Recent reviews by bendrexl

A very solid casual card battler. Easy to pick up, very fast-paced gameplay, "just ONE more match!" addictive, and rewarding even without paying a dime.

Free-to-play, and paid upgrades are 99% cosmetic. For the 1%, the matchmaking / leveling scheme means you still won't feel left out. Matches are always fun & fair, in my experience.

If you're the type who's "gotta catch 'em all!", collecting all the 'variants' of a specific style you like will get very expensive for those lacking self-control.

(play time on Steam is waaaaay off, as I play 99% on mobile)

Yes please, more of this. Remedy took what made Alan Wake outstanding, and just tripled down on it all. Visuals & world-building are absolutely top notch even without RTX. Voice acting and character mocap are engaging & deftly avoid the uncanny valley. Overall narrative is genuinely intriguing, and Remedy has successfully created a new IP while deepening the experience for long-term fans. Thanks Remedy!

My only minor gripes are that the difficulty progression can be immersion-breaking at least while playing the Ultimate edition w/ all DLC, and weapon stats are very vague, making them hard to compare.

I stumbled into areas & missions I just wasn't ready for, but the game didn't nudge or hint as to what missions/activities I should be looking for.

Wonderfully engaging discovery game with lots of first-principles real-world experiments that help you progress.

I'm confused why other players complete Half-Life: Alyx in ~17hrs. Honestly, confused.

This isn't a game - it's an experience. It rewards nearly every effort you - embodying Alyx Vance - make in exploring the first Half-Life universe world Valve has released in over a decade. Nearly everything in the world reacts to your presence... your touch. You're free to look around, separate from aiming any weapon or object you might be carrying. You must learn how to physically handle & reload your firearms, not just mash "Fire" and "Reload". For the first time, you're empowered to upgrade weapons, and given choices to match your own style. In true Valve tradition, immersion is never broken save for loading screens. Everything happens in-game, in-character.

So many times, Alyx expressed the exact emotion I was feeling - this is a one of the big divergences from Half-Life tradition - Alyx has her own voice. I see this mentioned very rarely, and I think that's because Valve absolutely nailed it with the writing.

NPCs are introduced, animated, voiced, and brought to live in a way that would give the best Disney Imagineers reason to sweat, or inspire them to greater heights.

Gunplay & inventory is handled in such a frictionless manner that I've completely forgotten about it - it's all instinct. No dropped weapons, and any clumsiness in-game always feels like it was due to my own butter-fingers.

Again, I'm confused why anyone would want to power through or speed-run this monument of an achievement. I'm 30+ hours in, and still looking forward to what's around the next corner, savoring each new setpiece that the designers have worked for years to polish...

It's all worth it.

I really enjoyed Thief II back in the day, and Thief 3 wasn't terrible, but this latest reboot has almost nothing going for it except the name.

I wasn't digging Garrett's new style, but I wouldn't have let that sway my opinion of the game itself. I gave it a fair chance, played completely through hoping it would get better, and that the story would finally hit its stride and start making sense.

Pros: Sneaking mechanics work well, and the 'swoop' ability can really make you feel like you own the shadows. Wide variety of arrow types. Visuals are generally very good. Voice acting is solid. AI seems solid, in the usual lovable sneaker-amnesiac sort of way.

Cons:

• Sneaking works well, when the level designers actually let you use it, which isn't often. There may be multiple paths around the city, but they are few and feel like linear A=>B tunnels. You will constantly be frustrated by the sheer amound of things Garrett can't or won't climb, or won't walk through, or mantle over, etc.
  
• The story makes almost no sense. Most of the time when a cutscene started, I would find myself asking "How the crap did that just happen? And when it ended, I'd be wondering what the crap just happened. It feels very disjointed, to say the least. Characters pop in and out, changing roles with the spastic plot twists.
  
• Speaking of characters popping in... it's downright embarrasing just how many times our hero gets jumped by a balding old creep with a walking stick and a limp. Seriously Garrett, they call you the Master Thief; you sneak up on people for a living. You'd think some of that experience would bleed over into the cutscenes, but no. I threw up my hands more than once because I could see what was coming a mile away and Garrett was still completely oblivious.

And even the final chapter left me with little resolution or warm fuzzies, so I can't recommend this to anyone, really. Go play Dishonored instead.

As a final note, there's one mission that has some fairly explicit adult content that you *must* witness to completed the mission, so take that as you will.

Deceptively simple on the surface, but the strategy required to successfully quell the rebellion is suprisingly deep & *very* addictive. You can play through in a few hours, but the replayability factor is very high, as you would expect from a rouge-like game.