Bollocks.

I admit I came into this one with some degree of dread. Not for it being the final Half-Life 2 game, nor the final main Half-Life title I can play (not having the ability or equipment to play the cool looking Alyx VR game), but for the final major set-piece. That goddamn silo defense sequence where you gotta chuck mines at striders and shoot the mine, all the while trying not to get beset by hunters and grabbing the mines from houses before they get blown up.

I recall only being able to beat that section with the power of cheat codes, though I admittedly had cheat codes enabled for my old HL2 playthroughs, so I wasn't really sure how I was going to fare this time around. It didn't work out. By far the most overwhelming and difficult section of any Half-Life game, with no time to really stop and think when there's so much crap going on. While that lends a unique mood to that section of the game, I personally found it beyond intolerable. There's too much shit to deal with, where any one idea (the mine chucking, buildings getting destroyed, the hunters accompanying the striders) could be stressful enough but are absolutely awful when combined in the way they are here. Even when I resorted to cheat codes, it was still way too chaotic and I had to throw in the towel.

Which absolutely sucks cuz the game's otherwise a pretty cool expansion. I wasn't too keen on the early sections where you're delving into antlion-filled mines, but driving through the countryside and experiencing little vignettes was a lot of fun. I enjoyed hanging out with the characters (especially the charmingly obnoxious Magnusson who just doesn't get on with nearly anyone else besides the one vortiguant scientist), and although I know things end on a cliff-hanger that I won't get to see resolved, I still wanted to see the rest of Episode Two.

But it's just not meant to be, not with how unbearable that silo defense bit is. Bollocks.

Decided to jump straight into the expansions after beating the main game, which is something I always do if given the opportunity cuz I like to keep up the momentum I've built from playing that main game and using it to check out similar games (either doing their own thing or being a direct follow-up). This was a nice if surprisingly brief return to the Citadel and City 17, reliving a couple of the mechanical hooks from regular Half-Life 2 but with the added twist of having Alyx as an ally. That gives the game a slightly more extroverted tone, now that there's someone who can remark on whatever's going on and have more concrete conversations with other characters whenever you run into them.

I ended up managing to do that "one bullet" achievement, where you use only one bullet (to open an otherwise unbreakable lock) and spend the rest of the game attacking enemies with the gravity gun, crowbar, and firing rockets/grenades at them. I was surprised to see how much of the game seemed designed to encourage or at least accommodate that, with Alyx being able to fend off enemies well enough (either alongside you or providing cover fire, like in the tense sniper section). Scrambling to find things to chuck at enemies works really well with the whole "trying to escape from City 17 before shit goes down" premise, and it made what's otherwise a neat more-of-the-same expansion more interesting.

I remember trying to play this back when it came out, but our stupid old knackered house computer would only boot it up the once and never managed the feat again. I honestly forgot about it until I stumbled across a Sonic Retro wiki article that mentioned it had an Android port, and I figured I might as well try again.

It's a decent enough game, one that positions itself as a sequel to Sonic 3 & Knuckles - and most crucially Sonic CD. It brings back the concept of time travelling, but by only sticking to "past" and "future" versions of a stage, there's much more room to provide each version with distinct visuals, enemies, and even major set-pieces. I'm quite impressed with how different the stages turned out, with only a couple common sections that tie them together as being the same place.

I like that it also has you getting the Time Stones and Chaos Emeralds from Special Stages hidden throughout each level, requiring you to explore in order to find them (and also find the time posts to travel to the correct time period since Stones are in the past and Emeralds are in the future). While I find the later special stages got a bit too hard for me, it was nice to have an excuse to look around and explore for a bit.

Otherwise, I'm not sure I'm really into this. I think in trying to split the difference between more typical Sonic level design and CD's explorative focus, it ends up not having the strengths of either. Levels don't have a sense of flow much of the time, just going on for a while until they stop. Meanwhile, there isn't as much emphasis on making stages puzzles to solve now that time travelling's so easy to do.

Maybe if I hadn't just played the Sonic Triple Trouble fan remake, this wouldn't be so noticeable to me, but I find Time Twisted to be rather forgettable. Everything just kinda goes in one ear and out the other, which is a shame considering the hard work that's gone into crafting a game this big and relatively complex. I'm aware there's a 2.0 version in the works by the developers, so it's possible that might address some of my issues down the road. I hope so.

I played Half-Life 2 roughly two or three times (though mainly with the invincibility cheat on iirc), but it never really clicked with me the way it did with a lot of folks. Even when I played through it without any cheats, I just found it kinda mediocre. I liked a couple segments like the escape from City 17 at the beginning and driving through the abandoned highway, but I didn't enjoy how the game would drop those ideas and play around with stuff like a zombie-infested city, commanding a squad and other things for far too long.

Coming back to it, having played through the original Half-Life and its expansions in 2023 and with a different philosophy for appreciating creative works, I'm more fond of this than I used to be. While I do find those aforementioned zombie city and squad command segments still a bit tedious, I like how often and eagerly Half-Life 2 changes up its mechanical focus (usually accompanied by a new environment like a city, a beach, etc). There's always something new around the corner, and it's rad that you visit all sorts of places - I'm amazed at how much of the game I could concretely remember despite having not played it in so long.

I also appreciated all sorts of little details this go around. The way the physics add an extra degree of tactility and chaos to the combat encounters. The excellent sound design that grounds everything, with my favourite tiny tidbit being how noises make a tremendous echo when you're out on the highway. The believably expressive faces on the various characters you bump into, which honestly made me wish there was an adventure game where you could hang round grotty City 17 and talk to people without fear of getting killed. The fact that Dr. Kleiner called his pet headcrab Hedy Lamarr (yes, after the actress who Hedley Lamarr was repeatedly misnamed in Blazing Saddles).

I remember a very old Errant Signal video where he talked about how the Half-Life games were "content treadmills", games where you got all its ideas served to you so long as you kept moving and didn't died. I dunno if he'd still agree with that term seeing as the video was from 2011 or thereabouts, but while I can understand the criticism, I also think that philosophy was why I enjoyed and maybe even needed to play Half-Life 2. Something where I can take one major idea at a time, not needing to think about looking back or holding other things in my head in order to make any progress, and yet still encounter as much visual and mechanical variety as this game doles out. I dunno whether I prefer this or the original more, but I'm very glad to come back to this and enjoy it more than I used to.

I played this back when it came out so I discuss it in my Hardcore Gaming 101 article talking about the original Game Gear title (yes really, - http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/sonic-the-hedgehog-triple-trouble/), but I hadn't touched it since. Thanks to this kick I've been on of playing fan games and the like that have gotten Android ports, I jumped on this since a breezy 2D platformer really does fit a handheld context very nicely.

Pretty much what I said in that article is still the case. It's a good game that has plenty of fun stages with unique gimmicks, there's some very cool setpieces thrown in to keep things interesting, and levels shift from slower methodical designs to faster rollercoasters. I even did what I couldn't originally do at the time and got all the Chaos Emeralds, leading to a frantic and tough final boss that I was somehow able to defeat.

I even went on to play through Knuckles' campaign and briefly dabbled with the unlockable characters in the free play mode. I'm slightly disappointed that Knuckles only gets a couple of unique bosses and sections to explore, otherwise going through the same campaign you'd normally get. But I admit that's an understandable concession given the game took five years to come together, and also that I'm weird about wanting other Sonic characters to have more unique levels.

Very good Sonic-styled platformer, and definitely worth a look if you've got some way of playing it.

I played this back when it came out so I discuss it in my Hardcore Gaming 101 article talking about the original Game Gear title (yes really, - http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/sonic-the-hedgehog-triple-trouble/), but I hadn't touched it since. Thanks to this kick I've been on of playing fan games and the like that have gotten Android ports, I jumped on this since a breezy 2D platformer really does fit a handheld context very nicely.

Pretty much what I said in that article is still the case. It's a good game that has plenty of fun stages with unique gimmicks, there's some very cool setpieces thrown in to keep things interesting, and levels shift from slower methodical designs to faster rollercoasters. I even did what I couldn't originally do at the time and got all the Chaos Emeralds, leading to a frantic and tough final boss that I was somehow able to defeat.

I even went on to play through Knuckles' campaign and briefly dabbled with the unlockable characters in the free play mode. I'm slightly disappointed that Knuckles only gets a couple of unique bosses and sections to explore, otherwise going through the same campaign you'd normally get. But I admit that's an understandable concession given the game took five years to come together, and also that I'm weird about wanting other Sonic characters to have more unique levels.

Very good Sonic-styled platformer, and definitely worth a look if you've got some way of playing it.