Recent reviews by TK[153]

Half Life 2 is Valve's best series, only surpassed by the cultural phenomenon that is Portal. After 20 years, it's gotten even better, with graphical upgrades, fixes, and the inclusion of Episodes 1&2. If you didn't pick it up fro free during the 20th year celebration, I highly recommend getting it now. The level design and characters put even modern day AAA games to shame. The Gravity Gun is also one of the best guns ever designed, with the ability to pickup and kill enemies with physics objects.

*****

Okay, let's address the elephant in the room first. The ending is kinda bad, and it seems to be a problem that most Portal mods share. The fact Stirling turns on you very quickly seems out of character, when there's no real reason for him to do so, other than to create conflict. Worse though is how the game just... ends. The teleportation machine explodes, and now suddenly you're on the Moon!!?? Like what ? WHY IS THERE A MOON BASE ALL OF A SUDDEN?
Anyways, as far the actual gameplay and the beginning plot, it's quite good. The puzzles aren't mind bending, but they do make you think. Both Cores you interact with are rather funny and compelling characters, although Emilia seems to get over the fact she's been turned into a core rather quickly.
As for features, It's crazy to say this, but the ingame settings are quite extensive. The fact you can choose the Portal 1 style of reticle(the kind that lights up on a portal surface) is a godsend! No more guessing if a faraway wall is portal-able. Also the load times are super fast! Makes me wonder why the base game takes so long to load the next map.
Overall I like the puzzles and the characters, but please can we get a Portal mod with a decent ending sometime?

****

While no longer available to purchase on Steam, Rocket League is still playable here for anyone who purchased it before Epic made it exclusive on their platform.
Rocket League is a fantastic game, taking the game of soccer and combining it with RC cars. Utilizing boosts and a 2 "jumps", you learn aerial tricks to outsmart the opposing team, and score goals against them. There's plenty of room to learn and grow, while earning skins thru events and seasonal progression. Rocket League is Free-to-play on Epic, and runs perfectly fine on Linux, using the Heroic Games launcher and Valve's Proton compatibility.

*****

Requires Nvidia driver 536.67 to run.

Let me just say, if you don't have a Nvidia RTX GPU, you're gonna have a bad time. I'm using a RTX A2000(more RT cores than a RTX 3050, but lower clocks due to only consuming 70watts) so I have to run Portal RTX with quality preset DLSS @720p. The overall performance is "good" averaging 40FPS, except in the post credits scene which ran @7FPS. Really brings back the feel of 2008, when I was on a pre-built gateway PC. In short, expect this to hammer your GPU, even if it's high end.

As for the mod itself, there have been a few improvements over the original release. First is the "voice acting" While it still uses text-to-speech, the voices sound less robotic than the original. Remember this is from 2008, when there wasn't really any voice acting in mods, unless you had a dedicated mod team. The test chambers seem to have had some improvements, making them much more feasible to complete. This was considered a hardcore Portal mod back in the day. So it's nice to see some optimization to the chambers, and less frustrating.
Now the GLaDOS fight can screw off. There really isn't any strategy to it, just make a beeline for the morality core slot, and hope you don't die to her throwing you against the walls. This fight can last as long as half-an-hour, or as short as 2 minutes, depending on your luck.
As for the raytracing elements, it does look quite nice. Lighting effect,,, glowing orbs, and reflections in glass windows galore. Just remember you'll need a RTX cable GPU to take full advantage of the effects.
I haven't tested it on Linux. It probably runs(I know Portal RTX does, with the 525.60.11 driver) but you might need an updated driver as I needed 536.67 or newer to run on Windows.

If you have a RTX GPU, and want to experience a 2008 hard Portal mod with raytracing effects, give Portal Prelude a try. It is free after all.

Overall rating: ****

Be prepared to have your FPS trounced, even with a RTX card. I had the fortune of getting a RTX A2000 last year, and even that struggles with anything higher than 720p. At least I'm able to maintain 40FPS with the DLSS quality setting. Meanwhile my new 6700XT can barely manage 20 FPS with the LOWEST POSSIBLE SETTINGS. In terms of fidelity, it looks great! Though I'm glad this was free. Yes I would've bought it anyway, but for others it's not really worth anything other than free. I will note you do need to make sure to update your Nvidia drivers, to at least 525.56. Unless of course you're on Linux ;) Tested on Fedora 36 with the 6.0 linux kernel and a recent Nvidia driver. Runs as good as on windows.

A fast paced, rather unoptimized BR game. It's fun in short bursts, but can get repetitive. Updates on a consistent basis, though some of the changes are a bit polarizing. At least it's free to play, and did get EaC support on Linux.

****

Ok, Let's talk about Crysis. First off for anyone coming back to give it a try,, follow these instructions to getting it running: https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1772645468 It has been removed from being sold, but that shouldn't be an excuse for needing this fix.
The graphics do still hold up to this day, and it's cool to see how destructive the environments are. The suit abilities are also a neat concept, having to manage your energy reserves. Though you will tend to use only one or two for the vast majority of the game, while one is almost always situational.
The gameplay is what hits a rough spot for me. Firstly it seems to heavily punish anything that isn't stealth, as getting hit slows you down significantly. Being spotted will alert all enemies to your location, and you\ll have a hard time running from a fight. So cloak>kill an enemy> get to cover> repeat. Else you could just use cloak to sneak around blockades. This wouldn't be a big issue, if ammo wasn't incredibly hard to come by. In many cases you'll need to attack enemies to get the ammo they drop, that is until you reach later parts of the game, where the "enemies don't drop ammo. So be prepared to conserve you ammo.
The Level design isn't the greatest either. Yes, Crysis has a much more open feel to it, but regardless of which path you take, it feels like you're always acting as a one man army... with limited ammo... and having to manage your suit abilities. Near the end of the game, you'll encounter a couple boss battles that have no clear objective. They eqate to just shoot them with the biggest gun you have. And FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY Do not forget to pickup the TAC gun on the last mission! It is required, and you'll have to go back to a previous save to get it for the last boss. Speaking of, It's freeze attack is BS! Get hit with it, and you'll be immobile for 10+ seconds and probably die. Think Mei for Overwatch. That last mission legit made me angry.
So while I'm glad I finally finished Crysis after all these years, I don't think I'll be playing any time soon. Just felt too much of a nuisance.

***

A short, yet comedic, free Aperture experience, intended for the SteamDeck. If you've got a spare 30 minutes, it's a great time. Works with a standard Xbox 360 controller.

A quick warning: These puzzles require significantly more critical thinking than your average Portal mod. We're talking about a whole new way of puzzle solving! The concept is a bit difficult to grasp at first, and not everything is spelled out for you. In truth, Portal Reloaded will test your knowledge or portals, as well as introducing new concepts. It can get very frustrating at times, so a cool head is needed when tackling these tests. I will say however the ending(s) were rather lack luster, and didn't have any real pay off. Take it as you will, it was still a challenging experience for me, and that's what I expected out of a Portal mod.

****

What can I say, but About freaking time Microsoft! This is the collection every Halo fan has been waiting for, but now on PC. For years we've been content with Halo: CE and a Halo 2 port to play, but now we can experience all the main series titles at high resolutions/frame rates.