Recent reviews by mooalu

I really wanted to like this game. Sadly, Hard Reset just doesn't deliver. I bought it for some cyberpunk-ish feeling and aesthetic but couldn't enjoy it at all. The game is bland, dull, some levels are dragged out and unnecessarily difficult.

The story is hard to follow. What was the point of this whole mess? Why we did the thing we did? Animated comic during loading screens doesn't help to get the story. Dialogues during gameplay are plain awful. Most of the time they feel out of place. Like all of the characters gone delirious… And the game ended with a solid hint to the sequel which doubtfully will ever come out. So you get only half of the sketchy story with no resolution.

The shooting is boring. I don't 'feel' the weapons. It's unenjoying to kill the bots. There are 5 firearm weapons and 5 energy weapons but only 2 models for each type of the weapon with a little to no differences between them. The devs didn't even bother for the variety. I look at the weapon and don't understand what am I holding. Is it a grenade launcher, or rocket launcher, or even proximity mines? The only way to know is to read the current weapon name in the corner of the screen. Yeah, great. Also, the shooting sounds have an unpleasingly low quality.

The level design in Hard Reset is straight from the late 90s or early 00s. Don't get me wrong, I like many old-school games, but that's not what I'm expecting to get from a 2016 redux and even from 2011 original. You wander through almost empty corridors and rooms, looking at heavily reused assets and sometimes even whole chunks of maps with a deja vu feeling.

Soundtrack is also somewhere from late 90s or early 00s. It's bad to the point it almost painful to listen to. It must engage player to fight and also correspond to the cyberpunk setting, but it fails to do both. I just turned it off, it was that unbearable.

Come to think of it, what did they even remaster? The listed features on the store page doesn't justify selling this game a second time for $20. Moreover, the graphics are dumbed down in this so-called redux compared to the original. The only thing that improved the experience is the dash ability. But 20 bucks? No way!

So is there anything good about this game? The city levels sometimes have somewhat beautiful environments. But that's all. Hard Reset is not interesting and not fun to play. The game at its core is go there, press lonely button to disable yet another energy field, proceed further and repeat the same over and over again while being distracted to fight hoards of enemies. There's nothing else to it. You can't fully enjoy the story, or fighting, or environments, or music. I wonder how Hard Reset even have 82% of positive reviews.

Overall, Black Mesa is a wonderful Half-Life experience. There are some caveats though. Developers brand Black Mesa as a re-imagining of HL1, but I think that only Xen part of the game deserves to be called a true re-imagining.

BM's Xen looks nothing like it did in HL1, and that is just great! New Xen feels fresh, yet it still retains atmosphere of the original and has recognizable environment. Level design is very clever and beautiful, the world looks alive, and each chapter has its own visual style (though using trees and tree-like structures seems a bit out of place, if you ask me). Battles with Gonarch and Nihilanth are more exciting and challenging than they were in the original. New Xen is also extended to the point it almost lasts like a full game. I've read opinions that BM's Xen is too long, repetitive and boring, but I personally haven't felt that it dragged on. I enjoyed every bit of it (on second thought, "Interloper" chapter could have been little shorter). Oh, and I can't make no mention of Xen's soundtrack. God, it is awesome! And environment sounds are too.

On the other hand, we have Earthbound levels, and they are incomparable to Xen. If Xen is undoubtedly a game you would like to pay for, you can't say that about Earthbound levels. When we arrive at Xen, it becomes clear that devs had pushed the old Source engine to its limits. Xen has the best-looking environments that I've ever seen created on this outdated tech. Sadly, but most of the time Earthbound levels are not that impressive. They were recreated while staying true to the original maps but with better textures, HD models, fancy lighting and more props added here and there. It does not feel like all of them were re-imagined despite the claiming on the store page. They were mostly replicated. Maybe that's okay, if we remember that the whole point of Black Mesa project was to remake HL1 with improved graphics and new features of the Source engine. No one promised that it will be a completely new experience. But they did it with Xen and almost none of the Earthbound levels felt fresh, and it bugs me a lot. The problem also is that Source engine started to show its age even back in 2012 when devs released BM as a free mod. Now it's 2020, and Earthbound levels still look like a mod from around 2012 or even earlier. So I guess the first half of Black Mesa itself needs a remake now because the difference between Earth and Xen is astounding.

I've also read that fights with marines are too hard. Sure, they are challenging, but keep in mind that you're playing a classic shooter. It meant to be like that. Even though I died a lot, I never felt frustrated or in a dire need to use cheats. Don't be afraid to engage in a combat and don't be afraid to lose health and shields. There are plenty of chargers and healing kits on the way.

Nevertheless, Black Mesa is still better than original Half-Life (and Half-Life: Source, obviously) in every possible way. If you want to experience Half-Life for the first time or to relive it once more, you'd better play Black Mesa. It's more enjoyable.

Bloober's Blair Witch is the first installment in the franchise that I liked since the original movie. Of course, you can't expect top-notch quality from a small studio, but I believe they did their job to the best of their ability.

It has a creepy athmosphere, and I'd say some parts of the game were even scary. When you're in the dark trying to find your way with a flashlight, all twisted trees start to look like monsters. It's clear that developers put a lot of time into the little environment details. Bloober Team also did a very good job with sounds. Music, wind, all the squeaking, crackling and other noises greatly add to the athmosphere. I don't even know why, but in some places the game gave me Alan Wake vibes.

Some people say that this game is too short, but I find it okay. The story is not very exiting, to put it mildly, but I came here for the thrill and got what I wanted. It took me 6 hours to complete the game on the first run, and I think that if it were 2-3 hours longer, I would start to feel bored.

Still, Blair Witch has its flaws. The last part of the game felt repetitive (gameplay reminded me Layers of Fear) and a bit dragged on. Yeah, sure all these transformations look cool, but come on, I've already seen these same rooms and halls for like twenty times in row, give me a break!

Even though the dog has a reflective collar and the game shows you direction from where he barks, at times it's difficult to find him in the dark. Also dog's constant barking or whining when something bad happens nagged me to death. I understand that it's only natural for a dog, but I just can't stand these sounds.

Graphics are not that impressive for the specified system requirements. I had to tone down shadows to medium and disable LPV in order to hit 60 fps on 1080p but still got sudden dips to sub 40s here and there.

Also, the game refused to launch with OC GPU, so I had to reset clocks to defaults each time before starting (I guess it has something to do with UE4 because recent Disintegration Technical Beta which utilizes the same engine also crashed with OC GPU). And for some reason it always crashed when I launched it via GOG Galaxy 2.0 Beta with Steam integration, so I had to run the game directly from Steam.

However, despite all its flaws, I recommend Blair Witch to anyone who likes horror games. You don't have to watch original movies or read anything beforehand. The game is already $30 and costs even less on sales. I enjoyed it and will definitely play it again (I still have to get the second ending).