Reviews - SpeakEasy89

After years of playing Stalker and various overhaul mods (including a bit of my own tweaking), I finally gave Misery 2.1.1 a go and was completely hypnotized. The only other mod I can think of which does something like this to its source material, which is to say honors it while simultaneously transforming and elevating it to something new, grander, and more challenging in such a comprehensive way, is the 'Requiem' mod for Skyrim (and perhaps also Obscuro's Oblivion Overhaul, which was a similar kind of mod); both mods take as inspiration the design sensibilities of older games (particularly CRPGs) by making player choice, equipment, and progression much more detailed and challenging (and hence much more meaningful and engaging), a design philosophy which rejects modern AAA game design which waters down core mechanics in favor of appealing to a broader range of players. The visual style of the mod coupled with other aesthetic decisions, from sound design to the music played on the radio (which I'm certain Beard does NOT pay loyalties for) meets the excellent new NPC dialogue and world-building item descriptions to make for an experience which I argue improves on (yes, improves on) the original game as a whole by a wide margin.

Misery's developers clearly have a deep love for the source material as do they have considerable skill as game designers, and many of the inappropriately rude and vitriolic comments they've received on Misery 2.0+ are undeserved (though this isn't to say that the community hasn't also offered up a lot of constructive criticisms). That many people within the community rejected Misery 2.0+ for its 'stupid' and 'unrealistic' design decisions is merely a symptom of the development team doing something bold and sticking to that vision in the age of homogenized AAA game design, as is it sometimes evident that those players *didn't read the manual* or make any special effort to understand the way in which the devs intended for the mod to be played, stubbornly refusing to move their own preconceived notions aside or otherwise looking for a mod which offers hyper-realistic weapon and damage values which don't fit in with Misery's role-playing and progression elements. I read the manual, I played the mod carefully, and I learned from the many terrible mistakes I made. It is necessary to approach Misery from a new perspective that is open to the changes and willing to shift out of the easy, comfortable, and utterly bland modern game design rut that so many players have now unfortunately acclimated to. If you are willing to do that and take the time and effort Misery asks of you, you are in for an excellent gaming experience.

This is the first mod I can really remember playing that blew me away, way back when I had my first PC with its little Radeon 9200, had already played and loved Half-Life 2, and was for the first time investigating the treasure trove of free content that was mods. Recently I played through Black Mesa, and the level of quality and craft put into that mod reminded me of Minerva. As magnificent as Valve's games are, in my eyes Minerva retains the award for the most efficient and ingenious level design in any "Half-Life" production; the infamous Half-Life loading times are reduced in Minerva to "few and far between" (as well as shorter) because Adam Foster designed the island the mod takes place on to be laid out and layered realistically, thereby using space efficiently and creating environments which "make sense" and adhere to basic architectural concepts in the real world. In other words, rooms and areas "fit into" each other rather than hang out in empty space on a linear path, and since it all takes place on an island, this effectively means that the levels are built vertically rather than Valve's less efficient horizontal layouts which lend themselves to longer and more frequent loading intervals. I mention all this because it is part of how I continue to admire Foster's mod from both an artistic and technical perspective. The game experience itself is sublimely paced (yet continuously challenging), tense, varied, visceral, compelling, cerebral, *fun* and all wrapped up with a satisfying, intriguing and yet considerably mysterious plot told via the text of radio messages from the patronizing, manipulative, uncaring and yet decidedly moral, complex and endearing Minerva in combination with the environmental story telling we've come to expect from Half-Life games. The long and short of it though is really this: Half-Life fans, hell, video game fans with a copy of Episode 1 have *no reason* not to give this a spin. No. Reason. Play it now and forever be impressed