AMID EVIL

Before anyone reads this, yes I played the entire campaign and will be playing the DLC. “oh then you must have enjoyed it so why the negative review?!” I come from a time when the amount of time spent in a game did not mean that you were having a good time, that has always been a strange false equivalency. A game can be very short but still be high in quality and enjoyment. I wanted to give this “boomer shooter” a fair shake so that anyone, including any devs reading this, won’t try to argue “oh you just didn’t play the whole game, you gave up so you’re opinion is rendered void just because I said so. About the one good thing about the base game and the DLC has to be the OST, but that's more due to Andrew's fantastic work. Genuinely bad, does not hold a candle to Dusk in any way shape or form, New Blood tried far FAR too hard to make the game as "retro obnoxious" as humanly possible while making sure to cut out all of the fun. More like a Pain Killer clone than a Heretic/Hexen clone or homage, if you will. Unlike how Dusk was a Blood/Quake like homage which did it correctly. For the first 2 or 3 zones, it was fun, each zone was different and varied while not being too obnoxious. Varied enemies types kept things fresh-ish while keeping things familiar to the other factions that came before it. Once you get to the Forges that’s where the game takes a total dump on whatever good will that it had. Painfully dark for no real reason which further muddles the visuals of this retro-esq visual game. Tons of obnoxious bad jumping puzzles and platforming in a game that does NOT handle platforming very well and enemies that just come out of no where constantly and spam attacks that takes 50% of your HP very quickly. As you progress down the more annoying zones the developers seem to put less and less quick save sections. This out right forces you to quick save and quick load constantly because of how bad the level designs and monster spawns are. Oh you think you made it far enough? NOPE! You get to go back to the beginning because this is an arcade game with 1 life style of gameplay with auto saves apparently. What is the point of having auto save points in your game if you’re not willing to put them in locations or areas that make sense? Just go full in and have us rely on our own saves, if you’re really trying for that old school feel, don’t half ass it. As others have pointed out, monsters tend to be far too tanky for how much damage they dish out versus how little the player can dish out, especially given that there is only one of you and 56000 of them. “oh just use your soul power” yeah? My one shot and it’s gone ability, for what? Every single encounter?! See, Raven Software understood all of this back in the mid to late ‘90s so they gave you consumable items to use in order to deal with situations where a Tomb Of Power might not be required. This game has none of that, you have one “super” and that’s it, the Soul Mode IS a Tomb of Power stand in but it’s worse in every conceivable way and takes longer to charge than just finding a Tomb and carrying a bunch around with you. Again, the New Blood interactive devs don’t have the pedigree that those who came before them had before they were banished to the COD mines. Oh they wish they did, they try, they make things that give off the illusion of a Heretic/Hexen game but it has none of the soul, none of the craftsmanship of the old Raven Software titles. So inconclusion to this section, either the enemies are too tanky or New Blood made our weapons weaker than a sneeze, either way the “gunplay” is bad, full stop. For weapons or rather the player only weapons, on top of being weak they also have a dramatic delay between when you hit “fire” and when the animation even plays then you have to wait even more time between when the shot actually happens THEN remember everything is projectile based so then you get to wait for the shot to actually connect with whatever the game allows you to hit. The shooting because of the aforementioned weakness in the weapons or the tankiness of the enemies is made worse feeling by the fact that every single weapon has a dramatic windup animation before the projectile even leaves your weapon. This is not even remotely as good as any ‘90s era game and not as good as New Blood’s last proper arcade shooter “Dusk”. The player movement both on foot and in the water is horrible feeling, it’s not at all reactive what so ever. There is a clear delay in one direction over the other while the enemies change movement within a single frame. Swimming is TERRIBLE, worse than HL1 swimming and forget about getting out of a small pool of water easily, you can’t just jump out or grab a ledge, nope, you need to go under the water and rise up while sprinting! It’s incredibly unintuitive and very bad when you’re in a rush to get out to escape a possible death trap or enemy spam. On top of that, your character can only jump maybe 2 to 4 inches, it’s a glorified hop and forget about walking over an ankle high edge on anything, nope again, you have to literally jump over a curb or half a curb, again bad design. The level designs are horrible, nice to look at, I will never take that way from the level designers, but beyond the surface level of “ooo ahhh” that’s all they were able to do. Tons of pit falls that look like they should be walkable or you get areas that look like they are clear pitfalls and aren’t. The walkable areas are so inconsistent and bipolar that you end up second guessing yourself constantly which is never fun. The funny thing is, on the level design combined with the monsters? Yeah when YOU get knocked off, you die nine times out of ten, when you knock a monster off of a platform or a path they just magically fall onto some unseen platform or walkway and they then continue to fight you from under you. It’s honestly a joke how consistently bad the maps are once you get past the two demo zones. They clearly put their effort into baiting any potential member-berries players with the intro zones before they pulled the rug out from under you and suddenly the game isn’t what it was advertized as nor is it any fun. On top of that, enemies can hit you from places that you can not return fire back through. I can not actively shoot through this mesh but every ranged enemy attack does cut through it without any loss of damage to the player. Performance was lacking as well, for how old the game is and how low the system requirements are, especially for my system which is installed on an SSD I might add. I got constant hitching whenever something would spawn or a new enemy would spawn or go active or do an attack. Enemy design is also pretty bad as well, again early zones are completely balanced and fine, good design, good telegraphing of attacks and not too many cheap developer gimmicks that the player can’t also do. However once, again, you get past those few zones and get into the Forge and beyond then you start to see how bad the devs can really take the game. You start to see enemies that flat out phase through solid walls because the attack is a dash (by the way that we can not do) so the game says “oh this enemy has to get to this point and if a wall happens to be in the way well then too bad for the wall and the player”. Then later on still you have enemies that flat out reflect attacks (again an ability that the player can not do) with a shield that covers their entire hitbox, which again are not very fun and just a cheap unit that the devs put in to further chip damage the player. you. If there is not a clear path to you, stairs or anything else, they will flat out noclip up a total vertical face just to get to you. The AI pathing is outright insulting to anyone who has played any amount of actual retro or old school games, these devs should be ashamed of themselves with how poor the quality of this product is.

​AMID EVIL is one of those games that you’ll enjoy for a few minutes, and then realize it lacks a lot of soul that is needed to make a successful “boomer shooter.” You see, I grew up in the golden era of the 80s and 90s, when we all played DOOM, Quake, Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem, and Unreal Tournament on our PCs, and it created some of the greatest gaming memories ever. AMID EVIL tries to capture that magic, but unfortunately, it dropped the ball when it mattered most. To create an exciting, fun, and memorable boomer shooter, several elements need to come together​. You need nice graphics, a killer soundtrack, fun gameplay, awesome weapons, diverse enemies, epic bosses, some platforming to keep things fresh, and an engaging story to bring it all together. The graphics are very nice in AMID EVIL, as it pops and looks beautiful in a very retro, Hexen/Heretic kind of way. I very much enjoyed the graphics, but this is where things started to unravel, and it led to disappointment. The soundtrack was decent, but nothing great. The gameplay gets repetitive and extremely boring once you get past the initial fun after the first hour or so. After that, it’s the same exact kind of gameplay. It’s just run around, collect fantasy weapons, kill regular enemies mixed in with harder enemies, some mini boss, ​eventually a final boss, and repeat until you start to get annoyed. The weapons in this game were unique at first, but there isn’t much variety here to make them stand out, and you lose your weapons after each episode anyway, only to regain them again a few minutes in. What’s even the point of that anyway? The enemies are diverse to a degree, until you realize that the more you progress, they look different, but act pretty much the same. Even the bosses are just sponges. The gameplay just makes it so you use one of your more powerful weapons, spam that for about 10 seconds, kill the boss, get your achievement, and keep moving. Again, the game is very slow, repetitive, and feels the same no matter what level or area you’re in. Now, the platforming and annoying level design is what started to make me regret even playing AMID EVIL. I get needing to add platforming to FPS games like this because it helps bring variety to the maps and objectives, but they really amped it up here to the point where if you’re a millisecond off from hitting a platform with rotating floors or levers, you either die, or have to go all the way back to try again and again and again. Throw in the fact that the level geometry and texturing are too confusing, and it just becomes a frustrating gaming experience. Don’t get me wrong, I love challenges and figuring stuff out in FPS games like this, but this game just kept dragging on and on and on. It’s a slogfest once you put a few hours in, and then it’ll hit you that you’ve seen it all, got all the weapons available, and now it’s just a matter of going through labyrinth-like mazes, frantically looking for keys and switches, ​a​nd it gets old fast. Speaking of which, where is the story? You get these vague “sayings” on walls that make zero sense and are confusing. There is zero narrative here or anything to explain who you are, what you’re doing, who you’re fighting, and why you’re doing it. It feels very empty and lacks that extra immersion of being the protagonist in an FPS game like this. There are zero voicelines here. The protagonist you play as literally says nothing except for grunts, roars, and ​screams whenever you die. At the time of this Steam review, I’ve played about 6 hours worth of this, and I’ve had enough. I don’t even care about the Steam Achievements anymore because AMID EVIL is a lackluster game. While I appreciate its uniqueness, it just feels like a timesink that doesn’t offer a great gaming experience or anything worth playing for beyond Steam Achievements. I do not recommend AMID EVIL. It tries to pay homage to the legendary FPS games of Heretic and Hexen, but it failed to do so. This lacks the serious, gritty, and addictive gameplay that is needed to ever be compared to such titles. Ultimately, this is a boring game that, despite looking very nice, lacks the essence of a good FPS. The soundtrack is decent, but the gameplay is so meh that it becomes a second job to get through the levels, sponges for bosses, and some of the most annoying platforming I’ve ever seen in over 30 years of gaming. There is a complete lack of narrative or voice acting to make it even somewhat entertaining, and overall, it’s a very bare-bones kind of game.

Amid Evil is a nice change of pace from the usual boomer shooter formula. The fantasy setting gives it a unique identity, and the magic-based weapons are surprisingly fun to use, especially as they become more powerful throughout the game. The level design is creative and encourages exploration, making each area feel distinct. The maps can be a little confusing to navigate, although I do enjoy the atmosphere and weapon variety.

如果HROT的关卡是小而精的绝妙设计，那么AMID EVIL的地图就是宏伟得无与伦比的华丽美学。 虽然仍然是低保真建模，但作者模型的高饱和调色以及有意而为的高锐度让AMID EVIL的地图显得如此华美，一切都那么夸张，巨大的迷宫般宫殿、红色宇宙下黑紫森然的邪恶巢穴、雨中失落的上古文明遗迹... 巨构下的沉默，浮夸琉璃色彩繁复的冷峻，这游戏的地图美术借鉴融合了很多元素，你甚至能在其中体验魂1的塞恩古城和大树洞（其实更像环的圣树）。我不得不说AMID EVIL的地图美术是我至今最喜欢的。 关卡设计方面确实不能说“巧”，正相反，AMID EVIL关卡设计得很扎实(?)，很朴素，当然，朴素并不意味着一条路走到底，事实上你能在任何AMID EVIL相关差评下看到引导烂。AMID EVIL地图做的很大，如果初见时一味地追求快速杀敌而不是观察岔路认路当然不能体会到其实流程相当朴实，机构、迷宫、跳跳乐以及很多纵向解密，在地图放大后显而易见地也会放大玩家的迷路感，仅此而已，引导烂实在是一个不恰当的罪名。很多游戏，箱庭规格比较小，所以即使纵深可能有个三四楼，但实际游玩体验还是很清晰地能感知出来是二维的流程推进。但AMID EVIL不一样，它的关卡设计对于纵向的利用率很高，在地图的美术加持下很有探索乐趣。不过这游戏的秘密点设计很搞笑，它很多秘密点设置的地方，都很。。“糙”，也许这是为了向“恢宏大气”的大方向看齐吧。 我太爱这游戏的地图美学了，以至于其他部分我都懒得夸。但有一点我得提，这游戏codex内置了cheat code使用说明，实在是太贴心了，很方便打通后开个noclip跑图，这才叫有人情味的作者！！另外，HUD里可以勾选alternate fonts换字体，原版那个确实有点抽象瞎眼。 男人，什么罐头我说，高高地推荐！！

You will enjoy this game if you want to run through maps with beautifully retro and psychedelic graphics while using unique weapons to kill scary badass enemies in different ways. Bored of using your magic wand? Use your staff that throws exploding balls. Yeah, pretty much this game is awesome for running around and killing ♥♥♥♥ with dope visuals. There are some puzzle/maze elements but it's not much of a struggle to figure that out. It took me ~8 hours to play through the game on the easiest mode. Many times I could run through levels without ever dying but then sometimes I would get stuck in the same area over and over using manual saves and reloads to not lose my mind. The bosses are cool and whatever but not much of a challenge usually. AMID EVIL is a game that can be played while watching a podcast or talking on the phone. I look forward to the DLC going on sale in the future so I can play through that.

I know it's retro and all, but the graphics pretty much suck anyhow. Sound is okay. Got boring quick. Got to some snake beast and it was more annoying than anything even on easy. I guess I have to get gud, just not with this game. Play Doom. Retro? Play Quake 2

Decent boomer shooter with nice graphics, my only complaint is the jankness of the auto slaves at times and the level design of later levels. The more I played the more frustrating the game became for me.

I'm da king of the sevens realms baybee.

One of my favourite boomer shooters out there. What I really like about this game, despite the very very cool graphic style, level designs and weapons, is especially the enemies. The enemies don't only look very cool, but there are multiple different enemies in each new area, no repetitions, and the way you have to engage these different enemies in combat differs immensely for each one of them because of their unique movesets, making the gameplay never feel boring on the first playthrough. The only thing I noticed that really could have been done differently in my opinion are the bosses, since they are all quite easy even on hardest difficulty. They do look very cool and bring a nice atmosphere with them, but they really could be more challenging. This game has a lot of unique ideas, isn't too long or too short and constantly fun throughout the playthrough. highly recommended, especially for the very unique dark style of this game. 9,5/10

Solid Boomer Shooter. Fun guns and different enough enemies on the maps. Think the level design was a bit confusing sometimes but still easy enough to figure out. Game length felt just about right but if you want more content, there is a free level DLC and another paid DLC. Definitely worth the pick up during a sale!