Mild spoiler warning (of a specific level), but it's at the end, so proceed with minor caution.

This game was great. I have no idea how long I spent on it, but I loved it. Second favorite Halo game behind 2.

This game is a mystery story. I'm not sure I got that when I first started playing it; in fact, when I first started out, I'm not sure I got the premise at all! But in the past week, it dawned on me what exactly was going on, and it sold me immediately. The characters are fantastic, the story is interesting (especially Sadie's, which I don't think I've finished!), and the gameplay is intelligent and frantic, just like a Halo game should be. I forgot how much strategy goes into playing these games, and it really forces you to slow down and think about your next action (which gets increasingly harder to do after dying so many times!)

I was so relieved to find out I didn't have to face the Flood in this game. As badass as the ODSTs are, I'm not sure they would have survived! Speaking of which, this game does a fantastic job at making you feel vulnerable, something that was pointed out to me when I read the Wikipedia article on it. I was like "oh yeah," lol. But even so, I definitely felt a lot more vulnerable, and had to occasionally take moves incredibly carefully and specifically in order to break the death/checkpoint-load cycles I got myself trapped in occasionally (or frequently).

Favorite level was Buck and the team going to capture a Phantom. Loved that one.

Cute little game. Not generally a fan of games where you can't jump or aim, but I got the hang of this one. The Ancient Egypt theme intrigued me.

A sub-2 hour metroidvania Wolfenstein-like is certainly not something I expected to enjoy (though tbh the metroidvania aspect helped a ton), but it executes itself very well. Each environment is distinct, and had its own gimmicks.

My only complaints/critiques, besides the lack of upwards aiming and jumping (which, considering the genre, is understandable) is the fact that the pixel filter was really, really hard to play in (needed to be probably double the resolution, or have an optional resolution slider - I had to scale up the resolution to play Star Wars: Dark Forces in The Force Engine, as well) and I would have preferred my crunchy aliased lines; I didn't really understand the story, not that there was much of one to begin with (and that's okay); and the music cut out every now and then. Also, the reload time on the rocket launcher was way too long, especially when digging out those really long corridors. Exploration was somewhat confusing as well, but the map helped a little bit. Combat was simultaneously dead easy, but also somehow had some unfair deaths. Very strange!

I didn't expect to burn through the entire game, and I'm kinda glad I did. Not because I wanted it to end, but because I've never really had a short, sweet game that executes its design principles and gameplay tightly and effectively. I wonder what a Quake-like version of this game would be like...!