Reviews - NiiRubra

Ashes, made by Vostyok, ReformedJoe, TDG, Retromuffin and of course Primeval, is a doom-based indie game that draws inspiration from all sorts of post-apocaliptic classics, from Escape from New York and Mad Max, to Fallout, Metro and Stalker, but it *does not* simply wear its inspirations on its sleeve while remaining largely derivative, it draws the best from them while thriving in its own ways.

It surprised me how much the story and setting of Ashes drew me in, I came in for the (quite enjoyable) scavenging experience, and got involved in a mysterious, suspenseful and well crafted tale, that has left me combing the internet for discussion and speculation, and also wanting to play the game again immediately after I beat it. If that isn't a sign of an addictive game, I do not know what is haha.

Gameplay is quite solid, it's a modern "doom clone" or "boomershooter" experience, with modern mechanics such as reloading, inventory management and weapon upgrades, although no ability to aim down sights, except for a select few mid-game sniper weapons, there were some situations were I wished I could zoom in a bit more, so I crafted a keybind to swap between an FOV of 120 and 70, so that I could aim a bit better at enemies that were at extreme ranges. If I could make a request to the dev team for their upcoming projects, this would be it, a built-in zoom key for when you're aiming at punks and gasbags across the large cityscapes.

The art style of Ashes is iconic, its world feels quite lived in, or rather, it feels like it was lived in decades ago, before everyone's lives were interrupted by the apocalypse, and now all that remains is an urban corpse, carefully cannibalized by its new inhabitants.

I want to make special mention of the astonishing sound design and Primeval's work with the soundtrack, these factors, combined with the lighting work and the clever and considered pacing, made this a very special experience, it is wild to me how the soundtrack and ambience can make you feel like you are the most dangerous thing in the wasteland in one moment, and then in the next one, smoothly transition into making you feel like you are stuck in a dimly lit bunker, with the *actual* most dangerous thing in the wasteland.
Ashes makes you the hunter, and it makes you the prey, and it's immensely compelling in both of these moments. This sense of empowerment diluted in the dread you are immersed in, gives the game a sense of exciting "realism", relative to your character's capabilities, you're carying a one man army's arsenal, but will it be enough for what you'll find down that corridor with the flickering lights?

Bit of a tip for anyone having problems with the game's motorcycle (yes, there is a motorcycle!), I used a keybind to alter the game's speed with the command i_timescale and a value like 0.6 or 0.7, to improve my ability to respond to the changes in the road, and that made the driving a much more enjoyable experience, things happen too fast while you're blazing down the roads (and the... non-roads) but if you got a bit more time to think and drift around corners (preferably running over enemies in the process), the bike is actually pretty fun.

If you weren't already downloading Ashes while reading this, then you should do it now, playing this game is something I guarantee you will not regret!

This is a review for version 1.1 of They Hunger: Relit.

They Hunger: Relit, a mod-mod by Deanamx, alters PC Gamer and Neil Manke's Half-life 1 classic in 4 big ways.

The first one is the one that is advertised on the name itself: it has many of the games environments relit for a much moodier atmosphere, without screenshots for comparison you might not even notice it, but that's the good thing about Relit: it feels like the They Hunger you remember, so it's unobtrusive, but the changes do make a difference. At times I wondered if a map had been changed because it looked so different, but then I watched a walkthrough for comparison and sure enough, it was the same as before.

The second and perhaps most noticeable addition of TH: Relit is the weapon changes, They Hunger was full of anachronisms, with modern weapons showing up in a game set in the 50's, this was never too big of a problem, likely the result of Neil Manke making use of assets available at the time, but the authenticity brought on by TH: Relit is appreciated. In addition to the period accurate weapon revamps (which includes stat changes), there is the addition of a few new weapons, my favorite is a lightning gun that functions as a low mag plasma assault rifle of sorts, its ammo is obtained by killing skeletons, and the weapon can be found amongst They Hunger's other "mad scientist" inventions, it's a nice fit, I liked it and found it reliable. One weapon model I found to be unfitting was the flamethrower, it's a cool model actually, but I think it fits better in a setting such as Unreal Tournament, rather than the 50's hollywood-inspired aesthetic of They Hunger, the weapon looks futuristic and is a step backwards into the anachronisms of the original.

TH: Relit also adds several quality of life improvements, such as more frequent (and visible) auto-saves, tweaked enemy behavior (I found the guards to be a tad less annoying), and subtitles! Although the subtitles at times can be a bit off, this is not a huge problem though, the characters can be understood well enough.

Lastly there's the infection mechanic, a curious mechanic that adds a meter that increases as you take damage, I'm not quite sure how it works, but as the meter rises, it notably reduces damage you take, a side effect from the necromancy manifesting itself in you, I imagine. This is interesting because it encouraged me to *not* heal to 100%, instead I hovered around 40, keeping a moderate amount of damage reduction, healing more than this seemed to be a waste since I would lose health rather quickly without the damage resistance, so I played through the game half-alive, carefully balancing my HP and my infection status.

This is definitely something you should check out if you've played They Hunger before, and if you never did, then I think this is pretty good for a blind playthrough as well.

Counter-Strike: Zero Hour, by the prolific Deanamx, is a short singleplayer campaign inspired by CS:CZ: Deleted Scenes, despite the description mentioning that this is a recreation of Deleted Scenes, that statement is inaccurate, it's more of a drastic reimagining, this is not a direct port of the missions to Half-life or anything like that.

Having played Deleted Scenes again a couple years ago, I can say that Zero Hour has a much more enjoyable gameplay loop. At the start of the game you pick one of 5 different operators from various special forces from across the world, I chose the SAS operator, which granted me decreased recoil and better accuracy at the cost of movement speed, I figured if I played aggressively I could counterbalance my handicap and take advantage of my reduced recoil to use automatic fire more often. The game wasn't intense enough for my choice to matter, I think, but I enjoy the variety regardless of that.

After picking your operator, you're taken to the headquarters of a private military company, which serves as a hub for Zero Hour, here you can buy weapons, replenish supplies, and start the next mission (of which there are 7). Gameplay mechanics are more or less lifted straight from Deleted Scenes, though enemies are not as... insane... and the rocket launcher troops are less plentiful and more forgiviging to fight against.

Level design takes a minimalistic approach, which is not a negative, but one should not expect the levels to be accurate recreations of the missions that they are based on. The missions objectives generally have the player rescue hostages in varying configurations and premises, and then having to take them back to an evac point, unfortunately this is where Half-life's bad pathing rears its ugly head, making this process a bit frustrating at times, nevertheless, the good news is that you can finish the mission whenever you want with no penalty, which is a refreshing idea that allows the player to dictate the pace upon which they play the mod; can't be bothered to escort every single hostage back to the exit? You can just leave, you'll miss out on the cash reward for rescuing all of the hostages, but that is fine, you should have enough resources to make it through the game, as long as you are mindful of which ammo your guns use and diversify (for example, don't fill your inventory with weapons that use 5.56 or you'll quickly run out of ammo, pick something that uses other cartridges, personally I recommend rounding out your loadout with the P90, the Deagle and the AWP for the sake of ammo efficiency).

Zero Hour is relatively short, but that is not a bad thing, I think it was just long enough for me to enjoy it without becoming too repetitive. While the minimalistic level design made me want to revisit Deleted Scenes for its bombastic, COD: Modern Warfare-esque presentation, my memory of the frustrating gameplay of Deleted Scenes quickly made me appreciate that this is a much more enjoyable game to play. Give it a go if you're just looking for some Counter-Strike themed fun, set your expectations accordingly, and I think you'll have a good time.

This is a review for the 1.0 release version of Entropy Zero: Uprising.

Entropy Zero: Uprising, by Employee8 and Filipad is an outstanding EZ mod, and I'm calling it that and not a HL2 mod because it does feel like it stands on its own, Gordon Freeman is mentioned about once in the whole thing, and aside from that it feels like the mod is its own thing but set in the same universe as Half-life 2, just as the other Entropy Zero stories.

Speaking of story, I quite like the approach taken by the developers, I won't spoil anything, but let's just say that there can be some agency on behalf of the player, personally I went for what I imagine would have satisfied our "benefactors" this time around. It felt like the story just kept on giving, there were a few times when I thought that was the end of it, but then something new would happen that would be pretty intriguing and would carry the plot from that point onwards. The characters were enjoyable, and I feel that there is much story implied in them, maybe there's some stuff I missed out on because of the... approach... I took during my playthrough, but I feel satisfied with the results of my actions in the end, I was not let down. Quick mention to pistol man who followed me into the sewers and beyond, we will meet again someday, my friend.

As an aside on your friendlies, the pathing in this is surprisingly good, I'll just straight up mention this part so that you don't make the mistake I made: once you encounter a minefield belonging to the rebels, you *don't* have to leave your team behind, they are actually capable of following you and not screwing it up, that surprised me! I'm used to ordering followers in Half-life to stay behind because the section ahead will surely be their deaths, and I did some zany game of "chicken" using my face to clear the mines for my folks, but I learned that it was entirely unnecessary. To pull a direct quote from a character in the game: "[they] are less stupid than I thought", and I appreciate that.

The environments and art style of EZ:U are exceptional, this mod oozes style and freshness, and you can tell that right from the get go with its rather unique menu (changes after the credits too, which I thought was awesome). To be accurate (and this is the one criticism I must level at the mod), the initial maps seem to be of a different level of quality compared to the rest of the mod, I don't know anything, but the impression I got is that perhaps Employee8 and Filipad were less experienced when those were made, because it kind of shows a little bit, I can tell that much detail work was put into them, but the initial impression I got was that it didn't feel like I was in a city, areas felt a bit boxed in, there were some ethereal elements missing to immerse my brain and make me feel like I was living out a story in a fictional world, rather than moving a viewmodel around a small map; However! This *DID* change, and I must emphasize that it does get better very quickly, the levels that come after that do give you the feeling that you're in a rather Bulgarian city, I think it started feeling that way roundabouts when I got support from a Combine APC. From then onwards EZ:U took me to the industrial zones in the outskirts of City 17, to places I had never quite seen before in Half-life 2, and the ambience was beautiful, I had to stop to take some screenshots of it all for my collection. Those environments were fairly detailed too, I noticed a slight frame drop but nothing that caused any hitching or any issues, all of the maps were well optimized.

The sound design, soundtrack and voice acting were, like rest of the work, very well done. As with all Entropy Zero stuff, you'll probably want to turn on subtitles, because everyone talks through an alien-made vocoder, and while you can understand them, it's best to just have those subtitles up just in case.

Gameplay wise, EZ:U uses rebalanced but familiar weapons, the AR2 is a burst-fired weapon for example, and there is the inclusion of the MP5k, the stubby version of the classic, it behaves like it does in EZ2 and shares its ammo with your USP pistol. There is an exciting vehicle segment that I won't spoil, but I just want to say that I quite loved how that was done, very iconic moments through that whole sequence.

I do wish we had some more "Combiney" stuff in our hands, because otherwise the gameplay is all fairly standard Entropy Zero fare, but with Metrocop allies, which I suppose is the differential. Nothing to complain about there, I was satisfied, just a personal wish, to be honest.

Finally, do I recommend this, should you play it? You absolutely should. I mean come on, Entropy Zero was a highlight of Half-life 2 modding in recent years, and this is more of that high quality work with some fresh ideas and sleek style thrown in, you know you want to play it, so why are you even reading this? Go to the download section and give it a go!

An excellent addition to the soundtrack, fits right in.

At one point, Westwood intended for C&C Red Alert to be a prequel to C&C Tiberian Dawn, before Red Alert 2 derailed that temporarily, and then everything got turned into a parallel reality; From the Ashes, by Zaptagious is, in essence, that missing link between Red Alert and Tiberian Dawn that explains everything and makes it all work, and it does it masterfully.

The story picks up with the Soviet ending (that's right, the bad guys won in this one), and uses the danger presented by that tragedy to explain the origins of the United Nation's Global Defense... Agency (not quite there yet), in what could be seen as a warped alternate reality version of the WW2 events that saw America's entry in the war to liberate Europe from Nazi occupation, except this time it's a beheaded, worn down and chaotic Soviet Union that is the occupier.

The campaign initially tackles the nuclear threat presented by the Soviets, and then addresses the unbalance of power between the factions, as the allies admit that the Soviet Mammoth tank is the cavalry weapon of the future, and that everyone must have it. After that what follows is a daring strike on the infamous Kapustin Yar, where many of the RA1 Soviet technologies die (while others are salvaged by a mysterious faction working in the shadows...), the encirclement of Moscow, Operation Overlord, and many other memorable missions that tell a tale of a changing world, that has not seen the last of change, for what the future holds for this timeline is not only military reinvention and political upheaval, but ecological desolation and the radical transformation of all life on Earth.

Visually From the Ashes is very impressive, the immersion mod gives the factions authentic UI elements, score screens, at least one victory CG, and even a magnificent intro.

Levels are well designed and well paced, if you managed to beat RA1, you should be able to handle this, it's nothing crazy like the traditional trial and error of C&C Tiberian Dawn, missions are decently challenging, without being overbearing.

If there's any criticism I can direct at From the Ashes, is that at times I would feel a bit overwhelmed by the instructions given to me, for example, in mission 13B Legion, where I had to travel to various specific points in the map in a certain order to make things easier for myself, I actually pulled up the workshop page of the mission in my browser to read the directions in the briefing again, because it was a lot to keep in mind for the duration of the mission, but I don't think this is a fault of Zaptagious, unfortunately C&C Remastered does not allow you to review the briefing in-mission (as far as I can tell), and it does not have a mission objective reminder like future games do, such things are sorely missed, but it is what it is.

This mod is a must have and a must play for any C&C fan, the unofficial "pre-sequel" (to use the silly Borderlands terminology) that enriches the C&C storyline in new ways, and provides hours of engaging new missions for players of all types.

Southernmost Combine, by Luciano Gallo, also known as Gambini, is one of those Hl2 mods that takes us somewhere else in the imagined world of Half-life, specifically to Argentina, it also takes us to a different time, the year of 1987, I'm not too sure that the time travel plot was necessary to be honest, I feel like it could very well have worked in the more modern Half-life 2 setting of 202X or whatever it is, but that doesn't detract from the story at all.

The story takes us through a variety of *beautiful* environments and refreshing settings, I took my time to fully immerse myself in these places, and even with the opressive presence of our extra-dimensional malefactors, it was still enjoyable to just be in these places, to look through people's work spaces and homes, trying to imagine what their lives are like.

The mod is not only a sight-seeing tour, there's plenty of Half-life 2 fun to go around, nothing *too* out of the ordinary, which I would not consider a negative, but for anyone who's looking for wild innovation in their combat encounters, maybe they won't find it here. There is some creative use of heavy machinery for puzzle solving, especially during a certain escape sequence, so there is that to look forward to.

I think my favorite location was the trainyard full of zombies, next to the gas station, that was an enjoyable sequence with a nice vibe to it, it felt like there were things happening in this place before I got there, and things that were going to continue happening after I left, the Combine will eventually send more goons to secure that area again, and the battle between the troopers and the zombies will keep on going until either the Combine's logistics crumble or the zombies are all dead. Always nice to feel like you're in the middle of a bigger world, that doesn't revolve around you.

Speaking of which, I really loved the details in Southernmost Combine, this is a mod that has entire rooms fully rendered and modeled, that don't play a part in the game's progression at all, but you can still explore them and observe the story being implied through its objects and occasional notes, the exploration is its own reward.

Southernmost Combine is what I would consider a modern classic among Half-life 2 maps, and a must play for anyone looking for something refreshing and high quality.

When Baryonic Predicament is presenting you with puzzles, it is fairly entertaining, but when it wants you to fight, you'll often find yourself fighting wave after wave of enemies with little time to recover and barely enough ammo to last.

The level design is somewhat abstract, function over form, Miiga designed these spaces with gameplay in mind, and then decorated them so that they resemble environments, but not enough for them to feel like real places, it doesn't detract too much from the mod, but it is worth noting it, you're not going to find visually rich environments in Baryonic Predicament.

I mentioned it before, but I found the pacing to be a tad off, at one point I encountered a full squad of Combine soldiers, I was already injured because of a previous encounter with Hunters, where I had no physical objects to use as gravity gun munition against them, and I was not given the opportunity to heal properly, so I was rather injured; I dashed like mad to the wall opposite of me, where a health charger was, and replenished some of my health as the soldiers took advantage of my initial passiveness in the encounter, after I managed to fight them off, two Hunters showed up, I did not have the chance to heal, once again, so I tried to lose them in the passageways so that I could have enough time to make use of a suit charger on another wall, fortunately there were plenty of barrels around this time and I used them to dispatch the Hunters, but wouldn't you know it, after the Hunters were killed, a bunch of Metrocops rapelled through the skylight, they caught me injured and unprepared the first time around and I died, but the second I time I killed them... and then *another* squad of Combine soldiers showed up, and *another after that one!* I think you get the idea, I wish I was exaggerating and making it up, but the mod just throws all of this stuff at you like a gauntlet, and it's just rushed enough for it to be frustrating rather than exhilirating, supplies are scarce, the arrival of enemies is sudden, there is no creative edge that you can take advantage of.

If you intend on checking this one out, maybe play it on a lower difficulty than you're used to, that gauntlet of enemies is going to have you reloading your game a few times.

The Event in Village is a beautiful mod plagued by counter-intuitive design and a lack of clarity, despite the fact that it has a whole hint system early on that tells you where you are supposed to go.

As an example of said counter-intuitive design: at one point I was punished with a "game over" state for breaking a supply crate, I was told that I shouldn't break items because they might be useful to me, fair enough, but I interpreted that warning to mean that I shouldn't break stuff like the regular wooden box I found, or wooden tables, any of the breakable props that I wouldn't normally break unless they were in my way, I figured I would need one of them to climb up on something at some poit, but to my surprise, it wasn't any of those things, it was a supply crate, how could I have known that I'm not supposed to break the type of crate that I have been breaking since I first played Half-life 2 20 years ago, the ones that you are encouraged to break, because they give you useful items. If I was not supposed to break it, then why give me a crowbar in the same room where I found said supply crate? It was literally right across from the crowbar. Why even put the supply crate there, and make it accessible to the player, if it's not going to be useful until later? Why not put it inside of a room with a locked door? Why not make it look like something else?

Then later on I had to change the battery on my car, but I had already placed it in the charger before I was rendered unconscious by a headcrab mortar strike (the first time around the mortar killed me, actually, and the game reloaded my save), so I wasn't sure if it was already charged or what, I tried to bring it to my car, but that wasn't it, I tried to interact with the car, but that wasn't it either, so I brought the battery back, and plugged the charger in again, it looked like it was doing something, but what I thought was a progress indicator in the device seemed to be just a plain texture that indicated nothing. So I kept fighting zombies until everyone died...

The mod was quite pleasant to look at, I really liked how organic and natural the environment was, I think it may have been inspired by actual real world locations, given how the terrain was designed, I also loved the Vort with the snow boots, it was cute, but unfortunately I can't say I enjoyed playing this very much, I would recommend it for walking around its setting for a while, but not for a full playthrough.

Blasted Lands, by Tovac Corp, is a fascinating Hl2 mod, it takes us to the eponymous "blasted lands", a region so far out of the way from civilization that you can really feel the absolute existential desolation of Earth's urban environments. I found myself clutching my revolver whenever I saw traces of human life in the otherwise dead, dark ruins of this city, and that was very much a necessary precaution.

I played this with Mmod, turned off the crosshairs, tweaked the settings a little, made ammo more scare, and it was a very immersive experience. Surprisingly even though I was only getting a handful of bullets at a time, I never really found myself in a bad situation without any ammo, the mod is really well paced and it supplies you well with what you will need to survive. Speaking of survival, an interesting addition is the scavenging mechanic, that leads you to search cars for ammo, it's rather simple but it adds that extra layer of narrative flavor, you're not just finding ammo boxes ready for use out in the world, you have to *look for it*, it emphasizes that this is a survival situation.

Blasted Lands has some pretty unique encounters, I won't spoil any of them, but I found myself doing some stuff that I haven't done before in Half-life 2, I always love to see this sort of fresh creativity. It made me look at a certain enemy a different way, and gave me the opportunity to wield something I always hoped to get my hands on.

The only downside I can think of is the storytelling (not the story itself), and that is the only reason why this mod is not getting a higher rating from me, you see... *I don't know* what the story was... I've read the summary on this page, and I managed to understand a few things based on what I saw in the environment (Thomas, the protagonist, was living in this camp in an apartment complex, he carries some important data with him; someone's been keeping contact with other people across the world, and a lot of them have been going silent), but I also have a lot of simple questions that were never really addressed:
Why was I doing any of this? What has caused Thomas to embark on this quest in this day in particular? Why did I leave the safety of my apartment? Was I in danger? Was there a window of opportunity that was closing? Where was I going? Did I know what I was looking for? Did the Combine's outland goons know what I was carrying? Was that why they were hunting me with such viciousness or were they just killing people because they love to commit casual genocide?

I don't have the answers to these questions, and for the most part that did not prevent me from enjoying Blasted Lands, but I was always aware of the fact that I was simply going forward because that's the direction where the rest of the game was, I didn't know why I was going forward or where "forward" was.

Nevertheless, this mod is a new classic, that you gotta play right now.

I look forward to whatever Tovac Corp does next, I understand that they are dealing with a rather traumatic crisis as of the time I'm writing this, so I can only speculate on what their next project will be, but I'm hoping they will be okay, and I'm sure whatever they do, it will be some quality work.