Recent reviews by DKatana

Separate Wheys contains just the right amount of cheese.

Todd Anthony Shaw, better known by his stage name Too Short, is an American rapper and record producer. Contrary to rumor, Too Short was not named in tribute to short, qualitative video games such as Pilgrims.

Darn tootin'.

Partly from my experience with the first 100 hidden cats, and partly from the simpler design, the second entry in this series was much easier and quicker to complete.

To increase difficulty in future titles, the developer could have only small parts of some cats visible. For example a fraction of the head with a small part of their tail or paws. As it is the cats are too large to stay hidden for long. I noticed this edition tries to blend some cats in with the shapes of the scenery, while a few had a little concealment from moving objects. These are good ideas which could evolve more too.

Prior to Half-Life, first-person shooters were simplistic. You’d dash around settings such as a base on Mars infested by hellish beasts, or a giant castle controlled by fascist maniacs. The game’s box and manual offered a brief plot summary, and you were let loose into levels which were mostly shooting galleries, and amid the carnage finding keys or keycards to unlock doors.

The gameplay was adrenaline-packed and fun, however it consisted entirely of shooting whatever moved across level after level, occasionally finding a bigger gun, or a secret room with power-ups. After say twenty of these levels, you’d fight a big boss that’s more of a bullet-sponge than normal enemies. Once this monstrosity is killed, the game concludes.

Half-Life upends this formula in totality. The intro consists of standing aboard a railcar transiting a ginormous research facility. You’re on your way to work, and must spectate to get a feel for where you are. You hear security announcements, watch colleagues chatting and going about their day, see heavy machinery operating, witness life proceed in a sophisticated, high-tech setting.

In a matter of minutes, Half-Life delivered more world building and atmosphere than any FPS title ever had. That’s before you even start…before you play an unwitting role in a disastrous science experiment which leaves you fighting for survival across the sprawling Black Mesa research complex.

A detailed story develops through the game; events are explained, and we feel immersed in the world before us. Characters have names, dialogue and personalities, and progress isn’t divided arbitrarily into levels with a singular objective of completion. Half-Life is comprehensively designed; the scientific and industrial environment of Black Mesa feels engrossing and realistic, in spite of the violent events and encounters the player must endure.

The puzzles make sense, as they are presented as functioning parts of the facilities you explore. They’re much more than finding a red keycard to unlock a red door, then proceeding to get a blue keycard to unlock a blue door. Likewise, this environmental problem-solving surpasses the worn FPS staple of pressing a button which opens a door on the other side of the level.

In Half-Life, the enemies require imaginative strategies to defeat. The soldier AI was revolutionary for its time, with squad members mobilizing together against threats. On a few occasions, certain opponents can only be killed through ingenious operation of machines. Gordon Freeman’s signature crowbar works both as a destroyer of easier enemies and as a tool to break vent covers and debris, allowing progress.

There’s obvious thought in the pacing of the adventure. The game waxes and wanes between quiet puzzle-solving and discreet navigation, and intense, explosive, nerve-jolting firefights. The soundtrack emphasizes the dramatic changes in mood with a synthesized mix of softly foreboding ambient tracks and energy-filled, bass-heavy adrenaline-pumpers.

The player’s armory is gradually upgraded, and each weapon satisfies a logical role. Even the placement of certain weapons is sensible; ammo and guns are awarded by accessing security offices or fortified checkpoints, rather than the secret rooms of earlier shooters. Your movement, health and armor are overseen by a futuristic hazard suit you don early in the game.

Here in the 2020s, what I’ve described in this review are bare essentials of story-driven first-person shooter games. In the late 1990s though, Half-Life was a groundbreaking effort hitherto unseen and scarcely even imagined. To this day it inspires narratives in videogames, it has received both official and unofficial expansions, plus the excellent fan-made Black Mesa project which expands and graphically revamps the game in the Source engine.

Half-Life is a part of videogame history. It elevated first-person shooters from jaunty, arcade-style distraction to a serious art form; an equal to literature and film.

Hey, Donkey's come to see us!
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Majula is the finest overworld in the Dark Souls series. It is a sorrowful, run down, neglected ruin of a village, yet curiously homely and heartening. It signifies how far humanity has fallen, but contains examples of its value and ingenuity. What a shame only hollow echoes of human glory remain to this place...can't we help matters? Isn't that what being a video game protagonist is about?

The story of Dark Souls II is not as epic, metaphysical, or all-encompassing as DS1 or DS3. We're decades or centuries late to a destructive party, and must sift around its leftovers for whatever morsels of insight remain. Gradually we unravel a tragic story of pride, cruelty, lust for power, and the collapse of a country. Your character is an anonymous wanderer with no preordained destiny, only a desire to lift the curse of undeath. Much of the game is spent combing the ruins of once-powerful Dranglaic, gaining scraps of equipment and knowledge, and amassing the souls of the hollowed humans and odd creatures that populate it. In dying and returning to life many times you live the curse, and are made to share your character's compulsion for closure.

Newcomers will find the gameplay repetitive and arduous, and progress will be slow and incremental. All the Souls games draw upon endurance and repetition through the memorization of difficult sequences. Summoning NPCs and other players, plus grinding for levels, marginally increases the leeway granted by the game. Learning and finally defeating a boss is the game's greatest motivation - the strength you gain, both in souls and in your spirit as a player - drives you forward to the next boss, and the next, etc. The world of Dark Souls II is the largest in the series; a few areas are weak in design, in the main however the levels are decent, and a few excel as challenging gauntlets.

Much of the game's soundtrack reflects its morose and contemplative world. By far the greatest highlights are the boss songs - like the fights themselves, these are sudden, exciting departures from everything inbetween. Sound effects of combat, gurgles and murmurs of enemies, ambient desolation - is rather sparse. A keen ear allows the cunning player to anticipate attacks. The occasion you hear a successful parry or the death rattles of a tough mob or boss is gratifying.

Graphics are generally solid and serviceable, rarely bedazzling. The environments range from the bleak and fog enveloped to ruins pulsing with faded grandiosity. Some of the best sights in the game are the motions of the toughest bosses; their animated, living brutality is a delight to behold. More than odd glimpses of beauty in the game's art direction, it's the elegance of the finest boss designs that imprint memories.

The DLC expansions involve three other decayed realms, formerly ruled by three other fallen kings. Together they build on the themes invoked by Dranglaic, but each explore somewhat different takes. There are callbacks aplenty to Dark Souls, but these take a backseat to character-driven examples of folly. The combat and boss fights are high quality, and the DLC levels are among the best-designed and most ruthless in the game.

Replayability is superbly high. New game plus heightens the base difficulty, while the game carries several optional bosses, bits of lore to sniff out, special gear, weapons and items, and a still-active PvP player base.

In all Dark Souls II is an excellent title, its rough edges and occasional stumbles more than outweighed by its deep and allegorical story, and the gameplay for which the series is notorious.

Hades Hades > Disney Hades.