Hellbound

completely unremarkable hellbound as a game is generic at best: - banal weapons: 2 melee, 2 shotguns (one functions as a weak rifle basically), a machine gun, and a rocket launcher - clichéd locations: 8 primarily rock and lava-filled hell levels with uninspired level design - monotonous enemies: 5 humanoid grunts that use your weapons, 3 hell monsters aped from doom, one boss there are some baffling decisions for a game that prides itself on being old-school: - all enemies spawn in, often surrounding the player, and start attacking immediately - game relies on checkpoints, quick saving/quick loading did not work for me - aim down sights almost necessary at times to take care of ranged enemies - most enemies are not distinct from one another and blend into environments - fov defaulted at 59, maxes out at 90 - bonus: picking up health has the screen flash red and the player character makes a pain sound? i played hellbound v1.1.3 (which is after a major update added a new enemy and level), and total time on my playthrough was just under 4 hours on old school difficulty. i got stuck with a few bad checkpoints and ran circles a few times with samey-looking level design which extended playtime a bit. hellbound has a demo if you are really interested, but there are a ton of better retro and retro-inspired fps games out there.

Good for what it is. This would have been a massive success in 1995. Unfortunately, I played it in 2023.