Recent reviews by desi_bwoy

A love letter to the classic shooters. Progression and 'Gravity gun' mechanics of of Half Life combined with some open ended levels & use-n-throw weapons from Halo. What I especially loved was the huge variety of weapons, even within a single levels. This allow for plenty of approaches to a level,

First two acts were really good. Third act was kinda okay. this applies to both story and gameplay. Only complaint I have is that the world doesn't feel very unique. It's supposed to be another planet, but feels like earth from an alternate timeline with the addition of 'anomalies'. And levels with Zombie-like enemies set in a dark environment. There are way too many of them. But this one is really a nitpick because zombie shooter gameplay isn't my cup of tea.

4/5

Don't play this simply because you like Half Life. This game does a lot of things that are its own and deviate from the gameplay of Half Life. Play this one because it's a good game inspired by the classic shooters of early noughties.

Very nice game, but just a few levels. Recommended only if you have extra cash lying around.

A bit too much of NES influence, not on graphics, but on controls. there are just two buttons, run and shoot. There's not even the 'stationary fire' button that was present in later contra games and even newer contra clones. Add the difficulty level on top of that. With the accessibility options that it has, one can go up to 999 lives and 999 HP. I think this feature of 999 lives and HP should be hidden behind a cheat as it completely removes any challenge from the game. Even in classic contra, the lives were limited to 30, so each death had an impact. The 'Easy option of 10 HP and 10 lives is easy enough. Looking at all that, and how this game also doesn't have anything to add of its own, I would not recommend this game to any contra fan. there are other better options to itch that contra scratch.

A breath of fresh air and a good break from modern FPSs. The best part about modern retro style games is how they combine the classic gameplay mechanics with modern game design and this game is a prime example of that. It has best parts of retro shooters, combined with the fast progression of modern games, so there's never a dull moment.

I really appreciate all the hard work devs put in, but the game design principles implemented in it are from like 2002. If that's your thing, amazing! go for it. It's just not my cup of tea and that would be the case for a lot of 'filthy casuals' like me. Hence, the review. They have implemented mechanics that just pad up the playtime for no good reason. For example-

-Health recovery has been padded up horribly. health doesn't regenerate normally and the supplies that should normally restore health are very limited. You have to eat food if you want to regenerate it and even then it's for a limited time. Healing spells and potions can end up hurting you (wtf?) The result- you waste your time gathering/arranging/buying stuff for cooking food. This mechanic was totally unnecessary as all it does is waste the player's time. This 'padding up' of time is exactly why games after the late 2000's added health regeneration, but no, the Devs of this game want to live in 2002

-Remember the point about healing spells and potions hurting you? Yeah, that's a thing. There's a certain 'factor' in this game that increases each time you use a healing spell or potion. So yeah, they had to make even this mechanic convoluted. you have to drink a potion to reduce that 'factor' if you want to survive and guess what the potion needs? Ingredients. So there you go- more padding. The result- you waste your time gathering/arranging/buying stuff for the potion because the devs of this game want to live in 2002



The game literally makes you waste time simply for staying alive. I can write about the super tough enemies too, but it's really a bother because of the poor health recovery mechanics. This system discourages enemy encounters as healing takes up actual supplies which you spend actual time of your life gathering. You'd even think twice before engaging a crab because it'll hurt you . The only health recovery mechanic that won't give you anxiety in this game is sleeping and I just want to thank devs that they spared us all in this particular context and didn't add the mechanics of preparing a sleeping pill from the gathered ingredients along with the fatigue from staying up too long to add "depth" to the "survival" aspect.

Also, did I mention that there is no Fast travel? In an open-world game developed in 2016! You have to waste hours and health supplies if you want to reach somewhere visited before. They really love their 2002's eh?

Playing this game is like playing Oblivion in 2021 after you've played Skyrim. Great if you are really passionate about RPGs and Skyrim was too 'dumbed down' for you but not if you really loved Skyrim and your taste is inclined towards modern streamlined game mechanics. This looks like a game made by people who got really infuriated by Skyrim's "dumbed-down mechanics" and decided to "correct" it themselves by not adding health regeneration and fast travel in their own thing. And you know what? I think that's great! That has been a major complaint of a lot of people and I'm just glad that they are getting a game they would love playing and that too for free! That's huge! I really appreciate the devs for it. I just think that the design decisions are outdated and might not be everyone's thing.

This is a thank you note to the Devs for this project. I've always heard praises of Half life, but when I finally sat down to play it, It was very late. The game's graphics had aged too much for being immersive in 2020. But Black mesa devs made it possible for gamers like us to enjoy this story which paved the way for my favourite game- Half life 2.

While this is a complete game, as of November 2020, there are still minor places where it needs polishing. For example, in the starting of original Half Life, the train ride fades in from black. While in this game, nothing was blacked out. the train was stopped, everything was visible and it started in a while, at least for me. It was almost like they forgot to add the fade in. I hope they are working towards to sort it all out. None of that interferes in the gameplay tho. It's simply amazing and I can't wait to finish my Half Life experience in 2020!

An interactive piece of art!

Very engaging and very, very beautiful! It's not a walking Simulator like some people have written in reviews. The later levels actually get pretty hard and you have to be quick and show some dexterity. I guess most of those reviewers haven't really played it through.

It's a fantasy game and not very historically accurate. The plague is shown to be spread by 'Rat-bites' (it doesn't. It spreads via fleas. Moreover, people at that time didn't even know that rats were responsible for the plague). Speaking of rats, they take centre stage in many levels and those levels are all about navigating through hordes of them using the means at your disposal.

You're constantly getting new abilities (mostly projectiles), so the game doesn't get boring at any point. It's somewhat slow during the first 3 hours, but is hard to put down when the story starts building up.

8.5/10 . Taking a point and a half away for the slow start and the final level (which was somewhat absurd in my opinion)

Liked it even more than the base game. But perhaps that's because I loved the base game in the first place. Has some really great moments and roaming about in wilderness was great for a change.

Also, this one is much easier than HL2. Developers haven't toned down on threat in any way. Infact, when in Half life you battle several Striders one after another, here, in the final battle, you face several Striders at once along with hunters. . What helps here is that they have given you better things to throw, more useful physics objects lying around, more explosives and more health pickups. Such conveniences weren't simply there in HL2. The game utilizes Gravity gun to the fullest and there are even enemies that are weaker to thrown physics objects. It's a great experience when played with gravity gun and most parts can be beaten without using any other weapon.