mount up, hoping to catch the bounty. Naturally, it degenerates into everyone kicking holy hell out of each other to get the bounty first.

Set-up aside, it’s familiar ground. Arcade in style, we get a basic bike and start at the back then race to reach the flag, placing in the top three to gain money and XP which we use to upgrade and stand a better chance of surviving the next leg. As each sequence progresses, we get more weapons, and occasionally different tasks like taking out the leader of a rival gang. Dying means you lose it all and have to start at the beginning of the chase, which is one throwback too far.

Road Redemption isn’t a slick game with retro roots, it’s dated; referencing the past is one thing, releasing a contemporary game that plays like it is risky – the bike handles like shit. You never get a sense of weight, grip or tolerance from it, never gauge how it’ll corner, how it’ll react or how far to push it; it practically just slides from left to right. If you come to a dead-stop after hitting something, you have to reverse to get free and it has the turning circle of a super-tanker not a superbike; or you can pause, go into the main menu and pick ‘put me back on the road’ – both are a faff that take you from 1st to 12th in no time. Breaking is too slow to have any chance of avoiding collisions, which are a crapshoot when it comes to outcomes; the game physics are insanely unpredictable. Hitting something either stops you, bounces you across (if not off) the map or separates you from the bike and kills you. And there’s a lot to pile into; dead ends, drops, hills, cliffs, houses, cars, plus falling off buildings, bridges, the edge of ramps and random things like rocks and other obstacles are everywhere – you can’t put this many accidents-waiting-to-happen in a game where left and right are more of a metaphorical choice. You unlock better bikes as you go, but ‘better’ is largely subjective. They look better. Back in the day, the wonky physics led to such unintentional hilarity it was worth losing pole position, but this game puts so much stock in winning, it’s a frustration when it costs you huge bonuses and forces you to restart.

The controls are messy too. Our biker can be armed with up to four different weapons, ranging from OTT blunt weapons and swords as well as explosives and machine guns, but you have to specify which side to attack on; yet the kick button auto-targets whoever’s nearest so why can’t he auto-swing too and save a button? It would work if he could hilariously dual-wield but it’s just one key too many; you need to use a blunt weapon to knock off armour before switching to something stabby – if you just clout them, they take a lot longer to go down, and our rider can’t sustain the blows he’s taking from all sides – especially when you also have to block as well; you’re swinging left, right, kicking, blocking, switching and trying to keep the grip-less bike on the road while swamped by riders who constantly land perfect hits and control their bikes like pros. Plus, reverse and break are different keys too? It tries to be tactical but loses the recklessness of the original by over-complicating the experience. Games like those should be stripped back, leaving you to just react and get caught up in the mayhem. As you progress the layouts change from desert wilderness to inner-city and there’s secrets and shortcuts, but the environment looks like something from a decade ago; it’s not unpleasant, just bare.

The biggest let down though is the lack of vehicular homicide. There’s no pedestrians. That was the best part and not including it is the final nail; the original was a giggle-some mad dash to the next city, a biker’s Cannonball Run but there was also the bar everyone met in, the silly photoshopped faces; the daftness of Road Rage is missing – and so is its spirit. I’d forgive Road Redemption’s flaws if it was half as naughty, half as nuts as the original.

At least … that’s what most of the other reviews of Road Redemption have been saying. And at first I was much the same.

Thing is, there is a move toward rediscovering old games, celebrating their simplicity and commitment to just providing a good time. For every smug, bloated CoD there’s some once-forgotten game doing gangbusters on GOG.com, a rediscovery courtesy of Night Dive Studios, a nod to the era like Miami Takedown or a reboot by the original devs like Carmageddon Regeneration. You can’t moan about Redemption not being finessed, it came from Kickstarter. There’s games out there that are even more backward than this and they’re from major publishers; and unlike them, the Road Redemption crew interacted with fans, revealed plans and most importantly, took ideas and feedback on board. Name a AAA game that opens not with their smug logo but an open invite to stream their game on Twitch (and warn about musicID)? Or offers you a second game for free as a thank you? They made this the best they could and it’s made by people like me, for people like me so STFU and just enjoy it;

Redemption is hella fun. Sure, most of the complaints are valid, but get your eye in and it becomes a work of messy art, a pure Jackson Pollock to Infinity Ward’s advanced but soulless 3D-Printing. The crashes are sometimes so insanely spectacular it’s like the one good scene in Matrix Reloaded out on the highway. It’s so random, so free-for-all there’s countless opportunities for mayhem, and many just randomly happen – it’s a game than demands you have fun with it; when’s the last time you had a racing game that included power-ups like grappling your bike to a passing helicopter, or outfitting it with a jetpack? What about a race where cars fall from the sky? Come on! This is gold; the silliness is there, you’re supposed to have a laugh and remember the good old days when we didn’t take video games all that seriously. How can you claim it’s not up to AAA standard when all we do is moan about over-marketed, under-produced, for-the-masses guff they churn out? Can’t have it both ways and Redemption is the way I wanna go. It’s a really fun, daft, outrageous game; it’s not Road Rash, it’s Road Redemption – yeah I miss toddling back to my bike and the 90s in general but can’t have everything. If it just let us knock over grannies, it’d be perfect.

2017 | Developer/ Publisher; Pixel Dash Studios & EQ Games

Platforms; Win, PS4, XO