Recent reviews by ildon

This is the best orc murder simulator ever created.

I initially played Counter-Strike starting with Beta 2. For several years, it was always "the other FPS game I played" behind something like TFC or Quake 3. I played it when friends invited me to a game or at a LAN party, but it was never my cup of tea. It's a little too slow paced, a little too random, a little too frustrating. In fact, until CS:GO, I probably hadn't played any form of CS for any significant amount of time for almost a decade. I have to say, CS:GO feels like I remember CS feeling. I played enough CS: Source to know I didn't like it, at least compared to CS 1.6, but CS:GO feels more like 1.6 and less like CS:S to me, which means it feels "correct."

There are still some basic things I didn't really like about CS that persist in CS:GO, like the reward structure making the already strong team stronger, the way bullet spreads don't make sense to me and feel too random, the seemingly arbitrary way you can fire through some map objects and not others, but in the fullness of time I've come to realize that most of the time I did have fun when I played CS. Something about the tension of only having one life per round, the rise and fall of having no money one round to being flush with cash another round, the way it feels to be the last guy on your team and having to either plant or defuse the bomb, or trying to sneak out with a hostage while the other guy is looking for you, the anticipation of playing defense. All of those things are present in full form in CS:GO, but with a lot more modes and a modern matchmaking and ranking system added in for good measure. And it looks good and feels really polished to boot.

So yeah, in the end I'm going to have to say you should probably play this game.

This game is probably one of the best conversions of Rogue-like gameplay into a basic platformer. Death is permanent, and often comes suddenly to the unwary, but after the fact you start to realize that there was in fact something you could have done to avoid it. You could have prepared better or been more cautious. It's also filled with a lot of hidden areas and unexpected interactions to exploit. The game is practically the definition of simple to understand, difficult to master. The daily challenge dungeons are a great addition.

I will say that the little deathmatch mode is pretty dumb/pointless, but that's not why you should play this game anyway.

Quake Live is the perfect deathmatch game. The quick pace, the feeling of the movement and controls, the feel and sound of the weapons, the way each weapon serves a specific purpose for a specific point in the game, everything about this game is perfect. Quake 3 was amazing, but over the past 15 years the mod community from 1999-2003 or so, and now Id's Quake Live development team, have honed the gameplay into a razor's edge.

The only big downside is that it can be very difficult to get into. Most of the people playing it now have been playing it for literally a decade or more, and are unlikely to pull punches when facing you online. Hopefully now that the game is on Steam, there will be enough of an influx of new blood that players can find matches with more similarly skilled opponents more easily. There used to be a skill based matchmaking system in the game, but I hadn't played in a while and was not able to find it in this version, so I'm not sure if it's been cut.

Another potential downside is the graphics. As I've been playing this game since Q3Test, it's kind of hard for me to judge the graphics too harshly, especially since they haven't been a focus of the game since shortly after its release. This is a game about pure gameplay. In fact, most professional players turn the graphics settings way down, to the point where it's almost unrecognizable to players who aren't used to it, in order to maximize the readability of the environment and their enemies and minimize distractions. I honestly can't say how this game would look from the perspective of someone who doesn't have the nostalgia factor I do. But in the era of Minecraft, where "8-bit" is an art style rather than a technical limitation, I have to hope people are willing to see beyond the game's dated graphics and appreciate all the effort that's gone into communicating important gameplay information to the player in an efficient way.

In conclusion, Quake Live is awesome and everyone should play it.

I love this game. They've taken a classic arcade game and turned its basic gameplay actions into a sort of puzzle game. The graphics, sound design, and music are all amazing and spot-on, reminding you of its arcade roots and amping everything up to eleven. It manages to challenge you and make you feel powerful at the same time. The penalty for failure feels low, but that's because the real goal isn't to survive, but to get the best score or best time. It reminds you that the real focus of an arcade game is the scoreboard, which they've also tightly integrated into the game by constantly reminding you of your global and friend rankings, and always pushing you to try a little harder and play a little better.

Everyone should play this game.

Overall, Oblivion is a great game. There are some issues with the leveling system and the difficulty curve, but just exploring the world and seeking out dungeons and towns and things is a really great experience. Doing quests for random villagers, bumping into events, finding loot, all of those are great experiences. The combat system is only "ok", but I never really felt like it got in the way and prevented me from doing what I wanted to do in the game.

If you're looking for a well crafted linear narrative, this is not the game for you. If you want engaging and skill challenging combat, this is not the game for you. But if you want to explore a huge world with tons of NPCs and interesting things to find and do, then this game is awesome. And that's not to say that there aren't good stories within Oblivion, because there are some great ones, it's just that the main plot is not one of them.