Recent reviews by Pèpè Silvia

It's like Brutal DOOM with a modern engine; and the soundtrack is fan-f*cking-tastic!

This is a gripping sci-fi puzzler with excellent production value and polish. The story will keep you engaged as you try to figure out not only the layout of the station, but what/why this is all happening.
The game is a little disorienting at first, as there's no gravity and no 'compass' or way to keep orientated. But after a few minutes, you should understand how everything works. There are clues and information all throughout the ship that you use the cameras to find and research parts of the story, and navigating thru the station and the GUI can be confusing at first (if you think you're stuck at some point, make sure you go thru every menu in your GUI).
The puzzles/sequences are typically straight forward, simple to understand and complete. I only used a guide to make sure I got all of the data clues for achievements; but not because I was stuck or confused.
Overall, if you like narrative sci-fi movies like 2001: Space Odyssey and Even Horizon, this game should keep you engaged from start to finish.

IMO anyone who enjoyed the first Half Life should play this, if only to appreciate the dev's dedication and passion for the original. All of the story elements are still there, and they've even "streamlined" the unpopular levels in the original, like On a Rail and Xen. Even for brand new players, Xen is an incredible re-imagination of the original (Valve devs have said it was rushed and not up to standards), and is almost worth playing alone. The lighting, the sounds, the environment, the immersion; everything about it feels "complete", and it's understandable why it took them something like 5 years to develop it; but totally worth the wait.

I would still highly recommend this game to players who simply enjoy FPS games. You don't even have to care about the story, as it's an FPS at it's core: Bad stuff happens, it's just you with some guns, and fight your way out. Most of the story is told thru the game environment as you play, so the game never really pauses for cut scenes or dialog (much like the DOOM games).

Overall I can't recommend Black Mesa enough. The devs obviously poured their lives into this remake, and it shows in their work. 9/10

The ultimate Combat Flight Simulator, with each module being separate so you can pick and choose what you want to spend money on. The modules are fairly expensive; however they go on sale a couple times per year and you know each one is quality.
Not for the feint of heart; although you can change the difficulty you will need to put time into learning the aircraft to get their full potential.

One hell of a fun 'beat-em-up' style game, where you use the environment with a mix of different abilities and combos, to dismember your enemies. As you gain skills, you start to unlock more complex moves and abilities.

This type of game requires fluid controls to make the fighting fun instead of tedious or frustrating; and Redeemer has excellent smooth, fluid movements. I highly recommend a controller as you will need to do some "button mashing" to link combos, and control movement speed (stealth using a KB/M is much harder). I haven't found any issues with my character clipping or getting stuck on objects, which is a common issue with these types of games.

The graphics and physics are very well done, with detailed destructive environments, that you can use for glorified finishing kills on your enemies. There's nothing more satisfying than punching a guy so hard he flies across the room, through bookshelf, and into a furnace that burns what's left of the corpse! The finishing moves are brutal, blood gushing fun that have great cinematic "cuts" to show the full gore (similar to DOOM 2016).

The story is pretty trope-y, but it's fast-paced to keep up with the action, so it doesn't get in the way of slaughtering bad guys. Sound is excellent quality voice-overs and music scores.

I have no real criticisms other than it's pretty short, only about 5-6 hrs for first-time playthrough. The game was stable and bug-free (besides some minor gfx glitches). Where most indi devs cut corners, it seems these devs took time to refine and polish an excellent game. I highly recommend if you like gory, fast-paced action games; this game will not disappoint!
8/10

Just another basic RTS/tower defense style game with a story that falls flat, and very limited content. There's nothing original or that stands out from other games, and I lost interest in the story after maybe two or three missions. I forced myself to play just to see if it got better, but instead it got even more stale.

The game itself worked fine and I didn't have any technical issues, but everything about this game is average, at best.

Only buy on sale, and/ or if you're a die-hard RTS player.

Just to be blunt the game is rough around the edges, and has some annoying (but not quite game-breaking) issues. At the same time, it has an awesome setting, and story, that keeps you engaged. The game is cheap and if you like point-click adventures with some gore and suspense, this game delivers.

Some of the issues I had are mostly personal preferences, but I think would have added to the overall polish of the game.

My main issue was the pacing. While the setting constantly pushes the urgency and tension; the gameplay is very slow as you have to grind through cutscenes, level transitions, and in-game events *that can't be skipped* (more detail at the end).
Graphics aren't special, and while they do a good job to draw the setting; some textures seem extremely low-res and blurry/muddy. Maybe that's the art style the dev's wanted; but it makes it hard to pick out fine details in a point and click game, where you have to search for details. There's no dynamic lighting; so shadows don't form or move. This combined with the low-res textures makes some levels look flat; and it's hard to see depth and scale. This was only an issue on a couple areas, however.
And finally, the animations. My god...the animations look like they're from the 1990's (think Command & Conquer). They're jerky, slideshow-like movements that really make the game look dated. It looks like a mobile game that was ported to PC; but after searching they only offer it on PC. IDK if this was a design decision or resource issue, but I really think the game would benefit from updated gfx/animations.

I can recommend this game because it's a cheap horror/suspense game that has a good story; but the slow pacing and lack of polish might make some people ragequit.
6/10
*non-spoiler details*

The majority of cut-scenes and transitions, are just unnecessary. They use a fake (I can only assume) "Loading..." screen that takes 15-20 seconds (I'm using an M.2 SSD that loads Arma faster). Every time you use the elevators or train, it takes 20 seconds.
Some in-game events lock movement, and you're forced to listen to a radio conversation you've already heard, because you died and the autosave only saves before events. Luckily you can manually save at any point, but then you have to remember to save after EVERY conversation/cutscene/in-game event. I have over 40 saves from one playthrough; simply because I didn't want to be forced to watch the same events over and over.
The worst thing is NONE of them can be skipped, even after playing thu once. If you're an "achievement ♥♥♥♥♥" and want to get them all, make sure you look at a guide (or save 100+ times), because you won't want to play through twice. I don't know why they wanted to artificially drag out gameplay like this, but each to their own.

The game isn't actually that bad, but a friend and I each paid $20 to beta-test a now F2P game, that also axed the multiplayer.

Lesson of the day: Don't buy early access titles.

A fun but challenging platformer similar to Contra, where you get crazy weapons to destroy crazy enemies; but updated with modern graphics and some cool physics! Definitely worth $10 if you're a fan of oldschool side-scrolling games

A high-production, narrative-driven story game with a decent story. Playtime is ~2hrs, maybe 3-4 if you look for all the achievements. If you like these types a games it's probably worth it