Recent reviews by Purple Toupee

is good

I had previously wrote a review for Entropy Zero highlighting all the faults it had, and hoped the sequel would address them. This sequel, Entropy Zero 2 did exactly that and it's one of the best HL2 mods to have released in a while.

You don't need to play the first game in order to understand the second game as only minor references to the first game are scattered here and there, and the plots of both games don't relate to each other.

You play as the same protagonist, but his character and backstory is way more heavily developed in this game and he feels like an actual character this time around. While I wish some aspects of his background were shown instead of told, it's still effective enough to have the player care about the character they're playing as.

Gameplay wise, there is much less artificial difficulty compared to the previous game. Enemies can deal good amount of damage, but the game now has an enemy hierarchy. Generally the more armor an enemy has, the more damage they're capable of doing and it's very easy to differentiate between enemy types. There's a LOT of new enemy types in the game, and most of them are fun to fight against. The player generally has enough cover and space to avoid damage, and the number of enemies at one time feels fair. There was only once instance where it did feel like artificial difficulty was at play because the player didn't have much cover and there were too many enemies, but the rest of the game felt fine. You can now command a squad of Combine soldiers during certain levels, but their AI isn't great. Sometimes they'll just stand in one place even after you tell them to move to a certain spot. They also tend to stick right next to each other, which usually gets them killed together fast by bullets, projectiles, and grenades.

Guns have recoil just like the first game, but it's toned down to where burst firing or tapping will get the job done without worrying about recoil. There's a little bit more variety this time around with a pistol that has unlimited ammo, a MP5k, SLAM mines, Xen grenades, and the AR2 variation from the first game. The stun stick was replaced with a kick melee that can be used at anytime, but I wish there was a dedicated melee weapon provided to the player to more effectively destroy obstacles as using the kick melee would tend to push the object away instead of breaking it. This means you'd have to kick the object multiple times to break it which was extremely tedious.

Gameplay and weapon variety was pretty fun, although I ended up default to the AR2, SMG, and Shotgun as those were the most effective weapons for basically all situations. I feel a few of the human enemies need a health boost, but other than that I had a really fun time playing the game.

Night vision replaces the flashlight again, but it's still not a great improvement. The filter it had in the first game is toned down a bit, but it's still relatively hard to see with it on. The night vision does have a set capacity which shuts off the night vision when it's empty just like HL2, but this bar isn't shown to the player so you'll have zero idea how much charge you have before the night vision turns off. It's extremely frustrating, especially during the darker areas and I wish the normal flashlight was used instead.

The plot is much more focused and organized this time. It takes place during the events of Half Life 2: Episode 2 but far away from City 17. A few main characters from the HL2 series make an appearance in certain scenes (some scenes are actually seen in HL2) but they're implemented in such a way that it doesn't break lore from the original games, and even adds a sense of closure to certain characters. It's done to where in my opinion, their appearance in this mod would be canon if Valve had developed this game.

The story has you on a mission to capture Judith Mossman, but a lot of the plot comes from Bad Cop - the character you play as- and the conversations he has with the true antagonist of the game and another character. It starts off a little weak, but as the game goes on this story arc gets much more stronger, and ends in a way that's satisfying but makes you want more (aka another game).

There are multiple endings depending on the action of the player, but it's not tied to how many people you killed or anything like that. The decisions come in the finale of the game except for one, where you take Wilson, the defective turret you meet at the beginning of the game, all the way to the end of the game an upload his AI into the substation system.

Performance wise, this game ran like any other Half Life 2 game. During some levels where there's a lot of entities on screen (NPCs, particle effects, etc), the game would crash. This happened a few times, but the game has good autosave so you don't start too far back from where your game crashed.

The campaign took me about 6 hours to complete, and there's some bonus maps and challenge maps to play with afterwards. The bonus maps are super short, and the challenge maps let you play previous levels with a goal to meet. The campaign also has collectibles, secret dialogue, and secret scripted events. This allows for repeat playthroughs to discover new things.

Overrall, I had a super fun time with Entropy Zero 2. It's a HUGE improvement over the first game, and I would gladly pay if this game was a paid mod. I can't wait to see what the next game will bring!

This is honestly one of the best single player games I've played in recent memory, let alone in the gaming market.

The setting is done beautiful and the plot is extremely well written, with characters that you'll come to like fast. There's a nice variety of locations, none of which feel they overstay their welcome.

Of course with any game, there are downfalls. The combat system is on the line of standard and awful. It'll take time getting used to how the guns work, but there isn't much variety. Rather than have a whole arsenal with each weapon having a specific purpose, the guns are basically direct upgrades of each other and there is no customization like Fallout 4 or Call Of Duty MW2019. I only used a handful of guns as they worked for all situations, and I was never incentivized to experiment with other guns. Enemies use the same guns from beginning to near the end, and only serve as a way for the player to continue fighting if they run out of ammo. You also cannot buy most throwables or melee weapons, but instead must hunt for materials to craft them. The melee system doesn't feature many weapons either, and the crafting system for them isn't explained well, if at all. You also cannot compare the stats of each melee weapon unless it's for one on the ground. At first I disliked the combat system, but eventually I got used to it.

Enemy variety is there, but it's nothing you haven't seen before. Freakers are nothing more than zombies with the typical heavy, screamer, and fast infected variants, which are very uncommon. Infected wolves and crows exist, but I never felt they were ever fun to fight. Infected children are also an enemy you have to fight sometimes, and it's exactly as messed up as it sounds. The human enemies have the basic hierarchy too, with your typical melee, ranged, heavy, sniper, and flamethrower units. The only unit I detested fighting against were snipers, as they could one shot your bike in the open world with zero warning and in the early game you won't have a sufficient ranged weapon to deal with them effectively. The AI is super basic as well and sometimes they'll just run up to you, making for an easy kill. I wish the AI would use squad tactics to actually work together and communicate to fight the player, which is rare to find in a game. The prime example of this is are the Replica squads in FEAR (2005) in which the AI communicates with each other and reacts to player actions accordingly. If a 17 year old game can do this, than any modern game should be capable of this. Seriously, watch this to see what I mean.

The highlight enemy of the game are the hordes, which is literally hundreds of Freakers that dwell in one place during the day, or roam around during the night. The most tense and exhilarating moments were when I had to fight them or sneak past them, and it's beautifully done to where no matter how big your arsenal is, you will always feel like you don't have a winning chance. Spoiler alert: you will be forced to fight a few hordes to progress the story. That being said, my game did crash several times while fighting hordes so lower end hardware may not be able to handle the amount of NPCs in those sections.

While the story is very well written, some of the characters fall flat. There are a few characters either mentioned or shown in the game that the game tries to force you to care about, but fails since it doesn't show the relationship and interaction between said character and Deacon. For example, (major spoiler) when you find out the leader of the Rippers is someone from your old motorcycle crew whom you helped mutilate, I didn't care at all because the game doesn't show who this person was from before, his relationship to Deacon, or what he did to receive such a punishment. The story basically does "tell, not show" instead of "show, not tell" at some points, but thankfully it's not for the entire game.

Some of the missions shouldn't be cutscenes, and some of the cutscenes should've been missions. There are some flashback "missions" but they only consist of walking very slowly alongside an NPC, or a cutscene. Some of the missions in the current day are also just short cutscenes. While the flashback cutscenes and missions are shown well, there are some that would benefit from actual gameplay, and some that could've just been cutscenes.

There is a lot to explore in the game with a wide open map and good variety, but it can feel tedious. The fetch quests are generally the same, with only a few offering different experiences. They generally consist of "go here, kill everyone" but a few missions stick out because while the goal is the same, the experience while fighting for that goal is the same. I wish they did this for much more of the fetch quests rather than just a few.

While it seems that I bashed the game a lot, I feel that the strong points of the game are done so well that they outweigh the negatives. It took me about 31 hours to complete the main story with a good amount of side content, but I'm not even close to completing 100% of the game as there's a ton of side content to complete. The characters that are written strongly, that being most of them, are ones that I've come to care about and kept me interested in the story and game to see what their fate would be.

Unfortunately Sony rejected a sequel due to expectations not met on sales, which is a shame because this game deserves and has a strong potential for a sequel. I highly recommend this game, as long as you know what you're getting into.

This review only covers the Campaign. I played this game through the MCC launcher.

The setting takes place 4 years after Halo 3. Master Chief and Cortana once again fight the Covenant and face a new enemy; an ancient Forerunner named the Didact and the Prometheans: former humans turned into mechanical abmoniations.

The writing is not good. It is never explained why the Covenant are fighting you again, there are a handful of useless characters that serve zero purpose to the plot, and Master Chief's character is ruined. Chief has always been the slient type, and seen in all former Halo games. He would only talk when necessary in cutscenes, but outside of that he would not say anything. This gave the player the chance to fill in the space and create a unique personality for Chief, which is impossible in Halo 4 as Chief speaks a lot in the cutscenes and during the game. A personality is created for him by the writers, and the player's imagination of Chief is gone. There is also a subplot between Chief and Cortana that can probably be described as a love interest. It's off putting as Cortana has never expressed such emotion in the previous games, and she feels like a completely different character. There's terminals you can find to watch exposition cutscenes, but remember that this is a video game, not a movie. The overall plot is a very generic action movie plot as well (oh no this dude wants to destroy Earth, we gotta stop him).

The gameplay ranges from good to outright bad. The Covenant is back, but Drones and Brutes are absent. The Covenant behave like previous games, but the Elites feel like their difficulty was toned down (compared the Reach.) The Prometheans are just terrrible and unfun to fight against. There are supposed to be different variants of Prometheans to distinguish what type of loadout and abilities they have, but it is basically absent. One of the enemy types, Knights, have different loadouts and abilities but they use the same model throughout so you can't plan correctly on how to defeat them. Compared to the example of how orange Grunts have plasma pistols and green Grunts have Fuel Rod Cannons, there is no reason this basic feature is absent. The Promethean weapons are also terrible to use as the damage feels inconsistent, and the Prometheans simply use the weapons better than you at ANY range. There's also a bunch of abilites Prometheans have that feel unfair to the player, such as spawning reinforcements and creating impenetrable shields. There were only a small handful of times that I blamed my deaths on myself. Some parts of the game take control away from the player and opt in for quick time events, INCLUDING the final boss "fight" with the Didact which is just a 30 second QTE. There is also zero indication on the state of Promethean's condition while fighting them; only the Knights have a very subtle cue. Every Covenant enemy has a telltale sign to their current state and if they are vulnerable to critical damage; there is no reason why this feature is absent from Prometheans.

Sprint is back as a permanent addition to player movement, instead of a power upgrade. It doesn't feel good to handle, but the maps were also desigend around sprinting. Since the player is faster, the maps are more open to accommodate for this. This would be fine if the enemies were balanced, but they aren't. Enemy weapon projectiles feel much faster and hit scanny, making this extra speed null. You also have to play more slow and tactfully when against Prometheans, even though a sprint feature encourages fast action close quarters combat. This is a terrible design choice.

I can't recommend this game to first time players or casual fans. Only hardcore fans should actually pick this game up. Don't expect anything groundbreaking.

First and foremost: if you are looking for a story driven game, DOOM Eternal is NOT the game for you. The plot is used to help change the setting and have some sort of motivation to continue forward, but it's not used as a main feature. There are tons of lore in pages you can find and read, but you can also ignore these as they aren't needed to understand what's happening in the game.

Making the plot take a backseat really helps with giving the combat and gameplay center stage, which matters the most (looking at you, Wolfenstein). The gameplay is a HUGE improvement from DOOM 2016, and you don't need to play DOOM 2016 to understand what's going on in this game. There are a couple characters and organizations from the previous game that you may not know too well if you haven't played it, but it doesn't matter. None of the events in DOOM 2016 are mentioned in DOOM Eternal.

You get a small arsenal right off the bat instead of the shotgun and pistol you're forced to use in most of the beginning of DOOM 2016. In DOOM 2016, it was possible to find some sort of meta loadout that works for all demontypes (ie using the plasma rifle and shotgun explosives to deal heavy group damage) but DOOM Eternal changes things by forcing you to use every single weapon at your disposal. You're given just enough ammo to do serious damage, but still need to use the chainsaw to get more ammo. The arenas have just enough health and armor to keep you hanging in, but you still need to use your flamethrower and perform glory kills to receive more health and armor. Each weapons and upgrade has their own purpose and some are designed to be direct counters to other demons. The combat is satisfying and fair without going too easy or too hard on the player. RIP AND TEAR.

There are some basic platforming sections in the game, which don't feel right in a DOOM game. It gives you a breather after an arena, but also zero action or combat happens despite the world be overrun by demons. It can take you out of the moment and feels out of place, so this is something to consider.

Almost all of the enemies feel fair to fight, with demons having a weakspot or a counter. The only demon that is unfair to fight is the Marauder. This demon has ZERO dedicated counters and you fight him by shooting him when his eyes glow green for a split second, signaling he's open to damage. Otherwise, he uses an indestructable shield everytime you try to shoot him, EVEN with the BFG. His combat is highly unpredictable, and he can repeatedly spawn in a ghost dog that I didn't even know was killable until near the end of the game. This is a poorly designed enemy, and it wasn't fun at all battling him everytime he appeared.

If you missed a hidden collectable or what not during a level, don't fret. Before the level ends, you have the option to fast travel to specific points of the map to collect what you've missed. Enemies don't respawn, so you don't need to clear out an arena again. There's also upgrades that show the location of collectables. You can also replay levels to get anything you missed, or stockpile on 1 Ups (which the game may be too generous on giving. It makes the final mission a breeze).

DOOM Eternal was a very fun experience, and I'll probably get the DLC. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a fast paced arena shooter that requires you to be on your toes. If you are looking for a story driven game with a meaningful plot, DOOM Eternal is not for you.

In order to enjoy this game to its fullest, you need to know what you're getting into.

If you're coming from Battlefield V and are expecting the same or similar experience, you're going to hate this game.

If you're coming from Red Orchestra 2 (or similar) and are expecting the same or similar experience, it's RO2 gameplay but multiplied by three.

This game was clearly designed around strict teamwork, instead of individual experiences and casual teamplay. Combat is super unforgiving, as pretty much everything can kill you in one hit, and the respawn timer is LONG. You also can't spawn on your squad leader like in RO2, but instead can only spawn on established or mobile spawn points placed by the SL.

You NEED a well organized team that have mics and know how to communicate. Zero communication and zero teamplay makes the game unfun, Sometimes it's not your fault if you try to communicate, but instead your SL, teammates, and Commander don't give orders or provide support. If your SL doesn't place down spawn points, have fun spending most of the game sprinting across the giagantic map only to be shot out of nowhere and having to repeat the process.

Joining a game is a pain, as the player count in the server lists is inaccurate, so a 90/100 lobby may actually be full, preventing you from joining. If you get waitlisted, it takes a while to actually join the game. After you join, you have to wait for the respawn timer to expire to actually start playing.

I ended up refunding this game. While I don't think it's a bad game, it's just not a game I'm interested in especially since it was difficult to find people who would actually play as a team and communicate.

I can't post my full review due to character limits. My full in depth review of this game, and why I don't recommend it, is in this pastebin document: https://pastebin.com/pjVfJbcF

Edit: In the first line, I meant to write "We Happy Few has a very good concept" instead of "We Happy Few has a very concept".

This DLC focuses on the events that happened at Novosibirsk. You play as Colonel Khlebnikov, the father of Kiril. In-game cutscenes show Colonel Miller as he retraces Khlebnikov's footsteps to find the maps.

This DLC is very story driven, and gameplay takes a backseat. Most of the DLC involves watching in-game cutscenes, with some combat in-between that doesn't offer anything new aside from the flamethrower. The chapter is also a blatant criticism against communism, as seen in unfolding in-game events and dialogue. The chapter is also very short, clocking in under 2 hours.

This would be a great purchase only if you're interested in learning about what happened in Novosibirsk's Metro system, what OSKOM was, and some of Miller's character development. If you're looking for tons of action and new gameplay mechanics, I would pass over this.

Entropy: Zero starts out great, but slowly falls apart due to the story being unsure about what it wants to be, and poor gameplay design.

The story is simple: you're a Metrocop trying to get out of City 10, which has been abandoned due to a virus called CFLU.

The first mission sets the expectation of what the game is supposed to be by involving you in a raid against a Resistance hideout. After the raid, your team heads back to base, but your train is blown up and derailed by the rebels. You run solo for the remaining of the campaign, fighting against rebels, zombies, vortigants, and a couple other entities.

The gunplay is extremely unforgiving. Recoil and weapon spread is present in all weapons, and damage is increased tenfold. While it's easier to kill enemies, it's also easier for them to kill you. This sounds like a great idea on paper, but Half Life 2 enemies are all hitscan. Combine that with weapons that can kill the player in 3-5 hits and ten enemies thrown at you at once, and it's just artificial difficulty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that adds nothing to the game. Weapon variety isn't too great either. Your total arsenal is the stun baton, pistol, SMG, Pulse Rifle, shotgun, and manhacks. The pulse rifles shoots faster and has a larger magazine, and it's secondary firemode shoots out three energy balls in a spread. The manhacks aren't smart, as they just sit in one spot if there are no enemies, and they do not follow the player around.

The puzzles in the game are basic. They feel like HL2 puzzles (a couple car battery puzzles included), but during the second part of the game it falls apart. The environment no longer guides the player into figuring out what to do, but instead forces the player to figure out themselves what the hell they're supposed to do. I spent a good amount of time trying to solve where I was supposed to go, what some buttons activated, and what I was supposed to shoot. This totally killed the flow of the game.

There is an awesome stealth section in the game that is super short. It's unfortunate that this stealth concept is only used once in the entire game, and there are definitely a lot of opportunities in which this concept could have been used.

Going back to the story, it doesn't know what it wants to be. During the first half of the game, you're trying to get out of City 10 and you push through Resistance territory in the process. There is a great use of environmental storytelling, such as learning why your train got ambushed, why City 10 is in it's current state, and NPC interactions. Later on, you get knocked out and thrown into a pit and get saved by plot armor. From here on, it feels like you're playing a whole different game, and that's not in a good way. The CFLU plot device isn't used for much, other than being used as an excuse to vaccinate yourself in a couple parts of the second half. The zombies are just headcrab zombies you find in HL2, with the fast zombies being black for no real reason. You pass through sewers and then eventually a Combine stalker/soldier factory, where the Vortigants are supercharging themselves or something. I'm not even sure what was going on during the last half because environmental storytelling becomes nonexsistent, and the goal of the game changes but doesn't come clear until it's right in your face at the end. It's like the developers took the second half of a different mod, and replaced the original second half of Entropy with this new one. It just felt like I was going through the Citadel from HL2 and getting my cheeks clapped by a bunch of aliens. The whole experience of being a Metrocop and doing my part in destroying the Resistance was thrown out the window.

Level design is okay. In some areas there are just way too many props the player can easily collide with. In the first mission I actually somehow moved a shelf over, and it blocked the way I was supposed to go. I had to spend some time to figure out how to move that shelf aside just enough so I could slide through (this also highlights why Gordon gets the gravity gun in HL2). The design would have also been better if the weapon damages were the same as HL2. Being shot by hitscanning enemies with powerful weapons from long range and CQB does not equate to a challenge, and this problem is exemplified by the level design. It feels like the aesthetics came first before gameplay. The environments look great and fit the HL2 universe amazingly, but the gameplay is hindered by the layouts themselves. The first example that comes to mind that is probably the most mentioned in all the Steam reviews is the very narrow hallway that has a machine gun post at the end in the wall. While it makes sense as to why that layout works conceptually, it just equates to an extremely frustrating experience, as the player has nearly no room to move around, and the rebels have hitscanning SMGs, shotguns, and machine gun that deal massive damage with each shot.

The boss fights are total ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. It's simply bullet sponge enemies that deal massive damage with no indication as to their health status. Bad level design also comes into play here. The final arena throws so much ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ at the player with both hitscanning enemies and level design, with no indication as how to avoid some of the dangers (which relates back to environmental storytelling and hints being absent for no reason). When I finally got to the final boss, he was so bullet spongey that I was questioning whether or not I was actually supposed to activate something else to defeat him (spoiler alert, you have to keep shooting him).

Despite all that I've covered, this game only took me around 2 hours to complete. I wouldn't recommend this game to the more casual player who wants to explore another take on the HL2 universe and experience a good, well told story. For those who want to hurt themselves plenty, I'd say go for it. I hope the sequel addresses and fixes all these shortcomings, as the concept is amazing.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Rainbow6/comments/9tot79/i_have_officially_uninstalled_siege/

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