Recent reviews by Fyron℠

Short and sweet. Well maybe more bittersweet.

I am loathe to say this after all of the waiting, but Xen is still the weakest part of the game. In the original, it was annoying and Interloper was too long. In Black Mesa, Xen (the chapter) is FAR too long and repetitive, Gonarch's Lair is fine, and Interloper is still too long. The Nihilanth boss fight is well done though, changing just enough from the original without being a completely different fight. The Xen chapters in my opinion just should not be 1/3 of the game, they completely overcompensated for the pathetically short Xen chapter in the original. Throughout the game, the music is also without a doubt overstated. Not only is it louder than necessary, it also tries to make the game far more dramatic than it is. Especially in Xen. The vocals in the Xen music are so out of place it's not even funny. Regarding the elevator fight, it's impossible to make a dramatic scene if the player is constantly dying. Controllers were not fun to fight originally, and they aren't fun when you make them temporarily invincible. That said, the Earth section of the game is great. It strays from the original, but in ways that make sense and sometimes actually improve the atmosphere. 2/3 is not bad. They just changed Xen too much.

The gameplay is good but it needs content and a lot more polish. I do think the music is actually pretty good. Unfortunately, it feels more like a demo. For one guy, it's a very good proof of concept, but it needs more levels, and maybe enemies to be really worth the price tag.

Better than Doom 2.

Good atmosphere, visuals, music/sound, general gameplay and just about everything. The controls are a bit hard to work with at times, but that might be alleviated with a controller. Some if the puzzles are not quite intuitive but that's probably just me. I don't think I would have bought it at full price but the sale price is well worth it.

Good classic FPS. The main problem for me was navigation and combat. It's not always obvious where you're supposed to go, and the enemies are more annoying than fun to fight, but the environments are cool to look at and the weapons are fun to use.

Basically more of the same from the first game. Many of the core gameplay changes are minor, but the class trials are quite a bit more complicated and much longer, and some of the correct responses in the trials just feel stupidly obtuse. Maybe that's just a personal problem. The characters also feel much less like real people, and can be much more annoying in my opinion.

As someone who mostly plays FPSs and generally gets bored of games with too much story and talking, this visual novel actually is one of the most entertaining games I've played. The story and characters are very interesting, and the gameplay (such as class trials), while generally simple and straightforward, is still engaging enough to keep me playing.

Expertly combines elements from old-school shooters with new twists.

Good co-op game even all these years later. I never bought it when it came out, so from a no-nostalgia perspective it still holds up.