The sale went away, and now it's back at the slightly higher price of Can.$20 (for two games, technically meeting my oft-violated threshold). I watched some play through videos, and despite some reservations (too many cut scenes, on rails) might go for it anyway, because virus :-@ .
But before I do...have any tehs tried this/these gamez?
I've got The New Order and frankly found it forgettable and insipid.
There's a look and feel to ID shooters that's too 'clean' and angular. No matter how much they pack into the visual detail, the textures look like they've just rolled off a factory floor with no spackle or noise. It's difficult to quantify accurately, but the way the lighting is coded only adds to the shiny.
What I recall of the story was vapid with some dull characterisation and at some point early on you make a choice to save one of two colleagues after which there's a slightly different story arc, I never replayed to find out what the alternative was. Enemies are reasonably varied, but tend to follow the norm where they become bigger more armoured versions of themselves in later levels, and tactics to take them on boils down to 'shoot it more with bigger guns'.
I did enjoy Doom 2016, but I think the visual style lends itself to space stations/corridors a lot more than the scenerio in The New Order (I appreciate there's a space level in there somewhere).
OK thanks guys. I liked the Id product Rage well enough and will probably replay it on my 'new' (2-yo) system at some point because the ending crashed my old one... I really liked the original Wolfenstein 3D game, though too crude by today's standards to bother with a replay. Still jonesing for some nazi zombie action though.
And for my consolation prize I got Ghost Recon Future Soldier from Humble for $Can.7 (tax in). I used to play GRAWF2 as obsessively (mainly for the awesome user-made maps, the base campaign is meh) as I now play FC-n, and always meant to reinstall, however I couldn't get it to run on my last XP, so I figure I'd give this slightly newer version a go instead -- the cut scenes look kinda ropey but what the hey.
After hemming and hawing about this for lo these many months, I finally bit the zombie-splattering bullet and bought the thing on sale yet again @ $Can.12.
Hookay, TOB is on board (though described as an 'expansion', happily did not require TNO preinstall), had a quick look at the opening cut scenes, will get started on the wet work later.
I played about ~20 minutes into TOB, which took me straight into a pitched gunfight vs. a hive of borg-nazis (I lost).
Stylistically it's got a retro vibe that recalls both RtCW and SoF, as well as Rage. I can't say I find it objectionable so much as a bit jarring, considering it was released in 2015.
The game is shaping up to have enough awesomeness to paper over the meh sloggy bits, namely the robocop-borg-nazi prison guards. Seriously spooky ruined, nazi-infested castle (also rats).
Let us know how it compares to the New Order. Even though TNO is set after TOB but released before it, I wonder if there are any extra innovations or UI differences that will make it feel any clunkier for you.
It started out very clunky but improved. The zombie/horror aspect is not so thrilling in the NPCs as it is in the environment, I have yet to set an eye on a recognizable zombie, they're mostly bog-standard nazis in full battle regalia and face masks, but with blue lights on their chests, which does make 'em easier to spot. Still there's a ways to go so maybe things will get more interesting. The mechanical monsters are, if anything, less interesting.
9-hours of gameplay in, I finally hit da zombies. One cool thing is the zombie-nazis attack normal nazis, the uncool thing is the normal nazis then are then turned into zombie nazis. :-/
10-hours (total), a boring boss fight, bada bing, bada boom it's done. Now it feels like an expansion pack. Oh well, worth the price of admission, if only just.
Not that I want to hijack this thread, but I've been playing a bit more of FC5 and am enjoying it, not too engrossed in the story as yet as I've been wanting to get more perk points to level up a bit first. I'm not a fan of the hired guns that pop up from time to time and follow you around. I like to take all the glory for blasting red necks and I don't want to keep checking on them to make sure they've either stayed put or not run into the base alterting all the bad guys. Is there any reason to strive to keep them alive in firefights, do they become part of the story, or are they just there as cannon fodder?
I like the FC arcade, some of the set pieces in there are really nice. Went into an assault map, which was an easy shooting gallery set in a crumbling space station, then went through some double doors into what I thought was another section to then stumble out into the 'real world' eyes adjusting from the interior dark to the warm glow of the sythenised sunlight as I realised it was some dodgy stage set in an undergrond bunker. (dance)
All GFH are not equal. I barely noticed them during the campaigns and (like you) thought of them as little more than a nuisance. Some GFH are very amusing to tag along with, even though their scripted dialogue gets a little repetitious to say the least, and they'll save your ass in many a firefight. Some of the arcade maps are awesome, and way more challenging than what the regular game offers.
Reloaded TOB expecting to be back at square one and all the ensuing tedium, because I had finished the game right through to the final credits. Instead it went back into the feeble finale, where you exchange insults with Hilda, the dying nazi prison camp guard (pretty sure she had a different name and role, but whatever), then, after you kill her (because there's nothing else to do, and man, she had it coming), the credits roll. So... I backed out into the main menu and discovered that you can replay the chapters, which is kind of how I've got FC5 running, except there are no chapters, just you and the GFH killing ample numbers of PEGgys, a renewable resource.
I've just found the vehicle purchases in FC5, and after running around for a bit with a decent gun and stocking up at the prepper stashes instead of the ammo shops I had a lot of cash to spend on a jeep with roof mounted rocket launchers. I've suddenly gone from feeling vulnerable (you die a lot more quickly in this iteration over previous installments) to being a suped up mobile powerhouse.