Recent reviews by SuPeR_JoE

"I Really want to de-orbit this moon and crash it into theit planet!"
"I'm sorry, but you can't do that to this planet."
"Fine then, Im just gonna blow it up."

**A few minutes later**

"Ragnarok detanation in one minute."
"Excellent."

10/10

>Having a great run
>Get to Last Stand, everything going great
>Rebels take over my only way to get to repairs
>Deep Breath

I got this.

>Initate combat
>Swapping damage
>3 waves of intruders
>Everything on fire
>Almost everything broken
>THE_ALL_IS_LOST_MOMENT.mov
>Explode
>Throws keyboard across room, vowing to never play again

5 Minutes of doing productive things later: "Maybe one more run."

5 Hours of constant play later: "Maybe one more run."

10/10

Let me begin this review by saying two things: As a gamer, my guilty pleasure has always been Mini-golf games. I have played them through my childhood, but as an adult, I had slacked off. Then--*Gasp*--What do my eyes see? I new mini-golf game on steam! I immediately got it and was thrilled to play it, even at the price point.

And the second point is simply this; How dare you expect me to enjoy this heap of junk.

The controls are the wonkiest thing on the planet, I feel like I have no kind of control over the ball whastsoever. There is nowhere near enough railing, I found myself constantly falling off of the platforms for no other reason than my putter flinched a little harder than I told it--tried to tell it to.

In the story, the concept with the records advancing the plot and rewarding you if you do is really neat. However, making it mandatory to make the hole isn't. I had made it to the end of a hole, after, oh I don't know, 15 storkes because the ball forgot how to stay on the platform, and finally made it to the raised recepticle where the ball was thanks to a "free stroke" hole (that just sounds dirty). I was thrilled I had finally made it, only to discover that I missed a record. I couldn't get out. I had to restart the hole because a metal tube spat me out at a point where I couldn't go back. Also, this happened on three different holes.

And don't get me started on how bad the Swing Power system is. You could pull the club to the same height three times and get three totally different swings. Oh, And the ball itself! Oh golly gee wilikers, that ball. I have lost more strokes because my ball bounced off of the cup and into the abyss than I care to count. It doesn't matter how slow the ball is going, if I can't just barely nudge it in, it goes flying out and 5 meters away, usually into the abyss. It's unbelieveable. And I'm NOT going to star in on the awful, twitchy camera.


It may sound like I am just bad at the game and complaining about it, but I have a feel for how a game like this should work. And, frankly, something isn't working here. This game is trying to be something that it just isn't quite yet. Now, I know, what you're thinking, "Hey, Joe! Give the Devs a break, the game has been in 1.0 for literally three days!" I know that. I have a lot of games that are still in development in my library. I know how tedious a game can be for the first few months until they patch it up and give it its lolly. So, don't get me wrong, I am still excited to play this game. Just... not right now. My keyboard may need a bandage first.

So, until the game is fixed a little bit, I can't and won't recomend it. But, the second those updates happen(they ARE going to happen, right?), I will be chomping at the bits, ready to play. And then I will gladly, openly, and, perhaps even lovingly change my review, but until then, I almost refuse to play it.

Until next time (There WILL be a next time, right?);
Cheers,
SuPeR_J03

HL2 has been in my Queue for a long, long time. And, after playing through it I have two things to say: "What a ride," and "Why did I wait so long to play this game?" I now understand the hype. I get it. People talk about it all of the time even more than 10 years after its initial release for one simple reason:

It's a damn good game.

I'm not usually not into Shooters, First Person or otherwise. But something about this game is just so... thrilling. It's not quite a horror shooter by today's standards (though, I'm sure when it was released, it had people screaming and flailing), but there are so many pulse pounding, heart racing, gut wrenching moments that it cannot be ignored. The artistry and, often times, very subtle ways of making the player feel exactly what the game wants him to feel. Spoiler: Most notably towards the end of the game, giving you, basically a god power and then ripping it away, forcing the player along whatever, seemingly arbitrary, path it desires to take, while the player is forced to look on, powerless--defenseless. It's absolutely glorious.

Everything about this game is perfect. Well… Almost.

I found myself backtracking out of desperation. Almost constantly. I was never entirely sure of where I was going a good 70-75% of the time. I would be fine with this, if the NPCs didn’t all believe that I had an extensive knowledge of a place (well, many places) that I had never seen before. Sure, at checkpoints, there are sometimes maps on the wall, but they are poorly done and show no real indication of where you are actually going. Now, I’m not a big fan of the Fable 3 glowing-trail-that-shows-you-right-where-you-are-supposed-to-go method of leading a player, or even a compass on the HUD that points you in the right direction. But, I mean, come on, how many more lines of code would it have taken to give me a map I could access on the fly? I didn’t really need a “you are here” button on it, and it didn’t need to be interactive. Just a little something to keep me sane. Also, the waterfront chapter can burn. It is one of the primary offenders.

But, even the sometimes confusing level design can be forgiven. It’s just another way of making the player feel hopeless and helpless. Most games take too kindly to funneling players along the story so much that it feels like the gameplay is interfering with the game. I’m looking at you Final Hallway 13. But that is something that HL2 just doesn’t do. It makes the player, once the actually accomplish something, feel like they did something meaningful.

One last thing and I swear I’ll shut up. How great is the way HL2 introduces you to new enemies? I’ll tell ya how great! It introduces enemies in a very “Mega Man” way. You almost always can see what new enemy you will be fighting before you actually have to engage that enemy. And, sometimes, you can actually SEE its attack patterns. This is done with EVERY SINGLE ENEMY and almost every single concept of gameplay. It’s CRAZY! Crazy like a damn fox. This is how games should be designed. As a player, I never once felt overwhelmed by a new concept or enemy. Sure I had a lot of “OMG, that guy is spooky,” or “That was a lot tougher than expected,” or “I’m supposed to make that jump?!” and, let’s not forget all of the “Gosh Dang-oh-Darn, that puzzle was the most convoluted thing I have ever seen,” moments. But I never once got overwhelmed by something. Stuck a few times, yes, but never felt like I COULDN’T progress.


The main takeaway is this: If Half-Life 2 isn’t already in your inventory, you should fix that. It really is a problem. But, if you are going to go ahead and get it, which you will, just shell out the ten extra bucks for the Orange Box. Because you WILL want Episode One and Episode Two. And also Portal. ^_^ Basically, you’ll get HL2 and HL2:E1 and get HL2:E2, Portal, and TF2, which is already FTP through steam, free. It’s a great deal.

Tl;dr—8.5/10, Want map, crazy awesome game design in general, Orange Box get.

Thanks for your time and buckle up for the ride that is HL2.

Cheers,
SuPeR_J03