Recent reviews by Althatalia

Is it possible for a game to be both spooky and incredibly chill? Because this nails both! There's something cozy about bunkering down in the woods on a cold, dark night with an EMF reader, looking for evidence. It's a unique experience unlike any other ghost hunting game on Steam and I really enjoy it!

This is a fun little team based shooter which involves you, the player, gunning down... well, dinosaurs. Hundreds of 'em, in droves. If you ever get tired of shooting at dinosaurs, then there's a whole host of different modes to choose from, including several styles of PvP. You can even turn the tables and play as a dinosaur yourself.
The developers are very prompt about keeping this game up to date and adding new content, and have already released a huge update in the short time I've been playing it. Good work guys!

Pros:
- Caters to a range of different playstyles. You can play in first and third person, solo or in a group.
- Customisable characters provide a huge range of options.
- A range of vehicles to choose from. Ever felt like blasting hordes of raptors with a tank?
- Constantly updated with new maps, game modes and big fixes.

Cons:
- Currently a little buggy, though mostly minor stuff like sounds not playing properly and dinosaurs getting stuck.
- The music can be repetitive
- While the game can be played alone, it's noticeably built with multiplayer in mind. Most game modes are considerably more fun with friends.

TL;DR: This game is a lot of fun with a group of friends. Why not give it a try?

The Dig was released in the closing days of the point-and-click adventure genre, back in 1995. Unfortunately, due to a number of delays which beset the development team during its production, it was released years later than intended. By this point it was considered 'dated', despite its fantastic story dreamt up by none other than Steven Speilburg himself, and was poorly reviewed.
The Dig is an underappreciated gem of a game that I believe any adventure fan would find worth in revisiting. Its graphics, though outdated even at the time of its release, are still beautiful in their own way. The bright environments of the alien world Cocytus look as though they were drawn with colour wheels and charts always at hand!

Pros:
- An intriguing and well-written story which will keep you guessing, easily its best quality
- Beautiful, colourful environments
- Well composed; its score is moody and atmosperic
- Features the voices of a number of celebrity voice actors, including Steve Blum and Robert Patrick; also, most of the voice acting is extremely well done
- Quirky 2D animated cutscenes, like MS Paint Disney!

Cons:
- Frustrating and extremely time-consuming puzzles which require a lot of trial and error. Trust me, you'll end up looking for hints more than once
- It is a very old game, so it displays in a tiny box in the middle of the screen and can't be resized
- While I said above most of the voice acting is good, Robert Patrick occasionally voices his lines with a little less emotion than he should
- The game is very short if played with a guide, so the difficulty of the puzzles was probably intended to pad out the game's length.

TL;DR: This is an old game, and of a genre that's lost its popularity. Still, it's a forgotten masterpiece that's well worth experiencing. If you enjoy adventure games or just games that are story and character driven, I can't recommend this one enough. It deserves more praise.

Oblivion addresses many of the gameplay issues which plagued its predecessor, Morrowind, making it more accessible to a wider number of players and a less frustrating experience overall. It's considerably more friendly to modders as well, if its massive library of player-made content is anything to go by. Unfortunately, these improvements don't come without a price. The setting and 'flavour' of the game is comparitively rather bland.

Pros:
- Massive, sprawling world to explore with hundreds of locations to visit and loot.
- Interesting and well-written faction quests with epic finales
- Unusually bright and cheery as far as RPGs go, which is a refreshing change
- Fascinating background lore built up from a well-loved franchise
- A fantastic score composed by Jeremy Soule
- Mod support means you can fix pretty much any little thing that bothers you

Cons:
- Levelling system can be clunky and counter-intuitive
- NPCs that are frightening to behold, affectionately known as 'potato faces'
- Dialogue can be patchy and everyone is voiced by a small handful of people
- Dull combat

TL;DR: If you like immersive games with a lot of interesting background story and exploration, give this (and the other Elder Scrolls games) a try. If you're an action junkie, it's probably not for you.

Terraria is the gift that keeps on giving. And giving, and giving! Since I purchased this game when it released back in 2011, it has had more updates than I can possibily count, adding new content, new play modes and even adding in Steam multiplayer support. Six years of updates without paying a cent more! Re-Logic have gone above and beyond with their support for this game and I decided to write a new review to reflect this.

As for the game itself, Terraria is a 2D sidescrolling sandbox with some RPG elements. I don't think that description quite sums up how fun this game is. There's no real set objective, and it certainly doesn't hold your hand or tell you what to do, leaving you free to do as you please. Though it comes packed with plenty of weapons, enemies and boss fights that are more intense than the cute pixel graphics would have you expect, there's nothing stopping you from building houses all day if you choose. Or digging a hole from the bottom of the ocean and emptying all the water into the fiery depths of the underworld. Yes, that's a thing you can do.

Pros:
- Retro pixel graphics that are more visually appealing than some other comparable sandbox games.
- Excellent replayability. It's hard to run out of things to do in this game, and there's always the seasonal events to freshen things up if you do.
- Surprisingly varied and versatile combat with hundreds of weapons and spells to choose from. Different armour sets provide different bonuses, allowing for specialisation.
- The building system is robust, and flexible enough to create just about anything.
- Still actively supported and updated despite its age.

Cons:
- Steam multiplayer can be very laggy at times, though it has significantly improved since it was first implemented.
- The open nature of the game does mean that there's serious problems with griefing on large multiplayer servers.
- World generation is completely random and does occasionally throw up problems like large chunks of land being completely missing, or some biomes not spawning or ending up in strange places.