Seneste anmeldelser af Jäger

Gameplay
☑ Hands couldn't stay away from the mouse & keyboard
☐ Captivating
☐ Average
☐ Underwhelming

Graphics
☐ My eyes have been blessed
☑ Beautiful
☐ Decent
☐ Garbage for the quality that I expected form this game

Music
☑ Your Ears will thank you (Apart from when a bombing run happens near you)
☐ Impressive
☐ Average
☐ Bad
☐ Better to just put on music.

PC Required
☐ A potato will suffice
☐ Average PC
☑ Entry Level Gaming PC
☐ Mid-High level Gaming PC

Difficulty
☐ Game Journalist friendly
☐ A fair challenge
☐ Difficult
☑ Hulk smash setup

Grind
☐ Nothing
☑ Isn’t necessary to progress (Gun skins, Melee weapons and new playable Units, ALL cosmetic though)
☐ Insanity, Don't waste your time!

Pricing
☐ It's freeeee
☐ Worth the price
☑ You should wait for a sale (Dead servers, buy on sale if playing when friends. NOT solo game)
☐ Don't waste your hard earned cash!

Micro-Transactions/ Bane of gaming
☑ None to be seen!
☐ A degree of pressure is put on the player to buy Items ingame
☐ Very difficult to enjoy the base game without buying extra content/items.
☐ It's literally made by EA/ Ubisoft

Bugs
☑ Polished gem
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Bugs hinder experience
☐ Broken experience. It's like trying to enjoy a sunny sail while your boat is full of holes.

An incredibly good WW2 shooter. Visceral, Gritty and Loud, its a realistic shooter that provides no tutorials, xray vision, rainbow gun skins, battlepasses, infinite respawning or scorestreaks. This is a game where if you do not work alongside your squad, you WILL be sniped, blown up, slashed, gassed or even bayonet charged. The unforgiving nature of the gameplay is a very attractive aspect in my opinion. The engine is a tad clunky and some animations are a bit wonky, but overall the mechanics are simple to pick up and hard to master (Which is exactly what you want in a FPS game). It is important to point out that unfortunately due to whatever unjust reason, the servers are almost empty most of the time.
Overall I highly recommend this game to lovers of realistic shooters and WW2 scenarios. If you liked any of the following:
Squad, Insurgency, MW2019, Verdun, Ground Branch, Ready or not, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 or Arma 3
, then you will definitely enjoy this game.
However I would seriously advise that you play this game with friends during peak times as the game is pretty dead (At least in my region). The overall experience is great, but it is let down by:
Dying servers, Clunky Movement, UI issues and a ludicrous grind for disappointing cosmetic items.
I will try to break it down into pros and cons:

Pro’s:
-Sound design is some of the best I have ever seen in a game, let alone an fps. The zip of bullets flying past, the artillery impacts on the outside of the bunker you are cowering in, the screams of agony as your fellow team mate burns alive in front of you, the distant rumble of an objective being blown up from the other side of the map is executed so perfectly. I can only sing praises for the quality of the sound design. Even the voice acting is appropriate and mature when necessary.
Definitely one of the highlights of this game is the sound design/sfx.
-Gunplay is excellent and there is a lot of variety when it comes to what to bring into battle. When playing as the Germans, you have access to conflict- appropriate firearms and even melee weapons like Entrenchment tools (Sharp Spade)
- Objectives have great variation
- Map layout makes sense and almost always has multiple avenues to approach the objectives from.
- Class system is executed well and classes like the Radio-man and Officer force team mates to work together, whether they like it or not!
- Bots provide a good challenge in close quarters, from afar they can hit ridiculous snipes.
- Smoke cover is an awesome mechanic that basically stops the enemy ai from firing if they cant clearly see you, its a great way to get some melee kills too.
- Steam workshop included!
- Small install size, only 15GB!
- NPC Dialogue is very good quality and the slang is even time appropriate! Playing as the Australian army always makes me laugh.

Con’s:
- Run speed is far too slow for my liking.
- Dead servers, not really the games fault I guess, but its a shame that the game was never changed to F2P in order to try to save the empty servers.
- AI Snipers can kiss my arse.
- No way to view current ammo in mag/clip. I get the realism aspect but there are many times where my magazine just clicks in the middle of CQC. So irritating!
- Cant ADS with Heavy machine guns, why not?
- Enemy AI spawns can be crap. The entire team spawns at once and can spawn near you and your team mates if you are far enough into enemy territory..
- Maps like dog red and Bastogne give AI a huge advantage. They are elevated, have long range weaponry and call in bombardments almost as soon as the map begins...
- Barely any Ammo resupply crates in the maps themselves
- AI spams artillery and bombing runs in the entrenchment mode. Seriously, there is an aerial strike of some kind every 30 seconds it seems. GIVE MY EARS A DAMN BREAK
- No point setting up an MG emplacement as you will get sniped across the battlefield by AI within 20 seconds. What's the point?
- Some Capture objectives have almost zero cover, making them extremely susceptible to enemy air strikes and bombing runs. Why is this a thing?
- Assassination objectives are lazily made and the target themselves hardly ever faces the entrance where you will enter from, making the final objective underwhelming.
- Destroy Artillery Objectives are almost impossible if you dont have explosives on you (Tnt, Bazooka, Panzerfaust, etc). If all of your engineer squadmates die, you will have to rely on a fallen enemy dropping something you can utilise. Not a fan of progression blockers like this!
- No incentive to rank up, you will quickly find that you unlock many duplicate units, the only way to get rid of them is by selling them on the steam market for just a few cents. Why are there no unlockable weapon skins or outfits? The Units become pretty disappointing once you unlock more than 5.
- No ability to climb and/or mantle objects/terrain, why not??
- No feed/ no explanation of strange deaths
- Most maps are intended to be played with at least 5 others, since the game is basically dead, it gives the enemy AI another massive advantage!
- Artillery penetrating through multiple floors
- The entire map of Dog Red, just everything about it (Especially on stronghold).
- Not enough maps once you play the game enough. Once you have played all of them you will then just stick to a few that you enjoy. This is fine, however I feel like there could have been far more smaller maps. Even some tiny practise maps for offline training would have been excellent.
-Melee weapon combat and the rewards/unlocks are stupid. You will really only ever melee enemies when you are doing the following:
1) Completely out of ammo
2) In a cloud of smoke and dont want to shoot fellow team mates
3) You bumped into an enemy and they pull out their own melee weapon. (This is the most satisfying scenario)
However the devs thought that it was a good idea to add insane requirements to unlock Melee variants for each faction.
For example, you will have to kill 20 enemies with the commonwealth knife before you can unlock the entrenchment tool, this isnt too difficult and most players should get this after playing more than 20 hours. However you will have to then kill 40 enemies with the entrenchment tool to unlock the Hatchet, and THEN you will have to kill 80 ENEMIES WITH SAID HATCHET to unlock the Fairbairn Sykes Knife. That is a grand total of 140 Melee kills when playing as ONE of the three factions. Wtf were the devs thinking? At least give us gun skins instead of melee skins as players would be able to appreciate them as they are used far more often...

Gameplay
☐ Hands couldn't stay away from the mouse & keyboard
☐ Captivating
☑ Average (The game is at its best when playing with 2 other friends that know what they are doing!)
☐ Underwhelming

Graphics
☐ My eyes have been blessed
☑ Beautiful
☐ Decent
☐ Garbage for the quality that I expected fromm this game

Music/ Sound design.
☐ Your Ears will thank you
☐ Impressive
☑ Average (Repetitive and overall forgettable)
☐ Bad
☐ Better to just put on music.

PC Required
☐ A potato will suffice
☐ Average PC
☑ Entry Level Gaming PC
☐ Mid-High level Gaming PC

Story
☑ Minimal (You can play through the entire game without really knowing what is going on)
☐ Average
☐ Better than I expected
☐ Sucks you into the world!

Grind
☐ Nothing
☑ Isn’t necessary to progress (Cosmetic garbage like smiley face decals and fortnite dances)
☐ Insanity, Don't waste your time!

Replayability
☐ One and done
☐ Justifies a replay for any missing content/ collectibles
☑ Multiple playthroughs won't hurt (With buddies, NOT bots)
☐ You could honestly play this daily (But probably should go outside instead)

Pricing
☐ It's freeeee
☐ Worth the price
☑ You should wait for a sale
☐ Don't waste your hard earned cash!

Micro-Transactions/ Bane of gaming
☑ None to be seen!
☐ A degree of pressure is put on the player to buy Items ingame
☐ Very difficult to enjoy the base game without buying extra content/items.
☐ It's literally made by EA/ Ubisoft

Bugs
☐ Polished gem
☑ Minor bugs (Enemies getting stuck in terrain, Enemies vanishing into thin air and weird AI Behaviour)
☐ Bugs hinder experience
☐ Broken experience. It's like trying to enjoy a sunny sail while your boat is full of holes.


Pro’s:
- Impressive gunplay with satisfying sounds and feels.
- Lots of Enemy types to test players
- Hidden secrets to find, including Loot stashes that have random locations.
- Perk system is well executed.
- Almost all the classes feel different and impact the overall gameplay experience in a unique way.
- Final Boss is great and the level design in the later missions of the game are great. Large organic open spaces contrast well with the narrow, industrial corridors of the earlier campaigns.
- Cooperative play is very polished and the game’s missions are built around Coop itself.
- Interesting lore once you actually can be bothered to read into it as the game doesn't explain most of it. There is a LOT to read though!
- Final Mission in the base game is very intense and has a sweat inducing ending. Unfortunately there is no final boss battle, like wtf?
- Synthetic Enemies act very differently to Xenos and require very different strategies. (Headshots and Electro Turret Emplacements). This is great as it requires players to stay on their toes and plan firefights accordingly.

Con’s:
- Animations feel stiff and lack fluidity. Sprinting is pretty slow overall and you can only roll 3 times before you completely drain your stamina bar.
- Lobby music is extremely repetitive and lacks additional tracks
- Prowlers are just garbage enemies as their only purpose is to keep players alert when entering corridors and turning corners, which on its own sounds fine, however at their core, they are just a Hunter from L4D2 with an annoying quick time event. Unoriginal and tiresome in my opinion.
-During the later missions, Elite enemies like the Warrior and Crusher spawn too rapidly to keep up with. The area can very quickly fill up with fodder enemies while you and your team mates prioritise the larger enemies. The point here is that it feels like the game will just spawn a larger number of enemies than you are used to just to slow progress and create a sense of artifical difficulty. When the area is completely filled with enemies and both team mates are downed, the last thing I am thinking is strategy, it all goes out the window as its just too frantic. Sure the stress can make it fun at times, but 90% of the time I have not survived the remaining onslaught..
- No Final Boss Battle in the base game. Just a timed escape section which feels very cinematic, but lacks a climax which after all the close quarters fighting during the level is a major disappointment.
- 3 Player Coop limit was a very strange Idea and I am not sure why this was chosen. I'm sure there is a good reason but It feels weird.
- Bots perform terribly on anything over standard difficulty. (Intense, Extreme and Insane)
- On Intense difficulty and Above, enemies feel gradually more and more bullet spongy, their AI is unchanged, spawns change slightly but the main spike in each difficulty level is how much damage the enemies can take. This is incredibly lazy in my opinion and far too many games change minimal mechanics to create harder difficulties.
- Some Firefights with Synths feel unbalanced and go on for far too long.
- Miniboss - Enemies like the Crusher and Praetorian don't have very clear weak points and when they charge at you, their large armoured head block you from hitting weak points anyway…
- No text chat or voice chat. SERIOUSLY, THIS IS A VERY STRATEGIC COOPERATIVE GAME WITHOUT MEANS TO COMMUNICATE!
- Dead playerbase, nuff said
- 4 different campaigns with 3 levels each, totalling 12 separate Missions that each take 20 to 25 minutes each. Doing the math we find that (On average) the game will take 180 to 250 minutes. This is just the mission time though. Customizing your perks, classes and guns will add maybe 5 minutes between missions but ultimately this game is criminally short. It's definitely not worth full price at its current length.
- Synth Heavies are the tankiest enemies I've seen in a game for a very long time. I feel like changing my perks and attachments only goes so far when It takes multiple clips to down enemies like the Synth Warden, Synth Heavy, Xeno Crusher and even the Xeno Drone!
- The Stalker enemy (Pathogen Heavy) is literally only in one or two of the base game missions. It's a great enemy with an ability to naturally camouflage temporarily and flank your team! I loved this enemy design but barely got enough time to appreciate how unique it was..
- Emotes, Weapon Decals and even some of the Hats ruin the tone of the game and can destroy your immersion to see a teammate doing a chicken dance after a massive battle. I get that it adds customisation to the game but it just doesn't suit the tone at all.
- No server browser
- The Pathogen expansion adds maybe an hour of new content. IMO It is worth maybe $8 NZD for the content it brings. Very disappointing. Great Lore and epic ending, but cmon...
- Flamethrowers are iconic and all, but they block your view severely when someone is firing one. Their friendly fire is also insane as they have a massive spread..
-No First person mode implemented. Real missed opportunity for the devs here.
- Can't join someone's game that has already started a mission. Why not??
- Far too many weapons for my liking. Could be less of em but more unique. The attachments and guns seem to blend together once you unlock a good bunch of them.
- Lip syncing is either broken or not implemented when talking to NPCs in the Lobby. (IN A 2022 GAME

Lots of cons yes, but somehow, the game is still a solid Cooperative Experience.
If you love this genre of games, then I highly recommend the following Intense cooperative shooters:
Reactive Drop, Helldivers, Ready or Not, L4D2, Killing Floor 2 or Deep Rock Galactic.

Gameplay
☑ Hands couldn't stay away from the mouse & keyboard
☐ Captivating
☐ Average
☐ Underwhelming

Graphics
☐ My eyes have been blessed
☑ Beautiful (A stunning art style that does water surfaces and shadows really really well.)
☐ Decent
☐ Garbage for the quality that I expected form this game

Music
☐ Your Ears will thank you
☑ Impressive (Great ambient music but you will probably get bored of its repetition after 5-10 hours of gameplay. I have my music turned off ingame)
☐ Average
☐ Bad
☐ Better to just put on music.

PC Required
☐ A potato will suffice
☑ Average PC (Lots of graphical settings to choose from)
☐ Entry Level Gaming PC
☐ Mid-High level Gaming PC

Story
☐ Minimal
☐ Average
☑ Better than I expected (A survival game with a coherent, mysterious story is hard to find!)
☐ Sucks you into the world!

Difficulty
☐ Game Journalist friendly
☑ A fair challenge (A pretty easy game. I have only died ~20 times during my 85+ hours of playtime, most of the deaths were due to the Shark, Bear attacks and a surprising amount from the final boss battle.)
☐ Difficult
☐ Hulk smash setup

Grind
☐ Nothing
☑ Isn’t necessary to progress (There are loads of hidden collectibles, pages for your journal, achievements, Islands to loot and metal to detect to keep players busy long after they finish the main story.)
☐ Insanity, Don't waste your time!

Pricing
☐ It's freeeee
☑ Worth the price (You get about 30+ hours with the story content on offer, the experience definitely benefits from playing in Coop too.
☐ You should wait for a sale
☐ Don't waste your hard earned cash!

Micro-Transactions/ Bane of gaming
☑ None to be seen!
☐ A degree of pressure is put on the player to buy Items ingame
☐ Very difficult to enjoy the base game without buying extra content/items.
☐ It's literally made by EA/ Ubisoft

Bugs
☐ Polished gem
☑ Minor bugs (Very minor bugs that I noticed included visual oddities with lighting, seawater going through the bottom of the raft and Buried treasure being located on the side of a cliff and having to slide down it everytime I wanted to dig it up. How am I supposed to get the juicy loot when its located
there or even here...
☐ Bugs hinder experience
☐ Broken experience. It's like trying to enjoy a sunny sail while your boat is full of holes.

Easily one of the best survival games I have ever played. The progression is pretty fair AFTER the early game and all the blueprints that you pick up during story island exploration feel useful and unique. The ability to install engines on your raft and then steering it using a makeshift ship-wheel is such a welcome change from relying on your sails to catch wind.
The default difficulty is a bit too easy if I'm honest and playing in co-op takes away any penalty for dying as another player can just grab your body and take it to the nearest bed. The only real penalty here is time and inconvenience of going back. Also the Shark/ Bruce being with the Raft during the entire game felt a bit overdone as once you get better weapons you can easily dispatch him (He doesn't respawn for 5 minutes when you “kill” him). At the start of the game, the Shark mechanic felt like every looting trip into the reefs near your Raft had purpose and a sense of urgency. But late game you just end up killing him with coop partners so you can just loot freely for 5 minutes. Bruce basically goes from being a scary presence to merely an inconvenience that needs to be sorted out before your friends and you explore anything underwater.
The story Islands themselves are so different from one another and every one comes with a unique puzzle or two to solve in order to progress with the story. I loved this aspect and while the puzzles were not particularly challenging to myself or my friends, I did recognise the variety of them during my playthrough.

One big negative that I will mention is that the achievement list of this game has a few achievements that are stupidly grindy to get. I have finished the game, visited every possible Island apart from one, maxed out my tools and weapons, made a sexy industrial raft, Killed every possible enemy, acquired all diary entries, have an abundance of all the crafting materials I could want, and yet I am still missing 6 achievements at the time of this review.
These remaining achievements are extremely grindy and many of them honestly require save scumming to acquire without playing for another 50 hours.
The problem is that, as I mentioned above, I have done basically everything in the game and definitely got my money’s worth, yet I’d need to play for another 20 - 30 hours just to finish the achievement list. A game should not have achievements that outlive the actual quantity of content in the game.
For example the “Master Survivor” Achievement requires you to survive 365 days in one save file. The problem here is that one Raft day lasts 20 minutes.
So if you do the math you get approximately 122 Hours and 40 Minutes.
Obviously sleeping (ingame) helps, but the main issue is that you’d have to play Raft for longer than it can actually provide you with new things to do. I really hope that makes sense.
Almost all of the achievements in the game are great and easy to get, but these last few really leave a bad taste in my mouth.

One more thing to mention is that there are no upgrades for the bow, armour, flippers, oxygen mask, shovel, shears or fishing rod past what you can craft initially. (The fishing Rod has a better version but it isn't a massive improvement imo.)
I find this irritating as the blade/ sword, hook, backpack, arrows and axe can be upgraded several times throughout the game as you find stronger resources/ Ores.
I get that those tools are used more but I’d still like to be able to make an endgame bow. Having a “Basic Bow” that fires titanium arrows doesn't make any sense to me.
Another reason why this is irritating is because you are unable to repair anything in this game apart from recharging batteries. During the last few story Islands and beyond the endgame stage, you will find that your tools break more often as enemies become tougher and blueprints ask for more resources to be mined.
It's a real shame and hopefully not an intentional decision by the devs as always having to carry multiple identical tools in your inventory is not good game design!

Regardless, despite the above cons, I definitely recommend this game… That is unless you are an achievement hunter like myself. So grab some friends and tough out the challenge of the early game. As once you are able to stop worrying about hunger, thirst, bruce and crappy tools, the story and locations really suck you in!

Hope you enjoyed this Review,
If you did be sure to check out my others!
- Kyle

Gameplay
☐ Hands couldn't stay away from the mouse & keyboard
☐ Captivating
☐ Average
☑ Underwhelming (Combat is the highlight, as almost every other mechanic is half baked)

Graphics
☐ My eyes have been blessed
☐ Beautiful
☑ Decent
☐ Garbage for the quality that I expected from this game

Music
☐ Your Ears will thank you
☐ Impressive
☐ Average
☑ Bad (The Sam B rap music in this game is soo overused and the soundtrack itself copies a lot from the first game)
☐ Better to just put on music.

PC Required
☑ A potato will suffice
☐ Average PC
☐ Entry Level Gaming PC
☐ Mid-High level Gaming PC

Story
☑ Garbage (Pacing makes no sense, characters are extremely forgettable and ending is the laziest cliffhanger I have seen for a long time)
☐ Minimal
☐ Average
☐ Better than I expected
☐ Sucks you into the world!

Difficulty
☑ Game Journalist friendly (Game is p*ss easy in COOP)
☐ A fair challenge
☐ Difficult
☐ Hulk smash setup

Grind
☑ Nothing
☐ Isn’t necessary to progress
☐ Insanity, Don't waste your time!

Replayability
☑ One and done (You will only want to play this once trust me)
☐ Justifies a replay for any missing content/ collectibles
☐ Multiple playthroughs won't hurt
☐ You could honestly play this daily (But probably should go outside instead)

Pricing
☐ It's free
☐ Worth the price
☐ You should wait for a sale
☑ Don't waste your hard earned cash!

Micro-Transactions/ Bane of gaming
☑ None to be seen!
☐ A degree of pressure is put on the player to buy Items ingame
☐ Very difficult to enjoy the base game without buying extra content/items.
☐ It's literally made by EA/ Ubisoft

Bugs
☐ Polished gem
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Bugs hinder experience
☑ Broken experience. It's like trying to enjoy a sunny sail while your boat is full of holes.


Pro’s:
-Amazing melee combat with satisfying dismemberment and a variety of weapon mods.
-Lots of side quests to take up your time inbetween story missions
-The Boat is a good addition and driving over drowner zombies is always satisfying
-Chainsaw is badass to use
-Borderlands 2 easter egg <3
-Greater variety of special infected than the previous game.
-5 different characters each with unique abilities and skill trees makes playing in coop the best way to enjoy the experience.
-Lots of boss battles to challenge the player(s)
-Fury mode is awesome and completely broken in coop (In a good way)
-Sniper rifles are a great addition, even if you don't get to use them at range often.

Con’s:
- Game is way too short. Previous game felt twice as long with much better writing.
- Zombies that throw weapons at you with aimbot is broken af as it instakills the player every single time.
-Almost all of the Boss battles in the game are garbage and revolve around chipping away at a large slow moving enemies health, while they flail around.
- Fall damage in this game is terrible and you cant fall more than 2 metres without dying.
- The Ending is so bad and is never explained. I hope they make this game non canon as the cliffhanger is just so low effort and the series has no proper ending to what this story leads into.
-Copy paste environments everywhere. So many interiors share the same layout. It totally ruins immersion and gives the sense that the devs half arsed a lot of the map making.
- Most of the guns in this game literally use the same asset from Dying Light 1. I'm not sure why this was done as it does not help the game and ends up advertising a much better zombie game!
- Inability to change FOV (No slider!)
- Screamer zombies are terrible as they remove the ability to use weapons for 5- 10 seconds and run away from the player.
- So many bugs, I will only list the ones I encountered the most:
1) Enemy spawning outside the map
2) Getting stuck in the terrain and not being able to escape without suiciding.
3) Inability to revive coop teammates
4) Vehicles getting stuck in the terrain
-Zombies models being reused and no variation on special infected models
- Bad lip syncing during cutscenes
- Hold out scenarios during the story felt far too long at times and just kept spawning in identical enemies from the same areas.
- Far too much backtracking during quests, especially in the first map/ section of the game.
- Side quests don't have much variation besides Fetch quests, clear infested zones and saving the odd survivor from about 5 zombies.

Ultimately this game feels like a downgrade from the original and brings far more bugs, a shorter story, no bonus modes (like Bloodbath arena for the first game) and no way to return to the open world after beating the game besides starting new game plus. If you missed collectibles or side quests in Henderson, youll have to play the miserable story again just to reach the area.
I feel like this is less of a sequel and more of a cheesy standalone expansion. If you have finished the first Dead Island and want a proper progression from that game, I recommend Dying Light 1. Although it isnt as arcadey, It is better in almost every aspect than both Dead Island 1 and Dead Island: Riptide.
As a result I wouldn't recommend this game, even in coop, as the more players, the higher the chance of bugs.

Overall Rating: 4/10

Thanks for Reading and check out my other reviews!
- Kyle
Written in collaboration with JakeyTurkey (My coop partner)

Gameplay
☐ Hands couldn't stay away from the keyboard and mouse!
☑ Captivating (Great mix of enemies, guns, secrets, levels and secret levels!)
☐ Average
☐ A boring experience

Graphics
☐ My eyes have been blessed
☐ Beautiful
☑ Decent (AMAZING…for the time)
☐ Bad

Music
☐ Your Ears will thank you
☑ Impressive (The ambient level tracks are suuper creepy in this game!)
☐ Average
☐ Bad
☐ Better to just put on music..

PC Required
☑ Potato
☐ Average PC
☐ Entry Level Gaming PC
☐ Mid-High level Gaming PC
☐ A PC to run this game properly hasn't even been created yet..

Story
☑ Very minimal (Run and gun through Castles, labyrinths and crypts while fighting Lovecraftian Creatures and near immortal knights. That's really the extent of the story as far as I am aware.)
☐ Average
☐ Better than I expected
☐ Sucks you into the game world!

Difficulty
☐ Game Journalist friendly
☐ Average
☑ Challenging (I played on hard and a few of the base game missions really tested me! I wouldn't recommend playing Nightmare unless you really know the level layout as your health is too low to survive most big fights. Also Shamblers are these chunky pale hitscanners that give far too little warning before zapping you with lightning. They can bite the sharp, rusty end of my axe!)
☐ Difficult
☐ Hulk smash setup

Game Time
☐ Long enough for a lunch break..
☑ Average (The base game has 4 Episodes split into 8 Levels + Secrets. You will get more value if you play in co-op but I experienced a lot of lag.) I recommend playing on hard or nightmare to really take your time in levels and appreciate the map design!
☐ Longer than I expected!
☐ Practically Endless!

Replayability
☐ One and done
☑ Justifies a replay for any missing content/ Secrets. Also quite fun to speedrun the more elaborate levels!)
☐ Multiple playthroughs won't hurt
☐ You could honestly play this daily (But probably should go outside instead)

Pricing
☐ It's freeeee
☑ Worth the price (The amount of content definitely justifies the price)
☐ You should wait for a sale
☐ Don't waste your hard earned cash!

Bugs
☑ None/ polished gem (I've only seen a little bit of quirky engine behaviour or enemy AI getting stuck, engine seems to be very airtight in terms of bugs)
☐ Minor bugs
☐ You experience them semi-regularly
☐ Bugs dampen experience
☐ Broken experience. It's like trying to enjoy a sunny sail while your boat is full of holes.



Pros:

• Amazing chunky weapon effects and tense sound design
  
• Great traps and smart level design with minimal backtracking.
  
• Secret placement makes sense and often doesn't require insanely good skill to access.
  
• Coop and Horde mode give this game a much longer life.
  
• Very simple shooter mechanics with no reloading, crouching, sprinting, double jump, regenerating health, flashlight or hints.
  
• The endgame weapons are amazing to use and finding them is always difficult as they are normally a secret or surrounded by enemies.
  
• Telefragging and lots of Gibs! (Look up those terms if you dont know em)

Cons:

• The game is very dark most of the time. I get that this is an atmospheric element but some levels go overboard with the gloom.
  
• Hit Scanners are worse than in Doom 2
  
• Underwhelming boss Battles, when they actually appear..
  
• The Shambler's wind up animation to their lightning cast attack is far too short and you get maybe half a second to find cover...
  
• Being locked in a room with no cover while you fight a miniboss is simply terrible design.
  
• Default shotgun damage sucks. It's basically a glorified pistol with meaty sfx
  
• Brown and grey colour palette slowly drains your enthusiasm and sanity.
  
• MP is laggy af and a waste of time unless you are playing with friends in the same country!
  
• Nightmare difficulty health drain is a terrible design as you will be underprepared for almost every encounter you face, just moving around the map exploring will lose you health. Like wtf?
  
• Final Boss is a joke and doesn't even pose a direct threat to you in the level that it appears in. The way you kill it is just underwhelming and feels more like a cheap puzzle than the climactic encounter I expected.

All hail the mighty Dopefish.
He swims, he hungers!

-Kyle

Gameplay
☐ Hands couldnt stay away from the mouse & keyboard
☐ A captivating experience
☑ Average
☐ Underwhelming

Graphics
☐ My eyes have been blessed
☑ Beautiful
☐ Decent
☐ Messy, Blocky, Grainy, Bad!

Music
☐ Your Ears will thank you
☑ Impressive (The ending theme and the main themes are great)
☐ Average
☐ Bad
☐ Better to just put on music.

PC Required
☐ A potato will suffice
☐ Average PC
☑ Entry Level Gaming PC
☐ Mid-High level Gaming PC

Story
☐ Minimal
☐ Average
☐ Better than I expected
☑ A rollercoaster of emotions!

Difficulty
☑ Game Journalist friendly
☐ A fair challenge
☐ Difficult
☐ Hulk smash setup

Replayability
☐ One and done
☑ Justifies a replay for the other endings.
☐ You could honestly play this daily (But probably should go outside instead)

Pricing
☐ It's free
☐ Worth the price
☑ You should wait for a sale
☐ Don't waste your hard earned cash!

Bugs
☑ Polished gem
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Bugs hinder experience
☐ Broken experience. It's like trying to enjoy a sunny sail while your boat is full of holes.

Overall Rating: 10/10
An absolutely fantastic cooperative experience. The story, time period and characters that you play as will captivate you while playing and create many fun moments for your friend and you. The plot twist at the end of the story is so mind blowingly large that I had to pause the game to think of the ramifications! Ultimately I was very satisfied with the gameplay too, however I will say that this game offers little to no challenge apart from one or two shooting sections (With some decent stealth although you barely get enough places to use it). Its worth noting that the gameplay seems to be obsessed with chase sequences as my friend and I frequently found ourselves running away from bad guys when we were not chasing after them! This does get a tad repetitive, however the music and the cinematic style does help alleviate any potential dullness.

If you have a good friend and an even better internet connection. Then I highly recommend this TV series-like game.
Only question is, who is playing Vincent and who is playing big nose Leo?
-Kyle

Overall Gameplay
☐ Another world!
☑ Captivating
☐ Average
☐ Disappointing/ Underwhelming
☐ A Boring experience

Graphics
☐ Masterpiece
☑ Beautiful
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Minecraft

Music
☐ Your Ears will thank you
☑ Impressive (Most of the time the Combat themes are great but they are sorely missing iconic riffs or unique sounds. In saying that, the World spear track is a real gem)
☐ Average
☐ Bad
☐ Better to just put on music..

Targeted Audience
☐ Everyone (except vegans)
☐ Little Sh*ts
☐ Teens
☑ Epic Adult Gamers (Preferably Christian Gamers that feel like smiting sinners)

PC Required
☐ Potato (Easy to run, Hard to Beat!)
☐ Average PC
☐ Entry Level Gaming PC
☑ Mid-High level Gaming PC
☐ A PC to run this game well hasn't even been created yet..

Story
☐ Minimal
☑ Average (Again, I stopped caring about the story as the biblical themes are not original at all and in fact detract from the overall quality imo. The cliches and predictability dampen parts of the experience, however the combat ALWAYS comes first in this game. Regardless of how many essays the devs wrote for us to find..
☐ Fantastic
☐ Invests you throughout the game!

Difficulty
☐ Game Journalist friendly
☐ Average
☐ Challenging
☑ Difficult (I'd say that the difficulty is a lot fairer/balanced than TAG1. However it does have some terrible cramped arenas and Sadistic enemy combinations in the same space. (Marauders with Screechers) Why?
☐ Prepare for Rage

Grind
☐ Nothing
☑ Isnt necessary to progress (More cosmetics, skins, banners, etc. all the usual bs for collectors.)
☐ A decent Grind
☐ Insanity, Don't even waste your time

Game Time
☐ Long enough for a lunch break..
☐ Average
☑ Long (If anything, it felt too long. World spear in particular has parts where it feels like its going to end but just moves to a different area. I'd personally say that the sweet spot for a level length in DE is around 30 minutes.
☐ Practically Endless!

Price
☐ What price? (Free)
☐ Worth the price
☑ Wait for sale (It seems like a much better idea to buy the deluxe edition of Doom eternal rather than buying this expansion separately.)
☐ Dont waste your hard earned cash!

Micro-Transactions?
☑ None to be seen!
☐ A degree of pressure is put on the player to buy Items (ingame)
☐ Good luck Progressing without purchasing..
☐ Its literally EA

Bugs
☐ None
☑ Minor bugs (Getting stuck in the level decorations, enemy ai breaking when they get buffed *Cough cough Marauder*. However I've had zero crashes playing the base game and now both expansions. Well done ID
☐ You experience them semi-reguarly
☐ Bugs ruin gameplay
☐ Fallout 76/ Cyberpunk 2077

My thoughts on each mission:
World Spear:
Great open arenas, mainly near the start of the mission
The Armoured baron is great but the range on main attack is too far for my liking.
Despite my numerous gripes, the platforming is creative. The addition of the meathook anchor is great.
Dragon Cutscene is stupid, isnt explained, comes out of nowhere and doesnt really do anything for the plot.
The Sentinel Hammer should have had a proper tutorial to show the player the many different uses that it has. The average player might just think it gives you a bunch of free stuff, yet it has a much deeper purpose that isnt explained untill the boss fight. It extends the falter state of all enemies

Reclaimed Earth:
Awesome environmental storytelling
Cursed prowler's attack is irritating but it forces the player to move around more in combat, which I like.
Too much platforming for one level. It really detracts from the general atmosphere as soon as you reach a platforming section with mario style fire swings.
Escalation encounter is definitely the worst in the DLC. The Arena is terrible and the enemy choices arent the best.
The chaingunners are a good addition that teaches players to use remote detonation to kill/falter. I feel like they were not used enough.

Immora:
Awesome scenery/visuals, some of the best in all of DE.
Hellguards are annoying MG enemies and cant be glory killed, why??
Tentacles mess with aiming at enemies and combat encounters in general.
Good progression through the level, seeing all the ship battles in the sky really feels like you are part of something larger.
The double marauder + screecher platform is easily the worst combination of enemies I've seen in DE. Try dashing away from not one, but two Buffed Marauders.
The Full auto Shotgun section near the end with stone imps is far too long and doesnt really serve a purpose as players already know the weakness of stone imps by then.
Last arena is great but could have been more open with at least one Powerup or BFG cell.

The Dark Lord:
The health stealing mechanic is horrible and only seems to artifically extend the boss fight.
The entire fight is just a polished and expanded Marauder fight with similar AI.
Makes good use of the hammer and gives the player more than enough ammo.
Apart from the boss himself and fodder on the edge of the area, all other enemies don't help the fight and just distract from what should be a focused Duel. There is NO reason to add standard enemies to make the boss seem more powerful, his mechanics/attacks are good enough by themself.
Awesome visuals and music to accompany the battle, definetely kept me playing long after I grew tired of his mechanics.
The f*cking Terrible ending. There is no happy ending for the slayer, just a cliche stasis chamber cliffhanger. Being tucked into bed by Makyrs is definitely notwhat I deserved after killing a literal god.

Final Rating: 8/10
Overall, I'd say that I am glad to have played this expansion as the new mechanics that it brought are mostly worth it. The only real stain is the entire Boss section. If only they completely changed the mechanics of the final boss. One observation is that when comparing the final encounter with the Icon of Sin, the duel feels much smaller and as a result less chaotic, which is strange as the stakes are MUCH higher. I am not sure if this was because they ran out of time/budget but its a shame.
Also since when does the frickin Dark lord of Hell need a Mech? He could be half naked and still cause as much destruction.
Although his pecs would be very distracting..

Now its time for me to rest my weary fists. After all, Carpal tunnel is a hell of a thing.
Goodnight Slayer, May the blood on your sword never dry, and may we not need you again...for a few years anyway.

As I think its long overdue that I finally finished another ID franchise.
*Grabs a rusty Axe and leaps into the swirling slipgate*

-Kyle

Gameplay
☐ Another world!
☑ Captivating (Movement and combat options are plentiful and satisfying as always.)
☐ Average
☐ Dissapointing/ Underwhelming
☐ A Boring experience

Graphics
☑ Masterpiece
☐ Beautiful
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Minecraft

Music
☐ Your Ears will thank you!
☑ Impressive (Andrew Hulshult and David Levy kick ass! However, I find that many of the combat tracks just seem to devolve into bass and noise, with no coherent and memorable riffs like Mick composed. Dont get me wrong the OST for TAG1 has some bangers, but the super heavy combat themes are just tooheavy for my liking!)
☐ Average
☐ Bad
☐ Better to just put on music..

Targeted Audience
☐ Everyone (except vegans)
☐ Little Sh*ts
☐ Teens
☑ Epic Adult Gamers

PC Required
☐ Potato
☐ Average PC
☐ Entry Level Gaming PC
☑ Mid-High level Gaming PC (You will need at least 50fps to stand a chance at even surviving!)
☐ A PC to run this game well hasnt even been created yet..

Story
☑ Confusing and over the top (I love doom but I always seem to dislike the story. The main plot of the base game was decent but the lore starts to force its way into the player's face around the second the last level (Urdak). In this Expansion, it becomes even more grand and complex and if you dont read any of the codex's you will have no bloody idea what is going on. I personally dont care about any of it. DOOM has always been a game about shooting, not reading paragraphs of pseudo-biblical gibberish. disagree with me if you want, but the lore has become so needlessly deep, especially for the kind of semi-comically violent game that it is..
☐ Minimal
☐ Average
☐ Fantastic
☐ Invests you throughout the game!

Difficulty
☐ Game Journalist friendly
☐ Average
☐ Challenging
☐ Difficult
☑ Prepare for Rage (Ok, this expansion made me break 2 Mice and made me uninstall it 3 times. Sure Im not the best fps player, but i flew through the main game on UV with little to no problem. The issue is that the DLC introduces (Awesome looking) new enemies with very specific purposes and the way they affect the arena. Some of these enemies completely ruin the fluidity of fights and force you to drop everything to focus on them, which is suicidal and extremely frustrating for the player. For example the blood makyr is a great enemy that properly challenges you, but only if it is accompanied by fodders or light demons. When you add Barons, Carcasses , Pain Elementals, ETC to a Blood Makyr Encounter, the entire combat experience feels like its a joke by the devs, and not the funny kind. Same thing with the 2 Marauders at the end of UAC Atlantica. Having 2 spawn at the same time is just stupid as the player will often always trigger the second marauder to spawn his Wolf from splash damage. I feel like so many of these Arenas are not thought out strategically. Its like like "How many spirits can we fit into one arena before it becomes unplayable."
Sure, this might sound salty. But for a seasoned Doom fan who loved the combat in the base game, this is just too much at once. When playing at UV or above, all it takes is one demon to spawn in an arena, and before you know it, the flow of combat is all over the place. (Along with your shredded guts if you dont pay exteme attention!)

Grind
☐ Nothing
☑ Isnt necessary to progress (More cosmetics and other useless crap to make your character sparkly, if you are into that)
☐ A bit grindy
☐ Insanity, Dont waste your time

Game Time
☐ Long enough for a lunch break..
☑ Average (3 Missions that took me around 40 Minutes each on UV)
☐ Long (for a game of its genre)
☐ Practically Endless!

Price
☐ What price? (Free)
☐ Worth the price
☐ Wait for sale
☑ Dont waste your hard earned cash! (Sad for me to say but unless you have completely conquered all aspects of the base game's "fun zone", you are not ready for the difficulty spike. Yes it is a Spike, a sharp pointy one at that.)

Micro-Transactions?
☑ None to be seen! What you see is what you get!
☐ A minimal amount of Cosmetic items can be bought
☐ A degree of pressure is put on the player to buy Items ingame
☐ Good luck enjoying the game without buying stuff..
☐ Its literally EA

Bugs
☐ None
☑ Minor bugs (Frame drops when there is a billion different demons on my screen at once. Gotta love artifical difficulty!)
☐ You experience them semi-reguarly
☐ Bugs ruin gameplay
☐ Fallout 76/ Cyberpunk 2077

Overall Rating: 6/10
This was very difficulty to review, don't get me wrong. The main parts that let the experience down for me is the massive jump in difficulty and the over complicated story. Music and Environments are absolutely fantastic.

I loved the base game and the challenging combat. Every death felt like a lesson to learn from. You could always tell where the damage came from and which demons you should focus on first. But in TAG1, the difficulty just ramps up to insane levels, most of my deaths were from behind me or across the arena (The deaths that I could understand at least). The new enemies are great with excellent timed attacks, HOWEVER when grouped with demons with other abilities, it can create horrible arenas to play in. A possessed Doom Hunter/ Pain elemental and Baron are just cruel. The final stage (and subsequent boss battle) is honestly impossible on Nightmare unless you are a speed-runner. It isn't enjoyable and the combat flow changes the second that Buff totems and spirits appear. Perhaps I cant adapt fast enough, but I would be confident in saying that the spike in difficulty feels unfair on many occasions. There is no way I am playing on anything below UV out of pride so whatever experience I get on UV is what I will judge.
Apart from the crazy combat, the environments are some of the best in ANY doom game. The 3 stages truly stand out visually. Not to mention that it is breathtaking to load into the next stage and be blown away by the contrast in level design, ambient music and even traversal. They did a wonderful job in the art side of things, no doubt about that.
As for the Ending/cliffhanger. I didn't understand much of it (I tend not to read the essays scattered around each level) but I will say that the feeling of finally coming face to face with [REDACTED] is a great moment, despite it all happening in a cutscene. It does set up the next DLC very well so i gotta give them props for that. Despite my many gripes and salt-flavoured observations, I am still very much excited to begin the next TAG. (Along with an accompanying review.)

Hopefully they tone the arenas down a bit as I am currently running out of adderall.
-Kyle

Gameplay
☑ Another world!
☐ Captivating
☐ Average
☐ Dissapointing/ Underwhelming
☐ A Boring experience

Graphics
☑ Masterpiece
☐ Beautiful
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Minecraft

Music
☑ Your Ears will thank you! Mick Gordon AND Andrew Hulshult!!!
☐ Impressive
☐ Average
☐ Bad
☐ Better to just put on music..

Targeted Audience
☐ Everyone (except vegans)
☐ Little Sh*ts
☐ Teens
☑ Epic Adult Gamers

PC Required
☐ Potato
☐ Average PC
☐ Entry Level Gaming PC
☑ Mid-High level Gaming PC
☐ A PC to run this game well hasnt even been created yet..

Story
☑ Doesnt have it/need it (I personally hated the story. Doom isnt about space operas and deep lore. Just give me some juicy arenas!)
☐ Minimal
☑ Some weird writing choices
☐ Average
☐ Fantastic
☐ Invests you throughout the game!

Difficulty
☐ Game Journalist friendly
☐ Average
☐ Challenging
☑ Difficult (I played Ultra Violence/UV on my first playthrough. Loved it but I recommend Nightmare for people that are more skilled/confident at FPS games, less room for mistakes and greater satisfaction when you beat an arena!)
☐ Prepare for Rage

Grind
☐ Nothing
☐ Isnt necessary to progress
☑ A bit grindy (Seasonal Events, Skins, Backgrounds, Demon animations and all sorts of BS cosmetics for multiplayer. ALL are optional thank goodness)
☐ Insanity, Dont waste your time

Game Time
☐ Long enough for a lunch break..
☐ Average
☐ Long (for a game of its genre)
☑ Practically Endless! (Base Campaign plus the 2 DLCs give you at least 60 Hours in my opinion, assuming you are savouring the combat and finding secrets.)

Price
☐ What price? (Free)
☑ Worth the price (Once they added horde mode, It definetely earned the price that it charges!)
☐ Wait for sale
☐ Dont waste your hard earned cash!

Micro-Transactions?
☐ None to be seen! Thank you Bethesda!
☑ A minimal amount of Cosmetic items can be bought (optional skins for weapons, Slayer and demons. Mainly targeted towards Battlemode players.)
☐ A degree of pressure is put on the player to buy Items ingame
☐ Good luck enjoying the game without buying stuff..
☐ Its literally EA

Bugs
☐ None
☑ Minor bugs (Veeery Minor, mostly visual)
☐ You experience them semi-reguarly
☐ Bugs ruin gameplay
☐ Fallout 76/ Cyberpunk 2077

Overall Rating: 10/10
If you thought Doom 2016 was an intense experience, you have no idea what awaits you in this game. It cranks up the Violence, Music, Demons, Arenas, Mechanics, Missions, Nostalgia, Customisation and Characters from DOOM 2016, seriously this game will make you feel mentally tired after a few missions. It asks a lot from the player but holy hell (literally) is it an amazing feeling to jump across the arena and Meat-hook/Grapple into a Tyrant's Face before blasting chunks off of him with your super shotgun!

There are so many ways to kill Demons in this game its incredible. Dont be fooled by the Run and gun nature that this game might give off in the first few levels. the Combat is actually EXTREMELY Deep and requires knowledge, Practise and confidence in all the weapons in your arsenal. Different enemies have different weaknesses to certain guns and finding out those weaknesses through playing is so much fun. It is really a thinking man's shooter at times.

Cant recommend it enough. Though I would strongly advise that you avoid Battlemode as its just too toxic and unbalanced to enjoy. (At least in my experience) The real guts of the game lies within the Single player Campaigns. And once you have mastered those (30-60 hours later...), Horde mode is for you!
It goes without saying, that there is loads of content on offer here. That is, if you can survive the onslaught of mortally challenged!

"You cant just shoot a hole into the surface of mars.." - Samuel Hayden

-Kyle

Gameplay
☐ Another world!
☑ Captivating
☐ Average
☐ Dissapointing/ Underwhelming
☐ A Boring experience

Graphics
☐ Masterpiece
☑ Beautiful
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Minecraft

Music
☐ Your Ears will thank you!
☑ Impressive (Dark ambience)
☐ Average
☐ Bad
☐ Better to just put on music..

Targeted Audience
☑ Everyone (except vegans)
☐ Little Sh*ts
☐ Teens
☐ Epic Adult Gamers

PC Required
☐ Potato
☑ Average PC
☐ Entry Level Gaming PC
☐ Mid-High level Gaming PC
☐ A PC to run this game well hasnt even been created yet..

Story
☐ Doesnt have it or need it
☐ Minimal
☐ Some weird writing choices
☐ Average
☑ Fantastic
☐ Invests you throughout the game!

Difficulty
☐ Game Journalist friendly
☑ Average
☐ Challenging
☐ Difficult
☐ Prepare for Rage

Game Time
☐ Long enough for a lunch break..
☑ Average (Took me around 3 hours to beat all 6 chapters)
☐ Long (for a game of its genre)
☐ Practically Endless!

Price
☐ What price? (Free)
☑ Worth the price
☐ Wait for sale
☐ Dont waste your hard earned cash!

Micro-Transactions?
☑ None to be seen! :D
☐ A small ammount of Cosmetic items can be bought
☐ A degree of pressure is put on the player to buy Items ingame
☐ Good luck enjoying the game without buying stuff..
☐ Its literally EA

Bugs
☑ None (VERY polished game)
☐ Minor bugs
☐ You experience them semi-reguarly
☐ Bugs ruin gameplay
☐ Fallout 76/ Cyberpunk 2077

Overall Rating: 8/10
A fantastic sequel to the Room. It improves on every feature from the first game and has much more content as well. (Twice as long in my opinion). In terms of difficulty i will say that you will rarely get stuck as you have hints that pop up over time, still, you shouldnt need them to finish this game as a lot of the puzzles are very linear and rarely make you travel far (Which i like). I will say though, that a lot of the puzzles are similar to the first game which I found to be a bit lazy. Regardless this is one of the most polished puzzle games I've played for a long time. a definite improvement to the original. I hope that the third game improves even more! (Will review that next)... Give me a real challenge!
-K