Recent reviews by milofat

When I was in middle school, my dad introduced me to Half-Life. Since then my view of gaming would never be the same. And after 13 years waiting for a new one, all I have to say is that it is very much so worth the wait.

I played Boneworks prior to this and was quite impressed with it, but minus melee combat, this game is superior to it at almost every level. The flashes of brilliance I saw in Boneworks are almost regularities in Half-Life Alyx.

As someone who has been waiting more than a decade for a new Half-Life game, I can say, it has been worth the wait.

Before this game the only fighting game I ever got into was Super Smash Bros. A good entry point into fighting games, and a must have for a Dragon Ball fan.

I'll keep this short.

I know of no other online FPS with this much soul in it. Its sublime. Stop reading this review and play it.

EDIT BASED ON THE NOVEMBER 16TH UPDATE:

The game is still rough around the edges and I can't quite recommend this game to those who aren't intrested in helping further the game's development, or really like scientific accuracy.

With that being said I think with more polish and fixes this game could become one of the best dinosaur games on the market. I truly feel that this game represents something important for dinosaur media as a whole. It pretty common in modern media to show dinosaurs as movie monsters more akin to Godzilla than actual animals. This game manages to harness the feelings of awe and wonder that dinosaurs inherantly evoke, while at the same time presenting them as actual organisms. In Saurian you aren't just another scaly killing machine, you are just anotehr creature trying its damnest to survive in an unforgiving but beautiful world. The world of Saurian isn't made beautiful by cutting edge graphics, its made beautiful by the elegic atmosphere of its vigourusly accurate ecosystem. The accuracy of this game isn't just a scientific statement, its a very effective aethetic choice.

However I'm afraid I still need to temper this review with some bugs I've continued to run across.


Although the scent ability for the Dakotarpator works much better now, there are still certain animals which don't appear on it at all. Crocodillians and Tyrannosaurs for me do not leave a scent trail nor are they highlighted. This is especially a problem in low light where I can just not see a Crocodillian in the grass and then get chomped by nothing, even though it was only a few feet in front of me and I was smelling the air.

Animals no longer seem to swim indefinetly nor do they run around in circles but just seem to stop reacting at certain points. Pachycephalasaurs sometimes will just stand in place, and one time I ran into an archeoraptor and it just stood there doing nothing while I chomped on it half a dozen times.

The raptor prey restraint seems to work better, but it is still pretty difficult to actually latch onto your prey. However I haven't been shot up 100 meters in the air yet so this mechanic is progressively getting better.

Its sad that mods like this don't get teh attention they deserve. This game is a gem and with a little more polish I'd buy it as a standalone game. I hope the devs take what they learned here and continue to improve this concept.

I'm not usually a fan of this type of game, but by God did they do a fantastic job with this. The game is punishing in terms of difficulty, but more than that it makes you feel genuinely upset when a hero you inevitably get attached to dies. If you make a party which works well together the combat is very rewarding, but it can get really tense, really fast. Easily one of the most compelling games I have ever played, and one of the best examples of early access done right.