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A Polarizing Mess

Spoiler Warning

Quake 4 marks a return to the single-player focus of the Quake franchise following the multiplayer-only Quake III: Arena , and Id Software decided to partner with Raven Software in order to take a backseat approach in crafting a direct sequel to Quake II . Released during the mid-2000's amidst the ever-expanding wave of dull FPS titles hitting the market, the goal was to make this the hardest hitting entry to the franchise to date by finally bringing Quake into the new millennium. With a new engine, a darker tone, and all the motivation in the world, what is Quake 4's legacy? It turned out to be the worst Quake campaign!

I knew there was something wrong when I started the game completing the generic “go here and do this” military missions found in many contemporary military shooters of the time. While these missions were hit-or-miss in those titles, I instantly felt they were out of place in this franchise. The lack of player empowerment for directing oneself to the objective was heavy-handed, and it didn’t help that your allies throughout the game take every opportunity to belittle you and your efforts with completing objectives. The role of the player was much less badass than previous entries, despite the game constantly telling you that your character is a “legend”. This issue with tone wouldn’t just focus on the player’s role/legacy dynamic either. The focus on horror elements was completely new, and while I tried to give it a chance it ended up just devolving into the same jumpscare-ridden mess most games of this era tended to try to be. The only decent area that included horror was the “Waste Processing Facility”, where the zombie enemies were introduced. The lighting here was pretty solid, and while nothing “scared the crap out of me”, it definitely contained an increased level of ambience and atmosphere.

The story told here is also painfully dull. The whole plot revolves around an invasion of the Strogg homeworld, but not much is expanded upon with the enemy faction despite their savagery and medical experimentation. There’s a twist where you are turned into a Strogg, but it results in a slight variation in gameplay and some initial backlash toward your appearance. Besides that, no one seems to care too much. This change allows you to bypass much of the Strogg security measures and allows an infiltration of various bases in order to strike back against them. Not a whole lot of character development, and really bad dialogue throughout the whole ride. The setting is also extremely repetitive with factory setting after factory setting thrown at you over and over again. The color palette being so dull doesn’t help this game much, but better level structure could have made the world feel more enjoyable to play in and more interesting in the grand scheme of things.

The shooting also took a huge step back in quality. Guns felt really weak and the sound felt underwhelming throughout the whole experience, and therefore I just never found it that satisfying to shoot things. This is absolutely nuts for a Quake title to have subpar shooting mechanics, yet it's boring to engage with just like everything else in this game. Upgrades only make your guns slightly more usable, but you pretty much go through the whole game with a weak arsenal of weapons. Enemy AI is also not very great, and therefore gunfights are equally dull and repetitive. The combination of “meh” weaponry and dull AI led to uninteresting encounters, and the game grinds to a halt even after you become “Stroggified”.

One of the only real positives here is the lighting utilized throughout the game, and even then it's inconsistent and too dark at times. Shadows are fairly accurate to the angle they are created, and this helps add some horror to different sections of the campaign. The textures aren’t the best, but when the lighting is given room to shine it helps make the game look better than it actually does underneath the polish. It's commendable, but with the lackluster aspects surrounding this engine quirk it fails to bring the game any higher.

Level design also felt like it took a big step back. Locations felt linear in approach and the enemy AI didn’t seem to know what it wanted to do in a lot of areas. It became really easy to abuse the AI and its inability to take cover at times, so the campaign was mostly cakewalk with no strategy whatsoever. The vehicle sections, on the other hand, were really stupid. Not only did the audio design fail to make the “tanks” feel like tanks, but arenas were just completely barren and allowed for little cover. This led to these outdoor fights being the hardest in the game, mostly because there was nowhere to go to hide from artillery fire. Compared to the designs in Quake and Quake II , this was one of the biggest steps back for the franchise.

The game as a whole just failed to captivate me throughout its entire campaign. The shooting felt really weak, the level design was stripped back heavily, and while it has some atmospheric horror moments and solid lighting, its story was as barren as its graphical fidelity. This didn’t feel like a Quake game - it felt like some soulless mockery of the series. I would Not Recommend playing this one as it forgets everything that made the previous single-player entries good and opts to try and streamline something that had always stood out for its creativity in design. Sometimes you can fix something that isn’t broken, but this is one of those botched examples where the game lost what made it special…


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A Classic That Has Fallen

Yet another entry to the "classic games that were popular but have since died" list, here's Team Fortress: Classic . It feels like an extremely watered down TF2 (which, duh, is this game's sequel), but lacks all of the charm, balance, and care that the sequel contains. Shooting feels wonky, the time to kill is all over the place, and classes feel very indistinct from one another compared to the sequel. On its own it really just feels like a crummy Half-Life mod which may have been fun "at the time", but has since become sort of trash. It's hard to find games, and when you do there is a good chance there is a hacker or some sort of slaughter fest going on around you.

Overall, this game really lacks any appeal beyond "checking out what TFC looked like". It's boring, dead, and unbalanced, and something I would Not Recommend current gamers to go back and experience.


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A Multiplayer Miscalculation

I was skeptical as to how much I would enjoy a modernized version of the "Quake: Arena" style of games, but I actually really enjoyed the gameplay of this one. It's a shame then that this one is practically dad in the water, with a playerbase of around 200 people daily on Steam. Unfortunately, I'm not sure where these players exist, since matchmaking was consisted of multiple 10+ minute queues with no found games.

The movement speed, shooting, presentation, and map design is all solid here. The added champion mechanic adds a bit of spice, though thankfully its not as broken as it was during the initial release. Unfortunately with the game being dead, there isn't much to experience anymore. The bots are unfortunately TERRIBLE and either much too easy or difficult to deal with.

A small side note: there's some nasty microtransaction stuff here mixed in as well, and even though its a lot of cosmetics it still felt wrong to include via loot boxes form the start. Disappointing, and likely took some focus away from development of the gameplay.

This game has some nice gameplay, but it has no playerbase. I would say that its a shame, but with the amount of wrong decisions made by both teams of developers involved it makes sense why it is no longer played. I would Not Recommend getting into this one unless they improve the quality of the bots and add a single-player mode OR there is some miraculous resurgence of players who come back to the game. Otherwise, its best to ignore this one and leave it to its unfortunate fate.


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The Best Class-Based Shooter Ever Made

I was really, really late to the Team Fortress 2 party, and I hate myself every day for not whining more as a kid in order to get myself a PC that would be able to play this awesome game. All of my friends in middle school would constantly play it every night as they moved away from playing console games, and when I would visit it looked like a crazy, confusing, cool, and chaotic mess. I picked up The Orange Box for the Xbox 360 soon after, but by then the TF2 servers had dwindled heavily so I was not able to capitalize on the experience. Once I had finally gotten myself a gaming PC, I was focused on playing so many other titles that I forgot about this one. I put it off time and time again, and recently I decided to jump into the PC version for the first time...and wow, I definitely missed out!

The classes in this game are iconic, and very well balanced so that each one has a strength and weakness towards another. There is a healthy mix of content from the game's long lifetime, and many maps ranging from finely tuned and balanced to complete ****shows of carnage and action. The art style is very well aged, and gives the game a goofy animated charm throughout (despite the gore and viscera on display the whole time). The sound design is superb, and makes every fight that much more entertaining with each scream, explosion, and snarky voice line yelled out.

Unfortunately, I can't say I've experience the same "masterpiece" that many other megafans have played because of two big reasons - the convoluted crafting system (and menu UI) keeping new items out of reach, and the disastrous bot crisis (caused by Valve's lack of care for this title nowadays).

The crafting system in this title is very confusing and overly complicated. You have to scrap items in order to get pieces, combine those pieces, scrap those, buy certain components, and for some weapons you "hope" that these even drop. All for a chance to use a weapon that is not clearly better than the base weapons. I'm not advising for having more broken weapons being introduced, but the crafting system should be cleaned up by removing many steps and menus that clutter the UI and experience.

As for the bot issue, Valve has shown that they are totally okay with TF2 not having many playable public servers. This sucks...big time. Casual is flooded with bots who will spam voice chat, text chat, insta-kill anyone in sight, and do their best to ruin the game for anyone who joins. It's very sad to see. Fortunately, there is still a thriving community scene with various servers available all across the globe, but it really takes away from the chaotic feel of the game when certain people flock to specific servers, rather than a wild west where players of all skill levels coalesce into one space.

Thankfully, the game is still fun all these years later after release. If the bot issues were fixed and the crafting/unlock system was smoother, I can see this becoming one of my favorite multiplayer games ever made. Still, the core gameplay is mostly intact from launch, and there is so much to explore with the gameplay, community features, and loads of art, SFM's, and background comics/movies provided from Valve over the years. I can Recommend many to continue and try to support this game for the community's devotion to making it live on despite Valve's lack of care nowadays. It's a great class-based team shooter with a lot of charm and a huge heart.


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A Treasure To Play

A legendary collection of one of the greatest platforming series ever made, Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove provides memorable, engaging gameplay for a discounted price. Here's a breakdown of my thoughts of each game, followed by a rating for the collection!


The OG adventure was fantastic! I enjoyed the colorfully organized pixel art, the simple yet difficult gameplay, and the amazing soundtrack. However, the final levels were a bit frustrating and I wished that some characters were fleshed out more. I liked that there was a varied customization within this game without it feeling overwhelming. There are shovel upgrades and different types of armor to purchase as well as health/mana upgrades. Additionally, there is a number of collectibles, and many weren’t too hard to find. Collectible hunting didn’t feel like a chore nor felt like I was going too far out of my way to break game flow!

The story is good but lacks some depth. I wish some characters had more personality, and the level designs could have been crafted in a way where it gave some insight to their backstories rather than an overall theme. However, the themes were great! I also really loved the soundtrack, with it being one of the best I have heard in gaming! There are some serious jams in here and they fit a lot of the fights that occur.

Overall, this first entry is delightful. It has a few flaws that kept it from being “next level” for me, but it is a finely crafted platformer with a whole lot of charm. I can easily Recommend this entry, and it left me excited to see what’s next in store with…



The first expansion was a disappointment. A slew of bombs, boosts, and abilities are introduced to the player, and Plague Knight plays very differently from Shovel Knight himself. However, I felt that this overcomplicated things, and along with the reuse of all the OG levels, led to a more frustrating experience at times rather than rewarding. I did like the large offering of abilities for "PK", but I felt that I rarely used many. There are some types of bombs and boosts that are more effective in some levels or against certain bosses, but I never felt a desire to play around with them. The armor sets are also reused from the OG, except now with "PK's" theme. I also was disappointed that there weren’t many new stages for "PK", which sucks because some older stages failed to fit with his playstyle. Instead, he feels sort of shoved into the OG with a new story. The story was nice, focusing on "PK" and his partner Mona as they figure out a way to prove to the world that they are great alchemists. There is still the trademark humor, and some more depth is given to many characters. This addition was great and gave me more of what I enjoyed in the OG.

Overall, this entry was just “good”. I felt that there were some missteps that led to a more underwhelming experience than I had hoped to have. "PK" takes some getting used to, and I wasn’t really a fan of the mixture of projectile weaponry and jump boosts being a dominant focus. I can still Recommend it, but I much prefer the OG and its streamlined design.



The second expansion turned out to be a delightful resurgence to the quality of the OG. The player takes control of Specter Knight in a prequel to the OG, and there is a lot more emphasis on storytelling and level redesign. I liked the return to melee combat, as well as a new form of traversal. "SK" can dash into foes mid-air, allowing for chain attacks to kill multiple enemies or scale certain obstacles. The timing of these jumps was tricky, but they became fluid enough in time. In addition, there's the ability to scale walls for a short time as well as to wall jump. This made for some cool acrobatic segments, and there were only a handful of times where mechanics seemed to frustrate me.

The level design does what I wished PoS would have done - revamp the OG levels to suit the new character. Some were changed for "SK" to move around easier, and it was a great choice. Besides that, the enemies and bosses are a bit samey, with a few new changes. The best part of this game is the way characters are fleshed out. While "PK" is given a bit more character in “PoS”, his humor and quirkiness didn’t quite hit the same tone as "SK". There's an emotional story here that both the OG and first expansion sorely lack, and it helps make "SK" a unique character. Other than that, there's a new set of upgrades, armors, and set of collectible items. The weapon upgrades were more useful here than in PoS and did not feel as redundant. The music is still mostly just remixed stuff from the base game, but it's still solid despite being less memorable.

Overall, SoT was a great bounce back that reached the same level of quality as the OG. There is a nice character redesign, cool tweaks, and a great story here! I can easily Recommend this expansion if the idea of mid-air attack dashes and wall-climbing sound like cool additions!



Arguably one of the best send-offs any series could ask for, the third expansion manages to bring together nearly all the beloved cast, forward thinking platforming, and charm the series had built up prior to its release - all while adding in a solid card game. King Knight gets his time to shine in a wacky adventure where he attempts to become ruler of all the lands, and many antics ensue. Gameplay here is very brute force compared to other entries - "SK" was floaty and bouncy, "PK" was reserved and tactical, and "SK" was flashy and dexterous. "KK’s" focus is using his strength to bash into enemies in the most flamboyant of ways, and it showcases an interesting dynamic of his character in the process - he’s equally capable of showcasing strength yet can quiver in fear and become a momma’s boy at any moment. The gameplay supports his character, which is tricky to perfect in a single title alone, but Yacht Club has proven this time and again. The card game introduced is not perfect, but it's a nice change of pace and adds a rich layer of content. I also enjoyed the smaller but more numerous levels, as it kept the platforming diversity high in the process.

Overall, KoC is one of the best finales I have ever played and showcases so much of what Yacht Club has learned. I can easily Recommend it to any platformer fan or card-game fan looking for a fun and humorous adventure!



The “meh” entry for me, which is fine because it is sort of an “extra”. It's a fighting game combining various characters and stages throughout the series, and it takes some elements from famous fighting games to provide a decent package.

Overall, the presentation is neat, and the controls are solid, but it's not very compelling. It’s a nice addition but I wouldn’t buy it outside of Treasure Trove . I would Not Recommend it unless you’re a huge fighting game fan and would like to see these characters duke it out with various customization options and unlockables…


Overall, this collection is an absolute steal and easily one of the best money can buy. You owe it to yourself to check out this series, as it's a refreshing look into the platforming genre which oozes with humor, charm, and love throughout! I can easily Recommend it as it's one of the best platforming series around!


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A Pointless End To A Unfortunately Failed Series

I didn't expect much going into Penumbra: Requiem , and coming out of it I can say that was still the best approach I could have had with the game. I had heard of the issues that Frictional Games had previously faced with their publisher, eventually leading to the rushed third entry into the Penumbra series, but I still didn't expect it to be this bad. This game might as well be spiritually linked to the franchise solely through some UI design, slightly matching gameplay elements, and mention of past characters in the series, but other than these things it is a shallow puzzle game with little relation to Penumbra at all.

The puzzles in this game are slightly interesting at a fist glance, but they just become really weird as time goes on. Lots of these areas lack proper playtesting, and solutions and/or methods to progress forward are hindered by weak direction and strange room layouts. Additionally, once you see some of the puzzle mechanics in practice versus just visually, they become kind of boring as well. There was a neat little ball puzzle involving lasers and opening up pathways, as well as another puzzle involving some gravity well platforming, but everything else was simple stuff for a puzzle title.

The "plot" is just ridiculous here. It's totally nonsensical and seems very unrelated to what went on in the first two titles, and I found myself starting to ignore what was going on by the end of the third level (of nine total). The voice acting is still pretty good, but there is a lack of horror and tension in both the plot and gameplay that really changes how this title functions as a "sequel".

Honestly, after becoming frustrated with the end of the sewer level, I accidentally figured out that this game allows a box jump glitch which allowed me to skip past much of the puzzle areas with ease. Bit of an oversight on Frictional's part, but I wouldn't have used it had I not been stuck on a particular puzzle with no clue as to what to do whatsoever. I decided to continue using the exploit as most puzzles required platforming challenges and other very obscure and drawn out methods, so I had some fun abusing the physics engine and skipping out on half of the game. I would've finished the game this way as well since it was really one of my only methods of enjoyment through experience, but I gave up partway through the sixth level.

This title was just really dull and pointless. Only a spare few elements of a couple of puzzles were remotely interesting, and the lack of horror and coherent plot made the rest of the journey lackluster. I would Not Recommend many to play this title unless they are just really big puzzle game fanatics, but everyone else would do right by themselves if they passed this one up. Honestly, it just shouldn't have ben released in this state at all, and presents a frustratingly fitting end to the Penumbra series - one series I had hoped would surprise me in the indie horror scene.


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A Phenomenal Recovery

With the release of Episode 1, Valve hoped to bring something fresh to the story of Half-Life 2 by introducing expanded partner gameplay with Alyx in order to refocus the plot of her and Gordon's relationship. While this was successful enough, there were many faults with the formula in my opinion, specifically with a lack of compelling narrative, weak combat sections, and some disappointing pacing. Thankfully, Episode 2 attacks those weaker aspects of the first entry and delivers a tight and compelling experience to end the Half-Life 2 saga.

Episode 2 takes the narrative approach of Episode 1, but flips it around to make the destination a bit more compelling. Instead of escaping from a familiar location, Alyx and Gordon are trying to navigate to a new, unknown base that the resistance fighters have operating outside the confines of the ruined City 17. Their journey takes them through an atmospheric mining complex, insect-infested cave systems, desolate backcountry roads, and abandoned research stations, all while encountering some of the most ferocious firefights in the entire series up to this episode's release. It's a fantastic breath of fresh air for the game's narrative pacing combined with its worldbuilding, and allows the action to rise and fall naturally with each encounter with a new area. City 17 was a great setpiece for the base game, but lost its charm with the Episode 1 due to the lack of creative use of its environments. Thankfully, this was ratified with Episode 2 tenfold!

There are also a few new pieces of gameplay to spice up encounters and exploration. The addition of the buggy allows for some semi-open world exploration that is occasionally optional, and this really adds some depth to the exploration/traversal section of the game. The chance to encounter mini-puzzles and random little combat encounters while on your way to your next objective was a neat introduction to this series, and I enjoyed the sporadic use of this mechanic in this episode. However, this isn't the only new gameplay shake-up that is added into the experience. There is a wave defense encounter in the mines, a neat barricade puzzle with headcrab zombies crawling all around you, and several ambush sequences that force Gordon and Alyx to stay on their toes at all times. I found myself really surprised at all the ways this game managed to stay fresh despite adding only a handful of new enemy types and no new weapons into the mix. Valve really outdid themselves with their level design and creative combat/exploration scenarios, and layered multiple enjoyable sections on top of each other in order to deliver a diverse loop all around.

The music and visuals are amazing as always, with some particularly striking vistas presented before you as you journey throughout the wilderness in this title. The looming backdrop of a decimated City 17 was awe-inspiring, and really added a sense of scope to the story and the world itself.

The only real flaws within this title are in the slow introduction of the final combat section (involving an introduction to Dr. Magnusson, an okay combat trek through the White Forest complex, and an out-of-place combat tutorial before the final fight) as well as the final combat section itself. Dr. Magnusson was a weak character to throw into this story, and he's one of the least charming and put-together characters in the whole story. He's pretty unlikeable, but also not very creative of a character at all. He criticizes Gordon and Co. constantly, and this really makes the average combat encounters inside of the White Forest complex stand out. Additionally, his tutorial is incredibly out of place for this series, since Valve tends to allow for player experimentation in order to figure out certain combat/exploration tactics. In this case, Valve decides to teach the player how to throw mines and shoot them...

Unfortunately, this section doesn't stop there. What follows is likely one of the worst setpieces in the series due to its frustrating mechanics. Gordon is forced to drive within a semi-open section of the White Forest area while collecting mines to shoot at Striders who are advancing towards the facility. In the meantime, the Striders (accompanied by Hunters) destroy key resupply stations, forcing Gordon to operate in a tighter and tighter area as the action progresses. The frustrating part is taking down the Striders, which only require one mine to be shot at them and detonated in order to be killed. Whenever Gordon tries to shoot these mines out, the Hunters or Striders themselves will detonate the mines with their projectiles, meaning that Gordon has to run around and resupply yet again to give it another shot. Killing the Hunters helps alleviate some of this frustration, but the Striders will randomly attack Gordon and throw his aim off, or just straight up destroy the bombs time and time again. This was very frustrating to play through, and after completing the section I felt that it was not only imbalance, but was a very boring concept to end the episode on. Disappointing to say the least, but it didn't ruin the rest of this great game very much at all.

While this title fumbled a bit with its poor pacing leading up to final level as well as the final combat sequence itself, the game excels at everything else it has to offer. The final scene continues to send chills down my spine to this day, and ends on a magnificent cliffhanger that has rarely been matched in other games to this day. Half-Life 2: Episode Two adds enough creativity to stand side-by-side with the base game, and ends the Half-Life 2 saga on an excellent note. I can easily Recommend this title to anyone who has played the previous entries (duh) as it wraps up the story in an emotionally cathartic way, delivers some awesome action setpieces (besides the final encounter), and lifts the gameplay potential of the series to new heights.


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A Lackluster WWII Shooter

Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 is a WWII shooter from the mid-2000's, when every shooting game wanted to cash in on the new WWII video game craze. Inspired by Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" and touting a "tactical realism" to its combat, this introductory title to the series aimed to break new ground and deliver a smart, emotional, and realistic depiction of WWII through its gameplay and story. Did this title achieve its goals? No, it did not.

Upon playing the first few levels, one of the first things that I noticed was how awful the shooting felt. This game pushes its squad-combat on the player so much that your own aim is nerfed, making it so your bullets don't really land where you're aiming. Additionally, your character can barely hold a rifle steady, so everything is hard to target, let alone actually hit. This could be forgiven if the squad system was coherent enough, but of course this game manages to screw that up as well...

The controls for squad orders are straightforward - tap a button to send a squad to a location or lay down covering fire, press another button in conjunction with this to initiate an assault maneuver, and hold a separate button to rally your squad back to your position. This is a all fine and dandy, except for the fact that the AI pathfinding is trash. Your comrades will take idiotic routes to get to locations you have marked, and will take loads of damage if not outright die trying to follow many of your orders. This completely defeats the purpose of controlling where they go, since they end up deciding what they want to do themselves anyway! With the inability to consistently provide quality shooting yourself, this leads to a situation where you are "immersed" in a game playing as a weak "stormtrooper" commanding a group of morons throughout battle - you know, "EXACTLY" what WWII was all about.

The graphics are not the prettiest, and the textures and level design are washed out and very repetitive, respectively. The sound design is barebones as well, with directional audio being pretty hit-or-miss and barely any ambient noise existing for most gunfights. Missions are structured very generically, and consists of blowing up various points of interest, taking locations into your squads control, and defeating enemies in certain areas during assault/defense sections. Pretty normal stuff for a WWII shooter, with nothing that really stands out to differentiate this title from the rest of the bunch.

Lastly, the story - its really boring. Each soldier in your squad is very one-note, and you don't really learn anything compelling about them throughout the experience that makes you care if they survive each encounter or not. The voice acting is mediocre and gives off very amateurish vibes, and the dialogue is plain and predictable. It ain't no "Saving Private Ryan", not even close.

Overall, this game is just a weak WWII shooter with nothing that separates itself from the other games of the genre besides the factors this title advertises as different - story, strategy, and realism. This game fails on all three accounts, and delivers a barely presentable, rarely cohesive, and barebones WWII squad-based strategy FPS. I would Not Recommend people to try this one unless you have both an affinity for WWII-era shooters and janky strategy mechanics, all with a generous topping of boring characters and story segments.


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A Good Follow-Up If Not Dramatically Disappointing

After replaying Half Life 2 and becoming mesmerized with the pacing, worldbuilding, level design, and art direction of that amazing title, I went into this first episode hoping that the same quality would continue to present itself albeit in a more bite-sized portion. Unfortunately, Half-Life 2: Episode One takes a massive step back in pacing, story and level design that lead to a good addition to the series but a disappointing step back for the gameplay experience. While the environments are still detailed and the worldbuilding remains incredible, there is a lack of real substance behind the goals of Gordon and Alyx throughout.

First off, the pacing: its been slowed in some areas to a crawl. While you begin in the aftermath of the Citadel's destructive collapse, the game takes its sweet time laying out the same gameplay loop that was present in the original title. It isn't until halfway through the game where you finally get the chance to use some decent weaponry, and even then there aren't many combat arenas to use them in for a little while beyond that. However, out of the nowhere the game throws nearly every weapon Freeman had at the end of the original game back into his arsenal going into the fourth (out of five) chapter, which felt very unnecessary. Weapons should've been trickled into the player's possession much earlier and spaced out accordingly, since there aren't any notable additions to Gordon's loadout as well as the fact that this title is a fifth of the length of the original game.

Combat arenas are also notably weaker, and many devolve into simple shootouts versus giant spiderants and Combine opponents. Many are linear and lack movement like in the original title during segments like Nova Prospekt, and there are no defense scenarios like in the aforementioned chapter from the base game. While the player is propelled forward for much of the story, it feels as if the developers forgot to spice the gameplay up with some defense segments, involved puzzle solving sequences, or detailed and interesting combat arenas. For the most part you'll run forward, shoot enemies, and repeat unless you are thrown into a square/circular room with little cover and objects to use.

The story also comes to a halt here: Gordon and Alyx are stranded inside of the Citadel with little time before a second reactor meltdown, but after delaying the process the duo are completely focused on escaping the city. While there are some worldbuilding elements such as an explanation as to the origins of the strange creatures in the Citadel, as well as some insight on the struggles of humanity under Combine control, many of it provides depth to the world but lacks a compelling narrative to boot. It boils down to an escape from the city with a few key setpieces along the way.

Visually, the game looks as good as before if not a tad bit better. There are some interesting lighting segments when Gordon and Alyx traverse through the railway systems underneath City 17, and the destroyed landscape of the city itself (while lacking in some color) showcases the bleak nature of the destructive forces at hand. This amplified the intensity of the escape itself a lot, and despite many actual "levels" being a bit standard, it got me through most of the experience without a heap of complaints.

The gunplay is untouched thankfully, though the delay of getting weapons was annoying. The game's focus on the gravity gun early on is an okay gimmick, but that was a stronger gimmick at the end of the last game and lost a lot of the impact gameplay-wise here. There aren't a whole heap of environmental puzzles section nor standard puzzles as well, which would have helped with the level design stagnation and pacing issues. The music is still good, though a lack of mood-setting tracks such as that of Ravenholm's really showcased some of the repetitive action-packed fury these tracks tend to convey. A better mix would have done wonders, though this would have also required some better level diversity.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Half-Life 2: Episode One but I'm left with the feeling that this project was severely rushed and chopped up. Honestly, both episode's being combined into one would have given Valve more room to experiment with level design again, but the nature of these episodes and the lack of commitment for a full sequel must've forced Valve's hand, especially with the way things were left in the base game. This would've worked better as a combination with the other episode and a full rebranding, possibly just splitting the game into two parts akin to The Last of Us , but alas this is what we were left with. Thankfully the series is still alive and kicking, and this serves as a solid albeit disappointing entry in light of one of my favorite games of all time. I can Recommend this one to fans of the first and second games...obviously. I mean there's no point of playing this if you haven't at least played the base game...so go do that if you haven't!


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A Team-Focused Expansion With Less Focus On Singleplayer

As an expansion to Quake III: Arena , Quake III: Team Arena introduces - you guessed it - game modes centered around team play. While this is a decent value for many, especially at the time of release, it lacks the same punch nowadays and cuts back on some of the already limited singleplayer content that was present in the base game.

Four new modes are introduced: Capture the Flag, One Flag, Overload, and Harvester. This is some good content for what its worth, though interesting to note that an entire expansion was necessary to add this in rather than having it in the base game to boot. The value may have been better at the time, but it feels like a bit of a cash-grab considering the content of many other shooter on the market at the time. There are new upgrades to support the team play, though they feel a bit forced in and don't change gameplay tremendously.

As for the singleplayer side of things, its a worse experience here. Its not terrible, but its pretty much the exact same gameplay as the base game but with worse AI and an unfocused singleplayer mode. Here you don't feel like you are progressing through stronger and stronger teams, and instead just kind of fight random groups of enemies. While the last game may have just as well been random enemies as well, there was a sense of progression with the structure of the mode in general.

Overall, this expansion is not really worth the time. It brings some team multiplayer combat to the mix, but takes a step back with solo content and lacks a proper playerbase to still enjoy its features. It doesn't mess with the formula much at all for better or for worse, but it also takes no risks in the process. Thus, I will have to Not Recommend this title unless you have some friends you can play with.


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