1. Dusk (PC)(FPS)2. Project: Snowblind (PC)(FPS)3. Soldier of Fortune: Platinum Edition (PC)(FPS)4. Ziggurat (PC)(FPS)5. Wolfenstein 3D: Ultimate Challenge (PC)(FPS)6. Destiny 2 (PC)(FPS/RPG)
7. Destiny 2: Curse of Osiris (PC)(FPS/RPG)
8. Destiny 2: Warmind (PC)(FPS/RPG)9. Destiny 2: Forsaken (PC)(FPS/RPG)
10. Star Wars: Rebel Assault (PC)(Rail Shooter)11. Castle Werewolf (PC)(FPS)12. Project Warlock (PC)(FPS)13. Castle Crashers (PC)(Hack and Slash)14. This Strange Realm of Mine (PC)(FPS)15. BioShock Remastered (PC)(FPS)
16. BioShock 2 (PC)(FPS)
17. BioShock 2: Minerva's Den (PC)(FPS)18. Blood (PC)(FPS)19. Blood: Cryptic Passage (PC)(FPS)
20. Blood: Post Mortem (PC)(FPS)21. Shadow Warrior (PC)(FPS)22. Shadow Warrior: Twin Dragon (PC)(FPS)
23. Shadow Warrior: Wanton Destruction (PC)(FPS)24. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin (PC)(FPS)
25. F.E.A.R. 2: Reborn (PC)(FPS)26. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (PC)(RPG)27. Men of Valor (PC)(FPS)28. Ultima III: Exodus (PC)(FPS)
29. Albedo: Eyes from Outer Space (PC)(Point and Click)30. Midnight Ultra (PC)(FPS)31. Amid Evil (PC)(FPS)32. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (PC)(RPG)
33. Betrayer (PC)(Horror)34. Borderlands 2: Commander Lilith & the Fight for Sanctuary (PC)(FPS/RPG)35. Far Cry 2 (PC)(FPS)36. Apocryph (PC)(FPS)
37. Eye of the Beholder III: Assault on Myth Drannor (PC)(RPG)I knocked out a couple of games over the weekend, so here are my thoughts.
APOCRYPHSince other folks are busy checking out Ion Fury, I decided I'd go in a totally different direction and check out Apocryph, a throwback FPS that cribs much more from the Heretic and Hexen line of FPS.
Unfortunately, Apocryph ended development well before it was actually ready, so while it has good bones, it never had the chance to really develop. The original idea when it entered Early Access on Steam was that it would feature 30 levels, but over time the design philosophy changed to fewer but significantly longer levels. As this was never communicated to backers, they felt slighted when the game release with only 3...literally 1/10 the expected amount. Content updates further expanded this number to 7, and some of them are massively long (one has you warping between what is effectively a few levels. The enemy count in just this level on the highest difficulty is over 1000), but after that, development ceased. The dev has gone radio silent for a year on Steam, and while a Switch port was apparently worked on, there's been no word on that in months too.
What happened? Well, the dev team apparently consisted of one guy who brought in some freelancers and got too ambitious. As a result, we can see what could have been, but Apocryph in its current state is a shell of that possibility. Enemy AI often screws up and causes folks to run in place, there are clipping issues and problems with differing heights, menus are obviously unfinished, and the mouse cursor pops up after exiting the menu in the game until you finally shoot a weapon. Hey, it was on sale for less than $4, so I wasn't expecting the Mona Lisa here.
As for gameplay, Apocryph is medieval-themed, with weapons consisting of magic wands, gauntlets, and swords and ammo involving different colored mana. The more powerful weapons pull from multiple mana pools at once, and every weapon has an alternate fire that must be found but can be quite fun to use. Unfortunately one of the weapons never actually makes an official appearance in the game, so I was only able to experience it with a glitch, but all of the major archtypes of FPS games get represented: the blue wand is a shotgun with a supershotgun-esque alt fire, the green gauntlets are a rifle with a flamethrower alt, the purple swords serve as a rocket launcher with a railgun alt, and so forth. There is also a kick that can briefly stun certain enemies, so this makes mixing up and stunning enemies a good strategy when you're point blank.
Not all enemies register hits, which sucks because you can't tell if you're actually doing damage until they do. Some of them, however, will literally turn into gory skeletons as their flesh melts off and they keep coming. Hey, there were some cool ideas here, even if they didn't all get worked out.
Even if it had been completed, I don't think Apocryph would ever have been better or even equal to the likes of Amid Evil, but it's sad to see the squandering of potential. It goes on sale fairly often, so if you really have a hankering for a throwback FPS and you've gone through Dusk, Amid Evil, and now Ion Fury, well, don't pay over $5 no matter what. That's my advice.
==============================================================================
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER III: ASSAULT ON MYTH DRANNORIt's tough to say goodbye, but I have finally managed to finish the Eye of the Beholder trilogy. I started this back in September 2016, so it has been three years of playing these on and off with a dedicated party that I successfully ported between each game. Upon beating the final entry, I felt both happy to be done and sad that the journey was over; at this point, these games were sort of like an old friend. Ah well, I'll always have the memories.
Eye of the Beholder III picks up where the second one ended, with my boys back in a tavern. A guy shows up and asks the party to travel to the sacred city of Myth Drannor, where a lich now resides. What's a bunch of adventurers going to do? Why, grab their weapons and head out the door to go kick some bony ass!
The previous two entries were designed by Westwood, but the third and final game is where SSI officially took over, and it's usually considered the weakest of the three. Certain design decisions that were dropped in the second come back for the third, such as frustrating puzzles which can cause the party to restart unless certain classes are brought along, spinners, one way doors, and so forth. From all of the negative hype, I had been expecting a lot more of these, but the truth is that they're actually nowhere near as common as I had thought. Spinners and one way doors only appear in a couple of places, so it wasn't really a concern.
The bigger threat here was in the choices for those possibly game-ending puzzles, as well as throwing in maze areas and one of the nastiest levels in the whole trilogy, an underwater level with a null magic zone where your party is forced to drown. Having an understanding of 2nd Edition Dungeons and Dragons will help you know who to bring for these kinds of situations, but it was still a frustrating experience at the time. Of course, clerics are still the game's bread and butter, but the wizard is now the subject of many of these class requirements, so you ultimately need both. Beyond that, you need tanks to keep them alive, and that's pretty much it, so fighters and paladins. Rogues are pointless in the third game.
There were some cool attempts to improve things, such as optional areas and big sidequests, changes to the party resting mechanic, and an All Attack button where the whole party is supposed to swing at your foes, though this last one never worked for me. I'd see maybe a couple of folks attack, but never the whole party, even when they could. As much as I wanted to use it, the button just didn't work for me. The party rest mechanic was also changed so that enemies could no longer surprise you while you slumbered; instead, you have a sort of radar that won't let you rest if foes are nearby, which might mean multiple rooms or hallways away. In some cases, the devs strategically placed foes to keep you from resting at certain points, and it seems like enemies spawned into the maps a lot more than in previous games, though some areas could be fully cleared.
The game is at a certain level in player power that makes me feel you were supposed to port over a party, because a bunch of level 1s walking into Myth Drannor would get badly slaughtered by the first enemies they'd encounter. Like really badly slaughtered. Since I was walking in with well-armed troops around level 10, most of this stuff wasn't a threat, but then I'm in +3 full plate with +4 weapons, which is nearly capping out. As a result, the biggest threats came from traps and puzzles, with the sole exception of one enemy type that could hit the entire party and messed up my weaker spellcasters.
By the time I ended the adventure, my party was around levels 11-13, though it is apparently possible to grind up to 18 with a wizard and devastate the final boss through repeated uses of Time Stop. I used it once off a scroll and froze the final boss long enough to get some good hits in, enough that I was able to drop him with limited strategy beyond simply attacking once it wore off. It's tough at this point to really counter the power creep of players, so the game tried to pull out the stops, yet I still found the final dungeon easy. Even the bosses weren't as tough as I was expecting, considering how difficult boss battles had been in previous titles.
Assault on Myth Drannor isn't bad at all, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the first two. Implying that it's weaker...I don't feel like weaker is the word, just that it was a new dev team who hadn't learned all the lessons of the last group and were trying some new things but were also facing possible players that could simply push through like it was nothing, because at this point it kinda was. I still had fun, even if the luster of the previous games wasn't quite there; I'd done this before, after all. Yet taking down a god seems like the best way to end a series where I'd already slaughtered some of the nastiest critters in the 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons monster manual.
I will miss it, though there are yet many other games to go play. Ever onward to new adventures!