Recent reviews by SP2G50000

Here's some of my thoughts on it. I'm recommending this as I suggest you leave your own thoughts as well:

The Good:
- The environment and graphics are absolutely stunning. It's very pleasing to roam around the levels.
- While not exactly the same, the gameplay captures the original Half-Life 2 feel very well.

The Bad:
- There are some quirks near the beginning I would like to see resolved, mainly:
- There are no footsteps sounds at the beginning. It felt like I witnessed a bug.
- Obtaining the HEV suit freezes the player until the animation finishes. This felt extremely jarring. I hope this pause gets removed in the final game (assuming you start without an HEV suit.)

The Ugly:
- Regarding the level design, there was a point where I got stuck because the way forward was blocked by some furniture in an area with no lighting whatsoever. I only figured out where to go when I noclipped. This needs to be made more obvious.
- I expect as much from an Unreal title (especially from a smaller team) but performance was disappointing. At lowest settings I only get an upwards of ~80 frames per second, which feels lackluster for an FPS game. I feel more work needs to be done to improve it.

Overall though, I'm very happy the Project Borealis team released this tech demo. I hope these thoughts are helpful for the development team.

It's written in Rust. 🦀

Thank you for changing your mind, Sony.

Disclaimer: I am a playtester for Portal: Revolution.

Portal: Revolution is one of the best designed mods to release on Steam. Every puzzle in the game is designed to test you - and if you aren't too well versed in the mechanics, don't worry: Revolution's puzzles also teaches you all the moves necessary for completing the game, making it approachable to all regardless of your past experience with Portal. To top it all off, the game is paired with an intriguing story that will make you question some things about the wider Portal Universe.


I thoroughly recommend playing through this mod.


The only complaint I have with this mod is that there is one (non-puzzle) level that felt confusing, and I felt the ending was a bit abrupt. However, I feel these are minor issues, and do not detract from playing the mod overall .

Portal Prelude RTX does offers many unique improvements over the original mod. Aside from graphical changes, it now features proper voice acting and writing (As opposed to the Text-To-Speech and broken English in the original mod) and a couple quality of life improvements in some levels.

Unfortunately, those quality of life improvements fall short quickly, as almost every issue with the original Portal Prelude's gameplay is still present. Many test chambers are inelegantly designed, and most puzzles in the mod have tedious solutions that are infuriating and unenjoyable for the average player, and in some cases the solution is completely unclear or hidden from the player (Who hides a button behind a panel?!) If you don't know how to take advantage of Portal 1 or HL2's movement mechanics well, you're especially not going to have a good time, as some puzzles either require them or are harder to solve without them.

These issues with the puzzles of Prelude and Prelude RTX ultimately warrants a 'Not Recommended' from me. You may play it if you wish, but don't expect enjoying the mod yourself, expect only frustration. If you are looking for good Portal 1 mods, check out Rexaura or Portal Pro. They're both very well designed and enjoyable experiences unlike Prelude. If you're looking for Portal 2 mods that are currently released, check out Portal Stories: Mel, or Aperture Tag (Though I would wait for a sale for Aperture Tag as it's not free and not worth the standard price.)

To give the original mod credit, it was one of the first large-scale mods released for Portal 1, and at the time most developers and modders weren't exactly sure how to make a proper Portal game. At the time it was very easy to assume that harder execution = harder and better puzzles, and even Portal 1's advanced chambers do this. Later large-scale mods for both Portal 1 and 2 were more certain about what made a Portal game a Portal game, and were significantly higher quality as a result. That said, I do wish Nvidia either picked a different mod to remaster or the mod's developers tried significantly overhauling the puzzles.

I was initially skeptical of a remake of the original Q.U.B.E. While the original was a fun and brilliant experiment, it did have some flaws. The original game had multiple mechanics which were problematic in nature, either because they were not used much in the campaign, did not contribute much to the overall gameplay, or both. The original also had a somewhat jarring difficulty curve, as there were multiple levels that felt out of place difficulty-wise, including the infamous magnet puzzle near the end of the original's Sector 6. I was concerned the remake would not address these issues.

After playing, though, I can safely say that Q.U.B.E 10th Anniversary not only fixes the issues of the original Q.U.B.E, but it also expands upon it in multiple welcoming ways. Many levels were improved or in some cases completely changed, which significantly improved the flow of difficulty. The game is easy to jump into as with the original Q.U.B.E, all while gradually ramping up in difficulty to provide challenging and fun-to-solve puzzles. I found myself enjoying those last few challenging puzzles in Sector 7. These changes are welcome. The optional Sector 8 is a fantastic experience for those who are looking for a difficult challenge.

As a result of the campaign changes, some elements were simplified, while others were removed. One notable removal was the light mechanic, where one element in the map can be lighted and interacted with at a time. Some people didn't like this change, but in my opinion, this is a welcome removal. As the light mechanic only convoluted solutions by prohibiting the player from seeing all parts of the level at once. While these changes are welcome, I do wish some elements (Such as buttons) were quieter and I wish the falling animation was absent, as it's more tedious than immersive.

The visual style was completely changed to match the style introduced in Q.U.B.E 2, with some additions such as the optional ray tracing. This is a large departure from the original's mostly minimalistic and simple visuals. As with other changes, this wasn't universally accepted, as the original visuals were beloved by many. This is understandable, as the two themes are quite different in many ways. I found the Q.U.B.E 2 style to be pleasing to observe while playing the game.

Although it does have some minor flaws, Q.U.B.E 10th Anniversary is an excellent recreation of the classic Q.U.B.E title. It overhauls the visuals to both match and improve upon the style introduced in the original's sequel, Q.U.B.E 2, while additionally improving the campaign itself to provide a better flow of progression and difficulty as well as improving upon underutilized or problematic mechanics the original game had.

Here's some brief, spoiler-free information:

If you enjoy playing a bad guy, or enjoy working for the combine, or just want a new Half-Life 2 experience, this mod is absolutely for you. There are a few bugs, but it's a high-quality game and it was a real joy playing through.

If you haven't played Entropy: Zero 1 and don't feel like playing it, you can safely skip it. You do not need to play it to understand E:Z2. That said, E:Z1 is a rather short experience, so I'd recommend giving it a go regardless.

Townscaper is an extremely simple yet great game. You can create blocks, destroy blocks, match them up in several ways, that's it. There's not much to it, yes, but limits allow interesting creations, and if your looking for a small game to fire up once a while to fiddle around with, this game is it.

This game has some complicated themes...and with those come surprises, it's really good. The overall tone of the game is nice, and the simple interface is a great mechanic. These kind of games are very interesting, and I recommend it to anyone who likes them.

A surprising experience. The story behind the game is very interesting and full of surprises and complex decisions waiting to be found. Some puzzles in the game were complicated, but I managed to get pass them, and the game provides help if needed for these sections.

This game exceeded my expectations when I bought it, and I recommend it to those who like these kind of games.