Recent reviews by Mythos

This is an excerpt of a longer review available at https://metrocop.net/articles/half-life-blue-shift-review/

Let’s get the worst out of the way first: the lowest point in the game comes in the chapter Captive Freight, the fourth of eight chapters (including the tram ride at the start of the game), which has an underground section that resembles the excesses of Gearbox’s previous offering, with a cavalcade of vortigaunts and headcrabs being thrown at you in succession until you make your way past that particular area—I lost count of the number of headcrabs that leaped at me in just that section alone, but they were certainly in the dozens. As it happens, after Half-Life and Opposing Force, headcrab jump scares have long lost their novelty, making this part nothing but aggravating, but you can thankfully rush past it pretty quickly.

Other than that, Blue Shift is a pretty solid Half-Life game. The same chapter later moves on from the underground and Xen creatures into an area that resembles a high-octane, compressed Surface Tension, as you fight wave after wave of soldiers as you try to rescue a particular scientist, Doctor Rosenberg, who might have a way out of Black Mesa.

Doctor Rosenberg himself is something new for the Half-Life series. While certain characters in the original Half-Life would be retroactively established by Half-Life 2, Doctor Eli Vance in particular, Doctor Rosenberg is the first unique NPC of importance in the franchise. In fact, a lot of sequences with Doctor Rosenberg bring to mind the Half-Life sequel, particularly a teleportation sequence that is uncannily similar to what we would get out of Half-Life 2 later—one wonders if there was some inspiration from Valve’s early plans for the sequel or vice-versa, but it certainly bridges the gap between the two main entries brilliantly.

Eventually, the story circles back to send Calhoun to Xen, much like Gordon Freeman before him. Xen fares much better in Blue Shift than it did in Half-Life; there are still some platforming sections, but simplified by the lack of a long jump module, and the brief escapade never wears thin, unlike its predecessor, although it once again has an irritating habit of throwing headcrab after headcrab at you.

Overall, the most apt description for Blue Shift is “short but sweet”. You can easily run through it in an afternoon, but during those precious hours you won’t get bored, stuck or sick of anything the game throws at you, with the possible exception of those nasty headcrabs. For a glorified extra of the Dreamcast game, it holds up particularly well; for its usual price on Steam nowadays, let alone its price on sale, it’s definitely worth a playthrough, even if what it brings new to the table is reduced to some narrative tricks that Half-Life 2 would eventually master much more impressively. Some might argue that it deserves a lesser score than Opposing Force just due to the stark difference in length, but I’d personally rather play a great, short game than a longer game with many more dull or unbalanced moments.

Don't let the timestamp of 7 hours fool you⁠—I actually have this game on PS4 Pro as well, where I've beaten it three times (once with Leon, twice with Claire). I just happened to pick this up on sale alongside Resident Evil 3 and ended up doing a new playthrough as Leon.

To put it bluntly, the Resident Evil 2 remake is superb. Highly desired by the fan base for ages, it did not disappoint; everything, from the graphics to the gameplay to the acting and story, is just astonishingly good. The RE Engine is amazing, this game already looked and played well on PS4 Pro at a sweet 60 fps looking beautiful, and it just looks even better running on an RTX 2060 at 90-120 fps on max settings (1080p resolution). Seriously, if this came out next year, nobody would bat an eye.

It's not easy to modernize a classic, but Resident Evil 2 ticks all the checkboxes. The over-the-shoulder gameplay was received with some skepticism when the game was first announced, but it works wonderfully and still retains the tense survival horror of the original. The zombies are actually scary, for the first time in a long while! Even a single zombie can be cause for concern despite the fact that it essentially plays like a shooter, although the fact that damage feels essentially randomized and the zombies can take quite a wallop to take down can be somewhat annoying, but it's part of the balancing to keep it tense. (Pro tip: shoot them in the legs instead, they're much less dangerous crawling around!)

Of course, the big star of the game is the Tyrant a.k.a. Mr. X, the "stalker" enemy that chases you around for a good part of the runthrough (even more so in the 2nd run modes you unlock after beating the game with each character in normal mode). Mr. X is endlessly intimidating and, even after four whole playthroughs and essentially memorizing the game, can still quicken my heartbeat in the right conditions. More so, it never feels cheap or like it's cheating, which is a plus as these types of enemies can easily end up feeling overpowered.

It's not all perfect⁠—the first third is absolutely the pinnacle of the game (not that the rest is bad, it just becomes more action-y, which I personally don't mind as it makes you feel like you're properly progressing and becoming a badass zombie killer) and the puzzles aren't exactly headscratchers most of the time⁠—, but it's arguably as close to it as this remake could've been.

As close to my heart as Resident Evil 4 is, Resident Evil 2 might actually be my favorite now, as it perfectly balances the survival horror of older entries with the gameplay of Resident Evils 4 to 6. Absolutely a must play if you can handle the horror.

This is an excerpt of a longer review available at https://metrocop.net/articles/half-life-opposing-force-review/

Half-Life: Opposing Force is not exactly a bad game. The expanded arsenal is a fun way to revisit the Half-Life gameplay and there are some good ideas in here, although some are half-baked or just underused. Unfortunately, it’s bogged down by what was, presumably, a rough deadline for an up-and-coming team to get to grips with Valve’s Goldsource engine and release an expansion pack as quickly as possible, leading to what feels like a lot of filler and some sections that could’ve used some polish.

If you love the original Half-Life, Opposing Force is definitely a great way to get more of that experience, but keep in mind it’s nowhere near as groundbreaking or refined as the first game. Go in with lowered expectations and bear with the bugs and annoying friendly AI pathfinding and you’ll find enough to enjoy in this messy but fun expansion.

This is an excerpt of a longer review available at https://metrocop.net/articles/half-life-review/

Half-Life feels very much like two games in one, although, regrettably, that’s not a good thing. For the majority of its runtime, you have a nearly flawless romp that ebbs and flows from survival horror into full-on action, one that has aged wonderfully if you can look past the archaic graphical fidelity. However, as it reaches what should’ve been a spectacular climax, it instead becomes a grind you’re almost happy to see end.

However, if the past twenty-five-ish years have shown anything, it’s that even the rush job that was Xen didn’t color people’s impressions of Half-Life. There’s a lot more good than bad here and a couple of, at worst, mediocre hours don’t ruin the overall experience. The original Half-Life is still a nearly flawless experience and one that every self-respecting gamer should play through at least once—though there’s no shortage of extra content, from the official expansions to literally hundreds of mods and map packs, to expand your trip to the Black Mesa Research Facility.

If you haven’t played it in a while, go back and reexperience it all over again. If it’s your first time, then grab your crowbar and face the unforeseen consequences of your actions. Trust me when I say that life will be different.

Clocking in at just under one hour for my first playthrough, C.A.G.E.D. has great pacing, some really clever design and a few surprises that make it different from most mods I’ve played. While not exactly groundbreaking, it’s still very much worthy of your attention and good for a few playthroughs – especially since it’s got a makeshift achievement system that seems to be hiding some extra content! I only got a total of one achievement in my playthrough and, while I usually refrain from achievement hunting, it teased my interest enough to make me want to go back for a few more playthroughs and get my butt kicked on Hard, as well as listen to the developer commentary included in the game.

The description didn't lie; this is a high-quality Half-Life 2 mod, perhaps the best piece of Half-Life 2 content I've played since Episode Two way back in 2007. Definitely a must-play for any Half-Life 2 fan!

When I first played this game, it finally dawned on me what Valve intented to do with these episodic sequels to their first-person-shooter masterpiece. This game, even more than Episode One, is Half-Life 3. It connects directly with the second game in the saga, but it's so much different in tone too. And the ending will definitely shock you.

Oh, how I love this game. It was everything that was promised during its six years of development, and it still holds up extremely well seven years after release, proving good game design defines a long-lasting game. It's a memorable experience that every self-respecting gamer should play through at least once.