Doomverse #30 - Quakecon 2026 - The 30th Anniversary and Return of the Creators!

Well, for the first time, I have attended Quakecon and it was a special one that has not seen the light of day for decades! John Carmack, John Romero, Tom Hall and Adrian Carmack all made appearances together and in separate conferences, but they had a long time to talk. I personally met John Carmack and Tom Hall, and was able to talk to them, especially Hall. The energy was so positive and the showcase on stage was astounding as we saw interviews and speed runs! I even saw That Trav Guy. There was a bit of a disappointing assembly of booths, though. There was some nice art on display and I got a few little trinkets to remember it by, but I was really hoping for more used games or DVD/Blurays or something along those lines. Still, though, the Doom aspect and the meeting of high class celebrities of the gaming world was what made this whole excursion more than worth it. 

The Doom lore on display with the retro looking room was so beautiful, it may as well have been a museum exhibit. We saw original drawings, history, original aspects of making doom through both art and lore. Inside the exhibit was a retro room of 90's quality with wooden paneling included. There was an SNES and even Jaguar playing Doom on the screens. The security guard allowed me a photo op, so long as I didn't hurt the controller and put it back where I found it and he was very nice about it. I was just happy to see the items from Nintendo Power to PC Gamer Magazines. 

Very shortly after this, I met John Carmack alone with a lady accompanying him. I greeted him and my brother was startled to see that it was, in fact, Mr. Carmack. I told him that we played the shareware version, but we had 6 Megs of Ram and needed 2 more to put into the computer before we could run the game. He laughed and said "There must have been some poor framerate." I nodded and admitted that it was pretty bad, but I still "killed the Bruiser Brothers either way." We got a picture with him and we loved meeting him. He was very down to Earth and loved to talk to us. We didn't geek out too hard and we didn't take up too much of his time. I was honored to meet such a genius in the gaming world. 

Soon after that, we hit the LAN party in the next room. There was a lot of nostalgic stuff going on, even one big screen on the wall that had Super Mario Brother Super Show playing. Then there was the trailer for the new Quake expansion! As we were walking through, I found an Eager Beaver Chainsaw, which was the model for Doom! Very soon after that, I met Tom Hall in the... hallway. Once again, my brother was taken aback by the appearance of yet another legend in the industry and original Id Software. I asked him a few questions and he answered them all, and then told me he wanted to go into the arena tournament to see the chainsaw but didn't know where it was and didn't want to look for it in the dark. I happily told him that I had seen it and would lead him to it. He saw it and signed it immediately. Later that day, the rest of the crew in attendance would sign it, Romero and the Carmacks. Tom Hall was a delight to talk to and so nice as to sign my two Doomguy pop vinyls, as one of Doomguy's creators. 

One of the biggest highlights of the convention was John Romero playing Doom The Dark Ages classic level. He played the Underhalls from Doom 2 and he began talking about his thoughts on Doom itself, along with some of the stuff he's doing right now. He loved talking about Sigil, telling us how he wanted it to be so hard that it pushes the player to new heights. John felt like if he didn't make it as difficult as it can be, he didn't do his job right. Then Romero talked about the Brand New First Person Shooter That He Is Currently Developing!!!!!!! Well, he didn't go into much detail, but it is definitely happening and we are HERE FOR IT!!!!!!! With the industry the way it is (the way they talked about it sugarcoated everything and did not even talk about the current Id Software layoffs) it is so refreshing to know that our old friends are still stepping up to bat for us.

According to Romero, it is a game that has been in development for sometime and was cancelled. However, he was able to pull elements from that game and save millions of dollars of resources in order to repurpose it for a new game. He is not sharing a whole lot of details about it, but he does say that it is a "Brand new experience like Elden Ring was a new experience." He says that it is a lot of fun to develop with his indie team and he has played through what they have developed so far with great confidence in its performance as a shooter. We really hope to hear more about it very soon. 

We watched playthroughs of Quake, Doom, current and classic, and everyone had a lot of fun when the lead singer of Nine Inch Nails showed up on the video screen. The masterful soundtrack of Quake and Ranger's voice actor, Trent Reznor is a legend in the music industry and the gaming industry. He is an outspoken fan of Id's work and he made this Quakecon feel like a real experience. Just being there among Doomsters and Quake Maniacs was fun all its own. We played Quake on the LAN computers, but we also played a title I wasn't expecting to. I've riffed on Quake Champions more than once in the past, mostly because it just wasn't especially intuitive to play and possessed shameless microtransactions. Well, playing it against two worthy opponents was a bit of an eye-opening experience and now there will be a very detailed review of it in the near future. 

It was an honor to have such experiences. We didn't get to meet John Romero or Adrian Carmack, but that can be done in the future, if it ever happens. My brother and I were just happy to reunite in an environment we loved and bonding through killing each other in some Death Matching! It was a great experience and we hope to hear about next year's QuakeCon. Time will tell if we go to 31, but being a part of 30 was just what the demon doctor ordered. Let's hope the whole of Id Software will lend a hand in helping the gaming community. Doomsters are of the most loyal fanbases and we're never going to give it up. Make sure to kill all of the demons you can and give them all nine inches of the nails!! Virtua Nails! 

Doomverse #29 - Doom Mods for Doom Fans

Doom mods have existed since very shortly after Doom was released. The first Doom mods were simple, but very quickly evolved into total modifications that remade the graphics and even changed the soundtrack and sound effects. There are many Doom mods that gained notoriety, but not all of them were because they were great mods. Sometimes, these mods took it to an uncomfortable direction, but that's not what we're here to talk about. We're going to be looking at some Doom mods that people should definitely try, if for nothing else than to experience them, even if the novelty runs a little dry after a little while. 

The fun part about these mods is, if you get the file on your computer and use it to play your own custom Doom maps, you can play mods with different skins and sound effects while even being able to create maps to play it with. This is not the Brutal Doom mods, we've already discussed those in a previous Doomverse. This is a more diversified list with a nostalgic bite. 

Batman Doom

This one was not especially well implimented, but it is still a fun little excursion to just say that you did it. The cityscape is stylized, it's cool to be able to take down criminals with batarangs and it's just an interesting Doom experience. After about thirty minutes, though, it just turns into a bit of a monotonous play. Sometimes, you get lost just by missing one single tiny detail that many would find challenging to notice. It's not a bad mod, but it just needed a little more coherence.

Simpsons Doom

Well, if you wanted to play as Homer taking down Moe and Ned Flanders along with collecting donuts, your ship has come in. This is one of the oldest popular Doom mods that hit a lot of computers along with the game itself.It's just fun to see which characters you see. The bee guy, Officer Quimby and several more familiar faces show up and it's a nice trip down memory lane of when the Simpsons wasn't a never-ending series that outstayed its welcome a decade earlier. There's really not much else to talk about with this. The sound clips from the Simpsons show do get a little old as they are on perpetual repeat as you play, and sometimes the colors they used for their mod become slightly offputting. Beyond that, it's just a different flavor to add if you're in the mood to play Doom.

Super Mario Doom

One of the best things about this mod is that they slipped Mario skins onto whatever they could, whether it be a leaf as armor or a very familiar type of door we've seen from many NES titles. The Mario characters are all on display, even showing Luigi where there should be a dead Space Marine, and Shy Guys are the new Imps. With the sound effects and bloodied face of Mario when he is close to death, this is just another flavored mod to add to Knee Deep in the Dead, or your own Doom maps. 

Blood Doom

This is a polarizing mod, as Blood has always been a favorite 90's FPS around these parts. The problem stems from some of the mechanics. The real problem was that there wasn't a whole lot of difference between the two games, not enough to really differentiate the two in a similar experience that meshed together. Doom mixed with Quake because the two series are different enough to have a fun crossover, but it's hard to make the same claim for Blood. Another problem was, the zombies didn't rise again like they used to. It looks like Doom didn't have a mechanic where dead characters could have a second wind. Other than that, it was fun to see Doom mix with Blood and mix their weapon sets together. You can use the chainsaw along with the dynamite from Blood, and it can be satisfying to chainsaw a cultist into the ground. 

Toon Doom

Just a random assortment of toons. That's basically what you get here. It's Doom if you want Beavis and Butthead as the two zombie soldier types and Mario as the Imp throwing fireballs at you. The problem here is that they didn't really go full hog with it. The cacodemons are just cacodemons, and this spills over to the cyberdemon as well. The cool thing about the Tower of Babel level was that, once you come out toward the level's boss, the first thing you see is Stewie Griffin running at you as a lost soul. The problem is, though, it's simply a cyberdemon you're facing. This is a fun little mod, but not an especially enriching experience with loads of content. It's more just a passing fancy with some nostalgic characters.

Doom 4 Vanilla (Doom 2)

One of the more surprising mods I came across. While it doesn't quite play into the theme of popular characters being put into Doom from another property, it is one of the better mods on the market. It not only puts in some of the better skins for monsters, blending classic Doom with the reboot, but it also brings in a good looking, and feeling weapon set. It's blended with Doom 2 and you can see the passion put into the project. It shows a lot of skill and changes the dynamics of Doom enough that it actually feels like a different game, but the same game as well.

If you're looking for a different experience with one single game, Doom has lasted this long because they made it with these modifications. They left it open and let people play it however they wanted to. It may have cost them some money initially but it proved to be what made it timeless and one of the big reasons people still play it today. We'll delve into more mods, and possibly get into the more contraversial ones along the way. We'll see how the blood flows. Virtua Rainbow Blood!

Doomverse #28 - Weaponized Mayhem

Doom is known for many things. Many things have already been said about Doom and Quake, especially on Planet Virtua. What really matters for a lot of people are the weapons. The guns, the chainsaw, the Rune Sword, all of these are the focus for a great deal of the fans. Many of them have been used in multiple games and represented in other games. These titles have affected the gaming world as we know it. The Doomverse weapons roster hasn't just stood the test of time, but modern games are still trying to perfect it. Sure, you can say Halo did it better, but everyone's wrong at some point in their lives.

This is a list of the greatest weapons in the Doomverse, beit Quake 3 Arena or Doom Eternal. Some weapons have an improved version in later editions, some of them are featured once and then basically never again. These are the weapons that thrived under the pressure of being compared to another in the Doom Arsenal. Whether they create more destruction or just iconized Doom as a whole, these rose to the top. 

The Dark Age's Bonecrusher

The newest Doom game, at the time of this writing, had no shortage of cool weapons, but this is one that truly stood out. It certainly wasn't the "BFC". The Bonecrusher in both of its other iterations used this idea to a great degree. The thought of a skull being used to drive shrapnel into your enemies is just such a brutal idea and its upgrades made it quite the demon grinder. The Ravager was probably the best iteration out of any of them and I can only hope that it will be in future titles. Part of me doubts it, but one can hope.

Doom 4's Heavy Assault Rifle

The repeating rifle was not a weapon in the original Doom games, mostly because it didn't need one with the chaingun. Doom 2016 brought this about in probably the most boss way possible. It not only starts like a true Doom weapon, but throughout the game, the upgrades build it up to a legendary status that deserves to be on this list. You can upgrade the bullets to explode after impact, and it even eats through cyber mancubi like hot water through ice. 

 Doom 4's Chaingun

Fully upgraded and able to immediately begin spinning, this chaingun will take down any horde of demons and destroy a boss demon's hit bar. This chaingun gets an upgrade where it sprouts three different turrets which all fire at once. It overheats faster, but it also does more damage than it would in normal fire rates. This is enough damage to take down a fresh Cyber Mancubus. The gun itself is a one-machine barrage.

Quake 3 Arena's Lightning Gun

More deadly than the first Quake's lightning gun, this one reaches far and drains the opponent's HP within seconds. One big problem is that it does run out of ammunition fairly quickly. If you're fortunate enough to get a fully loaded lightning, it can mow down any group of fighters. It doesn't chain lightning enemies, that would be a little overpowered, but it doesn't take away from how the gun turned out. 

Quake 3 Arena's Plasma Gun

The gun that inspired Dark Age's plasma gun. Though it can be argued that it's not quite as powerful as the Doom 1 iteration, it is still such a satisfying gun to use when you start to unleash upon a single or multiple targets. It also has the drawback of not being able to fire up close without massive backfire. It is known as "melting your face". So, pick your poison between the two. They're both A Class Doomverse weapons.

Quake 3 Arena's Railgun

If you want one of the better aspects of Quake 3 Arena, you do a railgun fight. These guns are so easy to use, you just pick one up and put someone in your sights. If you want to be real stylish, you shoot someone with no zoom. That one small second to line up your sights can be the second where you get killed, so you need to be fast and this is the way to one-shot an opponent. It will even kill someone with a near miss and does tons of damage when grazing a target. Quake 3 and Quake 4 did it right.

Quake's Nailgun

If you want a more iconic weapon, it's hard to beat Quake's original nailgun. This is where they proudly declared "Nine Inch Nails did our soundtrack" through the NIN symbols on the ammo boxes. The nailgun and super nailgun will get you through many levels of Quake with glorious nail fire. The problem really is that their nail doesn't last, especially with the super nailgun's fire rate. 

Doom Eternal's Crucible

One of the biggest hype pieces from Doom 2016. This sword was introduced at the very end, and we finally get our own in Doom Eternal. It is an instant-kill weapon with very limited ammo, unless you're fighting the Icon of Sin. This sword will immediately slice huge demons in half, even the mini-bosses. Given this powerful weapon near the end of Doom Eternal was a gigantic help when the going got tough. It was as dependable as the BFG when you needed a quick death between a rock and a hard place.

Doom Eternal's Unmaykr

Introduced in Doom 64 and perfected in Eternal, The Unmaker, or "Unmakyr" in this case, is a weapon on par with the Big Fucking Gun. One good pull will destroy the largest demons within a few seconds. It sends multiple laser blasts all at once, which make any demon crumble under its weight, even the bosses. The feeling of unleashing this enormous barrage all at once is very satisfying. You don't need to upgrade it like you did in 64, it's ridiculously powerful as soon as you unlock it by doing all of the callenge stages. It takes a while to accomplish, but it is a labor of love for a fantastic weapon in your arsenal. 

Doom 4's Chainsaw

What sets this apart from the other chainsaws, is that it is an instant kill weapon that is not wholly required to be used. Yes, it is still made to revamp your ammunition by spawning it from your victim, but it is not a need like it is in Doom Eternal. The death animations you get from this have to be among the greatest glory kills in the entire game. The blood and severed body parts are worth its use alone, you never need to make it required.

Doom 4's Gauss Cannon

A standout weapon for many, many reasons. It's Doom 2016's answer to the railgun. Somehow, though, they turned it into one of the most powerful weapons outside of the normal fair. Two words: "Siege Mode". This mode will turn this fairly decent blaster cannon into a decimating powerhouse of burning terror! One single shot from Siege Mode has the power to take down Barons of Hell and turn them into piles. It is one of the weapons that reminds you how awesome the power fantasy can get. Turn mancubi and cyber mancubi into piles of organs at your leisure and have a ball. It is even better when you're able to move in this mode.

Rocket Launcher

Doom 1 did this right from the start and they rolled with it in each and every iteration. Rocket jumps, blast back, rocket battles against Cyberdemons, everything about this gun has some sort of iconic affect on its game. Quake cashed in on the rocket jump first and it has since become a staple of First Person Shooters as a result. It may be a bad idea to use it on Lost Souls or Pinkies, for obvious reasons but it's just so wonderful to fire one missile into a group to see body parts begin to fly. Rip and Tear, indeed.

The BFG 9000

They tried to make a BFG 10,000 more than once. One was a strange iteration from Quake 3 Arena, the other was a planet destroying beam in Doom Eternal that blows a hole into Mars. They were nice but nothing will replace the Big Fucking Gun 9000. One pull of the trigger kills entire hordes and does incomparable damage to mini-bosses if it doesn't finish them outright. Doom films have never gotten this weapon right, but it is thankfully handled very well in every other sequel. We're not going to go into the crossbow from The Dark Ages, there's only one super powered laser cannon that we want. We want the one they used to name an alcoholic drink mix. You know, the one that three clips a Cyberdemon. We want that one!

The Super Shotgun

At first glance, in Doom 2, this may just look like a normal double barrel shotgun. Well, not only does it take 2 shells in each shot, but it also has the capacity to kill multiple demons in one pull. There's no blowback, though, and hearing that meaty sound as you fire and reload is hard to top. Doom 4 brought it back in all its wondrous glory and outshined even the Quake iterations as a result. With uranium shells and the ability to double shot, Doom 2016 brought the super shotgun to a newfound glory through some of the most awesome upgrades imaginable. Eternal's super shotgun had a hook for chain jumping and that may have been an interesting novelty, but it ultimately did very little for the super shotty all around. One upclose shot from this gun should be sending demon parts scattering across the screen. If not, you're doing it wrong.

There are a lot more weapons to be considered, but these are a good start. Next time, we'll take a look at the weapons of Wolfenstein, as those are a list all their own. Doom has no shortage of metal that grinds demons into dust, and Quake drives some pretty hard nails into the coffin. They are often duplicated by others, but they will always be judged by the best.

Doomverse #26 - Music En Memorium

Sadly, on June 16th, 2026, we said goodbye to one of the front runners of Doom history. The man they came to for rocking tunes for their games has passed on. Bobby Prince was to thank for an entire laundrey list of original game soundtracks, especially in the 80's and 90's. They came to him when they were at a loss of what to do with both music and sound effects. Bobby showed them techniques that they continuously used from then on. He allowed them to use his equipment and experiment with his computer programs to distort their voices and make beautiful sound effects that we still remember and love today. 

Thanks to Bobby, we have the rocking metal knockoffs of Doom. Was he supposed to basically copy their melodies almost 1 for 1? No, honestly, they could have gotten into legal trouble. Still, it seems they were cool with it because Doom is awesome. Bobby represented game soundtracks through both ID and Apogee, as he also worked closely on the Rise of the Triad and Duke Nukem II & 3D. His fingerprints can be heard throughout the gaming world as people still play all of these games to this day. These games are timeless, and Bobby Prince helped make that happen. 

Commander Keen was one of his earliest works in the industry and he stuck with it throughout the series. This led to his companionship with ID Software through Apogee's founder, Scott Miller. While it may seem like he has a bit of a light library of work, what work he did made an impression on PC gaming as a whole. If anyone deserves a mantle spot in the creation of Doom and Doom II, Bobby Prince deserves a spot of real respect right beside John Romero, John Carmack, Sandy Petersen and Adrian Carmack. 

To Bobby's family and friends, our hearts go out to you. We will remember Bobby for all of his great achievements, but he is also a life lost to the real world. May he rest in power and bring more music to the heavens. Goodbye, Friend.

Rise of the Triad - Doom DNA Added

 

When Doom was being created, unfortunately, it spelled the end of their peak team dynamic. While John Romero and Carmack were coming up with brand new ideas and killing demons in new and exciting ways, Tom Hall was picking up some pieces of what he wanted to be the next Commander Keen game. The problem was that the rest of the team were a little burnt out on Keen, wanting to move on and explore new depths with the engine they perfected since Wolfenstein 3D's launch. Tom Hall was demanded to resign and he did so with a heavy heart, but he found work at Apogee. 

With a new team and a new goal, they made a game that... defies many counts of gaming logic. They went full force into weird mode with it and somehow Rise of the Triad became a bit of an oddity in the gaming space of the 90's. Believe it or not, I played the shareware version. My brother found the disk at a local software store and the clerk looked the other way because he would get in trouble for giving it to a minor. We were serious gamers and they knew our dad. 

To say we were perplexed is putting it mildly. This game had so many mechanics you would never think would be in a game in the first place. As a child, obviously I had no idea one of the creators of Doom made this. Nor did I have any idea that this was supposed to be Wolfenstein's official sequel. Why they didn't have the rights to do so is confusing, seems how they published the first game. 

The layout was completely different in so many ways. All of the enemies were just guys wearing hats shooting guns, for the most part. You actually platform in this game with trampolines. The weapons range from dual pistols that don't run out of ammo, to a missile launcher that makes fire tunnel through the air in multiple directions. Apparently, this was made due to a mistake that was made in the coding, and they decided to keep it as its own weapon. God bless them for it. 

There's food called priest's porridge and you can shoot a missile near it, heating it up to give you more health. God mode gives you the power to just fire energy from your hand while making weird slow motion deep voice sounds like you're otherworldly. It's just a strange little game with mechanics that you would never think would be in a game. When you shoot enemies, they can hold up their hands and beg for their lives. If you don't kill them, they will go for their gun and try to kill you. There's even men who are lying on the ground, acting dead like you've been through there before. They will wait until you get close and pop up to shoot you. 

This game is challenging for a number of reasons. One of the main ones is the idea of complicated platforming in an early FPS shooter. Using the trampolines to go across moving platforms and robot drones flying around your head shooting you, it gets rather stressful. This is abundantly used in ROTT Extreme and is one of the reasons it's so infamous. The levels in either versions of the game are already vast and hard to navigate. 

Okay, so when I say the game isn't like Doom, that's not entirely true. On the surface, it looks like a very different game, but looking close at the wall and floor textures, you'll see some of Doom's influence. Yes, the fact that it's an FPS is inherently Wolfenstein and Doom, but then there are the blood puddles and the red skies in levels. The more you get into it, the more it has a Doom aura while being its own very unique game. The human and robot enemies have more of a realistic quality, but the science fiction theme keeps it grounded in a more fantastic universe. This is especially true when you start in on the magic. 

Yes, magic is in the game. You get a magic wand which you'll need to fight the mages. Yes, there are mages and even a magic user boss battle at the end. This is clearly Tom Hall's influence, among other things. It really just goes to show that Doom could have been plenty entertaining if they followed Hall's design. While his themes didn't click with Doom, they certainly brought about something that still lives to this day. This game gained a cult following, and even spawned some sequels and a remake. This game can get very unforgiving, but it's nothing compared to the Extreme Version. Will I review ROTT Extreme? No, honestly, I think I can beat maybe 5 levels and that's from using level cheats to get through a few very infuriating obstacles. It's a fun experiment but only to dabble with. If you consider yourself hard enough, go forth and get Extreme. Virtua Extreme! 

Resident Evil 3 Remake - Death by Exasperation

We should be used to disappointment by now. Thankfully, I had never played the original Resident Evil 3, so I didn't have such expectations. I had played Resident Evil 2 remake, though, and I had those types of expectations. Either way, both parties were extremely let down. This game was missing something, a lot of something, and it was style. This game just was not that engaging. We barely even got a look at our character before her wall imploded with the attack from a giant zombie! Seriously, everything is just so condensed and noticeably shallow throughout this entire game. 

It has a lot of what made the RE2 remake work. It has a good UI that's fairly easy to figure out just from intuition, which is important. The real problem is that it didn't know how to pad out its runtime with anything extremely interesting. We start off with a dream sequence where Jill Valentine has the T-Virus and kills herself. Yes, quite shocking. Then we have the exact same thing happen, sans the T-Virus. Instead, we answer the phone and find out that the T-Virus is taking over the city. Before we can do anything, Nemesis knocks through the wall and becomes more of an annoyance than an imposing figure bringing fear to the player. 

He just becomes more and more annoying with the use of his tentacles and the use of his super-charged virus that makes the zombies harder with bug legs opening from their faces. Instead of becoming more interesting, the game just becomes more and more tedious. It was already annoying enough with the zombies coming out of nowhere to bite you while you're concentrating on another one coming in at you. This can be effective, but there needs to be more than that. It's really just a game of backtracking over a small area to do little tasks and get fetch quest items so that you can escape on a subway train. 

There were some seriously nasty parts, like when Jill gets some tendril shoved down her throat and she injests some disgusting bug parasites. This was horrifically nasty and we think it's going to affect her in some serious way, but no. You walk around, unable to run, until you turn on some machine and then she suddenly vomits it all up and carries on. Seriously, this was not cool. Seeing your character treated like this while having to fight off giant spiders, all for it to add literally nothing but a slight difficulty, it's a little insulting. 

All of this, paired with the annoyance of Nesmsis coming out of nowhere to pull you in with tentacles and hit you really hard, this game was a slog to get through. You go from the streets, to the subway, to the laboratories and it's all just so by-the-books at this point. It tries to add more interest with the zombie mutations but it's just more of the same. There really isn't much more to say. The main boss battles are lackluster with the last battle of Nemesis just being a constant process of wearing him down in different forms. It's not without its merits of an interesting battleground and cool rocket fire wearing him down, but it's not worth the journey. 

A lot of people noticed that this game was stripped down of a lot of gameplay from the original. I'll be playing and reviewing the original Nemesis, and I'm really hoping it's a better experience than this. The survival elements are all there. They keep you low on ammo and health items. It does keep you starving enough to choose your battles wisely and try and sneak past Nemesis as much as you can. Does this add much, though? No, it really doesn't. It just makes the game more frustrating while also being outright boring. 

Boring, that's the real word for this game. Jill is a nostalgic character, but that's not nearly enough to carry the game throughout its entire run. There just isn't enough to keep it exciting. You're still just running around performing tasks while some people yell at you to get a train moving. Then you're in another laboratory with a bunch of new zombies and it does very little to keep interest. This game is just not worth the time and effort. Resident Evil 2's remake is far better and full of more interesting content, including the puzzles. This game is lacking a great deal in puzzles. The closest thing it has is a confusing part where you need to get the tracks working to get to the subway's destination. Maybe if they made Nemesis more like Mr. X, it could have been more natural, rather than him just popping up out of nowhere in random stints of the game. It is kind of funny when he punches random zombies out of his way, though. He's still a cool character, but this game just couldn't do him justice. Just try and keep away from him without wasting too much ammo. Also remember to drink your water.

Mouse P.I. for Hire - Death on Vinyl

Every so often, not often enough, there comes a game that not only lives up to the hype, but has some very pleasant surprises as well! Mouse P.I. was announced a little over a year ago, when Steamboat Willy became public domain. It caught many eyes with its 1930's animation and film noir style in the wonderful First Person Shooter style. It was hard to imagine how they would pull off a Betty Boop style animation in a 3D world, but it actually works. It's so true to 30's cartoon style that I felt like stockpiling my booze to foil Eliot Ness and his Untouchables! And prohibition was more in the 1920's! This game's got style!

What took me next was the controls. The walking, the jumping, the basic movements are very smooth. Moving through the strange art style in 3D did show that the NPC's were 2D in a 3D enviornment, very much like Doom. You can see their edges as you move. It looks so stylistic and strange but I absolutely love it. The gangland violence is also very cartoony. Instead of blood, it looks more like ink coming out. Their heads come off like old Tom and Jerry cartoons but it reacts like Itchy and Scratchy. The turpentine gun makes them turn into a skeleton before they fall into bones and the TNT makes them into piles of ash, as it should. 

Instead of letting you get lost in levels, though, they have an investigative supplement of dusting for footprints that shows you where to go next. This is much in the vain of Bioshock Infinite or Batman Arkham Asylum. You also collect clues that you pin onto your cork board, as well as baseball cards. Yes, you collect baseball cards and can also find comic strips here and there if you search thoroughly enough. Money is also a thing in this game, and you can find more of it the more you search for secrets and behind objects.

That's not to say that sometimes the levels do get a little confusing in the wayfinder and the instructions of where to go and what to do. It does get a little crazy when you go to the place that is shown and it turns out you need to use another route or someone will be standing in front of you or you didn't see that one object that you need to go pick up. It's not a game breaker but it does get a little annoying. One fun little shout out was, in true Dick Tracy NES fashion, you drive your car across the map with crappy controls. It can also be read as a sort of Cuphead type level map. 

The weapons are basically from Doom or Duke Nukem 3D and that's alright. The Super Shotgun is not exactly a highlight, though. It is cool that it lights enemies on fire, but that's about the best thing with it, even at its highest upgrade. The star of the show is more the Tommy Gun, or the "James Gun" as this game calls it. It does the best damage in the best amount of time with the most accuracy and it just feels good to use. The same cannot be said about the starting pistol. It's supposed to be a .44 magnum but plays and sounds more like a pop gun. It's handy in a fight and fine otherwise, but I feel like giving it more of a meaty sound with a better recoil could have made it a better weapon. The funny thing about the Devarnisher gun is that it uses turpentine as ammo, which is one of the ingredients for "dip" in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Nice little side note, if that was purposeful. 

The enemies are plentiful, and there are several variations of them both physically and by class. There's the regular enemies, regular enemies with guns, bigger guards with machine guns, snipers, big huge charging tough guys and tiny little guys that try to get close so they can pull a bomb and explode. They all have better ways to kill them with specific guns or even the shield guys who require more explosives to be efficiently killed. This mob of enemies can get rather plentiful but I feel like it never reaches too high of a levels repetitiveness. It's an old style FPS, if you weren't prepared for monster closets and high caliber ambushes, then you need to get with it. 

The boss fights are fun and challenging, aside from a few. I loved the ghost boss girl and the use of the flashlight, it gave the flashlight more to do than just random dark spaces you needed to explore. The disappearing opera phantom was annoying more than anything else. The worst of the bunch, though, is the cult leader. The fact that he can throw TNT and knock out any part of the floor around you became something of a terrible annoyance. That sort of breaking the game gets very tedious very quickly.

The soundtrack, the voice acting, the artwork and the fact that you can change up the film grain, all of this just screams that it was for the fans of the genre. It feels like Dick Tracy, all the way down to the fact that there is a lot of death and Tommy Guns. It gets to horror and scifi bits, but it stays in its film noir world through and through. It gets a little ridiculous in some parts, especially with a girl who is literally in pieces and can't put herself back together. The themes can get a little dark with the kidnapping that the implications of horrible things happening, but it never leans into the really terrible stuff. 

The platforming plays a small role in the whole experience. Through the game, you gain power ups such as the double jump, the wall jump and the helicopter tailspin. Thankfully, they don't fly off the rails with this. They do make it a bit more challenging, like the Indiana Jones mechanic where you use your tail as a whip to latch onto certain hooks and swing across obstacles. Sometimes, it can get a little frustrating with the toxic water, but it also becomes rather forgiving when there are sections where you fail the platform and it just teleports you back to where you were. It pretty tightly controlled and they don't weigh down the levels too badly. 

The gameplay is enhanced by the feel of an adult cartoon that still plays like a wacky 1930's flick. There are times it plays itself very seriously but also has all kinds of cartoon logic that is very refreshing. This game feels like it was meant to be enjoyed by Doomsters and people who want a more openly fun game. The characters can be wacky but also have real world problems, the main character is serious, aside from when he pulls one-liners and old references. It's not jarring because it's consistent throughout the game. You become absorbed in this game and you want to know how all of this is connected. The story, the gameplay, the themes and the art style always remain at the forefront and mold together so well, it feels like you got more than your money's worth and that is something to be celebrated in this industry that is treating its own customers like the enemy. This is a small indie project and that is also a reason to supply it with more so that they can keep this up and make more games like it. Virtua Cheese.

The Age of Concord - How Bad Can it Get?

 I was not part of the populace that wasted money on this game, nor was I willing to waste my time in buying it while subsequently getting an obligatory refund for said game. I was one of the vast majority that watched this game come and go like a terrible fart in an elevator. It can hardly be considered a fart in an elevator, it was gone 11 days after its release! This should have been an amazing example of what not to do when creating a game, and yet it seems to be the example that so many developers and publishers have followed ever since. 

There are so many aspects of Concord that led to its extremely short lifespan: Catering to activists and their insecurities, releasing it with a $40 pricetag when its superiors were free to play, spending $400 million dollars and ten years to develop it and coming out on social media to shame their audiences for not wanting it, all of it should have been setting off alarms in Sony's head. This was a failure on such a colossal level, people barely even remember why we hated Atari's E.T. in the first place. This stomped every single competition on the road to the very bottom and it did so with such amazing ease that they never even bothered to rerelease it as free to play. 

No one has come to the conclusion that, perhaps, they should have been listening to the public. You would think that there was a PR department looking through the comments and gamer buzz to see what players were doing at the time. The problem was that this was all developed in the vain of Overwatch because of its amazing popularity and the fact that it made Blizzard all kinds of money. The fact that Blizzard still ruined Overwatch and fired all of its lead developers in the process doesn't even enter into the equation. The fact was that the moment they made the decision to try and remake Overwatch when it was popular meant that they were already behind the times. Gaming culture changes like the wind and waiting ten years to release a game to catch the "current" zeitgeist of entertainment is like trying to grab water on its way out of the faucet. By the time Concord was released, that ship had left the port years prior. 

The greatest games come about when a developer or a team of developers share a vision to bring something to gaming that wasn't there to begin with. Even if it's not an especially unique idea, if the vision is strong enough with the gameplay, there is a very good chance that it can be a huge success. These are games that come from a desire to exceed expectations in both design and aesthetic, making a vision come to fruition and polishing that game to a beautiful sheen. 

So, why is it that there are spiritual successors to Concord already? The game bit the dust and we're already seeing others come out of the woodwork that look eerily similar. Not only are they creating disgustingly unimaginative characters and boring as hell gameplay, but they are also doing the same cardinal sin of going after the gaming public that they need to sign their paychecks. If you do not have gamers playing your game, your game is going to fail. Period. 

Highguard made the same mistakes in spades. Every single aspect of Concord was brought back to the table, including the fact that they had no idea what gamers were asking for. They certainly weren't asking for a 3v3 hero shooter with gargantuan maps that they can't populate properly. Every single character basically plays the same aside from arbitrary abilities that unlock every so often. Beyond that, you get cookie-cutter weapons and ride horses that are astoundingly difficult to shoot from. The characters are unimaginative as ever. They either have modern day haircuts and/or look like they belong to other games, only made worse. 

Whoever is signing these developers' checks should make a clause in their contracts that obligate them to shut the hell up on social media! These people look so pathetic when they go on the internet and just whine and cry about how they wasted half a decade or more making this game. They will swear that the game they made was awesome, but then go into how they never got any outside influence of any kind, so they had no idea that no one was asking for it. After the ridiculous fallout of Concord, that should have set off some serious bells that this was all a very bad idea. Even if they were so deep into its development, they should have cut their losses or at least not put so much into it from then on. 

No one forced them to put the game at the end of the Game Award Show. They thought that including elements of every popular hero shooter was going to win them fans, but it just made it more generic. It made it fodder for memes and gamers coming out and calling it a sequel to Concord. This should have come as no surprise but it caused their development team to go radio silent soon after the Game Award announcement. All of a sudden, all of the echoes in their chamber started to truly doubt their creation. The release started with a promising 100,000 gamers playing it, but that number was brought down to a dismal 1,000 to 2,000 players within weeks. They accused gamers of not giving it a chance but that's all they gave it. The game was apparently so boring that people couldn't even make it past the tutorial which is REQUIRED at the beginning. It's evident that no one on the team had played a game in their lives or someone would have told them that this was a huge mistake. 

If one live service game wasn't bad enough, now they've announced the gameplay and character roster of Horizon Zero Dawn's new game, Hunters Gathering. In this post apocalyptic world, apparently it's fruitful enough for one woman to eat her way to a diabetic amputation. The characters still look amazingly generic and unappealing. Nothing was learned from Concord's cataclysmic failure. Of course gamers aren't going to give this game a chance, nor should they. It already released trailers and every single one of them is just getting disliked at an amazing rate. The publishers can stick their fingers in their ears and go LALALALALALA all they want, but no amount of blaming gamers for their failure is going to make up for the money they are about to lose. This is not making assumptions at this point, this is just common sense and gaming Darwinism at work. 

The boy can only cry wolf so many times before he loses his voice, and gaming companies are about to learn their lesson one game at a time. These games are not free to make and every single dollar may as well be burned for all it matters at this point. Give the money to charity if you want it to actually make a difference in the world. Stop wasting gamers' time. The only good thing coming out of this mess is the hours of content it is giving youtubers to make amazing videos. If that's the gift you want to give to the world, spend another 100 or 200 million dollars for our ironic entertainment. Stop torturing and crunching your developers and at least buy them some water. They're going to need it.

Retro Rewind - Be Kind and Lose your Mind!

 Back in the hayday of movie rentals, back when Friday nights were prime time for movie rentals, you were given the keys to the movie kingdom. The joys of going through those sections of your favorite film genres cannot be described in words. You just need to have some coin and a rental membership, and you could discover a new favorite. Of course, you could also find a movie that you turn off immediately because it plays to your worst fears, but those just happen. This game captures the feeling of working at Blockbuster, much like I did in the mid 2000's before its inevitable death. It has all of the charm and only some of the pitfalls. 

You are given your own movie rental store and you need to build it up from scratch. In true simulation fashion, you start with small facilities that can be expanded, and with limited options for decorations. The most important thing in the start is just gathering up as many movies as you can and getting shelves with which to stock them. You start out with horror and drama, but also have the option to purchase adult movies from the strange guy in the back alley. That's not as scummy as it sounds. At first, I thought that dealing with him could land me in some trouble, but I never saw any... well, not directly, but we'll get into that. 

The new release days are some of the best sections of the game. It's just fun to get a good 5 or 10 of them to begin with and see them disappear off the shelf as you gain more and more customers. The more time that elapses, the more genres and new releases that come your way. You need to get at least a few of the new movies on your shelves the day they come out, because customers will ask about them quite often. Once they become regular movies, falling out of their first week, you can keep a couple of them, but it's best to get rid of the excess by putting them in bargain bins. You need to make way for more movies, which will be coming very shortly. 

Designing your store and coming up with the section placement is not very important in any other way than space. With a smaller space, getting the shelves right will open you up to getting more movies and that means more money. You don't need to worry too much about decorations to begin with, because getting five new releases at a time means that you get a poster along with them. As you go along, you are able to play around with the style of each section, giving them a lot of character that goes to your taste. It's very easy to over-decorate, but once you get it right, it will draw more customers.

Customers don't shoplift, thankfully, and I hope that never becomes a mechanic of this title. They will, however, break the movies that you go through in your returns. Some of the movies are late as well, and both of these elements will cause an extra charge to your customers. It is best if you charge every customer for breaks and late returns, because even if they don't end up paying, you will get that money back in some form or fashion. As you go, they will multiply before you know it. You go to sections to recommend movies to them based on genre, age and whether they have a good rating from critics. It's a charming little tidbit to recommend titles, but you also don't need to get too involved with it. Sadly, you're not able to watch the movies other than a small trailer-like video on your decorative TV screens. Even then, it only shows the horror and sci-fi short movies. 

Employees are a mixed bag. Once you get to a certain level, you can employ one person to either work the front counter or movie returns. You want them to handle the cash register, that is definitely one of the more mundane aspects of this game, much like it is in real life. Go figure. These employees could fall asleep and you'll need to wake them up. Sometimes, they'll straight up call in sick and you need to pick up that extra slack. If it gets too blatantly obvious that they're misusing that privledge, it is up to you whether you want to fire them and hire another one. One of the employees actually blackmailed me into giving him a raise or he would tell the police I was dealing in the blackmarket videos in the back alley. He was given the raise, but immediately fired. Whether that was a real threat and they could actually call the cops, I didn't have any repercussions in the whole ordeal, so that's up in the air. 

Along with the movies, you also deal in snacks and drinks. This can be a simple snack shelf at first, but then you get drinks, slushies, popcorn and even cotton candy. All of these things enhance your profit margin. Each is a small hike, but once you put them all together, you see the difference. Selling your previously rented games in the bargain bins will also draw in a nice hefty profit, especially after all of the income from the initial rentals. 

The real meat of the game comes from both the cash register and the movie returns. At first, without employees, you need to shift between these two jobs. You have extra time in the beginning and end of the day to do the returns, but they keep coming throughout as people drop them off. Whether you like sectioning these movies or not will ultimately dictate your enjoyment of this title. If this is your bread and butter, this game can get rather addictive. 

Another great part is how quirky the world is around you. You could see a UFO abduct someone outside your window. On Friday the 13th, there will be weirdos outside and sometimes inside your store, staring in at you with hockey masks on. I think it's a movie reference or something, who knows? The little interesting tidbits like this are a ton of fun to observe while you work. With the weather change and the seasons passing, it can become a nice little ambience game at the same time. It's just all around pleasant. 

There are glitches here and there. Sometimes the word bubbles don't go away and sometimes your employees will walk through you while you're working and screw up your flow. None of this is a deal-breaker. This game is easy to figure out and it's all just fun busy play. It will either resonate with you or it could be a snorefest if this isn't your thing. It could even be fun to stock the sodas and make the slushies, but always remember to drink water.