Reviews - Maestra_Fenix

Not all the days an HL mod releases with such quality, let alone being based on alpha aesthetics. That alone is an achievement.

Brushwork and atmosphere are quite great, pushing the limits of Xash (which surpassed what GoldSrc can do per se already), containing as well a lot of details, secrets and high quality crafted art.

Perhaps is a bit dark in some spots, and due to irks of Xash, the flashlight doesn't light up correctly models sometimes.

Gameplay wise, is a nice mix of HL Office Complex, WGH and Surface Tension.
The unique legit issue that I have is that the pistol silencer is useless, as the enemies will react the same if you use it or not.

Currently, only two chapters are available, but one can sense how promising this is already.
Definitely is worth keeping an eye on this project, as has delivered expectations already.
Once the full mod comes out, I'll expand this review.

Definitely the big flaw is the lack of detail in several parts, and the way some alpha / uplink concepts has been reused with irregular to bad results.
The first half is very "hey look, alpha inspired levels, do you like it now?". Thankfully, it picks up on the second half.

It is also a bit easy to get lost sometimes, as it forces you to try everything ( the hardest part was the Gargantua fight, where you have to put the crates within the water cistern, in order to block the pipes and flood the whole room. Took me a while to think what I was supposed to do there ).
There's the issue of AGrunt spam, and in a personal opinion, how little sense some areas have.

However, the big pros are the creative puzzles, and some twists to the alpha elements like having to raise the helipad.
The robot loader and submarine parts perhaps are a bit janky, but they are definitely cool. The same goes with the experimental weapon rooms like the Gluon cannon, the Speaker test and the Gravity cannon, which have amazing mini puzzles.

And then all of it for an immense roundabout...to get through the gate that was marked as UNSRC lmao.

Definitely feels like a mod from the old school era, and for being made by a single person, is quite cool.

I think with less AGrunts, a little more indication of what you have to do / go, and extra detail here and there, would improve a lot the mod.

Together with the legendary RTSL competitions, Map Labs brings interesting contests answered by many mappers around.

FF mod forgot completely their mission: Remake HL2 with new graphics.

It was doing it well on the first versions, until it started to do weird things to the maps and characters.

Now, is like if it not longer tried to be a decent mod: The ambient is now completely different from the HL2 feeling, is full of props which their placement has no sense, their characters not longer respects the original aspect (for not say the quality of some models, both ugly and terrible), music that it doesn't fit, and much more...