Recent reviews by nikivarvar

aside from it being one of the first browser idle games made on unity and introducing the type of prestige mechanics all the way back in may 2014, that many soulless mobile clone cashgrabbers use to this day, there's nothing much else to be found unfortunately, you'll be playing the game that doesn't differ much from abovementioned cashgrabbers, maybe the balancing is more profound and made to not screw you up that much for not paying anything.

there were couple of ideas thrown into the game to maybe spice up the gameplay a bit after the HUD overhaul, but it's nothing but just layers of the same game that "expire" over time, and i personally found it jarring and unneeded.

a classic physics-based platformer where you play as a pile of goo that can stick to the walls, expand across the floor by jumping in order to jump higher etc. it was totally new for the time it only came out, so it serves a good history value both for indie games, and for Edmund McMillen's creations.
for a dollar i got the original game with a build which was rewritten from ground up by original programmer who worked on the game back in 2004.

pros of the new build: it's rewritten from ground up, better physics at the places, especially the crushing damage that was adressed specifically, it was improved upon. i deliberately remember damaging myself when trying to jump very high, because Gish was spreding across the floor too much, or something like that. now crushing damage occurs while being actually "crushed" by something.
online steamplay is a huge plus.

and that's it. now the cons: menu became too simple, 80+ custom preinstalled levels and campaigns are absent, no stage select, no practice room, no collection mode.
because the entire game was rewritten, achievements stopped working properly.

in a nutshell, new rewritten build only lets you play the campaign and "lost levels" campaign which was already featured in older builds, with improved graphics and physics.

thankfully, you can access the old 170 version by selecting it in the beta tab in the properties of the game.

new rewritten build is a nice addition, but i think the old version is where it shines the most in terms of amount of content, new thing is nothing but butchered version of Gish, it serves nothing but a nice addition to the base game you already have access to anyway, but it would be really great if they added missing features to it.
totally worth one buck

This entire thing is very endearing to me, and I don't want to spoil too much and still manage to set you up for a ride that won't feel like a ride from get-go, like Halfquake.
You'll experience a sense of depressive teenage edginess throughout the mods, but it's very compelling type, almost as if the kids going through some sort of period (almost certaintly also under impression from the film "Cube"), layed out the ideas that seemed cool, and turned it into a game, nothing really seems out of place, even the setup is quite simple: you made a mistake sometime in your past life, and you have to get through a set of obstacle courses, puzzles, and "sadists" verbally messing with you, for no particular end goal, other than own demise, and sheer entertainment of whoever set all this up. It feels hopeless, from the general idea, to the atmosphere, music's texts, and worldbuilding. And when it clicks - it clicks.
A lot of people were recommending giving Halfquake Amen (the second mod in the series) a go first, but I honestly think every entry has it's strengths and have connections that complement eachother, so I definitely recommend going through each one of them.

In short, when you start the game, doors from left to right:
Halfquake (2001) - a series of maps for Half-Life with interesting gimmicks. the moment in beginning, when headcrab falls from the ceiling and prevents you from making one jump, and you fall into lava because of it, made me get a lot of Kaizo Mario (which, along with owata meme, became a thing years later btw) vibes from it.
Halfquake Amen (2002) - the most balanced entry in the package. also where the most fuss is coming from, and for a lot of good reasons: cool black and white (and green) aesthetics, artstyle clashes feel memorable, cool music, quirky dialogue. very well paced out as a game: just the right amount of action and puzzles, and has one very memorable shtick that it pulls on you on second half, which is also rewarded for struggling through accordingly.
Halfquake Sunrise (2010) - notice that time skip? developer has matured, so did a lot of things that came with the (at the time of writing) conclusion to the series. it manages to stick to the original idea and excel further in all fronts (also ditches combat), AND there's a twist.

Rooms with doors to get to mods themselves in hub area also have buttons and passageways, I advise to check them out first. Or just remember that word "sadism" exists.

My only problem with Steam trilogy release is bit messed up audio mixing for voice lines, I think they were louder in original mods by default, but I could be wrong. A plus is that you can adjust just them and not make other sounds very loud by accident.

In terms of difficulty, a lot of moments in all entries you might find challenging, but not painfully hard (unless you're really struggling with HL1's movement, which is fine too). Sunrise can be damn hard though, so watch out, or look forward to it.
You also might learn a thing or two about GoldSrc movement on subsequent playthroughs :^)

this is one of those mysterious things from my childhood
it's a game, where you cannot discover every thing it has, so it'll never lose it's magic and sense of infinity, so why i'm still loving it that much, it's like an actual dream
http://themachination.net/blog/what-yume-nikki-does-right/

this game nails the atmosphere, exploring the unknown worlds feels dreamy, as the game's name implies, even terrifying sometimes, you'll never know what you'll find later on.
the game is big, full of different worlds besides the ones you can access through the nexus in the beginning, you just dig deeper by fiddling with different "effects" you find and using them with the environment. examine and make up your own theories what the weird stuff happening supposed to mean, or don't

it's a cult classic for a reason, and it may turn out as a very important experience, give it a try

p.s. or download it from kikiyama's webpage and store the installer somewhere deep in your hard drive. one very soothing, chill, maybe cold night sometime in the future, maybe without connection, you may find it, open it up and play it without knowing anything about it.
mechagamezilla said so, and i agree


if you want something more like this, for fangames that got generated because game's huge legacy i can recommend these two:
.flow for more frightening atmosphere, but very faithful in terms of quality and has it's own handful of memorable moments.
yume 2kki if you want to immerse and get lost in a literal sense, it's huge, and the unlockables only encourages you to keep finding new stuff.

previous negative review: https://pastebin.com/Cx4XUaWM
and first positive review: https://pastebin.com/EFV4b0WB

not entirely sure how did it happen, but the developer managed to somewhat fix the inconsistencies with how the movement penalized accuracy and bunch of related stuff, so i'm changing the negative to positive, i no longer feel like i'm going to make anyone suffer while recommending it :D

considering the entire 2017 and bit later period with some of the worst updates it ever received, the game still manages to retain for what it's very known for: being a really fun western deathmatch fps with bunch of random funny stuff happening that would probably fit for a funny moments compilation

arsenal is varied and still pretty unique due to it's setting, if you got used to spray and pray call of duty stuff with ♥♥♥-all dmg per bullet in lot of other games of same genre, here it's totally opposite: you get revolvers with not a lot of chambers in their cylinders, half of the rifles that can have only one chamber for a bullet and no magazines or anything... you get the idea, and they're all very powerful and don't have high firerate that likely will throw off bunch of people, because it's definitely harder than your average fps, any kind of ttk you would like to think of, as it also synergizes with other stuff this at-one-point-a-source-engine-mod has, such as it's movement that is sluggish, but still manages to give you a lot of options to a lot of situations, and how it affects the shooting accuracy that is NOT like csgo, and equippable perks that enhance various titbits of stuff you can do for any kind of playstyle.

and probably the most important thing - you can kick people

if i were explaining everything it'll be a long wall of text, so i probably just give some very specific things of what you can do in fistful of frags:
- you can kick an explosive barrel to group of people having a heated fight, Through A Big Campfire thing that will light the barrel up on its way there, and witness killfeed being filled with you blowing up bunch of people at once
- there's surprisingly a lot of opportunities involving kicking people off cliffs or to stuff that breaks and/or chain with stuff you are able to do, so i'll just leave it mentioned like this
- steal people's revolvers with brass knuckles and kill them with their own weapon
- watch some team defending the gold chest, setting up traps with explosive barrels and just do whatever, to later see some very high-skilled player wipe them out like nothing. that could be you if you're good enough

feel free to download and try it out, surprisingly it still has a healthy community with all sorts of people, high-skilled and opposite, and the former can help you out with taking a hang of the game if you have any trouble

recent horse update is very fun btw