Reviews - Trav2276

This isn't a mod. It's an unfinished, unpolished map pack slapped together with reckless abandon and posted on the internet. The creator's wilful ignorance to any sound criticism should be a stark warning to anyone going into this expecting an ironically fun experience. It seems that the creator has not learned from Berkan's mistakes - and is intent on doubling down on their own. So in its own way, it is a spiritual sequel to HDTF as a testament to hubris.

Never quitted a mod so fast. The graphics are impressive but that's the only good thing I have to say about this mod.

A lot of fun to play, with a lot of interesting new locales to explore and mechanics to play with, and new content all round. The Tarantino movie quotes were fun to start off with but got old fast. That one indestructible boss battle could probably use some more signposting as well. My biggest gripe with the mod is that there are so many unanswered questions regarding the narrative and the player's actions within it. How have the Combine's time machinations affected the timeline, and what do Gordon's actions do to alleviate them? Can we really be expected to believe that disrupting Combine operations in one South American city will somehow weaken the Combine's grip on Earth when they now have the power of time travel?

Immensely satisftying, well crafted, and most crucially a lot of fun, What Remains is a masterclass of Source modding from this exciting up-and-coming modder LumiNicle, and yet another prime example of the versatility of the Half-Life experience. In my book, this is the true spiritual successor to Deep Down.

And I must add - Alyx in an HEV was an inspired decision, because even though it's pretty ancillary to the story, it enhances the experience no end.

I have a love-hate relationship with this mod. I love the fantastic first half, the mapping, the story, the combat scenarios, all that stuff; towards the end however, it flags a lot. The mapping, whilst still for the most part spectacular, feels stilted and forced together; the final map feels unfinished, the final boss battle doesn't make sense in context, and the lack of any ending credits, or indeed closure to the story, makes it feel unfinished.

Feels a bit rushed and there were some sections that had me scratching my head wondering what the mapper was thinking, but seeing as it was originally made for a mapping competition I guess it's allowed some leeway in that department. Xblah has once again delivered a solid HL2 experience in a neat little package.

The story is not merely bare-bones, but also completely nonsensical. A dyslexic attention-deficit toddler could write a more compelling sequence of events than this drivel. Whoever wrote this clearly has a poor grasp of how clandestine government operations work. The level design is competent and kept interesting and the graphic novel format for the cutscenes is an interesting work-around for the modder's apparent inability to script sequences involving NPC movement and dialogue, but the gameplay is buggy as all hell and after my first death the UI broke completely, leaving me unable to change weapons and stuck at the mercy of a very angry helicopter and unable to switch to rockets. Don't recommend.

Deeper Down once again displays Jim's abilities as a competent modder and delivers a solid and well-balanced singleplayer experience that really nails that Ep2 feeling, but as a story campaign it really suffers from poor pacing, distracting visual elements, meh combat, one particular puzzle that was so unbelievably obtuse and unintuitive I had to wait for Ballsack to release a walkthrough to check if that was the right way to do it, and just generally from feeling less like believable lived-in worlds and more like set-pieces for shooting galleries, which really soured my feelings towards it. After ten years, a new mappack ought to be a step forward; instead this feels like two steps back.

Yes. Yes it does.