Recent reviews by Antso

Very fun platform VR game. I´m not much for platform games in general, but this one grew on me. Charming, beautiful and fun.

Very fun innovative game. Charming, short and sweet. Would like to see more of this.

Fantastic remake now replayed it with Xen on Hard mode. 9/10. One of the best games I´ve ever played.

SPOILERS BELOW:



I want to qoute a comment from YT, I saw...I just loved it...Its under the internal conflict soundtrack...I absolutely love it and it´s so powerful:
"This song PERFECTLY captures how the final chapters of Half Life should feel. After surviving everything in Black Mesa, the danger is still very real in Xen. You’re facing the absolute unknown. Bodies of other HEV suit wearing scientists scattered all around you as you progress. You’re the only person, the only human, to have gotten this far. You go from a scientist just trying to survive to humanity’s greatest hero, and Xen is your proving grounds. This is Freeman’s finest hour". Internal conflict soundtrack.


As for the game, I absolutely love what they did with how Xen had been studied, and the HEV zombies, very disturbing actually with the death sounds, and how the aliens had studied us. Perhaps a bit too much of a copy where it just was alienated Black Mesa at times, but thats debateable, it was really cool overall. The visuals on max settings were fantastic, and when I think back to the first chapters and how you end up being total super powered near the end it feels like a great climax, and the music by Joel Nielsen...The best! Like holy! That was so good! Loved so man yaspects of this!

The downside I do have is the Gonarch battle, it´s annoying that you can sit in safe space and unload everything into it but you know it won´t harm it and that feels cheap and silly we have to put ourselves in danger because of a game mechanic, the chase was nice but perhaps there could had been made some fictional reason as to why we wouldn´t be able to damage it more before the end etc. The music was fantastic and the gameplay but stuff like that just really was annoying, and seems so unrealistic and it ruins it a bit...Definitely culd had been worked on. The reason I´m a bit harsh here is because if these things would be fixed or done properly or with a legit reason then the game would be so close to perfection.

Overall for me it still does deserve a 9/10 for me, it does so many things well, and the battles with aliens vs soldiers and all the details they included just brings this to a whole new level, and I loved all the interactions and all the new voice lines they did. It´s just so perfect in so many ways I am so impressed!
Thats why it´s a bit of a let down with that thing, and it´d been nice with perhaps some explanations for all the crystals buffing you up, I mean even if you wouldn´t know why but just found out, but why would they be there when we most needed them, even in elevator stuff. A reason behind the use of them would be nice, but I guess they just power stuff so lucky for us hey can power us aswell. So I can accept that.

I just very much need a fictional reason, even in fantasy games there still needs to be logic and reality within that fantasy so to speak under its rules, and it´s all good.

So besides the gonarch and some minor stuff, a fantastic experience, some levels are definitely better than others, and some are a little drawn out and could be worked on, but a very very impressive game and I´m happy to have paid for it. Incredible job, thank you so much for this! It really brought so much to Black Mesa and to Xen, so many details and I loved how it started with fear of headrabs and a crowbar into what we got at the end...the soundtrack still with the visuals and after everything you´ve gone through..Incredible..

10/10. Masterpiece. Absolute Perfection. Yes it was worth the 13 years of wait. This is not just a game, this is an experience. I have never in my life tried anything like this or felt so immersed. This game has pretty much made any other game seem boring. Have long waited for VR to mature before I´d jump in, and have waited to upgrade a PC. Now was the time, so bought an Index, and bought a new pc, went for value. Amd 7 3700x, Asus rog strix RTX 2080 Super, 32 gb ram 3000hz, aorus elite motherboard, and corsair cooler + silent fans for longelivity. Game played perfectly on ultra, only got very minor bugs later on where it´d keep jumping in my vr headset, and I had to tap out or wait for a long time for it to fix itself, but usually a reset would fix it, but that was a bit unfortunate but haven´t had any problems since, so was probably just unlucky there, but always sucks on your first playtrhough to get that, but overall everything was perfect even with a small room - You really have to learn to use the blue helping lines to not bump into stuff - and clearly the bigger the room the better, as you´ll get even more immersed and can move more.

I used smooth motion the entire game and tried not to use the jump feature - played this as realistiically as possible, meaning being on hands and knees at times, and what a blast it was. Really did not want to die in the game, and its amazing how your reactions are when you feel you´re in a lethal situation. It´s crazy! Fantastic experience!

I get very easily sucked into games and horror games, so really got to enjoy this, and have shown this game to everyone I can, and they all are blown away or scream because they are so immersed...and very hard to even take a step when you know it´ll lead to your death, even if you know its VR...You feel so immersed. Everything maxed and so smooth overall. I spent an incredibly long time just in the starting area just taking it all in, probably like 20 minutes or so just really apprecaiting it and being blown away..Valve has made some as expected very clever design choices, and everything just feels so smooth. And this is only the beginning - this is almost like a test for what really can be done with the fights and everything - still 10/10, has to be compared to what is there and our tech level - who knows in 10 years maybe this game will seem boring as opposed to what valve or others now have made!

I´ve been truly amazed by how realistic it is, the attention to detail is just so amazing. It feels so silly when we look into a coffee cup or a bucket and you go "Look at the details!!!" I even did that in real life and felt so silly, but it really put it into perspective. We sometimes do not appreciate the real world yet we try so hard to create it artificially it´s kind of ironic, and it feels really silly when you put your face up into every little thing just to appreciate the details, if only we appreciated the smaller things in life aswell, we´d get so much more enjoyment out of life. Time to start doing that from now on!

All I can say about the game for people who have not played it is stay away from reviews, pictures, videos, anything. Do not spoil yourself of anything. Experience this - I had to stay away for weeks to avoid spoilers and install spoiler protection. But it was worth it. You cannot phantom this game before you´ve experienced it, and valve made some great desing choices, and when valve makes something, it´s nearly always top notch quality. Valve has truly done it again. I´m certain that as more and more people get VR and get the good VR equipment and computers this game will only grow more popular and truly be appreciated.

I´m still so amazed by my own reactions, I´ve been on my knees, I´ve ducked, crawled, shot, reacted and felt like it was real life. I told myself I refused to die to the regular combat, and so often I´ve been in situations where I thought this was it - but somehow by playing it so realistically, found a way.
I highly recommend to not use all the jumping stuff. I used smooth locomotion and nearly ever used the jump/teleport - it just makes it way too easy and ruins it imo. Some say smooth locomotion is too slow, but I think it´s alright, you get hit a lot more often but it´s okay if you time it you can avoid it. Everytime I got hit it annoyed me though as I wanted to play realistically. I only played on normal so far, but want to do on the hardest and hopefully a mod will come out where one shot equals death.
If you play this like it was real life you´ll take a lot of different choices. Especially when you´re near death. Your reactions, precision, and way you play will change, it´s incredible.

The only minor things I had was a very few select bugs like a grenade stuck in some bars and really minor stuff, but overall it wasn´t a big deal, the soundtrack is also fantastic. For me - this game however has pretty much ruined all PC games, they all seem so boring to me now....
I did find it a bit too obvious when certain battles would happen...that was too obvious and got a bit tedious like when you do X you just know that Y will happen - that could had been done a bit better, but overall it didn´t affect my experience it was just a tiny itch so to speak.

But valve has done a smart move, not only do they get their index sold - they also get other VR´s sold and people will buy this game - and when people got vr they will buy other vr games and more profit for valve. Smart choice.

Half life is something special.

I think this will like half life 2, be way a head of its time for a long while - and inspire others to push themselves. This is what VR needed.

And lastly - I urge you to play this realistically for your first time - you can do all the fooling around and testing stuff second time around - you only get 1 shot at truly experinecing this as real life and how you´d react for your first time. It´s something I will always remember...At least until I forget.

I hope this is only the beginning though, and we will see more, and that next time everything can be pushed to max! But maybe the mods can help valve see what will work and what people will love - so for the next game hopefully we can get some even more epic battles!
I´ve already tried showing this game and sharing my VR with as many people as I can - and all I hear within the first few seconds is "Wow this is amazing". It´s obvious what valve have tried to do at specific times when they tried to awe you and they have used VR to great effect.
A fantastic experience, and totally worth the 3500 USD I spent on everything to get this.
Thank you valve! Also the reviews speak for themselves 98% positive. One of the highest and best rated games of all time! Truly deserved! Too many people give 1/10 or 10/10 too easily, but this game, this experience, truly deserves a 10 out of 10. When you compare this to other games and the technology we have today - it is well deserved of the score. So well done Valve and thank you.

Great game! It´s like I always dreamed about, whenever I´d use risk soldiers or those little green soldiers and line them up to fight, or make stop motion to see fights. This is it! I really love that you can keep it super small or go all out for large scale, really like to swtich it up between both. Very simple but quite enjoyable game. Got my ass kicked in the beginning vs the ai, but not so much anymore! Great thing that multiplayer is an option aswell! hope we get to see more like this and see it expanded. An incredible experience to be able to see your soldiers up close and see all the fighting going on. It´s just like I imagined the future would be one day where you´d be able to do that with some holo stuff or device...well the future is here! The only downside i´d say it is can feel a bit repetitive after a while at least vs the ai, once you figure out what really works, so even more diversity between units would be nice and perhaps ordering troops into buildings or what not. Overall great little game!

The DLC changed the main game, forcing new crappy units onto the game, and you´re not able to disable them, neither are you able to disable the new DLC gods, because the devs want money obviously, so they´ll keep pestering you, and will allow their buyers to play as much as they like online with the crappy new gods.

So many bugs in the game, way more than there was in the past, and alot more disconnections since the DLC was introduced.

Skybox completly ruined the AOM special feeling..."May very well be the only RTS game you´ll ever need" a review said more than 10 years ago, written on the back of the disc version. That perfectly describes and sums up the unique feeling of aom, both casually and competitve.

If you´re a hardcore fan since 2002, then you´ll be very disappointed in this digital steam version...

Truly miss the old ESO servers ...if you want to play this game, use the disc version and go to voobly (preferable) or GR. This is only good if you want to play scenarios. If you want a proper match, stay away from this garbage.

oh...and to anyone who´s been playing online, don´t forget " new badges coming soon"...