Recent reviews by Poet

Would really only really recommend it for fans of Terence Hill / Bud Spencer movies - fun little beat-em-up with almost no difficulty. Lots of nods to their movies, and it encouraged me to binge watch through several of them again.

Easy 2.8 hour playthrough with likely 2 of those hours spent trying to beat the beer and sausage mini-game (if you haven't gotten there yet, you'll see what I mean). I wish there had been more R.C. Pro-Am -styled levels as that was probably the most fun.

All in all, a good mix of nostalgia and joy.

Such a chill park builder with a fun and creative design. John Hammond should take notes.

Absolutely loving the remastered 3D look that you can toggle with a single hotkey. It makes this much more palettable in 2018 than it otherwise would have been.

There are a few reviews talking about mouse lag or control sensitivity being off, but it felt just fine to me, and without booting up a dosbox to nitpick the differences, the game was entirely playable and easy to control. I did find that I had to up the DPS on my own mouse a little, but it was in-game situational.

Surprised it didn't come packed with all of the old Megaton Edition expansions though as they were all pulled from Steam when Devolver lost the rights, and Gearbox (as far as I know) has the ability to re-release them. Would have been another nice extra.

Overwatch with hats.

One of the worst games I've played in recent memory. If you're into riffing bad games, this one is a candidate, but the content doesn't give you a lot of material to work with, even at that.

I got the game for free and still want a refund.

Ok, listen.... I can place foundations.... AGAINST THINGS!
Revolutionary.

Drag-and-Drop Simulator. Interactive story at best - not much for a point-and-click adventure.

Owell isn't the first "surveillance sim", and certainly isn't the best. It does plenty of things right, but far more wrong. Because of that, while I enjoyed the game and didn't feel the gameplay bad - I can't recommend it.

The game holds your hand literally the entire way. It highlights information. It tells you when you've looked over a document and missed something. It repeats the obvious to you via your "advisor", Symes. It doesn't encourage reading whatsoever despite it only having pros as an interactive story.

One of the most irritating things of the game was Symes. Symes is your advisor through the game, commenting on evidence you find. The problem is that he comments on Ever. Little. Piece. of evidence. If you add someone's favorite color - Symes chimes in. If you add a new profile picture for a person - he has something SO IMPORTANT to say that it stops gameplay until you click continue. Again and again and again.

Other elements of the game leave you wishing you were more in control of the program. For example, I wanted the ability to create profiles on people but you aren't given that permission. Symes gives you permission when you reach a certain point in the story, and that's that. I wanted to add a profile picture for someone I had a profile on..... NOPE couldn't do it until the game gives you permission to.

The game really gives you the illusion of control while the entire time you are limited to dragging and dropping story elements. The conflicts in data are VERY minor and ultimately the story wraps up in a similar way either way. It's the feeling of diverse while being completely linear. In the instances where there WERE conflicts in data, you really have to take a shot in the dark sometimes.

So what did I expect? I wanted to be in charge of the note taking! I wanted to be able to create profiles on my own. I didn't want information to get highlighted for me UNLESS there was a problem. I wanted to be able to figure things out the entire time without some doofus interrupting gameplay the entire time with his commentary (Symes).

Still, there are certainly pros to give this game. The story is interesting, the graphics are BEAUTIFUL for the genre, and the point-and-click adventure feel is definitely there, even if the game leads you where you need to go. Browse websites and news articles as though you were in your very own web browser! Now that I say that in writing, it doesn't seem all that impressive, but it's still enjoyable. The "accessing computer" elements and phone conversation elements I enjoy so much more than the web browsing.

All in all, it's an interesting point-and-click interactive story with multiple outcomes. It's not a difficult one, and there are no puzzles to solve, so just sit back and enjoy it. I still can't recommend it to anyone who is a fan of hacksims, surveillance sims, or information gathering sims though.... this is an interactive story - nothing more. It's no more "investigatory" than any of the TellTale games.

If you're old enough (or retro gamer enough) to remember that Carmen Sandiego game from 1992 where you had to hop around the world gathering evidence of crimes, pinning faces to names, and figuring out who did what crime and where - you'll absolutely LOVE this kind of game.

I love point-and-clicks, and I love hacksims. This doesn't do either seperately very well, but does both together great!

From a point-and-click side of things, the interface is easy to use, the humor is there, the exploration and investigation is thoughtful. Sometimes it doesn't make it too obvious what you must do next, and you have to try a ton of evidence to move on, but it's executed decently.

The hacksim perspective is a little on the tame side compared to others. You get basic hack commands that "just work", and you realize quickly that taking notes isn't usually required since the help screen is always available. You also don't have to rely on advanced commands or speed timed elements as you do with other hacksims (though I've only played the game for a VERY short amount of time at this point, so I'm assuming a lot) making the hacking element very much a secondary aspect of the game.

In that respect, it's definitely more of a point-and-click than a hacksim where you would have to probe networks, get through firewalls, obtain information, delete your trail... instead, in this you just get in and sort through the evidence. It's about proving someone is guilty of something. It's about digging through their personal sites, blogs, photos.... all very Carmen Sandiego, like I said before.

It's one of the best I've played in recent memory and the nods to the various OSes, software, companies, etc. is hilarious and leaves me feeling very satisfied.

An amazing remastered Half-Life. They're still boosting the anti-mass spectrometer after all this time!

However for some reason when I initially saw this game, I thought it was a new stand-alone in the half-life universe, similar to Opposing Force for example, but it's not. It's Half-Life 1. That doesn't make it "a re-imagining", it makes it a remaster with a few tweaks. It's imagined in exactly the same way as it was before. We're clear on that? Good.

Now don't get me wrong, this is FAR SUPERIOR to the "Source" remaster, and considering it's technically a mod, it's an incredible work of art.

My one issue, if I had any at all, and trust me I struggle to find one, is that - JUST LIKE HALF-LIFE - you get the same NPC models and voices time and time again.... over and over and over. How many times do we need to see Barney die? Or that same scientist cower in a corner? I was really hoping that they'd take it a step further and add a ton of variation, but they didn't. That doesn't make it a bad game or a bad take on a game.... just a missed opportunity if you ask me.

EDIT AFTER BEATING:
I fell in love with this more and more as I played it. The more I compared this to the original, the more I appreciated the work that went into creating this. I didn't want to stop playing and hope that a Xen area is added soon... or content to further expand the game either way.

I would now whole-heartedly recommend that you play this if you're a fan of HL or HL2. Don't bother with Source - just play this.

Really fun game in the same vein as classic beat-em-ups, especially games like River city rampage, with great art and great action. Why doesn't this then get my recommendation? The game crashes EVERY TWO LEVELS for no discernible reason. When it happens once, that's something I can overlook. When it happens 10 times.... I'm going to uninstall the game and give it a big thumbs down.

Maybe you'll have better luck than I had.....