Genuinely did not think it would take me 38 hours to beat.

Lore is good, world is good. Level design suffers a bit from the designer not hand holding you and some puzzles were a little frustrating, but fine. Source engine jank with the physics doesn't work well with the tight, closed spaces that a lot of the levels are. Aesthetic is great, the developer is eccentric in a great way and I want to see more.

I don't write a lot of reviews but this game in particular really sticks with me and I feel I have to talk about it

I should also mention to anyone looking for an impartial review that I am very biased in favor of this game: I'm really big into Half-Life, source mods, David Lynch's Eraserhead, and dystopian sci-fi as a genre. It's like this game was cooked up in a test tube specifically to get me hooked. I have a lot of praise to give but I also should give criticism where it's due.

If I had to describe this game in a few words, I'd say "Half-Life 2 Beta but if it was Twin Peaks" which would be pretty accurate but also a disservice, since it's really so much more than that.

It kind of feels like if someone took a bunch of sci-fi tropes (sentient and intelligent AI rebelling against humanity, late-stage capitalist cyberpunk hellscapes, total ecological collapse and mass extinction, etc etc) and smushed them together into a disjointed but still mostly-cohesive narrative. It can get kind of jarring, almost like you're jumping from one to the other without seeing the satisfying conclusion you were hoping for, but I think it all comes together in a way that really fleshes out the setting and the world around you, and makes it feel more real. Ultimately, it's a story that doesn't give you all the answers, which can be dissatisfying. I like that some things are left up to the player's interpretation, but I can totally understand being disappointed.

As for the gameplay, it's fine, I guess? what can I say, it's Half-Life 2 again, but with NATO troops instead of Combine alien dudes, sexbots instead of zombies, psychokinetic powers instead of the Gravity Gun, the turrets from Portal 2 if they were less cute. Same AI, same behavior, just with different models, textures, sound effects, and place in the world. The design philosophy, on the other hand, is very different. People criticize the level design for being labyrinthine, and they're not really wrong. HL2 excels at subtly guiding the player the right direction so they don't get lost; G-String invites/encourages you to get lost in its winding tunnels and weird rooms nestled off to the side. I don't think this is a bad thing, it just requires a different mindset when playing thru it. It can be downright frustrating trying to figure which way is the next level and which is a dead end, but you get to sightsee and witness all the futuristic crazy crap goin on outside, and it is so, so much more detailed and visually striking than anything in HL2. you could probably chalk that up to the hardware limitations of the time, but even still, the game manages to push the Source Engine, as old and clunky and outdated as it is, to its absolute limits. I won't spoil anything, but there's some really creative and innovative usage of 3D Skyboxes, and some of the environments are so gorgeous and/or downright frightening that I have to stop what I'm doing and just gawk at the world around me. No exaggeration, it really is that good, it's honestly kind of shocking just how pretty they made a Source game look.

I should also get into the aforementioned Lynchian influence. The re-occuring red curtains room with the Laura Palmer-esque stand in for Alyx Vance is about as blatant as a reference as you can get. What really gets me though is this one chapter that takes place in a decrepit apartment complex. The sound and visual design is nothing short of incredible. You could totally imagine the chicken dinner scene happening behind any one of these doors you walk past. I cannot stress enough just how well this game manages to pull it off.

Finally, after all of that yapping about the standard review criteria, I just have to mention how utterly bizarre and totally bonkers this game is, and that there really isn't anything quite like it. You will never, ever see a mainline, canon Half-Life game that even comes close to how strange this game is. As much as I can heap praise on Valve, there isn't a chance in hell that, even if they wanted to, they would make a game where Gordon Freeman kills NATO soldiers and has a psychedelic adventure inside the Twin Towers, while repeatedly and explicitly calling out Elon Musk by name and making fun of his BS about colonizing Mars "for the sake of the human species" or whatever weak-ass public relations nonesense he comes with to try to clean up his image. Valve wouldn't have the stones to do it! It's just not gonna happen, and they're not even a publically traded company beholden to the whims of investors and stockholders. It's the same reason why they toned down the depressing (dare I say, dark and griddy) vibes of the HL2 beta. Ultimately, they want to appeal to the mainstream. I don't think that G-String *doesn't* appeal to a lot of people; after all, HL2 is one of the most beloved games of the past.... decades... but I just wanna throw out appreciation for a creative project that isn't afraid to get a little crazy with it.

Anyway, I hope that long rant was at least a little bit comprehensible. 9/10 game, thoroughly enjoyed, buy cigarettes, sell your organs to the government, support indie projects 'cause we all love a success story.

Getting killed multiple times by Snipers.
Throw grenades at them while laughing.
Then getting rushed by enemy troops.
Cry.
Throw grenades at them too.
Still die.
Try to rush. Easy and cool.
Game Crash: Run out of memory, because its 32bit application, will be fixed in the 64bit Version soon.

10/10 would rush again. (No seriously the game is very cool and this crash only happened once so far)