What was Flash Player?

Flash player was a popular software for displaying multimedia content in the browser. This included videos, audio, animations and also small games. Some of the most popular include line rider (a simple game where you draw the hill for a sled rider to ride down), Desktop tower defense (a classic tower defense game), the original cookie clicker, crush the castle (a more realistic version of Angry birds) but also simple multiplayer games like territory wars. Furthermore, the early bloon tower defense ran in the browser using flash player the same way the popular, quite violent mini sandbox game happy wheels made its way onto many screens across all homes and schools :).

To sum it up, flash player was the solid foundation to many of the fun early day browser games that we know till today.

But why was it discontinued?

By bringing so much fun to the people and therefore traffic and more importantly money to computers around the world, one would rightfully ask why Adobe Flash player was turned off in December 2020. Although many reasons lead to the final decision, the Flash player had serious security reasons that made computers using the software very prone to hacking. With increasing age more and more vulnerabilities came to light and the amount of developers using flash player for their projects decreased with it. Therefore in 2017 Adobe finally decided it was not worth it to keep Flash player running and discontinued it.

Bring back the memories

But don’t worry all the memories are not gone forever! The free open source software Flashpoint Archive allows you to download a separate, easy to use environment in which you can use, download and play thousands of old Flash Player games! The environment itself is only taking up around 3GB of space while the individual game themselves are obviously just a few MB as they were meant to be played in Browsers. You could even download the whole archive with more than a Terabyte of old Flash Player games.

Check out this free to use portal to old times of the internet and play some of you favorite childhood games!

Get Flashpoint archive:

This article is not advertisement for Flashpoint archive. The following links are not affiliate links.

Counter-Strike fans, are you ready for some big news? There is a strong possibility that Counter-Strike 2 (CS2), the long-awaited sequel to the legendary first-person shooter, will be released tomorrow, on September 27, 2023. This is not a joke. There is some solid evidence that supports this theory, and we are here to share it with you. In this blog post, we will tell you why we think CS2 is coming next week, and what you can expect from the game.

Update 20.45 UTC: CS2 just got released. Restart your Steam client and update CSGO to play!

Update 20.15 UTC: All CSGO servers as well as the matchmaking server infrastructure is currently down. It is likely that Valve updates these currently. Due to this, the current ESL Pro League Match also needs to play on local servers resulting in no weapon skins and no M4A1 for CT.

Update 18.50 UTC: We still have no confirmation but with the recent activity on the CS2 X account and a few speculations based on the past launches of Valve games, CS2 or a Open beta of it could be released around 21.00 UTC!

What points to a CS2 release tomorrow?

Posts on X/Twitter

There are multiple small signs showing that a release on 27.09.2023 is very likely. The main reason coming from the original source itself is a cryptic post from the CS2 account on the platform X (formerly Twitter):

What are you doing next Wednesday?

— CS2 (@CounterStrike) September 20, 2023

With this post, Valve the company behind the Counter Strike genre, is probably teasing something quite big for coming Wednesday and lets be honest what else than the official release of the follow up to one of the most well known E-Sport titles could it be. They also shared a video of the CS:GO logo being painted over by the CS2 logo.

Update 18.45 UTC: Valve also updated the banner on their CS2 X account. It now displays “Dawn of a new Day” implying that something big is going to change today!

Twitch Update

But that’s not all. There are other clues that point to the same conclusion. For example, Twitch has removed CSGO from its library of games and replaced it with a new category called Counter-Strike. This category includes both CSGO and the CS2 limited test, which is a beta version of CS2 that some players have access to. Twitch also shared a video on X showing the same logo transition as Valve’s tweet. This suggests that Twitch is preparing for the launch of CS2 and that CSGO will be replaced by CS2 soon.

Data miners

Another piece of evidence comes from data miners who have found more codes related to CSGO hidden inside the latest Dota 2 update. Dota 2 is another game by Valve that uses the Source 2 engine, which is the same engine that CS2 will use. The data miners found codes that refer to maps, weapons, skins, and gameplay mechanics of CS2. These codes indicate that Valve is testing some features of CS2 in Dota 2.

In the end all these clues point to the same direction: Counter-Strike 2 is coming on September 27, 2023.

What can we expect from Counter-Strike 2?

We already did a first look review of the CS2 beta on here but lets summarize the most important features shortly:

• Source 2 engine: CS2 will use Valve’s latest game engine, Source 2, which offers better graphics, performance, physics, sound, and modding capabilities.
• Sub-tick updates: CS2 will introduce a new technology called sub-tick updates, which will make the game more responsive and accurate. Sub-tick updates will let servers know the exact instant that motion starts, a shot is fired, or a grenade is thrown.
• Smoke grenades: CS2 will overhaul smoke grenades with volumetric smoke technology, which will create realistic and dynamic smoke effects. Smoke grenades will also have different properties depending on their type and location.
• Maps: CS2 will feature revamped maps that will take advantage of Source 2’s capabilities. Some maps will be unchanged or slightly tweaked (such as Dust II), some maps will be upgraded or overhauled (such as Overpass or Mirage), and some maps will be entirely new (such as Inferno or Cache).
• Furthermore Audio and UI will get a reworked and refreshed look.

How can I play CS2?

After the release Counter Strike 2 will be available on the Steam store. The same as CSGO it is expected to be free and available to everyone. However, it should be noted that with better graphics quality comes the need for a more powerful graphics card.

Conclusion

Counter-Strike 2 is the most exciting thing to happen to the Valve game lineup in years. It is a massive upgrade that will bring new life and innovation to the classic shooter. It is also a game that fans have been waiting for a long time, and it might be closer than we think. Based on the evidence that we have gathered, we believe that Counter-Strike 2 will be released on September 27, 2023. We can’t wait to see what Valve has in store for us with this game!

Get the original CSGO:

In this article I share some impressions from Street Fighter 6 and tell you my opinion on this soon to be released 2d fighting game. The game is part 6 in a series of games starting in 1987 developed by Capcom. I tried the free Demo version of the game that is currently available. The base game is supposed to cost 60€.

The general idea is to fight against AI or player controlled enemies using different attacks and blocking mechanisms.

Things I like

The demo lets you try 2 of 3 modes: Fighting Grounds, where you can fight against other players locally or against AI (you only have one character unlocked to play) and the World Tour, where you create your own character and need to complete quests to get stronger.

The graphics are pretty realistic and the game has a nice art-style for animations and character introduction screens. The music matches the style and has a catchy vibe to it, especially during the start of a battle in the “Fighting Grounds” mode.

If you play the Word Tour mode you’ll find a complex character editor with many possibilities to make your character look just like you want it to. The world tour mode is pretty cool as it offers an more or less open-world experience in the “Metro City” where you’re able to challenge strangers on the street, purchase new items and need to complete missions.

The tutorials are really detailed and introduce you to the basics of the game. This helped me a lot as I have never played a fighting game in this style before and still struggled to keep up. Another cool feature is the ability to change between classic and modern input mode where keybindings are set to single keys instead of the classic way of pressing combinations of arrow keys.

There is a story behind the game (at least in the world tour mode) and different fights are connected with cutscenes and quests. This rounds the game off well and makes the difference to a simple fighting game.

Things I don’t like

For a beginner there are way to many buttons to learn and remember if you’re just getting started and I often found myself just pressing keys, hoping to knock out my opponent. That being said I think if you invest some time into the game you can get good rather fast.

The movement in the open world felt a bit snappy and too fast. During important cutscenes the protagonist and the other characters talk normally but during for example conversations with other characters you just hear single word and need to read the dialogue box. Nothing major just a bit weird in my opinion.

Conclusion

Feel free to leave your own opinion on the game or constructive criticism in the comments below this article.

Story – rocket goes brrrrr

“Sandbox games don’t have a story”… but Kerbal space program is no normal sandbox. Upon releasing you to your new home Kerbin, which is a planet inhabited by a small green humanoid species, it is your job to advance the space program of these cute beings. While managing the finances, the scientist teams, the rocket design, and the final launch of rockets you need to expand the spaceport on Kerbin to help the Kerbals leave their planet and master the whole solar system.

This story might sound weird at first glance but immediately brings out the inner child in everybody remotely interested in space flight and airplanes. So should you be tired by boring repetitive sandbox and simulation games then Kerbal Space Program might be worth a try as it challenges the players capabilities for creative and technical thinking.

Furthermore, you will also learn a lot of knowledge about how real rockets work as the game is, despite its cartoonish graphics, extremly accurate when it comes to rocket physics, aerodynamics, orbits and the control of the spaceships.

Gameplay

The two main game modes are the campaign mode, where you are the chief of a whole space port facility and need to manage everything from the engineering department all the way to the hiring of new workers, and the sandbox mode. In the sandbox you are as in most sandbox games free to do whatever your imagination allows. Both modes are really fun. The third possible game mode is the science mode which is similar to the campaign mode but more focused on the science gathering and exploring aspect of the game.

Since I like to play around with the different rocket parts, I particularly like the sandbox mode, which to my surprise is still fun even after many hours and at the same time capable to playfully explain the physics behind rockets. Apart from building rockets and propelling them into orbit you are also able to build satellites, rovers, spaceplanes, helicopters and much more. You can leave your creative imagination full freedom and build the spaceships of you dreams.

Graphics – you can see the years

As the game already has a successor named Kerbal space programm 2 that’s currently in the beta test phase you can’t expect all too much from a game that was released in 2011. Especially when looking at the environment of the basic spawn planet Kerbin you will quickly realize that the textures and surface relief have gotten quite a bit below the standard of today’s video game industry.

Nevertheless, the game still looks fine considering that its main aspect are the physics. Don’t be misled by its age though. KSP still manages to bring modern higher end graphics cards to its limits. Mostly due to the extensive physics rendering on many parts of the rocket simultaneously.

Mods

As many sandbox games Kerbal Space Program also allows for extensive mod use which resulted in the community creating a lot of them. Like Minecraft, this has helped keeping the game alive by allowing the community to interact with the game more than it would be otherwise possible.

Especially with a game that is oriented at a complicated and constantly evolving topic (such as rocket science) this comes in useful as people started to implement the new technology that emerged over the years into the game and thus keeped the engagement of the players constantly high. In recent years there even have been rebuilds of the enormous SpaceX Starship! Furthermore, there are mods reaching from graphics enhancements to completely new parts in the game making it possible to customize and expand the possibilities in nearly all categories the video game has to offer.

Conclusion

Kerbal Space Program is the perfect game for everyone who is interested in science and space. Furthermore, it offers a great and playful way to learn the physics and engineering marvels behind rockets. Even though the successor has already been released we would still recommend you this classic sandbox game if you can find it on a sale.

Get Kerbal Space Program:

Not every Valve game was as polarizing as the usual classics Half life, Portal and Counter strike. One example not many people could list when it comes to the famous publisher is the Left 4 Dead series. Let’s take a closer look at it and figure why its fame had lasted not very long and it was eventually left for dead but also why I would still recommend you to play it if you like dark horror shooters.

Story – Epidemic gone bad

As you can guess from the stylized name, in Left 4 Dead you play as one out of 4 available characters that need to survive a zombie acapolypse. Actually the group should be saved but was Left 4 Dead in the city as the help departed before they could arrive at it. Facing their fate the immune group realises that there is no other way than to fight by all means through the herd of zombies to get to safety. This basics for this story get told by an intro before the actual game. The game itself focuses more on the zombie fighting aspect but if you manage to win you will reach the goal of surviving the acapoyplse by fleeing and being saved.

Left 4 Dead 1 and Left 4 Dead 2 – Where is the difference?

The Left 4 Dead series consist of two games released a year apart from each other (2008 and 2009). Resulting out of the short timespan between the two there is no real difference in graphics quality such as with Portal 1 and 2. They also feature the same basic game mechanics. Furthermore though L4D2 actually has a few more elements such as more zombies and more options regarding the weapons.

Although they are quite similar Left 4 Dead 1 also features an overall darker and creepier atmosphere with all the levels happening at night where you are dependent on the light of your flashlight. You need strong nerves for this one. Especially when a zombie starts sprinting to you while you turn your small flashlight into a different direction. In contrast to this Left 4 Dead 2 took a more bright approach with much more light in the map design.

The following points therefore count for both of the games if not otherwise stated. Later I will also give out an recommendation which of the two you should choose and, if you are interested, buy in the end.

Graphics – as realistic as possible

When you are familiar with the games Valve released in the early 2010th you can guess that both the Left 4 Dead games of course ran on the source engine. This gives especially the first L4D the ability to play a bit with the darkness and small lightsources in it. They both look quite good although L4D2 seems like a more friendly version of L4D1 with more comic textures and brighter elements. This was propably Valves way of hoping to make a rather hardcore horror shooter to a more mass friendly product. It should also be said that the graphics aren’t detailed and realistic enough to make the game repulsive. You won’t see much more than a little blood.

Even thought the games were just released a year apart from each other when comparing the games side by side you will find that L4D2 looks a bit more refined especially when paying attention to the texture details.

L4D 1 on the left and L4D 2 on the right

Sound – simply horrifying

The most horrifying aspects of the game though are not the graphics but the screeching and bone wrecking screams of the zombies. When walking through a seemingly empty region the music also lets the player know when there is danger comming. This kind of early warn system is also perceptible when a new wave of zombies rushes to the location you should defend making it easy to prepare for it. Furthermore there is the innocent weeping of the witch which, as the name implies, is not so innocent as it might seem. Once learning this the hard way you will be terrified upon hearing the crying sound of this enemy.

Gameplay – Zombie goes Boooooom

In the beginning you choose a character out of 4 with who you are going to go through the selected adventure. There are multiple possiblitys such as a PvP (zombie vs surviver [L4D2]) mode, a survival mode where you need to survive as long as possbile against a infinite amount of zombie waves, a realism mode or the classic campaign mode.

In the classic campaign mode you are running from safe room to safe room making you way to the final help. During this voyage you and your teammates kill many zombies using different weapons and heal themselfes and each other when in need. As you might imagine this concept gets a bit repetitiv after a few rounds even with a change of enemys and place.

On the other hand this simplicity also makes it super easy to get used to so you can have fun with L4D within a few minutes of playtime making it perfect for letting a bit of steam off after a hard work day where your concentration isnt at its maximum anymore. As the game is also quite easy feasible on normal difficulty you dont need to think much about any tactics.

Multiplayer – the key element!

The key element for having a good time in Left 4 Dead is the multiplayer as it makes exponentially more fun with friends around. This especially goes very good hand in hand with the strong need for teamwork in the game mechanics such as rescuing a friend from a herd of enemys.

Apart from your friends there is still a tiny active community playing L4D which results in an actually still acceptable waiting time for matchmaking (when you are lucky).

Success – How did L4D hold up against time?

As other Valve games from the time such as Portal set very high expectations regarding the impact of games on the gaming community one could argue that Left 4 Dead kind of lags behind. This is due to multiple factors but as I already mentioned the most important one is the quite repetitive gameplay making the game boring after just a few hours. Also the lack of a really good and elaborated story as well as the lack of good and competitive multiplayer make it hard for Left 4 Dead to stand out amongst titles with incredibly good story such as Portal and really well tuned competitive multiplayer elements such as CS:GO.

Now even though it has its shortcomings I would still recommend you to give it a try as the price is really cheap and you will have a fun time with friends for a few hours.

Summary

Left 4 Dead is an action rich horror shooter that features a fun multiplayer, great graphics for the time and a quite horrifying sound design. The game mechanics though become a bit repetitive and boring after a few rounds as they mostly consist of just destroying zombies over and over again.

As with all Valve games Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 are both integrated in the Valve complete pack which also comes with the Portal series and Half life making them an extremely good deal at a Steam sale for 7 for all of these games.

In the end I would recommend you to buy Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 at a Steam sale within the Valve complete pack but if you want to play now and are not too fearful I do recommend getting Left 4 Dead 1 as it is simply the more original with a darker and spookier atmoshphere underlining the genre better.

Get Left 4 Dead here:

Portals – “Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing goes out”

The game mechanic is based on a concept in which you as the player has the ability to put “portals” in the world through which you can travel. This can be though of as a seamless teleportation where you walk into a blue portal and get out wherever you placed the orange one. You can also see through them meaning when looking in the blue one you see where the orange one takes you. The game experiements with this idea and elaborates on it in many ways so that you are quite forced to exploit the different game mechanics to solve the puzzle. As a tip for starters: the portals also dont affect inertia. Resulting in you shooting out the portal when you fall into the other one.

Story – The cake is a lie!

A puzzle game review starting with the story aspect? As weird as it sounds but in Portal the puzzle aspect blends so seamless with the incredibly well told story that you dont quite realize when your actually solving a puzzle.

In portal you play a silent protagonist called Chell waking up in a cell with absolutely no orientation or information. You will quickly get introduced to the Portal game mechanic and the only voice you will hear in this game: GLADoS. This super intelligent AI computer has complete control over the place you find yourself in. After getting introduced to the basic game mechanics and how to figure out the portal gun you are getting thrown in test chambers which seem extremely clean and empty. Progressively you will get more information about the place you find yourself in, why it seems so empty, who keeps you caught in this place and whats up with the cake. In the end you might actually find a friend in this place…

Graphics – Source engine strikes again

The graphics are, as with most Valve games from the time, really good. This is mainly due to the source engine which is also powering CS:GO. Upon playing you will realise that the textures are a bit monotone and that the environment looks a bit dull. I personally think though that this is not a bad thing at all considering the setting of the game. Futhermore the game challenges you enough so that you never start to think about where the graphics should be heavily improved. Hence they still look fine by todays standards. Dont have to high expectations though.

If you have a powerful enough graphics card you can take a look a Portal RTX which is a free extension for everyone who own the base game.

Sound – „Please be advised that a notecible taste of blood is not part of any test protocol“

The only main character in the game speaking is the robotic voice of GLADos which is absolutely iconic. While you try to solve the puzzle GLADoS likes to make dark humor jokes about you failing. Apart from that though there are the fantastic ambient sounds and background music. While exploring the facility you can hear the sound of the pistons going up and down, the blowing and turning of a giant fan, and in generall a lot of mechanical hissing and screeching sounds. The music also enriches the dark setting of the giant construction and even induces feelings of horror regarding the constant surveillance and the feeling of not being alone at the same time as being incredibly solitary in the vast corridors.

Moreover there are also the famous portal radios placed all over the map giving the game play but even more so the story a bit more character with their easily recognizable melody. Last but not least I shall not forget the very cute turrets that get not so cute when they see you. All these elements make the game as a unity very immersive and even though there is no real dialog feel very life like if that is even possible to say for such a sciencefi thematic.

Gameplay experience – Portal here, portal there

The main aspect of the game revolves around you getting transfered to a test chamber that you have to solve using the portal gun. These puzzles are not too difficult to accomplish but are just right to give you the dopamin boost your brain is longing for when solving problems. Once finishing it you get into an elevator and get transported to the next one. To not make this feel endless and without a goal you are always told that you will get a cake by the end.

At the beginning of each level you are also shown the number of the test chamber you are in and how many to go until the end. After a few levels this makes you really want to grind through the do able number of available test chambers. The chambers themself also dont get too boring as they incorporate increalingly more elements and hold many surprises. You also may want to be careful while peeking around the next corner!

Summary

Portal offers a great experience blending a shooter vibe (portal gun) and puzzle solving elements with a great lore that really lets you want to play the successor Portal 2 after finishing the game. I can totally recommend it for people who usually dont play puzzle games but want a fun and easy to understand game mechanic delivered with a bit of action and a deep story getting revealed as you dive into the Portal (Aperture Science) & HalfLife (Black Mesa) universe. As a side note it is also very cheap on a Steam sale as it is inside the Valve complete pack so i totally recommend you to get it through these means.

Get Portal here:

A pixel art dream – Game appearance

You play in a very beautiful drawn “pixely” environment with a static table in the middle. During battle there also some very nice fight animations.

The music is amazing but some of the sound effects like the fight completion sound can get annoying when you hear them to often.

Because of the pixel graphics and the fact that the pc version was “created”/published after the mobile version this can run on nearly any device.

Kill X in Y – Gameplay and Story

The base game took me around 8 hours to complete and the expansions another 8. With the expansions you just unlock new quest, characters, items and map areas. The basic gameplay idea is always the same: Quest mostly evolve around killing a certain amount of monster either for their loot or just for the sake of it. Sometimes you just need to talk to certain npc and travel or transport some items from A to B. Characters are controlled using buttons so you only need a mouse to play this game

In Knights of Pen and Paper 2 you travel around the land of Papero to different locations with different monster, NPCs and quests.
The main goal in the base game is to defeat the paper knight who wants to take over the world you are playing in. In the DLCs there are other story lines but I don’t want to spoil too much as it’s way more fun to discover it for yourself.

You can sleep nearly everywhere to regain health points and energy. There also also dungeons in which you can’t heal and need to clear rooms on multiple floors to gain rewards. These are hard to clear at the beginning but a good source of experience points when you need a higher level for a quest. While traveling you might also stumble across some hidden encounters or ambushes.

Experience points are earned by completing quests and battles. If you gain enough for a level up you can invest skill points. Every character has two active and two passive skills you can improve and two normal passive skills. In the beginning its a good idea to concentrate on one skill for each character so you can use them effectively.

Your efficiency in battle is also based on health and energy stats and your battle values are calculated based on the 3 attributes: Body, Senses and Mind. You can increase these later in the game using certain equipment but it is import to choose the “right” combination of character class, race and type.

The fights themself vary in difficulty so I recommend picking up a healer quite early in the game and getting a good single target damage dealer.

A shop can be found in the major cities/villages where you can buy and sell items and ingredients you need or want to get rid of. If you don’t want to sell your precious items you can put them in a stash that can also be accessed in the major cities.

Speaking of ingredients: There is a crafting system in the game that you can use to make special weapons and enchant them.

Beat the Virtual out of Reality – Grind

If you’re playing on Steam there are 33 achievements to get. I would say 32 of them are doable in a normal play-through.

One of them being the “Beat the Virtual out of Reality” achievement requires a lot of grind and cost me around 5 hours to do after I completed the game story wise. You basically need to complete the whole Bestiary which is a ingame book that tells you weaknesses and other traits of monsters. To complete it you need to kill 30 of each monster which is easy on lower level but annoying once you get to higher level monster.

The other problem is that you need some expansions to get all achievements. The only game expansion you are able to buy on steam is “Here be dragons” for around 5€. I was able to purchase the other 2 expansions with ingame currency. So I recommend checking the “Magazine” button in the top left corner first to see if you’re able to get the “Here be dragons” expansion for ingame money.

Conclusion

If you like pixel style game check out our review about Minecraft.

Get Knights of Pen and Paper 2 here

In a world of endless options, where new games are released every day, one game stands tall above the rest. A game that has captured the hearts and minds of players of all ages and backgrounds. A game that has become a cultural phenomenon, a household name, and a true masterpiece of the digital age. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the definitive computer game of the last 15 years: Minecraft.

Now apart from this overdramatic intro there really are not many people who have never heard of this gem of video game software. In the following I will explain why there will not be a more successful game in the forseable future.

What makes Minecraft so successful

As of now Minecrafts selling numbers speak for themselfs when it comes to evaluating the success of the game. With a good space to the second place GTA V (which is an absolute mess right now) Minecraft sold 238 million copies and therfore ranks as the top selling game till now.

Minecrafts unique selling points

Upon looking at the seemingly simple game consisting of blocks, in todays world one would ask why someone would play something with such bad graphics when the new GPU generation can litterally render photorealistic games in real time with RayTracing. But there is so much more behind the facade that lets the player forget the poor graphics and dive into the game. In short the main contributing aspects to this are:

1. a super unique concept thats simple and easy to understand
2. an extreme surreallity that provides its own world to escape to
3. a mind boggling room for creativity
4. the best multiplayer experience of any video game till today
5. an endless possiblity of modifications that are even welcomed by the developer

Your own world

“Im gonna create a new world” is a term that describes starting a new world in Minecraft. Apart from Mojangs naming scheme this subconsciously describes the way players see Minecraft as its own world where youre the god over space and time.

This posibility to modify everything also deeply satisfies the inner will of humans to shape the environment around them. In Minecraft your not only able to dig a 50m deep hole in to the ground but you can change your surroundings from weather to your location to your house to the literal dimension you are in. The only limitiation is flowery said your own imagination. Even tho there are many sandbox games the majority of them is in some kind of frame limited to a special genre or theme. With Minecraft you are completly free to do whatever you want. From building houses out of dirt to spaceships.

Real Multiplayer

Islands of Kesmai (1984) was the first online multiplayer game, Minecraft managed to perfect the experience to play with your friends to infintiy. Until the Metaverse might some day become something useful and not the chaos it currently is Minecraft has the best Multiplayer/server option of any game released since. This is mostly because the Minecraft server code is freely available for everyone to download and to host on there own hardware with their own settings and modifications. This possibility for the community to improve and adapt the game to their own requirements (from small servers with friends to big servers like mineplex) has kept Minecraft alive for the long time since it had been released.

The Multiplayer mode also experienced a new upswing in popularity during the lockdowns as many could not see their friends for months and hosted their own Minecraft Servers so that they could play Minecraft with their friends over vast distances. Having also done this I can report that it is a lot of fun and you soon start to forget the surreal and abstract surrounding you are playing in. What makes this even better is the seamless intgration of the chat funktion and the really easy to learn commands which open the complete toolbox of the game to the user. Either way Minecraft servers and the possiblity to set them up so easy and host them on your hardware are a major factor that Minecraft hasnt been forgotten in the 14 years since its release.

Modifications

As with every piece of technology games are kept alive by an active community.

A good example is the PSVita which was an absolute financial flop for Sony but was later jailbreaked by the community and it was made possible to sideload any game on it you could think of. Is it to slow to run the game? No problem someone managed to overclock the chip and make it considerably faster. Playing at night and the display is to bright? How about a display hack that dims it below the normal threshold. Thanks to all these modifications the PSVita still has an active community till today.

This same principle can be applied to Minecraft with the execption that Mojang allowed really early into the development that their game could be completly modified by external mods from the community. The fact that there are tens of thousands Minecraft mods with new ones being added every day is a true testament to the flexibility and the strength of an active community with over 140 million active users each month.

Nerd talk

Now with this love letter out of the way there are also a few technical things about minecraft that are just on another level.

Regarding the standard Java edition for PC, Minecraft might very well be the most effiecient piece of software ever written in Java, a language that is not really known for peak performance. This and that Mojang/Microsoft ist still developing the Java Edition, a software written 14 years ago in a probably poorly choosen language lets one admire the endurance and the software engineering skills of the developing team behind Mojang studios.

Conclusion

When looking at Half-Life, one of these late 1990s computer games, one of todays generation might find it hard to appreciate how advanced it really was for its time. To put this a bit more into perspective, 1998 was the same year:

• the american space shuttle flew its first part into orbit to build what should later be the most expensive human treassure: the International Space Station
• the indispensable search engine Google, with whichs help you probably found this website, was founded
• the most performant home PC processors the Intel Pentium II had about the processing power of a smart watch

Having this historicall context in mind really shows how early in computer development Half-Life was. The earlier mentioned Intel processor managed to get a Geekbench score of around 126. The IPhone 15 got a benchmark score of over 15.000… Having explained the general proccessing power conditions you can obviously expect not the highest end RayTracing graphics from Half-Life ;). Therefore when you read this review and I talk about revolutionary graphics you need to put this in the context of its time.

Story

Half-Life is a game setting in a alternate history timeline where you play Gordon Freeman, a scientist who works at the Black Mesa Research Facility in New Mexico. One day, he participates in an experiment that goes wrong and opens a portal to an alien world called Xen. Aliens start invading the facility and Freeman has to fight his way out. Along the way, he encounters many different people and aliens, some friendly some evil, until he faces the root of it all…

The whole story is told through the NPCs you interact with and the environment itself and therefore has no need for long cutscenes.

Graphics

The graphics of HL were really on a completly other level compared to its competitors at the time. Even when looking at it today you will find that the graphics have aged well enough to still play it in 2023. The whole game runs on Valves freshly developed Goldsource game engine which offered exeptionall variety in lighting and even implemented colorfoul iluminations which takes the immersion on a much more natural level.

Sound

Apart from the Graphics the sound design in Half-Life was so unique that it is still used today in the meme culture and definitely hasnt been forgotten in the last 25 years. As with the graphics, the sound design seperated itself from the competition by being really clear with complex dialog as well as stunning sound effects for explosions.

Gameplay

One of the most impressive aspects of Half-Life is its gameplay mechanics. Compared to its competitors at the time, HL had much more, storytelling to offer and therefore took the immersion into the game to a complete different league.

When your not involved talking to the scientist at the Black Mesa Research Facillity you fight different kind of aliens and hostile soldiers trying to cover up the incident. For fighting you get a vast spectrum of weapons compared to one standard pistole that was normal for the time. HL also mixes both storytelling and figthing very good so that it neither gets boring nor overwhelming.

Legacy and Conclusion

The impact Half-Life had can not be exegerated. Not only set it new records in the game industry regarding nearly every aspect that makes a modern game great but more than that: it became a cultural icon. The main character Gordon Freeman and the incredibly recognizable sound effects had been refrenced in many fan games, memes, TV shows, movies and internet culture.

To this day, 25 years after its release, Half-Life still remains a must-play classic for anyone interested in the history of gaming or just looking for a great game to play. Apart from the historical context, anyone calling themself a gamer should play the original Half-Life once in their life! On a side note: its also dirt cheap on Steam sales.

Get Half-Life here:

If you liked this review check out our other latest game reviews.