Killing Time [Windows]

Lovely game. Considering it's made by Studio 3DO and knowing the history of that console I sorta expected something much more lifeless & cash-grabby, but this is the complete opposite: surprisingly genuine & passionate. Similar to Blood, this game takes after schlocky B-movie horror but whereas Blood takes a tongue-in-cheek & satirical approach, this embraces the campiness & cheesiness associated with that sorta stuff. & while I think Blood is by far the funnier game, this is much more endearing.
Thou aside from just being surprisingly genuine, this thing is also surprisingly innovative. Not only does it pull off the (sorta) seamless level transition stuff 2 years prior to Half-Life, it puts that into the context of a mini-open world. From the moment you enter the game you can go anywhere on the map you'd like, barring certain doors you'll need color-coded keys for. It's not the most expansive map in the world but for a retro fps/boomer shooter/doom clone/whatever, it feels like it's just about the right size. The obvious tradeoff here is that the level design isn't stellar in these sections, though it's not terrible. There's a clear dirt path that you can follow that brings you to each of the landmark locations where you'll find key items. Level design in the interior sections isn't great either, often having very tight hallways with dozens of tiny rooms, but it does have its great moments (as well as a painfully bad moment where you need to interact with a specific unmarked pillar in order to get a key. Got stuck on that for a while & had to look up a guide). What this game does exceptionally well, however, is tension relating to resource management & making you consider your choices. It's nowhere near as involved or tense as it is in Blood, but it's definitely noticeable. You'll often find yourself having to consider which enemies to pick off & which to leave for later after scrounging around for more ammo. & you can't always just blast your way through enemies and walk right through em either; occasionally upon dying, enemies will drop one of two orbs: a blue one, which boosts your health, and a red one, which depletes it. The orbs despawn after a couple seconds, so they don't become permanent obstacles, but they linger just long enough to where you have to actively stop & consider where you're gonna move. Similarly, if you use the flamethrower (this game's equivalent to Doom's plasma gun) it'll mow through enemies, but with a catch: their flaming corpses will deal damage to you until the fire burns out. It's not a terribly complex system or a difficult game, but it succeeds at building tension. Especially during the chase segment where you need to destroy the water clock. The weird set/duncan/hybrid zombie thing constantly chasing you & throwing projectiles & teleporting around makes those moments where you're in a tight hallway waiting for two red orbs to despawn while you're on 30-something% health super tense.
Something weird is that the game's engine doesn't seem to handle audio very well. Occasionally I'd notice a delay in certain sound effects, and if too many sound effects play at once it causes the music to stop. Sometimes music just doesn't loop. The music also changes very abruptly when traveling between areas but this seems to be more of a consequence of the open level design in an engine that really wasn't designed for that. & the music in the game ranges pretty wildly in quality, there's a lot of so-so ambient stuff but the midi tracks are either surprisingly catchy or kinda grating with not a whole lot of in-between, though the grating tracks are forgivable bc of the lovably cheesy 90s soundfonts.
The story is serviceable, but what stands out about it is how prevalent it is in the game. You get drip-fed these bits of story through FMV sprites scattered around in the mansion, but something that strikes me is that they're completely optional. If you start one up you're free to just walk away if you decide you don't care about what's going on in the FMV, or you can just not start them up whatsoever. Not a huge thing, but it's something that I think is worth giving the game some praise for.
Just play it with the community patch.