Amid Evil - The Black Labyrinth COMING SOON

[Smoothandz]

Boy Howdy, New Blood is back at it again. They just released yesterday some gameplay footage of the new DLC coming. 

 

 

Amid Evil has been one of my favorite games of the past couple of years. This new DLC looks great and I'm happy to see New Blood still giving the game some love. 

What's your take on the released footage? or your take on the game in general?

[D4NUK1]

I loved AMID EVIL am im pumped how this Expansion it's looking hellalotofgood.

[Smoothandz]

1 hour ago, D4NUK1 said:

I loved AMID EVIL am im pumped how this Expansion it's looking hellalotofgood.

 

Couldn't agree more. The fists look absolutely wonderful. And I'm really wanting to know more on that scythe weapon. It's going to be awesome to see how the champon got the Black Labyrinth Axe. Gimme more of that lore!

[vyruss]

Haven't touched the game since it was in early access, it's come a long way.  Love the throwback to the Hexen 2 gauntlet fist bash.  Can't wait for it to be available.

[Smoothandz]

1 hour ago, vyruss said:

Haven't touched the game since it was in early access, it's come a long way.  Love the throwback to the Hexen 2 gauntlet fist bash.  Can't wait for it to be available.

 

Depending on how long it was when you played it, AE probably has more levels than when you played it. 

 

Although, that brings up a good question. Since this DLC is the prequel and shows how the champion got the axe, would it make more sense to wait and play the DLC first then replay AE?

[scalliano]

Amid Evil was the game that killed Early Access for me. I bought Dusk in EA and took me forever to get around to finishing it after v1.0 dropped. I held off on AE and got to experience the game in is entirety and as a result it is by far my favourite of the revival "boomer-shooters". Was really hoping for a release date, but pretty much everything shown at Realms Deep had the increasingly infuriatingly non-committal Coming Soon™ caption.

 

More stoked for this than anything else right now.

[vyruss]

3 hours ago, Smoothandz said:

 

Depending on how long it was when you played it, AE probably has more levels than when you played it. 

 

Although, that brings up a good question. Since this DLC is the prequel and shows how the champion got the axe, would it make more sense to wait and play the DLC first then replay AE?

 

TBH I think I only ever finished episode 2 and got burnt out on the whole "boomer" (fucking worthless qualifier) shooter renaissance that began back in 2017/2018.

[Murdoch]

Interesting. I enjoyed Amid Evil but for the very last episode which I found to be a painful slog. It was creative level design wise but forgot to be fun. Will see what reviews say upon release.

[Lippeth]

The fists are a neat addition, though the visual effects still give me a headache.

 

I don't know what it is, but there's something about the surface reflections, bold colors and lighting effects that make Amid Evil look like one of those "ULTIMATE 4K HD REMASTERED" mods that doesn't match the flat level geometry, and it's a weird personal hang-up I could never get past. I've only played it for about an hour and have no authority on knowing what makes something good or bad, but everything in it is so abstract that I found it impossible to connect with anything, and I really enjoy all the games that inspired it which makes me feel like there's something I'm missing.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

45 minutes ago, Lippeth said:

everything in it is so abstract that I found it impossible to connect with anything, and I really enjoy all the games that inspired it

Sums up my thoughts exactly. My enjoyment of the game was severely hampered by the fact that it has the personality of a 2008 Windows XP shareware screensaver. It didn't feel like I was exploring locales, it felt like I was passively hovering through crude shapes. It didn't feel like I was fighting enemies, it felt like I was clicking on crude shapes until they fell over. After some time it began to feel pointless. To me, it wasn't even abstract in a particularly evocative way either. It wasn't atmospheric, and the "4K REMASTER" thing you mentioned prevents it from feeling artistically coherent. I even thought most of the music was dull. In fact, for all the vibrant colors in the game, "dull" sums up my experience with it perfectly. It was actually mind numbing after a certain point, and that's the worst feeling that I can get from any form of entertainment. I can't really say that it felt soulless, but it felt cold, and not in a cool artistic or atmospheric way.

 

I don't know if we have anyone here from New Blood, but if we do, I don't mean any kind of discouragement. There's a lot of effort here, it just isn't for me, it doesn't connect with me.

Edited September 22, 2022 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[heliumlamb]

i played the base game last year, if a game's early access i'm sticking by the "when it's done" principle 99 times of 100 (beamng is the exception):
amid evil felt more like quake to me than quake 2 ever did. in its feel it was kind of a halfway point between quake and unreal, and allowing players to play all but the first episode in any order was very welcome. it took quake's assortment of disparate realms (which can also be approached in any order) further by having unique enemy rosters for each episode. wasn't necessarily a stunning, masterful work. nor was it a pullapart'n'sever djenty edgefest, but it absolutely didn't need to be. it's just an incredibly solid fps game with little (according to my subjective perception) nonsense. i for one welcome the crusty normal-mapped textures that make my fans go whirrr. i will probably play this eventually, but that might be a few years after it releases lol

 

alway rember:

Spoiler

"boomer shooter" is a term invented by dave oshry for the benefit of dave oshry. boomer shooter does not reflect the shooting game tastes of the generation that ended in 1962 or something. if you didn't have the chance to go running around in a cloud of ddt or experience frequent passive lead exposure, you are likely not a "boomer".

the colloquialism should 100% have been "doomer shooters" instead? first person shooters for the doomers (as in playing doom) makes so much more gotdang sense.

 

[Daytime Waitress]

I initially thought my problem with the game's enemies lay where @Lippeth and @TheMagicMushroomMan pointed - it's less "fighting interstellar foes", and more "an agglomeration of geometric shapes are hitting my screen." But I looked past that and realised that it's the way every single enemy bumrushes you. Even in Doom, things come at you from different angles or speeds or they're sequestered where they can snipe, but here everyone gets all up in your face, constantly. It's like a less intense, sometimes more braindead Serious Sam.

 

And I very nearly quit on the second boss. That metroid-looking motherfucker with an erratic attack pattern that will jank its way into sitting on top of you. And it took your entire arsenal to whittle down its health bar.

 

But then something magic happened.

 

I started the third episode.

 

And here's where it shined. Mowing down the hordes wasn't the priority. It was exploring the definitely-not-constructed-by-humans architecture. It was watching the levels unfold on themselves like colossal, ornate origami as you unlocked new pathways. It was witnessing the marriage of the game's cosmic mythology and non-Euclidean geometry. It was about being surprised by how maps would allow you to progress.

 

I still haven't finished it, because the visual style chafes my motion sickness, but I'm very eager to get back to it.

 

So while it's not my favourite NB title, when I loved it, I goddsdamned loved it, and the DLC went on the wishlist the instant it was announced.

[BGreener]

Yeah, I’d say I’m looking forward to this.

 

AE did not grab me at first. I had to tinker with the settings as well as some Nvidia Experience options to come upon a combination of color vibrance, antialiasing, and sharpening I found pleasing. It’s also been one of the easier of these “mid 90s vibin” shooters. I wish encounters were tossed at you more throughout the levels.

 

Once it clicked I started to have a good time. The levels are somewhat more linear than I’d prefer, but it otherwise reminded me of what a “Heretic in Quake” game could’ve played like, kind of like how Hexen 2 was very similar to 1 but was just put into the Quake engine. Favorite episode was the Astral Expanse, I even listen to the track “Aetheres” frequently.

 

I’d like the expansion to make the original episodes more difficult on revisiting them, but I’ll be happy with just a new set of levels.

[hybridial]

I'm looking forward to more Amid Evil, I think it's visually the most beautiful 3D game ever made.

 

But in terms of gameplay, it's merely very good. Doesn't really quite go above that, it's not as good to play as Dusk is and I'd probably put Prodeus and Ion Fury over it too. But visually, it's fascinating, it's reminiscent of a long held memory from back in the 90s of what 3D graphics offered, an abstract idea that was largely destroyed by the development of 3D since then, because the trends moved away from stylisation. 

[Rudolph]

17 hours ago, Smoothandz said:

It's going to be awesome to see how the champion got the Black Labyrinth Axe.

Now, I want to see a Doom prequel where we see how Doomguy got his demon-punching gloves! :P

[Midnight_00]

My biggest hope is for higher difficulty across the board. I found Hard difficulty very easy overall in Amid Evil, even with warrior mode turned on. I'm sure even with auto soul mode it isn't much harder because you get into soul mode so quickly and there's so much ammo for the Aeternum. I didn't complete Evil difficulty admittedly, but I remember it not seeming as difficult as expected for a hidden extra hard mode. Perhaps I'd prefer if Black Labyrinth was less generous with ammo, at least for the Aeternum (if that's even in this expansion).

[Smoothandz]

@Midnight_00 I agree, maybe sometimes the game felt a little easy in some places. Having too much Aeternum ammo feels the same as having too much BFG ammo for Doom. Just takes away from the hoard onslaught and turns it into a shooting gallery. 

 

@hybridial I'm in the same club. I loved it even when my computer was a potato. Now it looks amazing on my 3070 I just got. I haven't had time to fiddle with the RTX/ray tracing settings, but I'm excited to see how much better it can get.

[Caffeine Freak]

Going only by the footage above: both graphically and gameplay-wise, it looks pretty good. In terms of visuals, combat and sound design, it looks very similar to Prodeus.

 

On the other hand, the environmental aesthetic leaves... a lot to be desired. That looks much more like the blocking stage of a level than a finished one. It's difficult to even discern exactly what that location is. Now, levels with blocky aesthetics can certainly work. Both Prodeus and Dusk have levels that are blocky in their aesthetics, but it's usually easy to tell what the locations themselves are supposed to be. Here though, it's just hard to say, and I would find it difficult getting connected to the game if that level is representative of a general trend in the games visual design.

[scalliano]

1 hour ago, Caffeine Freak said:

It's difficult to even discern exactly what that location is.

That's kind of the point - it's all about that otherworldly vibe.

 

As someone who has beaten the game several times over, I can confidently state that this game is anything but blocky. Each of the main game's 7 episodes has a distinct theme with its own bestiary, but they are all quite surreal to a degree, some more than others, yet they all have some really memorable areas. The only episode I would consider blocky would be Ep. 2. Ep. 3 is debatable, but that section is very MayIncaTec in its theming so it kind of fits. All in all though, the level design is purely in service of the gameplay, so it's proper old school.

[Daytime Waitress]

4 hours ago, scalliano said:

Each of the main game's 7 episodes has a distinct theme with its own bestiary

 

I really loved this aspect of it. They could've had some stupid gimmick of the forces arrayed against you sending generic grunts in to every dimension, but instead you got a pissed off indigenous population trying to tear you apart. And if you hated one enemy type in particular, it was gone after a handful of levels. Fucking A.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

I like it but the last few levels with RTX made me want to tear my eyes out. Not in a rush to play more of it after that final level.

[tatsu91]

18 hours ago, Pegg said:

I like it but the last few levels with RTX made me want to tear my eyes out. Not in a rush to play more of it after that final level.

The Final boss kinda sucked as well. Everything else was great but that boss was not fun

[xdarkmasterx]

21 hours ago, tatsu91 said:

The Final boss kinda sucked as well. Everything else was great but that boss was not fun

 

I thought it could have been a lot tougher. The magic gimmick made it easier than it should have been IMO

[tatsu91]

14 hours ago, xdarkmasterx said:

 

I thought it could have been a lot tougher. The magic gimmick made it easier than it should have been IMO

I feel it was a slog like it wasn't hard just kinda easy but also tedious at the same time. Id rather it be harder with a quicker TTK to alleviate tedium