Recent reviews by SuperPanda

Well, here it is. The current end of modern Doom. How does it fair? ...About as good as TAG part 1. If you saw my review of TAG part 1, then you know that's not exactly a glowing response.

I'm assuming that you've either played through TAG part 1 yourself or at least read my review on it. Those elements are still here, but generally the enemy encounters are easier. Aside from 1 fight where you are trapped in purple goo and then have to fight Mancubi and some Shrieker Zombies, fights consist of mostly low tier enemies with like 1 or 2 Doom Hunters.

As for new stuff, let's talk about enemies first. They're all bad! Firstly, the least bad one is the Shrieker Zombie, an enemy that buffs enemies if you kill it. A good concept in theory, except for the fact that you basically can't use AOE weapons in later encounters since they feature too many Shriekers. Next up, the Stone Imp. They can only be damaged by the auto shotty mod and the new hammer weapon, that's it. They roll, I guess. Incredibly boring, only standing out because you need to swap to the auto shotty mod when you see them. Next up, Armored Baron. You can't damage them unless you destroy their mace or use the plasma rifle to destroy their armor for a short period of time. Again, boring. Finally, we got the Cursed Prowler. If you get hit by it, you get slowed, poisoned, your vision turns green, and you can't dash. You remove this debuff by Blood Punching the Cursed Prowler. By the way, you can't hook them when you get cursed. Dealing with the curse was absolute cancer, to the point that every time I saw one I used a BFG shot just so that I wouldn't have to fight them.

The one good thing that was added was the Sentinel Hammer. Charged by destroying weak points and glory kills, needing only 2 total to get a charge, you slam into the ground and do an AOE damage and stun. It also makes demons drop ammo, as well as drop health if the enemy's frozen, or armor if the enemy's on fire. It's a lot of fun to use, actually! It feels great, sounds great, and makes it much easier to kill Marauders since you can extend their stun with the hammer. I wish we got the hammer instead of the Crucible in the base game; the Crucible was not only a boring addition that was only used to kill Tyrants, but outside the final boss charges were limited. Hammer's ability to stun and give resources, as well as building up with mechanics in the game is not only more interesting to use, but you can use it more often.

Now to discuss the lore. Simply put, it's terrible. The lore literally starts by basically saying "All that other lore was wrong, THIS is the real lore." Almost every bit of lore learned in the base game and TAG part 1 is retconned. Actually, Davoth created The Father, the Makyrs, AND DOOMGUY. That's right, Doomguy is no longer a buff dude (well, Eternal made it "buff dude that got buffed by angels"), he was destined from the start to be used for fighting against The Father. Nothing matters anymore! Honestly though, who cares at this point? TAG part 1 made Hayden the coolest and most epicest angel who became a person who became a robot who became an angel, and Vega was actually God all along, he just forgot. The lore is actively going out of it's way to be worse. I genuinely hope the next Doom game is a reboot, because this lore made me dislike Doom Eternal, TAG, and even Doom 2016 more.

The final boss is one giant mistake, and emblematic of what Doom Eternal became with the DLCs. You have to wait at a certain distance away from him so that he has the chance of doing the one attack you can counter. Stun, hammer, use SSG and Ballista to do a lot of damage. Rinse and repeat for 10 minutes. Here's the thing, though: if you get hit by him or hit him when he's not vulnerable he HEALS. If you get hit twice, he gets healed enough to undo the damage you did in a cycle of damage. He also throws out phantom enemies which can be destroyed instantly with the hammer. Doing that, however, means that you need to build it up by doing glory kills on the zombies standing on the edge of the arena. It's so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ frustrating that you need to keep hammer built up so that you can deal actual damage against Bionicle man, but you also need in case he doesn't do the attack you can counter. It broke me. I beat him and saw the demons outside of Hell - excuse me, Jekkad, get Thanos'd and saw the credits roll, and all I felt was relief; relief that I was done with this DLC and that I never had to play it again.

This DLC is about as good as the previous one, but it's only that way because of the hammer. Without it, this DLC would easily be much worse than the previous. Even still, the hammer just adds yet another thing that you need to keep track of in a game where you track the cooldown of flame belch, grenades, ice bomb, and chainsaw. Getting good at modern Doom is merely an act of pressing buttons more, that's it.

Do not bother with this DLC. In fact, don't bother with Doom Eternal at all. Doom 2016 is a better experience, and Classic Doom is transcendent compared to modern Doom. Classic Doom was about just some guy killing demons because demons are bad. The guns are simple and easy to use, geared for use in specific scenarios. When you finish Classic Doom, you get to experience the decades of user made mods. There's always more to come back to with Classic Doom, but I never EVER want to return to modern Doom.

What a travesty.

Oh god. Oh GOD. I'm gonna assume you've either played the base game or read my review on Doom Eternal while talking about this DLC for the sake of brevity. In short, The Ancient Gods Part One is like base Doom Eternal, with the minor change of being much worse.

Let's start with the enemies. New to this DLC are the turrets, spirits, and Blood Makyrs. Turrets are basically a none issue; just sit back, line up your sights on the eyes, and shoot when they pop out. The tutorial lies about leaving your sights on the enemy, all that matters is distance to the turret. Blood Makyrs are annoying; they can only be damaged with headshots during its strong attacks. Yup, it's the same issue the Marauders have, but these guys have the courtesy of dying when you shoot them once.

Spirits, however, are AWFUL. They inhabit demons, making them move faster, attack faster, projectiles move faster, take less damage, and makes them immune to weakpoints and freeze bomb. They are an absolute chore to fight as a result - I took to just spamming ballista alt fire while dashing back. But that's not all! When the demon they posses die, the spirit pops out and will try to go into another demon. How do you stop this? By using the basically useless microwave beam on the plasma rifle of course! You have to sit there, slowed down and not able to look away, for about 1.5 seconds to prevent the cancer from spreading. Fighting spirit buffed demons is bad, but dealing with a spirit buffed Marauder is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on another level. Their non-counterable attacks come out way too fast, making it even more frustrating when you're just waiting for the Marauder to do the 1 attack that you can counter. All in all, spirits add annoyance in an already bloated and annoying combat system.

The levels are about the same as in the base game, not much to say there. The lore has updated from bad to straight up fanfiction. Samuel Hayden is now retconned to be an angel who was The Father's (aka God, Sky Dad from here on out) right hand man, who put his consciousness in a human to help steer humanity in a way that they wouldn't get epicly owned by Argent Energy, with him being put in a robot body part of the plan since he couldn't go into Hell in his normal body so that he could find the Slayer to deal with an inevitable war against the demons. Also, Vega was Sky Dad the whole time, he just had his consciousness "reformed into an AI" so that he could hide from Davoth (aka Satan / Evil Slayer) and watch over Slayer, a plan that works if Vega remembers he's Sky Dad and also remembers that Davoth is a bad boi that the Slayer needs to fight. Why oh why could Hayden not just been a very smart guy, and Vega just an advanced AI?

Without a doubt, this DLC is worse than the base game. I'd say if you had any frustrations with Doom Eternal, let it be known that this content does NOTHING to address it, instead opting to make things worse. Don't bother.

Genuinely one of the best games I've played this year. It may not look like it, judging by it's... let's say "challenging art style", but the crude aesthetics make sense for the game. It's set in a world that's been ravaged by turbo capitalism. Everything is terrible, and the rough textures and weird structures add to that.

The gameplay is top tier. It's split up into missions where the goal is to take out some targets and leave. Each level is surprisingly intricate; there's tons of routes to each target, and the set pieces, while abstract, are pretty cool. There's also tons of weapons to find, from standard shotgun - sniper rifle - M60, to stuff like a radiation gun and a DNA scrambler. Couple that with body enhancements and secret difficulty levels and you have a recipe for high replayability. There's also a stock market. You can get money by completing missions, fishing, and harvesting organs from gibbed enemies. You can buy and sell stocks, fish, and organs to get money for more upgrades.

It's a punishing game; even though most missions take about 5 - 10 minutes, there's no mid level saving, and you can take a lot of damage if you're not careful. Still, it's not frustrating, and gets substantially easier as you learn level layouts and tricks. All that to say, once you get a hang of the mechanics, it's a comfortable ride.

I highly recommend this game. Seriously. As I said earlier, this is one of the best games I've played recently, and writing about it can't do justice to how good this game is. Just do it! Buy it! You won't regret it.

killer7 is certainly not for everyone. The gameplay gets repetitive after a few missions, the controls and game style are odd, and the story has long time skips between each mission, with not much getting explained.

That said, this is one of my favorites. The combination of first person shooter, on rails shooter, and adventure game is unique, and was enough to get me through the whole game. The cell shading in this game is great, and the combination of the graphics and music creates a unique atmosphere for the game. However, the best part of the game is easily the narrative, with it taking on many mature themes, with politics and nationalism playing a large part in the story.

If anything that I wrote about in the last paragraph piqued your interest, I say go for it. Don't look up any story analysis, just dive into the game as blind as possible. It's an amazing experience that can't be replicated by any other game.

This used to be a positive review for Doom Eternal. However, as time has gone on and I've returned to this game, my opinion has slowly soured, until I came to the realization that I'm not a fan of the direction modern Doom is taking.

There are some positives and improvements over Doom 2016, so let me mention them first. The aesthetics are more to my liking, taking on a more colorful and arcade-y feeling. The result is that arenas are easier to read, which is appreciated. The music is also pretty good, with "Meathook" being my favorite.

As for the negatives... Let's start with mechanics. I believe Doom Eternal is the poster boy for "more mechanics != good gameplay." While there's been some streamlining with the removal of the pistol and greater emphasis of using the chainsaw, actually fighting the enemies is exhausting. The grenades and freeze bomb are quite powerful, but as a result it's just correct to use when you see anything above a zombie man. The flame belch makes enemies drop armor, but that just means using it when it's off cooldown on anything, since killing the enemy drops a lot of armor. It just kinda feels like getting better at the game means pressing more buttons; with the chainsaw refilling up to 1 on it's own, you just shoot your powerful alt fires, move around, and that's about it.

The enemies range from "eh" to "no." Most are fodder that fall before your SSG and Ballista; Zombiemen, Imps, Arachnotrons, and Hell Knights try but they're easy pickings when you're used to dashing around. The Whiplash is Rocket Lock-On bait, the Carcass will just kinda sit around and be annoying until you kill it, and no manner of Hell Baron, Dread Knight, or Doom Hunter can handle the power of the chaingun shield. The Marauder, however, gets the spotlight for being an awful, AWFUL idea. The gimmick with him is that you can only damage him by countering one of his 4 moves - a move that might happen when you're at mid-range, though he may just use other attacks instead; attacks that come out too fast to dodge easily. The best strat is to stand still, counter when he does the correct attack with SSG and Ballista spam. If you're low on health, go to a nearby zombie (they always spawn to be chainsaw food) to get health with a glory kill and go back to waiting. The Marauder is not fun to fight, you just wait until you can play the game.

The levels are pretty straightforward and formulaic; they're linear paths with arenas to fight enemies. Nothing wrong with that, but it is different from Classic Doom, which combined exploration and combat. Not much to really say about them as a result; they are sure linear paths with some secrets and arenas.

Now, the story and lore are an unbridled cringe-fest. The Doomguy pandering is at an all-time high, with people thinking him to be a god and characters basking in how epic and cool he is. The stakes are artificially inflated right before the end of the game, and after the 2/3 mark characters just talk about the story with either not much commentary or too much. As for the lore, it is genuinely awful and retroactively makes Doom 2016's lore worse. The Argenta, the good guys that Doomguy sided with, conquer nations "for their own protection," base worth on one's combat ability, have slaves, and get duped by white missionaries. If the fascist adjacent society isn't bad enough for you, let me assure you the explanation about all that is boring and clumsy. Everything, EVERYTHING is explained, ruining the mysticism of Doomguy's backstory. The best way to describe the writing is that it's trying very hard to be serious and cool, ending up dry with unfortunate undertones. And the voice acting for Doomguy and that one lady in Arc Complex made me recoil with secondhand embarrassment.

Too wrap it all up, the gameplay is average at best, and the lore actively drains me. Doom 2016 had it's own share of issues and was too easy, but it's the better experience since the gameplay is easier to get into and the lore clearly didn't take it self too seriously. Sometimes, less is more, and Doom Eternal is a good example of that saying. After I finish the DLCs for the purpose of review, I don't see myself coming back to this game.

A charming 3D platformer, with interesting locations and characters. The controls are incredible, perhaps the best controls of any game in this genre. It's not complex, there's not much in the way of mechanics, but traversing the environment and completing objectives is feels amazing. Mod support and upcoming free DLC ensures that there's quite a bit of content to enjoy with this game, and the content in the game now is beyond superb. A must play for every type of gamer.

While funny at times and visually interesting, Borderlands 2 does NOT hold up in terms of FPS or RPG mechanics. The shooting just doesn't feel satisfying, and being able to grind out levels to make the game easier cheapens the difficulty of the game. Every character has 1 active skill, with multitudes of passives to gain as you level up. They do impact the gameplay, but feel underwhelming, even after leveling up and upgrading your power. Multiplayer is fine, but it's not the game me nor any of my friends go to first when a game night comes around. There's a lot of grinding to be done, and the game overall is just a chore to play. If you can dig the aesthetic and humor, and are willing to put up with mediocre at best gameplay, perhaps you can enjoy this game. Otherwise, skip.

2D Dark Souls, through and through. Combat is much faster than the Souls' games, but is still all about attacking at the right moment and going on the defensive when necessary. Having gone through Dark Souls and about half Dark Souls 3, I didn't find the combat to be as difficult as the Souls' games, but never thought that the game was easy. The game supports couch co-op, so if you're having trouble you can ask a friend of yours to help you out. There's a few balancing issues, I believe that 2 handed swords are incredibly strong, and it's easy to upgrade your equipment to be absurdly strong. Still, the satisfying combat and interesting narrative are both more than enough reason to play this game.

A hardcore FPS that does NOT mess around. The level designs and story may not be anything special, but the core combat is simply amazing. With fast move speed, the ability to double jump, lack of a need to reload the weapons you use, and getting health by killing enemies encourages you to kill every demon you run into super hard. It's a simple FPS where you move forward and kill demons - nothing more, nothing less. Done incredibly well, but don't go into the game looking for anything other than brutal action.

Simply the best RPG I have ever played. Many choices throughout the whole game have effects throughout your playthrough, many viable builds for characters exist, the narrative is great with strong characters. The combat is good enough, with enough weapon types and ways to engage the enemies to keep it interesting over the course of the game. The DLC for this game is the best DLC I've played in any game, ever, so get the GOTY edition if possible. The only downside that can't be ignored is that the game is a technical mess, so mods to fix bugs is a must. If you can get past that, I'm certain that you'll have a good time playing this.