Recent reviews by nethesem

Short and sweet.

Fantastic art and design, good humour throughout, great enemy design. Boss fights are great.

Less than 5hrs long. The rich environments are expensive, but also I feel like they could've gotten a lot more value out of the environments with better level design. Especially in the second half of the game, there's a lot of just long corridors with nothing in them.
Likewise, it really feels like the story snuffs out... the story asks a lot of bold questions, but then kinda just doesn't answer any of them and then ends.
I think this game could have been a lot more, but what it is is an afternoon of fun.

TL;DR: Doesn't deserve the mixed reviews. Imperfect game, but visually wonderful and worth playing.

NO SPOILER SECTION: OK so I went into this with a lot of trepidation, because the trailer is fire, but the reviews are mixed.
First thing I realised was that this isn't a metroidvania, it's Deus Ex, and like Deus Ex it has long sections of walking around and exploring with action sequences between them.
There's a lot to look around and see though, the visual design, the cities, the people, are fantastic and I loved all of it.
Combat is fun, and the three weapon types all have their place. It's not going to change your world, and the upgrades aren't super interesting to play, but IMHO this game isn't combat-focused.
There's a complicated crafting system which is very cool, but also kinda unnecessary. I think there's too many different components and things that can be crafted for the size of this game, but if you're doing a slower 100% run it makes for lots of stuff to collect. You can just buy what you need if you don't want the hassle, so it's your choice.
The story is a good conspiracy, but the pacing is a bit hit and miss, with exposition dumps a various points of the game that don't really make much sense until the end of the game. However, the basic objectives make enough sense that you can just tag along for the ride. It does wrap up in the end.

Overall, I think the game has some rough edges - spelling errors and typos are frequent in a game with a lot of dialogue, but the visual design and intrigue was always enough to keep me engaged. There's lots of lore scattered through the game to teach you about the world, and the item descriptions are amazing. Despite the flaws I don't think this game deserves the mixed reviews status at all.

ENDING SPOILERS: I played the ending before and after the patch. The original ending is very much a "no all stories have a happy ending" deal which is legit, but not very satisfying. I could accept it, but also understood the dislike. The updated ending is a VAST IMPROVEMENT. It compromises the original vision of "for the greater good" with something that's a bit more satisfying and makes you feel like Anne's life has actually changed. It also wraps up character arcs much better.
I feel like it still lacks a "Heck you I'll go my own way" option, because the alternate ending is very much a Bad End, meaning it wasn't really a choice at all, but everything else about the new ending makes up for all of this.

Not worth full price, but a good play.
I still have a way to go in this game, but I'm nearly 5 hours in and so far there's actually been very little stealth involved. It's more of a puzzle game involving activation sequences, so if you're looking for stealth/pathfinding stuff, there's a severe lack of that considering it's in the name.
Mixed difficulty, some areas are easy, some are hard. So long as you're not hell-bent on being a completionist, it's balanced.

Haven't had any major technical issues, but the mouse control (for aiming with one of the main mechanics) handles hideously if you're in windowed mode or use a dual-screen setup. The cursor doesn't lock to the game window or stay visible, so it's very hard to tell where you're aiming. Not a show-stopper, but obviously poor testing.

There's also no support for non-xbox controllers.

I picked this up with a discount voucher from a completed badge... no regrets, but glad I didn't pay full price.

As others have said, there are free mods that are better than this. If you need a Portal fix, go play "Portal Stories: Mel" first.

Premise is great. Love the gel-gun. A lot of people slate the fact that a couple of old Portal levels are used in this, but I actually like them as they provide a stark contrast as to how the game play can change without having a portal gun.

But, this game has a nasty 'fan-made' feel to it... the story-writing isn't convincing, Nigel isn't interesting, it makes unnesecary references. The game music comes from in-level speakers which break the atmosphere by drawing attention to it.

Level design is pretty good. I appreciate the work that went into the scenery and stuff, the 'outdoor' levels make for an interesting change in scenery.

Puzzle design is Meh. Most chambers can be solved by Brute Force / Progressive methods, where you just do whatever's in front of you and the exit door will open. There's not many puzzles that actually require you to stop and plan out the solution before doing it.
The slip 'n slide sections are tricky, but good fun, and satisfying once you get the hang of it.

TL;DR:
If you like portal you'll enjoy this, and considering that most people will happily pay near the cost of this game for a pint or a cup of coffee, you can stand to pay a one-off cost for this. Support people going to the effort that went into this game to encourage more in the future.
However, it's undeniable that I got more than the 3 hours out I spent on this out of Mel, and there's even more time to be had out of the Portal 2 workshop, both of which are free.

The Good: If you like Portal, you want to play this. Levels are professionally designed, and the fact that they're fandom developed adds a few tricks that the original games didn't use, making them challenging, but beatable. I was worried the puzzle chambers would be naff, but they're right on par with Valve stuff. The off-track areas are incredibly detailed and well thought out.

The Bad: The voice acting isn't fantastic, but I appreciate the effort that went into it. It's designed to be a full stand-alone episode with it's own story and place in the Portal Universe.
The game is slow to get going... the first level is an obvious homage to the Half-life-style See Everthing Before It All Goes Down The Tubes, but the problem with that is we all know that the first section of half-life is just boring and takes too long. You could more or less skip the entire first chapter.
The writing is good, but not great... There are times when I found myself thinking 'Why am I doing this again? Who is this core and why do I care?' but you can dismiss it as 'Because Portal, here are puzzles, solve them.'

TL;DR: If you like portal you'll like this. Great mix of modern and old portal chambers, off-track sections, and story progression. It's not perfect, but I bet it didn't have a multi-million dollar budget behind it either. Because it's FREE. And I'd pay a lot more than free for something half as good as this.

Really fun game to play, fantastic art, great sound track, and great story!