Black Mesa: Blue Shift – Impressions

I decided to try the Black Mesa: Blue Shift mod for Black Mesa to sate my current Half-life addiction. While it’s more of the fantastic Half-life universe and does satisfy some of the cravings, it has a couple of issues. Blue Shift is a remake of the expansion Blue Shift made by Gearbox for Half-life. I never played the expansion back in the day, so I don’t know much about it, but from what I have read, the mod is supposed to be a pretty faithful recreation. Otherwise, you might think; what would be the point? Anyway, much like Black Mesa, which itself is a remake of Half-life, the quality of the work here is substantial, and matches the same level of dedication. However, while the work by itself is impressive, I can’t say I enjoyed the gameplay all the way through. I should also mention that the mod is not finished. Only the four first chapters are complete, while missing the final four.

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Tempest Rising – Demo Impressions

I have written about Tempest Rising before, but mostly out of my fears of it being passed off as shovelware or just being shoddily made. While I think I have been proven wrong by testing out the new demo they put out (that goes away on the 22nd), at least when it comes to the presentation, I did find the gameplay somewhat limited. It’s mostly just a rehash of old stuff, but in a fancy new engine. In some aspects, it’s a step back, since for example, you can’t garrison infantry in civilian buildings which have become a standard feature.

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Enoch : Children of Fate – Demo Impressions

How about a dystopian noir cyber-thriller point & click game in the style of the excellent graphic adventure, Technobabylon? Now, Enoch: Children of Fate is not made by the same developer, but the visual style and the moody atmosphere is very similar. And that’s an excellent thing. The demo isn’t long. However, my time spent with it was enough to hook me into the mood for an atmospheric detective story. So, it was a sad thing when the demo finally ended. 

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Abathor – Demo Impressions

As typically when it comes to demos, I stumbled over Abathor by pure chance, and once again, I’m glad that I did. Abathor is a cooperative action side-scroller, where you must slaughter strange foes in the masses. It has the typical tropes of these kinds of games that they are expected to contain, and overall, executes them well. Everything from the combat, finding secrets, big bosses, to the platforming.

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