Recent reviews by VortexPDX

Really makes you feel like a dog taking its owner for a walk.

Such a pretty little game, followed the development on the Blender channel, it was wonderful to watch the team work on it!
But I didn't understand the pull and push confusion...

I really liked G String, unlike many Source-based games and mods that still utilize the same mechanics as HL2, this game allows for more player freedom in progressing through its maps. G String was this close to being categorized as an Immersive Sim, and I think it would've been even better as one. There are parts in the campaign where you think that your decisions matter, but you ultimately realize that despite the branching paths you can take with exploration, the narrative is still a linear experience. And in regards to the narrative, another aspect that it would've benefited from being an Immersive Sim, is how it gets to explain its setting. The very few explanations are given through NPC sign-posts and loud speakers, which might not reach players as effectively. Some of it is delivered through cutscenes, which is kind of weird for games with silent protagonists, as you, as an extension of Myo (the protagonist), know what's going on, but its not made super clear if Myo actually knows this as well, but since she has 'powers', I'm thinking that she is, and with how you transition in and out of them.
Visually, G String has a very strong artistic style, it's a dark cyberpunk dystopia, and it's consistent through out the whole campaign. It runs on a modified Source Engine and it makes great use of it, I'd say, having also worked with the engine and knowing some of its limits, it's really amazing what the developer has done here.

The following section contains some spoilers
Now, there's some stuff that I believe can be improved:
The consistency of interactable objects.
Some props in the game are physically simulated. Unless they are embedded in some goo (and are not consumables) or stuck in the ground, then you can't move them around. And that makes sense, it's very clear why they can't be punted or picked up. But in some chapters, some of these props are static, with no visual as to why they can't be moved. E.g. in that one chapter where you are caught for the first time and have to sneak around, you'll eventually reach a corridor with some metallic crates and a guard behind a force field. You can't pickup those crates all of a sudden, but your powers are fine. In fact, one of your powers, pyrokinesis, is stronger, so what happened there?
Another inconsistency is wooden structures. Some of them can be burnt, some can be broken. Other's can't. It seems that unless the planks are partially covering up a doorway or painted red, you can't break them. And if there's no oil underneath them, you can't burn them. And speaking of oil, sometimes it burns away and sometimes it doesn't? I'm not too sure about this one, but that was my impression of its behavior.
Underutilized pyrokinesis.
I am willing to bet I can count the times I must use pyrokinesis with my hand. Utilizing it as a weapon isn't very desirable, unless the enemy is close to you, as the fireball can obscure far away targets. And by the time you get an upgrade, it feels too late, you already have much more powerful weapons at your disposal.
Navigation.
Some maps are not linear and have branching paths the player can take. This is great, as the player can go wherever they feel like it and still progress through the chapter. But not all chapters have this. And navigation isn't very obvious at times. There are red lights that you start to notice are directing you forwards, in a subtle way, they show you were you need to be around, not really where you need to go through. This is also great as it doesn't feel like a cheap mechanic to lazily fix the level design and player guiding. But there are, granted only a few, instances where I really felt I didn't understand where the game wanted to take me. One of those instances I can remember is a level where you have to climb one apartment building and then circle around towards some other apartment building, where you find rebels shooting across their side towards the other building with enemies firing back. I was stuck here looking over the level on the highest floor to figure out where the red lights where, as I had grown accustomed to them guiding me.
The name (of not only entities).
I know, this doesn't matter for the final consumer. BUT COME ON, I was looking at some debug texts to learn a bit about some map's logic, and I'm greeted with entity '♥♥♥♥♥♥♥', 'ass' this 'ass' that.
But I'm not very surprised with the game that decided to call itself G String. And that's a pretty unfortunate name, too. I know that cyberpunk and generally this genre of dark dystopia emphasize how corporations capitalize on human urges, but that should stay within the game's universe. I'm not saying this because it bothers me, I did find it funny that there's a game that was called after underwear. But I have a feeling that people might have judged the book by its cover, I know I did, if I had known it was going to be this fun and entertaining, I might've picked up on it faster. I also feel with how every social media is run by an algorithm now, trying to keep things 'clean', it might have affected this game's visibility.

But this is certainly a must play. Even though it's not properly an immersive sim, I'd say it's a 'lite' immersive sim. So if you enjoy that genre, if you enjoy exploration and good gunplay, specially that of HL2, you'll definitely find your money's worth here. It's also sufficiently long I feel, so that's good too.

I always dreamed of a game with the duo Arigto behind the OST. So this is a dream come true.
It's a very atmospheric game, and I enjoyed the mythology the game lives in. Gameplay is quite solid and it makes good use of the abilities it gives you.
I must say, though, that there's some frequent, yet minor, issues with the game, I'm talking about the environment collision, where you can get stuck or sequence break if you fool around the level. But I'm the type of person to f*** around and find out, so it's likely you'll not notice the problems if you take it serious and follow the designed path.

Overall, it's a recommendation from me, if you like games with emotional moments and a dark, immersive atmosphere, then you'll enjoy this as well.

I am deeply enamoured with the presentation and execution of SIGNALIS.
The visuals, the premise, the cinematics, its sound design... it all comes together to make this an artistically beautiful yet unsettling experience.
It wears the influences of the games its inspired by on its sleeve, and in some degree so faithfully that they bring along some of its less desired parts. But in all honestly, I can't really care enough to make me feel less satisfied by this game. I now hold SIGNALIS in my heart as closely as SOMA.
Thank you to the devs, anyone who touched this game in some way, and the life paths you've all taken to allow this to happen.

This game does not take your hand as you get into the game. It instead pushes you down the cliff.
You'll soon learn what getting Noita'd is. And you'll cherish those moments.

I'm just glad the game has a SMB Warp Zone easter egg. Solving puzzles in this mod isn't fun

The most complex game for sure. 40% wiki search, 60% gameplay. 100% Urist's blood all over the place. Fun all day.

The game runs with a better framerate now, I can get on a comfortable 70+ FPS, I still require to be in Ultra Performance mode but I'm going to chalk that up to just being on the minimum requirements charts (I'm using an EVGA 3070Ti). The denoising issues I noticed on the release version are still here but seemingly can improve and is able to make out the details out of more noisier textures, for example the Aperture decal on the top of the elevator, I would originally see a moire pattern all the time, but now it's there for some time before disappearing.
Performance also seems to get better as time goes by. The first run on the intro sequence was performing terrible and at first I thought there was no change, but going back to this section some time later the framerate would remain within those 70+ FPS. I wonder if this is RTX IO's doing, as memory usage gets dangerously high as time goes on too.
So in the end, it looks like the more aggravating issues have been addressed by nVIDIA. I think it's worth changing this review as the positives now outweigh the negatives. It's not perfect, I don't think fully pathtraced lighting is worth in any game as it really, really makes the game run slower.
Portal with RTX can now offer a playable framerate to allow you a taste of what the future of lighting/GI can be.

I'll leave the original review below.

Proof of ray-tracing inside video games done in real-time being nothing but a buzzword that nVIDIA capitalizes on.
The game runs at very unstable frame rates and has horrid visual artifacts due to the compromises needed to even allow such technology being run in real-time.
Using DLSS on Ultra-Performance and the game would still stutter on varying scenes with varying levels of complexity. While reducing the DLSS resolution helps performance, it also introduces more guess-work from the denoiser. From flickering fireflies to moire patterns on textures it makes visual clarity on the game get thrown out the window. It becomes nauseating that I even turned off the denoiser and honestly prefer the noisy world.
Not to even mention how they ignored the visual art style of the original game in favor of showing off. From grim and dirty chambers —just like if they've been abandoned for a while, to colorful, reflective and bright chambers, akin to Portal 2 during the reconstruction phase, but 4 times brighter and saturated. Fog? Color correction? Huh?
If this was your tech demo nVIDIA, it looks great. If this was your PoC that raytracing can be used on videogames entirely now with an RTX card, it looks terrible for both sides, the developer of said game not bothering with their visuals and the card not even being powerful enough to succeed on the claims by its vendor. As for your tool, I guess it's mostly to be used for asset swapping.
Please developers, be careful and mindful of the needs of your game when integrating RTX features. Especially if your game has to run at high frame rates (competitive or otherwise fast-paced games). Seeing light and color fade in and out of existence feels like I'm inside an oil painting.

The game is quite the trip, and a very unique one.
Only gripe is that there was not a deep, calm voice saying S C O R N every time progress was made.

Quite a fun game on its own and an interesting take on this side of the Half-Life universe; not what I would've expected for the Combine, but the execution makes it feel just natural. Definitely scratches that HL itch