Recent reviews by FEARSlayer01

Devil May Cry HD Collection absolutely comes recommended especially if you're wanting to get into the series for the first time. You get a classic in the first Devil May Cry as well as a masterpiece with Devil May Cry 3. Devil May Cry 2...well it exists I guess, that's the nicest thing to say about it. So the games are hack and slash and some of the best in the genre that I've played hands down. They're full of great humor, intruiging storytelling, memorable and awesome characters, outstanding gameplay and more. I feel one thing they really excel at is characters being very imaginative in their designs as they're some of the most creative I've seen in any game, and each character is brought to life wonderfully by the game's well directed cutscenes and surprisingly pretty good voice acting for the time period. DMC1 and DMC3 are an absolute must play, they're both full of charm and fun to be had, and for those seeking a good challenge, DMC3 will certainly give you just that.


So yeah I have to mention the black cloud with this collection, that being DMC2..I won't sugarcoat it, Devil May Cry 2 sucks balls, it's an insult to the DMC franchise and one of the worst games I've played. It's the perfect example of how not to make a sequel. Honestly you can completely ignore it and only look up a story recap since apparently it's events are referenced in DMCV later on. DMC2 is like a 4/10 at best, it's not broken but it's just bad in every way, and it takes a crap on everything that made DMC1 so fun and memorable.


So thankfully this collection has DMC1 and DMC3 which both are absolutely awesome. DMC1 imo is a solid 8/10 and still holds up well, it has some jank but it surprisingly holds together well for a game that has a less than organized development history. DMC1 was originally Resident Evil 4 and then became DMC1 instead so it's a surprise it's as good as it is. DMC3 on the other hand, takes everything that was great about DMC1 and improves upon it tenfold. Adding more depth, more great characters, some epic level design and perhaps some of the best bosses in gaming. Each boss is a tough fight, but you always learn with each death and use that knowledge to pull out a grand win. Like I said above, for those looking for a good challenge, DMC3 will give you that. DMC3 itself is a very very impressive 9.5/10 in my eyes, one of the best games I've ever played.


So yeah if you were wanting to get into this series or haven't played them yet, what are you waiting for? This is the perfect starting point as it's easy to get working and is a great fun time (Except DMC2). I would say that maybe 20 dollars the non-sale price is a bit high, but I feel DMC1 and DMC3 are both worth that together. But i would probably say getting this on sale is best since it goes on sale for around 8 to 12 USD. Perfect price for 2 PS2 classics. Oh and DMC2 is also a part of the package as well I guess...

Perhaps one of the most overrated games of all time. While the game is probably objectively great, playing it is an absolute bore and people act like it's greater than it really is. The game's design is questionable at best, mid story, meh visuals for their time and lore that feels like it's trying too hard to be deep and cool and it comes off as edgy and not interesting in the slightest. Because yeah having to read 20,000 scrolls and read through the lines of one speck of dirt is totally great storytelling. If you want good environmental storytelling, check out Metroid, that's a series that's really good with it. Dark Souls however is nowhere near that. So I suppose like I said, this game objectively may be good, but it's nowhere near conversation for the best game ever and anyone who says it is has to be either high on copium or has spent so much time wasting their life on this game that they want to justify their playtime by claiming it's a masterpiece. I'd avoid this one unless you really like boring medieval fantasy games and also love getting your balls crushed over and over.

Game is gay as ♥♥♥♥, just like all Souls games. This one in particular is doo doo though.

So here we are, finally reviewing Blood. Blood is a classic FPS game made by Monolith. That’s right, the very same Monolith who made No One Lives Forever and of course the legendary F.E.A.R. Blood was their first FPS game and needless to say I had high hopes. At first I was unsure but the more I played the more I realized this game is honestly a masterpiece and very overlooked in favor of other shooters at the time which is understandable.

So Blood has you playing as Caleb, a notorious gunslinger from the 1800's who was a top ranking member of an occult for the god Tchernobog. He along with 4 others became the highest members in a circle called "The Chosen" However Caleb and the others were betrayed and killed. Decades later, Caleb rises from his grave in the year 1928 out for revenge and answers, armed with only a pitchfork. The game has you going through many locales of the time as well as graveyards, caves, etc. The game runs on the build engine which is the same engine used in Duke Nukem 3D, so if you’ve played that then you have a basic idea of what to expect


What makes Blood really unique to me is a variety of factors, but let’s go one at a time. The first thing I think of is the weapon selection. Most games tend to follow a formula with their weapons, having a certain checklist of weapon types to have. Blood however while having some of these..actually has perhaps the most unique weapon list I’ve seen. You have your standard Shotgun, Tommy Gun and Napalm Launcher (basically a rocket launcher) but also featured are Dynamite (similar to pipe bombs in Duke 3D) A flare gun, Tesla gun, a spray can flamethrower, a staff that shoots explosives and..a voodoo doll. Each weapon definitely feels distinct and are all equally fun to use, each one being good for a specific situation. Mosr of the weapons also feature an alternative fire that usually consumes more ammo but packs a bigger punch too, further increasing the uniqueness and strength of each.



Another high point of this game is Caleb himself. As mentioned Caleb is like a dead man walking, but what sets him apart is that unlike most every other shooter at the time, he isn’t a hero whatsoever. In fact Caleb is sadistic, snarky and only does the things he does to fulfill his own desires, not to be a hero. Having a main character be an anti-hero is a great choice at making Caleb feel fresh, and his voice lines are very entertaining and add to his mystique. The enemies he fights also help fill out the ranks as you face grim reaper ghosts, zombies, cultists, gargoyles, demon dogs and even severed hands alongside many others.


The level design is also very good in this game. Unlike Duke 3D, the levels in this game rarely feel like mazes, it always feels like you can find your way out if you go back and check to see what you may have missed. Plus the integration of power-ups like Duke 3D such as high jump boots, a diving suit and a medkit add to the levels as there’s many skips and secrets to find.


Two things I also think Blood really excels at is the sound design and visual style. The game has this really cool goth and old-school aesthetic, taking place in the early 1900’s, you see a lot of old architecture that is not only nice to look at, but also has this great atmosphere to it. The game also knows how to turn up the horror aspect on a dime or switch it into a seriously dark black comedy that has you perhaps laughing or being horrified. The game does what it sets out to do very well. The music similarly adds to it as many tracks are mysterious or haunting depending on the situation.


So all that makes Blood a fantastic time, but there’s one more thing I haven’t talked about, and it’s probably the most infamous part for a good reason I’d say. Blood is well known for being perhaps the hardest FPS game of it’s time. Even when selecting the Lightly Broiled difficulty (Your standard difficulty akin to Ultra Violence in DOOM perhaps) is pretty tough but manageable. Where the game really goes hard is when you select Well Done which is hard. In this difficulty you better bring your A game or else you’ll be shredded. Players looking for a good challenge should look at Blood, it’ll give you a run for your money.



So overall this is a fantastic game all on it’s own, but when you factor in that this package includes the 2 expansion episodes as well, you have yourself an excellent deal and fun time that could probably give you about 25 hours of playtime across the main game and expansions. When playing this game I knew I’d like it and at first while I did, I never expected to love it as much as I have. Blood has become perhaps my favorite classic shooter of the time besides say Quake and the original DOOM. It’s a wonderful experience that I think you should play, especially if you love boomer shooters. Nightdive Studios did a masterful job of bringing this game back in a great way with this remaster. So yeah play it if you haven’t.


My final rating for Blood is a 9.5/10

Well after the expansions came F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin in 2009, Monolith was back at the helm this time. Sad to say that this is another example of the sequel that throws away everything that made the original beloved and instead is mediocre. So let’s get into why that is


So to start..let’s talk about what’s missing I guess. For starters the incredible AI you fought in F.E.A.R. and it’s expansions is now gone, instead you fight ai that is rather dumb and basic and to make up for their lack of smarts, the devs thought it’d be fun to make them aimbots and capable of shooting through walls as well as be able to instantly kill you in 1 go. Seriously never at any point did fighting the ai in this game ever feel like a fun challenge or at times even fair. Nothing is more annoying than turning a corner only to instantly get killed in 1 shot by a shotgun guard or a random sniper. The aimbot gets so bad that enemies can LITERALLY KILL YOU IN A SINGLE SHOT FROM ACROSS THE LEVEL WITH A SHOTGUN.


So adding onto this, I’ll talk about the ruined health system. In F.E.A.R. 1 and the expansions health was similar to something like Quake where as you had health and an armor meter and both worked in tandem with each other in the sense that armor helped mitigate some damage. The system works great as it means you survive longer and playing well rewards you, and you could carry up to 10 medkits. In F.E.A.R 2 they’ve ruined this system by only allowing you to carry 3 medkits and using one instantly heals you fully, this is futile considering the 1 shot kills I mentioned above and the health is drained in seconds. But you may think the armor helps with this right? Well no. The armor in this game fully fills an armor meter and the idea is that the armor system follows the one seen in GoldenEye where damage taken depletes the armor meter before then going to your health meter. The problem is that not only does this effectively lower the skill floor, it also doesn’t matter considering lots of enemies seem to ignore armor and pierce through to your health anyway, making it pointless. Really bad change here.


The other downgrade and probably the one that bothers me the most is the fact that tactical leaning, aka the defining feature of the combat of F.E.A.R. 1 outside of the ai is gone. This completely ruins the entire combat imo because now you have so many less options in combat and it lowers the skill amount. The lean was such a fundamental aspect of F.E.A.R. 1 so the decision to remove it here is baffling. Adding onto this the weapons are also very weak, even the shotgun which you’d think is one of the strongest just feels really awkward to use and sometimes seems like it does as much damage as throwing a rock at the enemies. Oh yeah and they replaced the zoom feature with ADS because every game has to have Aim Down Sights in the 7th gen, stupid choice. So the weapons suck, the lack of leaning makes things too streamlined as does the change of health and armor and the enemy ai is bad..so what part of the combat is good? Well..you can carry 4 weapons now instead of just 3..I guess that’s good? It doesn’t make up for everything that’s lost though.


So another aspect this game disappoints me is the enemies. Lots of enemy types are just recycled from the original game and expansions but some are new here. The only enemies worth noting are the pyros and some weird ghostly enemy. The pyros have to go for the most annoying enemies as they take a lot of abuse and use a flamethrower weapon that has insane reach and a big hitbox. What’s annoying is if it at all connects you will be set on fire and you get dealt damage over time, this effectively means you have to sit there and your health drains no matter what you do. The smart thing to do would’ve been to have medkits stop the burning but that doesn’t occur, making them the most frustrating encounter but thankfully they’re uncommon. The other one is the ghostly enemy and this is an enemy that essentially spawns a bunch of enemies and seemingly when killed it revives itself. It takes a lot of abuse and after a lot they go down, but it’s annoying that they take so many hits to begin with.


Once again we must talk about something that sucks, that being the level design. Levels are very bland looking and linear. Sure there’s more variety than F.E.A.R. 1 perhaps as F.E.A.R. and the expansions often just took place in buildings and offices. But what made them great was each level was handcrafted to be especially designed for the outstanding AI to cut you off at many angles and for them to come up with strategies and give you flexibility on approaching situations. In F.E.A.R. 2 this is not the case, often levels boil down to enemies busting in and getting cheap shots at you while you twiddle your thumbs and sit behind badly made cover to try and fight back because leaning is gone. Oh yeah..you can topple some objects to make cover but it’s a useless feature as the cover never goes high enough to protect most of your body so the enemies still can just headshot you anyway. So yeah a useless mechanic and levels that force you to just use slow mo all the time to get anywhere is a recipe for disaster when combined with everything else.


Another thing I feel is lacking is the horror element. F.E.A.R. 1 and the expansions did horror really well by having it usually segregated into its own segments or having it be very subtle and very intense. It was effective and kept you on edge. F.E.A.R. 2 meanwhile tries to be scary by just throwing jumpscare after jumpscare or by going so over the top you’d think you were watching some bad movie adaptation. Seriously the horror element just has me rolling my eyes here instead of having me feeling tense and even sometimes frightened. I mean when a game is called F.E.A.R. you expect to..you know..feel fear, but you don’t here. Oh and the way this game uses Alma and trivializes her, ruins her character and mystique.


On the note of Alma, let’s discuss the story and characters. So you don’t play as the Pointman or even the Sgt. from Perseus Mandate. Instead you play as someone named Beckitt who is a soldier in a task force that I honestly can’t remember the name of. You are joined by a bunch of other crew members who are all generic and just become cannon fodder, with the one exception being Keira Stokes who is the only one worth talking about. Keira is with you often throughout the story and being voiced by Jen Taylor, she has a personality and is energetic, seriously she’s the only character who kept me at all engaged in the story of this game. So anyway the whole story just revolves around stopping Alma the ghost girl and of course she ends up killing plenty of allies and stalking the player. Remember when I said this game ruins her mystique and creepiness? Yeah well they dump a crap ton of information about her on you that basically solves any questions you’d have about her and it becomes a typical we must destroy evil creature that can’t be contained type of story. Seriously the story is awful, F.E.A.R. 1 and it’s expansions didn’t have expansive stories but at least they were simple and made sense and kept you intrigued. A bad story that ruins it's iconic character


So Lastly I want to mention that the game’s visuals in ways are a downgrade to the original game. Many visual effects like bullet holes in walls, lighting and special effects are just plain missing or severely dumbed down. The game itself doesn’t look too bad, but the downgrades are a disappointment. F.E.A.R. 1 is more appealing to the eye imo.


So yeah in all brutal honesty, this game sucks and is an insult to the F.E.A.R. franchise. I went into it knowing it wouldn’t be quite as good but holy heck I wasn’t expecting it to suck this bad. While it’s still better than garbage like COD, it’s still consolized mediocrity. Oh and the DLC: Reborn, isn’t much better, it sucks too.


My Final Rating is a 5/10

F.E.A.R. Perseus Mandate delivers more of the amazing action found in the original game and the first expansion Extraction Point. Much like my review of Extraction Point, this one won't be too long as most of the awesome elements of this game are found in both the original F.E.A.R. and Extraction Point, so I'll only mention what's new here.


So F.E.A.R Perseus Mandate differs from the original and Extraction Point in that you are not playing as Point Man aka the F.E.A.R. Operative, instead you play as an unknown sergeant in a squad of 3 alongside Lietenant Steve Chen and Captain David Raynes. Your mission is to obtain the DNA of Alma Wade aka the ghost girl you see on the cover of every F.E.A.R. Game. The plot isn't much to write home about as usual, but it's still engaging as you learn more about Alma.


To start off I'll discuss Chen and Raynes. Unlike the original and Extraction Point you are actually with them more often than not, and while they're around they are fun characters, they certainly don't have as much depth as other games but they fill their roles fine enough and are entertaining. Raynes especially I like as he's the no nonsense guy with a gruff voice, which makes sense as he's voiced by the legendary Steve Blum. Steve Blum really breathes life and personality into Raynes.


One of the new elements at play in Perseus Mandate are new enemies. In addition to the Replicas and Armacham enemies from the first 2 entries, you now fight new enemies in the form of Scarecrows who grab you when stepping on holes and the Nightcrawler forces. Nightcrawler enemies are mercs and like Replicas various types exist from your standard goons to elite soldiers. What differs them from Replicas is that they often are found carrying new weapons found in this expansion, mainly the VES Advanced Rifle, Grenade Launcher and the LP4 Lightning Arc. In addition these enemies feature a more deep and human like voice and speak in different patterns than Replicas. These new enemies definitely help make the game feel more fresh as you aren't fighting just Replicas anymore, in fact you encounter Nightcrawler Mercs more often than Replicas in the middle portion. However 1 enemy type: The elite Nightcrawlers are a pain in the ass and not fun to fight as they essentially just Matrix bullet dodge your attacks and take a while to kill. The rest though are fun to encounter and thankfully the elites aren't that common. As an added bonus: the elites are voiced by Brian Bloom, who you may know as being the current voice of William BJ Blazokowicz in the recent Wolfenstein games.


The other new element in this like I mentioned before are the 3 new weapons. The VES Advanced Rifle is essentially an alternative to the G2A2 Assault Rifle found in both F.E.A.R. and Extraction Point. The weapon features an infrared scope that helps with taking out foes. The 2nd new weapon is the Lighting Arc which as the name suggest, shoots a bolt of lightning at foes, the weapon functions like the Particle Cannon in that you fire 1 at a time but you can fire multiple shots off in succession. Lastly there's a grenade launcher that will destroy anything that comes in contact with it's rounds. These 3 weapons help with giving more options in combat and are incredibly satisfying, the VE2 Adanved Rifle especially is great as it's pretty common and imo is better than the G2A2 Assault Rifle.


So the last thing to mention about Perseus Mandate is the level design. For the most part the level design is pretty solid just like the first 2, however something about them feels off. A lot of the levels are these great epic set pieces where you blast through which is cool, but sometimes it feels like the game just throws enemy wave after enemy wave in short bursts instead of wisely breaking up the action. This definitely isn't a huge flaw, especially considering combat is as good as ever, but at times it can feel overwhelming. Speaking of levels: the first 2 games had really awesome finales full of suspense and intensity. Sadly Perseus Mandate's finale just doesn't quite hit that same level. It starts out promising enough and the details you learn about your objective are solid, but towards the end you do 2 annoying mini boss sections. The first one is essentially a battle with 3 Nightcrawler elites and let me tell you: it's insanely frustrating as they can easily kill you in 1 shot and since they move so fast and often dodge your attacks, making them a nightmare. The 2nd bit acts as the sort of final boss. Without spoiling it just boils down to a lame wave of enemies and 1 super enemy who once again can shred you. After a few tries however, I found out that during the final phase all it takes to beat him is to just crouch behind a crate and pepper him with bullets as he just doesn't move until he dies. Hardly feels like an accomplishment when you can just exploit it so easily. After that it's just..you guessed it, another wave of enemies and then that's the ending. It's a very underwhelming end to an otherwise excellent experience.


So as a whole Perseus Mandate is still a fantastic game and once again delivers high octane and thrilling action you won't find in many other games. Timegate Studios definitely did a wonderful job with their 2 expansions. That said however, Perseus Mandate definitely isn't quite up to the level of F.E.A.R. and Extraction Point due to it's minor flaws and the underwhelming finale. Still this is absolutely worth your time as there is so much good here and if you loved the original game and Extraction Point, there's no reason you won't love this as it's just more F.E.A.R.


If I had to rate Perseus Mandate, I'd give it a 9/10.

F.E.A.R. Extraction Point is that one outstanding expansion that manages to rival the original game, and considering this is F.E.A.R. we are talking about, that's saying a lot. This won't be a long review as most of the positives of this expansion I already mentioned in my review of the base game so refer to that before reading this one. Anyway let's get into it.

F.E.A.R. Extraction Point takes place directly after the end of the base game, for this review I'll assume you have played the base game already so I will briefly mention the ending to better understand this one's plot. Take this as your official spoiler warning. So after escaping from Origin, Point Man escapes via a helicopter alongside his teammates Jin and Holiday, but Alma Wade (The Ghost Girl on the cover) is seen on the chopper and the chopper goes down. You wake up and it turns out due to your actions at the end of F.E.A.R the replicas have been shut off but eventually come back on. The crew are instructed to get to the extraction point, a nearby hospital. The plot is pretty straightforward much like the base game so it's easy to follow along with and the basis is intriguing


So now let's get into what makes this expansion truly special. To start both your squad mates Jin and Holiday are given more screen time this go around and imo they are much better characters here than the base game as you actually get to see their personalites shine a bit more and there is a section where you spend a bit of time with Holiday and it's one of the most fun sections in the game. Great decision here, especially when the plot unfolds later on, making it even better.


Another plus to this expansion is the introduction of new weapons. The weapons from the base game are back but along with them are new additions including a minigun which shreds through enemies, a laser rifle which acts similar to the sentinel beam from Halo 2 and a new grenade type weapon in the form of a deployable turret that can be thrown and latched onto any surface that fights enemies for you. The new weapons feel incredible and only add onto the fun factor of the game and give you more options against tougher foes.


Speaking of enemies: the outstanding ai is back and seemingly the enemies are even smarter than before and are much tougher. So along with every enemy type from the base game are new enemies. One of these is the heavy riot armor which has a shield and wields a minigun. These guys pack some serious firepower and take some abuse, they're more resistant than a regular heavy armor. You'll need to really use your weapons well to take them out. Another new enemy is the Replica Laser Elite Soldier. These are similar to normal Replica Elite Soldiers, except they carry the new laser weapon and are the only ones to do so. There's also a new supernatural enemy in the form of the Shades. Finally there's the REV8 Leviathan, a mech like enemy that's essentially a stronger version of the REV6 Power Armors from the base game.


I think the best part of this expansion is the level design, the levels here feel much more tightly designed than the base game which already had awesome levels and the enemy fights are much bigger and badder than before. The horror element is also kicked up to eleven as the supernatural segments are not only more frequent but also much more intense than before, if you are prone to being scared easily then you may give yourself nightmares with these. Really the levels are all memorable and the pacing is also great, making no location feel like it overstays it's welcome.


So overall you take the amazing aspects of the masterpiece that is the original F.E.A.R. and combine it with these new elements and you honestly have an expansion that is fantastic and in some ways is better than the base game, which sounds crazy but it managed to happen. Much like the 1st game you should definitely play this, it's a wonderful time and an outstanding companion piece to the base game. Once again like the base game: I'd give Extraction Point a 10/10

How does one review a game like Rogue Warrior? Honestly I'm not sure how but I'll try my best. So Rogue Warrior was developed by Rebellion Developments who is probably most known for their Sniper Elite games but I know them for some of their worst titles such as Medal Of Honor Underground on GBA and of course the notoriously bad Call Of Duty World At War Final Fronts for PlayStation 2. So Rebellion got assigned to this game in 2009 after years of silence. Rogue Warrior was originally going to be made by Zombie Studios and be a more tactical FPS game and would retain a rather similar plot to the final product, the most notable thing about this version was that there was to be a 24 player competitive multiplayer. So Rogue Warrior released in 2009 to..let's just say a very negative reception for many reasons that I'll get into.


So I'll just be honest: the game is a mess. The gameplay is best described as a game that tries to be something like COD mixed with Rainbow Six Vegas but it doesn't exactly do either very well. You're limited to 2 weapons and there's only about 11 weapons in the game total, while each weapon defintiely doesn't feel entirely the same, they have a similarish feeling to them, to the point where they don't feel distinct enough and given the small arsenal this is a problem. The other gameplay mechanics are a standard cover system that puts your character into third person and it basically feels just like a bad version of the one found in Rainbow Six Vegas. The other feature is that the game features a death move system. When approaching an enemy if you press the E key, you'll perform a cinematic style death move where you execute the enemies in rather brutal fashion, typically using your knife, these are really fun to pull off and what's great about them is that you are completely invincible while doing them, meaning that you can rush into a room and death move everyone with no consequence as long as you're quick enough. Another bizarre gameplay quirk if you will is that the starting pistol has unlimited ammo and is the only silenced weapon in the game, now this game does have some rather standard barebones stealth and the pistol works wonders for that as well as the death moves. But what makes the pistol rather OP besides the unlimited ammo is that it has unlimited range and no damage fall-off, meaning you can basically snipe enemies from across the map with it, really signifying that you don't need another weapon, it's baffling how they would miss something so obviously broken but given the rest of the game, it's no surprise.


So now let's talk about the plot and this is not very exciting. Before I do, I must mention that Rogue Warrior is actually loosely based on the book of the same name by Richard Marcinko. Richard Marcinko is a real life Navy Seal Commander and a Vietnam War Veteran who was the first commanding officer of Seal Team Six. After retiring from the military he became an author and wrote an autobiography which was named Rogue Warrior and that spawned a series of fictional military novels based on his time in the military that starred him as the main character.. So with that in mind: you play as Richard Marcinko himself, him and his crew are on a way to stop a korean nuclear threat in 1986 but when arriving, his helicopter is taken down and he's left the only survivor. Richard decides to complete the mission himself and does it in the only way he knows how: being a Rogue Warrior. The plot is really nothing special as it's your typical direct to video action thriller, but tbh this does add charm to the game.


So now let's talk about perhaps Rogue Warrior's most famous or rather infamous part: that of the character of Richard Marcinko himself. In this game Richard is voiced by actor Mickey Rourke and the character goes full head first into action sequences, doesn't listen to commanding officers above him and he swears like a sailor every other minute, the creativity of some of his swear combinations is quite amazing and really shocking to be quite honest. You may feel like this is rather immature and may get annoying after a while, but if anything it makes the game funnier in a trainwreck sort of way and makes Richard a very memorable protagonist. You may wonder why they made him like this and actually..if you do some research, you'll see that some of his rather famous swear word quotes in this game are actually taken straight from Richard Marcinko's book of Rogue Warrior and other books of his. It turns out that Richard Marcinko irl is like a sailor with swearing, and the devs only carried that trait into the game itself, rather nice to see they did some research, although perhaps dev time should've been focused on making the game better.


So lastly i'll mention sound and graphics. Graphics are rather meh for 2009, at times the game looks like it would've been found on the PlayStation 2, although some areas do look ok. The sound design and music is also rather bland, with many sound effects to the weapons being taken from stock sounds which have been seen in other games. Some examples include the MP5 using the SMG sound found in Half-Life 2 and the Dragunov Sniper Rifle uses the TF2 Stock Sniper sound. I don't mind the gun sounds really, in fact some of them make the guns feel punchier than they really should. However we can't talk about Rogue Warrior's sound and music without talking about the amazing rap solo that is performed by Mickey Rourke himself at the credits. The rap is so absurd and has more swears than probably any rap you'll hear and is so serious yet the beat is a cool and low vibe jazz beat that almost sounds like the beat to the Pacer test. The rap is actually just composed of various quotes of Richard throughout the game, it's such an amazing piece of art that me talking about it doesn't do it justice, you have to hear it yourself.


So yeah overall this game..is awful, like it's a barely functional mess at worst and at best is a medicore shooter that only clocks in at 2 hours of length which is rather insane when you think about it, yeah it has Multiplayer too but let's be honest, nobody is playing that anymore. Did I mention it crashes a lot too? Lots of people have an issue where the game will crash 30 seconds into the gameplay, I only manged to finish the game because I found a fix for the crashing which required me to put 3 unique d3d.dll files into the directory. But on top of that the game is locked to 60 FPS, only supports 59hz at higher resolutions, has a very low FOV that can't be changed and sometimes will just drop frames. But.. in saying all of that, some of you have noticed by now I gave this game a positive review. Why is that you ask? Well to be blunt: this game is one of if not the best crap post in gaming. Like it's so obvious this game was made to be a joke and when you play the game in an ironic fashion, you just have an absolute blast, the game is truly like no other, you always wonder what Richard is going to say next and just how much more stupid the game can really get. It's clear that those who made it decided to just have fun making the game something special and I'd say they achieved it. So I give it a positive review because I think you should play this game at least once. What do you have to lose after all? The game is only 5 bucks on Steam and on a sale would probably be less than a dollar and for that you get a hilariously bad 80's action B movie that lasts around 2 hours and has a protagonist you'll never forget.


So if we were speaking objectively I'd give this game a 3/10, but if we are talking in terms of entertainment and it being so bad it's good? I'd say it's around an 8/10 on the grounds of how insane it is. I'd pick it up, but don't expect anything amazing, expect a crap game and go along for the ride and I think you'll have a fun time. As a fellow Youtuber by the name of DX put it: Rogue Warrior is the best worst game of all time.

F.E.A.R. could perhaps be the greatest shooter of all time. F.E.A.R. has you taking control of an operative of F.E.A.R. which is short for First Encounter Assault Recon, a special forces designed to combat the unknown paranormal. The game is played from a first person perspective with a 3 weapon limit and has a hard aim system and tactical leaning. What makes this game stand out in the gameplay department has to be the edition of Slow-Mo which is similar to Bullet Time in the Max Payne series in that you have a limited bar and pressing the Slow-Mo key will put you into slow motion, giving you the edge in combat as you can easily counter enemy movements and avoid shots, the meter is limited though so one has to play it smart when using it, it does refill over time however. Another thing about gameplay is you get various grenade types you can switch between, each having their own strengths and weaknesses. As well there are around 9 or so weapons and each one feels unique and serves it's own purpose, all of them are also great to use. Shoutout goes to the Particle Weapon which is essentially the Railgun from Quake, it's really fun to use. You also can do various types of kicks as well.


Adding onto your usual shooting action, the game is also a part horror game as there are many sections where the action stops and you are taken through what may as well be a hallucination nightmare as tension is greatly built throughout and things lurk around the corners, all of it making you question what's going on and leaving you wanting more which the game does resolve by the end of the journey. Personally I feel the horror aspect adds an interesting dynamic to the game and it wouldn't be the same without it. Some parts even startled me


However what F.E.A.R. is perhaps best known for is it's rather advanced ai for the time and heck even today it's still advanced. While traditional enemy AI in shooters follow basic patterns or stand there and eat your bullets, the ai in F.E.A.R. is unique in that they react in many ways to your playstyle, for example if you were to throw a grenade the enemy would see it and run far enough away from your grenade, if you were to try to rush they would signal out to their teammates you are and would form around to take you out, if you were to try to hide they'd use grenades or go around to flank you. They can see your flashlight, so if you leave it on you give yourself away. The ai in F.E.A.R. is really one of a kind as it truly feels like you are fighting an actual enemy that is competent and one has to be skilled to succeed, never at any point does F.E.A.R's difficulty feel artificial in nature, it's always fair and when you fail against the enemy you are at fault. To compliment the ai, the areas in which you fight them typically have multiple paths around, at first you'd ask yourself why there are but once you engage the enemy, you understand that they're there so the enemy has more areas to flush you out from, genius design. Another thing nice is that F.E.A.R actually has enemy types, while there aren't many, the ones that are here all feel different enough and offer a different style of threat that forces you to change strategies. By the way to truly experience the ai at it's peak, play the game on the hardest difficulty, F.E.A.R. has one of the best highest difficulties in any game as it is perfectly designed, never is unfair and is a serious challenge where you must overcome the advanced ai to survive.


Lastly I want to mention the story, graphics and audio design. The story isn't anything hugely special but it keeps you engaged and wanting to know more about what's happening around you, the visuals on the other hand are just amazing for 2005. The lighting, shadows and particle effects are seriously top notch, to the point where you could mistake some bits from being a game from much later. The Audio design is also superb, it features many blood pumping heavy action tracks that keep you on your feet during the big fights and slower ambient or creepy tone tracks that keep you in suspense and on edge in the horror sections, the sound design certainly makes the game even more special.


So overall this game is honestly just a masterpiece, Monolith Studios proved once again that they absolutely know how to make shooters, they already made great shooters with both Blood and No One Lives Forever 1 and 2, but F.E.A.R. blows them out of the water and F.E.A.R. certainly ranks among the best of the best in the FPS genre and remains a classic memorable game for a very good reason. If I were to have to say one bad thing about this game: it's that it ends, seriously it's just so well crafted and so much fun that one can't help but be sad when it's all over.


I usually don't give out ratings in these reviews, but if I had to give F.E.A.R. a rating, I would give it a rare perfect score of 10/10, it's a well deserved score and you should absolutely play this if you never have before.

So this review was a long time coming. I've already reviewed every Half-Life game besides Half-Life Alyx as currently I don't own VR nor a PC capable of using VR and by now you're probably aware that overall I don't think too highly of the series as a whole. I do think entries like Half-Life 1, Opposing Force and Half-Life 2 Episode Two are good games with Opposing Force especially being awesome. So when I found out a group of fans made a remake of Half-Life 1 on the source engine, I couldn't help but want to check it out after hearing many good things about it, and I'm happy to say that it lives up to the praise and then some.

So a little background on this game: Black Mesa came to be after a group of fans were frustrated that Half-Life Source released by Valve in 2004 was nothing but a very shoddy port of Half-Life 1 to the Source Engine with no real improvements outside of some lighting and ragdoll physics, so they banded together as the team Crowbar Collective and started creating their own remake of Half-Life 1 on Source. Around 2012 they released a standalone demo that was incomplete but showed great work done and Valve caught wind of it and was impressed by what they saw and essentially endorsed the game by allowing it to be sold on Steam. Fast forward to 2020 and Black Mesa finally released after 16 years in development. But that's enough with the history of this game, let's get into what makes it so good shall we? As usual I'll list the pros and cons and then state my final thoughts in the end. Let's start with the pros first.


1. The game is thankfully very faithful to the original game in terms of story with many areas being lovingly recreated and made to look amazing in Source, if you loved the original you'll feel right at home here as the areas you know and love are back and better than ever.

2. Alongside pretty much all areas returning from the original game, some new sections have also been added to the game to spice things up and make it feel distinct, one notable example is a semi short escort section with a security guard where you fight waves of marines and even have to sneak by them at one point, it's unexpected to see something like stealth in Half-Life but it's actually done really well.

3. On top of the 2 above things, more things have been added to better tie the game to the sequels, as such Dr. Kleiner and Eli Vance both appear in the game albeit much younger which helps establish them early on as characters in the universe and it's great to see them, their voice work is also well done.

4. I must mention this now but this game looks amazing, there isn't a single area of this game that lacks in visual detail, the game is bright and colorful when it should be and dark and gloomy during moments where it should be, it just looks amazing. Areas such as Xen especially really will blow your mind with how amazing they look, it's hard to believe this was all done on Source but it's true.

5. Speaking of visuals, the recreations of the Black Mesa Security and Scientist uniforms as well as the Marines and various Alien enemies like the Bullsquids, Houndeyes, Alien Grunts and even the Controllers and the infamous Gonarch and Nihilanth all look amazing and menacing. Even the Zombies have their old HL1 bodies which I appreciate as someone who greatly preferred the Half-Life 1 design of enemies.

6. The weapons in this game feel amazing, every single weapon is recreated faithfully but they all manage to feel better than their original counterparts, every weapon really feels like it delivers. The 2 that feel the best to me have to be the Magnum and the Gluon Gun. These 2 absolutely shred enemies who get in your way and have satisfying feedback to them, as an added touch the models all look really nice.

7. Generally level design is mostly better here, while a lot of areas are recreated faithfully, I feel that generally you aren't left scratching your head trying to figure out where to go nearly as often, there's always something you can find that you may have overlooked. I like when a game challenges my brain as long as it doesn't make it too cryptic, thankfully Black Mesa does this well.

8. Speaking of levels, because this game runs on Source and has Source physics, many alterations have been added to some puzzles, for example the ability to pick up objects introduced in HL2 is present here and is used quite often in puzzles to solve them which is a nice touch and helps make Black Mesa stand out from the original game.

9. Lastly, with levels I want to mention this game’s take on Xen. It’s outstanding as it has a lot more focus on puzzles and horror as well as action. It helps Xen finally feel fun to play

9. Enemies in this game are much better and more fun to fight than ever. Instead of most enemies being bullet sponges, each enemy goes down with the expected amount of damage, however this time they are made more smart, especially the marines as they will actively try to flank you, if you aren't careful and skillful they can easily overwhelm you so you better make sure you're on the top of your game. This change is appreciated as it makes a lot of deaths feel fair, there are still some brutal sections but mostly the game is fairly designed. Oh and that hitscan issue? Yeah it’s not really a big problem anymore

10. The new music for this game is really good as it gets your blood pumping when you're in an action packed segment or has you on the edge in a more horror themed section with great ambience or lower beat tracks.

11. I know I mention this in pretty much every single Half-Life review, but G-Man is here and he's of course awesome as per usual.

12. Final Boss is epic and not tediously annoying. Here it actually feels like a proper fight rather than just teleportation and waiting for the right moment


Well with the positives said, let’s look at the negatives.


1. One issue I have is that instead of making their own models from scratch, they simply reused the HL2 models instead for some things, examples for this are the headcrabs, barnacles, crowbar and vortigaunts. Now I get that perhaps it was easier to just reuse these, but as someone who personally prefers the original HL1 designs of these enemies and the crowbar to their HL2 counterparts, I would've loved to see Crowbar Collective have their own take on the HL1 designs but sadly we don't get that.

2. While Xen is so much better here as it has life to it and uniqueness, I feel that it does go on for a bit too long. It took me around 4 to 6 hours for Xen alone here where as before in HL1 it only took maybe 2 hours? Still it’s good content but it’s a bit too long.

3. Ammo Reduction. Now those who saw my review of Half-Life 2 will note how disappointed I was that guns carry much less reserve ammo than in HL1, for example in HL2 the Magnum can only hold 12 extra bullets instead of around 36 extra I believe in Half-Life 1. Sadly Black Mesa does suffer from this as well, while the Magnum doesn't carry as little as 12 in reserve only, it can only hold a rather small 18 bullets in reserve which while an improvement is far too little. This isn't helped by the fact that you'll often find more ammo than you carry at times which is always frustrating when you find all this ammo that you have to leave behind because the game simply told you that you aren't allowed to have it.

So overall Black Mesa is one heck of a remake and the team at Crowbar Collective should be proud of what they made. A lot of love and passion was put into this project. Imo this remake surpasses the original game and is a blast to play, anyone who is a fan of Half-Life should play this game and even if you aren't, you should also give this game a try, you will probably enjoy it.

I normally don’t give ratings but if I had to, Black Mesa would get a 9.5/10.