It was a Valve-tacular week, though I did miss a few ones (the Dota 2 Beta preview/review is halfway done but won't get finished tonight). It's been another busy week for me, so I didn't churn out the usual high number, but hey...I still covered the most important ones.

Next week isn't planned to have a theme. I'm already going to be super busy, but I have a few lined up that I really want to review (Age of Empires Online in particular) so expect that to pop up. I'm also hoping to review more retro games, so here's hoping that pulls through too.

Here's this week's batch!

Portal - 5 / 5 Stars

Portal 2 - 5 / 5 Stars

Left 4 Dead - 4 / 5 Stars

Left 4 Dead 2 - 4 / 5 Stars

Half-Life 2 - 3 / 5 Stars

Half-Life 2 Episode 1 - 3 / 5 Stars

Half-Life 2 Episode 2 - 4 / 5 Stars

See you next week!

Putting the Half Life 2 stuff as the lowest average of the bunch is likely to set off some ire. In retrospect, I'm inclined to agree (though I did not care for Portal 2), though it's been years since I played HL2.

@Little_Socrates said:

Putting the Half Life 2 stuff as the lowest average of the bunch is likely to set off some ire. In retrospect, I'm inclined to agree (though I did not care for Portal 2), though it's been years since I played HL2.

Half-Life 2 is still a landmark game, it just really hasn't aged well. I'd play any other Valve game I reviewed before burning through it again.

Though a lot of people disagree and still love it, which is fine. I just think it's really starting to show its age.

@theuselessgod:

I've never played a Half-Life game, despite having all of them on Steam. (They were gifts.) I agree with you that a game shouldn't be viewed with rose colored glasses just because it was influential. Hell, the first Grand Theft Auto was "influential," but you rarely, if ever, hear people mention it.