Recent reviews by floatybones

A beautiful marriage of Quake aesthetics and Descent's gunplay in a cooperative or singleplayer experience. Recommended for fans of either!

Good god, where do I begin.

Black Mesa's initial portion, up until Lambda Core, is a fantastic re-imagining of Half-Life on its own. It cuts out frustrating or confusing portions, redesigns existing areas to flow better and look more believable as a facility rather than a network of corridors, and refines enemy behaviors with Source improvements.

Xen, however, is something else entirely.
It's breathtaking. It's a completely new, 4-6 hour long endeavor, rather than the hour or two of the original. Rather than desolate wastes the environments are brilliantly creative and superbly executed. The music, as well, is even better than that already existing in the game's previous sections. It also has some of the best boss fights I've ever had the pleasure of facing in a game, with the musical score matching the grand scale of these bosses. In my opinion, Black Mesa easily beats Half-Life 2 for one of my favorite games of all time. Valve should honestly take notes from Crowbar Collective, as they've done an amazing job remaking one of the most influential games of all time.

I had been watching Anton Hand's stream (One of the developers of Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades) and he was relaxing, playing this game. I had previously been skeptical of COMPOUND, admittedly due to some hasty assumptions on my part. Anton said it was one of his favorite VR games, and that fact piqued my interest. So, after work, I got home and bought it. It's a very well built roguelike with decent enemy variety and a good "old-school" feel, somewhat reminiscent of Doom or Wolfenstein's original entries in the 90's. The limited ammo management is a nice touch, since it makes you place your shots very carefully. I got through one whole run on easy difficulty my first try, and really enjoyed the gameplay it offered. With a little more level and enemy variety I can definitely see this becoming one of my favorite VR titles as well.

Counter-Strike 1.6 is much more difficult to get used to over CSS, but it is much more satisfying to succeed in. Recommended!