Recent reviews by Isohiisi

SOMA is a very interesting and realistic exploration of nature of the mind. It's a rather depressing tale about hopelessness and acceptance, allowing you to ask yourself a question - is it worth to put yourself aside for the greater purpose? Is it worth to sacrifice everything for hope of the people you never even met?
The gameplay is rather simplistic, being an exploration game with some minor puzzle solving and sneaking sections. Visual and audio design are interesting, albeit somewhat generic, though the concept of game taking place entirely on the bottom of the ocean is novel to this day and allows for many intriguing design choices. Horror is there and it's good, no cheap jumpscares, but nothing groundbreaking.
All in all SOMA is a great game propelled and carried entirely by it's story, without which it would be pretty meh.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain had a very rough development, culminating in the departure of many key developers from Konami, the company that made it and keeps the rights on MGS franchise even though it's "soul", the team that stood behind other entries in the series is no longer there. This shows in almost every aspect of the game, but overall it's still very enjoyable package.

The gameplay shines. Even though sometimes you can clearly see how rushed the game was, it is still one of the most refined gameplay-wise games in the series, with controls being the best without any doubt. Open world aspect might be dull and uninteresting, but infiltrating each outpost and base feels magnificent, especially how much variety it has not only depending on your loadout, but also on the weather, time of the day, alert level and your previous actions, which soldiers fairly quickly adapt to.
For those who played previous MGS games i will describe it in a little more detail;
Camo system is dumbed down to binary matching/non matching camo, which slightly affects visibility.
There are comparatively few gadgets at your disposal - NVG, sonar, box, a variety of stun gun, inflatible mockup of player character, pentazemin and pills that allow you to see through walls - but none of them feel useless.
There is a lot of weapons to choose from, and even a weapon customization option. The gunplay in general is very good too, though gun sounds are a little uninspired.
Mother Base mechanics are interesting, but i quickly forgot about it entirely when i got my levels and GMP high enough.
The level design though leaves much to be desired. MGS3 did open environments much better, and GZ was head above V in regards to that. It's nothing too bad, but it's very bland, and there are very few unique environments or opportuinites.
Stealth itself handles pretty well. Alert is almost instant, there is almost no report time like in MGS2 when only one soldier is alerted. There is a feature called "reflex" which turns on slow mo on alert, but it comes with a penalty to a score (which matters because you have to earn money to operate here) so i turned it off after a couple of missions since it's not that much of a helper. There is a search phase, and caution phase stays on for three ingame days (!) which i find very fitting and welcome change. Vision and hearing distances are comparable to "hard" or "extreme" difficulty of earlier installments, but due to how much better gameplay loop is, and open environment of levels this is not a problem at all.

So core gameplay is a solid 5/5 if i were to rate it, though i'm not a big fan of levels and mother base.

Main missions are amazing. They are quite unique, have many ways to approach them, and generally very well designed. But. Then they start to repeat. Due to how rushed the game was the team had to repurpose game's hardmode into being the part of main campaign, so in the end of the game you'll be replaying same missions but with harder difficulty. Nothing against hardmode, but having it as part of main line is kinda lame. Also some of the mission onjectives are very bugged, which is a problem, but one that does not count to mission design itself.
Now it's gonna get worse.
Side ops are uninspired, and very poorly thought out. With a few exceptions it boils down to blowing an armored convoy in a middle of nowhere up or abducting a guy with an escort. That's it. And there are ~150 of them. This is plain stupid. Not only that, but some of them are so bad, that they manage to be objectively insulting to the person playing. Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo mission 45. If you are going for 100% - god help you.
Animal hunting looks like a little fun minigame on paper, but in reality it's a game of dice with mr. Kojima. Only 22/47 animals can be found in game, tranquilized/stunned and captured by player. For the rest you will have to use Capture Cage set up in a specific area which is in no way communicated to a player. Capture cages are ONLY retreived when leaving an area through a helicopter, and beleive me, even with a guide it will take you up to 20 hours to catch 'em all. It's tedious, boring, nd it's required for an acheivement and 100% completion.
Dispatch missions are nothing like their predecessor in Peace Walker. You just send your team and wait up to 3 hours. No simulation, no team assembly, nothing. Just a probablilty number, another dice game. Better start this early if you are going for 100%, if you don't want to have the game open for 3 hours just to see if stars lined up for you today.
Mother base itself is meh. You can travel there to boost morale, see a couple of cutscenes, complete one heart wrenching, tearjerking, soul crushing side story involving one very tragic character you have seen before, see a zoo and take a shower. But nothing more. It's very boring overall, to the point that it might as well not be there.
Forward operating bases are equally as boring, since you are infiltrating an identical base with slight variation in security system. It's unbalanced, filled with cheaters, and overall unengaging. But it's a good way to boost your resources since nobody plays it and it's almost a guarantee that nobody will infiltrate your base.
There is also an online mode, which was very promising, but since rules there are massively different - stealth with AI and living players is not the same - it quickly died. You can fire up a dedicated server, if you have friends, and have a fair bit of fun.

In conclusion the game is very lacking in activities. But ones that work - are great. If you have completed main story - there's not much to return for.

Now for the main disappointment of the game. Spoilers ahead.
The story is unfinished, but even if it were it's pretty bad. It is obvious that team has ran out of steam, and have wanted to depart from Metal Gear for a long time. You can see that writers are very skilled and know how to work with given material, but main story line of the game outside of hooks to the rest of the franchise don't make sense at all. Skull Face is the worst MGS villain period. He's unrelatable, stupidly cruel, stupidly evil, and his motivation is paper thin. All the buildup from Ground Zeroes goes nowhere, since he doesn't even get a satistfying sendoff. Huey turning to an evil ♥♥♥♥♥♥ doesn't make sense also, but at least it works with the rest of the narrative. I never thought i'd say this but i was tired of seeing Psycho Mantis. His gimmick is stretched way too far here, to the point that when the new question was raised in the story i was telling myself "please let it not be Psycho Mantis rage/psyche magic again". The Phantom plan of Big Boss is very ambitious, but leaves me with many questions, if not to label it pointless outright. Language parasite mumbo jumbo is well written, but makes for a poor story element, nanomachines were handled much better.

MGSV has a very interesting and fun core gameplay loop, providing you with many cool tools, but leaves you with very few things to do with them, and very little motivation to do so, given how poor the overall story was.
It's worth playing, but not worth 100%ing - there's nothing there.

Serious Sam 3 BFE is a weird mix of classic-style FPS and modern trends. In it's core it's still same - FPS that isn't shy to test your skills and patience with hordes of different enemies, each requiring their own strategy, but there are some major changes under the hood, differentiating it from previous installments.
It's hard not to notice how old collides with new when you are playing, for example, Sam is much slower now, but has a sprint that is faster than his old speed. More realistic? Yes. But did enemies become more realistic? Hell no. This alone robs player from many tricks: you can't outmaneuver Kleers and finish them off one by one with coach gun, and instead you have to rely more on ranged combat, you cant dodge rockets as well and hitscan weaponry is even more deadly to you, all in exchange for sprint which serves purely anti-stress purpose when you have to traverse still huge levels.
Speaking of hitscan, there is even more of it for good or for bad. Several types of enemies are cut and replaced with bland (literally, i had a hard time distinguishing them from background) hitscan infantry that will slowly but surely chip away your health.
Levels are much more gray and unimaginative than their predecessors. I agree, modern egypt isn't the most colourful place, but it just doesn't seem right, given what's happening in those decorations. In late game environment is very destructible, but it's not very vell implemented, props only having 1-2 destruction states and obstructing the view significantly.
Which brings me to my next point - graphics. It looks fantastic, like Serious Sam game should, and is able to run even on toaster, but trying to incorporate modern elements it falls flat in many cases, failing to hit the sweet spot between old and new look that HD editions nailed so perfectly. Aside from already mentioned grey and gray color pallete it has very annoying visual effects. Dust flying up from the shots, wind, and especially explosions covers view entirely (with enemies still being able to see through it) leaving you with only two options: blind fight or retreat. Also your screen is now goes to red blur on every hit, making it almost impossible to fight back in active combat. Now you can play mental difficulty while you are playing serious difficulty! :xzibit:
Also for some reason some of the weapons are now secret only. Not that you get them early in game fron secret areas - no, if you miss secrets with them - you can't find them anywhere anymore. And the lack of double ammo on serious difficulty hurts me on a personal level.

Unfortunately, Serious Sam 3 primarily shines where it sticks to the original
Not all inclusions are bad, of course. New sounds are great, graphics looks better, even if more bland and forgettable, C4 is great replacement for grenade launcher, and active storyline makes game closer to you, but that's not what i personally wanted from it. It's a great game, but not very good sequel.

Play it if you want great, fun, and challenging shooter. Just don't be too harsh to it if it fails to be a Serious Sam: The Third Encounter

F.E.A.R. is an acronym for First Encounter Assault Recon, and you playing for a member of it - a Point Man to be precise, and that's the only thing you know about him. F.E.A.R. specializes on handling combat situations of uncoditional nature - paranormal stuff in other words. Stuff like this must be happening all the time for squad like this to be created. And it seems to be the case, because one day certain cannibal with batallion of special ops on telepatic leash loses himself and starts to wreak havoc taking over Armacham HQ and moving his forces into long abandoned area for unknown reasons. Our mission is to stop the lunatic but it's obvious that everything is not that simple...
Although very well trained and equipped - you are not superman. Player can take roughly same amount of damage as the enemies, and you should use every tool at your disposal - from your gun to your boosted reflexes which appear to you as slow motion - properly to get out of fight alive, and make a difference in the situation. And if you are using your head on top of that you are rewarded greatly by feeling of manhandling enemy and their F.E.A.R.ful chatter about you taking down whole squads of men.
being released in 2005 it still holds up, and not because it's some sort of classic, but because it's a damn good game. It shows it's age - in bad sense in graphic someplaces and in good sense in gamedesign, but it's certainly worth playing for anyone from old time quake veterans to (and especially) spoiled polygon-counting folk.
Pluses

• Fast paced smart shooter: you have to work fast and take every advantage over your enemy. Take every cover, flank them, approach unnoticed and be wary - because they will do the same.
  
• Good leveldesign: different situations every minute, you have to be on your toes all the time. If you can forgive game small amount of textures and models you will find it visually pleasing too.
  
• Reactive environment: twenty years ago we thought games of future will have every object simulated individually. But now we see that cinderblock solid and inert levels are fault of bad design, not low computing power. Thankfully it's far from truth here. Mugs and glass shatter, monitors break, papers and chairs fly, lockers doors go off the hinges - sometimes you will willingly hold your trigger just for look and feel of it. And firefights turn into symphony because of this.
  
• Smoke and dust: i wanted to add this to previous point but decided to dedicate separate one because of how significant it is. Each piece of concrete that you chip away from wall with bullets leaves cloud of dust behind it and grenades do this much more. This can obstruct your and enemies view very much and forces you to aim carefully and change positions.
  
• Big and interesting arsenal: all guns have unique and pleasing feel to them, and certainly used differently.

Minuses

• Slo-mo: don't get me wrong, it's cool. It just feels more like a cheat. My advice - play without it. It will train you a good bit of tactical thinking and planning ahead.
  
• Melee: although it has all potential to be VERY cool melee system with all stuff you can pull off - roundhouse jumpkicks, bicycle kicks, weapon strikes etc. - it has very limited use because of how painfully slow it is. You are long dead before you could land a strike, or even if you are not - enemy has more than enough time to get away from you. And it's twice painfull because it is one hit kill in most cases. Therefore it has very limited appliance on one enemy type to be exact. And not one you would expect - that one is invunerable to melee altogether.
  
• Story: there are some serious holes and although overall thing is very interesing sometimes you may feel not very invested
  
• AI: despite how smart it is and how interesting it makes challenge, sometimes it can get really irritating. For example, if enemy has explosive weapon he will shoot at you even at point blank distance, which makes them really hard to deal with.
  
• F.E.A.R.: it seems that you are the only one member of it, and presence of other ones is outright laughable. You just can't take those guys on radio seriously.
  
• Horror: It's not scary. Just not. You look at it with interest, but not in fear.

Overall it's a very good game. Play it. They just not making things like this anymore. It's both an interesting and nostalgic trip to the beginning of 2000's when bulky rounded plastic things with small LCD's looked futuristic and very interesting and demanding challenge which will make you feel like real special operator.

Who told you that siege machines were boring and limited? With trebuchets and catapults there wre wooden flamethrower tanks, spike helicopters, buzzsaw rollers... oh, buzzsaw rollers... Yes, some of siege machines were more efficient indeed. Alright, FAR more efficient. In fact so superior that only them came down to history books, BUT this doesn't cancel the fact that there was others! And now you are able to get in skin of medeival engineer and figure out how to kill as many things as possible with construction from given parts, and, of course, do it with style and remain original. Nobody wants to use beaten up cliches, right?

Haydee is third-person action game with emphasis on exploration and puzzles, developed by Russian group - Haydee Interactive.
It hurts to do this, but some concerns should be adressed first, before talking about actual game. First thing that catches your eye is of course Haydee herself, the protagonist. Whether you like her or not - how she looks is not important. Don't descend into thinking "lol KK simulator" or "sexual game 2016". Look under cover, look deeper than that, after some time in game you will stop even noticing who you are playing as - everything becomes that tense and interesting.
In Haydee you take the role of mass-produced cyborg left alone in strange complex full of traps and dangerous security systems. You are alone and lost, there is no goal to reach, there is no rule to follow, and no soul to communicate. All what there is is you, your knowledge and your instincts. And that mix of self-preservation and curiosity will drive you away from sterile rooms and onto dangerous jorney towards... what you seem fit.
There is truly no handholding, especially in regard to the storyline - you find everything out for yourself, if you curious, and if you're not - you wander around trying to find something. Same statement goes for gameplay - there is no conventional tutorial, first thing that you see is test. If you are able to pass it - you go on, and if you are not - you die. In this complex you are expendable clone and to at least survive, forget reach something, you should be wary of your every step. Everything tries to kill you here.
But all rhethorics aside Haydee is a masterfully done game, that emphathises on exploration, problem solving, and to some extent on platforming. Most of the time you will be searching your way out of the labyrinth of rooms, opening doors, searching for keys, and wandering hidden passageways, occasionally trying to survive deadly encounters with robots - there is not much of action in game but it's so fairly difficult and well done that every shootout will make you hold your breath. Puzzles are woven into matter of game itself and every room, every brick deserves attention and could be essential for your progress, and their difficulty will leave you lost for a long time, amplifying the joy of finding a solution that will seem obvious for you afterwards. Also there is huge portion of well made horror (!) so hold onto your pants.
What game may dissapoint you with is again - untold story. You should figure everything out for yourself and after any of endings there will be more questions than answers. Haydee starts on relatively long tutorial area and develops challenge and difficulty slowly - give game some time and it will show you all of it's beauties. Also gameplay itself is quite slow, but once you understand that every corner may contain conveniently placed landmine or robo-maniac - you get used to it. Saves and ammo are limited, and even though i see it very well fitting setting of game and overall mood, it may push away some players, but i assure you - if you are watchful and careful, very soon you will find your inventory overflown with those.
Even though authors try to describe their project as "hardcore metroidvania" there is no word that can fully describe this game. It's a wild mix of Portal, Thief, Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil and System Shock. If you are fan of at least one of those games, or just like challenging, stylish, and truly interesting games - grab it. You will not regret it one bit.
P.S. Face from edge and push crouch twice.

Deus Ex is truly a masterpiece. Despite the name there is no Deus Ex Machina effect whatsoever - everything is logical and consequential and every detail is a piece of whole - user's password can tell you about his life more than you can hear from anyone, organisation name contains a key to it's entrance, and internet adresses hint major plot twist. The world of demolished Lady Liberty is surprisingly and eerily real both in it's behaviour and as a very possible future of ours. It also one of the most stylish worlds out there. Without overusing design cliches and descending into self repetition it keeps cold, metallic demanaur faintly lit by distant LED lights and blue ROM module colloids from the start to the end. And the wonderful tracker soundtrack by Alexander Brandon and Michel van de Bos is making perfect - transcendent.
As for the gameplay. On the first glimpse arsenal is quite poor - less than ten types of firearms, couple of throwables, few melee choices and array of tools - but what this game about is you, as a player, as a character. Main tool in your arsenal is your head - numerous ways to approach the objective are only multiplied by your skills and the most useful tool in game - augmentations, which allow you to perform superhumane tasks such as invisibility, wind speed combined with impossible jump height or even projectile-stopping nanite shield - everything is in your hands. But beware that you are limited not only by supply of bioelectricity, but also with finite augmentation possibilities. The brighter you burn the faster you expire and one possibilities take take place of anothers. So at the end your head - is your main tool and weapon, not even the GEP gun.
Don't be scared off by strange and old look of unreal engine or somewhat obsolete (i'd say more outmoded though) futurology - game holds it's mark to this day and is, and never cease to be a truly amazing and unique experience. Give it a shot. And don't play it like game - feel it, live in it. Because it's how it's meant to be. Because it's worth it. And remember - trust nobody, question everything.

-Not updating
-Maps converted poorly (for example yard corner spawn on crossfire is dead point - player freezes on place, all lifts is unholy abominations from hell with additional platform over them for some reason et cetera)
-Weapons sometimes "miss" moment when player commanded to fire (tau cannon barrel continues to spin, grenades thrown on second or third click)
-Mouse sensetivity so vital to this game can't be increased over 6 - we have acceleration now
-No gibs

But from good here all benefits of source engine - improved physics and graphics with stabler connection
It's a good starting, but it only a STARTING that died out - another dead VALVe project. You'd better buy original HL if you like games of this kind - at least servers there are not empty

The dog was nervously spinning around. They all knew what to expect. He found them. He always finds. Guys decided to prepare for it - it can be that they still can do it, still have chance to survive. Screams and gunshots could already be heard from downstairs and apprehension was only intensifying. Murderer in zebra mask dashed from staircase soundlessly, like lightning and thunder was to follow. Two shotgun shots ripped first guards apart throwing mutilated bodies on about two meters back. Fat Pete heard it and crashed trough the door with us following. Next gunshot made his ribcage wide open but tough bastard continued to run saving us from next two before felt down dead. We two bringed up clubs and began our last sprint to crush this bastards skull. We or him. Last gunshot threw my comrade back and i knew that he has no ammo left. Screaming in rage i sprinted toward him holding up my bat. But he has another trick in a pocket. He thrown empty gun at me with force and it's butt hit my head making me fall down with nose bleeding. Upside down in distance i seen other one taking aim on him. It was impossible to hit from that distance but that was my final hope. I praid numerous gods to help me while maniac dropped to one of my comrades corpses to pick up his gun, and my prays was heard. With some kind of magic empty shotgun flew to his hands when he was to pick up full one. Shot from distance hitted him right between eyes and i dropped my head knowing that everything will be alright from now

This game is good. Damn good. Marvelously good. Soundtrack, gameplay, visual style, details, plot - everything! But it has so many flaws and bugs, that it's impossible to play it without bitter flavor of frustration. Here is NOT FULL list of it

>Object hitboxes oftenly dont match apperance
>Player dont slides when not hit hallway between walls - he just stucks near it
>Foe melee attack speed jumps up randomly
>When foe stuck in door he's almost impossible to hit (even if we close eyes on door stucking)
>Weapon picking up:
>>Player oftenly not picks up weapon, just throwing out one which in his hands
>>Picking up just thrown away weapon (oftenly empty)
>> No any pickup priority in pile of weapons
>Shooting near door is IMPOSSIBLE because barrel just stucks in it and bullets evaporating instantly
>Mouse controls feels so stiff - both of types
>While locking up on enemy your cursor hides and when you killed him it may pop up in RANDOM point of screen
>Famous spinning
>Infinite vision range alongst with window-mania
And many, many many others

This game is cool, specially for people nostalgic to 80-90's era, but making such of a game so buggy should be writen down in bible as 8th mortal sin