Despite requiring mods to even function (and still crashing on me 20 times throughout my playthrough), it's the one game that's so great I can't let that knock my experience. Breathing in the rust of the Sierra Madre, getting a full view of the wasteland through the sky-high windows adorning the Lucky 38, scrapping with Cazadores and lobotomies on the moon, befriending a robot dog gifted from an Elvis impersonator, I was never not amazed at the creativity and wit in the writing that was laced through every quest and character decorating the apocalypse. It's the first game I've played in a while that feels like a breathing world, not just because of the previously mentioned variety, but the way it responds to your actions.

Picture this: early into my run, I came across the little town of Novac. I quickly found out that an ex-NCR soldier's wife had been sold into slavery, and you just know I had to find out who did it. To find out, though, I needed to crack a safe; but I didn't have a high enough lockpick to do it. What's a Courier to do? I took a brisk walk over to the HELIOS-One power plant to gain a little xp from a quest, hopefully enough to upgrade my lockpick skill and bring that slaver to justice. Long story short: in an attempt to boast my relatively high science skill for the early game, and a wee misunderstanding, I accidentally nuked about 30 NCR troopers stationed at the plant. They weren't particularly happy with me after that! Went from neutral to shunned in one event, but I shrugged it off and got the note proving the little old woman sold Boone's wife to the Legion. Took her outside, he shot her, went upstairs to collect my reward and shockingly: Boone didn't want to talk to me! Apparently killing a lot of people he considers allies will do that to your personal relationship with someone. Slightly sad about this, I helped out the NCR with little quests here and there until I went from shunned to accepted, went back to Boone, and he became my partner (not before a talk where he told me I needed to quit fucking with the NCR like I did in the past). It was so rewarding gaining the trust of not just an entire faction, but individual members; it felt like my choices really did matter in the grand scheme of things.

The story doesn't end there: much later, I tried to help the NCR recruit troops for the relief effort of Bitter Springs, and what do you know? They want me to go back to HELIOS-One and ask for help. Only problem? Because I killed all the NCR there earlier, the Legion took over the plant. I was astounded in that moment, a place that I had all but forgotten about completely changed under my nose. That's what I mean when I say the world is an entity, even when I repaired my personal problems with the NCR, it didn't make what I did earlier in the game justified. The wasteland kept revolving even when I didn't look at it--and that's the secret sauce that makes the RPG elements come together. The skills you choose have uses and impacts, the friends you make have uses and impacts, there's no such thing as an irrelevant decision in how you play your character and I think that's just brilliant

I love and respect everything this game is, but my admiration is just that--admiration. I respect its evershifting gameplay and smart level design, I respect its themes, I loved the writing and the fascinating piece of gaming history that it is, particularly in how it paved the way for indie titles to be unflinching auteur experiences compared to the stagnant nature most big companies were occupying at the time. But I honestly lack the patience to actually have fun solving the puzzles and found it a lot more frustrating than engaging. When I'm older and wiser I think I'll come around on loving everything about it, but I'm putting it on the shelf for now

A Lovecraftian fishing game is too good of an idea to squander, which makes me happy to report that a team as talented as Black Salt was behind it. Featuring an extremely solid art direction, straightforward but enjoyable progression, and a rich atmosphere packed into a 9~ hour package, it's probably in my top 10 or so for 2023. There's a good bit of busy work here and there but it genuinely enhances the narrative by immersing you into the tedium of being a fisherman. Spending 15 minutes fishing up normal critters and hearing that dissonant piano chord when getting an abomination always creeped me out, and without that tedium, it wouldn't strike as hard. The sailing was great, the areas were diverse and fun to explore, and filling out the encyclopedia tickles the same part of my brain as reading all the Piklopedia entries in Pikmin. My only complain is that I wish there was even more creepy shit, I think it just barely doesn't go far enough in making you afraid of what lurks beneath the water

Decided to play through it again and get the little purple hat achievement, great time all around. It wasn't much of a challenge I guess, more just a minor annoyance to keep track of. Source is just godlike to me man, shooting a headcrab with a shotgun or blowing up a barnacle with a satchel never gets boring. To list a couple nitpicks though, the game crashed a couple of times (especially in Interloper) which wasn't a big deal since I was quicksaving a ton for the challenge, but having to let it load all the way back up was annoying. Sometimes the plugs in Xen would just not plug into the sockets too, effectively softlocking me. Most annoying of all, I'm not sure why they added the pizza achievement (which is just a rehash of the Hat achievement) that makes you carry a prop through all the most annoying sections of the game again. It's a fun little secret ending, but I think the pizza should've been hidden somewhere a lot closer to the Nihilanth. Those all aren't really big deals though! The level design improves upon Half Life's strong foundation really well and Xen is much, much improved over the original. What was an unfortunate ending to a great game is now just... the great ending to a great game. I still love both, hell, I'm playing through Sven Co-op with some friends right now, but I'd probably pop in Black Mesa on any given day