Recent reviews by zofrex

This is an incredible tech demo. Portal's new facelift is absolutely gorgeous and I've spent minutes just staring at the walls and looking at how the lighting interacts with various materials. If you have an RT-capable graphics card, this is a great excuse to replay Portal again (and really, not much excuse is needed, is it?).

Performance-wise, it runs a lot better than I was expecting. Easy to clear 50fps with a 3090 by turning DLSS to performance mode, and it still looks fantastic at that setting. From the pre-release chatter it sounded like a 4xxx series card would be mandatory, but apparently not!

An absolute gem of a game. "Co-op multiplayer FPS roguelite" might sound like an odd mix, but the combination is a genius one. The transient nature of each run means no-one is left behind if they can't join every session, and while the persistent upgrades are a nice mechanic that reward you coming back again and again, they don't make so much difference that you can't have fun together at different levels. This is the perfect game to play casually with friends online, and the random nature of the power-ups combined with the robust execution on the shooting mechanics themselves will keep you coming back again and again for just one more try.

Ok, I'm going to start over again, but THIS TIME I'll get it right. Just this one more time... and this time it will be great. I'll plan it all ahead, everything will fit in, and oh... oh dear. Well maybe if I move that over and... well then I have to... no, that doesn't quite work. Ok, just one more, but THIS TIME...

Welcome to Factorio, the game where you endlessly pursue perfection, only to be undone by your human inability to plan ahead. If you've ever dreamed of designing an entire factory or chemical plant yourself this is the game for you! If you haven't, you may have a few questions...

Factorio is like Minecraft, if the cap of the crafting tree was 1000x higher. You'll start out the usual way: punch down a tree, make a stick. But soon you're making factories to churn out the items you need, then you're making factories that make factories, balancing production and consumption and managing miles of conveyor belts. Unlike Minecraft, Factorio always keeps you driven, there's always a goal in sight and an ultimate purpose to work towards - even if your ultimate purpose is so far in the distance you only focus on getting just one step forward in the tech tree. As you do you take great care and pleasure in optimising your current pipeline, scaling it out, until one day, inevitably... you've built yourself into a corner. You've tried to rebuild around the problem but you can't. It's time to start over again.

But this time you have even more knowledge, experience, wisdom even! You won't make the mistakes of 2 hours ago, those are in the past. This new factory will be a veritable monument to efficiency! And thus you push one, or maybe three steps forward in the tech tree, until... oh dear. Well, I could try to move that, or I could start over...

This would be a frustrating experience if it wasn't for the sheer joy in the micro details of this sim, where you're laying down every pipe and conveyor belt, and can spend hours just learning the intricacies of ferrying items from A to B. Factorio excels in the fact you can enjoy the nitty gritty details and the big picture of creating such a complex machine - and at the end of the day, you will take pride in what you have created. Even if it did have that one problem, you know better for next time.

One of the most entertaining local multiplayer games ever made. Anyone can pick it up and play it - it's tetris after all! - but there's enough depth and variety to keep coming back to this for hours. A perfect party game.

Absolutely superb. The gameplay, the visuals, the soundtrack... everything on its own is remarkable, and as a whole is so much more than the sum of its parts. Don't read about it, don't watch youtube videos, and don't listen to the soundtrack. Buy this damn game, and let it surprise you. It clocked in at 11 hours to complete for me, and I'm about to dive back in and play it all over again - tonnes of unlockables, tonnes of customisation, very high replay value.

This is my pick for "Game Of The Year 2011". Not just Indie GOTY - overall!

While Half-Life 2 perfected the corridor shooter, and Episode One refined that experience, Episode Two takes the series in a new direction with some large outdoor set pieces. It doesn't give the player the free roam of games like Far Cry, but it's still a breath of fresh air compared to its siblings. As usual for a Half-Life game there are many unforgettable "oh my god did you see that?" moments, and it really makes you work hard to save the human race. The conclusion left me feeling physically and mentally exhausted, but also eager for more - so my only criticism is WHERE IS EPISODE THREE?

Episode 1 continues the Half-Life saga where Half-Life 2 left off, and is perhaps one of the tightest corridor shooter experiences available. Intense from start to finish, this game is frantic without ever being overwhelming. Put aside enough time to complete it in one sitting, because it's hard to put down.

Half-Life 2 took the world by storm, and is still immensely enjoyable to replay today. Valve's level design has stood the test of time, and the voice acting and facial animation is still putting games to shame five years on.