by Psycho Soldier » Sun Dec 16, 2018 1:39 am
Street Fighter V has been free to play this past week on Steam, so I've put a few hours into it since Tuesday. The game's appeal has improved drastically over the past couple years, with the addition of better single-player content and more characters, but it still falls a little flat for me. I think it looks good (save for a few character models leaving much to be desired), and the music is mostly well done, but its presentation and gameplay lack the energy and fun factor of SFIV. Compared to other fighting games on the market this generation (e.g. Killer Instinct, Dragon Ball FighterZ), SFV is not as engaging and doesn't do much to distinguish itself. Also, in-game ads for DLC? Really? Maybe they help pay for the free week, but I feel moody enough looking at the real-world prices of content in Killer Instinct, and I adore that game.
On a higher note, I played the third and final episode of DUSK, an FPS with a late-'90s graphical aesthetic. It draws a lot of inspiration from Quake, Blood, Doom, and other shooters of that era, but manages to surpass most of them with great level design, exciting gameplay, and an impressive soundtrack by Andrew Hulshult. Episode 3 is a fantastic ending: it evokes a surprising range of emotions, introduces some truly strange enemies and levels, and easily one-ups the final boss of Quake 1 while drawing from the same reference pool. Absolutely give this game a chance if you're into shooters.
"Available for your home in 1995, only on Nintendo Ultra 64!"