Recent reviews by ßαsταrÐ

DOOM was the seminal first-person shooter of the 90s. It wasn't the first, with even id Software's own Wolfenstein 3D predating it, but it was undoubtedly the breakthrough hit that cemented first-person action as a genre of video games.

The gameplay is timeless. A whole arsenal of weapons. Hordes of hellspawn to slay. Rip and tear, all the way to "Hell on Earth," and then do it again! You won't be sorry.

My play time is also much lower through Steam than it is in reality. I, like many others, use a source port (GZDoom) for this game as well as Doom II. I had no glaring issues with the DOSbox emulator packaged, but GZDoom is still a huge improvement, with proper widescreen support, mouselook, support for both Vulkan and OpenGL APIs, and many others. Look it up if you're interested in classic Doom!

Let me make one thing perfectly clear, just in case it wasn't already: The Steam version of Fallout 3 is not compatible with new machines, especially on Windows 10, and is more or less a total f*cking nightmare to try and fix yourself. I've dealt with issues like this before so I had half a mind to try my luck with it. But what I realized before then was that, simply put, no amount of google searches, Windows compatibility tweaks, and digging for third-party fixes is worth your time or your $20, not when it could be fixed so much easier by the people who made the game, (if they cared, anyway) and absolutely not when you can purchase FO3 GotY on GOG.com for the same price, patched for Windows 10, Large Address Aware for 64 bit systems, totally compatible with modern hardware and with that tumorous "LIVE" integration removed.

So that raises two more questions. Firstly, why would I post a review for a game I own on a platform other than where I bought it? Second, why would I give it a thumbs-up rating if Steam and BethSoft have both left it to rot?

Well, for the former? To stop people from wasting their time and money on a lost cause. I always considered myself very "loyal" to Steam but I have no problem directing people elsewhere if they're going to sell broken products "as-is."

As for the latter, because I think Fallout 3 is still a great game, in spite of this. Just take, like, five minutes to make a GOG account or whatever, buy it there. Don't blow your money on this one just to bomb it and say it sucks. FO3 doesn't suck. Bethesda sucks, Valve sucks, I suck, you suck, etc. etc. etc.

I originally posted this review back in March, as Black Mesa marked its full 1.0 release after having spent fifteen years in development, and going through several different iterations. While I had experienced the bulk of the game at this point, I'm returning as of July 8th after having finished Xen through to the end of the game the previous night. Whilst my (overall) opinion has not changed, I'm updating this to reflect my thoughts on the finished "Black Mesa", having experienced it thoroughly.

"Black Mesa," or, formerly, "Black Mesa: Source," is an ambitious mod project that seeks to rebuild the first "Half-Life" game from the ground up, using the technology of the Source engine, introduced with Half-Life 2. Basically, re-creating the first game almost from scratch, with full support for all of the new features Valve introduced with the engine, but neglected to implement in "Half-Life: Source," which itself wasn't a thorough remake but an underwhelming engine port.

Between the final Xen chapters being released (finally!) for Christmas 2019, and now the extra polishing and fixing the team has done to clean it up for the full release, Black Mesa has become a fully-fleshed out game. Don't mistake this for a "remaster" of Half-Life; "Black Mesa" pays glorious tribute to its inspiration but carves out a whole new legacy in the process. This project is the result of a truly talented team of artists, coders, and Half-Life mega-fans putting painstaking effort into faithfully recreating the scenes and settings of the first Half-Life, but improving on the original in many ways as well, like utilizing Havok physics to their full potential, and improving on the less-than-stellar pieces of the original game, such as the Xen chapters.

The brilliant level design and fast, tense combat perfect capture what I love about the Half-Life games, and at the same time, Black Mesa re-envisions the first one so well, it deserves credit on its own. The weapons look, feel, sound so much better. The guns feel like guns, the Tau Cannon and Gluon Gun are weapons of mass destruction, and blowing stuff up is more fun than ever before!

I think there is a strong visual focus on making the world more life-like, and preserving an element of "realism" that might be lost in a conventional "remaster" as opposed to a remake/redesign project. Furthermore, the character design is very much improved, with more variation in the physical appearance of characters, and some very competent voice talent as well. Also of note is the specialized lighting / shading effects, supported by the newer build of the engine used, as well as particles and custom assets that all add up to make the game look pretty damn fantastic!

The soundtrack by Joel Nielsen is entirely original and, I dare say, blows the music of the original game out of the water. Whereas "Half-Life" had a soundtrack that was very much focused on ambience, Nielsen not only compliments the environments, but also creates moments. The soundtrack is very much part of the script, as many events through the game are complimented by music. As the overall tone or mood changes (in line with the events, as well as environments themselves), the kinds of sounds vary greatly. For some examples, these range from a despair-wrought slow piano melody, weaving in a violin (the title theme); as well as a more "up-tempo" rock sound as heard in part two of "Surface Tension"; to the dramatic, desperate struggle of "Ascension," in the final gauntlet of the "Interloper" chapter, which incorporates elements of epic orchestral music, like the frantic blaring of brass, and a single female singer -- which nails the feeling of that last stretch so hard that I had to rave about it to you in a Steam review.

This game is not flawless, there are still performance issues that need to be addressed (at least in certain parts of Xen), and the Steam Workshop doesn't really work, there are still some bugs, quirks present even four months past the 1.0 release, just so you know what you're getting into. But I only downplay that because I honestly feel they detract so very little from the overall product. In spite of these (relatively) minor issues, I still see a strong, definite product. Crowbar Collective, I feel, has done one hell of a job.

So, to close this out, I'll make try to make it simple for you.

If you are remotely interested in "Black Mesa," as a fan of Half-Life as a franchise, or science-fiction in general; or like fast action and snap decisions; if you like linear first-person shooters that don't break up the gameplay every 5 minutes with unnecessary cutscenes; or fancy just a dash of platforming and puzzle-solving in between being pelted by a**hole aliens from another dimension, AND the grunts that got sent in to sweep your little "catastrophe" under the rug; if you like to pay attention to the ambience, the sounds, the music of the games you play;

If you find that you enjoy being pitted against overwhelming odds, and persevering against all, with the only constant goal being to not die...

Play "Black Mesa." A lot of people worked very hard and spent a very long time striving to deliver the greatest, most faithful end product they possibly could, and it shows. That's worth a lot more than $20 to me.

See conclusion paragraph towards the bottom if you don't care for my rambling.


Honestly, a year or two ago I thought about it and I had figured POSTAL was done. Like, RWS had all moved on after Redux and we might not see another.

Enter POSTAL⁴. Only about a month or so prior to the announcement, I found myself playing POSTAL² again and wishing for something to breathe new life into my favorite balls-to-the-wall, ultra-violent, satire-laden sandbox. Not to mention, with the intensity of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in American politics over the last four or five years, I felt we needed another POSTAL.

Of course, it was a pretty big deal when I saw the announcement.

I personally think POSTAL⁴ is shaped up to be everything I could've hoped for. As of 8/20, "No Regerts" has reached "Slightly Less Janky Alpha." At the time I purchased the game was barely playable. A lot of the optimization work and mechanical aspects have improved since then, but POSTAL⁴ is still an alpha build. So, just know that the game is still in an early, unfinished, albeit mostly playable, state.

Now, with all of this having been said, I love POSTAL and trusted RWS enough that I had no issue with making a $20 pledge so early on. The guys at Running With Scissors have been great at keeping everything rolling. When they're not shipping a bug fix or adding content, they're at least keeping us more or less POSTED on what they've been doing over the last month or two. Reassuring, and more than a lot of Early Access products receive (however sad that might be.) There's even an open community forum for any who wish to offer constructive feedback whine about all the sh*tty bugs and performance issues!

Our story in POSTAL⁴ starts following the man, the myth, "the Dude," rescuing his beloved canine companion Champ after the nuclear annihilation of Paradise. The two find themselves stranded in the middle of nowhere, as Dude's RV is stolen, leaving him not only stuck, jobless, and homeless, but without his "real" clothes as well...hence the bathrobe and boxer shorts. With no other obvious choice, he and Champ make their way into the neighboring city of "Edensin," in search of new purpose and meaning, This is where Monday begins, and you are made to wander the city in search of gainful employment, and given a few different choices for work.

And so, we reach the actual gameplay. "No Regerts" is largely the same as POSTAL² in that respect, being a first-person shooting, pissing, hell-raising simulator, all being part of this one man's allegedly "normal" day. There's plenty of weapons to be collected and people who will try to kill you for one reason or another (or possibly none?)

There's loads of weapons, from your classic Desert Eagle handgun and trusty Shotgun to your own urethra (of course) to entirely new weapons like the "Pigeon Mine" or the "Spurt 'n' Squirt," which seems to be a platform for dispensing all manner of "fluids" on the residents of Edensin, from water to gasoline to...more piss? In any case it seems like a blast. Of course there's some more "up close and personal" options like our old friend the Shovel, as well as a versatile riot baton. Shock the fight out of your enemies or just pummel them...or even better, for a non-lethal takedown you can attach the "Security Slip" to soften your blows and just knock everyone out cold instead. "Wrap it before you whack it," as I tend to say.

Getting the ugly part out of the way...performance. It could be better, frankly, but I expect as much to change with some more time and fixes. There is still a little stuttering, but definitely less so than in earlier builds. I find that capping my framerate at 60 makes the game much more consistent, but even then I'm usually between 40 and 50 frames per second, which feels quite low with shadows, foliage, effects turned down. There's also game crashes, but much less frequently then before, these are mostly limited to specific events or sequences of events and not "random." I've also experienced (minor) interface glitches in the weapon wheel and the menus, but nothing that doesn't correct itself. For reference, I'm running an MSI / Nvidia Geforce 1060 6GB, AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (boosts to 3.8gHz) and 16GB RAM.

Right. So just going to try and wrap this up with some kind of conclusory statements here.

I've enjoyed getting to try POSTAL⁴, even though it is still early on in its development. If you can handle the bugginess and possible performance issues and really love POSTAL then it's worth paying for. It's an unfinished alpha, essentially, but I think the dev team is on the right track and I'm gonna try to do my own part in helping make this game better. The more feedback it gets today, the better it'll be tomorrow!


*Racking the slide of a Desert Eagle* Always has been ;)

z e r o d e a t h s

Borderlands 2 is a masterpiece. I wish I played this game a lot sooner than I did. Gearbox managed to create an entire subgenre of FPS by throwing in RPG elements like character classes and a loot system, all while building a universe full of evil corporations, bloodthirsty bandits, and unforgettable characters.

Garry's Mod cannot be precisely described in any amount of words, but I can promise you that as long as you look for it, you will find it here. Creative outlet? Check. Like-minded individuals with similar interests and attitudes? Double check. An accessible game platform with zero limits imposed on creators besides the capacity of the engine itself? Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft can go suc

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