Going through my old Steam reviews (Part 1)

Sometimes you forget things that you have done in your life - like I forgot Steam reviews I wrote years ago. I thought it would be fun to go through all of the small reviews I wrote between 2012 - 2014 and see, have my opinions changed or have I written just some smelly garbage. This is gonna be a few parts long blog series, so follow my Twitter (@MZ_plays_games) to stay tuned when the next part is published!

I had ''a concept'' with my reviews: few ''funny'' lines and a number rating with maximum being 10. These first ones are in Finnish and it seems that I've posted almost all of them during the same day.

Ah yes. Team Fortress 2, ''the lan-party dream game''. Back in 2012 younger me thought that TF2 is ''the best and funniest online FPS ever, which you can not get tired of, thanks to comic characters, many hats and mods. Especially when your team plays well together TF2 is one of the most addictive games ever!''

Well, is till think that TF2 is the best online FPS, though I haven't played it much lately because of the bots and because I found Overwatch, which have given me some of the same feeling that TF2 had when I started gaming. I have many good memories of TF2 and I don't think that any game can ever come close to it, but nowadays it is just a mess that is probably never gonna get cleaned up. And that's kinda sad.

Also 9/10? This game deserves 100/10!

Another online FPS that I hold dear, Day of Defeat: Source. I said that ''this Counter-Strike stylish WWII shooter is nice change to all the games that are based on the modern days.'' I think that what I wanted to say was that I was tired to both Battlefield and Call of Duty (and maybe CS itself) just releasing new games with boring modern day scenarios? 

''It's just awesome to walk towards the sunset in the Mojave wasteland with your follower. You should install the best mods so the game shines straight away.'' Very poetic, indeed. I don't really care about number ratings anymore, but how have I given to my all time favourite Fallout game only 9/10? I must have been sick on my head!

I think that Fallout games peaked on New Vegas. In fact I think that open-world games peaked on New Vegas - it has something that any game after or before haven't been able to achieve. But what exactly? I think that is a blog post for the future.

''Best part of the best game series. Realistic characters, great atmosphere, intelligent enemies and countless mods make sure that you return to Half-life 2 again and again.'' But as you can see, I haven't returned to this game after 2012, which is a shame as I think about this game almost everyday. I should replay it soon.

It seems that back in the day mods were a thing that I was looking out on the games. I miss that, because as I've grown older and smellier, I mostly want my games to be as finished as they can be - I sure enjoy bugs and glitches, but I have no time and energy to search for new content. 

Though nowadays I want to play older games on the consoles so I think it's okay.

”One of the best co-op games ever. Killing zombies with a good team is fun. Great setting and multiple weapons are the icing on a cake.” To this day Left 4 Dead 2 is my favourite zombie game - though I have played it less than it feels like. One of my best memories is going through the demo of the game and cutting zombies into pieces… It would be cool to relive those moments!

I think that with right mods Left 4 Dead 2 works as a great singleplayer experience - no special infected, no teammates, just you and hordes of undeads. It’s challenging and kinda scary as it’s pretty much game over if you die because there’s no-one to revive you.

Left 4 Dead 2 is one of the few games that I come back from time to time, playing few custom campaigns. During this pandemic it has been almost therapeutic experience.

That’s all for Part 1! Part 2 will probably be out in September.

''No one has rated this review as helpful yet.''

Why Half-Life 2 is my favorite game

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It was somewhere in 2009 when I first played Valve’s masterpiece, Half-Life 2. My gaming experiences before that were mostly demos of old games (Half-Life: Uplink, Worms, Turok) and Flash games so Half-Life 2 hit me like a truck. From the first time I arrived in the City 17, fought through Ravenholm and learned the secrets of this world I knew that this is something special - at least for me. These memories are dear to me and I notice that I want to relive those first times of playing this game again - they are some of my favorite memories and the feeling that I had playing Half-Life 2 for the first time is still something that no other game has been able to give me.

In Half-Life 2 you step on the shoes of Gordon Freeman, who’s trying to help the remaining human resistance to fight against Combine, an alien force that has been taken over the world after the 7 Hour War. Player is taken through the ruins of a world that is so familiar to us but now deserted: seas have been dried, humans can not give birth anymore and even most of the animals are gone. Gordon must fight his way to the Citadel, where local alien forces are controlling the City 17 and its remaining population. On his long way there he gets reunited with some old friends from the previous installment on Half-Life series, like Barney and Dr. Kleiner, and meets some new characters. Alyx, his trusty sidekick (or a real main character of the story?) is one of these. Gordon’s - and player’s - relationship with Alyx during the gameplay is something that stands out from the other games. All the characters in Half-Life 2 react somehow to the player and what they are doing, and especially Alyx on your side it really feels like you are there in the game world. That’s something that I haven’t really personally experienced with other games and I think the fact that the game has this uninterrupted flow within it makes it really stand out. With Half-Life 2 I don’t always feel like I am playing a game, it’s sometimes more like a book kind of experience - there is no jumping in and out from levels, no time spent in menus or anything like that. Everything just happens and you are part of it.

Physics are one thing that make Half-Life 2 stand out for me. I’ve been playing a lot of different games and how the game handles real life like physics is something that really is important for my personal gaming experience, especially in the FPS genre. There’s just something so special with the way Half-Life 2 and the Source engine handle physics that I always feel at home when I get to play games made with Source. I know how things work, I know what to expect and most importantly the feel of the game(s) feel right. And maybe this feeling of home is why Half-Life 2 to this day stays at my all time favorite game.