Recent reviews by Crowvette

The Deleted Scenes singleplayer mode is a curiosity for fans of Goldsrc games in general, but I cannot recommend it on its actual merits as an FPS. The gunplay is good, as should be expected of a game based off of Counter-Strike, and the graphics and maps are very detailed for a Goldsrc game, but the actual gameplay has a lot of flaws and poor design choices that sour the experience.

There's basically one type of fight that happens for the entire game: A situation where all enemies in an area are sitting in various corners lying in wait for you, sometimes opening a door to bait you into the next ambush. Even when allies are around, fighting nearby, or supposedly passing through an area, enemies will spontaneously generate in ambush points even if it meant they ran past allies, or allies ran past them, or they somehow hid somewhere while you killed dozens of their allies. Oftentimes this game will put you in view of snipers before you could possibly see them. Certain enemies will have drastically more health despite being visibly less armored than the fifty henchmen you gunned down to get to them. Some levels overload you with weapons despite whatever AR you started with fulfilling every role you could possibly need. Enemy variety is extremely sparse, and when combined with every encounter being the same exact ambush, the levels end up feeling samey even if the game constantly varies its locations. The stealth "mechanics" which might have varied up the combat are just glorified scripted sequences where you cannot fight and game over if spotted.

Ultimately there's a lot of annoyances that pile up even if the game looks good and has some fun set pieces. Considering how this game came out a couple months before Half-Life 2, but doesn't even manage to take lessons from Half-Life 1, I'd have been insulted if I paid full price for this back in the day. Luckily nowadays it can be picked up on sale for cheap.

I'd only recommend if you are a Goldsrc head and have ran out of random Half-Life campaign mods to play.

The main path is a lot of fun, and the general game feel is on point. I like the variety of weapons and that pretty much all of them can shine in the right build (provided you're not playing at too high of a difficulty). The stealth mechanic is a lot of fun and a smart way to let the player get an upper hand no matter what the level layout and enemy spawns give you.

Generally the first run through most of the content is fun, though there are some flaws that become more clear once you start going back through the content:

While there are a lot of missions, a large number of them are basically just made to demo unlockable weapons, with very few actually changing how you play, and all of them pull from the same room pool as the main story except for the wave defense missions which are a single room for dozens of waves. Some things unlock for previous acts and others don't, which is understandable since some aspects are complete power upgrades (the extra items and synergy bonuses) but it further limits the already small pool of missions you can choose if you want to try out new synergies or item bonuses.

Map variety is somewhat lacking - I like the environments in this game, but for gameplay purposes the map layouts are very simple which is a little unfortunate. The epilogue really made me wish that we had more open and vertical maps, even though the cramped corridors make sense for the setting.

The meta-progression feels tacked on; the upgrades are easily maxed out by doing the side missions and I just spam clicked on anything lit up after every mission because they were too easy to level up to the max. I would prefer if the tech tree's upgrades were just given out by completing story missions rather than having a meta-currency that becomes useless once you've upgraded everything. Unlocking weapons and perks through side missions makes sense, so it's strange that there is a shop for stat bonuses.

Difficulty scaling interacts strangely with other aspects of the game - There is a lot of health regeneration in this game so often the low-tier enemies tend to not pose much of a threat even on harder difficulties, but bosses became lethal. This creates situations where it feels like you can't lose until you die out of nowhere. Not really sure if this is intentional design or not, and there are more tank-oriented choices you can opt into, but it seems like the game generally leans towards rocket tag encounters. Perhaps co-op changes the dynamics but I haven't played it that way.

This is kind of a dream game of mine, which fuses extreme mobility mechanics with an open world to explore and build up your mobility skills with. Balancing mobility with fighting and doing sick stunts all at the same time is a blast. It's a lot of fun to scope out an area in the distance and lab out how you'll get there by chaining together all of your movement skills. The guns feel strong and there's at least a bit of an incentive to use all of them to unlock their customization options. The terrain destruction mechanics are a nice addition even if they're not as front-and-center as the movement systems.

Overall this is a well executed game that is a must play for anyone who likes games where you go really fast.

This game provides a framework for a good game but doesn't populate it with enough novelty and escalation to warrant how much of it there is. There are only a few kinds of enemies and vehicles, the upgrade progression is very low-impact barring very easily unlocked features, and lots of gameplay systems like ammo management are completely invalidated by every home in Bolivia having a stockpile of loaded magazines and C4. Every area is liberated in the same way, and the missions do not vary much beyond cookie-cutter objectives like stopping a convoy, kidnapping a VIP, defending an area, destroying specific targets.

The character customization and loadout tweaking you can do is fun but it's set dressing for gameplay that becomes stale rather quickly. After a while a specific loadout will serve your purposes and hunting for the fifth variant of a folded stock attachment becomes pointless.

This game's engine could be used to make a wonderful sequel or spiritual successor to the Mercenaries series, but that would require a lot of spice that the base game is void of.

I was initially interested because of the pixel simulation angle, but the thing that really kept me around was the crazy wand building and large set of things to do in the world even after a "normal" win. It's harsh, and there's a ton to learn, but the way the game expands as you learn more about it and its rules is beautiful. My favourite roguelite AND indie game ever.

Though people will cry of its flaws, and a new player will be subjected to a rather harsh learning curve, at the core of PlanetSide 2 there is no other game on the market like it. Huge continents, three factions to play and select favorites from, a large selection of potential roles to play in the expansive sections of flowing, never-ending combat all make this a game like no other.

It's free too. It might be harsh at first, but this game has never been better for new players and I doubt many games will be able to do anything close to what PlanetSide 2 has done. A recent surge of players has made this game feel more alive than ever!

On one hand, it took me 80 different deaths and scumming through Level Select on Easy to beat. On the other hand, it had a good spread of cute girls that could murder you in many different ways if you weren't at the peak of skill.

All that difficulty made beating it so much more worth it.

Beyond pain, beyond obsession and wild despair, there lies a place of twisted power only the most tormented souls can reach.

That place is here, clicking on CG monstergirls as they go "kyaa~"

Radioman was so hilariously out of place that the game became a lighthearted comedy-focused shooter for a chapter or two.

It's a shame he dies.

I suppose if you're less heartless than me, you'd get the desired effect. But this game is fairly flawed in the way that it presents the story. I sure feel sorry for those people, yes sirree, I'm so sorry that I killed them all as brutally as possible and then immediately after that I screamed ♥♥♥♥ YOU at the top of my lungs.

I recommend it, but just know that it's far from perfect.

All congressmen should play this.