Amid Evil

Mostly PC, but console and mobile too
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Leisher
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Amid Evil

Post by Leisher »

FPS with old school graphics, a nonsensical bare minimum of a story, meh weapons, and curious level design.

The story is about...I don't know what. Let's call it a rip off of the Roman or Norse gods and for some reason they need you to kill Evil. Yes, the big bad is actually named "Evil" in this game.

The weapons are poorly conceived. You have an axe and then everything else is a magical item that shoots. There's a wand that shoots homing missiles, a trident that shoots lighting, a wand that shoots bombs, a wand that shoots death pink death balls with lighting, and a sword that shoots waves. They "feel" pretty bad. I don't know how to explain this, but if you play FPSs you should get it: The weapons don't feel good. The wand with the death balls things is a great example of how the weapons are trash. This is your BFG. You can shoot it in a room with baddies and it would sometimes take them all out (Lighting comes out of the ball and hits each target.). However, a lot of times it will just miss one or more. Granted, if there's something in the way, I get they would be protected. However, this would happen in open areas. Also, the weapons use mana (except the axe), you lose them between worlds, the BFG is usually in a secret area, and there's a soul power mechanic to unlock an alt fire for each. (Killing enemies leaves behind souls that you must collect.)

Each world you visit is made up of multiple levels. Each is the same thing over and over. Collect a silver and gold key, fight a small collection of enemies unique to each world (although some are just reskinned versions of others), and then kill a boss. These worlds are all connected by a very confusing world with zero fighting or anything to do except work your way through the maze to figure out where the entrance to the next world is located. And honestly, due to the bland color palates, all of the worlds are super confusing to navigate. They also tend to be more of a jumbled mess layered on top and under themselves rather than flat and logically laid out, so half your playtime will be backtracking or figuring out where to go. Additionally, if you're a huge console platform lover, this is the FPS for you. There are jumping puzzles all over. Because we all know people play FPSs for jumping puzzles!

Special note is the final world, which is so out of place in this game, but also perfectly at home. Is it a jumbled mess of jumping puzzles and just getting lost? Yep. However, the visual style and design is so dramatically different from all the other levels, it was a breath of fresh air. That's not saying it was great. It was good, but still deeply flawed. Still, that's how one note the rest of the game is when this, flawed but in a different color scheme, level is so jarringly different.

Most of the bosses are decent and each requires a different strategy. Evil is a different story. He just spams massive AOE attacks, and to show you how he's broken, the key to surviving is to jump off a platform into the abyss. That's something you should be try to avoid the entire rest of the game, but here is teleports you back to the starting point in this fight, which means you dodge his attacks. Also, it's never explained, but to beat him you just shoot him normally with zero effect until your soul power fills up. Then you activate that and your weapon does damage. Meh.

This might have been kick ass in the 90s, but in today's market it just comes off as poorly designed. Skip it.
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