I mentioned in a couple other posts I'd post like this. I like to read through these posts for game ideas and it's been a while.
So to start off, I had mentioned Trepang2 being a new indie FPS game that came out just this last week and the style of it being so much like F.E.A.R. That being one of my favorite FPS games, I had to break my own rules and give it a shot. I got it for $30 on GOG and am almost 5 hours in. Finished 3/5 main missions, 1/6 side missions, and 1 of the combat sims that is basically a horde mode. There's intel to pick up around the level if you're the completionist type, along with gun mods and such. A lot of reviews I've seen complain it's too short or reference some YT video where they beat it in 2 hours already by speedrunning, but all in all I don't feel screwed for $30--and I rarely buy games for as much as $30 even.
The good part, it's a pretty well put together game. I haven't run into any real bugs. I don't think it's crashed once. The graphics look good-to-great. It's a bit impressive for a team of four guys to have made something that definitely would have passed as AA+ not all that long ago. Don't really notice wokeism. I'm sure some of you nitpickers could find that there's a choice for red shoes and how don't I know red shoes are a dog whistle for drag queens or something like that, but in the grand scheme there's nothing glaring so far. Map aesthetics reminds me of F.E.A.R. Slightly better as it's not all office buildings. Shooting mechanics and bullet time from that game as well.
What I don't like is more of a difference from expectation to reality. This game is not F.E.A.R. at all. It's much more like 2016 Doom. I find it useless to even try to stealth or really use any tactics other than sprint around like a maniac. On top of the fact that there's grenades constantly chucked at you, there's just too many enemies all over the place to really adopt any other tactics.
So yeah, if you want a crazy adrenaline shooter go for it. It's a fun game. If you want a slow creepy horror shooter, find something else.
Also, what all are you playing? I've been down with a bum foot all weekend so I've been playing this and Dante's Inferno (yeah the really old one from 360/PS3).
Dude, I loved Dante's Inferno. A really underappreciated game, as to be expected from the shadow of God of War's influence. But stands well on it's own for sure.
Had Sonic Mania in my library for a while. Everyone said it's great but I really dragged my feet on opening it since the last time I fell for "it's not shit" was Generations and, well...
But, legitimately good. I was concerned up front there were too many copy/paste from earlier games but there are ton of new tricks and map changes that makes it feel fresh. Some new gimmicks but not so many that it feels gimmicky like newer Mario titles started to feel since the New Super Mario Bros on DS. If I have any real complaints about it it's that some of the new stages have way too much stuff flying around and it's hard to separate eye candy from important stage information as you're playing. There's a kind of city zone that was driving me crazy because I felt like I was boxed in all the time but it was just foreground and background elements that didn't really stand out from the actual stage data Sonic was interacting with. And some of the bosses are full on BS but I'm open to me having to just git gud.