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The Valve-endorsed fan remake, Black Mesa, not only greatly improves Xen from a design and aesthetic perspective but also turns the Nihilanth boss fight into something truly spectacular. The original Half-Life had some memorable "level" boss encounters such as the Tentacle in the missile silo or the Gargantua at the trainyard, but its endgame in the otherworldly Xen has become notorious for its terrible level design and equally terrible bosses such as the final boss, the Nihilanth. RELATED: How DOOM Became Gaming's Most ICONIC FPS Franchise Nihilanth - Black Mesa On top of this, the player must utilize the learned skill of enemy prioritization as the arena is filled to the brim with some of the toughest monsters in the entire game short of a Marauder.
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Getting too close will lead to the devil countering with a punch from his gigantic fist or a hellish counter-spell that ignites the most immediate platform in flames. The fact that eight body parts must all be equally destroyed in both phases means that this is a test of the player's speed and precision, as the Icon of Sin moves much more quickly than his size would suggest and the only safe range to shoot him from is rather far away. No longer a mere face in the wall, the Icon of Sin possesses two phases: the first phase tasks the Doom Slayer to destroy bits of his armor and the second phase has the player shooting off all of the monster's flesh until he is but a fleshy skeleton hanging onto the loose thread of life. After more than two decades of absence, the demonic final boss of Doom II returns in the explosively violent and hectic Doom Eternal with a massive upgrade in size and menace.
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