I hate how you cannot place the portal on any surface that you desire. I guess its really just to keep you from trying all the wrong things. I like the game. the aesthetic is clean. I do see some people getting stuck on some of these early puzzles if they are unable to think with "portals".
Some levels are clear as day, when you can see everything by just looking around. While other levels are more vertical which requires some amount of experimentation and 3d thought. Sometimes I smile when everything comes together magically and you complete the level. I can see the developers spending quite a while ensuring that the puzzles are solvable without having too many fail states. Fail states i why you are not allowed to open a portal on every surface. By limiting the portal points it makes it easier to teach the player the solution.
Conclusion
Portal 2 is a solid game. I did get stuck in a few place but after spinning around a bit you will figure it out. Definitely a unique experience. In the end I only go stuck once and became impatient so I looked up the solution. My rating 9/10. A bit too long but every stage feels unique and almost impossible until you figure it out. Hopefully I find the Orangebox for cheap so I can play the original.
Strategy
Always look for the white wall. And remember that movement physics transfer through portals. Most times there is a small surface that you overlooked - try everything.
The game has bad frame rate and some of the weapons are gated behind levels like a looter shooter. There is fun to be had if you enjoy hacking at zombies around every corner.
The game is like borderlands 1 but with a more confusing menu and upgrade path. Alot of pointless weapon upgrades and weapons that break for no reason. Crafting and repair benches also exist.
I imagine that you can get accustomed to it after a few hours but it felt clunky even after 3 hours. I chose a character that was good at melee weapons and the game wouldn't let me pick up bullets.
Conclusion
Dead Island Riptide gets a 5/10 rating. It's a A to B zombie game in the far cry 3 jungle. You are mostly stuck on a path doing fetch quests that NPC characters blackmail you into. Going around the objective or off-road is rarely allowed. So you can kinda stuck fighting annoying zombies that you can see from a mile away. Not my kinda a game. I quit like 3 hours into it because I just did not like the setup and the crafting.
Strategy
There is not much to the game since you are forced down paths filled with unavoidable zombies and everything you collect is a means to a pointless grinding end.
Right off the bat the game feels like its a 2007 game but its actually came out in 2013. The game has alot of rough edges and the guns dont really feel punchy but the sound effects are good. Its really an A to B shooter that follows the movie a bit too closely. With just about an hour into the game I can safely say it is an ok movie game. We will see how it goes in my next play session. Right now I am jumping back into Thief. I may have mentioned that I am juggling 3 games at the same time with this being the 4th. Do not worry about my mental state as most of the controls are the same across many of these games.
So far this is a real "doors and corners" game. I am having fun trying to cheese the CPU aliens. You can get cornered pretty easily in this game and the life bar does not regenerate all the way so you can get into some dicey situations where the aliens will eat you alive. You will encounter human enemies but they are not as fun as the aliens because they hide and camp.
In my recent play session I got into the vibe of the game. I think this a game that you should play at night in a dark room if only to really feel the lonely empty space. Its fun, I am enjoying the game - still playing on easy mode.
I really enjoy the sections where you are fighting aliens. The humans are boring to fight.
Conclusion
I like the game. Its simple, pick up and play, go here, shoot that. The different between this and a COD game is that this is set in the Alien movie which is more fun than hunting terrorists. If you love the alien movies you will love play acting in these environments. The sound effects and music really sells the game. 8/10 - movie game.
After finishing the game I dropped my rating to 6/10. The game starts out really good then just divides into standard a-b shooter around 50% the way through. The first half is very good though so I would recommend it for just that half. I think I read somewhere that it fell into development hell and was actually worked on by two different teams.
Strategy
Of course I played on the easier difficulty and I cheese the enemies as much as possible with my back always to the wall or in a door way. Your NPC team mates are invincible so no need to worry about them.
I never liked strategy games, especially grid based strategy RPGs. I like C&C Tiberan Sun on PC. Xcom is fancy but really slow - like really really slow. And I can already tell that there is going to be alot of little things to manage and organize. But I aint got time for it.
I was secretly hoping that the game was not too tactical, but it really is so if you like tactical games this one is for you.
Conclusion
Tactical board game. Not my kinda game so I will put it back into the pile and play something else. I might pick it up at some other point if I get bored of every other game in my collection.
I got amazon "used game" scammed on the case and got the regular version. But thats not the main issue; the game is basically trash after you complete the tutorial you might as well just quit the game and never play it again. This was a random amazon purchase mainly because I wanted one of those cross-gen game cases that got released in the later part of the 360/Xbone cycle. Unfortunately no such luck.
Game play
I completed the tutorial and learned how to do some tricks before venturing into the open world which is mostly bland unless you are going down a nice hill. The open world doesnt seem to serve much purpose. I was not interested in building skate parks or doing trick challenges because I found that the player character would fall down too frequently on the slightest bump. It became super annoying finding good lines because it is so easy to get bounced around and knocked over. So I settled on playing through all the death race challenges. Going fast in a straight line is pretty much the only fun I could find in the game.
Conclusion
I pretty much quit the game after that. I had no other reason to play the game except to listen to the soundtrack which was a random mix of licensed songs in classic EA style. Luckily I got the game comparative cheap at $10. Its hard to get into and clunky. rating 5/10. Only play it if you must. Old Tony hawk is better.
