Finished the first three maps in "Wrath of Earth" on Hard. Kind of on the fence, regarding the whole thing so far. The combat system and the hit detection in particular are horrendous (with the only possible saving grace being the use of locking weapons, and all the tactics, on when exactly and how you use or don't use these, into which I didn't have much of a look so far - and which are severely hampered by the inability to affect weapon lock in any way whatsoever anyway). The main gimmick is that some places (in the open or under the lightbulb) make you regenerate, while other places make you gradually lose energy and health - and it already proves to be annoying (not to mention reducing the game to a crawl - like, 5-6 hours for the completion of any single map - considering the amount of damage you take from every sneeze on hard difficulty, all of which is to be regenerated under that lightbulb), and, I imagine, will become progressively more so as I progress further. There is also a very weird choice concerning the fact that the energy shield don't protect you for shit, and that any incoming shot whatsoever, even with the full shields on, has the chance to damage the random system of your suit, meaning either of those (and more!) a) your weapons suddenly stop working, b) you get a ton of health-damage, c) your battery suddenly drains completely. Or maybe all the shots will go into frying your HUD and thermal visor, so that all the systems that matter (even shields!) will not receive a single scratch. Regardless, the thing is, you can regenerate anything, EXCEPT your health, under the lightbulb. And for health, you need, natually, medkits, which are in pretty short supply. Thing is, in this game, you take damage by design. Any "anti-regenerative" place on the level will progressively harm your health directly - and, moreover, it is impossible to evade the damage in this game with this wonder it has for its combat system (again, any given shot has a chance of harming you directly, past the shields). With the amount of damage you take from each shot on hard, the entire thing becomes heavily dependent on luck, and, thus, savescumming (because, you know, having your health drop from 100% to 30% as a result of a single potshot you didn't even have the chance to react to - not that there is any way to make enemies react to the hits of your weapons, well, other then dying as their HP counters hit 0 - somehow doesn't seem either "fair" or "acceptable" over the course of the game, especially considering how frequently that kind of thing actually happens)
The maps, however, are interesting, and, for the most part, very well thought out and structured (stupid Doom Temple nonwithstanding), especially considering that all the levels are absolutely flat, Wolf3D-style, only with 8 wall orientations instead of 4. They are huge, varied, very well structured, and, basically, they very much remind me of Cybermage (only a MUCH slower version of one) - which is a VERY good thing, because, in my book, Cybermage is better than, say, any Build game (barring, perhaps, Exhumed - which I haven't finished yet). Only, well, Cybermage had 4-layered maps, while WoE is, as I've already said, absolutely flat. There are some loose and gimmicky ends (that Doom Temple, the quests which are for nothing at all, that weird hint about "treasure at 128,128", etc.), and, maybe, those maps look better if one consider them from the, sort of, "bird's eye view", instead of in terms of "being there" (you DO get lost there without the use of the ingame map/minimap), but, for the time being, I am absolutely fine with this game's level-design. Basically, every of the three maps I've seen so far, felt like a, sort of, "complete story" in and of itself. And it was immensely satisfying to see The Last Thing You Didn't Get About The Map to finally click into its place, so that it's finally complete, and done, and you can reflect upon everything that happened over the hours you've spent on this map (half of that time was wasted on regeneration and savescumming), and you know that there is a new level before you, and you can wholeheartedly progress further without looking back.
I dunno, the thing is, progressing through this game is oddly satisfying despite the process of the actual progression being, for the most part, a pain. And it's not even about exploration and finding the secrets and whatnot. Because, when you have access to the terrain lit brightly enough for you to regen, you can regen battery power, and when you have an endless supply of battery power, you can use battery-based weapons without wasting consumable ammunition, you ultimately waste much less of that consumable ammunition, that you find while exploring the levels. And, basically, the only things the levels can offer you, are energy packs (regenerable on any brightly lit terrain), health kits (which ARE useful, but it's not like they eliminate savescumming, due to completely random nature of the damage in this game), consumable munitions (which you don't need in such quantity, because regenrable energy on any brightly lit terrain) and quest items you need to pick up in any case. So, the entire thing is not, like, about finding awesome loot, but more about seeing everything the map has to offer. And, I won't lie, probably, the biggest part of this game's allure is that it's made seriously enough, so that there is, in some strange sense, some illusion of immersion and "realness" to the whole thing (and the crawl pace, actually, somehow works FOR it) - and without it, the whole allure of completely exploring the map, would simply fall apart.
So, this it what I happen to think about the first three levels of this game.
Upd.: Fucking knew it. Fucking ice moon. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?