Recent reviews by Vortiene

Simple mechanics, but really creative usage of them on every level which each feel pretty fresh. Amazing that this came out in 1998. Everybody who likes single player adventures should play through this at least once.

EDIT: I recommend Red Alert 1 but not Tiberian Dawn, just avoid Tiberian Dawn unless you really really want to see the minor story of this game since it's such a pain to play in comparison. Best part of these games is the music I feel.

EDIT: I have now played through all of Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert 1's Campaigns and Side Missions. Here is my review of it from the 3 hour mark of Tiberian Dawn:

Plays like an incredibly ♥♥♥♥♥ version of starcraft. Attacking enemy bases is terrible because unit creation times are so short enemies can just generate the exact force to kill you as soon as you attack. Unit pathfinding is garbage. Computer opponents perfectly control units, but you yourself cannot command your units to move within a 500 foot radius of opponents since the attack command will be selected instead. Maybe modernize this crap to have an actual UI and standard RTS controls when you remaster it? I don't care how old it is.

Here is my continued review after having beaten both campaigns in Tiberian Dawn:

Like 25% of missions are actually pretty fun. The other 75% demand you do very specific things to win the mission just as the devs intended. Often you must save constantly to make sure you aren't screwed suddenly. The missions where you have a base to build up at least allow for more strategy and sometimes fun by putting sandbags all over the map to control where the enemy NPCs will go (this can be amusing) but the enemy reacts way too robotically to everything just as I said earlier.

Here's my review of Red Alert 1 around halfway through the campaigns:

Way friggin better than Tiberian Dawn. Units move so much more snappily and you can actually control them while fighting opponent units to run over infantry or move quickly to reduce damage. I miss sandbag creep but I guess it's not completely gone because silos can do that in a similar way. Missions in the campaign I'm about halfway through are so much more nuanced and interesting, having multiple parts often and allowing you to approach the problem in your own way. So far, I recommend this one, but not Tiberian Dawn. I will edit when I finish both campaigns of this game for the verdict.

EDIT: Continued review of Red Alert 1 after finishing both Campaigns:

There were only one or two painful missions in the main campaigns and otherwise if you know the layout of the map and any special gimmicks for the mission you can strategize your own way to beat them. The missions are designed better in that way. It's rare for opponents to constantly and immediately rebuild whatever you destroy, where in Tiberian Dawn this was almost guaranteed. That's one huge annoyance gone. If I wanted to get a PvP-like experience I would be playing PvP.

And additional info after having finished all the side missions in the two games:

The side missions are around 50% kind of pointless and 50% cool. Red Alert's side missions actually have new units in around half of them, so they have unique gameplay you won't see in the campaigns. Not so much in Tiberian Dawn. Again, I'd say play Red Alert 1 and avoid Tiberian Dawn.

This game friggin rocks. Although I feel it goes a tad bit too overboard on the last level in difficulty.

I like how time stops when you quickswap your armor, letting you decide what to use on the fly without too much risk. Although when you try to "speedrun" levels, I just wish it stopped the timer during swapping as well. Sometimes swapping super fast doesn't work because you have to input directions after opening the quickswap, it won't detect if you hit the direction slightly too early.

This was a pretty fun platformer overall with fun movement and lots of abilities. Often the levels are kind of like little puzzles in figuring out what is the best armor to use at every part of it.

Anyway 90% of the levels are really fun in design. I just don't like the sailboat level, mainly the timed version of it. It's such a drag having to wait for the sailboat only to die to the boss. Contrary to what a lot of people said I really like the lava level. You can zoom through it when you know what to do and it feels really fluid.

This game rules. It's the gameplay Scorn should have had. I'd play this game 200 times over than even glance at Scorn again.

Fun shooting, cool aesthetic, and pretty cool story as well.

Only gripe: I had to backtrack to the dark area after beating the boss there, and couldn't get out of it since a passageway closed off after the boss was beaten. Had to put in a fly cheat to get out of it without having to reload save.

1. Game just stops, doesn't end
2. Basically no closure for any of the characters except 1
3. Overly reliant on references, even having entire sections of levels as one big reference, and side characters that are just characters from other games with a different name
4. Too many walking simulator segments at the end of the game, where you are forced to walk slowly down a linear path

It's fairly fun but every single dialogue piece is either:
-A pun/quip that is usually only marginally funny
-A reference to some pop culture thing instead of original ideas

Please for the love of god just come up with your own ideas instead of just referencing stuff directly and blatantly all the time.

This game rocks, the variety of weapons and the combat is just fun, and dying isn't a big deal because you can always get a bunch more money by just forging ahead.

I just was trying to figure out if there is even credits or a final boss in the game, or if it just stops. I couldn't find the last boss in the final area, just the "secret lab" and a dead end.

My only complaints would be the music is a bit limited but not too bad, and that the game needs more sound effects, like when the laser hazards shoot, elevators raise, etc. rather than just interactions with enemies having sounds. Also, although there is very limited text in the game, it needs a bit better translation as some of the lines are a bit broken English, but at least understandable. Oh and the ending as mentioned. But I had a lot of fun for such a cheap game.

Get it on sale since it's only around 3 hours long but it's a very creative spooky dreamlike game with intuitive and creative puzzles. Gotta love amanita design's style mixed with short and sweet gameplay.

"Find the interaction point in 100 pointless interaction points that is now no longer pointless due to something you did" simulator, whose only selling point is cool visual direction. However this visual direction doesn't have any sort of innovative gameplay element. It really only affects the animations of absolutely banal puzzles. Wow, instead of putting a key in the slot you put your hand in a fleshlight to unlock the door, what an innovation. Instead of starting with the ability to punch since you have arms and fists to begin with, you get a fleshlight that punches (and is also another key to put in the one million keyholes). You get a gun, but it's a fleshlight! How about some more nuanced, more interesting new tools for puzzling?

The combat is pointless. Hit every hit and be almost guaranteed to get hit while doing so because you have slow movement and have to attack up close 90% of the time. Save your gun for the larger enemies and either hit every single bullet you have in a clip or get hit yourself many times. It's just a chore, something you groan about having to do because it's so bereft of fun. Combat shouldn't be designed exclusively as a "health tax". You fight enemies so the game designer can say the health mechanic has a point, not because it actually makes the game more fun. WHY IS THERE 5000 ENEMIES SUDDENLY EVERY TIME I GET HEALTH OR AMMO YOU CAN'T F*CKING ACTUALLY REPLENISH YOUR RESOURCES EVER
WHY DOES IT TAKE 3 SECONDS TO LEVEL A WEAPON AT MY ENEMY WHEREAS THEY DO IT INSTANTLY

The lack of music really makes this game even more boring than it should be. I have very little drive to wander around this game when there is basically no background music whatsoever. Copying and pasting Resident Evil 0's soundtrack onto this game randomly would have made it 30% more fun to play. Stop with these "ambient" games with no appeal to game's audio experience other than "the sounds sound accurate to what is happening".

No matter how hyper realistic games advertise to be, if I walk up to a wall, it will still have an incredibly blurry texture up close. It's almost like having stylized graphics is superior to imitating real life because it can't actually be replicated in computer generated graphics

I can tell the people who made this game just stopped caring at some point and released this crap

I firmly believe that if you want to make a puzzle game like this, just make the game auto move to the next puzzle element, instead of making the player walk for 20 minutes between them 500 times. Or introduce actual fun gameplay in between.

Love this series. Puzzles are sometimes easy, sometimes more nuanced, but not super hard. Got stuck a couple times finding the other endings but not too bad. Love the visuals and the feel of messing around with mechanical contraptions in dimly lit studies. Inject that aesthetic into my veins

My only complaint is make movement between areas considerably faster after you've done it once. The extra endings require you moving back and forth in the hub many times and these transitions are rather slow. Similarly, make an indicator that shows when you can click or interact, aka when a movement animation is done. A bunch of times I missed that you could use an item on something because I was still in a movement animation when I dragged the item over where it was meant to be used, and the game wouldn't let me use it during movement, confusing me.