Scripten

I also recently played through Hexen, and found it pretty enjoyable overall. The progression could get confusing at times, but aside from one or two sections, it wasn't too bad to figure out. I played as the Cleric, which does seem to provide the most balanced (or OP) experience, especially with good flechette usage. I found most of the game fairly atmospheric, but would have personally preferred more focus on the naturalistic maps earlier in the game, with the complexity/interest of the later maps.

Way back in about 1996 or so, I was an elementary schooler with my own pc that my dad put together for me. He installed a few games on it, and didn't really filter them for content or intended audience, so I had copies of all the Commander Keen games alongside Doom95 and Duke Nukem 3D. I never really did much with DOS Doom, but I played through the shareware constantly. Eventually I lost track of it, but I was already a fan (even drew some "concerning" pictures in my school journal, but I just thought it was cool) and when I had access to my own rig again, I was back on the Doom wagon. I started playing ZDoom around 2002-2004 or so, after discovering modding/mapping with SRB2, and went on from there.

Doomcute is definitely high on the tier list, especially when we're talking architecture (I do adore boxy sector cars, though). Aside from that I find environmental storytelling to be one of my favorite parts of any kind of level; if you give my a shotgun, I'm happy, but if I nab a shotgun off a dead marine in the middle of a bunch of demon corpses, I'm thrilled.

Surprised not to see Hellcore in this thread yet. While the gameplay got away from me in the later levels, the atmosphere, music choices, and Doomcute aesthetic doesn't get much more cohesive than in this map pack, and I go back to play every few years just to immerse myself in it. (Screenshots are public images because I'm on my work computer)

Consider Harry Gregson-Williams, who composed the music to the MGS series as well as that of Shreks 2-4. Also Ridley Scott absolutely stumbled into the success of Alien and Blade Runner, imo. Not quite as buoyed as Lucas was with Star Wars (The Secret History of Star Wars is a fascinating read btw), but the elevation of singular people into unassailable positions of creative freedom almost always seems to make for worse media. Consider Ken Levine's trajectory with the -Shock series.

Doom: Annihilation is a far more faithful adaption, in that the demons are actually demons from Hell, and the UAC/Dr. Betruger plotline is relatively faithful to the idea of Doom. That said, none of the Doom movies are all that good as movies, which is probably due to Doom not really having a singular cohesive identity: is it sci-fi military horror or is it heavy metal power fantasy? Doomguy's entire character (nowadays) is that he's an implacable force of nature, which doesn't exactly translate to an interesting cinematic character, without some heavy lifting from the rest of the movie.

Mostly in terms of the focus on speed and fairly wide open levels with relatively flat designs save for a few obstacles/features that add some verticality. Granted, I'm not far in the game so it may become more naturally vertical like Doom or possibly complex like Build games later on.

Hellbound runs like sludge on both of my gaming rigs - which are both equipped with RTX cards. It's jittery and poorly optimized, and nothing about the gameplay actually feels "oldschool" in the ways that matter. That goes for a huge number of retro shooters: DUSK is still at the top tier of the subgenre, flaws included. I did enjoy the first couple levels of Viscerafest, though it's more in the vein of RotT as opposed to Doom or Build engine games. I argue that the whole "immersive sim" genre leans closer to the level design and ethos of a lot of the best classic FPS games than does the retro shooter subgenre, much of the time. But maybe that's me projecting my preferences on them.

Probably true, though arguably, even with that additional context, it's more a case of set dressing to make the game more palatable to general audiences. Much like how the OG Half-Life made the choice to create their own military organization for the Black Mesa coverup rather than going with existing ones as they intended to initially. It's critique still, but I agree that it takes the teeth out. Can only hope for future boomer shooters that are more in line with, say, Red Faction. Both Bombshell herself and Heskel were given a fairly over-the-top portrayal, and I definitely got the sense that the GDF and the society of the setting weren't meant to be seen in a heroic light. No argument there regarding the casual homophobia, though. The devs seeing it as "harmless joking" as opposed to outdated bigotry was pretty disappointing, for sure. Oh, it was definitely intended as satire. This article covers a lot of the influences and cultural significance. The thing is, like much satire, current events make it seem less extreme in comparison and the necessity of selling the story means that the commentary gets lost to aesthetics and superficial admiration. Just look at Warhammer 40k for a similar example. The more I see this happening, the more I wonder if satire is even an effective means of conveying a message...

FWIW, the tone of the game suggests that the fascist undertones are intentional and that the GDF (and consequently the protagonist) is meant to be taken in the same vein as, say, Judge Dredd, where it's, if not satire, then at least somewhat self-aware. Granted, that might be a reach, but it is looking like the sequel, Phantom Fury, is going to lean into that, as the plotline seems to revolve around fighting back against the GDF in some manner.

Hey DW folks. Not really "new" by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm thinking I'll be dusting off my profile and start being slightly more active here, so I figured a post in this thread would be fitting. Not sure if I'm literally jumping ship from ZDF entirely, but enough of the projects I'm interested in have made their moves known that it seems prudent.