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To call Bloodstained a kickstarter success would be an understatement. The game not only raised 5m of the initial 500k goal but a great game came out of it as well ableit a bit rough around the edges BUT with a lot of (so far anyway) empty promises.

When it comes to gameplay there isn't much to be said. If you enjoy Metroidvanias you're going to love this. It leans more heavily into the Castlevania side of things what with leveling and whatnot and obviously it's theme. A large gothic castle with demons and some vampires. All the levels are expertly crafted with tons of secrets, a lot of ways they loop back around and designed around every movement based ability you get. Traversing the castle gets easier the more powerful you get and the more acquainted you get with it.

There's also a ton of weapons and abilities. Not only are there a lot of different weapon types, often weapons of the same type will have their own little gimmick which sets them apart from the rest aside from stats. There's something for every situation and that fits every playstyle. Same goes for the abilities. Enemies drop different abilities and materials each. However having to farm them, especially when it comes to materials, delves too much into boring "MMO" type grinding. Overall, it's a small black mark on what is otherwise a great game.

The game looks gorgeous, it's colorful and it's got a lot of visually memorable areas. However it's choice of going for full 3D models instead of 2D is a controversial one. A few areas / models look flat but at the same time there's areas such as the circling tower which wouldn't be done as well in 2D. The end result varies but it is mostly subjective. And of course the music selection does not disappoint one bit.

Technically, the game runs great with a couple of small visual bugs. A fair warning the game does tend to crash when viewing libraries and there's nothing that can be done about it as far as I can tell. They are rare but you might lose a bit of progress depending.

Now here's the my gripe with the developers. They have promised a lot of different modes and playable characters and they have ALREADY gone back on one those promises, the randomizer mode. Which they can't get working because of technical limitations with the engine and things in general have been moving extremely slow when it comes to the "free DLC". So if you are looking forward to those be warned.

Edit: They delivered

The game though, is in a complete state aside from most of the extra modes and absolutely worth your money.

This is a nice little retro fps shooter that scratches that itch if you've already played everything, however it's not without its faults.

Visually the game is very appealing with the spritework and animations being stellar although when it comes to the environments there's not much variety. The color palette of the game is very small; grey, brown and red for the most part, the ice level being an outlier. In the same episodes, there's not much to distinguish each area either. Since the levels are maze like, I often got lost. The game does kinda run like hot garbage at times. When there's a lot of enemies on screen. This would be normal in any other game but this is 2D. It should never, ever happen. Anyway..

And that brings me to the level design. It's decent, very open ended, levels often loop back around or there's multiple ways to go about things, including secrets that skip levels. However as I've already pointed out, you get lost quite easily. To add to my previous point about everything looking the same, there's no overview map aside from the very zoomed in minimap. There's also the problem of admittedly few levels locking you out of previous areas of the same map. Either by one way platforms or teleporters and in rare cases just outright closing the door behind you. So be sure you found every secret before moving on.

So now to the gameplay, you are a warlock in this game so you've got magic to help you out among your arsenal of two melee weapons and a myriad of guns each coming with two upgrades to what is essentially a different weapon all together in most cases. You can dual wield the uzi's for example oooor you could make it a nail gun which has bullets that ricochet. They are all great fun to use. Your upgrade points are also what you use to buy your spells, you will not be able to get every single spell and every single upgrade in the game even if get all secrets / treasures / enemies but you can get pretty close and to top it all off there's leveling system, which you spend points to upgrade your character. More ammo, health etc and every five levels you'll get a perk point. A special passive skill that enhances your character.

If that sounds too much, that's because it is. It's great and all to offer a lot of different mechanics but the game is extremely easy because of it. Even if you run out of ammo you've always got your spells to back you up and in the rare case you also don't have mana, your melee weapons are way too overpowered, with the axe often oneshoting most enemies if you've got a few points in strength. The developers tried to remedy that with the lives system. You start with three lives and if you lose all of them, game over. Gotta start over. It's the equivalent of a band aid since I only ended up dying 3-4 times throughout the whole game and was left with 40+ lives by the end of it. You can circle strafe everything in open areas with ease and use your broken melee in enclosed areas.

As a sidenote, the music is amazing and the soundtrack comes free with the game. In an age where every single game charges 10+ for their subpar soundtracks, this game gives it away for free. So a huge plus from me.

It's a fun game, a power trip and all weapons pack a punch making them satisfying to use. So if you want more classic fps goodness this is a good pickup on a sale. No mod support though, sadly.

Pretty looking slideshow with good music. That's pretty much how I'd describe this... well certainly not game anyway. It's short, whatever gameplay there is is extremely simple and has been done to death before and when it starts turning into an actual game it's already over. There's zero challenge and no fail states. Very simplistic mechanics and your character walks extremely freaking slow making every linear segment drag on longer than it should. That choice was probably very deliberate so you could "take in" the environments but I'll let you in on a little secret. If your environment is worth looking at, I'll stop and look, the game doesn't have to force me.

Is it bad for what it is? Guess not. Very obvious symbolism and not much in the way of subtlety but I wouldn't have said no to sitting down and watching a two hour animated movie of this, instead it's hiding behind the pretense of being a "game" just so it could win easy awards because when it comes to animated movies, there's much better ones out there and since mainstream awards / reviewers only care about games that mimic other art forms instead of standing on their own this "game" has been showered with undeserved praise.


I will point out that the one thing that stood out to me wasn't really how the game looked, since there's better looking ACTUAL games out there like Ori but the music. Not many tracks and it's mostly ambient but what's there is great and I will probably be purchasing the soundtrack.

Just not worth it.

So here's a game that was hyped up to be a masterpiece by a lot of people when it came out and at least gameplay wise it looked like it might live up to the hype. I mean, it's platinum, it can't be bad right?
Actually, no it wasn't bad but there's so many glaring issues it's hard to say I'd recommend this game to someone else. Both gameplay wise and story wise.

So let's get the obvious issue out of the way first and the one everyone seems to be focusing on as if it's the only flaw of the game. The port is hot garbage. You are required to install a 3rd party program in order to actually make this game look decent, let alone run well.

So with that said. The game, much like the port, is a hot mess and all over the place. I played through the game on hard difficulty.

The combat itself is satisfying but isn't all that deep for an action game. All of the weapons pretty much handle the same and there aren't that many moves / combos to do at all. The game is supposed to make up for this by also having bullethell mechanics incorporated throughout the game whether in top down, 3D or 2D but it's not enough. By the 10 hour mark, it becomes extremely repetitive coupled with how tedious it is to get to anywhere before fast travel it doesn't make for an enjoyable experience. There's also needless leveling mechanics which add to the tediousness of the game. They don't actually unlock anything. They just gatekeep areas from being accessed by arbitrary numbers instead of skill and halt your progress if you decide pointless fetchquests (side quests) aren't your thing and you just want to play the story.

Enemy design wasn't all that great either. Instead of taking the time and making interesting enemies for later areas of the game the devs took the leveling as an excuse to just slap a new coat of paint and maybe a new move on top of existing enemies and call it a day for the most part. Enemy moves aren't all that well telegraphed either. When it comes to machine enemies their eyes glow red when they are about to attack but there's so much going on on the screen most of the time that you'll never be able to see every attack coming and non-machine enemies don't even get that, you just never know when an attack from a smaller enemy is coming. The developers were perfectly aware of this and instead of fixing the issue, they made dodge spamming a thing. You've got tons of enemies coming for you? Just spam dodge and it will be fine. It makes the game trivial.

It's not all bad, as I said, the game isn't terrible. Blowing machines up is satisfying, the way they react to your attacks etc or whatever combo you pull off with the limited mechanics you have at your disposal, it's just fun. The top down sections in particular I enjoyed a lot since I was actually able to tell when an attack was coming and it made the combat flow way better, instead of it being a dodge-fest.

So as already mentioned, this game's side quests are just fetch quests. Go to a point, pick up a thing, fight a thing or escort a thing. Sometimes they provide some important lore but that's about it. There's not really anything else to do... except fishing which is the most pathetic attempt at fishing I've ever seen in a game. You can also gather resources to upgrade weapons which itself isn't terrible if you're into that sort of thing but it just devalues leveling even more. The only other "minigame" is a mechanic of the second character, hacking. Hacking is just more top down bullethell. It isn't really special at all. On a game that already has it as its main mechanic it feels extremely lazy.

The story I'd describe as one big "meh". Any themes it brings up aren't really all that well fleshed out, the characters aren't all that likable, relatable or interesting considering they are very shallow unless you're into the waifu business. Any big twist the game has you can see a mile away and the final revelation which is actually a twist just renders the rest of the game pointless and is extremely anticlimactic. To understand a lot of the story you also have to spend time reading codex entries, which should never be required to get a good grasp of the story. I personally don't mind it but it should always be EXTRA lore that's offered on those.
Also, there's only two actual endings with one after credits scene everything else is just padding. A lot of joke endings and "endings" where the game just continues, except the second time where it just makes you play through it again with another character and very few new segments to artificially lengthen playtime.

The aspects this game excels at is music and atmosphere. The scores perfectly fit into everything you are doing and they probably elevate the experience more than it should be. The soundtrack is something I could find myself listening to even outside of the game. The environments absolutely nail the feel of a desolate post-war planet and they just convey everything they need to when they need to. Such as creepiness, awe, beauty etc. Whoever was in charge of visual design did an excellent job and of course these two aspects make for a perfect match.


This game is probably still worth a playthrough if it looks interesting to you but I didn't really get anything out of it. No story that I'll remember for a long time, no questions left to ponder, no fights that left me at the edge of my sit. Just a very mediocre game and it's a shame.

The game to end the great Tomb Raider reboot or at least the arc about Lara's father and it's... very VERY disappointing. Don't get me wrong, it had its moments but after Rise, this series had so much potential and they just threw it all away. Lets get to why

PROS

• Exploration is the best it's ever been.
  
• Enemy AI is better than expected
  
• Customizable difficulty
  
• Visuals are beautiful

Cons

• Story is dull
  
• Enemy variety
  
• Clunky combat
  
• Horrible optimization
  
• Unskippable cutscenes / hidden loading screens

Lets start with the good which isn't a lot but it definitely carries what little of this game there is to enjoy. They improved on the exploration in multiple layers since Rise, not only are most relics you find interesting in their own right and the level design is improved immensely, at least when it comes to item placement but they've allowed you to make exploration harder by turning off the stupid white paint that's all around paths you can take and to make puzzles in general harder. Now it all makes for a much more satisfying experience be it exploring the hub worlds or tomb raiding, actually using your brain more in general. It actually lets the game earn its name as well.

Sadly, even this cannot be enjoyed on its own because your exploration is constantly halted by hidden loading screens. Lara is forced to walk at a snails pace or to crawl through a hole because the game can't render that much at any given time. I would have rather the game sacrificed the visuals so we could get a seamless experience but in today's gaming industry that's sacrilege. At the very least just add normal loading screens so I don't have to hold W. Sometimes, I'm certain there's not even a hidden loading screen going on but the game will still force you to watch a cutscene or walk slow. To take in the visuals I guess? If they are good, I'll stop and observe them on my own.

If only the rest of the game was at least competent, it wouldn't be that big of a deal but it's plagued by so many issues. Many of the animations just feel clunky and unnatural. Especially when you shoot an enemy. They all have the exact same reaction, it makes it all feel really cheap. Combat and enemies in general are lacking. Upgrades to weapons in the first game took a long while to acquire, which made the game too easy but at least it felt earned.

Since the combat is spread so thin in this game, there's only maybe two encounters you have no upgrades in which made the combat somewhat interesting. The arenas are all very basic and it's incredibly obvious when entering one. There's no enemies spread organically around the world. Not to mention there's only 2 types of human enemies with a couple of variants. I guess making more would have been wasted effort considering how little combat there is. The only saving grace of the combat is that the enemy AI is decent. They'll try to surround you and they will notice when someone is gone when killed from stealth; something not many other stealth games do.

The story is just dull. Virtue signalling aside, there's just nothing there to grab your attention. It's all so safe and sterile, devoid of any depth or nuance. For the end of an arc, of a trilogy it all feels so anticlimactic. Not that there was much to the story to begin with but at least it was serviceable. The rivalry in Rise, it was built up well and even gave you a nice little choice in the end. Sometimes a generic story can work wonders for a game.

Lastly visuals are beautiful and there is a cohesive theme which is always nice in the modern days of games looking all over the place when it comes to visual design but it simply runs like crap. My system is more than capable of running this on medium with steady 60 fps yet even outside of cities it dips. Not a lot but since its not steady, it's a lot more noticeable. No matter how beautiful it is, it gets extremely repetitive, it's just jungle-Mayan tombs-jungle rinse and repeat. It only ever gets interesting towards the end where there's some Christian tombs but it's too little too late.

So in the end, there's definitely enjoyment to be had and maybe in the future when this game is 90% off it'd be worth it, especially if you want closure to the story but as it stands, unless you are a die hard, just skip it.

Dark Devotion is a little gem of a game that I came across only due to the exploration que. I fell in love with the art style and theme the moment I saw it and the game did not disappoint one bit. So lets get to it

Pros

• Amazing level design
  
• Variety in all aspects
  
• Satisfying combat
  
• Beautiful art style
  
• Great theme

Cons

• UI is ugly
  
• Map is atrocious
  
• Gets linear towards the end
  
• Deceases outweigh the blessings by far

Keep in mind

• No jumping

The tags of this game are pretty misleading. This isn't anything like a souls-like. The system of losing every piece of gear and not exp when you die is more akin to a rogue lite. The only things that could be considered "souls-like" are the dodging / stamina system, the oppressive atmosphere and the open ended story telling of the game, and none of those are unique to dark souls even if that game made their use more widespread.

So what's DD actually like?
It feels like a mix between a rogue lite and a metroidvania. The world is static and once you go through a door or jump down somewhere you can't get back from, that's it. There's no going back, you've committed to that path until your inevitable demise. Undoubtedly two questions spring to mind. How is this like a metroidvania and what makes each run feel unique? Well since the world is static, it was designed with multiple playthroughs in mind and it was designed extremely well. Tons of secrets and branching paths to try that you have to start a new run to explore. Also a lot of hidden quests that require you to use a specific order of rooms. Once you beat certain bosses or if you are lucky enough to find the smith's blueprints, you unlock permanent items that you can choose at the start of each run in the hub to add to your loadout and to get to some secrets or pathways you'll sometimes need specific gear or faith which is both a magic resource and a "currency" to spend to open doors.

Because of that and because of every loadout feels so different, you'll find yourself going back and trying something new to unlock a new path or to just find the optimal playstyle for a power run. So each run feels different, whether it be due to you trying out new loadouts or taking a path you didn't mean to in combination with the random loot, it just plays out in a multitude of ways. Even if you finish the game early, it really pushes you to explore every last bit of the temple. It helps that the world looks beautiful and there's some decent albeit cryptic lore to go along with it.

There's no jump and your character feels heavy, some won't like this but it's obvious that it was deliberate, despite that, platforming is a lot of fun since the design of the levels was made with the limitation in mind and it works well. Traps, environmental hazards or air currents that push you up. Not only do they make traversing each level feel different but since you can't jump and are slow, you'll also want to use them strategically against enemies. Use air currents to get behind them if you are cornered, bait enemies into traps to chip away at their health etc. That coupled with the item use and how slow the combat is depending on the weapon you choose adds a strategic element to the game rather than just it being a dodgefest. In the end, it all comes together to make for a very satisfying experience.

And to top it all off, you unlock shortcuts to new areas and two more starting paths, together with the checkpoint system, out of all shrines you come across you can choose one at a time you can teleport to from the hub, you have a lot of places to choose from when starting a new run. Making the start way more tolerable than the entirety of all other roguelites.

So... what's bad about it?
Lets start with the simple stuff. The UI just sticks out like a sore thumb in contrast to the beautiful pixel art although it's more of a nitpick than anything. The true problem is the map. There's no indication of where you actually are in a room and which door leads where, unless they lead to a new subarea and even then it's hard to tell if there's more than one of those doors. You'll only ever really know where you are going if there's a boss in the next room. They all get unique doors. This is mostly a problem at the start but it can lead to some frustrating moments of trying to get somewhere you haven't been at before, only to pass by the same door you did last time because you've only been to that room twice. You eventually get used to the layout though. However I feel like a better map would alleviate some of that frustration.

The game has three main areas with branching paths. The first two are great, even though the loss of complexity started showing after the first one, the third just takes the cake. There's not as many rooms and not as many secrets to find. While it's not as interconnected, the levels themselves to become a bit more complex, still it's a shame it wasn't as fleshed out as the previous two areas, it's disappointing but it doesn't take away from the entire experience.

Lastly, on the mechanical side. The deceases are sometimes too punishing. You can have ten blessings (buffs) but you get unlucky with a decease (debuff) that takes away a ton of speed makes you get hurt a lot, such as bleeding and those ten blessings don't matter anymore. The game does give you a lot of ways to get rid of deceases but it can still be frustrating, especially when you'll always take up an inventory slot for an item to get rid of deceases, or you'll be spending all your faith to do that at statues.

Overall though, Dark Devotion is a game I thoroughly enjoyed and will be playing more of. If this game interests you, on a sale it is a must buy. Although Blasphemous might be a good contender to this game. We'll see when I get around to playing that.

Sure, the changes weren't that bad but it sets a very bad precedent when not only do they release the full game and alter it a week later with much unneeded censorship thus making any refunds not possible. But when they pander to people who don't even buy their games, and then also give them money the money we gave to the developers. Yeah no. Not buying anything from Voidpoint or 3D Realms again. If you want to read an actual review of the game, you can do so below.

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Ion MAIDEN is a throwback to the good old days of the golden fps era. It's competent at what it does, in some areas it even excels but it has some issues that bring it down but not too much that it becomes an negative experience

Pros

• Long campaign
  
• Amazing visuals
  
• Amazing level design
  
• Great meaty weapons

Cons

• Shelly's design is boring at best
  
• Basic enemies are uninspired
  
• Final boss is atrocious
  
• Sewer level

Iffy

• Secrets are too well hidden.
  
• The game is a bit on the easy side

Lets start with the level design, each level you traverse gets more complex and they loop back in natural ways, sometimes you won't even realize you are at an area you've been at before. The transition between levels is also seamless, makes the game feel very half life-esque at times. Especially since one of the missions paid homage to the chapter "On a Rail" of HL1. If it had to be one thing I'd have chosen out of HL to be in this game, it would be that. That sense of adventure. What comes next? The game is also the longest BUILD engine game out there, hell it even beats a lot of AAA releases in terms of length and none of it feels drawn out.

Not all is well when it comes to level design though. Some might disagree but there's way too many secrets that are way too well hidden and the reward to time spent searching ratio is way too low for them to be worth it. There's also the sewer level of the game, the level design elevates it but it's not aesthetically pleasing like the rest. The same could go for the underground facilities but to a lesser extent but it's not that big of a deal in the end.
Other than that, the visuals are nothing less than stunning, there's the perfect balance between detail and simplicity. It feels like an old school game, yet new. As it should be.

The weapons are all great and useful, there's not a single level I didn't use all of them at least once, even the baton. Extremely satisfying to use and their different uses adds that strategic element to the game. The same can't be said for the enemies in the game visually at least, the early ones at least. They are all so boring, hell they took the cybercultists right out of Blood. The late game enemy design is all great so it balances out in the end.

The boss fights are mediocre, with one of them being repeated later on just with more health but the last boss takes the cake at how atrocious it is. There's barely any room to hide and how you damage the boss is possibly the single worst part of the game. You have to just stand there and throw grenades down a hole. In a game about fast paced intense action, it's mind boggling. Also the fact that the game just throws all of the enemies the game has at you is also pretty cheap. There's seemingly no thought behind the enemy combinations. It would have been fine if it was the first time it did that but the first "boss" battle was an arena with all of the currently introduced enemies and the rest of the boss battles worked the same. Instead of having a coherent theme for each or something along those lines they just went the lazy route. Still, it's a very small part of the game.

And finally, onto Shelly, boy oh boy did they ♥♥♥♥ up here. Her visual design is as plain as it gets, she downright looks ugly in some of her sprites. Definitely no "bombshell" and it doesn't help that most of her quotes are either references or trying to act tough instead of a feminine / femme fatale character. She's basically a worse male protagonist instead of being an actual woman. A character that stands out from the rest of the FPS protagonists. She has a couple of good lines here and there but not enough. They also get repetitive, you'd think considering how long this game is they would have added way more unique lines but no.
I swear if I have to hear "Clean up at the alley of YOUR ASS" one more time...
It's sad because most of her unused concept art was much better. It would have actually made her stand out and be remembered. Even Doomguy has more charm and personality and he doesn't even talk.

So that's it. That's Ion Fury. An amazing throwback fps with some not so stellar parts. I would say it's worth full price were it not for the, lets say, questionable actions the publisher and developers are taking.

DO NOT BUTTON MASH
It actually happened, a sequel to one of the surprisingly best games out there and it's pretty much an improvement in every way. If you like rhythm and / or brawlers this is a must buy and at this price why wouldn't you?

Pros

• Enhanced visuals while remaining simple and true to the original
  
• Tons of good tracks this time around, not just three
  
• Visuals and other aspects are highly customizable
  
• Even more variety in mechanics somehow???
  
• A lot of different modes

Cons

• Selecting stages is somehow worse than the first game
  
• No indicator for how many rounds are in the multiple round stages

Nitpicks

• Yellow and orange projectiles don't stand out much from each other when things get hectic
  
• Ball of death is more balanced but less satisfying than before
  
• Not a fan of bosses in mob rounds

It's simple, it's fun, it's eye candy, it's an adrenaline rush.
If you've played the first game, you know what you're getting yourself into and this pretty much makes the first game redundant... or so the devs claim. This is definitely an improvement on all fronts but the first game has a unique feel to it. A raw feel and it would be a shame if it was forgotten. Plus it was what started it all.
A lot has improved, mostly visuals but also mechanics. Projectiles have been vastly improved upon, introduction of guns which you can throw after the ammo is over which helps separate them from other projectiles and makes the sniper skill a bit different from other lane wiping skills. The way skills are implemented in general is just more fun and also necessary I think. This game is much harder than the original due to how many different projectiles there are and also bosses in the mob rounds.
One improvement I loved was the five star system. You are no longer "required" to get perfect and zero misses to satisfy your completionist needs. The perfect status is still there for whoever wants to do it but due to the nature of this game, in my opinion the streamlining of that aspect was required.

Now unto the nitpicks:
-I think the bosses break the flow of the combat a bit too much, they also lack the clarity to easily distinguish them at all times. Since there is a small window for error when you engage a boss it's not that big of a deal but I would like to see it be improved upon.
-Same issue for yellow and orange projectiles. How you deal with them is the same, click so it's not that big of an issue.
-I understand why the ball of death was changed, it was OP before and since it's a skill it would have been downright broken in this game. I'm not talking about the durability but the slowdown that happened whenever you hit an enemy. It made it a lot easier to keep track of the ball but a lot more satisfying to hit enemies with. Overall I'd say this is a good change but if they could find a way to make it as satisfying as before I'd love it.
-Something I didn't want to mention above since I'm not sure about but the brawlers... I honestly don't know what it is, they are seemingly the same as before but somehow I mess up a lot more often in this game than I did in the first one. Maybe there's an issue with inputs? or maybe I'm just imagining things and I just suck.

And the bad, which is not a lot. Mostly menu issues rather than the actual game.
-Not knowing what you're getting yourself into with multiple round stages is annoying and more of a nitpick but since it's a downgrade from the first game it's mentioned as a full out con.
-Map issues were mostly fixed, the map still isn't ideal but it's a lot better than before.

That's pretty much it, more than I thought I wanted to say about this game but still, you shouldn't let my nitpicks put you off. This is more or less a perfect game for what it does. This game has soul, something very few do nowadays. A must buy.

This "mod" shows how much more the community cares about Half Life than Valve. It's not perfect and there's some pretty questionable decisions throughout but it was still a blast to play through.

The pros:

• Most parts that are changed are changed for the better
  
• Brilliant blend of HL2 mechanics
  
• Mostly faithful to the original
  
• Great soundtrack
  
• Tons of detail

The cons:

• Most of on a rail was cut (subscribing to On a Rail cut content on the workshop is recommended)
  
• AI can be pretty braindead at times
  
• Ruined ladders

I'll expand a bit further on a few of the cons but aside from that there's not much esle to say. What this game gets right. It REALLY freaking does. Tons of detail to the visuals, everything just looks better. It feels more like a research facility than ever, big scale battles can get messy and it's glorious. Disembodied parts flying everywhere as the aliens and soldiers battle it out and you run through the middle of it. Arenas with a lot of enemies spawning are incredibly fun.

However they are charging money for this which means they've got no excuse whatsoever for the cut content we haven't received. Someone remade on a Rail as well and it's brilliant but for some reason they won't include it in the final release.
I get it, On a Rail can get tedious, especially for subsequent playthroughs but I believe the first time was always fun for most people to play through. Especially since it's so different to the rest of the game. It truly shows the scale of the Facility. When you are charging money for this remake and you're promising the same or better experience, you don't get to take liberties unless they are for the better. On a Rail was part of half life, if you didn't feel like it was fun enough, then make it fun don't just outright remove most of it.

Another issue is the ladders. Instead of them working like they do in every source game where there's freedom, you mount them instead and it restricts your movement. They are often hard to get off of or to grab mid air. It messes with the flow of the movement. Makes it more restrictive and source games are supposed to be anything but that. I just don't understand this change.
There's a lot less freedom overall, some areas are heavily scripted. I didn't mention this since it won't affect the average player, however it's still an overall negative. Speedruns just became a lot less fun too.

The AI is mostly ok but sometimes they'll just turn off. They won't shoot you even if you are in front of them. This doesn't happen often but it was noticable. Aside from that, the soldier AI seems like it got a downgrade. Instead of running and hiding they just run up to your face. They do that a lot. Houdeyes also seem to be lacking the subtle interactions they had in the original (such as squads). Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I never noticed them running away or behaving as a pack.

Xen will truly show what these developers are capable of, so far they've mostly just remade HL1 with better visuals but Xen is supposed to be entirely new. I have high hopes and if it's good, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this to any new player over the original. Sure it has its faults but make no mistake. It's Half Life.

A masterpiece of a DLC. Arguably better than the main game.

There's not much to say really, the level design is the best it's ever been, choices you make during the first act make have huge consquences during the second act of the game. Great pacing to the story with a mystery that will make you keep scratching your head and wanting to explore more so you uncover all of it. And trying to do this without the help of Augs and without killing anyone is probably the most challenging experience I've got out of this game.

One pet peeve is that the SJW influence is obvious in this. A lot of the guards are hardass women which is completely unrealistic and almost immersion breaking. It isn't really an issue in the grand scheme of things but it's ridiculous enough that it warrants pointing out.

Definitely worth full price.