Zorba the Hutt

This game has suddenly taken a turn for the horribly sucky.

Not sucky in the sense of "well, the graphics are fantastic, and the gameplay is cliche but at least done well", which is what it's been before. No, now it's just plain Not Any Fun.

See, I've been teleported to this other place. (I won't say where I am, except that - being an Id game - there's only two locations, military bases and Hell. And I started in the military base.) In the process, I lost all my weapons. Not only that, but I lost my flashlight.

Well, Hell's even darker than the military base. So basically it's no longer possible to figure out where I'm going - I just spent five minutes stumbling around in a pitch-black maze of some sort, for example. I get attacked by creatures that I've been slaying handily since two hours into the game, and getting my ass handed to me on a platter. The fact that I can't see them doesn't help. The fact that their vision of Hell is even more cliche than their vision of the military base doesn't help. The fact that American McGee's Alice was scarier than this section doesn't help either.

Basically, they just took a mediocre-but-at-least-not-actively-irritating game, and added active irritation.

Wonderful.

WOW.

I never thought anyone could make the jumping puzzle cliche worse. But Id has succeeded.

"Let's make a jumping puzzle! Everyone loves jumping puzzles."
"Too easy."
"We can add weird psychedelic graphics so it's hard to see the platforms."
"Too easy."
"And we can make the platforms black, the same as the backdrop, so it's nearly impossible to see them!"
"Too easy."
"Plus we'll have enemies shooting at the player."
"Too easy."
"Enemies *flying* at the player. And knocking him off the platforms."
"Too easy."
"Enemies TELEPORTING IN, flying at the player, and knocking him off the platforms."
"Hmm."
"And we'll make sure he doesn't have any useful weapons."
"Now you're talking!"

For all my complaining before, I was mostly griping about the fact that it wasn't spectacular. Now . . . this isn't even *fun*.

If you'll excuse me, I have another pitch-black maze to thread my way through.

Of the same time to the first time and the other things this is a little more than the king of a man who had been a few days of his own and I have been the most of this was a great deal of her.