Recent reviews by Meriwether

Eh, it's pretty good.

A detailed Banished-like (survival RTS) with a slow pace and nice sense of progression. Definitely scratches that itch for something to throw hours into while listing to podcasts. The devs are pretty responsive to feedback and suggestions as well, which is always nice.

Playing Black Mesa takes me back to my younger years, back when I was full of optimism, youthful energy, and all kinds of stupid. Back then Half-Life 1 was easily one of the best games ever made. Still is, but was back then too. Now I'm old, less kinds of stupid, and still playing one of the best games ever made.

The attention to detail and little sequences throughout the game makes the Black Mesa complex feel like a real, lived in, place. The new lighting and shadow effects are nothing short of jaw dropping. The developers undoubtedly poured their hearts and souls into this, and it shows. Gameplay is slightly different from classic HL1, but still feels fun in its own way.

Pretty good, especially with friends. Or randoms with a mic. Or 54 person chaos servers. As long as zeds are getting dead its a good time all around.

5 years later and their unofficial motto remains truer than ever: Mod it until it breaks, then mod it some more.

A divinely grindy game. With really weird hacking. Like insanely weird. And frustrating at times. But gunplay and combat is godly. Fair warning, the plot is all kinds of crazy and takes a bare minimum of three complete run throughs to unlock the "true" ending.

Average gameplay coupled with one of the best plot lines in any videogame, ever, make this well worth however much you payed for it. The SP portion is 4-6 hours, but the story is better than many 20-40 hour rpgs, and easily beats out comparable games in the shooter genre. There are some scenes that really come as a punch in the gut. This is the first game that actually made me feel bad about killing the opposition.

It's a real shame that the actual gunplay is average. The weapons and enemies behave much like you'd expect them to. While effective, no weapon is particularly "satisfying" to use. Multiplayer is utterly generic. But if you can wade through some of the more mediocore parts of the gameplay, then you will experience one of the best stories in any videogame in the history of gaming.

8/10 - The story makes this game, the gameplay doesn't.

This game is pretty awesome. The art direction is spot on, taking you to some pretty amazing looking places. The combat is okay, and ramps up as you go along in a way that makes sense. The only downside are the strangely placed sliding sections, which occur seemingly randomly and add nothing to the game overall. Also, in one of the strangest design decisions I have ever encountered, there is only one boss fight in the game, and that is the final boss. There are times where it seems like the game is building up to a boss that never comes, making this even stranger. But that's a minor thing. I had a good experience playing Alice: Madness Returns, so I can firmly recommend it. My score is an 8.5/10

While overall okay the game feels rushed near the end. Don't expect GTA in the 1940's, becuase this is not it. Also, despite having it explained in the tutorial, there are no side missions at all. By the last few chapters the game's plot has really started to fall apart as well. The cliffhanger ending is also REALLY unsatisfying. You will spend 70-80% of your time in Mafia 2 driving around, so get used to it. There is no fast travel system. Even so, the gunplay, shootouts and brawls are pretty fun. Hand to hand fighting actually takes some skill to be good at. The DLC is literally all the sidemissions repackaged and sold to you. And they aren't worth it. Overall 6/10.

From the get go it is obvious this is a straight up console port. The game doesn't support proper widescreen video resolutions and comes with some serious sound issues. When you get to actually playing the game you'll find the weapon selection lackluster, with a few exceptions. The upgrade functionality feels tacked on and many of the enemies are more annonyances than anything else. The time manipulation mechanic is okay, but I feel they could have done more with it. Multiplayer is a crapshoot and dead.

Even so, Singularity does have some redeeming qualities. The story is a real head spinner with 3 seperate endings; although which one you get has nothing to do with your actions throughout the game and instead comes down to one decision at the very end of the game. The plot will have you guessing to the end, and then some. Some of the set peices throughout the story are really amazing, and the boss fights stand out as high points.

Overall, I'd give it 5/10. Wait for an under 10$ sale

Cryostasis is a strange, difficult and challenging game with a complex storyline and amazing atmosphere, hampered by some truly peculiar design decisions, minor bugs encountered liberally throughout, and incredibly steep system requirements for little noticeable visual improvement. That's not to say it is bad, just that it could be better. Even so, this is one of the most terrifying games I have played recently. The atmosphere really pulls you and never trully lets go. This is first person horror at its near finest. Only the likes of Amnesia and the Penumbra series beat it out in that regard.

I recommend this game for anyone who wants a different take on slow paced, first person horror. Ostensibly it is also a shooter with a robust melee weapon system, but don't go into this expecting Call of Duty with monsters. Think more Red Orchestra with insane homocidal creatures running around. Overall I give it a 7/10.