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Steam game reviews

Welcome to the present section where I write game reviews for Steam games. Consistency not guaranteed, but I'll do my best.

  1. Trials Evolution: Gold Edition (Steam ver.) (negative)
  2. Call of Duty: Black Ops II Zombies (negative)
  3. Call of Duty: Black Ops (negative)

Trials Evolution: Gold Edition (Steam version)

Not recommended / Review date: 2023/10/09

EDIT (2023/12/29): I'm getting tired of having to go through Ubisoft Connect. Also I've never known the existence of DLCs for this game. Too bad this "gold edition" doesn't get any. Thumb down.

EDIT (2023/11/22): I take back what I said - this game does work on Linux (tested on Debian 12). Like the dumb ape that I am, I forgot to enable Properties -> Compatibility -> Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool. Oops!

I cannot recommend this game due to a few issues. It doesn't run on Linux yet (tested on 2023/10/09) and has seen a few crashes on Windows 10 22H2 (played several months earlier), and the in-game level sharing platform doesn't work all the time. You should get a newer game from the Trials franchise instead (untested by me yet).

Otherwise, wow it has been quite a phenomenal sandbox game for me. Back in the Xbox 360 era, I used to play the base levels all the time. Also, some features in the level editor may not be intuitive, especially if you haven't had any programming experience, but it can be powerful if you're creative enough. It was excellent.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II Zombies

Not recommended / Review date: 2023/06/24

The Zombies game mode requires an Internet connection to be played, even in solo, which makes it unreliable for fighting offline boredom. It's fun nonetheless.

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Not recommended / Review date: 2023/12/06

EDIT (2024/01/22): Looks like Activision just jacked up the price of each DLC from $14.99 to $20.19. This is daft.

Old review from 2023/01/10 sucked, so I'm rewriting it.

I'm a huge fan of the Zombies game mode (really nice arcade game mode) and I'm satisfied with playing Black Ops on single player. Every now and then I still have fun playing this game due to how challenging the zombies are. In this review, I'll cover the following aspects: Linux compatibility, DLC prices and offline playability.

First, this game runs decently on Linux (tested on Debian 12 as of 2023/12/06). All you gotta do is go to the game's properties and enable Proton by checking Compatibility -> Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool to get it to work. You may come across some issues, and I'll name 2 of them: moderately lower performance and game freezing. Because of the game running through Wine (this game was not built for Linux), performance is reduced considerably compared to when running on Windows on a same machine. Also, when a level is loading, the game may freeze and then I have to restart it, but it's not a big deal for me since it doesn't affect gameplay so much. Otherwise, there are no critical issues. Xbox wireless controllers are supported.

Second, the DLC Zombies maps are pretty nice, but the prices can be quite elevated and some of their associated easter egg quests can be achieved only with 4 players. If you're in for Zombies, expect to play alone. Furthermore, I suggest you buy the Rezurrection pack first since it contains 5 Zombies maps; the 3 other packs contain mostly PVP maps and only 1 Zombies map per pack, so wait for a sale.

Finally, the Zombies and Campaign game modes can be played without any Internet connection with a little bit of tinkering. The devs pressure its users to avoid changing the config file, but in reality there is no danger if you know what you're doing (for example, changing key bindings to load specific maps, thus bypassing connection to the servers but forcing single-player). Sure, you can break the game if you change settings improperly, but it's not hard to learn. There's a few guides on how to play Zombies without Internet, so check them out.

With all that considered, the game is playable on Linux with the help of Proton, you should wait for the DLCs to be on sale before buying them, getting a chance to participate in a 4-player Zombies game is quite nice, and the config file can be changed to make the game playable offline. Heck, there's even a Zork text-based game hidden in Call of Duty: Black Ops. Good job, Treyarch. Damn you, Activision.