This game's atmosphere was so sad and melancholic for me.

Its soundtrack combined with the old mines somewhere underground in uninhabited northern Greenland made for an immersive sensory experience. The abandoned rusty machinery environments had their distinct visual appeal and identity and also this mysterious and haunting aura to them I really liked, as if it was all happening inside a hazy old miner's dream.

The majority of puzzles were a lot of fun to solve and were the most rewarding part of the game.
It wasn't really scary though, as the dogs were so easy to bonk with the pickaxe it lifted most if not all tension.

I had the bug about the plug not giving power in the bulldozer room and had to edit a save file in order to be able to progress. That's very bad, as it seems to be a very common problem. There were lots of shadow, lighting and reflection glitches when you shone the flashlight or glow stick over close objects which was jarring. And, sometimes ambient sounds would transition too quickly and it sounded choppy when you walked from room to room.

I was very disappointed with the ending. It felt as if we didn't really get any answers and that I had just played a series of puzzles more or less unrelated to the main plot of finding out about your dead father, which actually seemed to start moving forward in the second game given the "To be continued". However, I had a good time with it overall.

Let's see if the sequel improves on things.

Poor controller support (had to play with mouse & keyboard), a bit janky, and there could've been more autosaves per chapter. Despite those things, I think the breathtakingly beautiful visuals, decent levels, sound design, and music make up for it.

The game managed to immerse me into its world and I enjoyed every last bit of it till the end. Recommended if you like short, relaxing and atmospheric games with simple puzzles.

Looking forward to Infuse Studio's next game.

Bad walking simulator with lackluster combat. The hand-drawn graphics and backgrounds were pretty, but spending most of your time walking through completely empty hallways hoping to find something if anything to interact with was terrible. Your character is also very slow and the map in the pause menu doesn't show your current location let alone what each symbol in it means, so that didn't help at all.

Dwarves would either get stuck on walls or simply walk over them completely ignoring the level's boundaries and verticality as if they were floating. That was so jarring, felt like the game was in an alpha stage with bugs like those. Took me out from being immersed entirely.

I didn't recognize a clear end goal or objective to explore maps or beat the game 1 hour into it, despite that fact that there was a narrator and character monologues. I only found out you were trying to enter Valhalla after drying by reading the game description here on Backloggd (Did they really forget to put that into the game itself?)

A let down overall. Not recommended.

Things I liked:
- Suit and flashlight energy were decoupled
- No gunship battles
- Shorter and more interesting driving segments
- You can run hunters over with your car
- More funny vortigaunt screen time
- Less bullet spongy combine soldiers
- New and much more visually pleasant (imo) scenery

Also what was that ending lol. It had this unexpected perfect comedic timing for me. When the credits starter rolling I sincerely burst out laughing. Just for that I'm glad I played this series.

I liked this episode more than the first and the original. However, the story as presented in the game is still as bland and lacking in lore as the aforementioned.

As a conclusion to my playthough with these games, I guess that I had to be there to play them back in the day when they were revolutionary to truly 'get them' if you know what I mean.

Shows its age I'm afraid. Was mostly a slog and a grind, despite the great gunplay and some entertaining puzzle-oriented and environment-based segments (where I didn't have to mindlessly kill hordes of enemies till boredom) I was not a huge fan of the 'vehicle' sections or the obnoxious and numerous gunship battles. Most of the story was also just not interesting, sorry. Except for the G-man, the main villain and the ending; all of which I really liked.

I guess I had high expectations, given the historical significance and general high praise of this game. Overall, I have to admit I enjoyed the black mesa remake more.

First Half-Life I've played. Very pleased with the experience. It's a solid and carefully crafted game. My only complaints were the constant loading screens, that it crashed on me multiple times, and that the Xen section was way too long. Also didn't even knew you had to click to respawn multiple hours into the game. Could've told the player that.

Everything else was great. Every weapon stood out and gunplay was precise and enjoyable. Enemy AI was decent but not unfair. Puzzles were stimulating and combat was exciting. Each stage had its own unique set pieces and challenges to face so I never got bored. It seemed like anything could happen next.

My favorite part was the boldly minimal dialogue. I usually doze off and stop paying attention to the story when there's too much of it in games. But with this one, I knew what I had to do or what was going on at all times. Very refreshing for me.

Want to replay it sometime in the future.

Makes Assassin's Creed I seem like a tech demo.

Everything was improved pretty much. Menus, quest length and variety, cities, NPC dialogue, cutscenes, combat, weapons, stealth, eagle vision, etc. I highlight the very welcomed reduction of towers' importance and average height. And, lots of whole new mechanics were introduced such as money, an upgradeable home base, blending with crowds, hiring mercenaries, swimming, etc. Awesome. Now it feels like a proper full AAA game, AC I was way too bare bones.

The story hooked me at first but I felt that it plateaus not long after the beginning and the end wasn't satisfying. It didn't seem like the story was moving forward half the game, just checking names off a list of targets.

From my perspective, instead of getting his revenge while the memories and pain were still palpable, Ezio got to it decades later in-game like a sad and exhausted older man who looked like he didn't even care anymore. It's not that big of a deal because the rest of the game was good (I 100% it), but I have to admit this part did felt disappointing for me. I was expecting something else from the story.

Also, too many characters were involved in the conspiracy. The number of targets should've been cut by half. Most of them were just filler and I couldn't have cared less about them, they're introduced out of nowhere to the player and made seem like they're important only for you to kill them a few minutes later and move on.

Thoughts to close off:

- Parkour is still clunky. So many occurrences of climbing something only for Ezio to decide that diving into the middle of an open street and dying is what I wanted to do.
- Great art direction but dated graphics. Too many pixelated shadows and flickering textures with pop-ins, made it less immersive.
- Tombs were a nice addition. They felt like a break from doing missions so you could relax doing some slow-paced platforming and simple puzzles.
- A few of the Glyph puzzles were bullshit though, and I had to look them up on gamefaqs.
- Didn't enjoy not having a map for feathers. It should've been an item only purchasable after beating the game or something. Using an external guide to collect them all was cumbersome.
- Enemies are actually shown in the map and don't seem to be absolutely everywhere and respawn indefinitely like in AC I.
- I had to follow a guide and edit a savefile to be able to complete all the missions and get 100% sync, since the servers for unlocking bonus content were closed 2 years ago. Thanks Ubisoft, locking content this way was a great idea.
- I found interesting how in AC I Altair was this honorable monk-like character, but in this one Ezio is a total womaniser and the game has quite a few sexual jokes and innuendos.
- Leisurely doing side quests, gathering collectibles marked in the map and simply enjoying the renaissance scenery while doing parkour and stealthily killing guards was relaxing and the best part of this game for me.

Let's see if the rest of the Ezio trilogy improves on things.