Recent reviews by ZLoth

Short review: Play the game, buy the DLC to support the developer.

Long review: We'll get the bad out of the way first... it's not the most graphically impressive game on Steam. It is one of the more simpler games on Steam with just one key word to know: "Survive". However, you will be finding this game as one of your favorite "time sink" games as you play over and over trying out new abilities, skills, and weapons for each play-through. With the right build, you are the bullet storm. I don't know the story, and I don't care. I just want to shot all of those pesky bugs, just increase my fire rate, damage, and all of the special modifiers.

First released as a early access game on February 20, 2014, and then officially released on February 18, 2016, Plague Inc: Evolved takes the "what-if" concept, and puts you in control of a pathogen, setting what country you first infect patient zero, how you are transmitted, what symptoms are seen, and even the resistances against cures that researchers are trying to research. The ultimate goal is to wipe out humanity.

What I really like is the attention to the detail of this game and how the developers strives for realism as best as it could. Your pathogen isn't going to do too well if it has resistance to heat, but patient zero is located in Iceland. Likewise, the modern day on how it can be communicated around the world (by land, sea, and air travel) is fairly accurately simulated. I would have to loved this play when I was high school, as it would have enhanced the book learning in science.

Is it a perfect game? No. One of the drawbacks is that it is set in the modern world of today. I would have loved to be able to go back to prior eras (pre-jet age) and try infecting the world that way. It would have been interesting to see how much harder it would have been compared to today.

RECOMMENDED - Be sure to check out the Plague Inc Wiki[markholtz.info]

As the core concept is the same for both games, I will cover both Left 4 Dead (released November, 2008) and it's sequel, Left 4 Dead 2 as a single game. The core plot is the same for both games: You and three other players have to survive the zombie apocalypse and reach the end goal. Along the way, you pick up guns and ammo, explosives, and first aid. All four of you have to survive to the end, or be overwhelmed by the zombie horde. Got it? Go play.

In the past ten years, the gaming landscape is littered with multi-player games that have launched, had their moment in their sun, then the players go on to another game, and soon the game publishers shut down the servers. Yet, when you look at the gaming numbers for the Left 4 Dead series, with 25K peak players for Left 4 Dead 2 in the week of this posting (and 1,062 for Left 4 Dead) according to SteamDB[markholtz.info]. It's easy to see why. The graphics, although slightly dated, still hold up in modern computers. The core gaming mechanics are easy to pick up within a few games. I particularly liked the horror motif, especially since it feels like you are part of a survival horror movie that runs around 60-90 minutes. I also like that you and three other players have to cooperate with each other, although there are some alternative gaming modes as well. The second game is open to mods.... wide open to mods. And, it is compatible across multiple platforms.

Yet, when I am looking at this game, I cannot feel but annoyance at Valve as a game developer. The last game released by Valve was five years ago with DOTA 2. The Left 4 Dead games are overdue for a third release, but none is coming. We won't even speak of Half Life 3.

Would I recommend the games? Yes, but with qualifications.

The sequel, Left 4 Dead 2 is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Not only is it an improved game from the original, but all of the missions from the first game have been transferred to the sequel as well. The online player base is larger as well, plus support for more playing modes and there is a GeForce Experience profile. The game got highly discounted during the last Steam Summer sale as well, thus it's worth waiting for a sale.

The original, Left 4 Dead, on the other hand, is NOT RECOMMENDED. All of the missions from the original game has been ported to the sequel, and the sequel is better supported and has a bigger online population. Save the money.

As the core concept is the same for both games, I will cover both Left 4 Dead (released November, 2008) and it's sequel, Left 4 Dead 2 as a single game. The core plot is the same for both games: You and three other players have to survive the zombie apocalypse and reach the end goal. Along the way, you pick up guns and ammo, explosives, and first aid. All four of you have to survive to the end, or be overwhelmed by the zombie horde. Got it? Go play.

In the past ten years, the gaming landscape is littered with multi-player games that have launched, had their moment in their sun, then the players go on to another game, and soon the game publishers shut down the servers. Yet, when you look at the gaming numbers for the Left 4 Dead series, with 25K peak players for Left 4 Dead 2 in the week of this posting (and 1,062 for Left 4 Dead) according to SteamDB[markholtz.info]. It's easy to see why. The graphics, although slightly dated, still hold up in modern computers. The core gaming mechanics are easy to pick up within a few games. I particularly liked the horror motif, especially since it feels like you are part of a survival horror movie that runs around 60-90 minutes. I also like that you and three other players have to cooperate with each other, although there are some alternative gaming modes as well. The second game is open to mods.... wide open to mods. And, it is compatible across multiple platforms.

Yet, when I am looking at this game, I cannot feel but annoyance at Valve as a game developer. The last game released by Valve was five years ago with DOTA 2. The Left 4 Dead games are overdue for a third release, but none is coming. We won't even speak of Half Life 3.

Would I recommend the games? Yes, but with qualifications.

The sequel, Left 4 Dead 2 is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Not only is it an improved game from the original, but all of the missions from the first game have been transferred to the sequel as well. The online player base is larger as well, plus support for more playing modes and there is a GeForce Experience profile. The game got highly discounted during the last Steam Summer sale as well, thus it's worth waiting for a sale.

The original, Left 4 Dead, on the other hand, is NOT RECOMMENDED. All of the missions from the original game has been ported to the sequel, and the sequel is better supported and has a bigger online population. Save the money.

NOTE: This game was withdrawn from sale on May 15th, 2017 due to expiring music licenses. The sequel, Alan Wake: American Nightmare, is still for sale as of this writing.

NOTE 2: This game is once again available for sale as of October 25th, 2018.

Released in May, 2010 for the XBox 360 and then in February, 2012 for the Windows computer, Alan Wake is a good "psychological action thriller" game. You play the role of Alan Wake, a horror writer (in the vein of Stephen King) who has a two-year writer's block. Along with his photographer wife, Alice Wake, they travel to Bright Falls (presumably in Washington state) for a cabin vacation. While in town, Alan picks up the keys to the cabin in Cauldron Lake from a strange old lady. They get to the cabin, but the lights are working. Did I mention that your wife is nyctophobia, thus fears the dark? And then she disappears under mysterious circumstances.

And, that, folks, opens up Episode 1 of this game.

I like how this game is structured is structured as a six-episode mini-series as if it were a television show (not to mention the two-part DLC special). This made it easy for me to play this game over a series of nights in chunks. The side effect, however, is that each episode has our protagonist starting out with nothing. Another aspect is that our protagonist is not a super-athlete or super-soldier by any means, and is by all means a "normal" person, albiet with a healthy imagination.

Another aspect is how meta the references get in this game. This game admits that it drew heavily from the Twin Peaks series from 1990-1991, and it shows. The fictional town of Bright Falls was modeled after the real-life small town of Detroit, Oregon near Detroit Lake. At some points in the game, Alan is watching a television show Night Springs, which is a thinly distinguished version of the Twilight Zone. Unfortunately, two product placements detracted from this meta, namely the Energizer batteries and the Verizon Wireless.

Gameplay mechanics interesting. Your most powerful weapon isn't the revolver, rifles, or the flare gun, but light. That's right, your most commonly used item and weapon is your flashlight to fight the manifestations of darkness in the game. I know, sounds weird, but it works here. And, the game does allow for some exploration.

Storywise, it's a very good story. Although it is a bit linear, it makes for a good yarn and time well spent. The ending was a bit drawn out in episode six, but it was not a disappointing ending. The two "specials" in the DLC talk builds upon the aftermath of episode six.

Graphics is very good, but was designed for release on the lower-resolution systems of 2010-2012. The age does show a little bit running at the 2K resolution of my system, but I had very good framerates during the game (85-100 FPS). No complaints here.

Would I recommend this game? HIGHLY, and it's a shame that this game wasn't more popular. Although a Alan Wake 2 was in the planning stages, it was cancelled and replaced with Quantum Break.

Be sure to check out the Alan Wake Wiki[markholtz.info] after you completed the game as well as the bonus material.

Released in June, 2010, Singularity is a First-Person Shooter that also involves some time travel elements. Unfortunately, it also feeds like a knock-off of 2007's BioShock, right down to the opening to a big statue, weird effects from the device on your left hand, and the three different ending. And, didn't 2005's F.E.A.R. have a time manipulation element?

The plot feels like it was taken from a SyFy Channel movie. After a strange energy surge is detected by US Satellites from Katorga-12, a US strike team is sent to investigate. Turns out that it was a mining facility for the element E-99 (Egg?), and somehow, you are sent back in time to 1955 where there is a big fire, and you rescue a scientist, and end up altering history for the worse, and you have to fix it.

Even though this game is eight years old, I'm still surprised that the regular price of this game is almost $30. Too much in my opinion, so I picked it up on sale for $7.49. I had no issues running the game on Windows 10, although I did alter some settings for better graphics[pcgamingwiki.com] at 2K resolution. Unfortunately, the FPS on this game is capped at 120FPS for single player and 30FPS for multiplayer.

As for gameplay, I felt that I was on a rail shooter. Although there was some minor nooks for additional stuff, on the whole, I felt that there was one major path in order to advance the plot. At the end, all I wanted to do is see what the three endings were (bad, very bad, ugly), then delete the game. I have no desire to replay this game. It's not a bad game, but it's not a memorable game either. And, since technology has improved since 2010, wait until it's less than $10 before picking it up.

END VERDICT: Decent game, just feels like a F.E.A.R./BioShock clone.

To be honest, I had not heard anything about this game until it showed up in the Humble Monthly Bundle last Friday morning (October 6th, 2017). According to the notes I have, this "game" was released on April 26th, 2017, but bombed badly, only selling 6,000 units. After the Humble Bundle release, it saw a spike in the number of players who were playing this game.

"Game" is a very loose term. There are no enemies to shoot, no bases to blow up. Instead, you are in a cave maze trying to figure out what is happening. All you have is a LIDAR scanner where you can paint the outline of the cave you are in. Visually, that's a treat. And, I have to give this "game" props for the originality and execution of concept, including some very excellent music. However, in a sense, it also feels like it's "proof-of-concept". I would have enjoyed some more meat and see this better developed. As it is, I completed this game in less that three hours. Surprisingly, there are no Steam achievements, not even for completing each chapter of the "game" and/or picking up each scanner upgrade.

Since Steam only allows me to give recommended or not recommended, I feel like I can give it a recommended tag, but only just. It's current price (as of this writing) is $10 (USD), while I have to admit, is a pretty fair price. However, I'm probably going to toss this into my finished pile, as I doubt I'll replay this "game".

I was very young when the events of 1979 Revolution: Black Friday took place. And, true, we had a taste of this from the 2012 movie Argo. However, unless you go out of the way to find out the details, you probably know little as to what happened beyond the America hostage crisis.

First off, this game doesn't touch that hostage crisis. Instead, the game opens with the ominous words, "During the Summer of 1978, thousands of Iranians flooded the streets and fought for change despite their class, religious beliefs, and political allegiance. The protests erupted into a bloody uprising against Iran's self appointed King - the Shah. What you are about to experience is based upon real stories, real events, and real people." The game starts with you as the protagonist and aspiring photojournalist Reza Shirazi in 1980 who is ambushed at his hideout and taken to the dreaded Evin prison and interrogated. The game then goes back two years to September, 1978 and the events leading up to this.

Anyone who is has played a Telltale game such as Tales Of The Borderlands or similar game Life Is Strange will recognize the structure. You get to shape your story based upon the responses you make, and there are two action sequences which rely on just good timing along the lines of Dragon's Lair. Being that this is an independent production rather than a AAA title, it shows in the graphics quality. This isn't the game to show off the capabilities of your newest graphics card. Use Doom instead. Because of limitations of the Unity engine, you see repeats of the same NPCs, and I even caught one walking through a phone booth. (Whoops). In one scene, I saw the protagonist open up a cabinet, and his right hand was some distance away. (It must be those psychic Iranian powers!)

But, this isn't a graphics game. This is a story game based upon what actually happened almost forty years ago. As a photojournalist, you take pictures of what happens, and those pictures that you take during the game are then matched up with the actual real pictures of what actually happened along with the actual background information. I came away from this game with more knowledge than I had going in, and learned something. That says something. It didn't change my mind that the Shah wasn't a good leader and the resulting government was a bad, oppressive government, but it was replaced with something worse.

Gameplay, however, is short. I played through this game twice, once as I normally would, and once as a jerk, and sure enough, I got two different endings. That gameplay, however, added up to less than four hours.

Would I recommend the game? Heck, I would recommend the game AND the soundtrack, but with caveats. Because of what happens in the game, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone less than a high school student.

If you want to have a stark contrast in how much gaming has evolved over the years, then place this 2016 version of Doom side by side with the 1993 version of this game. The differences is startling in multiple aspects not only in the gameplay and graphics, but also the hardware that is required to run this game.

Around July, 2017, the game released it’s 6.66 patch, made all the DLC free, and was on sale for $15 (USD). This was a must-purchase. I played through the campaign mode at the “Hurt Me Plenty” settings, and it took me nine hours to get through the entire campaign. Unfortunately, the campaign storyline is on the weakest part of this game. When I got to the end, it was just “the end” with no conclusion, and no satisfactory resolution.

The graphics and gameplay, however, are excellent. I was able to get consistent 90 FPS (or higher) during the game play at 2560×1440 resolution, although I think this game is an excellent advertisement for a adaptive sync monitor. What I especially enjoyed is the “glory kill” feature which, once you weakened the enemy enough, you can perform a melee attack to rip the enemy apart and, in the process, get some health and some ammo.

What insures the replayability of this game is the same reason why the original Doom was played for several years: community maps. These custom maps allow for additional gameplay, and many a game designer got their start from custom maps from the original game.

For this old gamer, however, 24 years has passed, and my reactions aren’t what they are used to be. I won’t even try to compete with the younger kids who play Doom now.

If you are looking for a straight shoot-em-up, look elsewhere. If you are looking for a story with good character development and character arcs… keep playing. The game recommends that you play with a controller, and, fortunately, I had one. It is worth it, as the rumble portion is used very effectively during the game. You can also play with a keyboard/mouse.

I admit, I’m a sucker for a good time travel story. But, ever wish you could reverse time and make a different decision? That’s the main gimmick of the game, but with a twist… the decisions you make during this game and the stuff you find (or don’t find) do have consequences. I also like the fact that there is a major portion where, when you go back in time to try and change things for the better, you actually make it WORSE.

Did I mention the references in this game? See this IMDB Connections[www.imdb.com] page and this IMDB Trivia[www.imdb.com] page for some of the references put into game, including a Doctor Who reference that I missed. There is even a reference to Scott Bakula and Quantum Leap that is missed by IMDB.

One thing that the publishers did that is common with this type of game is to release it as five episodes over a year rather than the entire game at one. The episodes are:

Episode 1: Chrysalis – January 30th, 2015
Episode 2: Out of Time – March 24th, 2015
Episode 3: Chaos Theory – May 19th, 2015
Episode 4: Dark Room – July 28th, 2015
Episode 5: Polarized – October 20th, 2015

And, in a way, it does feel like a serialized television series. Considering that Dontnod Entertainment is a small studio, that’s understandable. The fifth and final episode, without giving too much away, is very surreal. It took me 14-15 hours to complete the game, with each episode taking two-three hours to complete. Yes, I had to look for a little bit of help during episode 4.

The graphics are outstanding, but I have to point out that there have been some technical issues with certain parts of the game. Lip sync issues have been noted by other reviewers of this game, and at one point during the fifth episode, we hear Max talking, but her lips… aren’t… moving. Is she transmitting what she is saying by thought? 😆

Considering that this is a well-reviewed game, episode one is free, and the entire series is just $20, I encourage you to give this game a try.