2020s

2026-06-25

Toby, you're a fucking genius. This is a masterpiece. Thank you for injecting serotonin directly into my brain. AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaa... 🤤

P.S. I played an aborted Weird Route by accident.

Rating: 🏅 Important to me

Favorite character

Blue

2026-02-11

The game suffers from the same issues as Half-Life 1: an insane difficulty spike towards the end and an incomprehensible final boss. Luckily, both are much less pronounced, and the final chapters aren't an embarrassment.

By the way, it was even buggier than Blue Shift. The game crashed and produced a corrupted save file that crashes when loaded, like, a dozen times.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

2026-02-06

I don't know if it's because this game is easier or because I got better at Half-Life, but it was genuinely fun to play. I didn't suck anywhere as much as in the original.

With that said, the game turned out to be buggier. In Power Struggle, I couldn't figure out how to get over the gap in the bridge, so I grenade boosted myself to the other side. I thought this'd softlocked me, but it actually hadn't — I just couldn't figure out that a button near a random ledge was clickable. Since I didn't know that, I restarted the chapter with the map command. This left me with no suit and no weapons, so I also ran impulse 101. This gave me the weapons from the original Half-Life that I clearly wasn't supposed to have, so I restarted it again, gave myself only a suit and a crowbar, and beat the chapter the intended way. Surprisingly, this was totally feasible.

Then in the next chapter, the game actually softlocked. A door that was supposed to be open was closed, and the doctor couldn't walk through it. I restarted the chapter the same way as before, but that sent me 2 chapters back because they share the same map. I loaded a save file off the Internet, and it did the same thing. I noclipped through the door, but the game couldn't progress. I loaded a save file from another website, and that finally worked.

Then during the final cutscene, I happened to load a quicksave during the exact moment I was getting teleported, and it crashed the game. When I loaded my save file, I ended up back in the final cutscene, but I was also able to walk, which wasn't supposed to happen. Also it couldn't teleport me — the screen flashed, and the NPCs froze, but I stayed in the same location. Loading an earlier save file helped though.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

2025-11-22

I like them more than the main game. The plot to action ratio sits just right with me.

But why the fuck are they called Half-Life 2 Episodes? Half-Life 2 is already a game that exists. Couldn't they call them "Half Life 3: Episode One & Two"?

Rating: 👍 Liked it

2025-11-12

Okay, so they fixed most of the issues I had with the first game. Walking finally doesn't feel like you're sliding on ice. In fact, the controls are even better than in Portal 2 — the jump height is more realistic, and jumping while walking launches you further. I'm not sure why they added sprinting, though, because jumping while walking is already fast enough and doesn't use auxiliary power.

Sidenote: I thought this technique was called "bunnyhopping", but apparently that refers to a bug, not to the intended mechanic. It doesn't seem like there's an agreed term for it, so I have no idea what to call it now. Hopping? Walk jumping? Enlighten me if you can.

But apart from that: There's more plot, which I appreciate. The physics system is quite fun to play with, and it makes moving boxes around much less painful. The easy difficulty is actually manageable for me thanks to more ammo, more healing items, and less aggressive enemies. The last act of the game isn't an embarrassment like in the first Half-Life, although it is pretty weird.

The graphics are mindblowing for 2004, especially the HDR/auto exposure thing that imitates a real camera. It doesn't do the best job at imitating color temperature, but whatever. It's interesting that they decided to set the game in what seems to be post-Soviet Russia, but I admit they pulled it off pretty well. That is except for one slight inaccuracy — the use of mercury vapor lamps (the cold ones with a green tint). Those have never been a thing there.

Unfortunately, not everything is great. The game is long but not particularly well-paced. I still get lost but at least not as often, and I do it in less baffling ways. Gunships and striders are a pain in the ass to deal with because there's a lot of them, and I can never aim my rockets at them properly. I feel like it would've been a better game if it wasn't a shooter, and instead, you had a cool portal gun or something.

By the way, playing the 2 Half-Life games made me think about just how much Minecraft was inspired by Source games. I mean, like: the main character that can't see his legs, walking over items to pick them up, the in-game achievements, the magenta-black checkerboard for missing textures, the tick system separate from FPS, the final boss that has crystals that you need to destroy first, the old "On A Rail" and "The Lie" achievements, the 2011 Minecraft Store Easter egg inspired by Team Fortress 2. There's too much for it to be a coincidence.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

Impact

I think about it a lot

2025-11-09

Yup, that's nightmare fuel right here.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

2025-10-30

There are definitely good things to say about this game. The vibe is great and so are the graphics, especially at 640x480 with texture filtering turned off. The NPCs and their voice lines are funny as hell. The level design is pretty good — there are enough places to hide from attacks, with only a few exceptions. The plot is decent, although there's not much dialogue. Some of the bugs are pretty funny — I once managed to go off bounds by walking up a rock, and enemies die in mid-air quite often.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of bad things to say too. First of, the controls are terrible. The character either slides like he's on ice or crawls like a snail, and it makes platforming painful. On top of that, the game is really fucking hard. I was playing on the easy difficulty and saving every 5 seconds, but my ass was still constantly obliterated. It took me 4 days of playing 6-8 hours a day to beat it, and something tells me that isn't because the game is just this long.

Now, the final 4 chapters are a whole different can of worms. Everything I don't like about the others is amplified to 100. The game in general isn't very good at telling you where to go next, but here, I needed to consult a walkthrough multiple times. There are way more open spaces with lots of enemies, so I have to restart even faster. The controls, surprisingly, get even worse with the introduction of "long jump". Whoever came up with that control scheme — run then sequentially press control and space — must've been on crack.

And then, there's the final boss. Here's how it went:

I arrive to him with 16 HP. Before I can comprehend my surroundings, I'm teleported to another location. It takes me dozens of attempts to traverse it as I have to platform while fending off enemies, but at least there are healing items. I reach the portal at the top and get teleported back to the boss. Immediately, I unleash all of my weapons, but it doesn't do anything, so I look for other options. After dying multiple times like an idiot, I notice the meat trampolines on the ground that lead to healing springs. Before I can use any, I'm teleported to the second location.

Right away, I'm being shot at from all angles, and there's no clear way out. After dying a couple times, I reload my save file and somehow manage to land on one of the floaty things, only to then walk right off of it by habit. I reload my save file a few times trying to reproduce it. No good. I notice that the platforms are going up from the ground, but I can't jump on one because they're tiny and platforming sucks. I slowly gun down the enemies, lose most of my health, recover some of it thanks to the conveniently placed healing items, land on a platform, and leave.

I think to myself "maybe this boss is like the Ender Dragon from Minecraft, and I need to get rid of those yellow crystals first". I only manage to shoot down one before getting teleported again. It takes me a while to figure out that I need to use a meat trampoline to launch myself into the portal on the roof, and a while more to actually pull it off. I try to shoot down the other 2 crystals, but nothing happens, and I get teleported again... to the same location as last time.

I realize that I'm probably going in the wrong direction. I read the walkthrough, and it tells me to get rid of the crystals then jump into his head and shoot the shit out of it. Okay, so I was in fact going in the right direction. I shoot down the remaining crystals which takes a few teleportations to the third location and figuring out that I forgot to try one of the trampolines. I try to jump into his head, but when it's closed, he can attack you there, and I die. I try to find the right timing, but it turns out his head only opens right before the attack that teleports you and then closes. I keep trying over and over but eventually conclude that it's impossible.

So I watch a video walkthrough. Turns out my other walkthrough lied, and getting rid of the crystals is in fact not enough — you need to attack him after that. I blast him with the gluon gun, and he dies even before I jump into his head. Okay, cool, a cutscene. A guy is talking to me. I miss the beginning because I was talking to my roommate, so load the save file I made at the beginning of the cutscene. He no longer talks, presumably because of a bug. Fuck, I have to do it all over again.

I load an earlier save file and start shooting down the crystals. This time, I know that I can dodge teleport attacks by hiding behind the giant spikes. After the crystals are gone, I blast him again. His head opens up, but he doesn't die instantly, just like the game intended. I try to jump into his head multiple times, but I die each time. I realize that I'm at 10 HP, so I very, very slowly recover it by sitting in the healing spring for 5 seconds then dodging an attack (or falling to do so and having to jump down). I jump into his head, gun it down, and he starts exploding with me still in it. This time, I don't fuck up the final cutscene.

Needless to say, this wasn't fun. It's straight up unfair bullshit. These last 4 chapters spoil the entire game and make me never want to replay it.

Rating: 👎 Didn't like it

2025-10-25

Now that's a perfect sequel: A longer runtime, a much more elaborate plot, great environmental storytelling, deeply unserious humor that somehow works well with the eerie vibe, fun new gameplay mechanics, banger music + everything that made the original game awesome is still there. Granted, it's nowhere as buggy — I couldn't break it even a single time — and the puzzles are significantly harder, but let's count that as a win. At least it made me use the problem solving part of my brain for once.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

2025-10-23

The game is pretty short, but now I finally get why people like Source games so much. The vibe is eerie, the controls are great, and the physics system is incredibly fun to break:

In one level, I managed to place a portal under a staircase where it clearly isn't supposed to go and then discovered that you can skip half the level by launching yourself up in the right place. In another level, I skipped straight to the exit by knocking all of the cameras off the walls and building a tower out of them. And in my favorite level, I somehow noclipped into the wall of the elevator shaft and softlocked myself. I then loaded my save file and proceeded to make a pile of turret corpses by grabbing them in their face and dragging them all the way back to the elevator.

A few sublevels were infuriatingly hard timing-wise, but overall, it was a blast.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

2025-09-25

For context: I haven't played the original.

The game is really cool. My favorite thing about it is the vibe. It straight up feels like half of the dreams I have. A surreal experience for sure.

One thing is odd, though — it struggles to run on my laptop even with the lowest settings and reduced resolution. I don't know why that is because the game doesn't look particularly complex.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

2025-07-11

Would've been better if I was nostalgic for it.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

2025-06-27

Staying alive for these 4 years was totally worth it. Thank you, Toby Fox.

Rating: 🏅 Important to me

Impact

Put me into a depressive episode

Favorite character

Jackenstein

2022-02-09

Yes, I'm writing a review after playing 1 round of this game. Overall, I can say it is kinda fun, I guess? Unfortunately, it's not that fun, and it's also difficult to play without a computer. So thanks, but I'll stick with the good old Word Chain™.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

2022-01-04

Finally, someone made it into a real game. Why did it take so long? In any case, the game is mediocre at best. I did laugh the first time I played it, but then it got disappointingly boring. Each time you play it, you get the same questions in the same order but a different ending. That's just not interesting. Someone's gotta do a better job at it and create a better game.

Rating: 👎 Didn't like it

2021-12-14

This game is a masterpiece. It's like your regular visual novel with surreal and psychedelic shit that makes you hunt for all possible endings, but unlike others, it's actually funny. I was legitimately laughing the whole time while playing it, which is quite an achievement. Finding out the true ending was also interesting, even though it was pretty easy. Another noteworthy thing about it is the carefully handcrafted in Microsoft Paint visuals and the professionally selected music, which create an unmistakable atmosphere. I highly recommend you to play this game. It's really short but is 100% worth your time.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

2021-11-12

This game is also a nightmare. However, my criticism won't be as harsh this time because it doesn't look like a game for children. The difficulty of the game is pretty damn high. So high that I felt like I was playing The Cheetahmen at moments. Though, this game is not as shitty. In order to complete it, I had to learn how to use cheats in RetroArch, and oh boy, I had to use some. But regardless of my dirty deeds, I actually managed to complete it, which is a good sign.

Other than the difficulty, the game is pretty nice for its era. The graphics and the music look really good for 1986. In fact, this game is so advanced that the NES flickers and lags because of how much shit is on the screen at once. But despite being somewhat of an eye candy, it still has a big problem. It's repetitive as hell. The same backgrounds, the same music, the same enemies. But obviously, it's not the game's fault, considering how early it was released. So summing up, I think this is a well-made hard game, but I've seen better.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

2021-10-31

This game is a nightmare. The main problem with it is that it suffers exactly the same issue as Kirby's Dream Land. It looks and sounds extremely well, acts as if it promises to be an easy-peasy family-friendly platformer, but in the reality, destroys your ass. This game is really really hard. An order of magnitude harder than the hardest boss in Kirby's Dream Land. In fact, it's so hard that I couldn't complete the first level. On an easy difficulty. Using cheats. While googling the walkthrough. I couldn't have ever imagined that I'd suck so much at a video game. I mean, for fuck's sake, even in The Cheetahmen, I managed to complete the first, like, 3 levels and only then give up.

Sigh. So yeah, the first level wasn't completed. The second one was, but then I realized that I skipped and not finished the first level, so I tried to complete it again and got my ass handed to me. In order to complete the third level, I had to complete the second level first and find some hidden shit, and I didn't have enough nerves for that. The fourth level about as hard as the second one, so I managed it. The last fifth level, oh boy, combined the worst elements of other levels. Not only the enemies are all over the place and pulverize you instantly, and the whole level is a fucking maze, where you have no idea where to go, but there's also a banger music in the background that distracts you by its groove. In conclusion, fuck this game.

Rating: 👎 Didn't like it

2021-10-01

This game is your average noob-friendly NES platformer. However, it does have some pretty nice graphics and music. Not as nice as Kirby's Adventure, but still nice. Overall, it's a solid casual game, and it was nice playing it.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

2021-09-19

Holy. Fucking. Shit. This was unbelievably amazing. This is a perfect continuation of Chapter 1 that I couldn't even dream of. The game only got better compared to the previous chapter. The plot is just as interesting, and it's even more fun to play. The game got more complex but in an enjoyable way. One of the ways it did is the visuals, and oh boy, they are good. The game is filled to the brim with smooth eye candy animations that leave an unforgettable experience. And as a cherry on the cake, the humor of the game is still on the level, and the music is just as groovy. Other than getting more complex, the game also got much harder. The game handed my ass to me quite a few times, but I wouldn't say it was frustrating. I, of course, cheated once again, but this time, I not only had to edit my save file but also use Cheat Engine in the final boss fight. So overall, the game is amazing, but it might just be too amazing. It took 6 years to release 2 chapters, and there are 5 chapters left, so I'm not sure if I'll ever see it complete. But hopefully, Toby knows what he's doing and will deliver.

Rating: 🏅 Important to me

Impact

• Put me into a depressive episode
• Appeared in my dreams

Favorite character

Queen

2021-05-27

Well, this game is similar to skribbl, but I can't say it's just as fun. One problem is that it requires many people to play it properly — you can't just do it alone with one person. Though to be fair, when you do get many people, the results can get hilarious, but overall, I can't say it's consistently fun to play.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

2021-05-19

Well, it's an arcade. But it's not just a regular arcade, it's an exceptionally shitty one. While the game looks simple, it's actually incredibly complex in a bad way. For example, the whole game is isometric, which is ambitious in technical terms but unbearable in terms of actually playing. And if that wasn't enough, the whole stage is littered with different sorts of obstacles, avoiding which is extremely painful not because it's actually hard but because the game is fucked up and doesn't know where one object ends and another begins. And as an icing on the cake, the objective of the game — shooting newspapers into mailboxes — is completely ridiculous. To be fair, it sounds fun in theory, but too bad it's not because actually executing shots in real time on the first try is nearly impossible due to broken controls. So in the end, this game is just meh. The graphics are meh, the music is meh, and the Easter egg or whatever the fuck they left in the end is also meh.

Rating: 👎 Didn't like it

2021-04-11

This game is a masterpiece. It's the first ever game to provide such sort of sandbox experience that drives your creativity so much, can be enjoyed by anyone, and doesn't stop being fun after a long time. In addition to that, it's packed with banger music and nice textures that will be forever engraved in your brain once you experience them. What's weird is that it took me 9 years to get my hands on finally completing it despite spending countless hours playing it all these years and letting it shape me as a person. It's a shame but better than nothing.

Rating: 🏅 Important to me

Favorite version

Java Edition Alpha v1.1.2_01

Favorite biome

Desert

Favorite block

Cobblestone

Favorite item

Iron ingot

Favorite entity

Boat

2021-04-09

This game is completely broken. At first, it's funny seeing all those glitches that make the game seem like it actually knows what you're doing and is playing against you, but later in the game, it fucks everything up because the game becomes unplayable. What kind of a sadist even designed all those late levels? There's absolutely no way you can avoid all that shit flying all over the screen without taking a single hit, which you apparently need to progress. In any case, it seems like the game is so bugged out, it's a miracle to actually complete it, so I won't torture myself more by trying to play it again. One cool thing, though, about this game is its killer soundtrack. Too bad it's being paused every time any other sound effect plays, and it's the only fucking song you hear in the whole game.

Rating: 👎 Didn't like it

2021-03-19

The game not only has a disappointingly small amount of content but also manages not to impress me at all. There's just nothing to talk about.

Rating: 👎 Didn't like it

2021-03-12

Nice game.

Rating: 👎 Didn't like it

2021-02-11

Much better than the Lost Levels, but far from being as good as 3. Overall, not that bad for the American release. Also I like the originality of the game — it introduces new characters which are different but still do fit the vibe of the series.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

2020-12-11

It's more fun than the original one, but something is still missing to make it as fun as Kirby's Adventure.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

Favorite animal friend

None

2020-12-08

The game obviously sucks both in terms of technical execution and fun value but overall is not that bad for one of the first Game Boy video games.

P.S. thank you, swamp girl, for beating the final boss for me.

Rating: 👎 Didn't like it

2020-12-02

The game sounds and looks cool but pales in comparison to Super Mario Bros 3 in terms of being fun to play. Also it's filled to the brim with puzzles, which I'm not the biggest fan of.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

2020-11-26

This game is a great upgrade over Kirby's Dream Land — the game is exactly as long as it needs to be and much more balanced in terms of difficulty. It's also more fun to play and features even more beautiful aesthetics, possibly as beautiful as they can get on an 8-bit or even a 16-bit system.

Rating: 🏅 Important to me

Favorite ability

Normal

2020-11-22

This part of Mario is pretty long and pretty hard (but not in an unfair way) but it's really worth playing. The game is extremely fun to play and impresses you with amazing graphics and music. In other words, it's a NES masterpiece.

Rating: 🏅 Important to me

2020-11-18

This was supposed to be the easiest game ever, so how come I still sucked at it? But in any case, the game is too short for my liking but still worth playing. Its aesthetics and music are quite remarkable, especially for the Game Boy.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

Least favorite character

Kracko

2020-11-14

Basically, it's the same game but unfairly harder.

Rating: 👍 Liked it

2020-10-22

Despite the game being technically interesting, it didn't scare me for shit and was really boring for the most part. Not good.

Rating: 👎 Didn't like it

2020-10-17

So far the game is even more amazing than UNDERTALE. I'm so excited for the full release.

Rating: 🏅 Important to me

Impact

Put me into a depressive episode

Favorite character

Rouxls Kaard

2020-0X

While the concept of the game is simple, it's pretty fun to play. One thing I like about it is that it's both fun to play with many and few people, though with many people waiting for your turn to draw can be tedious at times. The game itself is not too technologically advanced, but it doesn't get in the way. Overall, this game is not a bad choice for wasting your time, assuming you have friends.

Rating: 👍 Liked it