RSS Reviews  (0 - 10 of 26)
8

Q.U.A.L.K.E.R

Early access mod review

Surprisingly functional and fun. Really odd and intriguing to explore. Fascinating... I never suspected such things could be.

9

DISREPAIR

Mod review

DISREPAIR is a short, neatly condensed experience framed as a mission inside the ruins of BMRF.

I liked its graphical design, the minimalistic, but "cute" detail (to borrow from Decino, "doomcute". But Half-Life. Halfcute?), the effects that didn't outstay their welcome. It's built with a very, very tightly chosen selection of assets, and carries itself well.

Most of the work with the atmosphere is done by the sound design, which is excellent, while the visual design keeps the scope and tone in check. The asset work looks nice and clean.

I liked the atmosphere that realied on just few effective tools rather than gimmicks, liked the mini-game, and the unusual pairing of difficulty with level illumination. Don't see this often.

You may think it's a bit heavy on the filesize for its length and style, but quite a bit is taken by Mapbase. There's a few junk files and some of them could be optimised to trim down a couple dozen megabytes. On the other hand, there's cat.jpg.

It took me half an hour, and I was pleasantly surprised, as I had little preconceived notion about DISREPAIR.

2

Half-Life 3 Citadel Unleashed

Mod review

Utterly dire.

It's like every bad decision was put on a must have list when making this "game".

Everything, starting with the obnoxious console menu, messy HUD edits, to combat FX (to be fair - toggleable, in the slow obnoxious menu), to enemies shooting through walls...

...to performance being murdered by every possible string of trash hanged on the ol' engine. Ah yes, we must have CSM in this pointless, dark, blank environment - this'll help a lot! Let's sacrifice 70-100 fps for it!

If it's a joke mod, it's not funny because of how annoying it is.
If it's a serious mod, it didn't spend one day in real playtest.
Huge, unbalanced, bad looking pile of stuff no one asked for.

Ah, and AI voicing. Nuff said.

8

Winteric Textures

Mod review
4

Half-Life Alyx NoVR

Early access mod review
10

Swelter

Mod review

TLDR: 10/10. Story - 7, Gameplay - 8, Visuals - 10, Music - 12, Performance - completely adequate.

The story is 7/10. The pitch made me expect more, but overall the delivery served its purpose. The pacing in the middle could've been better (it's on par with Highway 17's story pacing, which was criticised by Laidlaw himself), and the ending was rather abrupt. But it's an above average story/execution combo, and the little side plots and encounters help carry it. The actors - I played with the English dub - all did their best with the delivery.

The gameplay is 8/10. Combat isn't outstanding, but it isn't bad. The enemy AI rarely has a chance (or setup) to shine, but it's miles better than SDE. The puzzles were overall good, with some classic setups, some very inventive ones, some overly telegraphed ones, and some unfortunate ones toward the end (not obtuse, but just unlucky in execution). Most of the time they're a simple idea but it's the in-world setup/justification that had to be convincing. They work. They're much better now than in SDE.

In the beginning and middle of the game I had so little trouble, it didn't prepare me for the trouble of the 3rd chapter. It was the least fun part, although it still came with a few last new features like charging. It didn't gel together with altered weapon mechanics and animations.

The vehicle controls were very smooth and obedient. The steppe is full on eye candy, but doesn't have a lot to offer in terms of exploration, and what's there is given away by the radar - there's no point (it seems) to try exploring the rocky formations or dead ends; there's never a hidden reward and very few easter eggs in relation to the vast area size.

The visuals are 10/10. The beginning chapter and the scale of the steppe easily earn it, even though toward the end I ran into a bit of attention fatigue from all the detail (and, admittedly, some unavoidable repetition). The solid, consistent art direction excuses whatever few incidents happen with lighting, reused props from other games, or other minor things. Add to it clever and inventive kitbashing of Combine props, and you've won me over.

Swelter is very immersive. There's a vast supply of curiosities. Walking through the city and taking screenshots was exactly like visiting a southern city and taking photos (and yes, I would take the same kind of photos of dilapidated buildings, charismatic cracked walls, abandoned vehicles, graffiti, and signs in a language I don't speak). The steppe kept providing vista after vista and reveal after reveal with insertions of carefully put together set pieces (although I wished for a bit of global difference between its 3 or 4 maps in a row). The Nexus could be a template of how to fix HL2's Nexus, fix its unrealised potential.

The music is 12/10. All the new tracks are just fantastic. Energetic, smart, unpredictable, sometimes with that Eastern touch that comes off just right. I'm glad it both remakes HL1 tracks occasionally and uses straight up HL music - this is just how I prefer it.

I had exceedingly low number of bugs in the game, and very steady performance.

All in all, it was worth the wait.

10

The Event in Village

Mod review

I replay this mod every winter. Despite the outer appearance it keeps me very warm inside.

8

Half-Life 2 Mirrored

Mod review

It's pretty cool.

9

Thunder's Leaves

Mod review

A fun and charming mod campaign made all the more impressive due to being made by essentially a solo dev. Deserves more attention.

10

Dooming The Bar: City 17

Mod review

As a fellow beta enthusiast, Dooming The Bar is very endearing.

The 2001 maps have been recreated with much care and attention; not only that, there's a surprising amount of completely new geometry that fits very nicely as either transition space or expansions. And this is with the fact that the original brushwork had to be recreated bit by bit.

The atmosphere is gloomy and Matrix-like, the levels are strange and mysterious, the Arcade is loud and dark and claustrophobic (the GOOD way!), the old beta lives again in Dooming The Bar.

This is an amazing take.