Recent reviews by tim.doherty

The bots were friendlier than most of the real people out there and happy to help me farm the achievements.

There are some minor glitches and weird stuff, but nothing game breakingi. The QoL things are good, Steam achievements are really good. If you are a GTA Vice City fan, give this a consideration

A review without spoilers. Note at the moment I haven't got to the end of the game but love what I've seen.

Absolutely my game of the year! As a fan of the first game I was excited to see what they would do with this and they have expanded in every way. Jonas and Verena Kyratzes did a great job on the story and world which also changes the way you view the first game. The other characters you interact with, the philosophical questions raised can really make you think, or you have the option to just skip them and get to the puzzles if you wish!

Speaking of the puzzles, Croteam took the feedback from the first game, all the familiar elements are back, and the hated recorder is not to be seen. I was pleasantly surprised with the new mechanics where you get one new item per area. Around the laser beam elements are multiple new puzzle elements which feel right at home and then quite a few other things you'll encounter in good time! Like anything when these all get combined it will have you thinking, getting a bit frustrated, and finally having that EUREKA moment!

The worlds are quite massive and varied, both visually and in terms of elements. From quite flat areas, to mountainous and incredible vertical areas to find a path .. and try not to fall down. There are areas which seem to be from different times of the year or just quite different climates. Its quite a varied visual experience and some of the optional things either obvious or hidden help as you are looking around.

If you played the previous game, you will already be thinking a certain way and some puzzles you may quickly solve, while others had me scratching me head. However you wont be stopped from progressing! Get to an area and you need to solve 8 puzzles to unlock the next thing .. but there are two optional bonus puzzles. I had times I couldn't quite work it out, but worked out another and never got frustrated this way.

Similar to how the original game had its stars and silver sigils, there are optional other things. At the time of writing I'm tracking down my final stars which have varied challenges, Either find something in the wider map, solve a riddle, or maybe a bit of a meta laser puzzle. Some of these elements you may not notice at first.. then you see something and .. hang on, what is that, and where is that going!

Its not just all about puzzles too, at some times you can go visit the robot city, choose to talk to other robots, explore a decent sized area and there are a few optional things to do there too!

The music of course is varied and enjoyable to listen to. Soul food for your mind, your eyes and your mind!

As mentioned I haven't got to the endings yet apart from a bit of a joke one but I'm looking forward to it!



One partial complaint is that sometimes I've found myself in a puzzle and didn't notice an item required to help solve the puzzle, this was short term though.

Obviously you should have this on your Steam Profile and I feel bad if you don't. You can either try Bethesda's Launcher and curated mods, or just get a source port and run FREE with SOOO much Doom conent you never need to play another game again.

EVER

Fun/Frustrating, just fly over all the level if you don't want to do the bonus stuff? Make sure you actually scream in real life to get the secret score bonus

If you make the right choices, Tripp lives up to his name

It is shorter than the other games and there are a few plot points that jump out easily if you look into the interactions you have, and those characters you don't interact with. The bad guys (no spoilers) remind me of the bad guy in season 2. I bet they would have been friends, until one decided they needed to be in control and set an example of the other.

Is it just me getting older? or the AI makes these soldiers harder to hit as they keep running across. Black Mesa is a great mix between those set pieces where you look at something, and smile first with nostalgia, you then smile again with the updated detail and love crafted keeping it both familiar and new. Then you find little bits that are different and might bounce between "hey why did they cut out that bit! I loved that bit!" or "OMG this new office on the side makes this corrider much more interesting. Also some bits such as On a Rail are much shorter. Xen which took ages is something you can see was worth the wait, they put a lot of effort into making it really stand out.

The mix of fun little achievements and longer ones such as the hat/pizza are pretty fun combinations IMO

Edit: after going back on a new PC, it runs much smoother, AI isn't tougher. That Laser immunisation achievement sucked

Nothing to really write home about, you can get 100% achievements without too much effort. AI is trash.

5 long year later I carefully installed and remembered to restart steam to get the Go Outside achievement legit. This is important to me, and to achievement tracking websites.

But also it meant I could finally work on that speedrun achievement that I never really tried that hard all those years ago. It didn't take too many restarts and it was done!

Overall a good game, no violence, no "have it going for 365 days" no ego of be in the same game as the developer, no actual broken achievements. This is a bit of a weird game, but overall its good.