As you all may know, as of recent, Jozef Bogin apparently read my little review of Triple 333 and actually made an update to not only add a few features to it, but deal with some of the criticisms that I pointed out in my review. As a result, I decided to make a minor follow up review to address these new changes, and provide more criticisms because I can't get off unless I criticize someone's hard work because I do have a few things to talk about with these new features. So here's a brief summary of me checking the new features out, followed by a more detailed explanation.
The Story of Me Playing with New Features[]
So I start the game up, and we have a nifty little menu. Neato. Out of sheer whatever, I click the Instructions.
To which I am greeted by the scariest fucking face from the Wyoming Incident singing "I'M GONNA FUCK YOU", to which afterwards my game froze up and closed.
Great start!
After cleaning up the bricks that I shat, I opted to tell those instructions to fuck off and check the new options.
First and foremost, my biggest complaint from the original game has been fucking fixed. The recoil has been toned down, as the option to re-add the "Insane Recoil" tells me! That's already a massive golden star I can add to this game, because as you all know, the recoil from the original game can fuck right off. And in case you're curious, re-adding the fucking terrible recoil results in an increase of points. Since I personally do not care for points, this option can stay deactivated. Still, the option to re-add it is a nice touch. A strange one, but a nice one nonetheless.
The next option that immediately catches my eye is the "Nightmare!" skill option, from what I heard, turns the game's difficulty up to eleven. Because I am a massive masochist, I turn it on. The rest of the options, save for one, are basically the same, so that's that. I'll get to that last option later on.
So then I start the game. I immediately notice that, instead of the Shotgun, I get the VZ-58 from the start, which may as well be holding a sign that says "GOOD LUCK". I pick it up and get the obligatory first secret's ammo stockpile.
Immediately afterwards, upwards of seven heads charge down the corridor and completely butt fuck me.
"This is going to be one of THOSE hard modes, isn't it?" I mused to myself, slamming my head on the desk as I hear that fucking taunting game over giggle and my absolutely dreadful score.
So after restarting and trying again, I manage to gun down the seven heads that come charging at me at the start. To which I turn down a corridor and encounter another four or five heads.
Then I run out of ammo and die again.
...
So then I decided to be a massive dick and turn developer mode on, because it's growing more and more apparent Nightmare mode is going to be Kaizo levels of hard.
One quick playthrough of the game on Nightmare with godmode on basically reassures my assumptions.
I'm not fucking kidding when I say I had no less than 300 fucking kills by the end of it. For reference, during the vanilla game mode, I get at most around 90-100. That's three times as many enemies going up against you. And note the only benefit to ammo that you get is that you have no limit to how much of it you can carry on nightmare mode. Usually, you only have a max of 98 shots. Since more often than not, you're going to waste all of it in the first part of the game, this really doesn't matter.
So that was my playthrough of the game. Let's talk more about the game itself, shall we?
In Depth Review[]
Firstly, according to Jozef, the AI has been tweaked a bit. I definitely noticed this while doing a quick runthrough of the vanilla game. The AI still has a dumb habit of getting stuck on corners, but they are more clever in running away after taking a quick potshot at you, and are very good at suddenly popping out from behind a corner and nailing you one while you're trying to be sneaky. Which, although annoying, does alleviate my complaints about the AI before. They're a bit smarter now. On Nightmare mode, according to Jozef, they're even smarter, which just compounds the difficulty even more. I did notice the A.I. in Nightmare mode seemed to swerve a bit in open spaces while coming at me, as if they were trying to dodge my attacks. They're also fast as fuck. Like I said, Nightmare mode is Kaizo romhack levels of difficulty. While I'm not saying that's a bad thing... Well, even though it kind of is... Maybe another difficulty that gives the A.I. their Nightmare level counterparts, while keeping the numbers basically the same would be nice, as it would basically be a means to ease yourself into Nightmare mode. Yes, I know fully well of the handicaps you can give yourself to make the game slightly easier, but seriously, they don't help on Nightmare mode. The only one that does, besides Developer mode, is Sprinting, and even then, since enemies are all over the god damn place, there's really nowhere to run.
Also, you don't get anything major for beating Nightmare mode. It's just another score boost. Meh >:l
Now, remember that feature in the Options menu I was talking about? That feature is the Sound Hack option, which, I swear to god, I honestly don't know what the fuck it does. I played through the game with it on, and found... Well, nothing different. Well, there were a few new sounds added, such as giving some enemies humorous Wolfenstein Guard screams when they die, and adding a few new ambient sounds when you open certain doors, this really wasn't added with the Sound Hack mode. I really don't know what Sound Hack does.
UPDATE: Apparently, it's for Windows 8 users. So it IS basically useless, then! Right.
So. That's basically my review of the game. Long and short of it, Jozef fixed my major complaints with the game, and although Nightmare mode is a seriously steep curve upwards from the previous difficulty, the updates definitely improve a hell of a lot more than they fuck up.
Also, in case you want to see the little clip of the Face singing "I'M GONNA FUCK YOU", then go here. It's at 7:26. I... Honestly don't know why you would want to, but hey!