Recent reviews by marccost3

Half-Life: Source is the original Half-Life ported to the source engine. The source engine gives the game a slight graphical update, but it also causes some performance issues not present in the original game, such as longer loading times. It's also not entirely one to one with the original because of the source engine, but I still think it's overall faithful to the original game. Give it a try unless you can't dare to play anything other than the original version.

And again, not much to say. Episode Two continues where Episode One left off, and is so far the last game in the Half-Life series. Once again you have Alyx as a partner, though you'll spend a part of the game by yourself because of story reasons. There's also a lot more driving around this time. It's about as long as Episode One so if you liked Half-Life 2 and Episode One, you'll probably like this. Though be warned, once you finish this game, you WILL be frustrated with the fact that Valve still hasn't come out with Episode Three or Half-Life 3 yet.

Not much to say about this one. Half-Life 2: Episode One is of course a continuation of the story in Half-Life 2. Fundamentally it plays the same as Half-Life 2, though the graphics are slightly better and this time you have Alyx as a partner for most of the game. As an episodic game it's also shorter than Half-Life 2, but if you liked that game, you'll probably like this.

Oh boy, Half-Life 2. The sequel to one of the greatest single player first-person shooters ever made. Unlike with that game, I wouldn't say that this game hasn't aged well, but rather other games have done what this game did better since this game came out. Although this is an FPS, you aren't just killing things then entire time. Sometimes you have to drive a vehicle and sometimes you have to solve a puzzle. One of the most prominent features of this game is the Gravity Gun. You can use it as a means of simply moving something somewhere else, or use it as a weapon by launching it at your enemies. This game graphically set the standard for what a 7th generation game should look like, and I still think this game is worth playing for the unique experience it offers. Highly recommended for fans of first person shooters.

Kinda hard to review this one. Garry's Mod isn't really a game as much as it is a tool. Yes you can play it, and there's a lot you can do in it, but there's no story or goal to achieve. It's pretty much a game you play just for fun in it's purest form. You look for addons in the Steam workshop that you'd like to use, subscribe to them to download them, and use them in Garry's Mod. These addons can range from ragdolls you can use for posing and taking screenshots, to tools and features you can add to your game to give you more to do or further enhance your screenshots. There's also custom games that can be played, including online with other people, but mostly just a custom Counter-Strike game mode called "Trouble in Terrorist Town". If anything I'd say Garry's Mod is more recommended for people who want to use it as a means of creating their own screenshots than playing it as a game. However I will point out that once you learn how to use it, Source Filmmaker is better option for making screenshots.

The Binding of Isaac is top-down action adventure game that plays similar to an old-school Zelda game with rougelike elements. The story is based off of the Bible story of the binding of Isaac, and as such there's a lot of biblical references and dark humor. The Binding of Isaac is a hard game, but with it's rougelike elements it's also a bit luck based. You can't really plan or create a pattern for success, one playthrough you can get the right combination of items and conditions that make things easy for you, the next you'll barely get anything to help you at all. Because of this, I feel like how much fun you can have with this game can be dependant on how lucky you get on any given playthrough. If you're willing to accept that, then give this game a try, you might just enjoy it if you can handle the game's humor.

AVGN Adventures is a 2D action platform game that plays similarly to Mega Man. It features many things that made old video games difficult, mainly the things that Nerd himself talked about in his videos. For some reason though, I don't think it's as rewarding to play as the games it plays similar to. I think you gotta be a fan of the Angry Video Game Nerd to really appreciate this game. So even though I'm recommending this, it's really only for AVGN fans. Everyone else might just think of this as a needlessly difficult game.

Portal is classified as an FPS, but it's not really a shooter since your gun can only fire portals. Portal is more of a first person puzzle game. You go through several test chambers to solve puzzles, usually finding a way to get a cube on a switch to open a door. It's a really short game, but an amazing experience. Something I think every gamer should play at least once.

Poker Night at the Inventory is, of course, a poker game. You play poker with some famous characters, two of which are from other Telltale games. I originally played this just to get the Team Fortress 2 items you can get from unlocking achievements in this game, but I enjoyed the dialogue between the characters so much that I continued to play even after I got them all. The dialogue will eventually repeat itself, but luckily if you get sick of it you can control how much the characters talk. If you like poker and enjoy the characters featured in this game, then give a shot.

Team Fortress 2 is an online multiplayer FPS that was released back in 2007. It has since then received many updates, and still has many people playing it to this day. TF2 is free to play, but if you want to do things many people who play this game do, such as trade, have a bigger backpack, etc. you have to buy at least one thing from the Mann Co. Store. TF2 is not pay to win however, even if you're a free player, you can still acquire new weapons through achievements or random item drops you get just from playing the game. TF2 has gone through a lot of changes over the years, but I think it's still very fun to play even after all this time. Honestly, I think the biggest problem with this game is not a flaw with the game itself, but rather the people who play it. I won't go into the details about all of the undesirables who play this game, but I will mention that more often than not, one team will clearly do better than the other, and you will either be on the team getting curbstomped, or the team doing the curbstomping, and features such as team auto-balance and team scramble don't really do anything to remedy this problem. Overall I still recommend this as a game you should at least try out if you like online multiplayer shooters, if you're willing to learn it, and if you can afford it if you plan to get invested in it.

Update: The Meat Your Match update from years ago has ruined the game's ease of access significantly. No longer are you able to quickly hop on a sever to play a game through quick play, now you have to sit at the title screen for several minutes waiting to connect to a server through matchmaking. The only way to quickly join a game now is to find a sever through the server browser, but that can take just as long if you don't already have a list of favorites ready. The core gameplay of Team Fortress 2 is still fun, but it's no longer as fast and easy to just play the game was it was before, and I don't understand why Valve felt the need to get rid of quick play to introduce matchmaking to the game.

That being said, Team Fortress 2 is still a timeless classic, and well worth playing, even in 2025.