It’s really a shame that reactions to Stellar Blade are more focused on the fanservice or the coomer reactions. You got one group of people who just focus on the fanservice and hail the game to be the savior of sexualized women in gaming, and then you got the other group who view the game in a negative light because of the first group. And you know what? I can’t even blame them because the first group is really insufferable.

I don't care in the slightest about Stellar Blade having a "sexy" protagonist. I saw a trailer for it once and was immediately interested, because of how fun and unique it looked.

But coomers saw the female Protagonist’s butt and were obnoxious about it ever since. Like come on, it’s bottom of the barrel fanservice you’re going all crazy for. Literally everything I've seen about this game online is people with underaged anime character avatars cream their pants over how this game is "destroying wokeness" or whatever. Nothing against Eve, because she is really pretty and I actually really like her, but she looks like every female character in every korean MMO ever made. It's like people going to war over white bread. Apparently, these guys are now whining about censorship, signing petitions, and making videos of themselves (they look about as you'd expect) about why their cause matters lmao. These pathetic gamerbros will never not be incredibly annoying and cringe to me.

Because Stellar Blade is just so much more. Picture all those apocalyptic gachas and their really great world-building, fantastic atmosphere but really cheap and dull (chibi) gameplay, then amp it up to AAA levels – that's the magic of Stellar Blade.

The environments are beautifully crafted and the atmospheric soundtrack is another aspect I deeply appreciate and thoroughly enjoyed in this game. There's nothing quite like losing yourself in a captivating melody as you journey through vast, lonely landscapes and cities. Just like Nier, Stellar Blade really nailed its soundtrack.

The gameplay is just so much fun and showcases an exceptional level of refinement and polish. Every movement, dodge and parry hit the mark perfectly. The more skills you unlock, the cooler and more fun the combat gets. There's never a dull moment - the gameplay remains consistently exciting and stylish from start to finish.

I found the plot to be really intriguing, and I really enjoyed uncovering plenty of secrets and snippets of lore. But what really surprised me were the sidequests. Sure, some were usual filler content, but most served to make the world feel alive and deepened the lore. Completing them was enjoyable, they never felt like a chore. So good job there.

Oh, and I'm pleasantly surprised by Eve! Initially, I expected her to be the typical "waifu" (ugh, I hate that word), merely there for visual appeal with little personality beyond conforming to generic “anime girl” tropes. Most of these tropes revolve around being “innocent”, "naive" or a "sweet flower girl." But Eve defies those expectations, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Even though Stellar Blade took huge inspiration from Nier and other apocalyptic gacha games, it's still an extremely unique and fun game that everyone should give a chance. Don't listen to the manchildren throwing tantrums or all the buzz about the “fanservice," which is honestly vastly overexaggerated due to some optional skins. Honestly, aside from the optional skins, there are absolutely no horny aspects present in the game.

There are just so many little touches to the point where you can tell the developers really cared about making this game great, and they succeeded. Stellar Blade is simply a beautiful game.

So Sam lake comes in as himself in Alan wake 2 as the actor for Alex Casey in the films based on books of Alex Casey that Alan wake wrote while Alex Casey is essentially max Payne and Alex Casey is also a real detective who is also acted and voiced by the people who act and voice the fictional Alex Casey based on Alan wakes books and this is all written by Sam lake So there's multiple max Paynes and multiple Alex Casey's and multiple Sam lakes and multiple James McCaffrey's and Alex Casey is a fictional detective who is Sam and James but Alex has a book series written about a detective of the same name who isn't actually Alex Casey just a detective written by Alan wake but the fictional Alex Casey movie features Sam lake and James mcaffery as that fictional Alex Casey who's based off Alan wakes book who's character shares the name to a real but fictional guy who's acted and voiced by the same people who act and voice the fictional fictional movie adaption of a guy who shares his name but the actor and voice actor of him there is a fictional version of those respective actors

"Alan Wake 2 is a game that shows what videogames are capable of"

Well, I imagine that a large number of people, when reading this highlighted phrase, will imagine a game that demonstrates cutting-edge technology, photo-realistic visuals, or even surprising performance. But definitely not the case where I wanted to refer to that kind of thing.

Alan Wake 2 tries to push the limits of what is possible to present and (only) achieve through a game. Using different multimedia formats to convey a plot, whether through meta commentary, live action cinematic cutscenes, different forms of interaction in the environment and fourth wall breaks, may not be a new thing. But it is certainly the game that comes closest to what was idealized by Sam Lake throughout his career, by playing with these elements in a coherent way, and delivering an experience that is unlike ANY other game I have seen playing videogames for more than 20 years.

And speaking of which, I believe that the most important thing in a game is the experience it gives you, and without a doubt, Alan Wake 2 is a game that cannot be explained. I could say that it is one of the best survival horror titles of recent decades, going head to head with classics like Silent Hill 2 or the original Resident Evil, or I could even say that it has one of the best and most ingenious plots and ways of tell a story that you can find in any medium. But it doesn't make sense, nothing I can say could do him justice.

Alan Wake 2 is a game that needs to be experienced above all else, and I hope everyone can give it a chance someday.

The people calling this game a tech demo aren't necessarily wrong. Half-life 2 runs on a (at the time) brand new proprietary engine, one that Valve is 1000% confident in. The Source Engine would, in fact, come to define the aestethic and brand of most of Valve's titles. Technology-wise, Half-life 2 is one of the greatest successes a single company could hope for, one that partly built the Valve we know today.

It would be dismissive to call the game just a tech demo, when it is a complete experience; one that is propelled forward by the new tech. The gravity gun is the perfect example. One can play the game entirely by only busting it out during puzzles (Citadel aside, even Ravenholm could be beaten without using it to throw a single sawblade against a zombie) but the fact that it can become one of Freeman's most lethal weapons makes it incredibly fun to use.

That said, it may be a bit puzzling as a sequel to 1998's Half-Life. That game was very action-focused, putting the player in situations where thinking fast and applying the right tool to the right situation was necessary for survival. In that game human enemies were bloodthirsty, cunning and lethal, which coupled with their robotic patterns of speech, made them somehow more terrifying than 2's Combine. The latter are scary at first, when they chase you around City 17 while you are unarmed; but as soon as you pick up a weapon they are revealed to basically be meat puppets, losing all sense of presence as soon as their health drops to zero, their bodies flopping to the ground in an unintended comical way. 2 must know this, as it relies mostly on (very strong and memorable) setpieces that take center stage and where the enemies are just a part of it. Half-Life 1 had plenty of setpieces (the fights against black ops assassins, the bridge and cliff sections in Surface Tension spring to mind) but in 2 they are more varied, thanks in great part to the inclusion of drivable vehicles.

Story and characters change drastically in the sequel. Where 1s plot and characters were in large part flat and one-dimensional, 2 fleshes out its supportive cast, flexing its impressive facial expressions of the Source Engine.
The character who instead loses the most from this exchange is Gordon Freeman. Where in the first game he had complete freedom to act in the structure he's given (the messiah that saves scientists and guards alike, the psychopath who murders his peers with glee, the opportunist who will kill a guard in cold blood for ammo or a gun) is now flattened into an infallable saviour of humanity. I won't argue it is bad for the story, but for ceratin players it may hurt their immersion, which is bad in itself.

There is also a throughline between the two games, the hallmark of a good series: the iconography. It's no accident that something as simple as a black and red crowbar has become an iconic symbol; not simply because it's an unorthpdox fps melee weapon, but as a tool that both games give you plenty of targets for, whether they be boxes, planks or headcrabs. It also smartly maintains the amazng sounds of the first game: the medic and HEV stations and the original voice actors for Kleiner, Barney and G-man.

I want to conclude this by talking about the latter figure. He (they? It?) is the only character that has a consistent and consistently compelling writing in both titles. The first game's blockiness and voice performance made him even more alien than the rest of the cast and the game's quirks only amplified that. Half-Life 2, despite its marked improvements in the graphics and fidelity department, continues the tradition by finding even more visual tricks to maintain the mystery of his character, shedding just enough light in his plans while not revealing all of its hand regarding the big monster and puppeteer of the franchise.

Half-Life 2 is a triumph. One that Valve is still scared to follow up properly. Hopefully Alyx is a sign of things to come. Hopefully we can all one day play Half-Life 3.

Am I already so deeply engrossed and fascinated with the Alan Wake lore and plot to the point where I feel this game is sometimes treated a little too harshly by some people? Oh, absolutely. Despite initial expectations, I find myself wholeheartedly invested in Alan's journey and the expansive universe surrounding him. Don't get me wrong, this game isn't all that great, but there are still redeeming qualities within it.

While Alan Wake's American Nightmare offers a somewhat familiar gameplay experience, it tends to feel dull quite often. Despite some refinements, it still falls short, and despite the game's short length it tends to drag on longer than the original game did. However, what truly stands out once again is the unique plot and storytelling.

I understand not everyone might vibe with the story as much as the original, but after experiencing The Signal and The Writer, I actually really appreciate that this game delves more into the wackiness of Alan's mind and introduces us to Mr. Scratch. The dialog may venture into weird territory, but I believe this quirkiness adds to the game's undeniable charm.

Alien, The Thing, Doom and Quake all had a baby with each other.

The legendary immortal classic that influenced the First Person Shooter genre was probably one of my very first games as a toddler without me knowing about playing it before. I never made it back when the Aliens attack and for some reason never played it until know.

As the headline suggests its easy to say that games like Doom and Quake had some influence on this games plot along with Ridley Scotts Alien and John Carpenters The Thing. The headcrab monster pretty much seems to be inspired by the facehugger from Alien, while the infected Zombies reminist on the humans that the Thing from the movie The Thing took over.

What sets this apart from other FPS games from its time is the way the game tells its story. The story itself is rather simple yet its the way the game used the gaming world and its environment to tell the story is what makes it.

The gameplay is pretty solid as it uses your typical FPS combat along with some puzzle solving. Enemy variety is pretty good but I will say that we had FPS games with better monsters before and after. What kinda baffles me that the human soldiers you fight are mostly a bigger threat than the Alien enemies which is kinda weird since monsters normally should be more dangerous. The shotgun is also kinda lame to use against humans. Firstly because of the low damage it does and second because you can't blow enemies heads away, yet you can explode them into pieces. Other than that the game has good weapon variety. The game can also become kinda frustrating at points but that might be more of a skill thing rather than the games own quality. At least you can save whenever you want and the game still uses checkpoints.

The sound design is pretty amazing. Never was it more fun to smack a crowbar into a wall. Amazing noises. The headcrabs also sound kinda adorable lol.

I wouldn't call Half-Life a masterpiece like some others do but its still a pretty damn good game and a must play for every FPS fan.

8/10 Resonance Cascades.