Everyone knows Strong Bad from their famous song on Guitar Hero II!!! What have you never heard of them? Well, that’s ok, we all forgive you, but now’s your chance to meet the almighty only-cool-enough-to-look-at-unless-you’re-an-attractive-women, sometimes known as “Flexapecs” Strong Bad. The game’s main attraction is the crazy humor and the nice graphics style. The game is basically a flash point-and-click adventure where you try to show off your strong badness by making Homestar (the town’s “cool guy”) look like a total jack. With great voice acting to support these neat characters, the basic gameplay element always stays the same: click on this thing, hear what Strong Bad says, laugh, wander around aimlessly trying to figure out where to go next with no hints, rinse, and repeat.
My biggest gripe is the fact that you never really know where to go, and most of the game is really a guessing game. You slowly unlock different locations, and warping to these places on the fly is easy via your map. Go around collecting special items and even take photos! But seriously, even though the game has strong humor, it doesn’t save the gameplay. Just double-click and hold the mouse button to make Strong Bad run here, go into your inventory, and try to make certain things work, but I guarantee most of the time you’ll resort to an FAQ. The beginning of the game starts out easy enough where you just follow the plot of the game, then about halfway through it lets go of your hand and you sort of get lost in everything. Trying to spoil Homestar’s fame isn’t really easy since it takes lots of different running back and forth to and fro collecting things to make this work over here. With no quest log or anything like that, you never know what to do, and there are really no hints to help you. Some parts of the game I didn’t even know existed until I resorted to a FAQ, and that was after over an hour of trying to figure out where this one inventory item goes. Trying to go around experimenting isn’t really fun and makes you really annoyed and frustrated.
With all of that aside, the game’s dialog and writing are hilarious and fit the characters very well. The humor is more random, stupid, and full of bathroom jokes than witty and smart. This works just as well, and somehow the game pulls it off cleverly without making you feel like you’re playing something lame. I just really like all of the details that went into this game, like the Snake Boxer 5 mini-game and all of the extra dialogs when you talk to someone more than once. It just really makes things that much more interesting. Now, this is meant for young teens and kids, so there is no mature humor, even though you’d expect it from this kind of character. I really feel these characters should have been given more mature dialog, but what’s here works and works well if you can get around the annoying hunt and seek. I really do recommend this game on the Wii or PC because you’ll love the hilarious dialog, great art style, and funny characters.
The only way you’re going to like Fallout 3 is for two reasons. 1. You loved Oblivion, and 2. You love the Fallout series. Otherwise, you’re probably going to hate the game and think it’s “boring.” I say this because the game relies a lot on you finding out what to do and where you should take your next steps. The game is 100% nonlinear and features a perfect balance of FPS action and RPG stat building. The game is more than just “Oblivion with guns,” and the reason people say this is because Bethesda uses the Oblivion engine for this game. Just like in Oblivion, you take quests from people and complete them as you wish. You can be good, bad, or neutral in the world. You can find mini-encounters or free-form quests that are separate from the main and side quests to unlock achievements. I don’t want to spend this whole review comparing this game to Oblivion since it is its own game.
The first thing you’ll notice is how amazing the graphics are. The Oblivion engine has been refined, and everything looks amazing. Step out of Vault 101, and your eyes will adjust from the dark, and you’ll witness a beautiful yet desolate wasteland that leaves you wondering, “Now what?” Don’t be scared since the game does guide you a little bit, so you aren’t completely lost. Just wander around to find Megaton and just talk to people, and you’ll get quests eventually. Of course, you always know where to go for the main quests, and every quest has arrows on your map that point to where to go. You may see places on your map, but you can’t fast-travel there unless you actually walk around and discover them yourself. This forces players to explore the vast world of DC and really get to know the place. There are two sections to the game: the Wasteland, which takes up about 70% of the game, and DC, which is cluttered with metro stations, fallen buildings, and all the main landmarks like the White House, the Library of Congress, the Pentagon, etc.
The only way to travel around in DC is through the metro tunnels, and I found this kind of annoying since it may be tough to figure out which tunnel goes where. I just really can’t express how amazing the game feels, and you really do feel alone and empty when you go through stores and buildings that are completely trashed. With the melancholy music, you sometimes get a bit depressed since it’s just so amazingly surreal. Thankfully, Bethesda injected a bit of dark humor to keep you from feeling this way, and one way is with VATS. The Vault-Tec Automated Targeting System is one of the main gameplay elements. Hit RB, and you’ll pause time and zoom in on your enemy, and there will be parts of his or her body you can hit. The percentage is your chance of hitting that target, your AP is your action points, and each weapon takes a certain amount of them every time you queue up attacks. If you do enough damage, you can cripple a limb and either make your enemy drop the weapon, lower their accuracy, or make them walk slower. Once you get to higher levels, a few shots and you can blow their heads off in a heaping gory mess, and it never ever gets boring. Sniping someone from 200 feet away, watching the camera follow the bullet, and having someone’s head fall off their neck is just so satisfying. I played for 54 hours and never got bored with it.
Of course, you can fight in real-time combat, but you don’t get the advantages of VATS like critical hit strikes, etc. The game has many weapons, from mini-nuke launchers to rocket launchers, 10mm pistols, combat shotguns, sledgehammers, hunting rifles—the list just goes on and on. You can also make your own weapons by finding schematics and collecting the items you need to build various weapons, like the Rock-It Launcher, which lets you shoot anything you find, and the Railway Rifle, which lets you shoot railroad spikes and impale limbs on walls. The game is huge, amazing, and awesome, and all of the combat is very satisfying, and there are endless ways to approach a situation. Don’t you like fighting? Use a Stealth Boy to sneak your way through places, plant live grenades in enemies’ pants, and watch them explode! Like fighting with your fists? Walk around with a power glove and bash your way through the wasteland. Now that combat is out of the way, let’s get to stats. Your menu is your Pip-Boy, which is attached to your arm, features an easy-to-navigate interface, and makes it really easy to find what you want. You can level up to level 20 (which is lame since you’ll get to level 20 way early in the game and be maxed out), and you have several options once you level up.
You can add points to yourself for things like your medicine, small guns, big guns, explosives, speech, barter, energy weapons, lockpicking, science, etc. Then you get to pick a perk (say that five times fast!) and these are another unique gameplay idea in Fallout 3. There are over 40 perks, but you can only pick up to 20 throughout the game, so choose wisely! Perks range from giving you more health, increasing your regular abilities, automatically giving you another level, making animals in the world your friends, revealing every location on your map, making you a law bringer, and if you bring every finger off a bad enemy to a special HQ, you get caps (currency in the game) and good karma. The stats are also affected by items such as Buffout, Jet, Mentats (post-apocalyptic drugs!), etc. These have temporary effects and will get you out of a tight situation. You can trade and repair your items with people around the city and become rich. You can also just shoot everyone in the cities and get bad karma, so as you can see, there are no restraints.
You can also pass time by “waiting,” which skips hours. You can heal your crippled limbs by sleeping or going to a doctor. Getting too irradiated? Take some Rad-Away! Getting addicted to a certain drug? Go to the doctor! You can eventually get your own place in Tenpenny Tower, and you can buy things like a workbench, doctor stations, etc. I just can’t express how HUGE this game is, from its vast size to being able to pick up anything you see to use as ammo, trade, or sell. You really do feel like you’re struggling to survive in a hostile wasteland, and that feeling never goes away, even after 100 hours of play. Of course, you’ll eventually conquer the wasteland and not be afraid of even the strongest enemies in the game.
Now there are issues with the game, but they’re minor. There is loading between each section of the game, such as going from the main world into buildings, etc. The level 20 cap is extremely annoying and makes you quit trying really hard to find places to fight in. The game is really similar to Oblivion, and people who played the F out of that game will feel too familiar here. That’s why this game didn’t get a 9.5 from me like Oblivion did because I’ve kind of “been there, done that” with this engine. While there are so many subtle things in the game, like having followers (including a dog!), the many types of weird enemies, and all the different people you can talk to, it’s insane. I could spend hours telling you about every location and person you meet. Just stop what you’re doing and go play Fallout 3, and you’ll spend dozens and dozens of hours surviving the vast wasteland! Go grab an Ice Cold Nuka-Cola and watch out for the hostile factions (Raiders, Talon Company Mercs, Slavers, etc.), and good luck out there!
I’ve never played a Peggle game before, but I heard a lot about the new Peggle Nights, so I took a peek, and I liked what I saw. Peggle is basically what the name says: You shoot balls from the top of your screen and skillfully bounce them off different colored pegs to get the highest score. Now you’re probably asking, Why is this game so different from similar games? Maybe because this game has charm and a lot more than just a basic mechanic. The game has “stories,” or characters, wrapped around certain abilities that each one has when you hit a green peg. Some have a guideline, some will spawn multiple balls, some make the ball catch wider (more on that later), and a lot of other different helpful abilities make each set of levels play differently. The pegs are sorted kind of like a Lite Brite (remember those? No? Ok, Google it right now), where the pegs are stuck in the background and some even move. This makes each level different and more challenging. At the bottom is a “ball catch” (basically a basket) that moves back and forth, and if your ball drops in there, you get a free ball. Sometimes you may bounce it off the rim or just shoot it straight in there, and you get extra points.
You can earn extra points by hitting purple pegs and orange pegs from long-distance bounces (hit all orange pegs to clear the level). If you get over 25,000 points in one shot, you get a free ball. Sometimes if you don’t hit any pegs and you just shoot straight to the bottom, a coin will pop up, and you may get a free ball if you’re lucky! At the end of the round, four holes open up at the bottom for up to 50,000 points if you get it in the middle for extra points. You get awarded 10,000 points for every ball you have left.
The game gets really addictive thanks to its forgiving difficulty. You can pretty much clear most levels in less than a few tries, and the difficulty is never all that punishing. This helps make the game more fun and addictive to play. You’ll spend a lot of your time building your skill by bouncing shots around the pegs, trying to hit as many orange pegs as you can in one shot to get a huge score. At the end of every round, you get an all-time score count, and this is put up on the worldwide leaderboards. You’re probably wondering how the game is on the audio/visual front, and I can report that it’s very nice. The game has bright, colorful graphics with well-animated effects and perfect ball physics, and everything just feels right. At the top, where your shooter is, your character for that stage is up there with eyes that follow your mouse, and they make faces depending on your performance. Each level has different moving backgrounds, and this makes things never seem boring.
The game has great music, lots of different pinball sounds, and some pretty crazy fireworks at the end of each round! When you’re all done with this, you can play a challenge mode that has certain objectives you need to meet to earn up to 60 trophies. So there is plenty to do here, and for the $20 you pay, it’s one of the best arcade PC games you can buy. Load up Steam and enjoy Peggle Nights (but you won’t enjoy Steam).
Silent Hill was one of the first survival horror series that was 3D, along with Resident Evil, Clock Tower, Alone in the Dark, and Parasite Eve. While Resident Evil and Silent Hill became more successful, Silent Hill still remains the most frightening survival horror series ever made. Homecoming is no exception, with lots of fog and lighting effects, unbelievably freaky creatures, a great story with lots of plot twists, and a new and improved combat system. I have to first mention that there are so many little things in this game for hardcore SH fans, such as homages to the movie (which most of this game is based on), such as the “Otherworld peeling” effect, barbed wire in the church, ash or snow, the Grand Hotel, and the nurses. There are references everywhere that mention famous horror authors, horror movies, etc. Most people may never find these, but they are there, such as the streets being the last names of famous horror authors.
This is really great, and thankfully Konami kept all of this in mind for fans, but what if you’ve never played an SH game before? Well, then you came in at a great time. Most people’s concern is if the game has the same creepy atmosphere, and it does. There are fewer “out of the closet” scares, however, because the game concentrates more on the sheer atmosphere. Everything is dark and creepy, and we have the same spooky, unnerving sound effects and music that we’ve grown to love. The combat system is what I was mainly concerned about. Gone are the fixed camera angles and tank controls. The game controls very well in a third-person-style action game. You lock on to enemies and use light and heavy attack combos to kill them. This may be very repetitive and simple, but it’s better than being broken. Shooting is easier as well because you know how to control the gun in a Resident Evil 4 way.
Also introduced are button-pressing sequences, and this helps the intensity because if you don’t do this properly, you could die, and the game is totally up to you. Also new is a way to control the outcome of the story. Certain moments in the game require you to make a choice, and this will decide your ending (there are five altogether). There are a lot of weapons to pick up, such as knives, pipes, axes, shotguns, pistols, rifles, etc. There is nothing we haven’t seen in an SH game before, but you have to decide which weapon is best for which enemy.
If you want to go on the story side, it’s good, and it’s here. You are a man named Alex Shepard who comes home from being in a war, and everyone in Sheperd’s Glen is missing (just outside Silent Hill), and his brother Josh is missing. You must find the deep secrets of Silent Hill and why your brother went missing. There are tons of plot twists, and it’s probably one of the better, less confusing stories. The puzzles in Silent Hill are still as weird and confusing as ever. I had to get a FAQ for almost every single one because they require you to write down stuff and rattle off riddles in your head, and, well, they’re still confusing. The game is a bit short, however, and you can beat the game in about 8–10 hours, depending on how you play.
There is plenty of replay value thanks to the multiple endings, different costumes, and new weapons you can find after you beat the game. There are also collectibles to find, such as drawings, photos, and serums, to unlock achievements. The game is just very well put together, but you can tell the developers didn’t do anything risky with the formula. It’s pretty safe and basic, but you’ll want to visit Silent Hill again thanks to the excellent story, voice acting, graphics, atmosphere, new enemies, and button-pressing sequences, not to mention the humongous, disgusting boss fights! If you love survival horror, this is probably the best one of the year so far (Alone in the Dark was almost a disaster).
I remember hearing so much about this game back in 2005. I wanted to play it really badly, but thanks to the poor release time of the year (the Christmas holidays of ’05), Psychonauts was lost in the hype of all the fall and winter releases. I played the demo for PS2 and quickly realized I had to play either the Xbox or PC version to get a good experience because of the dumbed-down visuals, poor frame rate, and just overall bad performance on the PS2. So, now that Psychonauts has been an Xbox Original on the 360 for a while, I decided to spend the $15, and it was the best $15 I’ve spent in a long time. To start with, the game’s strongest points are its visuals, story, and voice acting. The platforming is really fun and has unique ways of doing so, but there are extremely frustrating moments in the game that just make you scream!
You play as Raz, who is a psychologist in a training camp for children trying to become psychonauts. An evil dentist known as Dr. Loboto is stealing the children’s brains, and another evil accomplice is behind it all, and you need to find that out. When you start the game, you’ll notice how beautiful the world is (for a 3-year-old). Everything is really bright, and the shapes have a Nightmare Before Christmas type of style. Everything is shiny and twisty, and it looks like an AAA cartoon. The voice acting is top-notch, and Raz is voiced by none other than Richard Levitz, who plays the voice of Invader ZIM. The characters are very unique, and you quickly learn to love them all. Accompanying the voice acting is clever dialog. It’s funny, witty, and keeps you drawn in.
When you explore the outside world, you can hunt for PSI cards, arrowheads, and challenge markers. A challenge marker ranks you up so you can power up your psychic abilities (more on that later). If you collect nine Psi cards and buy a Psi Core from the store, you can put them all together to create a challenging marker. Arrowheads are used as currency in the game, but you need a Dowsing Rod to find the buried rare ones. The problem with this is that there never seem to be enough arrowheads in the game to buy everything. Small arrowheads are worth 1, and the rare ones are worth 75, yet there just doesn’t seem to be enough. Luckily, all your upgrades are acquired by ranking up, so the only thing the store holds in his life are a few odds and ends (that are kind of useless).
Throughout the game, you’ll go inside people’s minds and try to solve their mental issues. This is what’s so unique about this game, and most of the puzzles are more about how you will get from point A to point B using your powers instead of pulling levers and switches. There are nine powers, from telekinesis to pyrokinesis to Levitation, so a shield. All these powers are used very well, and not one world is the same. Speaking of that, the worlds are so unique that the graphics change at each level. One world has you in a war zone, one level looks like you’re in a painting, and another level has you playing Waterloo against Napoleon!. The constant change in scenery is a huge plus and gets you excited for what’s coming next.
After about halfway through the game, you’ll explore the main world hardly at all, so when you do need to change your markers or just get some more arrowheads, there’s a warp system that takes you to each area. Once you finish a level and you want to go back and get some figments (these are floating neon 2D shapes that help you rank up: 100 and you rank up), cobwebs (these can be turned in for Psi Cards, but you need the Cobweb Duster to get these), you can also find tags for emotional baggage (see what I mean? This game has very neat ideas: They are crying baggage of emotion, and if you find the tag, you set them free. Find vaults (these have slideshows of why the person usually went mental).
There is a lot of collecting in the game, but it keeps you busy and has something to do for completionists. What I liked so much is that completing the game 100% is not that difficult, and you rarely need to resort to an FAQ. You always see everything; it’s just a matter of what psychic power will get you there. The game has lots of action with great boss battles, but these can be a bit too easy (just a few hits and they die). Overall, it’s a tragedy that Psychonauts‘ fate turned out the way it did, and I hope there is a sequel soon! If it weren’t for the extremely frustrating platforming sections, I would give this a 9.5, but that can really make things drag. The game is pretty long, with about 12 hours of gameplay and even more if you’re a completionist.
This marks the fourth installment in Johnny Boy’s Quake Brainchild. Running all the way back to 1994, Quake was kind of a “palette swap of Doom,” with its strong point being multiplayer. Quake 4 changes that with an excellent single-player experience. Unlike Doom 3, Quake 4 is more of an “on-rails shooter,” where it guides you through a lot of scary and tense scripted events. These work for the game and separate it from its brethren. You play Kane, who is a soldier who has to help stop the Strogg invasion by destroying them at their core, the Nexus. As you make your way to the Nexus, you can pick up a ton of cool weapons and upgrades and even turn into a Strogg yourself. The weapons range from your piddly blaster to a dark matter gun. You have your railgun, a nailgun, a shotgun, a lightning gun, etc.
Throughout the campaign, you can unlock upgrades for these weapons, like clip extenders, scopes, and extra damage. This lets you easily change your strategy around what gun works in what situation. The game has some pretty neat enemy types, ranging from Grunts that rush you with their bulky bodies to Berserkers, who are all about melee. You have floating enemies that shoot rockets at you; you have giant spider robots; and you even have massive Strogg with shields and railguns. These are all gruesome-looking enemies that are both terrifying to look at and really fun to fight. The game sports great AI, with enemies dodging your shots and ducking behind cover. Each enemy has to be taken care of differently, so you have five weaker enemies and two guys with railguns. You take the five weaker ones out with a grenade or a rocket, then deal with the railgun guys with your dark matter gun, or you can shoot rockets at their feet. This allows you to create a strategy that works best for you. I just really love the atmosphere Quake 4 delivers. You’ll walk through rooms, and lights will dim and enemies will run across corridors. Your teammates will get dragged off and tortured, and there are also some really cool vehicle sections. You either mount a machine gun, drive a tank, or use a mech. All are handled really well, and these sections are both fun and challenging. This is a nice change from Quake, which has always been on foot.
Now, when it comes to multiplayer, the game is fun, but nothing really special. What doesn’t help is that no one is playing online (which really stinks), and the one map I did play was really boring. The game does have a lot of downfalls, though. The game does have major frame rate issues but isn’t as bad as what people say. It only bothered me a few times in the game. The graphics are really good, yet the Doom 3 engine is really dated and can’t be pushed any further. While the game does have weapon upgrades and vehicle sections, it still feels redundant and has the dumbest ending ever. So, if you want a good single-player experience that’s worth a rental or purchase (it’s less than $10 everywhere), then play Quake 4.
I remember playing GTA III when it first came out. I didn’t have a PS2 yet, and I went over to a friend’s house and played it for hours every single day. While we mostly just messed around, it was something I had never played before and was just so addictive. Thankfully, GTA IV goes back to its roots and brings us to good ol’ Liberty City. You play none other than Niko Bellic, who is a Russian immigrant who came to LC with his cousin Roman to start a new life. The game’s main attractions are its story for once. GTA IV has a superb story that makes you want to keep playing. Gone are the lukewarm stories from previous GTAs where only the main character was the main attraction, with just OK side characters. In previous GTAs, you never really got a good feeling for the employers due to the lack of building up the story. You were just in and out of the short cutscenes, not knowing what to really do. This kind of problem was solved in San Andreas, but even then, only a select few were really fleshed out. In IV, you feel every character in the game, and there are tons of plot twists, which really keeps the game fresh through every single mission.
On another note, the graphics are amazing. While not Assassin’s Creed or BioShock amazing, they’re really good. It’s mainly the subtle details, though, such as people now putting their blinkers on, cars are damaged in real-time now with realistic physics, so half-broken fenders and bumpers sway as you turn the car, the paint can get scraped up, crowd AI is more efficient (yet not by much), better enemy AI (still not by much), further draw distance, everything has high-res textures, bump mapping, and the whole next-gen works. There are a few things that they stripped away, such as the whole working out system, swimming underwater (you can still swim though!), and territories. There are other subtle details, such as the internet, that you can now use. It’s a virtual made-up internet, but it’s still as funny as hell and has a dating system (yes, it’s still here) implemented on the dating website. You can get emails for side missions from employers as well. You can now take taxis around the city and either watch them drive or skip them if you want. This really helps a lot if you are tired of driving everywhere. There is also a new route system where the game will plot the safest and most legal course to your destination. Red is a target, blue is friendly, green is a waypoint you made on your map, and yellow is an objective. This is probably one of the better additions because it keeps you from getting lost during time-sensitive missions.
Another thing is the revamped wanted system. You now have to flash “zones” for every star. The more stars, the bigger the circle will get on your radar that you have to escape. Cops are now shown as flashing blue and red blips, and copters are now flashing Xs. While we’re talking about characters again, the voice acting is amazing. I really felt like I was watching bits of a movie every time there was a cutscene. The characters are really fleshed out here, every single one. You’ll remember every character in the 60+ hour game, and that’s a really hard thing to achieve. Rockstar really went the extra 20 miles with this game, and you can just feel it.
The game is huge as well; while not as huge as San Andreas, it’s about as big as GTA III, yet it’s also big and taller as well. You can fly planes and copters again in here, and while it’s a lot easier than San Andreas, it’s still not very fun. Speaking of controls, they are more refined this time, and the auto-aim is a lot better, yet there’s still that stupid camera! Switching targets is not very easy. You have to press the right stick exactly left or right, or you won’t switch targets. Whenever you lock on, Niko always aims for the wrong people and ends with cheap deaths and what have you. The cars are also a big pain because they just don’t feel right. They all feel really heavy, and they slide way too much, no matter what car you use. You try to put the brakes on, and your car will slide and slide and you’ll miss your turn, and the same goes for the handbrake. You hit it, and your car spins out a few times, no matter how good you are with the handling. I found this very annoying with the driving missions because it would lead to cheap and frustrating failures.
Apart from all this, the game has 16-player Xbox LIVE support. You have tons of game modes, from deathmatch to cops and robbers. In cops and robbers, it’s pretty self-explanatory. You all get in a car and try to kill each other. This is also very fun yet annoying because the game can lag a lot, especially with people who have crappy connections. It also may take a while to start a game due to everyone wanting 16 players, and they just won’t start the game. Aside from the minor issues, GTA IV is probably game of the year-worthy, but it doesn’t do anything as groundbreaking as GTA III did. It just perfects it 100% this time and gives us what we’ve always wanted. The perfect GTA game.
I’m going to write this review as if I were writing a review for five different games. After that (here at the top), there will be a summary of all 5. Overall, TOB is one of the best deals in video game history. With Valve’s ingenious talent backing this package, there’s no stopping it. Everyone has to pick this masterpiece up because there is something in it you’ll love.
Half-Life 2=9.0/10
I bought this on my PC about 2 years ago and played it to death (including all the mods). Even if you’ve played it on your PC, you’ll love it even more on your 360 (or PS3) due to the achievements, and people who can’t run the game very well can experience the game in all its glory. You are Gordon Freeman, who has mysteriously wound up in City 17 between a civil war against Dr. Breen and the Combine, thanks to Gman. You and your sexy companion, Alyx Vance, have to reach the Citadel and take down the Combine. Instead of explaining what you already know, I’ll explain what’s new. Nothing really. Just the achievements involved (and they are cleverly thought out). You have all the same weapons, levels, and monsters. Just sit back and enjoy the first part of the HL2 saga, and you’ll have the best 8–10 hours of your life. Back when the game was released, I gave this game a 9.5, but due to its age, it drops half a point.
Half-Life 2: Episode 1=8.5/10
The story takes off after the citadel blows up, and you now have to escape and stop the reactor before all hell breaks loose. With Alyx once again by your side, you have to push back the combine once more. While EP1 uses the same engine as HL2 with no enhancements (literally everything’s recycled to death), you still get a great experience. Well, there is one new thing: ZOMBINES FTW!!! While the game is a bit more on-the-rails-cinematic than HL2, you get more clever puzzles this time around, along with some memorable firefights. In the end, if you’ve played EP1 on the PC, there’s nothing new here either, but for first-timers, it’s a blast.
Half-Life 2: Episode Two=8.5/10
While this is the best HL2 entry yet, with more cinematic gameplay and some new content, you’ll love this one the most. After escaping the Citadel and City 17, you and Alyx must head through White Forest to her dad to stop the Citadel portal from letting loose monstrosities beyond our imagining. In EP2, we finally get new content such as acid ant lions, antlion larvae, Combine Hunters, a new vehicle, and an evolved story. EP2’s story is more touching than ever before, and we finally get some background on Gman. EP2 is a couple of hours longer than EP1, and you’ll want to play through it more than once.
Portal=9.5/10
This is a whole new creature. Portal is the introduction of brand new technology. You are an unknown tester for Aperture Science, and you are given a portal gun, which you use to solve puzzles. This is probably the most clever puzzle game ever made. You use velocity to launch yourself over obstacles, use portals to navigate through rooms, and even move objects. The game is just so clever; it really works your mind, but in such a way that you won’t get frustrated. The game has a next-gen engine and looks fantastic as well. After you beat the 3–4 hour game, you can go back and beat the advanced maps and challenges for more achievements. There’s nothing more than I can say than to pick TOB for just this game. It’s worth the $60. The game even sports an awesome and memorable story that you’ll joke about for years to come. The cake is a lie!!!!
Team Fortress 2=8.5/10
I remember playing TFC back when I bought HL1 Anthology, and it was a blast. TF2 sports a unique graphical style and wonderfully balanced characters to use. You all know who the characters are, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock this whole time. You have a heavy weapons guy who is as slow as molasses in January but packs a serious punch, a spy who can disguise as the enemy and sneak into the other side, and a sniper who also sports a machete and a machine gun. This is why I love TF2 so much. Everything is perfectly balanced. Instead of being a vulnerable sniper with just a pistol, you get a moderate machine gun. Instead of being a slow, heavy-weapon guy, you get a shotgun. Instead of being a weak Pyro with a flamethrower, you get a shotgun as well. If you love online gaming, TF2 will keep you hooked for hours. This is just the fifth reason to buy TOB, and you’re bound to be happy.
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ORC is probably the worst game in the entire series. It's objectively awful. Being bad isn't different. Different is Outbreak…