Game EXP: DOOM (NS) & Dead Island: Ryder White Campaign (PC)

DOOM

Systems: Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, & Stadia

Release Dates: May 13, 2016, November 10, 2017, & August 18, 2020

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

Developer: id Software

Time Spent: Unsure

[The Reason:  There were several factors for me delaying writing my article for DOOM, primarily being that I wanted to talk about the game from the perspective of it having just been released on the Nintendo Switch, but then a month or so after its initial release, there was an update the overhauled the graphics and framerate issues for a better looking and smoother experience.  Aside from conjecture, I felt that I could not give a good enough account of any perceived differences.  Following another update while I was still playing, motion controls were added and I felt like that was something I should talk about, but had very little in-game experience.  And then there was the multiplayer aspect of the game too that I dabbled in, but never felt that it was enough to actually write about.  And then there was the fact that I had barely taken any pictures to litter my article with, and as the pictures I took I already used in our First Impressions, so this article languished.  Until today.]

I mostly had fun with DOOM on the Nintendo Switch, although I was honestly a little vary about playing this kind of FPS with a controller and not with keyboard/mouse.  I recall that the first time I played through Doom 3, I needed Vorlynx's assistance dealing with two Barons of Hells.  In DOOM, I recall the first two stages being particularly rough as I tried to get my controller bearings and not miss every 60% of my shots.  I am guessing that by the end of the second stage, I was feeling mostly better about how I was playing.  On the standard difficulty settings, Hurt Me Plenty, the game never became too difficult, although I still found it challenging in parts because it never felt like I could be as accurate as I wanted to be using a controller.  

Except for that one time when I turned it down to "I'm Too Young To Die" for the Cyberdemon fight, which took me several attempts before giving in and lowering the setting.  The first phase of the fight was never the problem, but the second phase after you get transported to Hell and the Cyberdemon gets resurrected.  I could never get the timing down on the jumps its sword-beam shots and dodging its missiles.  Maybe it was that I allocated my skill points in the wrong way with my weapons, focusing more on combat with Hell's minions and not its bosses?  Yeah, I know.  Git gud.

The only other area(s) I felt woefully inadequate with the controller, were a lot of the Rune Trial areas, which were primarily for skill-based tests, like clearing an area in a certain time, but were all purely optional.  Some trials included only shooting demons in an arena while others relied heavily on running and gunning and platforming.  I could chalk it up to not getting gud fast enough, but to me, these areas (or really all of the Rune Trials) should have been retooled for controller support in mind when using a controller as there were several that required very fast aiming while running, something that I failed to do on the Switch (no shame on the Switch, but I was playing with a controller).

I did play a bit of the multiplayer, mainly to see what it was like, but I never excelled at it, again I will blame the controller and I felt that apart from familiarizing myself with the controller, a lot of the skills I picked up in the main game did not translate very well to multi-player arena combat.  I am sure that if I had stuck with it longer I would have gotten better, but to what end?  I would have just earned more skins for multiplayer combat and that was not where I wanted to focus my time, so I eventually stopped.

DOOM was a lot of fun, and even through the frustrating Rune Trials, I would probably go back and play through the game again, although maybe I might pick it up during a future Steam sale to play it on the Steam Deck for improved graphics and for future play on a laptop that could play it better than my current laptop (which is different than the one that I originally tried the demo on back in 2016).

<0>

Dead Island: Ryder White Campaign
Systems: Windows, PlayStation 3/4, Xbox 360/One, Linux, OSX
Original Release Date: September 6, 2011
Publisher: Deep Silver
Developer: Techland 

[The Reason:  Most of what I had previously written sometime in 2014 is still here, which is short enough for what we are trying to do.  I did a little bit of cleanup here and there and added a few more sentences, but for the most part, this is what I had originally written, likely feeling that it wasn't enough for a full article about a part of the game that I didn't like.  Well, times change and I now feel that this is perfectly sufficient for this campaign/portion of the original game.]

You know, I really wanted to like the Ryder White Campaign expansion for Dead Island.  I put in enough hours into the first game (64.8 hours) despite a handful of things that I did not like, so I was looking forward to an expansion that lets you play as (SPOILER) the antagonist.

This excitement died off pretty quickly as I found out that the way the Ryder White Campaign was to be played, differed greatly from that of the main game.  In the main campaign, you play as a survivor trying to survive and escape the island while gaining experience, raising levels, and constructing and repairing a variety of weapons.  In the Ryder White Campaign, your goal as far as I was able to tell, was to go from Checkpoint A to Checkpoint B and pick up specifically placed items and ammunition.  There was nearly no level of exploration that the main campaign had as I felt that I was being directed through linear levels designed to be annoyingly and disproportionately difficult.

And then there was the death mechanic.  In Dead Island, when you died, you were respawned seven seconds later in the same general area where you died.  The Ryder White Campaign is a completely different type of animal.  When you die between checkpoints, you start over at the checkpoint you previously started at with the amount of ammunition you had when you died.  Add onto the fact that a lot of the zombie instances seemed very similar to the zombie instances in the primary game leading to a lot of frustrating respawns with significantly fewer heath packs and weapons than when I started out.

Add to the above paragraph the fact that constructing weapons as in the primary game was also a thing here in the expansion.  Scavenging items from trash bins, corpses, and other sneaky locations is made difficult by the hordes of infected that are thrown at you, where you have decided (quickly) if it is worth it to pick up items or keep running.  I briefly tried foregoing the scavenging aspect of the game and just tried to power my way through to the next checkpoint, but I soon found that I was up to my digital head with violet-hungry bastards that I had not killed when I stopped to pick up items.  This meant that I was respawned back at the previous checkpoint with all the zombies respawned as well (as well as all of the respawned health and constructing items), but again, with significantly reduced quality of my equipment.

I should also note that the version of Dead Island that I played back in 2014 is no longer available in its current state, but only available in the Dead Island: Definitive Edition which was released back in 2016.  So really, the base game of Dead Island is fine as it is, and whatever it was that Deep Silver was trying to do to make different gameplay in the telling of Ryder White's story, really did not work at all for me.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Instrumental