Whenever I boot up a trash game, I usually know within about 10 minutes if it's gonna be an episode. KREED, or "The Kreed" is a Russian developed first-person shooter from some people-- "Burut Creative Team" --and watch this trailer, what does this make you think? That's right, Russian Doom 3! Ha! Nah, no, I wish. It actually came out too early to be Russian Doom 3, it's closer to Russian Unreal 2 and if that doesn't scare the pants off ya, I don't know what will. Boot up the game and you're greeted with: "KREED: first-person shooter" I have a feeling this is gonna be a bad one if it has to tell me that. You like this here, these cutscenes with these--I guess I could call them scanlines? They're over every cutscene and this isn't the normal frame rate for the game. This is just-- Asshole #1: That thing from Phlegetais(?) is somehow related with Kreed. Asshole #2: The rumor has it that Master Rumi was obsessed by the Kreed. Asshole #1: That's perhaps why he has defected. Okay, I get you, you pitch shift because you don't have enough voice actors, I know that game. There sure is a story happening here and I want to experience it to its fullest, really drink it in. Asshole #2: It is the Kreed Master, Teofrast Rumi! One of us, you must punish the traitor! Asshole #1: You and some other dedicated agents will go to Kreed. Teofrast Rumi is hiding there. Asshole #2: But to go there, he must have known the way to get out! Asshole #1: Rumi is hiding something that makes it possible to get out of Kreed and we really need to know what it is. Civvie: What the fuck?!
Asshole #1: Rumi is hiding something that makes it possible to get out of Kreed and we really need to know what it is. "You are in Kreed, a mysterious anomaly that no one has yet returned from. 'Aspero' is seriously damaged and it has been attacked by Shpiggs, a primitive race of 'space marauders'. Your primary task now is to find the survivors." Yeah, sure, obviously, you start with a knife. There's no pistol in this game. You got a knife, the knife has "-1" ammo. Now negative one is computer brain speak for infinite. You just don't see it very often because they do a thing where it says infinite, o-or else there's no ammo count, not negative one... If you're playing a game where a thing says negative one instead of infinite, that's a good indicator that that game is jank. The game so far, it doesn't look bad; graphics wise, it looks like something made on Unreal 2, which ain't bad for 2004. Well, early 2004. It's awfully dark. I ended up turning the brightness up all the way, which-- Okay, So up is down, down is up. This could be because Russians read right to left. Decent particle effects. This first enemy you face seems to have a pretty high polycount, he's-- Okay, so you can barely tell when you're hitting a thing. That's a Shpigg, and I'm wondering how it got so far when it doesn't have a gun like all my other comrades. Oh, hey look, they do sometimes. So the AI in this game is tricky because what they liked to do was instantly hitscan ya from across the room as soon as you open a door, and every time you take damage you get the same flash on the screen no matter how much damage you take, like imagine if you were playing Doom and everytime a zombieman hit you the screen went fucking crazy? I get a shotgun right away; we're doing Quake rules kids: no pistols, straight to shotgun. And it's awful. Killing something with the knife gives you no feedback, killing something with the shotgun gives you almost no feedback, and when you pick up ammo you get a message like this: Uh-huh, okay. So far this is trash, but it's kind of endearing, it's trying real hard. That changes, 'cause I've been running around this first level trying to find out where I have to go. See, a lot of these areas are copied and pasted--whole hallways, rooms--so it gets a little confusing. It's my fault, I didn't see this vent here--because I can't see shit! Soon you'll get a carbine, and when I said this game reminded me of Unreal 2 this is one of the major reasons why. This, and the flamethrower you get later. I'm not saying they're ripoffs 'cause I don't know who would want to rip off Unreal 2, it's like-- Okay, so there's a secondary fire mode right, zoom in one bullet at a time, and that one bullet does two or three times the damage as the bullet when it's not zoomed in? That comes in handy for the soldiers. Looks like I'm running low on health. Luckily, you can regain health with ampules which you inject, and each one gives you... 15 health. No, wait, 10 health. No, wait, each one gives you 7 health. I see what's going on here: the higher your health the less you get back with each injection. So you don't want to waste 'em. You can get like 40 health if you're almost dead, and then maybe half as much each time afterwards, and when you've got the health injector equipped, you can't run, and you press H to select it. Okay, I thought it was H, and in the beginning of the game you can press H to select it, but the key for that is actually M, because, so, you press G to select grenades and you press H to select high-tech grenades, but if you don't have any high-tech grenades it'll select your health stims, and you won't have any high-tech grenades for a while so you just think the pressing H gives you health, which it doesn't, unless it does... Sort of like how the 3 key is for the carbine, but it's actually for the triple-barreled shotgun. It just gives you the next available weapon when you press the key, when you press the adjac... It just gives you the next available weapon, which is in the four slot. You have a really slow run speed, that's not cool, however strafe-hopping allows you to do this, which probably shaved an hour off on my play time and made melee enemies trivial. You gotta go deal with this reactor problem on the ship, though. ("I, Kir Anthin"? Is that a name?) Aspero PA: Attention! Self-destruction system activated. Proceed to escape pods number 1 and 2. Civvie: Did I do that? I don't... okay. I got the flamethrower, and forget that flame jet happenin' there, if you walk forward at all while using it you set yourself on fire. When the counter reaches ten minutes, I assume you die, and this being the first time I've ever played this game I made it out in just over three and a half minutes. The ship explodes; I'm just gonna take the game's word for it because it doesn't show me. We got to get to another ship stuck in the Kreed anomaly: the Confederate battle ship "Tokugava". Another Asshole: Shuttle, here is Confederate cruiser Tokugava. Answer me! Our "Hero", Daniel Grok: Confederate cruiser Tokugava, it's an escape shuttle from Aspero supply ship, I had troubles with the engine. (???) Another Asshole: Roger that, docking allowed. Be careful, there's a lot of contaminated people and rebels around the docking area. Civvie: Oh, rebel Confederates you say? The South is risen again, kids. Let's put 'em back down. *kzzt* Oh yeah, baby, give me some of that sweet blue juice. Now on to these soldiers, they like to hit scan you from across the room, and the map, and also the way the AI works In this game is than anybody in the area can hear you. You... can't hear them. Sound doesn't travel for the player too well, but they hear you and they swarm. *dies in Russian* They have weird, erratic movement patterns that you might mistake for AI. Early game, best thing you can do is snipe them with the carbine. You can't tell by looking at them that they're shooting you, they don't have really good animations, so just assume they're shooting at you, use your imagination. Their reaction time's really good for plague infected cousin fuckers. They don't always know how grenades work, sometimes they'll toss one that'll explode right on your chin, and then other times not so much, I don't know how grenades work, but with the splash damage of this game is weird, if you can't tell just by looking at it. I've been running around this level a lot trying to find out where I have to go. See, a lot of these areas are copied and pasted--whole hallways, rooms--so it gets a little confusing. Get used to death for a while, the difficulty in this game seems proportional to how big a room is and how many enemies are in that room. Learn to savescum, so far this game isn't worth the respect I would give to a normal game where savescumming would be dishonorable. I've been running around this level trying to find out where to go. See, a lot of these areas are copied and pasted--whole hallways, rooms--so it gets a little confusing. The level design is pretty bad. In this one level, you have to crawl through this tunnel, And I didn't know one of the paths here was optional, and it gives you a rocket launcher, and the water... ...oh, the water... All the water in this game or any liquid surface is just a mirror, and sometimes it kills you, and sometimes it doesn't, just like real water. When I say the level design is bad, keep in mind I'm only talking about every level front to back, especially when you have to hit a switch to unlock a door, and then backtrack through the entire level to get back to that door. That's why we strafe hop, because then my time isn't being wasted so much... Time... Drive-Thru Asshole: You can reach us via ventilation tunnels in water station scuttle room. (???) Drive-Thru Asshole: Where the hell are you? Civvie: I DON'T KNOW! Another Asshole: How did you get here? We haven't had so many visitors in the last four years. Civvie: I know! Nobody ever comes to visit us in the Kreed! I know it'll suck you in and keep you here forever, But what about me? I get lonely here. Nobody calls, nobody comes to visit! This isn't how I wanted my retirement to go! Daniel: Just recently our vehicle got sucked into Kreed; there it was attacked by Shpiggs. I'm the only survivor. I like this, see the player character has some dude's pitch shifted voice, like, why would you give your main character the pitch shifted voice? Y-You should just give it to some random NPC, right? Priorities? Another Asshole: Some kind of epidemic has killed a lot of our people. The survivors become what you see. Tell me: how can one go on like this without losing sanity? some of the crew members? Some of the crew members started a rebellion and took over the ship's control. The rebels want to start the reactors and get out of Kreed. Civvie: I mean, yeah, why wouldn't you do that? Daniel: So they are planning a suicide? Civvie: I mean, yeah, why wouldn't you do that? Another Asshole: That's right, but we're slowly taking over this ship now. Next you will go to another sector where the assault will start from. We'll contact you whenever it's time. Check out this triple-barreled shotgun, it has the same kind of feedback as the other guns and it eats three times the ammo, and one of the things about these guns is that the animations all don't really convey how long it takes to do anything. You fire, and then it sits for a while, like there's no visual cues as to when the thing is ready to fire again, which makes the combat, y'know, dog shit. ♫I used ta do a little but a little wouldn't do
and so a little got more and mo-ore♫ There's not much to this part of the game, you're shooting guys, sniping 'em over and over; you got to shut the reactor down... I think. I'm so confused playing this game. It's like being in a sensory deprivation tank, I'm not sure... See, a lot of these areas are copied and pasted--whole hallways, rooms--so it gets a little confusing. Yet Another Asshole #1: We've been told about you. The Confederation is indebted to you. Civvie: Wait, I was the Confederates?! Yet Another Asshole #2: What do you mean, indebted? Doesn't Hell make all of us equal? Civvie: I don't... I... What?! Civvie: I don't... I... What?!
Daniel: Hell could be a comfortable place too. Yet Another Asshole: Well then, you should be welcome, in Burg. Daniel: Burg? That's what The Legion calls its citadels. Yet Another Asshole #2: That's it, we've intercepted a message that made the whole difference, it came from one of the nearby worlds. Hard to believe, but it's been colonized by Legionnaires. Whiny Asshole: I'm fed up with all this, even your ugly face! Just wait to see what the Tiglaary do, they gonna use us as ground meat! Well, let's see courses (???) are not leaving me here to die. They are not leaving me, I'm telling you! Daniel: Quit winning. *silence* Daniel: Quit winning. It's gonna get hot in here. Soon-to-be-dead Asshole: Hey! There are people in here! You poor things... Get out of here! Run to our ship! Now Dead Asshole: Oh... damn... Okay, the alien ship, uh... You see, a lot of these areas are copied and pasted--whole hallways, rooms--so it gets a little confusing. At least in this part of the game, some of the doors have red lights and some have green lights, and when you get to certain panels you can open doors, and you can see that they open a door, but which door? All the goddamn doors are identical, they're the same door, so you have to take this elevator, except they're all the same elevators, there's one that's broken, but it's in the same goddamn room-- I'm supposed to get out of here somehow... You gotta go through this maze of tunnels, right, and then you hit a switch that requires you to backtrack all the way through the level again, except I have a minigun... but I don't really give a shit now because all the enemies take 100 bullets to bring down, so... uh... I get to some kind of laser puzzle, and I don't know what that is, or how it works, let's just forget it ever happened. After, uh... I don't... I don't know, time has stopped functioning correctly. See, a lot of these areas are copied and pasted-- That's not hyperbole, if you can find a worse one than this, you keep it to yourself, because this one? Okay, imagine having tank controls, but worse? Imagine using a vehicle that doesn't let you turn. Whatever direction you started in when you entered the vehicle, when you press forward it goes that starting direction forever. It looks like I'm strafing; I'm not. I'm pressing forward and backward because there's no turning, and if you're making a game and you're two-minute vehicle section sucks, cut that shit out and maybe pad it out using a copy of another room like you do for 90% of this fucking GAME! *kzzt* Daniel: Well, we got into real trouble. The Tiglaary seem so mad. Lady Asshole: Ha ha! They really choked on us today. Civvie: Oh God, please, no more. Private Asshole #1: Hey you! Freeze! Drop your guns now! Hands up, and down on knees! Daniel: Tch, that was too fast. Private Asshole #2: Freeze! Or I shoot! Daniel: And you are rude to visitors. *silence* Civvie: What the fuck is happening?! And these little critters here--the langoliers--are on this planet too, they're everywhere. So what you gotta do is deactivate a force field and hit this console here, but defend with these grenade turrets, yeah there are turret sections in this game, I... I... And the grenade turrets don't... They don't, they just don't. So instead of doing that you have to wait for these fuckers to come in, because their pathfinding isn't the worst... *dies in Russian* Do you remember that I said that some water kills you and some doesn't, well this water here kills you. *drowns in Russian* Except that one time it didn't. What do you think you're supposed to do here, platform on these boxes? Yeah well, you're wrong, fuck you. You got to go back and shift this random shit around to access the door here, so you can get to a catwalk up here, where sometimes you can get through spaces this wide, but not this wide? But once you've done that, it's clear sailing. "City of Dead." Now I know what you're thinking, Look at this: A huge temple, bombs raining down from the sky, heavily armored soldiers-- This is some endgame shit, and under normal circumstances it would be, but there's four hours left of this game. Imagine if you will: you have rooms with supplies in them that you'll need, behind doors that have maybe a 10% chance of opening, but you got to try all of them, while being bombed and shot at. At least we got a railgun now. It doubles as a plasma gun; the primary is a railgun, the secondary is a plasma gun. There's a lady here who does nothing. You got to make it through this area by running around these rooms and gettin' bombed. I don't know why it let me through, I-I-I-I--don't ask me. I-I don't know why it let me through, I-I think it is-- Okay. We're in the citadel, there was an elevator, and the citadel is-- You guys ever play Half-Life? You remember that part in Blast Pit where you have to activate a big fan, and then glide up and then get into a vent? Okay, imagine doing that, but the game doesn't know how gravity works. *dies in Russian* I- wha- *frustration* That's not--! Ooh! I give up, right? I tried to cheat, "sv_cheats 1", yeah, that works, "fly", don't mind if I-- WHAT?! So I fly into this vent here, which is where I'm supposed to go. *silently gibs in Russian* And I get through this section to hit a button that does a thing. Now, guess what you have to do. That's right! We're backtracking all the way back across the level! WHICH MEANS-- *dies in Russian* Technobabble Asshole: The module generates radiation that rips through Kreed bounds. It makes a temporary hole in its circumference. Daniel: So what? Technobabble Asshole: The module lets you get out of Kreed. Jikreeds have done that a lot of times already with the Crystal Key. You get teleported to this battle happening the between humans and these things. If I read any of these 10,000 logs, I might know what's going on, but I don't, and I'm not sure it makes a difference. These fuckers here, they spit green shit at ya. They throw langoliers at you over and over-- So Bronson Pinochet is this guy who really needs to get to a meeting, he's-- A-and, and his flight gets all fucking ghosted, th-these things, and they're stuck at an airport, and the guy-- So these horrible CGI monsters, they look like they came offa Babylon 5's cutting room floor, alright? So what you have to do is you go underground, but there's a fork in the road here; one way gets you to the place you need to deactivate a force field and the other way leads you to the surface, so if you're dumb like I am you went back to the surface, and-- See, a lot of these areas are copied and pasted, so it gets a little confusing. This Middle Eastern music is playing this whole time, it doesn't really fit. So maybe it's intentional, maybe this whole thing is like an allegory for some Russian occupation of a country like Afghanistan. Joke's on you Russia! Here in America, we just go ahead and occupy countries anyway, no matter what you dirty fucking commies say! Oh, what's that? That looks neat? Uh-huh. You don't need half of this, you dicks! I already know I'm in Kreed! I know what year it is! The game is about being stuck in fucking Kreed! Teofrast Rumi: Out there, in the tunnels, you'll find the force shield generator. Go there! I order you! Civvie: You know, it's all well and good that the player-character sounds like Andre the Giant. Daniel: Hey, wake up! Andre: Are you understand English or no? Civvie: So from what I can gather some evil people are using Kreed to destroy their enemies, but they don't understand the power of Kreed... so it's gonna backfire. Daniel: I don't care about Kreed. I'm out of here soon. Teofrast Rumi: Well then, don't waste time. Do your job! Your masters in the Legion are sure that Kreed will destroy whoever they point to. First, it is the Tiglaary empire, then Confederation worlds, But Kreed has its own laws. We are nothing, nothing next to them. Daniel: Hm. Well Rumi, you are right. *murders in Russian* Civvie: Wha-- what the fuck?! *kzzt* See, a lot of these areas are copied and pasted--whole hallways, rooms--so it gets a little confusing. Even with this map in the ship, like I can't carry this around, what am I supposed to do with this? Anyway, you have to find a switch, hit it, and then backtrack across most of the level to get to the exit. We're back to City of Dead! Thankfully, it's not being bombed. However, it is worse this time, because not only do you not know where you're supposed to go, it turns out it's almost the same way you were supposed to go before. The game introduces a new weapon. It's not very useful in your hands, I-I mean... If you're the enemy it's wonderful, not only because the splash damage is deceptively high, they get to shoot it through walls. You don't, but they do! I think you're supposed to go to another teleporter, and you take this important crystal to activate it, and so-- Mystical Asshole: You are still in Burg, the explosion destroyed the rotation module. Once we created Kreed, dreaming of a perfect universe, but it turned out the other way. Kreed destroyed our race. Both you and we will be its prisoners forever. Civvie: Okay, I kind of understand what's going on. *delirious babbling in Russian* What the f-- who is talking, how did these people get here?! Oh, now I get it! Energy monsters! That's what you're up against for the rest of this game. Energy monsters that move in shitty patterns and are hard to hit. Some do melee damage, others have energy blasts and thankfully drop ammo for your railgun, it's just-- And then-- the others-- that also have rail guns because I, um... Where you have to run around in these canyons, enter a temple, watch a couple holograms, and then backtrack cross the entire goddamn map again so you can get to a teleporter, all while shooting these energy things, which WILL dogpile you if there are enough in the area. They're usually easier to deal with then the human soldiers, so I don't know why we're not winning. Daniel: Quit winning. You get into this alien ship here, I think that's what it is. You see, a lot of these areas are copied and pasted, I think the game is making my brain smooth. Wait a minute, Russians don't read right to left! You get teleported into caves that are basically impossible to navigate. It's like the designers knew this and they made it especially difficult, like-- Signposting and making landmarks is a good idea in level design, but taking those things out just to be as confusing as possible isn't a good idea. It's like drinking an antidote to poison is a good idea, but choosing to just drink the poison isn't? So you're just gonna go through these caves right here and notice when you try to jump over gaps that the gravity is all messed up, leading into the final challenge in the game... No! No... "Quit winning." Gordon Ramsay: Look at that shit, is that raw?! "Quit winning." "Once we created Kreed, dreaming of a perfect universe, but it turned out the other way." Bronson Pinochet: Please, I promise I'll be good, JUST MAKE THEM GO AWAAAAAY "Quit winning."
Bronson Pinochet: Please, I promise I'll be good, JUST MAKE THEM GO AWAAAAAY "Quit winning."
*dies in Russian* *dies in Russian* *dies in*dies in*dies in*dies in*dies in*dies in*dies in Gordon Ramsay: I can't fucking go any further! "Quit winning."
*dies in Russian* "Quit winning."
*dies in Russian* *dies in Russian* "Quit winning."
*dies in Russian* *dies in Russian* Aha! Oh... *laughing* That's... that's a bold choice, it's a bold artistic choice, to not have an ending! ♫How'd I Do? by Lee Jackson♫ ~Special thanks to various old game review sites for showing me how to spell all this bullshit~
