Rise of The Triad Review

Rise of The Triad
Developed By: Interceptor Entertainment
Published By: Apogee Software
Date of Release: July 31, 2013
Price: $14.99

The year is 2013, and the First Person Shooter genre has gone to hell in a handbasket. The once sprawling, secret-filled maps of yesteryear have given way to liner corridors, with cutscenes every few steps. In trying to emulate blockbuster movies, videogames have lost sight of so much of what made them such worthwhile experiences. Regerating health has replaced healing pickups, and button mashing quicktime events have infected every inch of the FPS experience. Not to mention that most modern heroes are such wusses that they can't even wade into the crossfire without dying instantly, preferring to hide behind cover trading shots like spineless cowards. Thank god for Rise of The Triad, and for the awesome and ballsy team at Interceptor Entertainment for bringing it to us.

The first thing you're gonna notice when you start up Rise of The Triad is that the launcher lets you customize EVERY LITTLE DETAIL of the graphics settings. That's right, no craptastic console port here. Once you get into the ingame menu you can finish setting the basics like resolution, brightness and stuff, as well as choose your FOV. Again, no consoleized bullshit here. You also have full reign over your control bindings as well as audio levels (also be sure to try Classic Mode in the audio menu for a nostalgic blast!). That's not to say the new soundtrack isn't utterly badass, because the newly remixed tracks by Andrew Hulshult (of Burying The Trend) are utter ear candy. The use of the Unreal Engine also makes for eye candy, Rise of The Triad has NEVER looked this good. It's good to see that the folks at Interceptor give a damn about what makes PC gaming sofa king awesome.

For one thing, the sprawling mazelike levels that made oldschool gaming so much fun make a triumphant return, with dead ends, keys to match up with doors, and a total boatload of secrets. Seriously look EVERYWHERE around you, chances are that little out-of-the-way nook or cranny is hiding something badassedly awesome. The team at Interceptor have hidden awesome references new and old alike all over the levels (Dopefish Lives!). Oh, and then there's the other thing that makes PC gaming especially kicking rad: MODS! Rise of The Triad fully supports modding, and even has it's own easy to use drag-and-drop level editor (coming SOON™) so that you can make your own insidious arenas of mayhem and death! Not only that, but all future DLC is FREE (no Disc Locked Content here folks!).

Ok, all that stuff sound fine and dandy, but how does it actually play? Well imagine someone took the original Rise of The Triad, made it prettier, added proper aiming and WASD controls, and then basically turned everything up to 11 AND added more cowbell. Rise of The Triad looks and plays effing amazing, with a perfect challenge level for any player out there. There's a veritable army of foes waiting for you to take them on, and enough firepower to deal with them all. And that's just the singleplayer, there is also a full fledged badass multiplayer experience to be had, and let me tell you it is utter forking bliss. What other game lets you turn into a dog, zip across a bridge at breakneck speeds, and then tear your enemies a new one with your razor-sharp maw? CoD's dog is a wussy chihuahua compared to this beast. Oh and if you want you can do 'shrooms while you blast your foes into chutney.

So let's chalk things up here: Big freaking guns, frickin awesome powerups, four massive single player episodes, enough multiplayer to choke a horse (one of those big Clydesdale things, not some rainbow colored friendship pony), more guns, mayhem, Dopefish, secrets, adjustable FOV, ludicrous gibs, and a guy who is seriously named I.P. Freely. How could you possibly go wrong with this fluffy stack of murder pancakes? If you don't go out and buy this game now, you are seriously missing out and should really reconsider your priorities in life. Rise of The Triad earns a solid 11 out of 10, and also pre-emptively wins the Slipgate Complex FPS of The Year awards for the next decade, or until they come out with a sequel. Go. Buy it now. El Oscuro is a very inpatient guy, you don't wanna get on his craplist.

Apogee Throwback Pack Review

Apogee Throwback pack
Developed By: Apogee Software
Published By: Interceptor Entertainment
Date of Release: July 1, 2013
Price: $9.99 (Free of you preorder ROTT 2013!)

In the year 1995, the First Person Shooter genre was going strong. Wolfenstein 3D... Doom... Heretic... They all put id Software on the map, and defined the genre. And then Apogee Software blew the FPS concept to tiny bloody chunks, and rebuilt it into something totally ludicrous. Enter Rise of The Triad. Starting out as a sequel to Wolfenstein 3D, Rise of The Triad was revamped into a whole new experience. Featuring five unique playable characters, a massive arsenal of deadly firepower, an actual narrative, dog mode, god mode, shrooms mode, one incredibly deadly baseball bat, enemies who begged you to spare their lives (before flopping over to play dead so they could stab you in the back as soon as you turn around), and enough ludicrous gibs to earn it the billing of "most violent game ever", RoTT was an amazing experience when played alone. Add to that the amazing "COMM-BAT" multiplayer experience, it's pretty clear that Rise of The Triad hit a home run.



But let's head back to a time two years before Rise of The Triad came to be. In 1993, JAM Productions created a new game franchise centered around a hero named Blake Stone, and had Apogee Software publish it. A sci-fi thriller to the core, Aliens of Gold saw the titular secret agent Blake Stone facing off against his nemesis, an insidiously corrupt and morally bankrupt geneticist named Dr. Pyrus Goldfire. Technologically it built on the Wolfenstein 3D engine, adding in new features such as friendly NPC characters, working vending machines, and most impressively for the time, floor and ceiling textures. Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold actually managed to beat id Software's Doom to the market by one week and achieved modest popularity because of it, but was unfortunately overshadowed by the explosive popularity of id's smash hit.



The release of Doom and subsequent decline in sales of the first Blake Stone did not faze JAM Productions however, and in the following year of 1994 they released a new entry, Blake Stone: Planet Strike. Picking up immediately after Aliens of Gold, Planet Strike continues Blake's pursuit of Dr. Goldfire and this mutant army. Not only did it introduce more levels, more weapons, and more monsters, Planet Fire also included a fully functional automap feature, a handy too for those who tended to get lost in the mazelike levels. It's a more than worthy conclusion to an awesome as hell duology, and it definitely earns its place in this fine compilation.



When you take these three classic games and compare them to the stale FPS games of this generation, it becomes quite clear that a helluva lot more consideration was put into the level design and gameplay back in the days of yore. These three oldschool masterpieces gain massive amounts of replayability from the fact that back then the devs took time to design secrets and challenges to keep players coming back for more, unlike today's cookie cutter cinematic borefests. Another thing that is clear is how much time and effort Interceptor put into polishing these gems so that they shine on modern PCs. They are all lovingly wrapped in a DosBox-based frontend, and run natively in widescreen from the get go, no need for fiddling around with configuration to get these oldschool beauties running. They've even thrown in the original Rise of The Triad soundtrack, and the Extreme RoTT expansion at no extra cost. So what the hell are you waiting for, get yer ass on Steam and buy this beautiful pack of games. Better yet, pay an extra $5 and get RoTT 2013 as well!