Recent reviews by Underscorn

Like, uh, hey, maybe things took a weird route right now...

You already know why this game is a must-play, but I'm not kidding when I say this game literally shaped my childhood. The absolute best characters and story of any game ever, and really, it's not even close. The art and gameplay sometimes leave a bit to be desired, but everything else is freaking transcendent, so who cares? The music is also among the best in the business, need I remind you the mere existence of Megalovania. And to a lot of people that's not even the best it gets.
If you're seriously here in 2025 trying to decide whether or not to play Undertale, I feel really sorry for you, because you've gone 10 years of your life having not experienced this...

help this game replaced my life

I hold the perspective of a non-Sonic fan, this is the third Sonic game I've ever played, albeit I am very familiar with the universe and context within.

Sonic Generations - 4/10
Shadow Generations - 8/10

Let's start with a gripe I share with both halves of the game; the controls and - by proxy - the camera. The game allows for keyboard and mouse controls, although it is very clunky and unintuitive. In Sonic Generations, (I'm pretty sure) the mouse does literally nothing. But whether or not some actions are supposed to be used by the left hand or the right hand are seemingly arbitrary. Drifting, for example, uses F or G depending on which direction you want to go, but this can be difficult to keep track of in the moment and should have been consolidated to a single button. Which is funny, because I'm pretty sure that IS how it is already, both buttons do the exact same thing. Though I've had inconsistent results with this; I'm not sure what to believe. You can't really manipulate the camera at all in Sonic Generations, which is a shame, because I feel like it's excessively zoomed in or limited sometimes.
In Shadow Generations though, it's much better. The mouse is actually supported and will move the camera (most of the time) and you can use M1 and M2 for most basic actions, and ones that aren't can be done with the left hand on the keyboard. This is almost perfect, but there's still no option to zoom in or out at all, and in most sections of most levels you still can't do anything with the camera and are constrained to a fixed camera angle.

Lots of people say Sonic Generations is one of the best modern Sonics. No wonder Sonic has such a bad rep, if this is as good as it gets then I'd hate to see what would be called "bad." Anyway, as you can probably tell I didn't really enjoy Sonic Generations. It was a lot of little things that held back the experience in my opinion, most of which stem from a lack of polish and Sonic feeling peculiarly sluggish. But also I found myself disappointed by how linear and on-rails the levels felt, sometimes literally. Not to mention the infamous rewriting, though it probably wasn't even good to begin with.
For supposedly being the fastest thing alive, Sonic accelerates very slowly on the ground. I get that the intention is probably just for you to use boost, but... why can't Sonic just... go fast? Also, some sections of levels felt very claustrophobic, which combined with the constrained camera disallow for much speed. That said, when the level design actually complimented Sonic's abilities and you're free to go fast and choose your own path, the game was genuinely fun.
The final boss was just bad. Basically no mechanical depth, you're just holding LCTRL for several minutes waiting for the game to kindly move you toward the boss so you can actually progress it. Lame and cringe, Super Sonic being there doesn't carry ♥♥♥♥♥.
I don't appreciate that Classic Sonic can't vary his jump height though. Just because it's authentic doesn't make it good.
The framerate is limited to 60 FPS here, and I understand that it's because this was probably just a port, but after going 165 I can never go back. I NEED MY FRAMES.
Oh, and the music was fine. Didn't click with any of it really.

Shadow Generations on the other hand was a very good time. Shadow's movement is actually snappy and responsive, and best of all, fairly deep and fun to just move around with. But it's brought down significantly be the fact that if you're moving, and change direction even slightly, your momentum is INSTANTLY reset unless you've crossed a fairly high speed threshold. This sucks big time, and I don't understand how this is in the game when fun movement was clearly a concern of Sonic Team. That said, there are ways around it, and moving is still very fun when you learn how to do so.
The fun movement is complemented very nicely by the large HUB world that you're free to run around, with more pathways and areas opening up as you progress through the game, plus the extra abilities you can access to which only further complement the movement system. It's always a good time to just run around and stumble across random challenges to complete, though I wish the rewards for doing so were slightly more useful than literally just collection pieces. Obviously the reward shouldn't be so valuable that players realistically have no choice but to do them, because not everybody is about the collectathon grind. But it should be something that you actually notice while playing the game, and music doesn't count! I think cosmetics or skins would be a good fit, because it doesn't have a tangible effect on gameplay but while you look at a snazzed up Shadow you are reminded that the collectibles you spent several minutes gathering were, in fact, NOT completely worthless. Also there's an online mode (for both this and Sonic Generations) but I didn't step foot in there at all, so maybe there already exist cosmetics there, or maybe not. Either way, I feel like this just would have been a better direction to go. Maybe have the collection pieces AND cosmetics. Boom, best of both worlds. I dunno.
The story's pretty generic, but it's charming enough. The writing is pretty good, a huge leap from Sonic Generations. I take it there were different writing teams responsible for each, because it would be a very strange juxtaposition if not. Shadow's not very deep as a character; a tragic backstory will only take you so far. But he was engaging enough to watch as he went through his... "arc?" I hesitate to call it an arc because he was pretty surefire about his motives the whole way through. I guess this is because he already went through the whole shabang with Black Doom, but they tried to do a little more with it, so good job I guess.
The final boss was a pretty big letdown. It felt clunky and several aspects were unresponsive. I would try to send projectiles at him and it would do basically no damage, but then I run up for a combo and a third of his HP bar is gone. The platforming section in particular was very annoying, I fell several times and it was never made clear exactly what I was doing wrong. Not helped by how sticky movement becomes when you're confined to the corruption. I always felt like I was going to fall out of nowhere while swinging on the purple orbs, that mechanic always felt unruly.
The graphics were good; nothing crazy, but having actual modern visuals plus a 120 FPS cap made simply looking at the game much more pleasurable than in Sonic Generations. Who would've thought...
The music was definitely a step up from Sonic's IMO, nothing had me head-banging or anything but it was consistently pleasant to listen to.

Overall I had a somewhat frustrating time with Sonic Generations, and a vast-majority good time with Shadow Generations. Not really agreeing with all the hub-bub about this being one of the best Sonic games ever, but that said, I don't really have a basis of comparison because I've not played any of the all-renowned GOATs. But if the choice is between playing it and not, you may as well, but you'd better grab it while it's on sale cause I'm not sure if I'd justify $50 for it.

I'm definitely forgetting a whole bunch of important stuff, I'll come back and edit this or whatever when I remember it.

Easily the most fun you can have in VR, and it's not even close. This game will make you love guns no matter how much you already love or hate them.

The guns in this game are as realistic and intuitive as you can possibly get in VR; any function that an IRL gun has will be present here, and then some. I wasn't and still am not a gun guy, but simply by playing this game I have learned so much about firearms that I can genuinely recognize several of them by name in other games.

The developer - while not perfect - clearly cares about this game and its community, and does something that seemingly no other dev does; COMMUNICATE. Through consistent bi-weekly YouTube devlogs, occasional streams, and a constant presence on the Discord server, a thru-line is upkept which allows for the endless fine-tuning courteous of player feedback, which only allows the game to be that much better.

The game's sense of humor doesn't even know what subtlety is, and won't waste a single second establishing how aggressively American its themes are. The simple act of shooting a giant sentient hot dog with an RPG as it mutters drivel about how its own anatomy doesn't make sense, purely embodies this game's sense of humor.

I also really appreciate how this game keeps its environments super simple for the sake of performance, but it also fits in with the worldbuilding; these biggol sausages live in an exaggerated parody of how "fake" and "plasticy" our own world is becoming, and it's a pretty genius blend of fashion and function. Though it may just be a result of the default Unity rendering system looking really fake in of itself...

The game is still in early access after all these years and the scope just keeps getting larger and larger. You could see this as a positive or a negative. But it's undeniable, there is just SO MUCH in this game. With that said though, if you're playing this game for more than 5 minutes, you will be playing one mode and one mode only; Take and Hold. It's the only scene with sufficient variety and replayability that appropriately integrates the depth of the guns into genuine combat scenarios, which kind of sucks. Work is ongoing to create more deep and varied scenes, but as it is at this moment, Take and Hold is the only "real" mode. Everything else is either too shallow or full sandbox. I've heard that "Return of the Rotweiners" may offer a more deep experience, but no matter how many times I try, I can't figure out what the game is actually wanting me to do. I just wander around aimlessly for a while until I get bored. Some more direction would be appreciated there.

Also, to make a small gripe, I don't like how heavily the game likes to lean toward long range combat; for people like me who are nowhere near IRL snipers and often get disoriented trying to look down a scope, trying to genuinely engage at longer ranges equates to me bashing my own head against the wall as the stupid meat agents have 9001/20 eyesight and WILL easily snipe you from a million yards away. Two of the three Take and Hold levels have many incredibly long range combat scenarios that it expects you to fight in, and it just ends up not being fun for me. I will only play on Institution in 3-hold short mode for this reason, but I would like to experience the boss nodes and tougher waves, so it would be really nice if there were an option to have hold and supply rooms be genuinely randomized with the ability to exclude certain rooms. This would also give the transit system an actual use. Seriously, he spent time making an elaborate map and teleporter system when both are made completely useless because the whole 10 SET seeds all have their rooms set to spawn super close to one another. What's even the point then?

With all that said though, you are doing your headset a great injustice by not including this game on it. If you own a headset, you are owning this game; NO EXCEPTIONS!

I think this game is worth playing.
In hearing that, you may be confused as to why I would then deem the game "not recommended." Really, it's for attention.
Obviously, if it was really between playing it and not playing it, you should play the game. Black Mesa is very cool, and at times it is definitely very fun. The developers clearly loved the original Half Life and you can feel their passion oozing from every corner. However, there are so many things holding this game back, that while my overall experience was still positive, I can't help but think about what this game could have been instead of what it is.

Let's start with my first gripe, which is the smallest. The game is generally very dense with content, and different things that you will encounter and have to deal with. However, once you get to Xen, the game suddenly becomes a walking simulator which spans several hours. I found myself becoming bored with all the walking and platforming that you must do, and especially sections like the incredibly long conveyor belt section went on way too long and more than overstayed their welcome. But thankfully, movement suddenly becomes a lot more fun once you get to Xen, which helps this "walking simulator" section a little, though it still tends to be tedious.

Secondly, some of the puzzles are too vague. There were several instances where I got stuck on a puzzle, wandering aimlessly for several minutes until I stumbled upon the solution. Granted, I never had to look up a guide, but there was a lot of the aforementioned aimless wandering until I figured out what the game wanted me to do. Some mechanics were very poorly explained to the player, if at all. Some more clarity would do the game wonders.

Thirdly, the crashing. I lost count of how many times the game would randomly crash for no reason, and near the beginning of the playthrough, it would wipe all my settings to default and force me to set them all over again. This is borderline unacceptable, especially for this game being nearly 4 years old with these issues not being fixed. It may mean having to fight Source Spaghetti, but again, no game should EVER have to deal with crashing during completely normal gameplay.

Now, fourthly, and most egregiously, the combat. Now, this game has lots of different weapons, and definitely encourages being creative when it comes to encounters what with the limited ammo. However, the enemy AI in this game is some of the worst I've ever seen. The soldiers are the worst offenders by far - their reaction times are quite literally instant, they can see you through walls, and they have nigh perfect aim. Most other enemies also have pseudo-aimbot or are heavily affected by RNG, making it essentially impossible to not get hit. Certain enemy AIs are also incredibly sporadic in how they move; particularly the dogs and female soldiers. They lack any sense of momentum and change speed / direction on a dime, making it impossible to predict them and completely breaking immersion. It's perfectly okay to have fast enemies, but again, they need to have believable momentum. Certain sections of the game make it feel like getting hit is the intention, or that it being impossible to not get hit is okay because there are health pickups scattered about. But a player should never be encouraged to take damage, and it should always be realistically possible to use skill to avoid damage, because otherwise it is quite literally unfair. Designing a combat system where the player is expected to become complacent with taking damage is incredibly silly. And keep in mind, these complaints aren't coming from either of the harder modes. These are things I gathered from playing on normal mode. If normal mode combat is unfair and undodgeable as is, how can I be expected to realistically complete - and especially have fun playing - the harder difficulties? The abundance of health pickups will only work as a band-aid fix up to a certain point.

And that's everything I've got to say, for now. Again, this game is definitely cool and worth playing, and the developers clearly cared about the product they were crafting. But there were so many things that I found wrong with the game, it was very frustrating at times. This game is almost 4 years old; with it being so flawed after so long, I would hate to have experienced it at launch. But I really hope this project isn't dead in the water; I would be over the moon if the developers could create more patches and continue to fix issues, and possibly even address some of my points. Because really, at the end of the day, video games are meant to be fun, and I simply didn't have fun with some elements of the game, and I'm probably not alone on that. There will still be people like me, who will experience this game for the first time after all these years; I don't see the harm in making it the best experience for them.

There are so many police that it is physically impossible to kill all of them and take advantage of the short periods of time where you aren't getting assaulted. There will usually be 50 of them out at once with nothing you can do, and mind you, this is on the easiest difficulty. Do people genuinely have fun playing this game? Maybe it would have been better if I played online, but that's not my cup of tea.

There's a difference between hard and unfair.
This game is easy to learn and cannot be mastered. Its skill ceiling is very very close to its skill floor. As you can probably imagine, this is due to whether you win or not being entirely dependent on RNG. The odds that you win in this case are very low, not due to winning actually being difficult, but because all the enemies are so perfectly placed in the worst positions (for you) they could possibly be placed in. This creates for a very exhausting experience, and is another classic case of games forgetting for make themselves fun.
Also, I think a better category for this game than "horror game" would be "jumpscare simulator," similar to the veins of Five Nights at Freddy's or Baldi's Basics. A lot of those games are not actually scary, but rather derive what they call "horror" out of jumpscares; making the player jump. However, in this game, even the jumpscares aren't particularly bad. I usually feel my heart skip a beat every time I get jumpscared, but the volume on them seems to be cranked way down and it's usually very obvious as to when you're about to die. The exception to this is usually the Brutes, because they don't make any noise when moving. Cablecrow may also be an exception here, but this could be argued against since all you'd have to do to be aware of your imminent doom would be to look upwards. Since, like, literally every monitor ever is wider than it is taller, it's easy to miss but if you're looking out for it you won't have any difficulty finding it.
But, to be honest, it's pretty up there by the standards of games made by popular YouTubers. I expected it to be worse, but it's still underwhelming. Cool to check out, but watching someone play it is far more entertaining than playing it yourself.

A Timeless Masterpiece.