Recent reviews by tpd1864blake

This game changed my life. No other game has invoked such feelings of grandness--ethereal beauty--divinity, even. I feel like Jesus when playing this game, the harbinger of death and the savior of humanity. I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. The Covenant see me upon the horizon and beg, for they know that I had opened my tattered mantle and there was only God to cry to now. They see the dark sun setting over the black ocean, a red eye in the sky gazing upon them, and the last thing they see is me galloping toward them on the back of a pale horse. It is not a question of if you should play Halo: The Master Chief Collection, but when you play Halo: The Master Chief Collection. If you do not buy this game, it will buy you; the time slipping through your fingers like sand, your hair wilting away and your nails turning black as you rot. You cannot avoid Halo: The Master Chief Collection. You can only bide your time. Need I convince you any more? You'll find tanks, plasma turrets, and aircraft, powerful new human and alien weapons, a singleplayer campaign spanning 10 massive indoor and outdoor environments, and support for intense multiplayer battles with up to 16 of your friends (or enemies!). And all that wrapped up in an epic sci-fi story that's so freaky, it makes me shake just thinking about it. Halo: The Master Chief Collection. Buy one--Heck, buy two! That's an order, soldier!

I miss my wife. If you're reading this, Madeline, please answer my calls.

Pretty cool game. Some levels were a bit confusing to find the intended solution though. The female core (forgot her name) is adorable in my opinion, love her dialogue. And the ending has the perfect setup for a Portal 2 sequel Maybe she can finally get that body she's always wanted after GLaDOS builds the coop robots. And being stranded on the moon I can only imagine the love hate relationship the two cores would develop Looking forward to more releases from this studio

I'm surprised this mod is free, it's basically its own expansion of HL2: Ep2. Wilson is an excellently written character, and 3650 has a great personality with constant jokes and subtle meme references about everything, it reminds me of Freeman's Mind. I like how this has its own "gnome" achievement like Episode 2, except the "gnome" in this game actually talks to you and there's benefits to bringing him along. I can't believe how much story you would be missing out on if you left him behind, it's like you're meant to bring him.

I'm a little confused about the story though, since you see Mossman recording her transmission at some point but you're also told in the beginning that the Citadel is destroyed, which places the whole series of events in just a few hours when in actuality it takes you about 8-15 hours (it did for me anyway) unless you're speeding through.

I also liked seeing the integration of assets from multiple different Source games. You see the bulky batteries, medkits, and syringes from Black Mesa or HL1, the slimmer batteries and medkits from HL2, and some unique assets such as Arbeit brand batteries. My favorite probably has to be the Aperture turret painted with rebel stripes that calls out "I have to protect the Humans!" The Xen and Race-X creatures look seamless in the environment with their rebuilt high-poly models. I like the squad mechanics, I wish you were given more opportunities to order your soldiers to breach a door, it would be cool to see them stack up and kick it open.

I really like the singleplayer DLC. Probably not going to play multiplayer, though. The new characters are great. The weapon is an excellent representation of innocence and it's funny to have the war veteran in armor explaining simple concepts to her. The pilot of Echo-216 is very relatable. Showing what is presumed to be his family at the beginning and consistently depicting his desperation to make it home alive makes it easy to relate with him and makes emotional scenes hit harder.

The Valor system of gradually unlocking equipment and troops feels natural and rewards completing side quests. Regaining territory feels great at groups of enemies will gradually stop spawning over time and be replaced with more and more scattered squads of UNSC next to functional vehicles, until eventually it feels like the Banished are using guerrilla war tactics more than you are. Unfortunately there is not much replayability after gaining 100% completion as most generic side quests such as squad in distress or hidden stashes are more or less the same.

Unfortunately, there is no cutscene for achieving 100% completion. I feel that this is slightly disappointing, and wish that an additional cutscene were to play which shows the UNSC at nearly full strength in the region with tanks and scorpions everywhere, then the chief would comment on how there is still work to do before boarding a vehicle and riding off to an unexplored part of the ring, possibly teasing the next game. Still, this was great for what I got and was definitely worth the money. The open-world aspect of this game exceeded my expectations.

Honestly I didn't notice any changes throughout the entire game even with max graphics. I only played this because I was curious about the community commentary

Played all the half-life games on my own, and it was great to be there with someone else as he experienced it for the first time. Although, they tweak the difficulty to make encounters harder because it's intended for 4-12 players, so keep in mind it may be hard even at the lowest settings. One thing that I like specifically is how the levels are redesigned to accommodate for multiple people, like how the airlock in hl_c01_a1 stays closed for about 20 seconds to give people time to join.

This game is great, it's surprising that it was made in the Source engine. I have played this for many years, but I was always awaiting for the next part of the story, Xen. Now that it's finally out, I can say that it definitely worth 7 years of effort. The graphics are standard for a Source game, although Xen went far and beyond on visuals. Since the recent update that changed the Soldier's AI, they have been a lot tougher to beat, and I really like how they changed some of the encounters in Surface Tension. Although my least favorite chapter would be Lambda Core, followed shortly by Residue Processing. Lambda core is a really slow paced chapter that requires you to run around and do chores. That wouldn't be bad enough, but it's right after the action packed "Forget about Freeman" and the stunning "Xen" chapters, which just detracts from it. Residue Processing is also pretty boring, but it isn't as bad since you can speedrun the whole chapter in about 10-20 minutes. My favorite chapters are the Xen chapters, but for my favorite earthbound one I would choose Unforseen Consequences since the suspense really builds up to that point, and the atmosphere is really made incredible through the source engine. And all of this is without even mentioning the soundtracks. By the time Xen songs were made, the composer really figured out what he was doing.

Meh, it’s okay I guess. It gets boring after a few hours though.