Let me prefare this with my being a pureblooded Dutchie, someone who has barely left the country they were raised in. Saying that the story of this game, both the aspects of family and loss of family as the prospect of struggling with your idenity (in this case cultural) were deeply touching to me. Cannot reccomend this more if you are looking for a good story which happens to have cooking minigames

A Blatantly Broken Cashgrab.

First of, let me clarify that I know pinball games are a niche, but even as someone who grew up as a zoomer I was always interested in anything related to these "Pedalshelves". I quickly became attached to this game's predecessor "Pinbal FX3". And besides the frankly unnecesarry rebooting was decently excited for FX4. When I first got my hands on this product masquerading as a game I was disappointing that I had to buy the DLC again (especially after already having made the jump from Switch FX3 to Steam FX3), even moreso when I found out my favourite zen original from FX3 hadn't even made the cut yet. I played a bit then, buying some of the tables that were available but was quickly left bored. Now, recently I discovered that Epic Quest was brought back for a charity event. Excited to try it and perhaps actually notice the supposed improvements between versions I started the game up on my steam deck... only to find out that I couldn't use half the game's features cause the game did not recognize that I indeed have a wifi connection.

Stay away from this piece of junk at all cost, I for one am just going to learn how to make Epic Quest in Visual Pinball..

Let's say hypothetically, you wanted to kick ass? And for the sake of argument, you wanted to chew bubblegum. Is it not reasonable to say you ran out of gum? Well, the ass kicking part of this game is fully there, but if you run out of some of that precious gum and you will have to restart.

Played as part of my personal crusade to get through all the boomer shooters, well as many as I could muster, I found Project Warlock going in my library and deciding to give it a go. First of all, the game has some absolutely stunning pixel art, with some gorgeous effects you can add, going beyond the usual scan lines with stuff like integrated jitter and wobble options. So visually there is nothing to complain about.

The game functions fundamentally as a roguelike, however due to it's length and life system you will probably not game over after the first episode unless you are playing on the harder difficulties, which i cannot vouch for since I only played it on Standard. I did try a "Casual' run beforehand but got my save file deleted midway through, I do not know if that's a once-in-a-lifetime glitch or a feature but it left me very annoyed.

The game's weapons are fun to use, all besides the starting knife and one late game weapon having two mutually exclusive upgrades you can purchase. Personal favourites include the Akimo SMG, Autoloader Shotgun, Flak Cannon and Napalm Launcher. There are definitely some red herrings like the Flare Gun, but otherwise the arsenal is very well balanced.

What really lets the game down though is it's level design, outside the first episode there are almost no landmarks to speak off. you get easily lost, either by not knowing where to go, where you are or a combination of the two. While not a definitive deal breaker it's something to keep in mind.

Also the final boss, which can only be described as Bavaria Incarnate is such a bullet sponge that running out of ammo is a bigger concern then actually dying to him. In general the game has a problem with distributing ammo, giving you pistol ammo far past it's usefulness.

In conclusion this game is a great game bugged by poor level design and ammo management. It's definitely a recommendation for if you are in to the genre, just keep that in mind.

To set the stage, I have set a personal goal for myself to beat as many old-school style First Person Shooters, also more snapily referred to nowadays as “Boomer Shooters”, as possible to catch up with a genre I only found out that I enjoy relatively recently. After beating Arthurian Legends and having an absolute blast (a proper review of that game coming at a later date), I got recommended Hexen: Beyond Heretic as a similar kind of game to Arthurian Legends: The Doom of the medieval-fantasy genre: high octane melee action. Let’s see if that recommendation holds up or if it was beyond heresy.

For this playthrough the game was played through the source port GZDoom, a free modern day update for old Doom engine games. The game’s effective prequel Heretic can also be run on this Engine, but I haven’t gotten around to that game yet.

The game starts with 3 options: You can either play as a Fighter: the brute-force tanky melee class, a Mage: the magical glass canon, or a Cleric: the holy man who walks the center’s tight middle path. Front and foremost I have to say I have only beaten this game so far as the Fighter, just to not fatigue myself by replaying the same game 3 times with different weapons, so while I will occasionally refer to the other classes, this review will be primarily focused on the Fighter’s gameplay.

Before you encounter the game’s infamous level designs you are placed in a small-scale tutorial in the 1-1 sense: no text boxes, just a few enemies to smack and enough room to figure it out for yourself later. The combat is quite simple yet engaging, both the Fighter and the Cleric start with only a melee weapon while the mage starts with a magic staff that’s effectively a peashooter. I hacked through the starting enemies, strafing backwards to dodge any potential counter attacks. This is Hexen’s gameplay to its very fundamentals: Quick up-and-close offenses while quickly moving out of the way of any incoming hostiles.

After breaking some stained-glass windows, teaching you that you can interact with the game’s environment too besides hugging the wall and pressing space like in Doom, you will quickly find yourself in the next level and the first proper stage. After a brief speech by the main villain Korax you will quickly learn about the game’s meat and potatoes: interconnected levels with hidden switches forcing you to explore to go further.

Despite this however, unlike the game’s reputation, I found the game is actually rather clear with what it wants you to do, only on 2 of the 5 main levels, also called “hubs” I found even a singular puzzle that had me saying “How the ♥♥♥♥ am I supposed to figure that out” after looking up a guide. Most of the time however a guide simply pointed me towards a switch in the open that I forgot to press. While it’s certainly not my favorite part of the game, it was a huge relief from the quite frankly hyperbolic tales I’ve heard from this game and its sequel Hexen 2.

Over the course of these 5 hubs you explore away, killing new and powerful foes, to balance this you are given weapons throughout the game, the first two use blue and green mana respectively (mana being basically Hexen’s ammo) while the 4th weapon, assembled over the course of multiple hubs, uses both mana. While I found the fighter’s flaming sword of death (not the official name) cool in concept I found it drained my mana too quickly to be of much use. However, for the people that can stand the mediocre options he has early game, the Cleric has one of the most overpowered weapons in video game history: A wand that summons ghosts to ravage enemies, dealing damage faster than even Doom’s BFG.

Nevertheless, after some harrowing mirror matches against versions of all the classes, you will find yourself slaying the big bad villain, ending the game. While I've yet to try its intriguing multiplayer mode due to the game’s heretical reputation, I can safely say that at least the single player content here it offers left me wanting more in a good way. 5 dollars well spent.

(Throughout my playthrough on Berserker (the Fighter’s 4th difficulty) I died 150 times and used a guide 12 times)