Recent reviews by Greens

Half-Life: Opposing Force is the second and final expansion for the original Half-Life, being made by Gearbox Software instead of Valve. Just like the prior expansion, Blue Shift, it's set again, during the events of the first game, but this time from the perspective of a Marine: Adrian Shepherd. This game was much more positively received than Blue Shift, as it's much longer and is subjectively more enjoyable, with a lot more variety in it's gameplay.

-Same great gameplay as the original Half-Life.
-Pretty neat to see the story from the perspective of the Marines.
-New weapons that are pretty solid.
-Some interesting levels.
-Solid music.

-Some puzzles can be a bit vague and unclear.
-Buggy. I had to noclip quite a few times to get unstuck from various objects. I didn't have to do this in Half-Life or Blue Shift.
-Final boss fight is very easy and boring.
-Cliffhanger ending that was never resolved.

Half-Life: Opposing Force isn't as good as the original, but it's still solid. It's by far the most action-packed game out of the Half-Life series. Definitely recommended for fans of Half-Life.
7.5/10

Released in 2009, Plants vs. Zombies is a tower defense game where you place plants in your yard and fight off waves of zombies to keep them from reaching your home. It first released on PC and Mac but later blew up in popularity when it released on iOS in 2010. It was the start of it's franchise which unfortunately, has led to the over monetization of the later games by EA with predatory microtransactions.

-Great gameplay.
-Great music.
-Great art style.
-Good amount of content and different modes.
-EA account/app is not required.
-Reasonably priced.
-No microtransactions unlike the later games.

-Graphically inferior than the console and mobile versions.
-Lacks many standard PC settings.
-No official controller support.

Plants vs. Zombies is one of the best casual games ever made. It's addicting gameplay and charming style makes it a must play title.
9/10

Assassin's Creed 2 has you playing as Ezio Auditore, a charismatic young adult who is skilled in parkour and combat, and lives with his family in Florence, Italy. As the story progresses, he ends up becoming an assassin as part of his journey to seek revenge against those who have come against his family. The original Assassin's Creed was a fairly simple game, the gameplay was repetitive and boring, the story was solid but fairly simple. Assassin's Creed 2 improves upon most, if not all of the major issues with the first game.

-Great graphics and artstyle. (Graphical fidelity can be further increased with the EaglePatch mod.)
-Great characters. Ezio is still the best written assassin in the series.
-Solid gameplay. Stealth is great but combat can be awkward sometimes.
-Incredible music.
-Solid story.

-Clunky and frustrating controls.
-Ubisoft account is required.
-Online servers are no longer up.
-Other PC port issues. Check the PCGamingWiki for fixes if you're having problems.

Assassin's Creed 2 is a great sequel. It takes the original game and improves upon it in almost every way. Easily one of the best games in the series. One of my personal favorites.
9/10

Job Simulator is a game that sounds far more mundane than it actually is. Instead of being a realistic simulator, this is a humorous and lighthearted game. It has a nice, charming style and solid gameplay that would be a great introductory game for newcomers to VR.

-Great artstyle and graphics.
-Very friendly for new VR players.
-Different unique modes.
-Very charming.
-Solid gameplay.

-It's very short. I 100% the entire game in 3 hours.
-Price is way too steep. $20 is a lot of money for such a short game. Ideally, a $5-$8 price tag would be reasonable for the amount of content.

Job Simulator is a really good game, especially for newcomers to VR, but the game is simply far too short to justify it's price. Recommended only on sale.
7.5/10

Hitman: Absolution is a game that fans of the series will either love or hate. It takes a much different approach compared to most other games in the series. It has more of a focus of story and linear gameplay, instead of being the traditional open sandbox with some light story elements.

-Gameplay isn't perfect, but it's enjoyable.
-Solid graphics and art style.
-Maps are small, but solid.
-Great easter eggs.
-Decent music.

-Although the story isn't particularly good, it's very weird and can be enjoyable at times. There's plenty of bad writing. Lots of plot holes and other issues. However, many moments are 'so bad it's good.'

-It's not meant to be played as a tradition Hitman game. This isn't the traditional open stealth experience fans may be expecting.
-Much more limited and linear compared to the earlier (and even later) games in the series.
-Online servers have been taken offline, making modes like Contracts unplayable.
-Some impossible achievements due to servers being offline.

Hitman: Absolution is weird. It's essentially a linear action game with a Kojima inspired plot and a Hitman skin on top of it. It's an odd game and is unlikely to please hardcore fans. However, despite it's many issues, I like it.
7/10

Half-Life: Blue Shift was the first expansion for the original Half-Life. Both expansions were made by Gearbox Software instead of Valve. Blue Shift is considered by many to be 'just okay', while it's successor, Opposing Force, has had much more positive reception.

-Many neat tie-ins to the base game.
-Core gameplay and graphics are still on par with the original game.
-It's neat to see the story from Barney's perspective.
-Decent story.
-Decent price.

-Pretty bad puzzles. Many are vague, unclear, and prone to bugs.
-Bad AI follower pathfinding. This is an issue in the base game too, but it's more obvious here. This game relies on AI followers for some longer sections and some of the narrow level design makes AI followers get stuck frequently.
-Lighting to too dark at times.
-Lacks the polish of the base game.
-Somewhat buggy.
-Very short.

Half-Life: Blue Shift, while decent, is one of the weakest entries in the Half-Life series. It's clear that this was made by Gearbox instead of Valve. It's worth playing at least once for fans of the series.
6.5/10

Half-Life is a game that needs no introduction. It's one of the most important and influential FPS games of all time. It spawned tons of games taking inspiration from it's innovative design and was also the beginning of the iconic Half-Life franchise. Being released in 1998, it's quite an old game by modern standards, but don't let that fool you into thinking it isn't worth playing.

-Great gameplay.
-Great pacing.
-Great weapons.
-Great music.
-Good artstyle.
-Good puzzles.
-Iconic levels.
-Cheesy but iconic voice acting.
-Includes the standalone demo, Half-Life: Uplink

-Xen isn't great.
-Ending feels a bit rushed.
-Occasional bugs.
-Playing over 100 FPS can cause issues.

Despite it's final chapters not being the greatest, Half-Life is a must play title for any FPS fan. It's one of Valve's many timeless masterpieces.
10/10

Black Mesa is a fan created remake/re-imagining of the original Half-Life in the Source engine. This actually isn't the first time that the original Half-Life was brought into Source. In 2004, Valve released Half-Life: Source, a port of the original game into the source engine. HL: Source was mostly fine at launch but in 2013, an update released that largely broke the game and it was unfortunately never fixed. That game has since been delisted from Steam in favor of an update to the original game instead. Black Mesa seeks out to be a much better effort than Half-Life: Source was, taking the iconic game and upgrading it with the many engine improvements and features of the Source engine.

-Good graphics and art style. Xen looks great.
-Solid re-imagining of the original Half-Life levels and gameplay.
-Combat was changed a bit from the original. It has some issues, but is overall solid.
-Voice acting is decent. I believe they used some of the original voice cast mixed in with some replacements. The new lines came out fairly well. Some are pretty obvious impressions, like G-Man, but that's a hard voice to replicate.

-Some of the sections in Xen aren't great.
-It has a fairly concerning privacy policy despite being a mostly single player game. Crowbar Collective states that it's just a blanket policy from their lawyers and that they don't sell player info. This is most likely true, but the policy does still reserve them the right to start gathering and selling more user data if they wanted to. Given that it's already present in the policy, they wouldn't have to even change it or further disclose it either.

While it certainly doesn't replace the original, Black Mesa is a great fan remake. Definitely a solid way for old and new players alike to experience the original Half-Life.
8/10

Half-Life 2: Lost Coast is a tech demo that was originally supposed to be a chapter in Half-Life 2 before it was cut. There isn't a whole lot to say about this game, but overall it's very solid and is worth playing if you're a fan of the series.

-Same great Half-Life 2 gameplay.
-Great graphics and artstyle.
-It's comes free with Half-Life 2.

-The games lack of music makes some moments a little bit awkward.
-It's a very short 20 minute tech demo. This is only a minor complaint given that it's free.

Half-Life 2: Lost Coast may not win over anybody who isn't already a fan of the series, but those who enjoyed Half-Life 2 will likely have some fun with it.
8/10

Half-Life 2: Episode One is the direct continuation of the base game of Half-Life 2. It was released two years after the base game and serves as more of a short segway into Episode Two, rather than a full length Half-Life game. The game is overall solid, but it costs the same price as Episode Two, a game which is about double the length of this one and ultimately better in many ways.

-Just about everything that made the base game great is still present here.
-Great gameplay.
-Solid music.
-Good artstyle.
-Having Alyx as a sidekick is pretty cool. Definitely one of the highlights of this game.

-Extremely short. I managed to beat it in 2.5 hours.
-Not quite as iconic or memorable as the base game or HL2: Episode Two.
-The final boss is a bit disappointing.

While HL2: Episode One may be the weakest link for the game, it still holds up as a solid entry into the Half-Life series. The price is a bit steep for the short runtime. Get it on sale.
7.5/10