Recent reviews by Wraggle

A fantastic gem of a game. Frantic, hilarious, quirky, bum-clenching tense. A PvP shooter that has a little bit of jank as you slide, hop, and crouch-lean through round the arenas. A visually strange variety of maps and at times doesn't care too much about balanced gameplay. It's a race to find guns, close the gap on your target and send their corpse spinning into the void. This game caters for chaotic play, whether you are bunny-hopping and throwing grenades or firing energy weapons through walls. There is an energy to this small game that is amazing with a friend. It looks like a mid-2000s game, and plays like old deathmatch game. Variety is its strength and it triggers a mischievous enjoyment in my brain. Most enjoyable thing I've played all year.

Great hats too

The sun hasn't quite set on 90's shooters and level design, DUSK is a testament to this. Furiously fast, aggressive action, perfectly paced, and a stunning soundtrack, DUSK has a lot of positives going for it. The story takes a back seat and is only hinted at throughout the levels. DUSK is filled with many nods to past genres and games whether its schlocky 70s and 80s B-movie horrors, games like Quake, Blood, DOOM and Half-Life, its thrown in and works surprisingly well. Starting in some small, outback, country town in the US you soon stumble across the occult, chainsaw wielding, sack-donning redrecks, and creepy abominations before moving onto rust-riddled, industrial, abandoned refinery that warps and twists as you descend into bizarre other-worldly realms.

In keeping with the Shareware model, DUSK was released in episodes with each one ramping up in action, level design, weapons and enemies. Its a good build up and keeps you wanting to play the next level. The levels start out short in length, fairly simple, but with hints at what is to come. It drip feeds you new mechanics and ways of navigating and moving before putting the foot on the pedal and tipping a bucket of new things at you. This keeps the game fresh and surprising on your first playthrough then allows you to master the early levels on your second or third play. Guns sound and feel fantastic in this game and have a real punch to them. Paired with the rapid movement you are a literal battering-ram, crunching through the hordes of enemies.

Control of movement is spot on in this game but if its not to your liking you can tweak bits such as head bob and mouse movement. DUSK is customisable and has a few options that made me smirk such as adding a pixelation option to truly give yourself a Quake look. This is carried over to the multiplayer mode called DUSKWORLD where you can tweak you character model.

DUSK has a lot going for it such as the level design, which is complex but navigable, a brilliantly varied soundtrack by Andrew Hulshult that provides moments of adrenaline fueled thumping Metal Rock to creepy, drawn out, in-your-ear ambient music that pricks at the hairs on your neck. A variety of weapons that work better on certain enemies and a freedom to run, circle-strafe and bunny hop around the mobs of evil. There are a few minor issues that I see which is the artstyle will put some people off instantly but it is what it is. Some enemy design does not look great and can emit a laugh at first sight than fear, you also get all weapons in the first episode but this works both ways. Apart from those small things DUSK really feels great to play.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided looks like it has everything going for it. The combat is enhanced from Human Revolution with more options available, it has new augmentations to experiment with, the graphics are improved, and areas are littered with small details to create a pretty convincing hub world of Prague. It all looks and plays nicely, but something is missing. This game fails to present an interesting story to drive you forward and main mission has no sense of urgency. The characters so far lack personality and the fact that you are hardly contacted by them through your infolink means that they just fade in your memory.

Adam Jensen, the main protagonist, is a huge problem for me. He just doesn't seem bothered or interested in anything and comes across as if he has been just woken up. I don't like listening to his half-arsed questions. Some of the other voice acting is pretty poor as well with no one really giving a stand out performance. Most of the dialogue had me zoning out and it is not helped that the lip-syncing is slightly off either.

Its a shame as the level design is generally very good with alternate paths and ways into buildings and rooms. There are lots of hidden areas and places that are locked down and require a higher hacking level to break in so require a revisit, however, this I feel is also detrimental to the game itself.

It starts in Dubai with a tutorial-esque mission to get you used to the controls and mechanics. You are part of a task force and dropped into an abandoned hotel to disrupt an arms deal. The level is fairly small but packed with routes and for a first mission it does well to introduce you to the games elements. After that mission you arrive in Prague and there is an incident which damages your body. Awakening in your apartment, you have to get your augs repaired and go to work to see the Director of the taskforce. That is okay as a first task but the hub of Prague is very large and scenic. I spent hours exploring the shops, apartments and sewers and totally lost the urgency to see my boss. It sounds like a strange complaint but when you are allowed to do various side-missions and basically mess about without any nagging to do the main story mission it sometimes lessens that mission. 10 hours later, I met my Director but wasn't scalded by him or interested in what he had to say. Adam Jensen's "broody teenager" act didn't help either. For me, I think they should have had you arrive at your workplace to solidify some main characters and interactions and then let you lose on Prague.

Maybe it is just down to my playstyle but I felt more like a cat burgular/intrusive customer/lost tourist than I did an investigative agent. Its seems strange that members of the public and impatient shop keepers will one moment tell you where to go, and then next moment they allow you to open the trunk of their car, hack into safes or just walk into their apartments whilst they sob over being evicted or casually chat on the phone. This freedom of exploration is usually is good in a game like Fallout, which is a sandbox world but Deus Ex has always had hubs with interesting side missions and characters. This Deus Ex game has had me just read through pretty dull e-mails, find a few drug dens, forge some identifications, and randomly find a cult (which is just a bit too bizarre for this game). Mostly dull stuff.

The premise of segregating the augmented people from the non-augmented people just seems a little too far fetched to have been introduced over a short period of time. Its trying so hard to create a believable world but then I can spring around and take what what I wish. I am not really invested in anything that is going on and its affecting my enjoyment.

Gameplay is fine with some interesting police AI. For example, you can trip an alarm but if they don't see you do it then they will pass you by and check the area. I also caused a drone to kill some crooks as I set of a car alarm which caused them to be hostile to me, but as I didn't shoot back the drone decided that they were in the wrong and slaughtered them for me. Little things like that are great but then you see people stuggle to navigate doors or strangely physically run from desk to desk in small circuits in your HQ. Placement of objects is weird as painkillers can be hidden away in some secret room, yet diaries, credit cards, and safes with guns are left open or casually sit on tables. Its a just mixed bag.

Overall I have not found much to make me want to push on with the main mission and I am just going through the motions. It has quickly become a chore that drags down the otherwise good work and make it hard for me to play.

I grew up on the DOOM series so had a mixture of excitement and slight cynicism when this reboot was announced. The new DOOM is really an homage to the first two DOOM games. It doesn't fully feel like an old DOOM game, it is more akin to Quake 2 in DOOM's clothes, however when it comes down to it the game is a huge amount of fun and packed full of intense fighting. This is the most fun I have had in a FPS for several years.

The story of DOOM doesn't matter, and the developers even purposefully show this. The marine is voiceless and portrayed as an impatient, violent, individual who just wants to get on with it. He will constantly punch, stomp and break terminals, droids and screens after their use has outlived their purpose. DOOM has very few cut scenes (basic monster introductions) and dialogue is minimal. Straight away you are thrown into fighting, the glory-kill system and other features are throw at you in mere minutes and then you are on you way killing demons and hell spawn. Most of the iconic enemies return from the series, minus the spidery/horror based enemies from DOOM 3. Speaking of DOOM 3, this is nothing like DOOM 3. It is not a horror game regardless of the excellent lighting effects and environments. This game is meant to be played at full speed, running into enemies and later on leaping and hopping around to avoid damage and chaining together glory-kills. If you try to creep and walk through this you will be killed quickly.

id Software have provided large, multi-level maps to play around in. They have packed them with combat areas that lock down when entered due to demon infestation, hidden away collectables, secrets and PDAs that detail the back story a bit more, and created sprawling platforms and walkways to clamber to different vantages. You can get lost in these environments but usually if there are no demons, you are not heading off track. One thing I enjoyed about this game is there is no nagging commander or comrade telling you where to head next. There is no floating icon stuck on-screen showing you the next door to enter, it does have a compass that shows distance to objectives but it is not in your face. There is a map too. I can't recall the last time I used a map in game to hunt for areas I had not visited. It is getting back to old school FPS shooters, which admittedly some people may think is a backwards step. I just think it is a welcome change to the normal current set of shooters.

There is a distinct rhythm that forms playing DOOM which is backed by a pulsating, hard, aggressive soundtrack that gets the adrenaline flowing. There have been moments in fighting where I have unconsciously held my breath due to the intensity cranking up through the gears to near fever pitch. The rhythm is helped by the enemies that all have been adjusted and tweaked from older games. The imps are truly brilliant as introductory demons. They clamber and swing up pillars and walkways like chimpanzees throwing fireballs in a variety of ways that keep you on your toes. The main zombies aren't too dissimilar from each other but are basic cannon fodder, the pinky demons are now armoured from the front and cause horrid damage, as do the floating cacodemons that sink down from the skies and fire lightning at you. This means that during battles there is a lot going and to contend with. You try to focus on the larger or powerful enemies only to be flanked and slapped from behind from an imp. It sounds annoying but you get used to being on your toes and leaping through gaps in the enemies to head for the power ups that are placed in levels. Power ups like Berserk which grant you the ability to one-kill punch and rip any enemy, or Quad-damage that multiples your damage by four. There is a Haste power up that increases your movement and fire rate. All these items just stir the action into whirlwind of violence.

This game is an absolute blast from start to finish. It has been designed to be a "mindless shooter" and enhanced to perform its duty. Weapons are upgradable and even your armour can be modified to assist you later in game. The equipment such as grenades and teleporters I found to be of no use as they were just one button to far away to recall in battle. The chainsaw and BFG are now used more out of desperation as they have their own key assignments. The chainsaw is used to take down large enemies which spew out ammo and health like a piñata. I thought I would hate this feature of demons releasing health and ammo when you are in the red but its something I accepted. There are moments and sections of the new DOOM that aren't great however. The multi-player for example just doesn't have the depth of the arena shooter it is trying to be. I am not bothered either way about the customisation as that doesn't affect my view, its just the matches get tedious quickly. I don't want to play through the modes and it fails to come anywhere near the greats of Unreal or Quake. The campaign also has a few filler moments where you have to collect another hellish item before you can proceed to the end. Overall the maps are good fun but the environments can start to blend into one and other towards the end of the game. It is to be expected really as the campaign took me nearly 17 hours. There are a few nitpicks here and there such as colour coded doors not being as visible across maps as in the originals, the heavy machine gun feels a bit redundant as it turns into a small rocket spewing gun, its the same with the chain gun as it slows you down. Finally early in the game can feel a bit of a chore as it involves clearing the areas of demon nests.

DOOM is a highly polished, slick game that it fun and a blast to play through. There are small darkly humorous moments hidden in the ways you can die and nods to the older id and Bethesda games. I get id's enthusiasm that was shown in all the marketing campaigns and it does manage to live up to most of the claims. It is better than Wolfenstein New Order and only marred by multi-player and a few cheap deaths here and there. Snapmap is a nice edition and I am currently messing around with creating basic maps and modes. A very solid 8.5/10.

Another game that if you haven't played it already, you will most likely never play. Quake is old, but you will have heard of it and that should hint at its legacy. Essentially Quake is your standard 90's shooter story. Humanity has experimented with teleportation, evil monsters are not best pleased and invade. You are a soldier sent in to kill their head honcho.

Similar to DOOM, Quake's levels are split into episodes, each starting with a slipgate into that level's realm. Thematically Quake is inspired and uses Lovecraftian visuals. Enemies are large, sulking, waxy-white, blood soaked beasts, or spindly abominations with stretched skin and fixed grimaces. Nearly all the levels have a dark or earthy palette but are varied enough. You will race through medieval/fanstasy-inspired fortresses, dingy skull decorated catacombs, crawling cave systems filled with pools and lava, and classic futuristic sci-fi/military bases.

The single-player campaign is a decent length with snappy levels taking between 3-10 minutes. By current standards some of the back tracking and navigation could be confusing and the collection of keys and button/tile pressing is old hat now. However, this "simplier" method of progression fits in with the superb gameplay. Quake is still a hard game. Due to the mix of enemies, their rates and range of attacks, varying heights of floor, platforms, and hidden monster closets. The game forces you to learn and proiritise who to shoot first. Its keeps you on your toes and twisting around to fire off shots above or behind you. It has an extra dimension in movement and aiming that games like DOOM and Duke Nukem didn't have.

You will face a horde of enemies that have attack patterns. The Ogre for example has a grenade launcher and chainsaw. Their grenades usually force you forward as they bounce behind, but if you get too close they will chop at you will the saw. The Fiends are small and hunched melee monsters that leap vast distances and cause high damage. The Shambler is a giant, lightning spewing, beast who is fast moving and takes a lot of damage.

Weapons are your standard FPS guns - shotguns, grenade launchers, and rocket launchers. There is also a nailgun that acts like a chaingun and a lightning gun that you dose you foes with. As its the Nineties, there are armour pickups and power pickups such as a ring of invisibility (...prrrecious...) and the excellent Quad-Damage (4x damage) which lets you blitz opponents into gibs.

The soundtrack is fairly oppressive through out, causing a growing uneasiness as you peer into darkened corners whilst the drawn out horns, thudding industrial pulses and minimalistic background sounds unnerve and prick your ears. It was produced by the frontman from Nine Inch Nails and he also did some of the sound effects for pickups which are iconic.

The biggest draw for Quake however was the multiplayer, deathmatch, and its mods. It helped to popularise and standardise online play. With QuakeWorld it improved connection quality and had built in support of TCP/IP instead of a separate client. Deathmatches were slick, explosive and frantic. An accidental way of moving known as Rocketjumping was discovered and Quake and its fans gave birth to services such as GameSpy. Soon modifications were created for Quake such as CTF, and a little known mod named Team Fortress. Singleplayer mods such as Nehahra and the first Machinimas were made as well.

It was one of the first true 3d first person shooters but isn't without some flaws. Animations can be choppy at times making some attacks hard to judge. I remember searching for switches after clearing out the whole level which grew frustrating, and there is a enemy known as a Spawn which is a squishy, floating blue blob that explodes on death. Its poorly designed, annoying in a swarm and travels quickly. Considering the design of the rest of the enemies this one is bad.

However, these are just nitpicks. Overall Quake was great and is still playable. Graphics and some gameplay elements are dated but it is a challenge and feels right. Sound design is unique and memorable. It may look a bit drab now but it is all about the constant small decisions and learning that keep you having fun.

Rocket League is a great game that is immediately fun to pick up and play. It is great at supporting new players and providing everyone who plays it with tense and hilarious moments. I did wonder why this game appeared to be advertised all over the place and it made me sceptical to pick it up. However, after receiving it as a gift and playing it I happily brought a copy and gifted it to someone else.

The game is deceptively simple. You play in an open arena which is encased in curved walls. The matches can range from 1 vs 1 to 4 vs 4. You control rocket powered vehicles and the aim is to score with the ball. The ball physics are floaty and cumbersome so it is like kicking a beach ball. You can perform tricks with the vehicles as they can drive up the walls and across the ceiling. The tricks range from simple rolls and front flips to bicycle kicks and the hard to master air shots. Rocket League has tutorials, bots matches, a season mode and other things to assist new players.

When you start Rocket League you are boosting you car all over the place. Driving into team mates, up and down walls, jumping over the ball, and scoring own goals. It is chaotic and unorganised, then you score a chipped shot, or lob the ball in from your own goal line or you simplly knock the ball through to a team mate. It starts to click in your brain that this game is actually more about positioning and timing. So you win a few games and start feeling cocky. Then you meet players who fly through the air to intercept the ball and perform arced decents from above. You realise how poor you are and how high the skill ceiling is. Rocket League is very good at keeping you playing against worthy opponents. You don't get thrown in at the deep like some twitchy online shooters, you rise through the ranks.

The game keeps the small rewards coming the the shape of free customisable items. Usually at the end of every two or three matches you get a new decal, hat, flag, set of wheels or particle effects. It keeps the new players happy and lets you create your own car. The game rewards you with something new each time whether it is your first goal, first new car, or first online match. The developers have really thought about how to keep this game friendly to new players and challenging to veterans.

I am now at the stage where I am feeling more competitive and I am trying to play more tactically, which is good. There will be games where you luckily bounce the ball in off a wall or reverse it in, but its all part of the match. The game remains a vibrant, lively, and challenging game. Updates are steady and the modes on offer will allow for hours of enjoyment. A fantastic game to play with friends and the most fun I've had since TF2.

Still in Beta but practically finished end to end, Black Mesa is a modern remake of Half-Life. Starting out as an ambitious project for a group of modders back in the mid-2000s to being one of the first Greenlight games for Steam's platform, it has been worked on for many years. Some of the development team, now known as the Crowbar Collective, have come and gone and many hands have touched it but their combined work has actually paid off.

Black Mesa, treads in the footsteps of the classic, genre-changing, Valve game Half-Life. It is a mix of horror, action, exploration, and puzzle solving as you shoot your way through the underground facility that has been invaded by inter-dimensional beings.

A lengthy single-player game taking roughly 13-17 hours on a first playthrough but it can be finished in just under 12 hours. The devs have streamlined some of the more tedious chapters, which helps with the pacing, but they've also gone to town on others such as Surface Tension and the later levels set in off-world. Generally the maps are larger which aids in showing off the size and scope of the facility. The chapter Lambda Core, for example, contains towering equipment that thuds into life as you clamber maintenance ladders to scale it. Other areas contain huge aircraft hangers and large storage warehouses. However, some maps are, at times, a bit too open. This causes the tight, frantic, in your face, close combat from Half-Life to get a bit lost and you feel exposed to enemies.

For a Source engine game it looks incredible. The devs have done some true witchcraft and improved lighting with better shadow maps, colour correction, dynamic lighting, god-rays, lens flares and other more modern tricks. The use of particle effects, cinematic physics, smoke and fog create a visual stunning game at times. They've squeezed what they can out of the old engine. The final chapters have had huge amount of work put into the environments and through iteration Xen feels completely different to it's original levels. Much of the teams focus appears to have gone into the visuals and details of the facility and they've used Valve's method of environmental story telling very well.

Sound is generally good across the board. Weapons are punchy and have good bass, ambient noises are great in most levels, the soundtrack is very good and at times brilliant. Voice acting is very close to Half-Life. Black Mesa has kept the eccentric scientist voices and friendly guards with only one or two voices that don't quite cut it. The HECU marines sound more human but unfortunately don't always use their audio barks so firefights involving them can feel deathly quiet or muffled. Clear audio barks from enemies can inform the player where the enemies are and what they are doing. They cause a sense of anticipation but are also memorable. Across the board though, when the sound design all comes together it creates some fantastic moments.

The majority of set pieces are as enjoyable as in Half-Life. A good amount are vastly superior. The unforgiving insta-death moments of the original game are gone, but there are still some lethal trial and error gameplay. I've found that the Black Mesa devs have been heavily inspired, almost to the point of downright ripping some scenes, puzzles and moments from other Valve games and also DOOM 2016. It may be done in homage as there are only a few, but there are times when you think, "This is like Portal 2, this is from Episode 1, this looks very familiar etc". The devs have however have been creative and improved areas with their own ideas. There is a sniper section that plays out nicely and incorporates some tricks, and the final boss battle is enjoyable.

Throughout the game you may notice slightly different levels of polish, this is due to some chapters being expanded or re-added and others have come later in the cycle. Notoriously Xen has been left until last. It plays like a Greatest Hits of what the team can do. It could almost survive on it's own and mainly it flows really well. The Interloper chapter is the least polished but was also last to be completed. Xen, Gonarch's Lair, and Nihilanth play out better and perform smoother. The game is still in beta and is being worked on. I do hope that they can revisit the chapters set on Earth as some need a bit of a touch up. I also hope they can look at Residue Processing as it is a carbon copy and still a chore riding conveyor belts with perilous falls.

The puzzles in Black Mesa usually revolve around solving an access issue, this could be locked doors due to a loss of power or something is blocking your way or a grate that needs opening with a wheel. Most of the puzzles are placed for a bit of downtime and generally you don't think twice about them. However, later in the game and the final chapters repetition does set in. Another cable puzzle is presented or you have to do something three times to activate a sequence. It's hard to invent new puzzles and to be fair the Half-Life series popularised them, but when a goal is in sight and puzzle room behind a vent is in the way, eye rolling can occur.

So there are some improvements with Black Mesa. I feel some music tracks play too early or don't quite represent what is onscreen. The helicopter fights need to give more openings to shoot back. The AI of enemies and some animations do need a bit of a rework. The HECU now have a tendency to charge you and relentless fire, which for hitscan enemies cause you to hold back behind cover. They also have some problems navigating around objects or can run back and forth between the same location. Little moments do stand out and engagements can feel odd as enemies get stuck in two minds. It's partially down to level design but also something seems off in the programming. Shootouts can suddenly devolve and you feel a bit deflated as they didn't... quite... get out of first gear.

I will commend the work done in later chapters as the devs have utilised early game enemies, such as Barnacles and Headcrabs, in creative ways. For experienced Half-Life players there are a few surprises. I believe that if some more work is put into the animations to help telegraph what actions the enemies will carry out and if timing of their attacks are changed it will give the player opportunity to move around like an old FPS. Better pathfinding, looking at some sound issues, and changing enemy start positions could improve the feel. It may appear slightly antiquated but also tried and tested.

Regardless of the above nitpicks but I would definitely recommend Black Mesa based on the quality of other released games. With one or two more patches and bug fixes and it could be a true, polished, gem.

Minerva's Den is a great showpiece for the Rapture based Bioshock games. It is a well paced, focused DLC that doesn't get stale by repeating itself too much and it doesn't over reach. The story is well told through only a few handful of characters. This allows you to get familar with them, recognise their voices, and identify with them more than some of the characters in the full length games.

The story centres around the technological centre of Rapture which houses a large mainframe computer. The computer, known as the Thinker, is tasked to process large amounts of data and computer all the automated machines and bots around Rapture. As you enter Minerva's Den you are soon introduced to the two men that built The Thinker, one a far thinking mathematician and the other a more practical engineer. They are at odds with how to utilise the computer's abilities.

As it is a DLC for Bioshock 2 there is a lot of the same weaponary and enemy types, however they are introduced in a slightly different way, which I think partially due to the length of the DLC. It makes a nice change to find upgraded weapons instead of having to seek out an upgrade station. Some of the enemies have tweaked abilities and their numbers and spawning make them less annoying than in the main game. There is some better use of placement and timing which allows you time to explore more and rest between fights. The overall design of the levels is better as it gives the impression that you have an area to explore instead of leading you down a road with only a few side rooms. The areas you visit make sense and it rarely overuses the trick of blocking off where you need to go until you backtrack to get something to help you proceed. Gameplay is solid, voice acting is great, the atmosphere and design is very good. It is a fun showcase of all the goodpoints of Bioshock and the Rapture setting. Takes around 5 hours to complete.

Wolfenstein is a good, solid, shooter that was fun and enjoyable to play. It is set mainly in the 1960s where WWII was won by Nazi Germany. You play as a soldier who was badly injured during an assault and has spent the past few years in a vegetable state in a hospital. The game seems to borrow from other games as at times it will feel very familar. In ways it is similar to the early Medal of Honor or the first Call of Duty games where you encounter enemies at a middle distance and they dive and shoot from behind cover. Other times it seems to have been influenced by Dishonored with the stealth sections and animated backstabs. It doesn't quite match those games in terms of execution of the mechanics but they are decent.

Wolfenstein's employs a standard mission and base system where you complete a few missions and head back to your base for a breather. It uses the base as a way of expanding on some of the characters and fill in the back story. There are some interesting, memorable characters in Wolfenstein but unfortunately that makes some of the others seem one dimensional. I feel that maybe with a bit more time, focus and care this game could have been truly great. The story is at times over the top which lends well to the gameplay, however around the midway point there is one to two chapters which are just plain dumb. It stupidly tosses in a "secret Jewish organisation" into the mix which, gladly, is only touched on for one chapter. Aside from that there are nice touches which help shape the story; such as the main character muttering about distant memories throughout the game.

The level design is very good generally with expansive indoor maps that allow you to do a bit of exploring. As a homge to the early Wolfenstein games there are gold objects and other hidden goodies littered throughout the game. Letters and newspapers are hidden to provide background and as in early 90s shooters enemies drop armour and ammo. The game strangely gets you to press E to collect these pickups which seems a bit odd. Simply running over them would have been a better choose. I actually liked the perk systems in this game as it is not intrusive. You gain perks by just repeating actions such as killing enemies with throwing knives or headshotting guards. There are four bands of perks which cover stealth play, assault play, tactical and demolition. You can purposely pursue them but I found they populated as I played.

It was nice for me to play a game where the movement is fairly quick, guns are snappy, and pack a punch. Dual-weilding chunky shotguns was a good throw back. There is a peek-from-cover move which I rarely used as you can just blast away. Wolf contains a laser cutting weapon which was versitile and upgradable. Again, if more time had been spend on it I feel it could have been as good as the Gravity Gun in HL2. There just aren't too many levels that explore its features fully. It also highlights a few inconsistences with the levels and "world". An example would be how certain metal sheets and surfaces are destructable yet some wooden panels or metal boxes aren't. I think it is more a restriction employed for consoles that hindered the game a bit. Its the same with the textures which can be low-res in some places. The game does run very smooth and I experienced no slow down.

The AI of the enemies is a lot better when they are fighting as it quickly becomes apparant that their stealth AI is sloppy. I've had guards look straight at me or see their colleague get shot just to turn and walk away. The first stealthy mission is the best as it has multiple routes the others are very hit and miss. Firefights however are very satisfying and can be challenging when you encounter the different types of soldiers. The game has a decent difficulty level which can cause you to die a few times when you get overwhelmed. Overall Wolfenstein is worth it as it is a fun experience. The majority of the levels are diverse in theme and design. It is not run and gun shooter of old but more of a blend of modern and old. There is no magic directional arrow showing you the way so sometimes you can get lost. I will be replaying this game again to see what I missed. It just misses out on being an 8 out of 10 game.

TF2 is one of the best multiplayer games around. Its design and art direction lend to its fun and friendly atmosphere. The majority of players I've encountered are welcoming and helpful although still remain competitive. One of TF2's biggest strengths but also one of its downsides is variety. When it was first released TF2 was a fairly simple game of two teams pitted against each other. Players could pick from a variety of nine classes which each filled and suited a role, either defensive, supportive, or offensive play. The maps were few but well designed and allowed players to start to adapt and learn new tricks and skills. Valve supported this and to stop the game from going stale brought out secondary weapons and then cosmetic items such as hats. Sometimes the new weapons would cause chaos as they were big game changers and allowed defensive classes to be better at offensive play. Valve always implemented fixes and through numerous updates introduced more items, maps, and gamemodes.

This kept the game feeling fresh and reinvigorated the playerbase. TF2 has always been an game that Valve has experimented with. It introduced cosmetic items, crafting, additional media such as video content and comics to the Valve audience. This meant that TF2 has always been changing which can sometimes lead to times when it can be annoying to play. Overtime the game has become more demanding in terms of computer resources and seems to also suffer slightly from being on the older Source engine. Sudden framerate drops can be common when it has been updated but generally these are ironed out.

My overall thoughts on TF2 is that it is still a fantastic game. The gameplay is top notch and you rarely feel frustrated when you die. The player base overall is great with a good community, although there are poor players and servers here and there. Mainly TF2 is fun and humorous, this is enhanced by the great character designs, taunts and one-liners that are uttered by the classes. It encourages players to worry less about losing and to just enjoy the game. The variety of gamemodes and maps is vast, maybe a little too much as I feel the game has become a bit saturated with content. It can be a overwhelming at times or feel like a chore to manage items that are randomly dropped. Some players thrive on that as there is a marketplace for trading but it is one activity I have no interest in. My interest in TF2 peaked a few years back, it waned during a period of constant updates that crashed the game for me or caused texture bugs. That however is TF2, you can play it for months and then a few updates will be made that change the game or introduce new elements. It is an accepted part of the game.