Seneste anmeldelser af solaris32

This review originally written on May 14, 2012 on GameFAQs

"The best FPS ever made, simply a must play."

Half-Life is the story of Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist at the Black Mesa Research Facility. Something goes terribly wrong during an experiment and aliens invade our realm. As if that wasn't bad enough military men have been sent in to kill everything, including you! The game is played in first person the entire time with no cutscenes or cinematics. There is a wide variety of weapons, and enemies to kill them with. Unlike most modern FPSs you can carry as many guns as you can find and your health does not regenerate. While the game itself is technically linear, the various areas you pass through aren't as simple as walking down a corridor and shooting whatever along the way.

I've played this game (and its expansions) many times over the course of the 7 years I've had them. They never get old and are still wonderful to play even as time goes on and games continue to evolve. Although there is a deathmatch multiplayer option I will be reviewing the single player only. The game was played on hard difficulty.

STORY: 10/10
The story is done differently than most games. Rather than give you a cinematic or a cutscene of you talking to someone, characters will talk to you and you are free to move around and do what you will. You, Gordon, never ever speak. This is what's called a silent protagonist. As you play, the scientists will be the main characters who tell you what you need to do and why. There is also a mysterious man who, if you're observant, seems to be following you around. What does he have to do with this catastrophe? There isn't as much dialogue explaining the story as some games. This is not a bad thing as the area you are in and its state tells its own story. Wait until you get to the very end, it's really cool!

GRAPHICS: 10/10
This score is not based on current standards of graphics, but rather what they were at the time and my own appeal for them. The vanilla graphics from the disc version has large blurry pixels. It's honestly kind of hard to look at, but for its time they were very good. The release of the second and final expansion, Blue Shift, came with HD graphics for Half-Life and its two expansions. These made the graphics look far better. With the release of Half-Life on Steam the graphics have been cleaned up even further.

The animations are actually pretty well done for it's time. The environments are very nice looking, not bland or overly reused. The character models are else very nice, especially for the aliens. My only complaint is that there are only about 4 scientist models reused throughout the whole game, and only 1 or 2 security guard models.

SOUND: 10/10
The sound effects are really great, even by today's standards. What little dialogue the game has is done reasonably well. At certain points in the game a short music track will activate. The music, when it appears, is really nice. The rest of the time you are left to the sounds of the aliens as they lie in wait, the chatter of the soldiers, or the environmental sound effects. The same problem of the reused models occurs with the reused voices for scientists and soldiers.

WEAPONS: 10/10
There is a wide selection of weapons to choose from, and best of all you can carry them all around at once! All the weapons have their use and unless you're really bad at aiming you shouldn't have to worry about running out of ammo.

ENEMIES: 10/10
This game has a wide variety of alien creatures from the slight annoyance to the super deadly. There are also a few human soldiers to fight. I feel the human soldiers could have used a little more variance because even though the different types use different weapons they all basically fight the same. Though there is a certain class of human enemy that are very different from the rest and quite deadly. The aliens all vary and require different tactics to most effectively kill them. The bosses, especially at the end of the game, are fun and challenging to fight. It doesn't happen often but soldiers and aliens will fight each other and even a certain type of alien doesn't like another.

LEVEL DESIGN: 10/10
The level design is more akin to old school FPSs where it's not a straight corridor to the next room to fight more enemies. Instead there are often little hidden areas you can access if you explore a bit which contain useful health and ammo. It is quite common to have to climb and jump around to progress where you need to go. Sometimes you get small puzzles which generally aren't a big deal to figure out. The level environments are very well done and do what they're supposed to. The last level is my favorite, but I can't reveal why without giving spoilers.

LENGTH AND REPLAYABILITY
The game is fairly long for an FPS being about 10 hours plus especially if you take your time. I've replayed this game over 5 times over the 7 years I've owned it so I'd say it has lots of replay value. Whenever I'm in the mood for an old school FPS I check out this game.

FINAL SCORE: 10/10
It should be noted that I'm using my own slight variation of a scoring system where 10/10 does not necessarily mean flawless and perfect in every way, though this game gets pretty close to that impossible goal. If you have even a passing interest in FPSs you should check out this game on Steam and at least give it a shot. Although there are FPSs that are slightly better in certain regards, this game still holds the title of best FPS ever made because it was here so long ago and is the one that set the bar for fully 3D FPSs.

This review originally written on July 2, 2012 on GameFAQs

"A fun and entertaining isometric shooter."

Alien Shooter is a top down isometric shooter. You move with the keyboard and fire with the mouse. What I am reviewing is the Invasion Earth edition which is Alien Shooter plus its 2 expansions, Fight For Life and The Experiment, all in one. I will be reviewing all 3 with the 2 expansions having their own small section at the end.

GRAPHICS: 8/10
This game was released in 2003 and by a small company, so the graphics actually aren't bad. They're bright and colorful and not unpleasant to look at. The only problem is that they use the same tileset for the entirety of the game.

SOUND: 9/10
The sound is pretty good. The weapons sound right and the monsters make satisfying sounds when they're killed. The music is also real nice and can pump you up when enemies attack.

STORY: 4/10
There actually is a story in this game, but it's hindered by poor grammar, occasional misspellings, and inconsistent writing. At the start and end of the game there are a few static screens briefly describing the story. At the start of each mission there is a little mission briefing that tells you a little bit about the level and the character's thoughts. The first time you play the game you might bother to read it, but then you beat it and realize it doesn't matter. The main problem is the poor grammar which makes it hard for me to read and take seriously in a commercial game. A small nitpick is the inconsistent writing. Sometimes the writing will go in depth into the description of something inconsequential, but doesn't remain consistent with this style. For example it describes two men getting out of a helicopter and how the blades swoosh their hair. Um, ok? There are no descriptions of the persons themselves or anything else like that so why bother describing something so silly? Oh well, the story isn't important, just shooting aliens.

GAMEPLAY: 7/10
There are 10 levels in Alien Shooter and your goal in each one is to kill all the aliens, and in some destroy the alien spawners using dynamite. The gameplay is simple and does not change at all. To some it can get repetitive but this is not the first time I played this game and it likely won't be the last. This game is also reasonably challenging on hard. Finally, there is a survival mode which sees how long you can survive using one of the turrets before you die.

In most levels there are secrets where you can find things like weapons, upgrades, money, and ammo. Usually they're behind a crack in the wall which you must blow up, but sometimes money is hidden behind walls and you can't see it. You can also destroy certain boxes for cash and money, and enemies drop these at random as well.

ENEMIES: 6/10
There are literally only 4 enemy types in the entire game. The colors are palette swapped to indicate tougher versions. Later in the game 2 of the enemy types start wearing armor which makes them tougher and allows them to shoot. The enemies, while interesting, aren't original. The small guys are basically Shriekers from Tremors 2, and the taller ones are pretty much the aliens from Aliens. It's still fun to shoot them though!

WEAPONS: 7/10
There are 9 different weapons with each one getting stronger than the last, and this is my problem. I would've liked the different weapons to have more utility and be useful in certain situations, but for the most part they aren't. Sure rockets and the plasma cannon are good for hordes, but once you get the magma gun there's no reason to use anything else except to save ammo. Some more variety and uniqueness would've been nice.

UPGRADE SHOP: 7/10
At the start of each level you can use money earned previously to buy new weapons and ammo, as well as upgrades for your character. You can also buy armor, lives, and a few other things. Don't be too eager to buy new weapons and upgrades because you will find some of them in the levels. There are 3 levels of upgrades for your character. The upgrades are HP increase, strength which lets you carry more ammo, speed increase, and accuracy which increases your damage and accuracy. It's not bad how it is now, but it could be better and more complex.

LENGTH AND REPLAYABILITY
Beating the game on hard is about 2-3 hours depending on your skill and knowledge of the game. There are 3 difficulty levels so you can play on normal first to get the hang of the game then replay on hard for a challenge. To me the replayability is high because over the years I've beaten this game several times.

FINAL SCORE: 7/10
There's just something about this game that makes it so much fun to play. I've tried playing other games like this such as the Alien Breed trilogy (no relation), but there's something about them that seems off. Maybe it's because in this game there are a hundred aliens swarming at you at once and you mow them all down. This game is very arcadey and I enjoy it for that. There is a demo so give this game a try. If you aren't real into the demo know the game doesn't change or introduce anything new except bigger crowds of stronger enemies.

FIGHT FOR LIFE (campaign 2): 6/10
This expansion introduces 5 new levels to play. Everything is exactly the same as Alien Shooter but the level layout is of course different. It uses the same tileset and all that. Because there are only 5 levels the difficulty ramps up fast, therefore this expansion is more challenging than the base game. I give it a 6 because it doesn't introduce anything new at all. The “story” is continued but I already discussed the irrelevance of it.

THE EXPERIMENT (campaign 3): 7/10
This too has 5 new levels, and although it still uses the same tileset, there are 2 new enemy types. There are also a few new rockin' music tracks to listen to. And finally there is a boss monster at the end of the last level (the first boss in the series), and he's hard! This expansion is really hard as a whole as well. You will be tight on money and ammo up until around the end of the last level. My thoughts on the story are the same of what I said for the previous expansion.

FINAL THOUGHTS
As I said at the beginning I got the Invasion Earth physical copy which is all 3 of these games. You should be able to find it for pretty cheap. Alternatively you can buy the collection digitally on certain sites. Do not buy from the developer's site as it is grossly overpriced.

I overall really like these games and have enjoyed them for years. There are a lot of things they can do better which are addressed in future games but you can't blame these for that too much. A series has to start somewhere and this isn't some AAA developer. If you are into arcade shooters I think you will enjoy these.

This review originally written on June 11, 2012 on GameFAQs

"An interesting game concept, but overall a disappointment."

This is the most recent game by Sigma-Team, released in December 2010. Sigma-Team up to this point has almost exclusively been doing their Alien Shooter games. This game is nothing like those. How the game works is you build units and send them to the other side of a simple, long hallway. Your bots gather resources allowing you to build more units, but you don't actually control any of them as they all walk to the right fighting everything along the way. Your goal is to destroy the alien device spawning swarms of aliens thus beating the level.

GRAPHICS: 5/10
The graphics aren't all that great, but it's not like they really need to be. Part of the reason this gets such a low score is because the game gets extremely laggy when there are a bunch of units on the level. It could be my computer, but it lags even with everything turned off. Another problem is that the lowest resolution is 1024x768 and the higher the resolution the more graphics intensive a game is.

A big issue is the unoriginality in nearly all of the units, both human and alien. The human soldiers mostly look alike despite there being several different types. The aliens, going from baby to giant adult, are your standard alien types. There isn't much variety with the environments either. There are only 3 planets with just 1 “hallway” type per planet.

SOUND: 6/10
There's not much here either. The guns make gun sounds, and that's about all you'll hear. There is music of course but it's nothing special, but not terrible either.

GAMEPLAY: 7/10
I have to give props to them for doing something that, as far as I'm aware, is fairly original and unique. It doesn't work out that well and it's very repetitive, but it was fun while it lasted. Although there are different enemy types, they're all still killed the same way. You only have to spam your units, especially the stronger ones, and eventually you'll win. There's very little, if any, strategy. Your units, when upgraded, can fire a grenade which is accomplished by clicking the icon above their head. You also get an airstrike you can use to weaken hordes of enemies. Useful until you decide to play extreme where it becomes not so useful.

There are 3 planets and 7 levels per planet. In each level you fight different enemies and in varying amounts, but nothing more. Once you beat the game, that's it, nothing else. You can replay the missions to try to beat them as fast as possible and achieve 5 stars, but it doesn't accomplish anything except earn you more money. There is the extreme difficulty which does grant you more money upon beating levels.

LEVELING PROCESS: 7/10
What stops this game from being completely not worth your time is that it has a skill and upgrade shop. When you complete levels you get money to spend. You can also earn bonus money which I haven't figured out the mechanics of yet. You can upgrade the unit classes giving them more health and damage output, and upgrade your skills like how much extra money you earn at the end of a mission. This is useful in the beginning but once you get into the higher levels of upgrades the cost in money is so insanely high and the reward so small that it's not worth it. Cheating for money (after I beat the game of course) is about the only way to prepare yourself for the 3rd planet on insane, and even then good luck. The legit way is to grind for forever to earn money which got boring fast. The higher skills for units and such should have had some special bonuses to make earning them worthwhile and provide variance to the gameplay.

LENGTH AND REPLAYABILITY
Beating the game on normal took me about 3-4 hours and those were fun hours. And then it got boring. I wanted my units to be higher level but the price is high and the payoff so small. However after you beat the game there's no reason to continue playing. There's no survival mode or anything like that.

FINAL SCORE: 6/10
The game is fun for a few hours or so, and then you get bored. The game currently sells for $10 and I recommend you wait until a sale for it to go below 5. There's not enough substance here and the gameplay alone isn't good enough to keep replaying like it is for the Alien Shooter games. The main problem is the lack of direct player action. There are a lot of places they can improve the game in a sequel if they make one, and I kind of hope they do. They have a great concept, but the execution is poor. Luckily there's a demo (on Sigma-Team's website) so if you aren't sure about the basic gameplay, check it out.

I'd like to start by saying I played this game on the pc many years ago and I remember loving it. I got pretty far but never quite beat it. Since it was so long ago there are various things about it I don't remember so I looked up a Youtube vid of the original to remind me. The game was originally made in 1991 but don't let the age fool you because the gameplay was quite solid.

The game is an isometric puzzler. Your goal is to deliver a package to a guy on the top floor. As you play you can talk to people and learn more about what's going on. You run around activating switches to open doors, finding security passes to open others, shooting enemies, dodging traps, and rescuing people (though that's optional). You die in a single hit from all enemies and traps and you have a finite amount of lives (though you get an extra life for every person you rescue. And don't forget, you can always save scum!).

Given I'm a big fan of the original I decided to take a chance despite the steep price tag ($25) and check this game out. At first I gave a negative rating due to the bugs and some cons. But since then the devs have made good strides in fixing them, so I feel now that this game is overall on par with the original. If you liked the original you should definitely check this out. The only problem is the price which is a bit high. $15 would be more reasonable to most people I think. Therefore if you think the price is high don't hate on the game but instead wait for a nice sale.

There have been various bugs but the devs continue to work on fixing them.

Cons
-There is no tutorial of any kind, nor any explanation of game mechanics. It's true the original was like this, but that was 1991. It's not obvious anymore you have to step on the grate spawning the red balls to stop them from spawning. If you never played the original you will go in this completely blind and likely get frustrated fast. Essential gameplay tips are at the end.

-The original game gave you clearly visible switches and items, and the walls were only about half your character's height for visual convenience. In this version the switches are more on par with the updated graphics which is fine, but they can be harder to see, especially when on a southwest/southeast wall. This problem is compounded by the fact that walls are now a realistic height and only become transparent when you, an enemy, a friendly, or a moving trap gets behind them. This means there are buttons and even electrocution pads hidden on and behind these walls you can't see through. The items are harder to see too and the pistol is hidden behind a desk where in the original it was clearly shown. There are now yellow chevron symbols (arrow-like) located on top of walls that point to the switches. Most electrocution pads are visible behind walls, but some aren't. I assume the ones that aren't are a bug and will get fixed. The laser pistol is now in a luminescent box on a wall next to the desk. These changes are from patch 1.1 Oct 26, 2015.

-You can't rebind the controls for the controller (but you can for the keyboard).

-There are no graphics options of any kind in game, not even the ability to change the resolution (it used my native resolution for me which is 1280x720). If you want windowed you have to press alt+enter. In patch 1.3 Oct 29, 2015 there are now resolution options and even graphics options in case your pc is a potato and has difficulty with this game.

-The game is limited to 30fps. This isn't a con to me but many people consider it one. I personally don't mind 30fps in non-shooter games and there's certainly no issues with it here for me. V-sync has been turned off in patch 1.1 Oct 26, 2015 that unlocks the fps. I was getting 200+ and the game does indeed play faster (perhaps too fast :P).

Neutral
+-Doors that slid up and down have been changed to horizontal laser doors. This is significant because a very useful trick (which I think is necessary a couple times) is to stand on an open door, ricochet a shot off a wall to shoot the switch closing the door, then move off the door allowing it to close. With the new laser doors this technique is far from obvious.

Pros
+Same great gameplay of the original.
+The updated graphics are very nice (excluding the realistic wall height, detailed in cons).
+The new music is pretty good and best of all plays as you explore the floors, instead of having almost no music as you explore like in the original.
+The new UI is really great and you can toggle it at any time. It is especially nice that it informs you how many people there are and how many you've saved, how many rooms and the number you've cleared, and even how many destroyable objects you've destroyed so you can work on the achievement.
+Some nice achievements that add replayability such as kill everyone (very hard considering you start with 5 lives and rescuing people is the only way to get more), rescuing all people, destroying all breakable objects, and more.

Some basic tips for new players that are essential
*Rescuing people is the only way to get more lives. Once you've lost all your lives the game immediately starts over at the very beginning. Or you can save scum (save at the beginning of every room and if you die reload). You rescue people by leading them to any room exit.
*The pistol can ricochet off walls. Use this to hit switches and enemies you ordinarily couldn't. Be careful not to hit friendlies! But don't worry you can't be hurt by your own shots.
*You can stand in the middle of a door and use your gun to shoot the switch that closes it, then move out of the door allowing it to close. Use this to solve puzzles or make them easier.
*See those blobs spawning from a grate? You have to walk over the grate to close it and prevent more from spawning.
*Grenades can be used to destroy those periscope-looking things that shoot explosives at you. Learn to avoid them instead because grenades aren't very common.
*Bombs can be used to blow open doors. Careful because they can kill you if you're too close. Do this very sparingly because bombs are rare and there's always a legit way to progress if you're careful.
*There will be other tricks you will learn as you play :).

(Personal note: 43 of 48 people found this review helpful when it was negative).

I've finally beaten the game and I've given myself many days to think about it. Finally I've decided that although I've gotten many hours of mostly enjoyment, I can't call this a good game. The prologue level is amazing the first time you play it, but the game overall just goes downhill from there. The gameplay mechanics are widely considered the best in the series (although certain things are taken out like being able to shoot enemies' handheld radios), and I agree. But considering the length of this game we need more than just stellar gameplay mechanics. Sadly that is not to be.

I liked that this is an open worlds game, but that's also a big problem; there are no indoor levels (except a small to medium sized cave if you count that). Every single area in the game you must approach from the outside and every single area is arranged outside. There aren't really any buildings you have to navigate through with multiple stories. Basically there's no real variety. At least they were smart and had the guard placements randomized. You'll be visiting the same areas over and over, a lot more so if you do the side-ops. The repetiveness in this game is gigantic.

To help stem the repetiveness you do have weapons development to work on throughout the whole game. To develop weapons and other items and to use them it requires GMP (essentially money) and resources. They also threw in a waiting time for weapons to develop to further slow your progress. You get GMP for all sorts of things, and resources you mainly get by finding them in the world and deployment missions. This was fun at first but it didn't take long before it became a chore to grind out the necessary supplies.

The biggest flaw of the game is easily the story and characters, or lack there of. You, Big Boss, rarely talk in the game and when you do it's only a short sentence or two. The rest of the time it's just the other characters simply being exposition and info dumps. There's very little personality development for any of them. But the biggest slap in the face are the godawful cassette tapes. Instead of giving us proper cutscenes they have these audio only cassettes where it's basically just the person (not Big Boss) talking to themself about whatever the subject is. It's incredibly boring and lame. Gone are the traditional codec conversations you can have with the various people you're with. Instead you point your binoculars at certain places on a map and can get brief messages about it, but that's it. I think Kojima took the complaints of MGS4's excessive cutscenes too far by giving us very little cutscenes in this game. I would talk about the disappointment of the characters themselves, such as the wasted potential of the villain Skullface, but I don't want to give spoilers. I will say I'm not happy about the explanation for why Quiet doesn't wear clothes because it just boils down to shameless fan service. Also, the game doesn't explain why she doesnt write/type messages to communicate, which is a bit of a plot hole, considering what she could have (and it's fairly clear wanted) to tell them. Finally, the game doesn't give an ending, just reveals the twist that the game not so subtetly hinted at in the very beginning.

Another complaint is all the filler missions. Having the repetitive side-ops is one thing, but it's another to add in the pointless missions from some "client". It's only there to artificially inflate the length. The locations of the main story missions take place at boxed off areas of the map, a map you have access to in free roam as well. The problem is when you do the story missions these areas are rarely much different than if you decided to visit them in free roam. Generally the only thing story missions add are vehicles the enemy uses which you will rarely see in free roam.

After completing mission 22 you get the ability to build an FOB. FOBs are seperate from your motherbase. They generate their own unprocessed resources, which can be stolen by other players, but when it gets processed it goes into your main pile and that cannot be stolen. You can have guards on your FOB to protect against players, and fortunately you can designate the max rank of these guards so you don't get your high level guards stolen. You can even have 0 guards guarding if you want, so that the only thing people can steal are the unprocessed resources they generate, but who cares. The problems come when you decide to invade someone else's FOB. The deck is very heavily stacked against you, the invader, if another player comes to defend against you. They have infinite respawns, and you can't enter the winning door if the guards are alerted to your presence, and it takes several minutes for this alert to go away. Of course you yourself have only 1 life. And all this is assuming you don't run into a cheater because this game has absolutely no anti-cheat software. My recommendation is to invade a couple FOBs just to see what it's like, then after you've inevitable lost because the defender camped the door sniping you, ignore invading FOBs. Just be happy with the free resources you get and the extra space for your minions in their job categories. Even if someone invades your FOB I would ignore it because it means you have to quit and lose your progress to go defend, which means starting a mission all over, and most of the time the people disconnect when they see someone coming to defend because they know it's virtually hopeless.

My final thoughts are to get this game when it's heavily on sale, and get it strictly for the gameplay.

9-14-15 edit: Just wanted to quickly say that the new survival mode is pretty fun and adds some much needed variety to the game. The devs have also done really well stabilizing the game and even adding the ability to remove the annoying film grain and chromatic aberration (plus other graphical options). I still can't recommend the game unless on sale.

Original text: This isn't a bad game, just not everything it could be, and not worth its current price of $20. I also feel it didn't deserve the hype or the AO rating from the ESRB. But it's technically not the dev's fault about the hype, only those stupid media outlets.

There are 7 levels and most of them take place in an open outdoors area. The primary objective in most of them is simply to kill X number of people, then usually after that X number of some kind of law enforcement. Most levels have "side-quests" but really it's just going to the icon on the minimap and killing more people there. Completing these side-quests gives you a respawn point aka extra life. Once you run out and die you must start the level over.

The only way to gain health is to do executions on dying or stunned people. An interesting mechanic. By my count there's only about 8 guns in the game and 3 grenades. You've got a pistol, a machine pistol I only ever saw once on the train level (EDIT: It's an uzi and you do also see it on the next level), 3 different types of automatics, a shotgun, a flamethrower, and a bazooka. You can only carry 3 weapons at a time.

Pros:
+The AI for the cops and such are simple yet very effective. When you get to the later levels and there's more than a couple they will always endeavor to flank and surround you. Makes it quite challenging.
+Environmental destruction is really great! You can shoot/blow up walls to create new passages in a house if you want, or even drive a car into the house.

Neutral:
+-The aesthetic style of everything being in black and white except blood, explosive items, and anything lit by fire is interesting and not that bad, but I still would have much preferred everything to be in color. Because of lack of color everyone looks the same which ups the repetitiveness factor.
+-The executions aren't bad, but with the exception of the foot stomps aren't particularly gory. What makes this neutral is that I wish there was a lot more executions to see.
+-The main character is basically emotionless. Yes he has Hatred but it's always controlled. I feel they missed out on a lot of opportunities to up the fun factor if they gave him emotion and had him screaming and yelling at people, which would also enable him to be more emotionally involved in his killings and especially executions. All executions are silent regarding the main character, though sometimes he will say a line afterwards. I feel he should've had a wide variety of phrases to say during an execution such as brutally yelling "Die!" among many other possibilities.

Cons:
-What is afflicting the vast majority of people including me is incredibly bad stability and very poor optimization resulting in terrible fps. Apparently it's a very common problem with Unreal Engine 4. The devs appear to be quite willing to work on these issues so kudos to them.
-I hate how enemies can and will start shooting at you from off screen. In order to counter this you have to hold the right mouse button to do a fine aim which also let's you see further in the direction of your mouse pointer. Only problem is it doesn't work too well on areas below you and you can't rotate the angle (which is fine to me). What we need is a more zoomed out perspective, or enemies with shortened firing range.
-Not enough screaming or reactions from the people you kill, especially civilians who I would expect to do that more. Sometimes they plead but it's much too underplayed I feel. Not enough emotion here either.

I'm not a huge player of twin-stick shooters but this was one of the weakest that I've played. If this still looks interesting to you then I recommend waiting for it to get a nice discount.

Making this edit for the Steam Awards 2020. I'm impressed they continue to update this game and making it even better. Truly the definitive Half-Life 1 experience.

It's been 5 long years waiting for Xen, and I'd have to say it was worth the wait! Not only is Xen longer than the original, it introduces many new things including new enemies. Pretty much the entirety of Xen was redone and it is fantastic. Not only that they also touched up the Earthbound levels and improved the AI of the soldiers and Vortiguants. My only complaint is that in the original Nihilanth fight he could throw teleporter orb things at you which would tele you to one of I believe 3 different areas. You would have to fight enemies, find supplies, and find the teleporter back. The new Nihilanth doesn't do that. Oh well, not a huge deal considering how much bigger Xen is. They also gave us 3 different ways to deal with the Gonarch whereas in the original you could only shoot it to death.

Now is the time to buy and play this, or replay it if you already own it. One of the best shooters of all time now remade even better and finally complete.

Almost everything that made Half-Life the classic it is today, and the few things missing are greatly overshadowed by everything else which is improved. You've got much better graphics, better sounds, really awesome reskinned guns, and the same level layout we all remember and love.*

*A few areas have been slightly redesigned and some long, drawn out areas have been shortened seamlessly. Ultimately not a big deal to me, especially since there's workshop mods you can download that restore the cut areas.

The main thing I didn't like was the new voice acting. It's all right, I just prefer the original. I also prefer the music of the original but the new music here is good too.

It should be noted that currently the game only goes up to the portal that sends you to Xen; Xen will be finished at a later date and added to the game for free (of course). What is here is still many hours of fun with the promise of more to come! Also there's multiplayer but I didn't mess with that.

So is this game worth $20? It's a complete reimagining of Half-Life, FAR more than a simple graphics mod. Therefore yes I feel it's worth it, especially if you're a huge fan of the Half-Life series and want more.

I can really only recommend this game if you get real cheap (right now it's 90% off and thus $2 making it worth it), but since the normal price is $20 I can't recommend this game. The reason I was interested in this game is because of the obvious: you're the son of the devil and you kill people. However the story doesn't really go beyond this (just the brief musings of the detective at the end of a chapter). You barely, if at all, get to know any of the people before you kill them. When there's no personality or character development with the characters then there's nothing felt when you kill them. I could forgive this if the ways that you setup the deaths of people weren't the very definition of linear. This too could be forgiven except the steps you take to setup the deaths are also very unintuitive. They aren't even puzzles; it's just a process of figuring out what weird way the developers want you to setup the next person's death. There's almost no thought or intelligence involved on your part.

Another thing I was interested in, like most people I'm sure, are the deaths themselves. Considering this game was supposed to have earned an AO for Adults Only rating from the ESRB (refused to avoid complications with release) I was a little disappointed. A couple of them are gruesome sure, but they've got nothing on some of the fatalities in the Mortal Kombat games (which are rated M for Mature). There is a kill that Lucius himself gets to personally make, but I was highly disappointed when we don't actually get to see Lucius do it. One minute he's standing there, and we know what he's about to do, but the next he's done it and we saw nothing. Boo!

You are slowly given 5 different powers to make these deaths happen. They can also level up in power when you make a new kill. Only problem is the concept of leveling them up is absolutely pointless because there's only 1 way to setup the death of a person and you are always at the right power level to do it. You don't get to use certain powers when you think you could either, because again there's only 1 way to make the deaths happen.

Pros:
+Voice acting was decent or better, especially Lucifer's.
+The basic concept.

Neutral:
+-A couple of the deaths are cool. Most are forgettable.
+-It's pretty easy to get lost; a minimap would've been nice. At least there is a map and a marker telling you where your kill target is located.

Cons:
-The story lacks any depth beyond the obvious, and the characters themselves are given no time to develop or have much of a personality so that when they do die we the players don't care one way or the other.
-Figuring out what to do next is part luck and part tedious searching of rooms and objects to find the right thing to interact with.
-Completely linear death setups that don't allow creativity of your mind powers or anything else.
-Mind powers have no depth despite being able to level up.
-The graphics are pretty poor. Could be forgiven but the animations are also lacking which doesn't help the already lifeless characters.

Despite all this I am interested in the sequel and the promise that it corrects some of the issues here like linear deaths.

This game is HUGE and AWESOME! If you explore thoroughly and do everything you can, the game will take at least 70 hours. And if you enjoyed Fallout 1 and 2 then you will almost assuredly enjoy this.

But the real reason to play this, and something I don't see discussed much for some reason, are the choices you get to make throughout the game. I've played a lot of games where you are given quests and different ways to resolve them, but this game blows all of them out of the water. Almost all main quests and most side quests have 2, sometimes even 3, different ways to resolve them. And it isn't just a simple resolution with a different reward, characters and sometimes places change based on your decisions. Almost right at the beginning of the game you are given the choice to save one of two towns (or neither) and both places have their own unique recruitable NPC and quests. Not to mention the ever present option of "kill everyone you meet".

In fact, there are unique dialogues put into the game if you choose to kill indiscriminately. For fun I decided to save my game then kill everyone in the mayor's office of the town I saved. Afterwards some anonymous citizen radios Ranger Citadel and snitched on me, so Vargas radios me asking if it's true and I'm given a choice of admitting it or playing dumb. If you play dumb he tells you to go check it out, if you admit it he asks you why and then gives you a free pass this time. I'm pretty sure if I had continued my murdering ways Vargas would send after me the elite squad I met at RC who handle "problem rangers". I reloaded though.

It's not uncommon to go to a town and there be some kind of conflict going on. You pretty much always have the option of siding with one side or the other (or neither), but more than that there are usually different ways to solve it for either side. If you have high enough speech skills you can usually make it easier and/or more diplomatic, or do what the leader wants you to do (like eliminate the opposition instead of finding peace). Although, since this is the wasteland, few people are entirely "good". Almost everyone is bad in their own way, though not always entirely malicious. Sometimes the bad stuff they do is to try to help others, so is bringing them down truly the best choice for that town in the long term?

What really impresses me is not just the incredible amount of quests and their multiple ways to solve them, but all the little touches made based on your choice. In one town there was a guy about to be executed and I had noticed a pre-dug grave for him. After I managed to free him I decided to go back and re-examine the grave, and there was new text saying someone had taken a dump on the gravestone. I love it.

Yes there are some bugs, including quest-breaking ones. But when you understand the mind-boggling amount of connectivity everything has based on quests and the many different ways to do them, then I think you can forgive the relatively few bugs there are currently in the game. And don't worry, the devs are working on fixing them!

In closing, there is an extraordinary amount of replayability in this game. If you love the ability to make choices and see those choices have a real impact on the world around you, then you simply cannot pass this game up. Buy now, no need to wait for a sale!

Don't let the graphics fool you! This is a very good adventure game, well worth your time and money if you found yourself fascinated by the imagery and concept like I was. The story starts out simple, but as you progress it becomes clear there is more going on. The personality of the psychopath you play is quite amusing. Many objects in the game can be examined twice for humorous responses, and sometimes hints about what to do.

There are 10 chapters in all with varying length. If you don't use a guide the game will take 6 hours or more to beat (about 7 for me). I've personally found no bugs or glitches. What sound there is is well done and in certain places adds to the tension, as does the music. The game will occasionally switch to 1st person and this is done very well and further adds to the tension (this is first done in chapter 3, and if it had stayed in birds-eye view that section would not have been as interesting).

The meat of the game is indeed the puzzles. I admit I found myself stumped for awhile on several of them, but they are solvable without a guide. I did need a hint for one of them, and one particularly aggravating puzzle had me stumped for over 15 minutes. And this was just chapter 3! The puzzles continue to be challenging all the way to the end.

My only complaints are the numerous spelling and grammar errors, and the lack of a save anywhere feature. Otherwise I had a blast! I therefore recommend this game to anyone who is a fan of adventure games and wants something bloody and freaky.