Anomalous

Great game. DOOM-like. Bit intense sometimes, but it's smooth, and has got lovely levels and mechanics.

Decent FPS, but doesn't compete with the heavy hitters! Game starts off quite underwhelmingly - you're able to dual wield shotguns and assault rifles quite early on, but if you're thinking Wolfenstein The New Order, you might want to dial back your expectations a little - the dual shotguns especially feel like firing BB guns - it's that bad. But then, just when I was thinking, this game isn't worth my time, I'd rather uninstall - I got the Super Shotgun, which was kinda okay, but the game definitely ramped up at that point. The game became less about how the guns felt, and more about how satisfying the combat was. I mean, again, this isn't anything top tier, but I'd say it was good enough for me to say I still had fun. Game looks decent, ran like butter even at 4k on my RX 9070, so there's nothing major to complain. If you're a casual gamer, who enjoys the occasional FPS like Doom, this might still not do it for you. But if you're into boomer shooters hardcore, and you've beat your Dusks, your Amid Evils, the Dooms etc, then yeah, this is something you might also enjoy. And the soundtrack is actually good and you can strafe jump to gain momentum. No rocket jumping though,

Anomalous is not going to be a game for everyone, but if you are someone who can tolerate some jank and a general lack of polish it is absolutely worth checking out. As mentioned in the game's own description, "short and sweet" really is the best way to describe Anomalous. It took me just under 3 hours to finish Anomalous and that feels like the perfect length. The gameplay here is really solid. Movement feels good. Bunnyhopping around levels is satisfying. The ability to pull yourself up ledges definitely helps make navigation feel a bit smoother. Although ledge pulling can be a bit finicky. You have to specifically be looking up compared to the ledge you are trying to get onto and there are some areas where you won't be able to grab onto certain ledges at all. The grappling ability introduced late in the game is also pretty neat if even more finicky than the ledge pull. The combat is also pretty solid; although, it does have some more issues than the player movement. For starters, the guns in Anomalous aren't exactly the most satisfying to use. They aren't bad but almost all of them could stand to sound and feel a bit punchier. The biggest offenders are the shotguns and the gre…

There's part of me that wants to give this a positive review, but when it comes down to it, the question you gotta ask with these postive/negative review types is "would I recommend this to a friend", and I just don't feel like that's the case. (Played this on Veteran difficulty, if that matters) First off, wanna say I love the modelling of the guns and the enemies in the game. The human models are pretty simplistic, but think it fits the style and setting well. I also like some of the maps, especially the map Edgelands (which wasn't really used in the game, but was still great). The style in general I think is also really good. The movement is pretty tight, and encourages constant movement, although I wish there was any sort of movement abilities like a dash to accomodate for choices made with enemies (which are listed below). Now, the negatives. This game is janky. Proper janky. I fell out of the game about 7 times, and 3 of them were from the same poorly-placed teleporter. The spawn points for enemies are a joke, with many of them spawning in your vision, and frequently spawning literally in front of you. On more than one occasion, the enemy spawned literally where I was sta…

Gun randomly not firing, enemies shooting you through walls, enemies blinking across your field of vision, enemies not spawning when they should spawn, enemies spawning but not "activating", doors not re-opening without interacting with them several times, invisible blockers when walking back up a ramp, grenades bouncing off of an open doorway instead of going through the doorway, enemies teleporting into the floor, a soundtrack song ending and no music replacing it, and you falling through levels are the most annoying bugs encountered so far. Given the choice between ~10 weapons and 5 weapons that feel impactful to use, I'd choose the latter. The shotgun, sniper, and bow and arrow feel especially rinky-dink (although the double shotgun's rhythm is satisfying). The grenade launcher doesn't feel super necessary. Despite all the above, this game is still fun to play - DOOM in Half Life skin is a winning combo. It's just a pain in the ass to reload multiple missions because you fall through the level.

Paid for Half Life mod!