Historically, a re-release, port, or remaster of a classic FPS game has been something that would be celebrated in my small corner of the world. Growing up, the likes of Doom, Duke Nukem, and Shadow Warrior were favorites that instilled a love and respect for the genre in me at a young age that pushed me to seek out any and all games that I could get my tiny hands on. Needless to say, I am a little embarrassed that I had never heard of Rise of the Triad until I was handed a code for Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition, but after spending some time with it, I wish I had left it buried. These are games that are typically fueled exclusively by solid gameplay and nostalgia, and sadly, it offered me neither.

If you are a newcomer like myself, this title follows a team of government assets as they set off on a journey to stop a cult from taking over the world. It’s definitely a product of its time, featuring all of the cheese you’d expect from a 90s release, managing to include some brief cutscenes that were way ahead of their time and more akin to something you’d see in one of the beefier arcade offerings from the time period.

This is yet another port of an old-school FPS game that failed to stick the landing in terms of the 4K presentation, since literally everything in the game has this weird perspective where each asset looks like it’s made out of paper and is completely flat no matter how you look at it during gameplay. This wasn’t just something that was ugly, but it quickly gave me a headache where I was forced to break up my gameplay sessions into shorter spurts. When the game wasn’t giving me migraines, it managed to confuse me by just how damn bonkers everything looked. First off, most of the levels look like they were from shareware versions of Doom or Wolfenstein, but mostly Doom with its fiery red sky that looks like you’re trying to escape the pits of Hell. It should have probably been the inverse since this title originally started as a Wolfenstein sequel that was later rebranded since the original developer had put so much work into it. I did get some solid B.J. Blazkowicz vibes from specific levels, but overall, it felt more in line with id’s other big-name boomer shooter.

Now, Doom is one of my all-time favorite shooters, so you’d think this game would speak to me, right? Well, just because the setting is copied and pasted ad nauseam doesn’t make for a good game. This has upwards of 100 levels if you factor in all of the campaigns included, and I couldn’t pick a single level out of a lineup and match it to which campaign it originated from if you had a gun to my head. Making matters worse, there are only about six enemy flavors, all of which look like what I would imagine an alternate timeline’s version of how Chinese Nazis would look, but only if they were stretched or shrunk down at random, making it extremely difficult to gauge whether I was floating or sunken into the floor as I walked from room to room.

By far the strangest choice is how the weapons are handled, both in the fact that you’re limited to a maximum of four at any time, which seems downright insane considering every similar game ever made has allowed you to wander around with enough guns attached to your back to make Burt Gummer wince, and some of the guns are just downright absurd.  There is a rocket launcher that shoots multiple rockets that will eventually curve inwards and slam into each other that I have yet to manage to properly use. This left me in a weird spot where I found myself saving before picking up any new guns out of fear that whatever I picked up was going to turn me into a giant set of cock and balls or dissolve all of my ammo into melted crayons.

I think the thing I hated the most about this game was just how difficult traversal was. Death in FPS games is nothing new, but when most of my deaths come from cheap traps or missed jumps, I start to wonder if the fault lies on me or the level design, and based on how often it happened, I feel like it’s the latter. Making matters worse, since everything looks so damn similar, it’s really frustrating to finally wander into the key you need, only to be completely lost in finding your way back to the locked door with a lack of proper landmarks or distinguishing features, making for one of the most annoying FPS games I have ever played.

If you are a veteran who already knows what you’re getting into and have those rose-tinted glasses on for this game, you will find a lot to love here. Pretty much everything from the original and its expansions are intact, including some legitimately hilarious cheats such as the Dog Mode (God Mode but you play as an invincible dog). The developers went as far as to include a brand new campaign as well; however, this does come at the cost of no multiplayer options whatsoever, when the original featured a PvP option.

I may be in the minority on this one, but Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition was a big miss for me. I couldn’t get into the repetitive level design, fighting the same small pool of enemies, and dealing with one of the worst arsenals in first-person gaming. The only redeeming feature for me was the ability to play as a dog, which was something that was short-lived as the novelty wore off within a few levels.

5 out of 10

Pros

• A Mostly Complete Package of the Rise of the Triad Experience
• Dog Mode

Cons

• Overly Repeated Levels, Assets and Enemies
• Probably the Worst Weapons in Gaming
• Wonky Field of View

Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition was developed by Apogee Software in association with Nightdive Studios as well as New Blood Interactive and published by Apogee Entertainment, Nightdive Studios and New Blood Interactive. It launched on NS, PC, PS4, PS5, X1 and XSX. The game was provided to us for review on XSX. If you’d like to see more of Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition, check out the Steam site.

 

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