Recent reviews by Harry 2K5G

I enjoyed the game, but I think it is just way too expensive.

The things I liked about Lifeless Planet are the level design and how it keeps your attention. The level design is well thought out and makes you able to solve problems without any instructions. The game is well able to keep your attention by the whole time giving more information about the planet you are discovering.

The main setback with Lifeless Planet is, that everything is just low budget clunky. The game has good level design, but the main mechanics don't feel beyond early development stage. The game looks like an early X360 game with some models looking from even before that. I think the puzzles add to variety of the game, but except of 1 they don't require any real effort and become repetitive at the end.

The length of the game is 4-5 hours and it's clunkiness adds charm, but I think even for the time it came out it would have been way too expensive. I was quite shocked to see, that later ports to different platforms are also still sold at the pricetag of 20 euro.

I would recommend getting this game in a sale or next week for free on the Epic Games Store.

Note: The upcoming 6 weeks all Half-Life games (and expansions) are free. Game design-wise a lot can be learned from playing these games!

Recently, I finally finished episodes 1, 2 and Lost Coast. Episode 2 was my favorite and showed me how far ahead Valve was for its time. Episode 2 doesn't introduce many new elements but mostly builds on previous work from the series.

The game today still runs and looks smooth. Entering new environments often made me impressed about how much effort was put into it. The levels are well designed with varied gameplay elements through them. I mostly appreciate how the game with its physics engine can create exploration and tension moments. The exploration moments are finding solutions by interacting with objects from the environment. Finding these solutions feels natural and makes you feel smart every time. The tension moments mostly come in from how the environment around you gets destroyed, when you get haunted by enemies. Buildings collapsing and windows braking around you helps to give the feeling of "Stuff is getting real!"

Valve, from the perspective of gameplay highly improved on all fronts. The vehicle moments I really appreciated in this episode. Still, I think it would have been nice if Valve added some more new elements. There are some new enemies, but mostly you are using the same weapons and techniques of Half-Life 2 over again. This resulted in sometimes getting quite tired hearing the same weapons sounds. The music, on the other hand, was great and only sometimes timing-wise, that it felt a little out of place.

Storytelling-wise everything is told in-game (No cutscenes) just like in the base game. Through the episode, I can highly appreciate how all the characters have detailed physical and facial animations. The episode does have story-telling moments, where you have to "wait". Still, I didn't think it was as annoying as in episode 1. Mostly, because I thought the tension of the story and its characters was becoming more interesting.

By having finished episode 2, I can now well relate to the disappointment of people who hoped for a finishing episode. Episode 2 just begs for a closing episode.

Recommended difficulty: Normal
Length: Episode 1 (3 hours) - Episode 2 (5 hours) - Lost Coast (20min)

Grim Fandango is one of those old games, that even when it wasn't available anymore there were still many people asking for it. Sadly people were forced to play the modded pirated version thanks to that. Last year Double Fine finally brought the game back to life with Grim Fandango Remastered so that all fans can finally get it and that new people can play it. I myself never played the original, so this was the first time I ever played Grim Fandango.

Grim Fandango itself is an adventure game which can be played through with tank controls and point and click. I would myself recommend to play with a mix of those two, because they both have their advantages and disadvantages. Before playing the game I would recommend changing and looking at the controls, because that makes it possible to run in the game and manually switch objects.

The story takes place on the land of the dead, where recently departed souls aim to make their way to the Land of Eternal Rest. (Which is based on Mexican folklore) You play as Manny, who is a travel agent, that follows his client, Meche. This happens in multiple years’ time, during which he encounters many different problems, relationships and characters. The game is at no part scary, even though you would expect that with a subject like that. Instead everything is really in a cartoon noir style told. What is also nice about the story is that it is pretty well executed with the gameplay.

Because of the story being connected with the gameplay the gameplay makes more logic which makes it easier to figure things out. However, there were still moments, especially in year 2, where I was walking around not knowing anymore what to do. Mostly that has to do with the fact that year 2 has a pretty big open world unlike the other parts which are smaller. This makes the other years easier and shorter, because it is easier to figure out what to do. In the game the items you collect don't keep stacking up, because they disappear after leaving the area. This can be considered a good thing since it would be easy to get confused otherwise.

The soundtrack in the game is really catchy and atmospheric and really suits the film noir style in the game. In the Remaster they also re-recorded the soundtrack with a real orchestra to make it sound even better. The sound design is overall really well executed. Both the voice acting and the sound effects suit the characters and the tone of the game.

Let's talk more about the Remaster itself. In addition to letting the original game work with modern computer systems, They also added new things. The first thing they added is a graphics upgrade. Better textures and lighting of the characters and the interactive objects. The backgrounds still look the same but they aren't that compressed as the original game though. The backgrounds still look good for a late 90s pre-rendered static background. The only problem with the Remastered graphics I have is that they sometimes are actually worse, because they more obviously show mistakes were hidden away with tricks (for example a rope that isn't fully connected in the Remaster). Here is an example of the differences between the Remastered and the original versions, thanks to the in-game option that lets you switch between them:
http://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=737705397
http://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=737705336
As you can see the original is more pixelly.

The game also includes an option to have in-game commentary from the developers of the game. If you are interested in that stuff I would recommend you to watch:
The Making of Grim Fandango Remastered

Grim Fandango might not be a perfect Remaster, because I still experienced some buggy animations. Still it's good enough to be played. The take on the day of the dead as game is really well executed. With the story, characters an gameplay being very well mixed together. This results in making that it still is holding up after all those years.

Half-Life 2, the game that like it's predecessor is seen as a classic. It's time for me to find out if the game still holds up.

The story takes place some years after the events of the original Half-Life. Gordon Freeman is woken up by G-Man to find out that the world had been taken by the alien Combine. Gordon is then joined by resistance fighters to find a way to free humanity.

The gameplay itself is a mixture of shooting, puzzle solving and exploration much like the first Half-Life game. However, all of this is differently executed in Half-Life 2. In Half-Life 2 everything is even more dynamic, because of objects being destructible and having physics, which can result in some memorable chain reactions.

The world felt to me like a real open world game, while it is still a pretty linear game. This has to do with the fact that you are mostly outside and you can explore the different areas and interact with npcs. The world you play in is around the same city area, which means that this time you aren't going to other alien dimensions.

When you think about it there aren't actually that many new things in Half-Life 2. But the things that are new still deliver new gameplay. For instance, the gravity gun that you get can grab and shoot objects which is great for murdering and puzzle solving. The gravity gun really adds a playfulness to the game. The other real new weapon is the bug bait which is a ball that you can throw on enemies or destinations, which will result in a group of your own aliens going to it and attacking the enemies. The only problem I had with this is that you can only use this weapon in a certain section.

The other new gameplay feature is that you can now drive a buggy at certain parts. I read people saying that it was the worst part of Half-Life 2. In my opinion even though the buggy feels clunky I loved that part the most. It really gives that open world explorer feeling, because of you have to get out of the vehicle to look around.

The sounddesign in this game was also done by the same team as the one that worked on the original Half-Life. I can say that I liked this soundtrack even more than the previous one, because of it having more of its’ own style. The epic music sometimes felt a little off though, but they are still fun to listen to. The sound effects add a quirky feeling, and the voice acting is also professionaly executed.

The storytelling of the game was mostly well executed, with also including storytelling through gameplay. Sadly, unlike in its’ predecessor, you are forced at certain parts to listen to conversations. This can be pretty annoying if you have to listen to it again, without the option to skip it.

I have to say that overall the world, story and gameplay doesn't feel as flawlesly connected as it was in the previous Half-Life. That probably has to do with the fact that the game also wanted to show everything impressive that the engine could do.

The game took me 12 hours to complete so it was shorter than the original Half-Life, but I guess that also has to do with the fact that at the beginning I unknowingly played on the easiest difficulty. Later I found out I could actually change it in the options menu.

Even with the complaints I have with Half-Life 2 compared to Half-Life 1, I can still recommend it. The game like its’ predecessor was greatly ahead of its’ time, and at some parts maybe still is. While playing I realized that every futuristic game that I played that came out after Half-Life 2 all had big 'inspiration' from the game. Half-Life 2 is still adventurous enough that it still holds up.

Reviews of the other Half-Life games:
Half-Life
Half-Life: Opposing Force
Half-Life: Blue Shift

(I got this game from someone in my Steam friendlist)

Grow Home is a 3rd person physics based climbing game. In the game you play as a robot who got dropped off by a spaceship to an island with a special plant. The goal is to grow the plant so that it can reach its peal state, where the flower opens. What brings special material needed for the spaceship. The game reminded me of the simplicity of FEZ, with just platforming and no real enemies, and the relaxation of De Blob 2.

The game itself is pretty simplistic in every way. The spaceship and the character even look so simplistic, that I thought in the beginning that anyone could have just made that with a 3D-editor. After a while though I saw the beauty of it, because of how it suited the game along with the colorful world.

The gameplay itself is made up of two things. The first part is mostly about climbing, which you do with the left and right hand of the character. There is a pointer on the object, which shows where you can grab with your hand. You then hold the object by holding the left or right trigger / mouse button. Thanks to the silly physics the climbing can feel clunky. In the beginning of the game it showed that it can be played with a controller. I played it with mouse and keyboard and have to say it is really no disadvantage. As you go further in the game you also explore and can unlock new things that can make your traveling easier and more fun. For instance a leaf that you can use to paraglide. Thanks to the clunky physics of the main character it comes over really silly, what makes it so funny.

The second part of the gameplay is the growing of the plant. You do this by going to the taps of the plant and grow and put them in flying ground, which gives energy to the plant to grow. This part is pretty casual friendly, because the tap that you grow will also get new taps directly. So if you didn't reach the destination you can still climb back to one of the new taps which you grow to the place. Several times though I experienced that controlling the taps was pretty difficult, because it wanted to steer its own way.

Still it can happen that you fall down. This sometimes can be a really large distance. That is why in the game you have several portals you can activate. This is really handy because if you fall all the way down you can use a portal to go all the way back up again to the other portal that you activated.

The music and environment sound is really in the background. Which gives more of that nature feeling and makes it not forced. The silly robotic sound effects also adds to the funny feeling of the game.

The narrative is mostly done with just text messages that pop up on your screen. Which are mostly silly robotic messages from the spaceship, who are happy with your progress.

All the things together in this game makes it a really joyful silly game. At the end it's fun to look back to how you have grown the plant and its branches on this island. It maybe only took me around 100 minutes to complete, what is pretty short. I guess for people who are going to play it I would recommend to explore a lot more and try to get all the collectibles and/or achievements, because that really adds to the fun and playtime. I am still satisfied with the fun time I got for playing the game.

Blue Shift is the second PC expansion for the Half-Life games. Originally, Blue Shift was meant to be an add-on for the Dreamcast version of Half-Life, much like Half-Life: Decay was an add-on for the PlayStation 2 version of Half-Life. (Which you can now play as a mod for the original Half-Life: moddb)

The fact that Blue Shift was originally just an add-on which became an expansion later on is really visible when looking at the time it takes to finish it. Opposing Force took me 6.6 hours to complete on normal, while Blue Shift took me 2.5 hours. In my opinion, Blue Shift is also too easy with too many health crates laying everywhere. What also makes visible that it was originally just an add-on is that you get no new weapons, and you only get to use the non-alien weapons of the original Half-Life. Even though this expansion of the Half-Life universe is maybe lesser in content. I still enjoyed it. It is short which makes it get to the action directly. Also, you go to the alien dimension more often in this one.

The gameplay in this expansion is mostly just shooting and not really any puzzle solving. The game also doesn't have any boss fights. Everything is mostly combat oriented. With some more parts in the alien dimension.

This expansion takes place at the same time as the previous Half-Life games with references to the previous expansion and the original game. The only difference this time is that you experience the story from the perspective of a security guard.

Throughout the story, you can really see the style of Gearbox once again with adding a lot of humor in it. What I think is funny to mention is that one of the characters is voice acted by the voice actor of Duke Nukem. Years later, Gearbox went on to create Duke Nukem Forever.

With Blue Shift I encountered some bugs. One was that every time I loaded a checkpoint the game acted as if I was holding the mouse button. So when I spawned the weapon just kept shooting.

It was fun to play Half-Life again from a different point of view. but in my opinion the expansions like this or Opposing Force don't really add too much to the story. Still, this expansion pack has some nice action during the short time of playing.

Reviews of the other Half-Life games:
Half-Life
Half-Life: Opposing Force
Half-Life 2

Opposing Force is the first expansion pack of the two that were released for Half-Life on PC. Both expansions were developed by Gearbox and got support from Valve. When I first found out that the expansion packs for Half-Life were developed by Gearbox I was quite amazed. Around that time, there was a lot of drama surrounding Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens: Colonial Marines, so I was amazed that in the past Gearbox had the honor to make expansions for a game classic like Half-Life.

In this expansion you experience the story of Half-Life from the perspective of a soldier. You are going to Black Mesa, and your aircraft crashes. You wake up and don't know what is really going on and what the mission is.

The game itself is pretty hard for me to curate, because it all just feels and plays the same as the original game. (With the expansion having half the length of the original game.) The new features are some different weapons and enemies, both of which are creatively implemented. The only new feature that I didn't think was all that well executed was the nightvision goggles. They looked cool at first, but they sadly only really work in short distance.

This expansion takes place in Black Mesa for the most part, not much time is spent in alien dimensions. At the beginning, I had the feeling that the weapons were a little bit more balanced than in the original game. Because I found myself using the shotgun more often. Still there are some new weapons that I almost never used.

What I found special about Opposing Force is that I could see that Gearbox added some more humor in the expansion than what there was in the original Half-Life itself. I still have to say that the story in my opinion didn't really add too much to what we already knew from Half-Life, but it is still fun to see it from their perspective.

The nitpick I have though is that the thing I loved about Half-Life is that there never really was a moment of standing still where you are forced to listen to someone. Opposing Force had that happen twice, sadly. This was pretty annoying when I died a few times at one of those points. (I recommend quick saving directly after you are done waiting)

Throughout the expansions there were some nice references and they shared the same moments with the original Half-Life timeline.

The gameplay is the same mixture of shooting and exploration, just like in the original. The beginning first felt a little dull but then the game started to pick up. I especially liked the shooting at some parts, even though I hated one of the new alien enemies who in my opinion was just really annoying, an enemy which requires too much ammo to take down and does too much damage.

Opposing Force might not be as good as Half-Life, but in my opinion it is still worth to play it if you want to have more of the same Half-Life gameplay.

Reviews of the other Half-Life games:
Half-Life
Half-Life: Blue Shift
Half-Life 2

Two week ago I have (for the first time ever) played the original Half-Life. For the people who don't know, Half-Life was the first game that Valve has ever released. The game started the success of Valve that resulted in many game classics and Steam (on which you are now reading this review).

Half-Life itself is a first person shooter. The big difference between Half-Life and other first person shooters is that instead of just shooting, it also has exploration parts through puzzles and platforming. What I really liked is that nothing in the game takes the control away from the player. You go through the entire game and choose what to do by yourself at any given moment. The game doesn't have cutscenes and the story is experienced through gameplay and dialogue. But you can also just walk past all the characters in the story and just continue. I really appreciated this, because if you die you don't have to listen to what you already know. That makes following the story optional, even though there is only a little bit of story given which is basically just: You work at a research lab and everything went wrong. Try to escape. Many parts of the story are mysteries you just have to figure out by yourself throughout the game. I only got annoyed once due to a scientist explaining what was already shown to me through gameplay.

The first experience of playing Half-Life felt a little bit boring. The loading for areas was really annoying, and I thought the game didn't look all that well. After a while though I got into it, and I didn't stop. Thanks to this game, I have a new insane record of non-stop playing without leaving my chair for 13.2 hours, until I completed the game. I guess that also has to do with the fact that it was my first day of my vacation, and hadn't played a game for a long while.
What makes the game so much fun is that you feel so free because nothing is told and you have to figure everything out by yourself through gameplay, which is really satisfying. I never really got stuck for a long while, because everything you find in a room has a reason to be there.

The shooting is also fun and gets even more fun over time. The only problem I had, which might just be a personal issue, is that I think the weapons were not very well balanced. For instance, I wish the shotgun did more damage to make it an instant-kill up close. What I also liked is that in the game there are enough exploration parts and different roads to take, which resulted in me knowing I haven't seen everything yet.

After I finished Half-Life I found out that Valve has updated this original version of Half-Life with better textures, sound and other stuff so that explains why it is easier to look at the old things after a while and be amazed by what Half-Life really is.

In conclusion, I can say that I still recommend playing this updated version of the original Half-Life. What makes Half-Life special is the variety of shooting, puzzle solving and platforming and the lack of hand holding throughout the story and the entire game itself. Playing through Half-Life can make you think about whether we took more steps backwards than forwards with the games nowadays.

P.S.
I will be going through the whole Half-Life series.
Here I will put links to my other Half-Life game reviews:
Half-Life: Opposing Force
Half-Life: Blue Shift
Half-Life 2

Interesting to share:
The add-on Half-Life: decay ( originally for the ps2 ) is now playable as a Half-Life mod.
Downloadable here at: moddb I played it and I have to say it is pretty descent in co-op.

Undertale has been a big internet phenomenon for a while now. Every detail of the game has fanwork and has many analyzes on it. To be honest, when I first saw the storepage it didn't looked that special to me. Now that I have played it I can say my view on the game has changed.

The game is an old school RPG with bullethell gameplay. You, the main character, have fallen into a world of monster, which you have to escape. On your journey you will encounter many monster that you can choose to kill or spare through silly interactions.

Story and narrative are the biggest part of this game. The storytelling is done through conversations, gameplay and interactions with objects. What I really enjoy about the story is that even though the premise of escaping a place full of monsters is cliché, the game progresses in really unexpected ways.

The whole game has this charming, kid-friendly humour, making fun of the characters and you the player. The use of humour had me exploring everything that I could just so that I could find something new and funny. Even though the story is filled with humour, there are still enough serious parts to keep it interesting. The game kept referencing my previous actions in-game, amazing me with how well connected everything is. Every character you encounter really shows a lot of their own personality, making each one memorable. This means that I am sure to play this game again in the future with a different playstyle, because not only does it have a different ending but the adventure changes based on your playstyle. ( I have heard that the monsters will even remember things from your previous playthroughs! )

Gameplay comprises of walking around and encountering various monsters. When you are in a fight with a monster you can choose to attack them using timing or you can choose to act to try to get them to stop attacking you. When you are getting attacked by the monsters you play as a hearth, dodging projectiles. While this doesn't sounds that interesting, it is really creative and outside the box. Additionally the monster attacks really suits the monster's character. Apart from these core mechanics the game also includes puzzles, mostly to add variety as it doesn't really add much else. The choice of graphical style really suits the game and adds to the charm.

The sound design is another really strong part of the game , which contributes to the overall feel. Each piece of music suits every character and its situation. I found the music so catchy that after I finished the game I still wanted to listen to them. There are also small, subtle sound effects that really add to the charm of the environments and the interactions.

There is no option menu in Undertale, just a single option whether to have the game fullscreen or in window mode. Also the game is only able to be viewed as a square, so there are borders on widescreen. I guess this is due to how the old school RPGs were.

The amount of value this game gives means I can say it is really worth its asking price. The game takes around 10 hours to complete and with the different experiences resulting from different playstyles it really adds to the replay value. Even though I have only played once through, I can already say it is worth the price for the amount of enjoyment

In conclusion, even though Undertale didn't catch me when I first saw it, I have totally fallen in love with it, and is one of the rare games I definitely be playing again. The game is just filled with charm, creativity and everything is amazingly well connected. What I still have trouble believing is that the game was, for the most part, made by one person (even the soundtrack!).

The Swapper is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer in which you solve puzzles by making clones of yourself. The game has you stranded on a spacestation. Within the game there are many rooms to explore, collecting orbs as you do so. These orbs help you get further in the game. Not that original but it works.

To collect the orbs you have to swap to the clone that is going to be in contact with the orbs. All the clones follow the same movement commands as the main clone. The puzzles mostly consist of rooms where there are special lights where you are unable to spawn a clone, swap to a clone or both. This may sound like a small thing, but the developers really thought about the many ways to use this.

From my experience with the puzzles, some are done in the first try others can take a while.
Often you will find out you just had to do one small trick to progress. The puzzle difficulty gets harder as you go, sometimes with large steps of difficulty. The last levels were really hard (But that could be down to me having a break from the game for a while).

The atmosphere of the game is really well done with the level design, story and sound design all contributing. What made the level design nice was that the whole world was made by using clay and other real objects as background. The world had a nice metroid feel, because you could explore many parts of the world. The only sad thing that later in the game it more felt like going from puzzle room through puzzle room. Happily enough you don't have to solve the puzzles in chronological order even though you still have to finish them all to go to the next area. The only complaint I can give is that some rooms looked the same, due to the dark look. But I guess that also does help with the lost spacestation feel.

The story is mostly told through cutscenes and optional reading messages. What is nice about the story is that it asks philosophical questions to make you think. One thing that can be annoying is that there are rocks in the game that when you pass them, your screen gets blurry and text will pop up. This is okay the first time, but becomes annoying after a while, especially if you have to pass by the same rock several times. Another thing I found annoying was that some cutscenes aren't skippable so you have to watch them again should you die.

The game took me around 8 hours to complete and the last critical thing I have to say is that there is not much replay value once completed. There are multiple endings, but no reason to play the game all over again except if you wish to. You may be better off just watching the other ending on youtube. The achievements are pretty unfair in the game. I collected them in my first playthrough using a guide and I often thought 'How could anybody find this!?'

There are maybe parts that I am critical about, but they don't hold up in the end with the total experience you get.