MAX MCGEE'S PROFILE

Hellucination by Dethmetal:

This is a cool, blood soaked riff on Doom for rm2k3, it reminds me of Doom, obviously, and also of this game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_(video_game) which I never played but remember seeing in Blockbuster a lot during the PSX era.

Your ABS is working pretty damn well and is an impressive feat of coding, although it could benefit from the strafing system seen in Fenrir. I'd actually love to license it for just a short segment of one of my old rm2k3 projects, if something like that would be possible. The game in question uses a much simpler "ABS", but I thought it would be cool if it could have a Hellucination style shooting sequence, as well.

I quit playing after my second cheap death; the first one, where the game surrounds you with a million tiny spiders during a cutscene, and you are forced into a situation where you have to struggle with the battle system, which DOESN'T HANDLE BEING SURROUNDED WELL AT ALL, in order fight your way out. The second death, and the one that made me quit playing, was during the boss fight of the sewer level, I was surrounded by spiders again, after the boss became immune to rockets for some reason while I fought his little goons (I'm aware this is a standard trope for video game bosses, but it's still VERY ANNOYING) and of course, since the game basically forces you to equip the rocket launcher at this point, I blew myself up trying to shoot the spiders underfoot. A perfect emulation of a cheap, annoying death in a first person shooter. : )

I did not get the point of the soul collection (soul bag is very silly idea) or "rank up" features, by the way.

What's not working:
*The ammo counter. You probably know this already, but the ammo counter is wonky as hell; discounting the fact that the Uzi I picked up and my Mk. 23 SHOULDN'T HOLD THE SAME NUMBER OF BULLETS, often I could reload when I was at 0 ammo in the clip with 00 ammo in reserve to discover I suddenly had a bunch of ammo, usually between 12 and 36 more rounds. And while I did pick this ammo up, it didn't "appear" until I made an impossible reload with empty.
*The uzi is infinitely less effective than the Mk. 23, and shouldn't be. It takes a stream of 9-12 shots to drop enemies with the Uzi, when a double tap from the handgun is consistently capable to take down any hellish demonic monstrosity quickly and efficiently.
*Like I said, the battle system/bullet collision detection gets weird when I'm surrounded/sandwiched between enemies, in a way that is really annoying.

Anyway, aesthetically, your game is much closer to being the dark, violent kind of game it wants to be than Fenrir, which strikes me as your direct competition. I really enjoyed the liberal application of gore and guts and blood, and also your soundtrack. I wasn't surprised I enjoyed your soundtrack, though, since I would be surprised if at least two of the tunes (the Legacy of Kain Midi and the Phantasm Midi) hadn't been plundered from the BGM folder of games I've made in the past under different names.
(While other RPG Maker games used them before me, these are not common midis, and seeing them in the same place makes it even more conspicuous, even though obviously I don't own them/didn't create them/have no problem with it, I just thought it was funny.) Same goes for the public domain resources, although I felt your gore/monster/zombie edits were awesomely varied.

My main advice aesthetically is the same thing I said to Sam about Fenrir. THE SIMPLE USE OF DARKER SCREEN TONES AND DRIVING RAIN can make your game's first stage feel so, so much more like the pulse-pounding, gore splattering, machine gun firing, METAL SOLO kind of game you want it to be. Making the gun sprites in the character's hand look more like the guns they are would help too, but is not a priority. And I agree with whoever said this game needs more metal, dethmetal. : )

Dungeon Quest by Mr. Nemo:
This game was a godamn hillarious diversion. I was really impressed by how you managed to somehow be MORE OLD SCHOOL than Dragon Fantasy II, Hellion, and even, I suspect, then bobthebobish's pre-retro piece de resistance. While it was laden with bugs of various kinds, mostly related to backtracking being IMPOSSIBLE, this is hardly unforgivable in a game made in so short a time frame.

Here are my complaints:
*Why was the scoundrel NOT ABLE TO PICK LOCKS? Playing as the rogue, of all people, I got stuck with no keys and no way to go back. Go figure.

Actually, uh, that's it, for now. I beat it as the knight. The game is short, but has a surprising amount of replay value, and is a nice change of pace from the typical RM while still very much a top down RPG, but of a different kind altogether.

Also, it reminded me of the old TSR board game Dungeon Quest, which can be hillarious in its own right.

In closing, my encounter with the "Gentleman" (really he's not a gentleman AT ALL you guys!) and the final statisistic listed at the end of the game, "You were raped x times." were basically the funniest things I ever have seen or ever will see in any amature game, ever, so thank you for them.

Out of this World -

What an amazing game. You die like a billion times, but it's still fun and psychologically teasing/thrilling. Amazing final sequence too.

I LOVE this game. It is like what got me into videogames, honestly, because I was like...wow, videogames can be atmospheric and tell a story HOLY SHIT.

I still haven't beaten it, because in addition to being an antique now, it's basically IMPOSSIBLE.

If you HAD to exchange lives with another member, who would it be?

Honestly? Anyone who's still in college, ideally a sophomore in college. I miss being in school so much.

Uh, having seen WIP's home theater/computing setup he's going to be playing the new Release Something's on....WIP, SOLELY ON THE BASIS OF HIS SETUP. It is that kickass.

...become now even though it was initially a serious topic okay guyz thankz bai
is cut-off end of the now-truncated name of what I changed the topic's title to. :)

Shit dude, after yesterday, there should be a GAME PLAYING DRIVE.