Recent reviews by TheCheekyTree

It was fun the first few hours but falls flat very quickly once all the cracks start to show. I played the heck out of Shadow Warrior 2013 and it's sad to see that it has come to this. It's a SHIFT-mashing simulator, and a kick in the Wang to the Shadow Warrior franchise

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COMBAT
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The combat is different from Shadow Warrior 2013. No longer can you slash people in half and have them slowly peel away like a banana. No longer are you faced with unique enemies such as shield users, flying gargoyles etc - making you adopt a different playstyle. No longer are you scored on your performance after each battle. No

It all boils down to how much DPS you can put on a target and how much you can mash SHIFT to dodge. It adopts more of a Borderlands-style combat system with number crunching, elemental damages, resistances etc. You will spend most of your time shooting at point-blank with a shotgun or minigun embued with high crit chance instead of doing ninja stuff. I didn't spend any skill points into the melee system at all.

Despite this, the combat you do get is still very meaty and satisfying, your opponents often explode into chunks or take flying lessons. The chainsaws are done right. The shotguns are done right. Heavy weapons are done right. Swords aren't. Precision weapons aren't. Launchers aren't (big enemies dodge them). This just isn't what I was expecting from a Shadow Warrior game. Most enemies can blink, or they constantly jump around. (There's no denying this was so they could move around a randomly generated map)


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MAP DESIGN (Or lack there of)
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The randomly generated levels are the worst thing that could have happened to this game. They lack any sort of memorable set pieces or coherence. I spent 90% of my time looking at the minimap to find chests and coins as there was nothing happening on screen to keep my eyes forward. No natural paths to take you to your destination, instead you end up jumping over rooftops with no restrictions making a b-line to the quest location,

To be more descriptive, the maps are basically a handful of medium-sized randomly generated arenas in which certain sections are 'instanced' depending on what quest you are on. You will be re-visiting the same maps and same locations within many many times throughout the game - none of which are all that unique or interesting

The secrets are uninspired. They often just involve an invisible wall somewhere.. there might be a hint such as an audio or lighting cue. If you re-visit the same map again for another quest you can go to back to the secret again and get the reward multiple times.


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MISSIONS
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They are HORRIBLE. Literally just fetch quests and having to kill a cluster of enemies throughout the entire game, with some very easy boss fights thrown in. You can literally complete the main story within about 2 hours if you ignore the side missions. Enemies scale with you so you can do this easily.

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GRAPHICS/PERFORMANCE
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The graphics as a whole are very nice.. every single piece of foliage moves and the shadows look awesome. The lighting through the trees - to the glowing Neo-Tokyo style streets - the weather effects...it looks great! Water is pretty bad though. The performance is silky smooth, running at 80fps/100fps with a GTX770... but sometimes this tanked to about 11 for brief moments later on in the game.

It's not worth the asking price, get it on sale.

I'm strongly conflicted on this game.

It can be great fun a lot of the time, but you will find yourself dying for stupid reasons more often than not... not once did I die and think that it was my fault, but instead usually down to some stupid item I picked up not knowing what it did and completely killed my run. For example;

The "Eye of Dubbbz" item. I got to stage 7 and picked this up. It made all of the rooms completely pitch-black (until the end of the game). I literally just quit. Why is that even in the game? That's a stupid idea for an item, especially when rooms become more cluttered with obstacles so you run into walls like the Kool-Aid man and die

+ Skill-based gameplay which is fun
+ Movement is spot-on
+ Music is AMAZING (Produced by MACAskill)
+ Weapons are fun for the most part and each have their different gimmick
+ Punny names for weapons and items which is cool

- Classes are basic and just have different health & armour, weapon, and speed.
- Nazi levels seem out of place
- Bad items that are there just to be bad and ruin your experience
- Gameplay isn't addicting like other rougelikes
- Exploding enemies can spawn in front of you as the enter the room

Paranautical Activity is mostly a game about movement, and I love how a lot of the items such as the Recoil Rifle allow for some top tier gameplay, To make the classes more unique I think each class should start with a specific movement item (Such as dash, double jump, small etc)

The aesthetic of this game is also confusing... it's like a nazi, pirate, demon shooter? What?

TLDR: It's a fun game, but I recommend you get this game on the cheapest sale and give the rest of the money to MACAskill (the music producer), as they shafted him out of payment and basically took his music.

It's a good idea, and the best in its genre - but still executed poorly and will have you saying "that was bulls-" every 2 minutes. It's not fun anymore.

The meta-game has just devolved into who can cheese and exploit the mechanics the most... for example; landing overhead attacks instantly by turning around, ducking, and looking up - so that you catch them on the backswing.

Combat with multiple people just doesn't work, which is surprising for a multiplayer game. Teammates will hinder you more than help you, and you will end up hitting your own team (or they will end up hitting you) by accident. Movement is too sudden, so people will instantly appear infront of you. It makes using heavier weapons more punishing because you're more lethal to your team.

It feels like a waiting and running simulator with the 10 second respawns and the 30 seconds of running to get to the fight - just to potentially die instantly when you get there - having to do it all over again. Even worse if your teammate ran into your weapon, making the respawn longer

The latency compensation is horrible, so good luck using any short weapons like the double axe. It's impossible to hit someone who is running away from you with this weapon.

The community is rancid, as you will get attacked by your own teammates if you choose an archer. If you choose to defend yourself, you will get kicked for doing too much team damage.

Chivalry does have its cool moments, but they're very few and far between... you spend most of your time just waiting for a cool moment to happen, like popping 3 heads in the space of 5 seconds. But then your teammate will jump in and catch you on his back-swing so you stagger, then whilst you're staggered, you die.

The first half is great!

• Very vibrant colours... gorgeous scenery and set-pieces that are great to just roam in. High quality textures and great lighting that feels surprisingly very immersive!
  
  
• The level design is great and encourages you to explore to look for hidden loot, secrets, and easter eggs - all of which are in unique and memorable locations, giving nods to the old Shadow Warrior title from back in the day... good fun!
  
  As for the second half... not so much...
  
  
• It suddenly becomes very industrial, dull, and grey... and this continues until pretty much the end of the game. I felt as if I was playing a mixture of Metro, Aliens, and Doom (xbox), except those games did it better. It suddenly takes itself seriously, and takes an 8 year leap into the past graphically in the process. It's too dark so you have to keep your flashlight on, which is for the best as there isn't anything interesting to look at here... the general atomosphere is just horrible and boring
  
  
• Level design is poor and seems rushed... you will spend a lot of your time sprinting through long, empty corridors with nothing in them and no action - so you often get lost trying to find the next objective because there are no landmarks or map. Secret areas become very uninspired and aren't hidden creatively whatsoever, they're just sorta hanging around. As for easter eggs, I haven't found any on this half
  
  
• Combat becomes very 'standard procedure', and certain enemies are over-used... especially the guys with the masks and the detonators. Bosses and larger enemies aren't fun to kill at all and are annoying more than anything, as they're just gimmicky bullet sponges
  
  Conclusion:
  
  It's a great game - combat is fantastic, but I didn't like the way it quickly loses its focus mid-game and becomes a dark, humourless, generic corridor shooter. It doesn't feel like the same game anymore
  
  I suggest getting it on sale... and hopefully by time you get 7 hours into the game you have a craving for the original Shadow Warrior and won't have to play the second half of this one!