Reviews - ToxicHolyGrenade

The Negative:

1. The melee combat itself. While it does make sense whenever it comes to the very first Zombie variants that have stretchable limbs, the other enemies (specifically the other Zombie types) can still more often than not, easily hit you regardless if you've managed to dodge their attacks.

2. As a minor complaint, most of the enemies still possess stock Half-Life sounds, like the Mutated Zombie that emits omnidirectional waves while walking, emitting sounds of what a Houndeye would make.

3. While the level-design is very impressive, it is very newcomer unfriendly when first playing through it due to how very complex it is. The workaround I could think of, is creating an in-game compass that guides you to the needed destinations.

The Positive:

1. The music is very atmospheric, haunting, and can also be quite intense.

2. There are some very impressive moments, especially the jump scare. For example, even as you wander aimlessly around the levels, Zombies can start to tear through the floor tiles, the ventilation shafts, etc, in order to ambush you.

3. While there is some rooms that have the same textures repeating over and over, the textures themselves are fabulous to look at, and very futuristic.

4. The soldiers are more challenging when compared to the actual Half-Life campaign.

5. The visuals and effects are beautiful and well-made. I am not sure if this mod is made specifically on XASH, or Spirinity, or even Spirit of Half-Life, I'm not sure, but either way, it is very good stuff.

6. The various types of Zombies there are, are horrific and well-designed, each having different attacks and behavior. Some qualify as Metazombies since they don't have body horror, (in addition to micromutations) but others like the more mutated types like the ones that have the power to pulse omnidirectional energy waves, are full-on Mutant Zombies.

Each type of Zombie, at least depending on the difficulty, can range from being relatively easy to fight back, to straight up challenging and unrelenting, making use of combat sense and strategy more essential rather than brute force.

7. The weaponry can be very satisfying to use, especially this nailgun-(ish) weapon that can shoot darts at a relatively rapid rate, and it can be very useful against the assassins.

8. Depending on how you play, combat can range from being hard, to even enjoyable. Even though the AI is shared with Half-Life for a start.

Overall:

While there are things then and there that definitely needs some improvement in order for me to bring myself to rate it higher, I still had a very good time playing this mod, given its dark, sci-fi, industrial atmosphere, the music, sound, and also the combat and enemies.

Subjective Rating: Great

Explanation - This sounds self-explanatory but don't let me sell you short. Any mod with this rating has my full seal of approval and rose up above the masses. I had no regrets playing this; I had a good time. Now something about it kept it from being one of the absolute best mod experiences I've ever had, but that's not really a criticism.

A total conversion HL1 experience.
Mapping and graphic changes are good for goldsrc mod. Story is interesting but not unique or outstanding, seems like it was influenced by STALKER a lot. Balancing and damage values are dumb, weird weapon acquirement – you get a melee weapon in a middle of the game, after you get most of the firearms introduced in mod. Bullet physics is ridiculous – the knockback made me feel like enemies are shooting their weapons at player with bowling balls, not with bullets. Atmosphere with which developers were going is ruined by absolutely unfitting soundtrack (especially in areas with zombies).
The only things I like about this mod is first levels, before action starts and voiceacting.
4/10, but can recommend this mod to STALKER fans though.

During the puzzle where you have to analyze and jump over lasers, it is too complex and it is very counter-intuitive. Pretty much needs some more polish not just in terms of the puzzle, but could be most others.

But with that aside, I had a great time playing this mod, very well done.

Subjective Rating: Great

Explanation - This sounds self-explanatory but don't let me sell you short. Any mod with this rating has my full seal of approval and rose up above the masses. I had no regrets playing this; I had a good time. Now something about it kept it from being one of the absolute best mod experiences I've ever had, but that's not really a criticism.

While it is better than the first mod, TWHL Tower 2 unfortunately has less frequent but massive bugs where the mod crashes through one reason or another. As for Floor 01 by Unq, another bug is that while you can pick up the bag full of hacking devices, I cannot even place them on the wall. In fairness, it worked for most people, but it is a fatal flaw in the map design presumably.

Overall, it will be best to give both mods a lot more polishing, or at the very most, patch them for a collection-based mod featuring TWHL Tower 1 and 2 in one package.

Subjective Rating: Love & Hate

Explanation - This is NOT a mediocre mod. This mod had so much going for it, it was heading towards "Good/Great" or even the "Fantastic" status, but then had serious, SERIOUS flaws, that just dragged the mod all back down. It is possible that this can upset someone more than any other, and might make you lose sleep thinking about it.

Subjective rating: Great.

The only complaint I have to address, is that "maps *" is missing from the commands, but I do hope this will be fixed at a future point in time.

This is a revolutionary engine for mods, from the features it has, the capabilities it holds. Just among other things. :D

SPOILER WARNING: For those who haven't played the game, don't read it, so I advise you to stay away from the review until you've beaten the game on your own.

I'm really impressed with the sequel that possesses an advanced goldsource engine with a High Dynamic Range feature built into it along with other brilliant feature settings, good music, (although some of them were borrowed from other music artists, like Marilyn Manson, The Eye, among others) and they fit the game's atmosphere quite fluently.

Paranoia II: Savior, is a game that follows the events after sometime the saboteur group was slain, but the rest of the Spetsnaz team were chained back from victory whenever the Zombies had swamped the upper levels through the ventilation shafts from the underground laboratories. Much to the shock of the Spetsnaz operatives, they have to fight fire with fire against the hordes of the undead, at full force. Around 1979, 1981, 2, and 3, there was a life retaining device, and a Lumberman mech research project, that's been active around that current millennium. But on the other side of the coin, there was plenty of system malfunctions that constantly backfires the project, but the engineers still push forward. I found those projects rather disturbing, but what unsettles me more is the Vanya incident. There was this, mutagen that caused the baby inside Vanya, to become grey and really deformed. Weirdly enough, the baby never grows to full size unlike all infants, but he still ages. Until now. In 2008, Major confronts a boss, that I assume is that baby that was mentioned before, and he had increased in size.

Paulina is still alive, but she's horrified and shaky after the Zombies try to get a hold of her, and also because of her loneliness and anxiety that she's going to die, but in the end, she gets successfully escorted by Major to the surface without any injury. But Major isn't lucky. Due to some form of blood contamination, he was rushed to a military hospital immediately.

Three weeks after MOLE was detonated in order to prevent the Virus and the rest of the Zombies from spreading, Major had woke up from his hospital bed, and the infirmary was quite run down and decrepit. There was no sign of life, anywhere. He advances down the stairs and walks out the exit door, finding the city to be deserted with many dead bodies lying around, and it's quite dark outside due to the thunderstorm's downdraft overshadowing the environment. Before he abandons all hope, he stumbles across an abandoned ambulance, and there was finally someone talking through the radio, wondering if there are any "survivors" remaining to be escorted. Major... is not alone.

So that's the plot.

As for the weapons, the very first pistol doesn't seem to have any recoil, same with the Glock 17, but they still function quite fine.

As for the NPCs, the AI is also a mixed bag. They turn clockwise and counterclockwise rather slowly like a Gyro/Kebab cone.

Overall, while the game is really great, there only exists a couple of flaws that are left behind without repair. But still, this is a brilliant game that just keeps Half-Life alive. The ending in my opinion, is both twisted and quite good, but I was wondering if there is going to be a Paranoia III sometime in the future. Heh, it deserves an answer... at best really. Congratulations dev team! ;)