Recent reviews by Mister

Well, I'm impressed.

During development and early relaese, there was a lot of talk (and some ultimatums) about Xen.
"I'm not playing until Xen is in there"
"What do you mean Xen isn't ALL there"
"[Blah blah blah] Xen [blah blah] there".

Man, it was worth the wait.

I held off playing to allow for the inevitable bugs and subsequent fixes to be found and applied... and... maybe forgot about the game's existence for a while. BUT I have now played it. And it's good.

Xen is SO LONG now. I mean, I haven't played HL1 for ... 1, 2, 3, 4 ummm... carry the 1... .... a long time. Before Orange box was released, before Blue Shift was a thing. Oh, before Tf1 even. But time affected memory aside, it felt much longer than the original. And this was great.

From the story side of things, it explains the Vortegon switching sides SO much more than the zero I recall. It really fills in the situation on Xen. Well, the way that any FPS can without any talking from you or the aliens.

Anyway, while the whole game isn't Xen, it's almost like an expansion pack within the game itself. There are posts on Reddit about Xen being too long - but you're in an otherworldly place that you have to traverse. Bosses don't just come to see the tiny man in the orange suit simply because you arrive.

Anyway, to the non-Xen part. The Crowbar Collective has kept tributes to things from the original HL1 - which is a nice reminder of where Black Mesa came from. They've also reworked a bunch of aspects - including maps.

While I like many other games, I can safely say that BM has overtaken HL1 as my favourite game. It has done justice to the original story, and made it a pleasure to play too.

Now, for those of you who haven't played Half-life 1, you won't feel like you're out of place. You'll notice some odd jaggedy things here and there (like the track for the rail car on the intro), or the facial reuse for scientists and security guards. Just assume they're all hints towards HL1. With those aside, enjoy the story and the puzzles.

It's Good. I like it. Nuf said.

This isn't a game. It's multiple games. But each game isn't just a game. It's something more.

It's a story, it's a piece of art, it's a chance to kick butt and chew bubble gum... wait, that's a different game.

It helped defined Xbox, the music is great, they just keep releasing more games, and... it's so much easier with a mouse!

I'd never played Halo 3 or Halo Reach before this. But now I've played through H1, H2, H3 & HR. And they're all good. There's even different key configs for each game. You can tell they've really thought about how to apply this to PC well.

I haven't tried multiplayer yet - actually, I'll do that now. Don't go anywhere.

Time Passes

Ok, maybe go somewhere, I got lost looking at the video it saves of your exploits. I had no idea it was recording me. It's not creepy though. Embarrassing? Yes, how many times can I die to hunters?

You can also make or mess about with maps in "the forge" it seems? I didn't actually try it though.

More Time Passes

Ok, so I played three rounds of multiplayer. It was ... sub par? when compared to things like CS:GO and Valorant. You kinda just run around and shoot ppl without any talking and it seemed very unforgiving. Less strat that CS & V, but not as much boom as you'd expect from Quake & Unreal Tournament.

Still, I was only in running indoors maps. I see that I can customise my vehicles, so there must be outdoor smack-down too.

Ratings!
* "Would you pay full price for it?" (scale of 0 to 1) - I'd score this baby a zero.
* "Would you pay for it on sale?" If it were a big discount, perhaps.
* "What's the story like?" (scale of 1 to 5) - 2: Still better than twilight.
* "Game play" (scale of 1 to 10) - 3: What's a game play? - There are choices you can make, things you can miss and you can run / walk. But you only get WASD, space, mouse, shift. That's all.
* "Can you rebind the keys?" No my friend, you cannot. Which gives me the irrits, as I don't use WASD ever.

Review

Well, as far as games go... this is definitely one of them.

The game has an interesting premise: humans have all died in a war. Which had me curious to begin with. We're pretty stubborn when it comes to things like mass dying. We tend to, like... you know, not die / give up on living. Anyway, RT unravels a reasonable story.

Having had some time to think, this morning I realised that I've been looking at this game wrong. I think I've been comparing this to Half-life and all the money, staffing & (possible) maturity that backs HL, and then viewing this game. It's not fair. However, that is an example of the ocean this games swims in.

The other thing about this HL vs. The Uncertain comparison, is the length. I just "expected" that The Uncertain would be about half the length of HL. But it's not, it's more like the first 'chapter' of HL.

Now, having watched Black Mesa re-graphics-ize HL1, I can appreciate that a developer would want to get some money along the way, and partial releases are a way to do this, but I certainly don't feel that this length of game is worth $20 AuD. It feels more like a technology preview.

It's sort of a a weird game in the way that it tells the story due to the entire story coming from first person speech. There's also wrong words, missing words and odd sentence structure. I presume it was translated from another language?

It feels very much like anime in the way that the exposition happens ALL. THE. TIME. O_O

[Observe a fuse] RT (you) say "This is a fuse, I don't have any use for this - however it could be used for things like [blah blah]". There's no way to hurry the speech along, and it reads it to you. Every. Word. (I don't think this is actually a quote, but you get the idea.)

Contextually, some of the statements are flipping obvious, and I think that is the reason that I don't "become" RT when I play. When I play Deus Ex, I become Adam. It's first person too, which helps.

This game is... sort of... like Space Quest? Your view is sort of security-cam view? So your un-re-mappable (grumble) keys are often changing visual context between rooms. So you can walk down, and then switch views, which makes you walk back through the door you just came through.

Oh one more thing, it's visually very nice. Made on Unity, you can see that a lot of work has been put into the look and feel, and sound. (Albeit that some of the outdoors audio loops are a bit obvious in their repeating, and a little short to be repeating.)

Anyway, if you can handle having everything read to you. And then having other robots say "You need to do this", to which you reply "Yes, I will do this"....

<insert tremendous sigh here>

... then you'll be on your way to unravel a very linear mystery ... until you finish this instalment, and realise it's not a full story. Then you'll wonder why you paid $20.

I thought this was good. It's not long, but it doesn't feel short either. It doesn't feel like the primary game was thinner without this, as the premise for this story doesn't really line up with the main thread of DX:MD itself.

The overview of this DLC is, you are... Adam Jensen. Shock, I know. And you have to do a thing. There are guns; and asplosions. Not exactly Michael Bay 'splody, but enough boom. Oh! there's also like vents and plot twists. It's very much like another game I've played... Oh yeah, that's it - Mario Bros - but this has better graphics.

I chose to not kill ppl on my first run. It was hard. Usually I don't do that, usually I use extreme prejudice. Anyway, I have a whole new appreciation for the EMP rounds in the pistol now.

Despite the departure from my normal play style, I appreciated the DLC. (which I got at discount btw)

Last thing? That sketchy-bandit doctor lady is back too. Something squirrely about her.

Eh, it's alright.

Nice, I like the 1960's feel. I keep waiting for Kinzie to come over the comms and give me a rocket launcher.

Lil' old by 2019 standards.

Solid enough. Voice acting is reliable and sits somewhere between good and ok.

First game that I've played where the combat slows to bullet time so you can direct your squad. It's good once you get used to it. The NPCs on your team also don't seem to get "stuck" in their position if you move. So you're not leaving them behind.

It's good. I give it 8.5 explosive charges out of 10. (And I'm only part way through)

• You get places by blowing things up.
  
• You can seamlessly switch between: Grappling hook moving, to parachute, to wing-suit and back again.
  
• Being hammered by Tank / Aircraft / Boat etc? Just grapple over to that baby and take it over. Simples.
  
• Can surf on anything moving... except people.. oh, and maybe animals. But plane doing 100km/hr? Sure, just don't jump. (Physics FTW)
  
• You don't have health. You have like a bullet / explosives / sudden stop tolerance. If you exceed that, then you dead. Otherwise, you just sort of... shake it off. Good for story line progression.
  
• There are lots of customisable controls.
  
• Wise cracks. Occasionally Rico (you) get shot, and you say "OWWWW". In a totally composed way, of course.
  
• As you liberate areas, you can sample vehicles, aircraft and sea-craft to call in by rebel drop.
  
• Random chance encounters. "Oh Rico, I can't get my car to the petrol station. Can you help me". Tethers car to chopper, drops it on roof of petrol station building. "Thank you Rico, you helped me so much!" ... "Just doing my job" ;)

• Borderless-Windowed Mode? What is even is Borderless-Windowed Mode? You give game all the focus!
  
• You don't have health.
  
• Sheldon is back. And he's a selfish slimy man.
  
• There are lots of customisable controls

Occasionally I have to restart if it drops out of full screen mode on load (Or I interact with the keyboard during load?), but other than that, I play with two XBOne controllers plugged in, and use one of them and keyboard/mouse to control things.

This is a classic game. If you've ever had to answer 'no' to 'do you even classic game', then buy this and you'll be proudly able to answer yes.

That aside, it's still the same awesome game. You can still rename your worms, choose their accents and all the things I did when this game first rocked our socks back in 1999.

Also Team17 has recently updated this blast from the past to run on Windows 10. How many other developers update games produced 20 years ago to work on a modern OS?

Anyway, I would give this game a 10 dead-worm-tomb-stones out of 10.

I had totally forgotten this was on my wishlist, and what it was about. When I recieved this as a gift from a friend, I jumped straight into it.

Oh look! It's Programming!
If only I was a programmer... Oh wait! I AM a programmer!

I whipped through the first 12 years (levels) in a few minutes. It was like doing what I love. There was even some maths. (Pro tip: Maths is a occupational hazard for programmers. #trueStory)

The interface is very smooth and lovely, using pleasing colours that I didn't have to choose.

There was something that shocked me though. It has a Jump directive. Which is essentially a GoTo. I won't go into why GoTo's are frowned upon in modern, high level languages, but they were essential in early programming languages. and... yeah. I don't know where I was going with that. Oh yeah, this is a replication of a simple, low level programming language.

Programming! WOO!

Anyway, it looks like it's a brain teaser, beat the puzzle that is designed to break your head sort of game. And I like it. I will play this again.

There's also something about machines coming for me in the teasers. I haven't had any come for me yet. And there was no indication if they meant in real life or the game... But I have a bat next to my desk just in case.

Oh! Also, you don't have to be a programmer to play this. In fact, I will be letting my children loose on this game at some point. It's a problem solving game. Life is about solving problems. Thus, this is a reflection of life, and you don't have to walk anywhere. #deep

Besiege is a good little game. You use ye olde timey construction methods to create weaponry, to then achieve goals. It's like being an engineer & large scale weapon builder, without any sweat or work at all!

You can build the obligatory tank or weapons platform, crane, or flying ship. You can even build multiple units, attach cameras to them, and drive them independantly.

I also built an enormous cube of bombs and lava balls. Started level. Instantly blew itself and everything around it to pieces.

My 7 year old and I had fun with just that aspect for almost 30 mins.

"Hmmmm. what if we dooo... this?" {BOOM}
"Oh, I know how about this." {BOOM}
"So, what happens if we... " {BOOM}
"Oh, that means... " {BOOM}

... etc and so forth. It was very much like Abe Simpson from the Simpsons ep' when the teachers quit.

It's pretty well made, and there are some rather funny YouTube clips about it too.

Anyway, the only real issue I saw was the 30 or so levels. BUT NOW?? Level editor AND Multiplayer. Plus, it's lke ten Dollarydoos.

So yeah. Good times. I rate this 15.1 exploding doom cubes out of 10.7.