Amid Evil (2019)

The movement is fast and floaty. The floaty can sometimes be an issue with platforming, (there's a lot in this game) but the game is forgiving and rarely has instant death pits and you don't take fall damage. The arsenal is one of my favorites in any video game. They are all magic melee weapons that fill in classic FPS roles. You have the rod that's the pistol, the Whisper's edge that fires a beam that slices across the screen. There's the lightning rod that is effectively the nail gun from Quake. There's the Celestial Claw that launches fucking planets (sometimes even Earth) and stars that acts as the rocket launcher. There's the star of torment that acts like a psuedo shotgun (though the AOE is weak). Then you have either the ribbon gun that tethers to targets and kills them (or creates a black hole) or a scythe that acts as a super Whisper's Edge. The game typically paces out ammo and forces you to use all ammo types. This keeps combat engaging and makes you use each weapon more often. All attacks can be dodged. The game is simple to play but hard to master. This checks all the boxes for a classic 90s shooter.

As much as I enjoyed Heretic and Hexen, there's no denying the flaws in level design. "Puzzles" were effectively a series of convoluted hidden switches you had to hit in a specific order to progress. A guide was nearly required just to beat the game. Yet I still found myself digging the weapons and atmosphere. It had a pulp fiction charm to it. And if I happened to beat a level without looking up a guide, it felt like more of an achievement. What Amid Evil does in contrast, is create challenging yet intuitive level design. There were a few occasions where I got lost or didn't have a clear indication of where to go next, but I was always able to EVENTUALLY figure out where to go. In addition, Heretic/Hexen also suffered from hardware limitations. They had imaginative levels, but the variety felt limited by the tools. Here in the unreal engine, the devs craft a gorgeous art style where you have to focus to realize it's actually low res pixels.

It's varied, surreal and vivid. Another thing this game does exceptionally well is water physics. Sure it isn't realistic, but it isn't annoying to play. A critique around water, excluding the few fish enemies, most enemies don't have a swimming animation. In the DLC this is more apparent. They effectively run along the floor of bodies of water and kind of ignore the water physics. Not game breaking, but def feels janky.

Each weapon feels useful and powerful. In the main game, I found the Star of Torment to be better than the Whisper's Edge (both use same ammo), but the DLC the Edge felt more effective. A part of this is due to the enemy variety. Each episode has similar archetypes of enemies, but redesigns each variant. You will have a fodder enemy, a ranged enemy, a flying enemy, a tanky enemy and a mini boss. The constant subtle changes in each episode forces you to adapt constantly to the environment. Keeping the game play engaging. I personally felt the DLC enemies were the most challenging. The phalanx shields in particular felt mean. I ended up always saving the ultimate weapon (the scythe in the DLC which is awesome) to one shot them. Otherwise they are a royal pain in the ass to bring down and soak up a ton of resources.

Bosses are all varied, I heard some people talk about the Solar Saint feeling a bit janky. I have some tips for them below:

Solar Saint has an attack where he jumps high up. At first this seems like a completely random attack, but if you look up to the sky, where he jumps to, you can watch his movements and he telegraphs where he will land (directly below where he shifts to in the air). As long as you look up and move away from under him, you can pretty reliably dodge that attack.

I had a blast with this game. I think the DLC is a bit disappointing. I enjoyed it, but I played the game recently and the DLC was already out. Fans had to wait 3 years for the DLC, and given how long the base game was in development, it does feel a bit short in content. The levels are the most complex and sprawling. The enemy variety as mentioned earlier, is the most challenging to deal with. The new ultimate weapon is way more fucking awesome to use (the scythe). I don't regret giving this dev more money.

Even the most simple melee enemy has a spammable projectile attack AND what's worse is, the screen goes COMPLETELY red when you take damage from a projectile attack, or from a heavy melee attack for that matter. I lose where I am very quickly because of this and I cannot react properly to my attackers.

Besides that, I don't really like the level design. The areas are too large with nothing in them. The weapons feel too clunky and the animations take too long. This game looked promising to me as a DOOM fan but I just can't recommend it if you're looking for satisfying, responsive, fast-paced action.

I quit the game in the second level when I died before I could even react because my screen was completely red and I couldn't even see where the enemies were.

Despite borrowing it's fantasy theme from Heretic, the level design reminds me much more of later old school shooters like Duke. There's a lot of verticle exploring with some much appreciated big open courtyards or temple grounds to contrast the catacombs and dungeon halls. It doesn't have that slogging feeling that Heretic had, where sometimes the game would just throw so many enemies out at you that you felt you were attacking a giant wall of health. Enemy and power up placement is well balanced and never felt slogging or annoying.

It's art style manages to be extremely colorful while still being gloomy and gothic which I think is cool. While the environments are great the enemy design are all looking like walking suits of armor that have random splotches of color everywhere.

I can't say it's more than average because, while it only falls short on the enemy design, there's nothing excellent or new in what in everything else.