Laurencher
1998
Solid experience, even to this day still. The level design felt almost perfect as I was never lost or confused about what to do, with Black Mesa being packed with atmosphere and visual story bits. Great weapon design and resource distribution aswell throughout the whole game. You will always feel the pressure of a dwindling healthbar and srinking ammunition, but Gordon is never left with plenty of options to deal with the army of aliens and foot soldiers standing in your way. Quite a comedic game aswell, with the reflective NPC one-liners and all the comically grusome deaths happening onscreen scripted or not.
2021
How is this addictive 15 minutes in and I want to fall asleep.
2015
Let me tell you about all the things I dislike about this game.
1. The time consuming bullethell segments creates a unique combo of frustration together with the RPG staple trope; random enemy encounters. Backtracking can just take a little too long sometimes and random enemy encounters just get kinda old after a while.
2. Chara's lore is so confusing, I dont even think Deltarune will ever give us a satifactory anwser for why Chara is the way they are. It is such a messy chunk of the story, that it interferes a little too much with the core themes and message of the game when the brainworms set in.
3. I don't know how to feel about the ''Just because you can, you HAVE to'' part of the game's commentary. Its a powerful message on how players tend to treat the fiction of videogames, but why put some of the best content and most mysterious story beats behind a path you shouldn't even consider doing?
Overall, none of these things can bother me much. This game is like a precision missile that hits your empathy like a flood. It doesn''t matter who you are, you will care about someone in this game, and you will feel what they feel. All while some some living flame guy is screaming in defeat because you remembered his name after two hours.
1. The time consuming bullethell segments creates a unique combo of frustration together with the RPG staple trope; random enemy encounters. Backtracking can just take a little too long sometimes and random enemy encounters just get kinda old after a while.
2. Chara's lore is so confusing, I dont even think Deltarune will ever give us a satifactory anwser for why Chara is the way they are. It is such a messy chunk of the story, that it interferes a little too much with the core themes and message of the game when the brainworms set in.
3. I don't know how to feel about the ''Just because you can, you HAVE to'' part of the game's commentary. Its a powerful message on how players tend to treat the fiction of videogames, but why put some of the best content and most mysterious story beats behind a path you shouldn't even consider doing?
Overall, none of these things can bother me much. This game is like a precision missile that hits your empathy like a flood. It doesn''t matter who you are, you will care about someone in this game, and you will feel what they feel. All while some some living flame guy is screaming in defeat because you remembered his name after two hours.
The sound design and overal look is really quite strong, but I ended up basically softlocking myself twice with how punishing the resource management is. Backtracking for key items you missed is an immense drain as you mostly avoid and bypass enemies rather than outright killing them. It does not help that the game never explains many useful mechanics so using a guide is a must. Will probably give this another shot soon in the future but for now im tired of it.
This game is balanced on a razor's edge of god-awful and pure perfection.
2016
Even after five years of thinking about this game and coming back to it multiple times, I still can't really decide if this game is good or not.
The twelve(?) different puzzle areas will each either feel like perfect design, too much, or way too out of the way. Sixteen year old me playing this for the first time felt cheated by how some puzzle solutions required you to get lucky with your viewing angle. The block swamp and star mangroove areas both required just too many hard puzzles to beat, and became exhausting rather than stimulating. More often than I should, I looked up a guide because I just wanted to get it over with. This permanently reduced alot of the great 'oh my god,' moments that I can have on the Island.
Speaking about the Island, its the most beautiful location I have ever had the pleasure to find myself in, in any media ever. The beauty of the island is not in technical complexity or immaculate detail, but in pure composition and mystery. The game sounds great even though it doesn't even have a soundtrack. The first time I played this I felt terrified by every dead quiet path and ambient-lit corridor I found myself looking through. Say what you want about John Suck, but he did convince me and many others to buy this 37 euro game based on the first promotional image I saw of it.
Overal this game will stay in my soul and mind forever. I painted screenshots of The Witness in my final year art class in highschool, and I got a ten for one of those works. If this game doesn't deserve at least a 9/10 from me than I don't know what should.
The twelve(?) different puzzle areas will each either feel like perfect design, too much, or way too out of the way. Sixteen year old me playing this for the first time felt cheated by how some puzzle solutions required you to get lucky with your viewing angle. The block swamp and star mangroove areas both required just too many hard puzzles to beat, and became exhausting rather than stimulating. More often than I should, I looked up a guide because I just wanted to get it over with. This permanently reduced alot of the great 'oh my god,' moments that I can have on the Island.
Speaking about the Island, its the most beautiful location I have ever had the pleasure to find myself in, in any media ever. The beauty of the island is not in technical complexity or immaculate detail, but in pure composition and mystery. The game sounds great even though it doesn't even have a soundtrack. The first time I played this I felt terrified by every dead quiet path and ambient-lit corridor I found myself looking through. Say what you want about John Suck, but he did convince me and many others to buy this 37 euro game based on the first promotional image I saw of it.
Overal this game will stay in my soul and mind forever. I painted screenshots of The Witness in my final year art class in highschool, and I got a ten for one of those works. If this game doesn't deserve at least a 9/10 from me than I don't know what should.
2011
I don't even know how to judge a game like this, because it is so fundamental not only in its own game design but also in my own memory and life. I used to talk about this game constanly in 2013. It was something I made friends with and what I looked forward to after school and hobbys. Rating this game is like rating a language, or rating having a bike. You can recognize all of Minecrafts flaws and shortcomings, but they just don't matter to me or my memories of this game. My almost mythical-feeling experiences with Minecraft is something that makes any detail I know about it go into the background, it makes me feel shivers down my spine.
2011
As someone who has played this game for half their life I can't review this game like any videogame. My perspective on Terraria is thoroughly impacted by how the game evolved over time throughout my teenage years, and how Terraria molded the foundation of how I see and think about videogames today.
If you want to try this game, go in with a mindset of curiosity, experimentation, and acceptance of 'grindy' exploration and rescource gathering. Having the wiki open will absolutely not ruin your experience, so I would recommend it to reduce the new-player learning curve. Terraria is a giant game with a decade worth of features, items and mechanics, and this is the biggest problem for a newcomer. The developers have never added a way for new players to figure out what the game has to offer before getting bored, frustrated and deciding to quit by how directionless, slow and grindy the earlygame can feel. Terraria is a massive game, and also a 'slow' game, with a lot of traversal and exploration that needs to be done to progress to the next stage. Just go in to it with an open mind.
Terraria has alot of combat, focused on dodging, build optimalization and item variety. You can breakdown Terraria's combat as M1'ing and going in circles to win every fight, but due to massive amout of variables found in the game, it never gets old. Your arsenal of weapons is so vast that every new playthrough will give you a way to mix things up and experiment with all the different tools the game givese you during combat. The random world gen will present unique scenarios and new situations every time you go exploring.
Terraria is not for everyone, but it is absolutely worth a try, despite how hard it is for a new player to get into it.
If you want to try this game, go in with a mindset of curiosity, experimentation, and acceptance of 'grindy' exploration and rescource gathering. Having the wiki open will absolutely not ruin your experience, so I would recommend it to reduce the new-player learning curve. Terraria is a giant game with a decade worth of features, items and mechanics, and this is the biggest problem for a newcomer. The developers have never added a way for new players to figure out what the game has to offer before getting bored, frustrated and deciding to quit by how directionless, slow and grindy the earlygame can feel. Terraria is a massive game, and also a 'slow' game, with a lot of traversal and exploration that needs to be done to progress to the next stage. Just go in to it with an open mind.
Terraria has alot of combat, focused on dodging, build optimalization and item variety. You can breakdown Terraria's combat as M1'ing and going in circles to win every fight, but due to massive amout of variables found in the game, it never gets old. Your arsenal of weapons is so vast that every new playthrough will give you a way to mix things up and experiment with all the different tools the game givese you during combat. The random world gen will present unique scenarios and new situations every time you go exploring.
Terraria is not for everyone, but it is absolutely worth a try, despite how hard it is for a new player to get into it.
2019
I have mixed feelings about this game.
All the information the game communicates to you comes from written dialogue, as the visual presentation is barebones with only flavour-text voice acting on occasion. The three ways of gameplay found being; ship traversal, branching dialogue and "match the shape" translation puzzles, all suffer from not demanding much engagement from the player in order to make progress. At last, dialogue choices can feel unsatifying at times due to you playing an established character, Aliya is a character with her own beliefs and values, which are not going to change due to a buttonprompt. This is not a roleplaying game, despite 1/3 of the game being dedicated to branching dialogue.
On the other hand, the story and worldbuilding of the game was very enjoyable to me. The game tells a story of an archeologist, dealing with all the luggage the profession can bring with it. The world on display is unique and full of its own problems, bringing a hostile and tense atmosphere to every conversation. The game will reward tought-out decision making with new knowledge about the universe and its past. You are really making discoveries about the past and present that matter, and make you think about the history, creation, nature and future of this universe.
Heavens Vault is a memorable game that I wish other devs would notice, and try to improve on the concepts and ideas shown in it. Translation is such a cool idea for a from of gameplay, and this game only scratches the surface of it.
All the information the game communicates to you comes from written dialogue, as the visual presentation is barebones with only flavour-text voice acting on occasion. The three ways of gameplay found being; ship traversal, branching dialogue and "match the shape" translation puzzles, all suffer from not demanding much engagement from the player in order to make progress. At last, dialogue choices can feel unsatifying at times due to you playing an established character, Aliya is a character with her own beliefs and values, which are not going to change due to a buttonprompt. This is not a roleplaying game, despite 1/3 of the game being dedicated to branching dialogue.
On the other hand, the story and worldbuilding of the game was very enjoyable to me. The game tells a story of an archeologist, dealing with all the luggage the profession can bring with it. The world on display is unique and full of its own problems, bringing a hostile and tense atmosphere to every conversation. The game will reward tought-out decision making with new knowledge about the universe and its past. You are really making discoveries about the past and present that matter, and make you think about the history, creation, nature and future of this universe.
Heavens Vault is a memorable game that I wish other devs would notice, and try to improve on the concepts and ideas shown in it. Translation is such a cool idea for a from of gameplay, and this game only scratches the surface of it.
2022
Not as funny as people say, but if you played The Witness this will surely make you smile at least once.
To me, this feels like a collection of thoughts and feelings about Witness, aswell as how people talk
about and critisize it. The best thing is is that its a pretty decent time stand-alone with interesting puzzles and mechanics of itself, and even free. Don't regret playing it.
To me, this feels like a collection of thoughts and feelings about Witness, aswell as how people talk
about and critisize it. The best thing is is that its a pretty decent time stand-alone with interesting puzzles and mechanics of itself, and even free. Don't regret playing it.
2016
One of the best .io games out there, even if the game and community is a shell of what it used to be.
Diep.io is a pvp bullet-hell with a branching class tree and eight stats you can put skill points in, capping of quite early at level 45. This system of customizing your tank creates alot of gameplay variety. It had (and still does have) quite a competitive community, discussing the viability of the classes and showing of skill; people got really good at this game.
The game today is pretty dead, with no updates for the last three(?) years or something, and with the playerbase only 1/5 of what is usually was. Playing the game today is a frustrating experience. Too many people on a single server, meaning more competition over the same resources when leveling, ending up with less people at the max level to fight when you are finally there. Going with a glass cannon build you will die alot when leveling, as you will be constantly dodging stray projectiles, and for health regeneration to kick in, you need to not take damage for like 15 seconds. Some classes are also just way stronger than others, and the last balance patch with a single nerf happened 2(?) years ago.
I have hundreds of hours in this game, and even held the wr for the Predator class in 2TDM for a while. This game will forever hold a special place in my heart, remembering it as a place to escape my horrible highschool experience.
If you are interested, I would recommend to check out arras.io, a fan-made sequel with faster-paced gameplay, more content and still recieving updates. Diep.io is still better in some aspects and I centainly enjoyed my time with it. 8/10
Diep.io is a pvp bullet-hell with a branching class tree and eight stats you can put skill points in, capping of quite early at level 45. This system of customizing your tank creates alot of gameplay variety. It had (and still does have) quite a competitive community, discussing the viability of the classes and showing of skill; people got really good at this game.
The game today is pretty dead, with no updates for the last three(?) years or something, and with the playerbase only 1/5 of what is usually was. Playing the game today is a frustrating experience. Too many people on a single server, meaning more competition over the same resources when leveling, ending up with less people at the max level to fight when you are finally there. Going with a glass cannon build you will die alot when leveling, as you will be constantly dodging stray projectiles, and for health regeneration to kick in, you need to not take damage for like 15 seconds. Some classes are also just way stronger than others, and the last balance patch with a single nerf happened 2(?) years ago.
I have hundreds of hours in this game, and even held the wr for the Predator class in 2TDM for a while. This game will forever hold a special place in my heart, remembering it as a place to escape my horrible highschool experience.
If you are interested, I would recommend to check out arras.io, a fan-made sequel with faster-paced gameplay, more content and still recieving updates. Diep.io is still better in some aspects and I centainly enjoyed my time with it. 8/10