Amid Evil

​AMID EVIL is one of those games that you’ll enjoy for a few minutes, and then realize it lacks a lot of soul that is needed to make a successful “boomer shooter.” You see, I grew up in the golden era of the 80s and 90s, when we all played DOOM, Quake, Wolfenstein, Duke Nukem, and Unreal Tournament on our PCs, and it created some of the greatest gaming memories ever. AMID EVIL tries to capture that magic, but unfortunately, it dropped the ball when it mattered most. To create an exciting, fun, and memorable boomer shooter, several elements need to come together​. You need nice graphics, a killer soundtrack, fun gameplay, awesome weapons, diverse enemies, epic bosses, some platforming to keep things fresh, and an engaging story to bring it all together. The graphics are very nice in AMID EVIL, as it pops and looks beautiful in a very retro, Hexen/Heretic kind of way. I very much enjoyed the graphics, but this is where things started to unravel, and it led to disappointment. The soundtrack was decent, but nothing great. The gameplay gets repetitive and extremely boring once you get past the initial fun after the first hour or so. After that, it’s the same exact kind of gameplay. It’s just run around, collect fantasy weapons, kill regular enemies mixed in with harder enemies, some mini boss, ​eventually a final boss, and repeat until you start to get annoyed. The weapons in this game were unique at first, but there isn’t much variety here to make them stand out, and you lose your weapons after each episode anyway, only to regain them again a few minutes in. What’s even the point of that anyway? The enemies are diverse to a degree, until you realize that the more you progress, they look different, but act pretty much the same. Even the bosses are just sponges. The gameplay just makes it so you use one of your more powerful weapons, spam that for about 10 seconds, kill the boss, get your achievement, and keep moving. Again, the game is very slow, repetitive, and feels the same no matter what level or area you’re in. Now, the platforming and annoying level design is what started to make me regret even playing AMID EVIL. I get needing to add platforming to FPS games like this because it helps bring variety to the maps and objectives, but they really amped it up here to the point where if you’re a millisecond off from hitting a platform with rotating floors or levers, you either die, or have to go all the way back to try again and again and again. Throw in the fact that the level geometry and texturing are too confusing, and it just becomes a frustrating gaming experience. Don’t get me wrong, I love challenges and figuring stuff out in FPS games like this, but this game just kept dragging on and on and on. It’s a slogfest once you put a few hours in, and then it’ll hit you that you’ve seen it all, got all the weapons available, and now it’s just a matter of going through labyrinth-like mazes, frantically looking for keys and switches, ​a​nd it gets old fast. Speaking of which, where is the story? You get these vague “sayings” on walls that make zero sense and are confusing. There is zero narrative here or anything to explain who you are, what you’re doing, who you’re fighting, and why you’re doing it. It feels very empty and lacks that extra immersion of being the protagonist in an FPS game like this. There are zero voicelines here. The protagonist you play as literally says nothing except for grunts, roars, and ​screams whenever you die. At the time of this Steam review, I’ve played about 6 hours worth of this, and I’ve had enough. I don’t even care about the Steam Achievements anymore because AMID EVIL is a lackluster game. While I appreciate its uniqueness, it just feels like a timesink that doesn’t offer a great gaming experience or anything worth playing for beyond Steam Achievements. I do not recommend AMID EVIL. It tries to pay homage to the legendary FPS games of Heretic and Hexen, but it failed to do so. This lacks the serious, gritty, and addictive gameplay that is needed to ever be compared to such titles. Ultimately, this is a boring game that, despite looking very nice, lacks the essence of a good FPS. The soundtrack is decent, but the gameplay is so meh that it becomes a second job to get through the levels, sponges for bosses, and some of the most annoying platforming I’ve ever seen in over 30 years of gaming. There is a complete lack of narrative or voice acting to make it even somewhat entertaining, and overall, it’s a very bare-bones kind of game.