Moniker wrote:Just started my playthrough of Double D. Will the two versions be different enough that I should go ahead and finish the first? Or should I wait for XXL?
Gah.. tough one. Simple answer.. I guess probably wait for XXL.
XXL is only a few weeks off, and it's far superior to the original release in terms of balance, variety of play, available strategy in game. The levels now have more sections to break up the constant shooting, so you just get more variety. There's still nearly constant shooting but now it's peppered just a bit more with little other things to do, so for me at least, I like the new changes.
The other part I like a lot more is that we separated difficulty levels and completions. In Steam DD, you can pick any difficulty any time. This is nice! I like player options! But I like the new one even better, because we actually keep track of what level and what difficulty you've played. So at the start, Chilled (easy), and Normal are available. If you beat level 1 Normal, level 2 is open. But not level 2 on Chilled.
That's okay.. but where it really matters is now when you beat the game on the Normal difficulty, the Serious (hard) difficulty is now unlocked. Before in DD it was always available.
The way it plays out now in XXL is much more natural. You play through Normal, get about 70% of the weapons, then Serious unlocks (and a new character! So just use him too!). Now there's new enemy layouts in Serious, the game is harder overall, but you can play through and get new, even crazier guns, and listen to the new silly story with the new character. I like all that sort of 'content payout' a lot more because there's still lots to do for the player, but it's just better designed. In DD if you play Serious, there's new enemy layouts, but no new guns.
I still like DD, and in a way the game is harder, because we allow you're own explosives to hurt you. That was one of the main distinguishing features of the Gunstacker at the time! You could pair explosive weapons together, but you had to be careful. Now in XXL, there's dozens of weird guns, and the gunstacking has lots more strategy to it. It's not an RTS or anything, but there's a least more real options for the player. And because there's plenty of options, player explosions don't hurt the player any more, which I find to be much less stressful. It's a lot more fun just wading into enemies hip-deep, blasting all the way.
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