Recent reviews by superuser()

A short and bittersweet tale that I think is definitely worrth a try if it's on sale. Even though it can be a bit reptitive at times, the payoff is in the story and the gorgeous environment. In my playthrough I can't count how many times I just stopped to soak in the setting or followed what sea creatures I came across (and consequently took screenshots of). Didn't have any issues running it and the gameplay mechanics are a bit simplistic, but if you have a few hours to spare and want a relaxing experience then give it a shot.

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Three words, one mod: sexy legs Coach.

But really even after all this time, this game still has a decent playerbase, has high replayability on both the standard maps and custom maps, and makes for fun times with friends and strangers. I started playing L4D and then L4D2 on a lame laptop that could hardly handle the graphics with a trackpad (looking back on it, I probably should have given up for that alone), and now I have a $2k PC that can run it no problem, proper gear included. I play AAA games every so often but I still find myself coming back to this one for some quick games and good laughs. Easily one of those must-have games you should own as a PC gamer.

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS/READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

Since I finished the game (100% minus DLC and currently exploring the expedition modes), I still feel secure in recommending it to both longtime fans and newcomers. It's a good game in its own way for people who don't know or aren't as knowledgeable of Lara Croft's journey in the game industry, but imo it's not quite what it could be for diehard fans. Don't get me wrong, I very much enjoyed ROTR more than the reboot; it's just still lacking in certain areas that - based on the improvement thus far - I'm mostly confident they'll, well, fix for a lack of better words.

For starters, they captured the sense of adventure better than the reboot by providing better incentives to explore the land as well as expanding said area. Aside from collecting resources, collectibles (ugh), and challenges (double ugh), there's the bonus of a group of people you can interact with who give you missions to carry out. This, on top of the newly designed challenge tombs, makes the world feel more alive through the past and the present. It definitely helps that the entire game is more colorful and vivid than the dull colored maps of the reboot.

As for the action, they added a few more mechanics to spice up the combat a bit. There's an array of weapons to choose from rather than one weapon that's either swapped for a better one or upgraded to look different, and most of the weapons now have specially crafted ammo. In addition to this, they've added on the move crafting to allow different approaches to combat encounters; you can now craft throwables to either damage or distract, both of which can also be upgraded to do more damage or add damage respectively. There are more skills as well, but quite a few of them were hit or miss for me. All this combined with an enhanced survival instinct that allows you to see when an enemy is in view of another gives way for better stealth tactics if that tickles your fancy. I mostly played the game in this manner on the seasoned raider difficulty, so I don't know if that affects my opinion differently, but I'm almost tempted to say that the game seems to push for stealth more than guns blazing - which brings me to my next point.

The game unfortunately still went with the endless amount of men trying to kill one female, and I'll never understand why. This isn't a SJW or feminist point, this is from the standpoint of a longtime fan who wishes to see more adventure and puzzle solving than an illogical one woman army. It literally kills me inside when even the game acknowledges this with its "oh so witty" comments from said men who can't believe they're getting their asses kicked by Lara Croft. Yes, Lara Croft is a badass but she's a badass because of her intellect more than her ability to kill someone or something. In all the TR games she has killed to survive, but this just feels so forced.

That being said, the puzzles could use more difficulty still. I remember reading an article about how the devs were going to bring back nested puzzles, which they did for the most part, but then they turned around and said they didn't want to make them but so difficult that it would turn players away. I could understand that mentality back when Tomb Raider was first established because players still relied on physical guides or perseverance to get by, but in today's world where in less than a minute you can google the solution if you get stuck, I will never buy that as an excuse to not make your players think. I think there was only one puzzle that took me a second to figure out, and that was only because I got confused about one of the objects and how it was used. I also wish the puzzles existed outside of the challenge tombs.

Quick note about said tombs, I can't express enough how much better they are visually. They're just grand and take the appearance of settings from the likes of Tomb Raider I-III with today's graphics. Though they could use some diversity of the physical secret discovered, they did a superb job nevertheless. The rewards gained are actually worth the raid even if the tombs are still optional.

Last but certainly not least - the plot. It was certainly more compelling than the reboot in that the main enemy is more than a title; there's a backstory, there's emotion, there's a reason why that unfolds and intertwines with Lara's story. I can't say anything was truly shocking, but at least it's not Mathias...a potato is better than Mathias as an enemy. If it wasn't for my need to explore everything, the game would probably be short, so I guess that's a bit of a problem. I long for the days of, as another reviewer put it, globetrotting; I'm pretty sure if there were multiple countries with these kinds of maps the game would be much longer and have more depth but it doesn't seem Crystal Dynamics wants to put that kind of effort into it. The fact that they pretty much recycled the supernatural enemies (yay more undead men /s) and the final climb from the reboot speaks volumes of what kind of effort they put into the plot. I've seen some minor complaints about the overarching enemy, but since I grew up with Natla constantly having a vendetta against Lara it doesn't bother me as long as it's planned out well.

Performance wise, the game worked fine for me. My recent boot up of the game, during a loading screen, it crashed for the first time. There's a few moments where my fps will drop from the 60's-50's to the 30's and one time even 15 fps, other than that the game ran smooth. I have a gtx 780, a locked i5, and 16gb of ram so most of my settings were set to high/very high, and I refused to compromise on the pure hair at least being on because it looked weird off.

As I said, overall it's a good game. There's still room for improvement but it's already quite the upgrade over the reboot. Buy it when you can!

P.S: What happened to Croatia? AND WHERE ARE MY DOUBLE PISTOLS???

I came across Stray Cat Crossing (no pun intended) while scanning the greenlight community, and idk why but the title design pulled me in; I proceeded to watch the trailer, to which my inner weeaboo was satisfied (animated trailer and that music, it was like watching a JRock MV), so I gave the demo a try. The Alice in Wonderland vibe I got from the game hooked me for good and I was definitely interested in the final product upon release. This purchase did not leave me disappointed.

You start off as an unamed girl merely being a decent human being to a lost child named Cat by escorting her home, and when you reach your destination you're pulled into a house of mysterious creatures and settings as you discover just who Cat is. Now, I'm not familiar with games made from RPG maker - though I have heard some negative things - but in my opinion this is one of the better ones. The pixel art is indeed gorgeous and well done (the cutscenes served their purpose well too), and the puzzles were a perfect balance of "Oh, I know this," and "Hmm, gotta actually think." It's not really horror in the traditional sense of inducing fear, but I suppose one could see some of the creatures and actions as disturbing. The soundtrack was hauntingly perfect and set the mood for everywhere the protagonist traveled, and as the plot unfolded before my eyes I was surprised in a bittersweet way.

The only gripes I had with this game is the keyboard layout and steam overlay. Although the controls are few and simple (up, down, left, right to move, enter/space to interact, shift to run, and A to jump), there was only the one scene where jump was introduced that I had trouble with. It felt awkward using shift and A at the same time and I wish I could've changed the jump command from A to space, but I managed through the scene. As for the steam overlay it's nonexistent, and while it's not necessarily a bad thing, it would've been nice to know that attempting to screenshot via F12 would actually bring me back to the menu screen and I hadn't saved for a while.

All in all, I could totally see this game extended a bit since I was left with a few questions, but for $2.99 and roughly 2 hours of gameplay I definitely recommend Stray Cat Crossing. It's a short but good one.

A great supplement to the Portal universe; if you love the lore of this world then this mod is a definite must play. Prism Studios did a superb job with creating a believable side story with excellent puzzles that rival if not exceed the source games. The voice acting is spot on, keeping the same wit from the first two games, and for a community-made mod the effort put into Mel let alone the cutscenes was outstanding. You can tell the game was in the hands of people who know and love Portal if you take the time to thoroughly explore the game, the achievements, and keep an eye out for easter eggs.

Another mod of the Portal universe to remind me how stupid I really am...well played. Now where are my damn combustible lemons!?

Minimalistic geometric shapes, sweet jams, and a platform format. What more could you ask for other than extra levels? Definitely worth a buy even at $5, the replay value is irreplaceable.