Enemies are quite brutal. The melee ones are fast and hit hard. The projectile ones react quickly, and I suspect they keep shooting at you even when they can’t see you.
As this is my first (and only) playthrough, I want to try as many weapons as possible. It’s great that you get to use most of your arsenal. Mauser is almost like a battle rifle, fast and accurate. The Tommy Gun upgraded into a laser beam is super powerful.
The only disappointment is the grenade launcher. Indirect fire is often very beneficial, but it’s not very effective here.
Underwater level was a bit of a surprise. Not something I expected in an old-school shooter.
Interesting bit about weapon upgrades is that your choice is between upgrading the standard weapon or changing its ammo type to something more rare and more specialised. Basically, it’s a choice between getting a more powerful machinegun or an energy beam instead.
The first boss is basically a wall throwing mines at you. But I still enjoyed it.
The swamp level was tough. There are a few types of enemies that hide in the water, like in the first Hexen, and those are very hard to see. And with how long the camera is placed in this game, almost Turok-like, it’s hard to spot enemies shooting at you from the grass. But if you know in which direction to go first, it’s not that hard. Still, I died on that level as much as through the entire game before that.
The second boss is a pillar instead of a wall. It’s tricky: the boss shoots homing projectiles, mobs shoot homing projectiles, and during the second phase there’s a laser grinder you need to evade, that also changes direction 🤯
This is certainly not what I expected. It’s a Lovecraftian game in its setting alright. But its a old-school shooter, most similar to Project Warlock.
Monsters popping out of walls, weapons without reload, secrets and all that. Strict level structure. No free saves, but there are some checkpoints. Then there’s the infamous flashlight from Doom 3, though: the one you cannot use with a weapon.
There’s an experience system, and quite an extensive tree of weapon upgrades. And also skills, such as healing.
The game does offer some interesting ideas around leveling weapons. Some weapons are unlock by leveling up your character, that hasn’t changes.
But in Cold War, most of the weapons had same set of upgrades which you had to unlock for each. And the way to unlock weapons is that you use weapons from the same category.
In Modern Warfare 2, you unlock weapons by “platform”. AK74 has the same platform as RPK, so you have to level up the former to unlock the later.
Also, leveling up a weapon unlocks attachments that are shared between all weapons. You can add a silencer to your LMG, but only if you unlock it by leveling up a particular sniper rifle.
Most attachments also support tuning, which is a bit mindboggling for me. That means that not only the attachment provides some tradeoffs, like accuracy versus Aim Down Sight speed, but you can also make those tradeoffs more prevalent.
Completed Sinking City.
There’s a funny pice of self-awareness in the dialog with the police officer that explains why he dislikes the protagonist:
In most games, “choices” are about either being an alright guy or a complete asshole. In Sinking City, they are sometimes more subtle, and I like it.
At one point we need to choose between a necromancer that resurrects the dead to torture them and a Mayan vampire. Torturing dead people – bad. Eating people at night – also bad.
In another quest, you can either give away the real killer, a decent guy who committed a crime only because his family was held hostage, or frame a politician that plans to poison his mother. I see clear Witcher influence here.
Speaking of choices, though, what you did throughout the game doesn’t affect the ending. You just pick one of the three available, and that’s it. I’m glad the were some bossfights in the middle of the game:
Something I wish the game would make more fuss about are the weapons. They’re given to you during some key sequences, but you don’t actually get to see the process. A character would say “here’s something”, and you need to go to your inventory to discover that you’ve been awarded a Tommy Gun.
Also, what slightly ruined the experience for me is that all the investigations are basically the same. You find the clues. You recreate the sequence of events, which is almost never challenging. You unlock that secret wall. I wish the “puzzle solving” would somehow ramp up. But it never does.
Me before Modern Warfare 2 (2022) free trial:
– Why nobody likes it?
Me after the free trial:
– Oh, OK, now I see…
The most played Cold War mode is Demolition. It’s fun, because it requires some teamwork: one team needs to blow two bombs, another denies them. In Modern Warfare 2… there’s no Demolition.
Instead, everybody plays on a map called Shipment, which is so tiny that your enemies can spawn on top of you. So it’s a constant bloothbath.
The funny part is that since the map is so small and requires no skill, I’m constantly at the top, just firing my LMG in all directions.
Early in the game you meet a librarian with her mouth sewn. Later, there’s an interesting sidequest related to her, where you need to hunt the witch that did that to her. There’s even a boss fight and a video sequence leading to this, which is not something I’d expect from a sidequest. Leaves an impression.
There are infested areas, where you encounter more monsters and supposed to find more loot. But the mechanics work in such a way that you usually waste more ammo that gain. So I just tend to keep away from those areas.
For half of the game we’re looking for that antropologist that would help us understand the visions. And a few minutes after we find her, she just… drowns. What a disappointment.
I know it would be a delight. And it really is.
The name is an obvious reference to the Sunken City. And the game is full to the brim with those references, not just Lovecraft, but also Poe (of course), Heinlein, and others.
But the actual city is also half flooded with water. So, sometimes we travel on foot, other times – on a boat. Luckily the boat spawns near every harbor.
Interesting part is that you have a map, but no automarkers. Instead, you’re given description of places, and you need to guess where are the point of interests on the map.
Bullets act also as currency. I think that was the same for the first Metro.
As a private eye, a most of our time we spend on investigations. Investigations are usually split into two parts. First, you find all the clues in the area. Then you need to recreate the sequence of events. Which isn’t really hard, to be honest, not close to Obra Dinn, as there are usually just 3-4 events. Again, you usually aren’t told where to go. You need to search different archives for clues: police, newspaper, asylum, and others. It’s another minigame, where this time you need to find an article or a profile based on a couple of hints.
Dropped on the Deacon boss. I like the art style, but the combat is very repetitive, and the boss battles are not intuitive. Simply stopped enjoying it at some point.
I continue to play Cold War multiplayer an hour a day.
Meta is heavily dominated by SMGs. That’s a surprise, I was expecting sniper rifles. SMGs also have the widest variety. There are just 4 LMGs, but 12 SMGs.
With the crazy customization the game provides, you can also make an improvised LMG from a SMG:
The story feels extremely boring and generic. A teenage girl wakes up from criosleep on a planet that was due to be terramorphed. She’s looking for her father or other colonists. She also has a companion, a robodog.
It’s a sandbox about a sand planet, which I find quite ironic. There’s a lot of platforming: you immediately get double jumps, air dashes, and also introduced early to air recharges of those. During fights, you lock onto your enemies, and need to jump over their attacks. You get experience from fights, leveling up your basic weapon and your companion.
There’s also a finishing move you can pull on damaged enemies, which is basically a tug-of-war or a fishing game, where you need to pull the joystick at the right moment.
All enemies are robo-animals. Had to check that this game came a year before very similarly themed Horizon Zero Dawn.
You cannot tinker with your weapon, but you can customize four parts of your companion (head, front legs, back legs and not sure what’s the 4th, don’t care). All those are built from junk and enemy pieces you collect. There’s a lot of junk collection to be had.
The only interesting bit is some sand effects: you and your companion leave tracks in the sand, or a trail when you dash.
Surprisingly, I enjoy Cold War multi-player a lot.
I didn’t enjoy Modern Warfare 2019 multi-player much, though. And I’m not a good player for sure. Not enough reaction, not accurate at all. Not sure if it’s the low skill bar or that most of the people moved to the two newer installations in the series. But I do manage to hit people here and there, and get that gun porn from customizing all the weapons.
Of course everyone looks like a bunch of clowns. That’s GenZ “expressing themselves”.
It gives that feeling of progression, though. After almost every match you get something, be it a new weapon attachment
After XCOM came out, so many games adopted its 2 Action Points system, it basically became the norm. This makes Othercide more interesting, as it uses a 100 Action Points system instead. Well, not exactly. If you go past 50 points in one turn, it will penalise you. Kind of like XCOM does as well.
Other than that, there are three classes. There are “overwatch” stances for every class. After each level up your characters get to pick one of the two skills.
All that in a black/white/red palette, and with Bloodborne-like “plague” aesthetics.
Up to this point, it’s all nice. What’s less nice is permadeath. But that’s something I still can deal with. But some of the “rescue” missions become frustrating extremely quickly. There are simply too many enemies spawned every turn.
Completed Cold War.
In Cuba, you’re given the choice of saving just one of your teammates. Why someone would save a bearded Israeli dude instead of a hot British chick is beyond me, though.
The real fun starts on the next mission, though, back in Vietnam. Adler tries to guide your memories. But you can disobey him, so he has to invent different scenarios on the fly. By the end of it, it becomes quite crazy.
The main plot twist is quite similar to Metal Gear Solid 5. Bell is an invented identity, part of the MK Ultra program. In reality, he was one of the high ranking terrorists, that got shot during the airport ambush. Later, Adler implants some of his memories and a keyphrase (hello, BioShock) in order to create a bond between him and Bell, and to control his actions.
Final mission is a slight disappointment, though. Perseus escapes, and we never even see him. In that term, the ending of Black Ops was much more satisfying.
The game is also very short. Even with collecting all the evidence, solving the puzzles and disobeying Adler in Vietnam on every turn, the campaign ends extremely quickly. Which is a shame, since that’s one of the Call of Duty games I enjoyed the most.
Now there’s a proper stealth system. You can also highlight enemies, pick locks, carry and hide bodies, and use enemies as human shields. This isn’t Hitman or Splinter Cell, of course, but still something.
Disco-arcade episode inside the Soviet base is brilliant. The moment when you go from Soviet brutalism to that neon and disco vibe:
Storywise: US decided to mine all the major European cities with neutron bombs, in case Soviets invade. Now a Soviet agent stole one of those bombs.
Interesting that they tie in Zakaev, the main villain from Modern Warfare.
The game does switch between characters. We play a bit as Mason in Yamantau, and get his signature glitches. Then we play as a KGB mole, Belikov, for a while.
Attachment mechanics in Call of Duty were always a bit wonky. So there’s no surprise that some Soviet soldiers have AK-47 so much customized it becomes RPK-74:
While finding some cool weapons like the Hand Cannon is a lot of fun, it’s also a bit pointless, since you don’t have a loadout before a mission.
Black Ops is probably my favorite part of Call of Duty series. At least the first two. And Cold War doesn’t disappoint.
It’s 1981, but we deal with an KGB agent that was active since 1943. Must be quite old by now.
Interesting that there are two perks you can choose at the beginning of the campaign. You can also customise your character a bit. Not a fan, I prefer the approach some other Call of Duty games took, where you switch between predefined characters. But whatever.
We go back to 1968, Vietnam, of course. I like how the weapon choice is more subtle: you’re given M16, but if you look around the base, you can find a Stoner 63 and some other arms.
I’m not sure the part where you pilot a helicopter was necessary.
It’s a dating sim, but with cute teenage monsters. You have a werewolf athlete, a hipster vampire, slutty ghost, prim mermaid, and bunch of other characters.
Probably my favorite is the Elder Godess Zoe:
The narrative is suggestive, but not explicit. And nonsensical, as any dating sim goes. Nobody asks why a four hundred year old vampire attends college, or how a ghost girl gets drunk every night (ok, she actually posesses people and makes them drink).
What makes it slightly more interesting than a visual novel is that your character has stats, and they are visual. So you can see how much “Charm” your character has, and by picking certain activities, you can boost stats accordingly. Which makes it into a bit of a management sim, I guess.
As far as the gameplay goes, though, I found it quite tiresome. In visual novels, even if you don’t strike the right answers, you get some ending. Here, even though I knew already what I was doing, I would still get “fail” all the time. So, it stopped being fun for me pretty quickly.
Another game I couldn’t play back in the day because my PC couldn’t handle it.
From the authors of STALKER, no less. And you can see the ambition. You have a teammate who you can command or control directly. There are multiple soldiers you can pick before your mission, with slightly different stats. There’s inventory system, and you can and sometimes have to loot corpses.
Your health is displayed on the armor vambrace, and there’s visual ammo counter on the weapon, not part of the interface overlay. Speaking of weapons, the game uses a transformation mechanic, where you have just a single rifle, but it can become an assault rifle, a shotgun or even a rocket launcher, depending on the ammo type. I think they got it from Redline, another rather obscure FPS.
And of course open areas. Those do pose gameplay problems, though. Enemies can see you from afar, and they don’t use tracing rounds. Sometimes I would die still not knowing where it came from.
You might associate ambient interfaces and open areas with Halo, but it came in November 2001. Codename Outbreak was release a month earlier.
The game will run on Windows 10, but there are some issues, like smearing menu and half of the objects being fully transparent.
This can be fixed with dgVoodoo in D3D mode.
Completed ArmA 2.
Another game I never expected to complete.
There’s a mission where you need to capture four villages. It’s literally “capture the flag”. Around each village there are a few bunkers, and after staying in one for a minute, its flag is changed. The fun, albeit unrealistic bit, is that you can construct defences immediately. Dropping Zu-23 by a recently captured bunker allows you to mow down any and all resistance.
You also get opportunity to buy weapons, including anti-tank ones. This is important, because no one in your squad is equipped with one of those. And while you can beat technicals or even a helicopter with a light machine gun and some luck, you can’t do anything to an APC.
Russians send their army. Interestingly, they also block off some of the roads. Razor Team is officially declared MIA.
We help the partisans. Although they also ask to kill their leader. Turns out to be the same “priest” we helped out earlier. He’s a radical, and is not very helpful. We leave his corpse in the forest.
Last mission is a slog. Your goal is to capture an entire region, some 20 villages, instead of just 4. You’re given access to BTR2, T72 and helicopters, though. But still, enemy base is crawling with those T72s as well.
Interestingly, in this mission your team mates and you switch to Russian weapons.
Also, I’ve read that if you collect all evidence in all missions, NATO sends you some tanks to help. I didn’t manage to do that, though. Had to resort to offensive defence tactic instead.
The problem with destroying the enemy HQ is that this game is not built for enemy APCs popping out of thin air in front of you. Your tank runs out of ammo. They don’t. HQ is also extremely sturdy, Took more than 5 direct hits from T72 to destroy it.
After that, the mission is half broken. No one explains to you how to negotiate with Russians. Marny, despite what the mission says, doesn’t have any dialogue lines. If you take a chopper to a remote island, you’ll find Lopotev there. But your teammates will shoot him, because someone forgot to designate him as neutral NPC. And once you manage to capture him all by yourself, half of the time he won’t get into the helicopter.
One last fun bit. You’re tasked with transferring Lopotev to Russians for interrogation. But they set an ambush for you. But I had a chopper nearby, and that was the only time it worked well. Spetsnaz didn’t know what hit them.
Speaking of Spetsnaz, they have nice toys on them, like Bizon and Vintorez. A bit of a shame, really, that’s the last minute of the game, so you never get to play with them. Same with 12.7 rifles. Seen some ammo, never seen the rifle itself.
I mentioned that the game is still extremely slow even on the strongest PCs. Well, not if you reduce the draw distance. You cannot hit anything beyond few hundred meters anyway, so 2km should be fine. Also, I completely disable grass in the last mission, simply because I couldn’t see all those soldiers protecting Lopotev.
As flawed as this game was, especially the last mission, I still greatly enjoyed it, though.
