No, Sir, I Do Not Like It

[HPLovegames]

#4295

Try as I might, I can’t muster up the enthusiasm to push past more than a few levels of this game. A few things stick out as problems:

Too many hit-scan enemies, at too many elevations, for a game without good mouse-look, or good sound cues. Wolfenstein’s cramped tunnels reduced the number of angles that enemies had on you, which is a better fit for the engine.

Lives + saves are a bad combo, especially since large amounts of each level seem to revolve around searching for extra lives. If you can just reload when you die, you’re incentivized to just find the quickest way out of the level instead of searching for hidden nooks of ankhs.

I found myself unreasonably mad that you couldn’t ESC out of the menu, and had to manually select “Resume.”

Got tired of areas that looked like Romanian low-income housing projects infested with trampolines.

Too many pillars and things where the enemy soldiers could shoot me, but my shots didn’t seem to connect.

Things I liked:

No limit on bullets adds to the “action movie” vibe.

For a 1994 game, the character sprites held up at a distance better than 1996’s Eradicator, in which I frequently thought that distant enemies were chairs.

[TigerQuoll]

#4299

I think your description of the levels is spot on!

You mention Wolf3D, and I will bring it up again because, despite it being probably even more maze-like and with a less advanced version of the engine, every level still managed to feel unique and distinct, unlike in ROTT.

If they had just done a better job of “theming” the levels (with the help of more colourful textures, and maybe more sprites for decoration) I could look past all the other flaws.
Honestly, despite some rough patches with hit-scanners and aiming and the like, the core mechanics are pretty fun and satisfying.

[Mike]

#4301

Even though I like the game a little more than you, I can’t really disagree with any of your points. It’s frustrating having to deal with so many hit scan enemies in open areas.

What’s weird is that I enjoyed my playthrough of the game from 10 years ago a lot more. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been spoiled by the recent retro FPS revival but this playthrough has been rougher. It still has a lot of charm that keeps me playing the game.

[f2bnp]

#4302

Agreed with Mike. I can’t disagree with any of the points, but I did find some enjoyment in the game or at least the episodes I played (shareware + ep1).

It is an acquired taste to say the least and it makes you appreciate all the ways Doom manages to keep things fresh and you on your toes all the time. I have great appreciation for the developers, they crammed so much stuff in there that would cater to all sorts of people. There’s a ton of singleplayer content with an insane amount of secrets, but the multiplayer seems very complete for 1995 as well.

I’m not sure you could ever achieve something more polished or refined with an engine that in principle does not stray much from Wolf3D.