Recent reviews by Elthrael

Well, this is it. End of the pointy-eared line. What a ride. A bumpy one, in places, but a great ride nonetheless.

I remember when this game came out and the whole performance and bugs debacle was taking place. I gave the game a hefty detour but I swore I'd come back to it in a few years to see if things have improved. Well, my rig certainly has improved, but to be honest, the game ran great for me (except one area in Stagg airships dropped my FPS by a lot for some reason) and I only encountered two or so crashes in my entire 52 hours, which, for an open-world game this dense and massive, is pretty good. Mid playthrough nVidia even fixed their GameWorks stuff so I got to experience all the fancy FX too. I'm not going to mince words here. This game looked incredible in 2015 and it still does. Everything is polished to a brilliant shine: the textures are detailed, the weather effects and water are breathtaking, the animations are fluid, the sound design stellar as always, the whole thing just fires on all cylinders and looks down on the previous games from way up high.

Gameplay-wise, to me, it feels to the Arkham games what GTA V is to the GTA series: it's a culmination of all the things the devs tried and learned in the previous installments and then adds some more to the mix. Let's get this out of the way first: YES, the Batmobile is way, WAY overused. Yes, there are a ton of gadgets and it's a bit much to wrap your head around at first. But the whole thing just clicks. My favorite new additions were open-world predator encounters (I don't think we ever had outdoor predator encounters other than that ship in AO) and the "pick your mission" gameplay loop. I like games that let me tackle the massive list of missions at my own pace (*glares at Far Cry 5*), and this game does this superbly, and even though I was a bit annoyed at the objective gating, it prevented me from just blasting through everything and it prevented the game from feeling too ADHD-like (*glares at Far Cry 4*). Sure, there are a lot of collectibles, and the gameplay still mainly consists of punching, sneaking and analyzing, but there are so many permutations to the formula that it only starts feeling a bit samey towards the very, very end. Keeping a game feeling fresh for 30-50 hours is a daunting task, and the Arkham Knight delivers.

I don't want to say too much about the story, but I found it phenomenal. The way the ending ties in with the whole theme of the game is just magnificent. For a game story based on a comic book (i.e. not something to read too much into), this is as good as it gets.

I mentioned bumps in the ride, and to me, the main thing was, as mentioned, overuse of the Batmobile. The car itself is cool as hell and I liked how it was integrated into the environment and the Riddler puzzles, so in essence, it IS a breath of fresh air, but there are some downright silly ideas like "car stealth" and massive "tank" battles that really feel a bit out of place in a Batman game. Its use also stretches the idea of Batman's non-lethality as far as the canon has ever tried. Not to mention the fact that zipping around and gliding is still the fastest way of getting around. But hey, I'd be lying if I say it wasn't fun having *a* Batmobile of some kind. It's a cool addition, if a bit misguided.

Lastly, the DLCs are a joke. I got the GOTY edition so I got everything in one package, but they really should've been part of the base game. I can't believe they had the gall to charge money for 20 minute, three-objective missions. They're fun distractions, but ultimately a cash grab.

All in all... it feels sad to say goodbye to the Arkham franchise, but it was the 21-gun salute send off of massive proportions that we deserved. This may be how the Batman died, but it's a series that I will never forget and will fondly remember for years to come.

It's not all bad, but ultimately, to me, there were more negatives than positives to warrant a positive review.

Visually, the new levels are stunning and it was nice to see id apply some green, foliage and some nature into these otherwise desolate worlds, it was a breath of fresh air. The game still runs like butter and while I miss our old pal Mick - nothing will ever spank as hard as his tracks - the new music is... adequate.

In the gameplay department, we have a few additions, the hammer, the annoying "must-blood-punch" prowlers, indestructible Riot guards, Stone Imps and a Baron of Hell with a weak-spot. The hammer is fun, but overpowered as all hell, and the new enemies are okay, with the Spirits from TAG1 also making a return. I found the Stone Imps annoying and I hope this trend of "can only be killed by X weapon mod" doesn't carry over into future id games. There are also "escalation events", which are Gore Nests that respawn for extra cosmetics, but are otherwise optional, a kind of stand-in for Slayer gates. All these additions shake up the combat just enough for the game to be interesting again.

However, not all is rosey in the land of DOOM Eternal. The DLC is really short, I completed it in 2 or 3 hours (one sitting, basically). It's also a bit wonky in difficulty, people complained TAG1 was too hard and too cheap, this one I think is not as challenging as it could be, it's more the game annoying you every once and a while and it calls that "difficulty/challenge". That, and the last boss fight is just... tedious beyond description. It's basically a Marauder with some extra tricks, except it's stupidly finnicky to get him to do the flash thing, the boss heals when you take damage, the hit detection is all over the place, it's just unfun to the core and it kind of ruined the whole thing for me.

As for the story, I stopped following the story right around TAG1 because it's just too wordy, convoluted and up it's own for it to be even ironically interesting/amusing. Too many deities, myths, legends, names, places to keep track of in a fast-paced shooter. I don't even know who the bad guys or the good guys are/were, who betrayed who and what happened, I just don't care because NONE of it has any bearing on the world you inhabit and slay demons in - the definition of tacked-on.

Combine the short length, the more-annoying-than-challenging new enemies and the slog of a final boss fight with a price tag of 20€, and you get a "not recommended" from me. It's pretty, it sounds good, it still plays well, it's still mostly fun, but the balance dipped into "nope" too much on this one for me.

Grayson Hunt's Pro Butt-shooter is a pretty neat game sadly marred by technical hiccups and a painfully short runtime. While the ride is short, there's still no shortage of thrills.

Visually, we've got Unreal 3 engine firing on all cylinders. Being a remaster, it supports high framerates and high resolutions and it looks pretty darn nice for a remaster of a game released in 2011. The artstyle is quintessential early 2010s, big bulky character models with brown stuff on them and lots and lots of destroyed setpieces. The worlds are interestingly executed but are a bit bland by concept: the seven Acts are distinguishable, but they're nothing groundbreaking: toppled cities, messed up spaceships, sewers, platforms, standard sci-fi military shooter fare.
The sound is alright, the gun sounds do their job but are sadly nothing memorable, and the score is the typical mix of orchestral and cheap djonty metal you'd expect from a game of that era.

The gameplay is this game's ultimate strength, ignoring the forced quick-time events and camera pulls (the game was made in 2011 and it shows). I called it "Grayson Hunt's Pro Butt-shooter" as an attempt at being funny, but that's basically what it is: a shooter where you get points from killing enemies in creative and brutal ways. The points you can then spend on weapon upgrades and ammo on the plentiful Dropkits found throughout the levels. I found it a satisfying combat loop and the fact that ammo pickups are rare and you're sometimes forced into buying ammo keeps the gameplay exciting and the minimal resource management adds some much-needed depth to the game. Upgrades for guns and the guns themselves are drip-fed at more or less regular intervals, and at the end you're rewarded with Overkill mode, essentially a New Game+ where the stupid 3 weapon limit is removed and your guns are upgraded from the get-go.

The enemy roster is solid as well with your usual assortment of fast, annoying enemies, slow, bullet sponge enemies, regular trash, spec-ops soldiers, mini bosses and so on. I'd say the game is well-balanced on Hard and you really have to use everything in your arsenal if you want to be effective because these guys won't hesitate to mow you down first chance they get.

Unfortunately, the game is plagued by game-breaking bugs, some of which can be fixed by reloading a checkpoint, others need a game restart, chapter restart or complete game reinstall. This game has been out for 4 years and these bugs have been reported from the start, yet they still haven't been ironed out. I experienced two of them and while both were fixed (one by reinstalling, then reloading a chapter, another by simply reloading a savegame), isn't polish the point of a remaster!? There are also weird audio glitches in some cutscenes and so on.

Lastly, the story is... meh, at best. Your typical revenge tale turned something else and to be honest, I didn't really buy the character's "development". Speaking of the characters, they veer left and right on a strange road between parody and tryhard-ness. There's a loooot of swearing and tough-talk, and not a lot of it lands, sometimes it feels like it's there for the sake of it. If you're 12, this will be hilarious. If you're not, you'll get tired of the macho, spittle-drooling f-bombs and countless dumb combinations of profanity and reproductive organs. But I won't hold the story against this game too much - it's not the point of the game and while it adds nothing, it also doesn't detract anything from the overall experience.

All in all, Bulletstorm is a fine, points-laden shooter romp through familiar-feeling but unique looking environments. For shooter fans, it's an easy recommend from me. It's short, yeah, It took me around 8 hours to complete the main campaign with plenty of reloads to get skillshots down and hunt for collectibles, but I prefer short games that don't overstay their welcome to dragged out games. Beware of bugs, strap yourself up, warm up that left-click button and get ready to kick some dudes into the air while piledriving a drill projectile into a boss's face. Good stuff!

Superhot was neat, but painfully short. Superhot: Mind Control Delete is neater still, somewhat longer, and, as the game's achievements and erm... "story" keep smashing into your skull, MORE. A lot was thrown at the wall, some of it stuck very well, some of it kind of slid down, and some of it fell flat.

I won't bother with the "story" much. It's again told through a computer terminal and flashing messages, and it's one of those things where you either love it and accuse everyone else of "not getting it", or hate it and accuse everyone else of being "pretentious art nerds". It's more or less the same idea as Superhot: the game wants you to recognize it's addictive and despite it's simplistic and repetitive nature, you supposedly can't put it down, so you should relinquish your humanity and be nothing so you're finally at peace. Or something.

In the presentation department, there aren't any substantial changes, and to be honest, none were really needed in the first place. The game has a recognizable art style and it still runs like greased lighting, and while I haven't played the original recently to compare, the maps struck me as more detailed and polished, so a +1 there. The music is still minimal, but it does it's job.

The gameplay has been shaken up quite a bit though. MCD is less linear and more random - the levels are grouped together in "nodes" and the maps are randomly selected in groups of around 5-10 (or 100, for the penultimate optional mode, lol), and if you fail a level, the maps in a node get reshuffled. I raised my eyebrows a bit the first time that happened but it's a welcome addition because it reduces frustration and keeps the gameplay from becoming stale. There is also a "life" system that makes the game a bit more forgiving while retaining the challenge.

Speaking of not becoming stale - this time around, we have powerups, or "hacks", and four classes (or "cores") to choose from, and while having more lives, being able to recall your Katana and possessing red dudes is handy, to me, the Charge (teleport and punch enemies) core is by far the most useful and I dare even say overpowered a bit because it lets you warp right through already fired bullets, making it a bit of a "get out of jail free" card. The hacks are very varied and you are randomly awarded a choice of two from your hack pool every few maps in a node, meaning you can have makeshift "builds" that change every time you attempt a node. Very well done and a textbook example of how to do randomness in games without making a mess of things. Regardless of my feelings towards Charge, the classes and powerups together make the gameplay a whole heap more interesting, making the 6-7 hour journey of MCD engaging from start to... almost finish.

And the ending, or rather, the last "stretch", is my only real gripe with this game. Most of it, like 90% of it was great, but the last bunch of cores force you to hand in your powerups, and for the last few levels, MCD essentially becomes a less interesting version of itself. It's just so dumb to give the player all these awesome toys to play with and instead of making the last levels super hard and letting you use MORE (despite the sardonic tone, that WAS the freaking point of this game, at its core, right?! MORE?!) hacks or find a good combo to beat a hard level, you're slowly stripped of everything and end the game like a chump. I know their whole shtick was "no climax" and "no satisfaction" or whatever, but this is pushing it. Nothing, I repeat, NOTHING excuses making a game unfun to make a "statement". You can make the same statement without sucking all the fun from the game in its last breaths.

Lastly, the price. I'm still not sure it's worth the full price of 25€, but the "One of Us" bundle with the original that frequently goes on sale for around 20€ Euros is more like it.

In conclusion, MCD expands on the Superhot formula with absolutely stellar implementation of randomized elements, fun and creative powerups and classes and slightly more polished maps. The story is what it is and the ending is unfortunately a wet sock, but... I'd be lying if I said that last hour or so completely ruined an otherwise enjoyable 6-7 hour experience (and 2.5 hours of idle time for that last friggin achievement, lmao).Well, what are you waiting for? You know you want MORE. MORE RED DUDES TO KILL. In MORE FUNNER WAYS.

Here's the 411: if you like 90s shooters, fantasy or both, this is the game for you. If you're thinking "hey I loved Quake/Doom/Unreal/Heretic etc., will this scratch that itch" for the love of God YES. It will. And then some. What I'm saying is, AMID EVIL is a tastefully done retro shooter that doesn't feel like a cheap retread of something we already experienced 25+ years ago.

Unreal Engine is responsible for the visuals, and boy does this game look good. While this game does lean heavily into the "art over fidelity" approach, the balance between crisp, polished elements versus gritty, pixelated elements is unique and well-struck. It doesn't look like crap and hand-wave it off as "retro". Nope. You can tell care and love was put into the maps, the enemies and the weapon models. Same with the sound design, the music is some of the best atmospheric, mood-painting stuff I've ever heard in a game, the soundscape in general is instantly recognizable and I'm glad you can't really say "oh it sounds like this game". It's it's own thing.

This "own thing" is the main reason why AMID EVIL works so well. People are so quick to happily nod and go "oh it's a modern Heretic reimagining". I mean... fair enough, Heretic was the first to do low fantasy and shooting mechanics together, but apart from the somewhat magickey weapons, this game's atmosphere feels more like Quake or Unreal with less gritty sci-fi and more fantasy. Heretic was firmly cartoony, dark fantasy. AMID EVIL feels a lot more ominous and darker still. The movement is way more responsive than anything ever conjured up in the DOOM engine (hence my comparisons to the kings of FPS movement).

Without delving into too much detail, I just want to praise three elements that are, for all intents and purposes, the only elements that really matter in an FPS game: the weapons, the maps and the enemies.

The weapons are a great collage of cool ideas, the soul mode alt-fire powerup makes the whole roster very flexible and you'll never feel like a weapon has lost its usefulness right up to the very end. There are four ammo types and I feel like here they could've drawn a bit MORE from Heretic and did the whole "some weapons use two ammo types at once" thing, but the four types work well enough still. My favourite is the Star of Torment, a shotgun-like mace/wand that shoots spikes in a spread pattern that pins enemies to the wall if you "overkill" them (hit them with more damage than necessary to kill).

The enemies likewise keep you on your toes. Seven episodes of three levels + boss level, you'd think there'd be some recycling or laziness, but nope, every area has its own distinct monsters and I never for a second thought "oh, this again". Top notch stuff.

And the maps. Oh, the maps. Once again I need to stress that some 90s FPS maps were too convoluted or complex for their own good. I think devs have learned this lesson too since 1996 and this is absolute creme-de-la-creme. Just complex and non-linear enough to be interesting, just simple and well-laid out to be easy to navigate. Perfect. I've already gushed how pretty and detailed they are, so no need for that twice. Lastly, the length is perfect as well. Some oldschool games really overstayed their welcome, but since the market wasn't as dense as today, I can understand why they wanted to give the players a more lengthy experience. Either way, AMID EVIL took me 12 hours for a nice, unrushed playthrough on Hard with some secret hunting, but if you're a completionist (without guides), you're easily looking at around 20 hours at least.

If I had to look hard (really hard) for something to knock... I guess the boss fights aren't very challenging if you're a stupid hamster like me and overprepare. A soul-powered Star of Torment will melt most any but the last two bosses and the very final boss, but the other bosses are pretty easily dispatched. I honestly don't remember what the Solar boss looked like because I murdered him so quickly. Some kind of weak spot or phase mechanic would work wonders to make boss battles a little more challenging, but they're alright since you can always just choose not to use Soul mode and do it that way.

In summary... the game is great in all aspects (except bossfights), and if you like 90s shooters and want something contemporary to get that circlestrafing, white-knuckle left-mouse button holding action fix, you're in for a treat. An easy recommend from me!

This is probably my favorite game of all time for three reasons: it was made with love and attention to detail (emphasis on the past tense), it combines so many of my favorite things in gaming (first person, fantasy, melee + ranged, Warhammer) and it's just plain fun. It does, however, have a MYRIAD of flaws.

Graphics and presentation is not one of those flaws. This game is gorgeous and it's oozing with style, detail and if you've ever read a Warhammer novel or if you're a Warhammer fan, you'll instantly be taken in by the atmosphere. The lighting is gorgeous, the texturework detailed and the animations flow seamlessly. The sound design is tight and every enemy has a clear, unmistakable sound, the weapons sound and feel meaty and impactful, the music is top-notch. It is a fairly demanding game that taxes both the CPU and the GPU, but for me it runs about as well as I'd expect.

The core gameplay is also one of this game's strengths. Essentially, it's a four-player co-op horde hack and slash. There are five characters with 3 careers each plus two extra payable careers for two characters (we'll get to that later). Most classes have a melee weapon and a ranged weapon (some have 2 melee). There's no story, per se, just background lore and the game consists of linear missions with some scripted sequences and an AI director generating random horde spawns, boss spawns, special enemy spawns and so on. The roster is wide and varied - even the trash mobs have two tiers, then there are Elite enemies that hit hard and have armor/more health, special enemies that disable you or have crowd control, it's just good mechanics all around (except Blightstormers, they can buzz off). This means no two runs will be the same and it keeps the gameplay fresh and reactive instead of turning into rote memorization. As I've mentioned, the animations and feedback are tight and the game feels responsive. This is fantastic, because despite it's random nature, at its core, it's still a skill-based game... mostly. The maps are fun, varied and as I've said, beautiful and I haven't gotten tired of them even after 450 hours.

One last, really good thing - the characters are A+. The banter is awesome, the voice acting superb, they have great chemistry and they're just fun to be around. They're a talkative bunch and I love it because it gives the game so much charm you could measure it in bucketloads.

There are, sadly some glaring faults and annoyances. First and foremost... to me, the game didn't really start until the fourth difficulty, Legend, around 100 hours in. Up to that, the game might seem totally boring or too easy to newcomers and the fact that all difficulties grant the same amount of leveling XP might mean someone will infer that the game is just a boring grind. I mean, it IS a grindy game, but to me, the appeal is that it keeps getting harder and harder and it's fun to master a difficulty and move on to the next one until you can hold a Cata horde on your own. Unfortunately, it's hard for beginners to experience how fun this game is at higher difficulties because the game is just too watered down on the easier ones. Let me give you an example: during a Recruit run, you might run into ONE horde and maybe 10 specials throughout the entire map. Traversal is risk-free and dull. During a Legend run, you will get upwards of 1000 trash enemies and specials in the 50s or 60s. Hordes will spawn very, very often and specials and elites will populate even mundane roads and paths making traversal actually dangerous and thrilling.

Another thing that might turn new players off is the loot system. You basically collect Tomes that replace your healing item and Grimoires that replace your potion buff in order to level up a loot box that you get upon completing the mission. Higher difficulties give better chests, and your loot level slowly rises. The drops are still random, so the road to max damage/stat gear is long and tedious and the Winds of Magic DLC (for all its other problems) had a MUCH better upgrade system that I wish they would just transfer to the main game.

That said, some maps are just unfairly hard and even though I said the game is mostly skill-based, sometimes the game just forces you to lose because it throws so much crap at you even four skilled players don't stand a chance. There are also some issues with hit detection and/or lag, so be prepared for quite a few "that was total bull" moments. It's just the nature of peer-to-peer and randomly generated encounters - sometimes you'll get dealt a bad hand, sometimes you'll lag, and sometimes, both will happen and you die through very little or no fault of your own.

Lastly, the elephant in the room... the support and development. This game has had SO many issues, so many crashes and things breaking, and the fact that there's no dedicated server means networking issues are common and totally ruin the fun. The devs seem to break more things than they fix sometimes and I dread what will happen everytime the game gets patched. Things do get resolved eventually but the game is just plain broken every so often. The other thing is the content or lack thereof. The devs have promised a PvP mode years ago. They drip-feed payable careers. They released a DLC that split the playerbase even further and locked the game's highest difficulty behind a paywall. Just... iffy decisions across the board and it really detracts from what is otherwise a stellar game. EDIT: now that Darktide is out and given what an absolute slow-burning disaster that is, Vermintide II is actually in a pretty good place. All the payable careers are out and I have to say they're all fun and worth the few bob.

All in all, in spite of the bad netcode, the random nature sometimes ruining the fun, the devs making questionable decisions about the game's future, this game remains my firm favourite. Come join us and become one of the bloody Ubersreik Five... or four, it doesn't matter.

Alan Wake has some great ideas but is ultimately dragged down into forgettable darkness by it's mind-numbingly repetitive and stale gameplay.

Credit where credit is due, the presentation is stellar and the game still looks and sounds decent almost 10 years down the line. The character models and animations feel a bit dated, but lighting and textures are superb, the darkness really feels thick without being just outright black and impenetrable. The environments detailed and lush with Bright Falls seeming like a living, breathing city - just a shame we never really get to experience it. The weapon sounds are meaty and impactful and while some sounds are outright recycled from Max Payne, the sound design in general is great as well, including the music.

The story is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it borrows so many beats from famous horror giants like Stephen King, H. P. Lovecraft that horror fans will recognize and appreciate. The setting and eerie, eldritch and slightly campy "there's something fishy around here" vibe is as close as we can get to a Twin Peaks 3rd person action game and as a fan of the first series of Twin Peaks, I'd be lying if I wouldn't say I reveled in the references. On the other hand, despite having a great meta-story and delving into topics such as writer's block, depression and so on, the whole thing still feels a bit cobbled together and... I don't want to call it "unoriginal", but it seems a bit "fan-servicey", at least. If you've consumed any art from the writers or shows I mentioned earlier, you won't find this story terribly fresh. Maybe it was fresh in 2010, but today, it feels like a fairly standard high-brow horror story, maybe because the insanely great idea of darkness having literal embodiment when wielded by artists is never really explored in depth. There's also this oddly tacked on "TV-show" format that is just there out of nowhere. And while the ending was unfortunately a bit abrupt and to me, not really satisfying, the story was ultimately what kept me going because in terms of gameplay, this game has very, very little to show for, and is the reason for my negative review at the end of the day.

The idea itself seems pretty unique on the surface (I guess that's a running theme here): enemies are only vulnerable once you've exposed them to (enough) light. That's all fine and dandy, but... there are literally five enemy types, and three of them only appear a handful of times during the 10-or-so hour campaign. They're bog-standard stuff, too: regular trash mob, big heavy health sponge, fast annoying weak enemy. Enemies have a ranged attack which is literally "throw random crap at player" and a melee attack. The combat is simple: point flashlight, wait, shoot, repeat. Over, and over, and over again. There are six weapons - revolver, shotgun, hunting rifle and flare gun, a flare and a flashbang (which people apparently leave lying around everywhere), so it's not like the arsenal is exciting either. There's some minor resource management involved in the first part of the game but nothing that would really amount to "challenge" either. Lastly... the final level is a total slog with little to no relevance to the story, it's literally just "go to this place", and like I've mentioned, the ending just fizzles out, no great boss fight, no big reveal, nothing. So even after you've dragged Alan's weak-lunged behind (he can sprint for like 10m, by the way) through 10 hours of gameplay, you feel like you just... finished a game.

After finishing the game, I learned there are two DLCs (The Signal and The Writer), but honestly, I didn't even bother with them and HLTB lists their completion time as sub 2 hours each, so I'm just going to assume it's typical the slimy "cut content repackaged as DLC" move of the early 2010s.

Ultimately, I was asking myself "does the neat story outweigh the sluggish, boring and repetitive gameplay", and my answer was no. If Alan Wake was a TV show or a book, it would be terrific fun. As a game, it sadly isn't.

I give this game a negative review with a very, very heavy heart. Max Payne 1 was incredible for its time and Max Payne 2 took everything that made MP1 great and expanded it tenfold. This seems like one step forward, a step sideways, and seven giant leaps back.

Graphics were the one of the step forward. The game is gorgeous and even nearly 10 years later they are still gorgeous. The environments are populated and fairly varied, the game looks amazing, no arguments there. The sound design is also good, the weapon sounds are punchy and the voice acting is... well, it's alright.

In the gameplay department, we have a 4 weapon limit (booooo), but bullet-time and shootdodging are back in all their glory and popping baddies in slow motion will never, ever get old (yaaaaay!) There are some neat scripted sequences that are fun, over-the-top and enjoyable. The shooting itself is more or less your standard 3rd person cover shooter. Having played GTA V before this game, it feels to me like MP3 was Rockstar's "beta" for GTA's combat system (minus the shootdodging and bullet time). There are some neat ideas like the "last man standing" mode where you get to pop a baddie that would've killed you for a last hurrah (or until you run out of painkillers), so it's not completely unoriginal. That said, despite my negative review, the combat itself is absolutely badass - WHEN it gets to shine, and there are quite a few areas, odd setting aside (more on that later).

What falls flat on its face and breaks all its teeth in the process are the ENDLESS. CUTSCENES. Yes, some are skippable, and some are "fake skippable", i.e. you hit "skip" just for the game to tell you it's "still loading" (yes, my nvme SSD needs 2 minutes to load a 30 second shootout from a game from 2012, totally believable). This is news to no one in 2021, and I was honestly in the "it can't be that bad" camp until I actually played this game. Well, "played" it's such a strong word. During the 9 or so hours it took me to complete the main campaign on Normal, I spent probably 4 hours watching Max do RIVETING things such as: walk down stairs, look at people and talk, climb ladders, sneak around corners, drink, drink more, curse, drink, walk down stairs... you feel me? Look, I don't mind cutscenes, but... in one level you literally spawn, walk about 10 meters, there's a cutscene of Max opening a door and crouching, then you walk 10 more meters, and there's a cutscene again. You get to shoot two guys, then two more guys, and a cutscene of Max opening a door again. WHY?! What did I do in that time to warrant yanking control away from me twice?! It adds nothing to the plot, the experience or the gameplay. It's just... annoying.

But I could live with the cutscenes, the cover system or the 4 weapon limit if this was actually a Max Payne game. The writing is all over the place, the story is boring, and Max is just another stereotypical action hero. Seriously, I think someone just wanted to make a Bruce Willis movie, the pitch failed and Rockstar bought it and made it into this game. Look. Max Payne 1 and 2 didn't have highly original stories either, but it was the way they were presented in this oddball mix of camp, film noir, comic book intermezzos and cop action that made the sum of its parts fresh and cool. Max's depression and gothic metaphors were tongue-in-cheek and intentionally pathetic, and that made them work. This? This is just your Thursday late afternoon TV action movie. You can play the sad violin theme from MP2 over sunny favelas all you want, it just jarring, like mashing two different puzzle pieces together. It does. NOT. Work. At all. There are very brief moments where you see the potential such a strange mix of setting and themes could work (like the hotel) but even then... once you're outside in the sunshine, it just collapses on itself. Also... the ending... really?

In conclusion... if you want to shoot generic bad guys in the face in slow-motion, it's a good a game as any, heck I'd argue it's the best slow-mo shooter experience I can think of. But sadly, to me, it's not enough, the story is a snoozefest, the setting and the character feel wildly out of place with each other and the cutscenes break the flow of gameplay more than a crowbar to a creaky water pipe. To me, the Max Payne story ends with "I had a dream of my wife. She was dead. But it was alright". Or with "We have two survivors", whichever you prefer. This is an insult to that story.

Black Mesa is phenomenal, with a few quirks and very few legitimate complaints. As a fan of the original Half-Life (warts and all), I have to say I felt right at home in this excellent remake.

The visuals are nothing short of stunning, the HL2 engine is pushed to its absolute limits and everything looks crisp, detailed and in general you can tell there has been a LOT of love poured into the visual aspect of things. Especially Xen. Xen is so incredibly oozing with style it's... I can't really put it into words you just have to see it for yourself.
In terms of sound, I'm also impressed. The sound design in general is also top-notch, great weapon sounds (especially the Gluon Gun, wow), pumping action tracks, cool ambient music.

The story is largely left intact (save for the two marines that capture Freeman, that was a bit of a strange departure), so I won't waste words on it. Moving on.

The gameplay carries over very well. The aliens behave more or less identically to the original. The marines are relentless, even more so than in HL1, and some areas are the cheap kind of difficult as a result, but overall, I enjoyed the action-packed middle section of the game, it felt a lot more natural than in the original. That said, I could've sworn the MP5 had 50 rounds, that the pistol wasn't so strong, that the shotgun had a faster rate of fire and so on - so in the weapons department, some things feel different, but not in a way that I'd say they feel "off" or "worse. You just have to get used to it.

The maps (save for Interloper, more on that shortly) are just amazing as well. I can't get over how well they managed to expand upon the ideas in the original with a tweak here and there to make the whole thing even more palpable, tangible and flowing super-smoothly. Black Mesa in Anomalous Materials feels a lot more teeming with life, the survival horror is soup-thick thanks to the excellent lighting and layout of the first third of the game, Surface Tension and Forget About Freeman are awesomely brought to life, On a Rail is shorter (yay), Lambda Core and Xen are amazing too, just nothing but good things to say, again.

Any negatives, then...? Well... not really, no. I didn't have any performance drops, bugs, I had the odd ragdoll spaz-out but that happened in HL2 as well, nature of the beast etc. The weapon and story departures aren't significant enough to make up a worse experience. The only thing that really ticked me off was Interloper. That map was tedious to begin with and for some arcane reason, they decided to stretch it out even more. The whole organic factory shtick grows old really, really fast and all the puzzles are just a variation on the same thing over and over again, just... annoying, is the word I'm looking for. The initial vista, the Vortigaunts and the crystals powering the Gluon Gun were nifty and all but other than that, it's just utterly forgettable platforming with some hasty combat sections.

All in all, if you haven't played Half-Life one and graphics are what is putting you off, well, no more excuses for you! If you played and loved the original, you'll love this as well (and hate Interloper even more). Win-win. Limitlessss potential!

You want more DOOM: Eternal? You got it!

What you're looking at is 3-5 hours of more demon slaughtering, glory killing, chainsawing madness. The overall formula isn't changed much, the game is still fast, hectic, challenging and fun. There are a few new mechanics like the spirits and the Blood Maykrs and it's just enough to keep things fresh. The new maps are awesome, creative and I liked the second map (the swamp one) the best, this engine has definitely proven it can handle a variety of environments very well. The same combat loop you're used to is still there with one or two twists and if you enjoyed the first game, you'll fell right at home in this DLC.

There are three things I didn't like, none of them major. Firstly, the story in these games is always a bit corny and campy, but I felt towards the end I just kind of stopped caring about who's who, who's evil and who's good, and don't get me started on that stupid Intern character. A bad story is bad, a good story is good, but a story you don't care about has to be the worst in my book and while it's not completely there yet, I'm slowly starting to lose track and interest at the same time. Secondly, the last boss fight and the ending left me a tad cold, but hey, it's Part One, they gotta save something for parts two and three or four or however many they have planned. Also, I gotta say I love Andrew Hulshult, but I can't help the feeling he was trying his best to be Mick Gordon and the results aren't that great. The tracks aren't bad, but none of them really stuck with me the way the base game's OST did.

Finally... is it worth 20€ ...? Eeeeeh, I don't know. I bought it at full price and I gotta say I didn't feel ripped off, but the whole thing is over a bit soon. Definitely wait for a sale or something.