Recent reviews by rado07

A fairly straightforward survival game with the kind of laid back atmosphere perfect for friendly shenanigans. There's a variety of things to do in terms of raft upgrades and aesthetics, crafting, exploration, and even combat, so there's always a feeling of having a small goal to work towards. I've never felt like the sharks were particularly threatening, more like an inconvenience, but it's hard to find a balance without making it too frustrating to deal with them and I think as-is you're always cognisant of the danger without being smothered by it.

The game mechanics are pretty standard for a survival game: eat, drink, don't get your arm bitten off by a shark, don't drown; there's not much to be said here for innovative gameplay but it does them fairly well with only little bits of jank. :) The loop of collecting materials and crafting can become a little monotonous for a similar reason, but there is some satisfaction to be had in building the next part of your raft with the new materials you just collected. Islands provide a great break from this loop, with lots of unique things on them to explore and do, so they are an excellent motivator of and foil to the raft building. It's cool to discover new things on each one. It feels like the world scales and becomes more complex alongside your raft rather than becoming stale.

I should mention that I have not yet played the game since the full release, so there may be more content to experience with the most recent update, but the core mechanics likely haven't changed based on the track record during early access. Overall, a good time among friends to mess around with, but don't expect anything too deep out of this game.

"Portal Stories: Mel" is a fantastic little mod that puts you back in the underground labs of Aperture Science as a test subject named Mel. Featuring all of the standard Portal gameplay, the puzzles in this mod are challenging right from the start and stay that way throughout. Testing elements from Portal 2 are frequently used in new ways, along with puzzle designs that are unique from the inspiration. While the graphics aren't cutting edge, it's still very nice to look at, with the detailing and polish of test chambers and rooms in between on the level of Valve's titles. It also comes with a high-quality original soundtrack fitting each moment of the action.

In addition to the great level design, Portal Stories does an excellent job of recreating the atmosphere of the official games, delivering an interesting new story with similar tongue-in-cheek humour and vivid characterization to the source material, while avoiding the impression of being a copycat. The mod does a great job taking the player through the various parts of Aperture's extensive facility, and never dragging on too long before throwing something new for the player to tackle. Until you get stuck, that is, and even if you do there's an official walk-through you can consult if it gets really bad. If the puzzles are consistently too hard, then there's a Story Mode with simplified solutions for those who still want to experience the game without constantly finding themselves unable to progress.

All-in-all, "Protal Stories: Mel" is certainly worth playing if you're a fan of thinking games and a little bit of story. If you already enjoy the Portal series it's a must-play!

This little gem throws you into the robes of a wizard and sets you on a noble quest to save the world of Midgård from destruction. As a wizard, you are given power over 8 different elements, from which you may cast a vast array of spells by combining them in different ways. This mechanic is very well thought out, with elemental opposites that may or may not result in death if you're not careful, as well as radically different effects for different combinations providing plenty of depth in your spell casting. There are, however, some spell combinations which are obviously more powerful than others, oftentimes leaving no reason to use the others. Despite this, alternate spells do come in handy every once in a while, so don't be afraid to experiment with them.

In regards to the story I'm not going to say much so that you can experience it all for yourself, but suffice it to say that it's very much an adventure of epic proportions and theres lots of content to enjoy. Every location and every boss feels unique and is fun to battle. While the adventure is generally supposed to be pretty serious, it's delivered in a silly and lighthearted manner, including humorous narration and funny NPC dialogue. Furthermore, the soundtrack fits in at every moment of the game - it's reminiscent of Lord of the Rings and it's certainly no worse for wear because of it. Booming and powerful when an action scene calls for it, quaint and quiet when it's calm, and with several other tracks to fill in moments of the game that don't quite fit into either category.

Finally, there are several modes you can play with your friends and accidentally (read: not really on accident) kill your friends with a spell gone awry or something else. Always great fun to gib your buddies late on a friday night - and yes, if it's not your thing there are settings that change the gore. The game allows you to play the story mode in co-op, and there is also a "versus" mode, but I've yet to try the latter.

In short, a great game to play on your own, fantastic with friends.

Now hurry up and get it! Before they run out of cheese!

Source Filmmaker (SFM) is a free-to-use tool developed by Valve. It was used to make the "Meet The Team" videos for TF2, the Intro videos for L4D 1&2, cutscenes for Portal 2, the DOD trailer and the CSGO trailer.

The main purpose of SFM is to make videos and animations, but can be used to produce stills/posters also. A major plus to this program is that assests from ALMOST ANY Source game can be imported and used in these videos (unless the engine has been severly modified, like Titanfall). There are also many videos on the Internet with tips and tricks on how to do things in SFM - from the fundamentals to the complex operations that make this such a powerful tool.

Two more things:
This program is power-hungry! Make sure you have a good rig, otherwise it will be difficult to use.
Don't give up. The learning curve for SFM is a harsh one...start with simple things and move up from there.