Recent reviews by Aemony

Half-Life: Source could've been amazingly awesome, but ended up being a tech sample to showcase how easily it was to port a GoldSrc game over to Source. In addition to that it also has a ton of bugs all over the place that doesn't exist or was patched in the original game ages ago.

When I initially gave it a try at release, I didn't last for much longer than the initial train ride. Once the train ride had concluded and I realized that the game truly did not have anything really new to bring to the table, I ended up dropping it and I wouldn't play it in its entirety until 21 years later.

The best that Half-Life: Source brought us wasn't anything connected to it itself, but was what it spawned, such as the amazing reimagining of Half-Life that is Black Mesa -- a game that initially began as two separate mods on a quest to do Half-Life: Source proper.

If you want to play and experience the original Half-Life properly, play Half-Life itself. After its 25th years anniversary update in 2023, it has been updated to work really well on modern hardware and still holds up quite well. If you want to experience a modern and much improved take on Half-Life (especially its Xen chapters), go and play Black Mesa instead.

Only play Half-Life: Source if you are bored and really want to try it out and see what all the fuzz was about.

It's Half-Life. While parts of the game feels worse than ever and haven't aged well at all (Xen!!!), the rest of the game is as great to play in 2025 as it was when it came out, if only to get a sense of where we started off and how far game design and first-person shooters have come over the last 25 years.

My main suggestion is to disable OpenGL texture filtering to allow the beautiful pixel art textures to shine through as originally intended.

It is also a testament to the amazing fan reimagining Black Mesa's attention to detail where having only played through that in recent years, I still managed to quite quickly play through and finish the whole of Half-Life's original campaign in under 6 hours (average among players being 12 hours apparently).

Half-Life's marketing slogan at release was "Run. Think. Shoot. Live" and this describes the tighter combat encounters really well, in particular so for Xen based enemies with their generally slower attacks. But the slogan also applies well for earthbound enemies where if you want to lean into the combat you'll have to dodge in and out of corners, and push aggressively or fall back as needed.

But yeah, it's Half-Life. If you've never played it before, I'd recommend playing it as a sort of trip down history lane as its impact on the video games industry cannot be understated.

Dead Island 2 was in development hell for quite a lengthy period of time and was handed over between studios and developers every now and then, and so it is probably safe to assume that the game as a concept was restarted/reset too many times to count as well...

But despite all of that, the game we received is a damn fun zombie slaughter adventure and I'm having a blast playing! And the story is actually somewhat interesting, even, which I did not at all expect when I went into it.

Honestly speaking, having tested both this (14 hours atm) and Dying Light 2 (7 hours), I prefer and enjoy this game, Dead Island 2, the most out of both of them. The games are actually different enough from one another to the point where Dead Island 2 has shown that there is, in fact, room for both games on the market.

UPDATE:
Some 50 hours later, and I am finally mostly done with the single player experience. The DLCs had some surprising amount of content, and I must've probably spent some 10 hours at least in SOLA (it's a fun map, with fun elements).

The story, in total, across the main campaign and the two DLCs, ended up being quite interesting. It's a bit all over the place at times, but there's a ton on which can be built upon for a continuation of the story. And I really hope we do end up getting a sequel to this one !

I went blindly into it and was pleasantly surprised towards the end. Short but good that doesn't overstay its welcome. And it is insanely good when it comes to the UX/design department; the team really nailed a lot of those elements, to the point where I'd love to see larger games take notice and learn from this game.

It is in many games a modern game created for a modern audience, with many recognizable tropes and game designs popularized through other extremely popular games within the core gamer audience. But the game uses those elements in a fitting way, and never overuses them.

I'll admit that initially I really questioned this DLC and found it super frustrating, but the more I played the better I got the hang of it, and the more fun it became as a result.

The main issue with the DLC is that it lacks a proper tutorial to get used to the different motions, as well as learning or being reminded by the occasional downside of e.g. dashing (which can affect momentum to a stupid degree in some scenarios).

Both a refreshing continuation of the story as well as a nostalgic trip down memory lane, to my younger years playing surf levels in Counter-Strike.

Ultimately though I do recommend playing this. The gameplay, once you get the hang of it, can be quite enjoyable, and the challenge disappears at that point except for during combat sequences. The lore is extremely interesting, and is much, much, more in-depth than what you got from the main campaign. It is also clearly setting up for what a sequel game would focus on and why, as well as explains various previously unexplained phenomena you could experience in the main game.

A quite fun and different DLC, although hamstrung by the lack of a tutorial and its "into the depth you go" design straight from the start. It's a shame not more players give it more of a shot, but it is also understandable.

A continuation of one of the endings in the main game, Annihilation Instinct gives you more of the same core gameplay while also giving you more lore and insight into the events that transpired after the particular ending it is based on.

The combat is in initially times more challenging than the main game but once you get a few upgrades down the line you can still pretty much easily dispatch all but the boss fights quite quickly.

When I played through the main storyline I actually picked the other ending and not the one that leads to this one, but having played this follow-up, I'd actually more than enjoy another continuation along this path as it sounds like quite the interesting tale.

This ended up being an well made adventure with an interesting lore to boot as well. There are some shortcomings in the game, especially in how some of the game world seems to partially be unused in regards to main story segment (I missed out an entire area because no main mission brought me to that area), but all in all it was quite interesting and well worth the purchase.

Having played the game for an additional 15 hours through its two DLCs, I continue to be quite surprised and glad that this game got made, and that its developers aren't afraid to branch out and try new things. And so I am eagerly looking forward to the release of the final upcoming DLC as well!

This is a challenging one to review... On one hand, it's playable, and complete, and quite the achievement for a small team... But on the other hand there's other, better, mods out there, and the contents of this is in various ways a bit empty/basic...

Ultimately I do think this is an achievement for the mod team, but it is also an achievement that has not stand the test of time very well, and which is (rightly) overshadowed by its sequel, Entropy: Zero 2.

If you want a 2-3 hours short mod where you play as a Civil Protection cop, fight rebels, question your life's choices, and just in general questioning what the hell is going on, while simultaneously enjoying a couple of hours of some good ol' Half-Life 2 gameplay and combat, then this is the game for you. Though be aware of potential bugs, as there's quite some here and there. Even some enemy AI is weirdly broken, with for example the fast zombies being unable to even attack you if you stand on a staircase (???) for reasons I cannot understand... Oh well.

Anyway, in general I'd recommend playing the sequel, Entropy: Zero 2, over this one. The sequel has a much more in-depth and active storyline with different characters and a lot of dialogue, and an interesting narrative as well. It's combat is also more nuanced, and what they're doing with the Half-Life 2 lore is both immersive and works well. And best of all is probably that you don't need to play Entropy: Zero to understand or appreciate Entropy: Zero 2. In fact, I didn't even realize that game was a sequel to another game until after having finished the whole thing and looking it up online.

Quite the fun blast in the 8 hours it took me to play through it. It is a bit rough around some corners but it still shines quite a bit, and quite the achievement for so few developers. I had a memorable time with it!

Though... upon completing the game I realized this was a follow-up to another mod? Lol, I guess that explains the title -- I always assumed it was due to two clones running around. Well, definitely worth a play regardless!

This is a really fun game, but oh god why the hell haven't you fixed the stupid shotgun/DLC bug that leaves it inaccessible throughout the main campaign yet?! It's stupid that the bug still haven't been fixed, years after its introduction, and even various workarounds the player can try (e.g. console vars, restarting the chapter, etc) are unable to fix it for some of us. This means we are forced to play through the whole main campaign with a reduced arsenal, which also means some more ammo conservation needs to be taken into account at times.

I was almost of the mind to not recommend the game due to that stupid bug, but yes, the game is still quite fun. It would've just been even more awesome if I was allowed to use the stupid shotgun too, guys...