Finally, a good remake.

This game goes nasty for a good 10 hours, but after that the swirling of the yogurt starts to make you question why you're even alive on this planet.

After about my 406th customer, I turned it off and got a job.

3D shooters are a genre long and particularly afflicted with 'just so' game design; Half-Life popularized a reload mechanic where you tap a button and wait to have your gun refilled from a pool, and this became a defacto standard for no particular reason over not having reloading, or reloading that actually has gun magazine management, or dozens of other one off systems meant to represent a games ethos. Halo introduced a two-weapon system that, along side a nuanced weapon selection forced you to always accept a trade off, games without nuanced weapon selections copied it wholesale, usually resulting in defacto one weapon system because you really need to carry the M16 at all times to get anything done. Halo Infinite in turn has a sprint button with so little effect that you need a stopwatch to tell if it makes you faster- because Halo doesn't benefit from a sprint mechanic but Shooters Have Sprint. Helldivers is perhaps the only studio published 3D shooter in half a decade if not more where there is no 'just so' game design, from meat and potato mechanics like your gun's recoil being semi-deterministic to help you avoid the regular concern of friendly fire, and your gun being loaded from a small pool of disposable magazines, to fun details like running out of spawns but completing the mission objective still constituting a victory.

The weirdest decision in XCOM is having the ironman mode not being optional, but strongly unadvised for the first try. Don’t listen, put it on. It’s not about difficulty, choose easy if you want to, it is about not losing sense. About thinking how rigged are the odds of failing an 80% shot and how right was your call on a lucky 50/50. Really, permanent deaths are not that much of a deal compared to how vital it is to feel that there is only one chance at a moment, to live with your decisions and getting to see when there is no going back, that most of them weren’t neither right nor wrong, just multiple ways of uncertainty.

It also reinforces a defense approach because risks cannot be rewinded until turned into hits. Obviously, the defensive focus sounds bad because usually the defensive stance in games means the worst part, not here though. Don’t venture into the dark, don’t stay uncovered, we are not in this fight to conquer but to defend. It isn’t cowardice to take advantage of the infinite turns, the courage is assumed upon stepping into the battle, it’s about wit. A small step at a time, no turn is bad as long as the final consequence can be explained in that you took care. Let the aliens come, let them retreat, take advantage of whatever they do, split the team to cover all the angles, together in spirit but not clogged with fear.

What’s the worst that can happen? You can’t make it and get the bad ending? As long as you fought with all you had every single time, who can call that as a loss?

I've slowly been working my way through the Half-Life series over the course of about six months and so far they've all been consistently strong.

Decay seems to be a bit of a runt of the litter, as it struggles with repetition, a lack of variety, and little to no interesting dialogue and character interactions; all shortcomings that were not in any way a concern in Half-Life, Opposing Force, and Blue Shift. That being said, I still had an incredibly enjoyable experience with the game, mostly due to it indeed being: a Co-op game.

Even the most flawed cooperative games can still be hilariously fun if you find yourself playing alongside a pleasant player 2. Thankfully I had my best friend to accompany me through this game and we plowed through in probably two hours, despite a bit of game crashing bugs and soft locking that I'm unsure was a cause of the game itself or a result of our chosen method of emulation. I've chosen to give the game the benefit of the doubt in this case and decided that these bugs could've very well been our own fault.

What Decay really excels in is it's fun co-op puzzles that must be solved to complete most every mission. The formula behind these puzzles are for the most part always the same:
1. Encounter obstacle that impedes progress for both players
2. One player has to stay behind to solve the issue while the other proceeds ahead.
3. The separated player now has to find a way to allow the other to rejoin them.
It's a pretty cut and dry formula that I would have believed myself to grow quickly tired of, but the variety of ways Decay implements these puzzles, helps them not overstay their welcome. There is an especially neat laser puzzle on the second to last mission that both me and my mate had difficulty wrapping our heads around, at first blush. But upon understanding, was undoubtedly one of the neatest in the game

My biggest gripe with Half-Life: Decay is the bland and anticlimactic final mission and ending. While each Half-Life entry up to this point has had epic final battles, in Decay, players operate a piece of machinery while battling hordes of Vortigons and Grunts, much like in Blue Shift, only this confrontation is far longer, takes place in a far less interesting landscape and mostly consists of waiting. Even opening the portal to Xen in the original Half-Life would’ve made for a more engaging final confrontation than the one in Decay, because at least the player would be receiving some visual stimuli, rather than just: “This is a desert. Hope you like waiting for audio cues from uncharismatic NPCs.” Truly a let down of a finale.

Despite the hangups here and there, this game was still truly one of the most fun Half-Life experiences I’ve had, because as previously mentioned, I got to play alongside someone who made it a good time. If you have a friend who would be willing to enjoy the co-op of Half-Life: Decay with you, do give the game a shot. Otherwise, I doubt you’ll be able to redeem all too much if on your lonesome.

Yo, listen up here's a story
About a little guy
That lives in a blue (shift) world
And all day and all night
And everything he sees is just blue (shift)
Like him inside and outside
Blue (shift) his house
With a blue (shift) little window
And a blue (shift) corvette
And everything is blue (shift) for him
And himself and everybody around
Cause he ain't got nobody to listen to

I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di

I have a blue (shift) house
With a blue (shift) window
Blue (shift) is the colour of all that I wear
Blue (shift) are the streets
And all the trees are too
I have a girlfriend and she is so blue (shift)
Blue (shift) are the people here
That walk around
Blue (shift) like my corvette its in and outside
Blue (shift) are the words I say
And what I think
Blue (shift) are the feelings
That live inside me

I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di

I have a blue (shift) house
With a blue (shift) window
Blue (shift) is the colour of all that I wear
Blue (shift) are the streets
And all the trees are too
I have a girlfriend and she is so blue (shift)
Blue (shift) are the people here
That walk around
Blue (shift) like my corvette, its in and outside
Blue (shift) are the words I say
And what I think
Blue (shift) are the feelings
That live inside me

I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
I'm blue (shift)
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di