xcv2008
John joined
I've been gaming all of my life and I don't think I'm going to quit before my death unless something horrible happens (hopefully that's not foreshadowing anything). In any case, I've been into mods a good chunk of the time, though I didn't really know what they were until Dungeon Siege came into my life.
Reviews (0 - 10 of 43)
Previously rated it 7/10, and now that 1.1 came out and better balanced the mod for all difficulties and did further tweaks, I think it's deserving of an 8/10.
It's still not 100% for me personally, but I would doubtlessly recommend any RTBR fans to at least play through this once.
It's a small and quick (canon, for those that care) romp through Ravenholm right after Gordon escapes it. It's focus is on survival horror-like mechanics, harking back to the very concept of the place.
I was alright with everything up until I heard the shotgun.
As of 1.1, I'd probably give this a 3 out of 10.
I don't want to be harsh, but it's borderline unplayable. It's too dark, there is at least one game breaking bug that soft locks your game (meaning you can't make progress with reloading), and it is way, way too dark.
I believe it could be brought up to a 5/10 with just these being fixed, but there is definitely other relatively easy things that could and should be patched.
For one thing, make it so you can see, or at the very least, give looking around some reward. All of the Half-Life games were great at rewarding those who took their time, and they usually hinted at this through game / level design. If the lights were fixed and/or rewards were given for exploring, I think it'd at least be a 6/10.
It also needs more fair checkpoints. It's fine to be harsh, but just based off the first 30 or so minutes, I feel like there's too many unfair / unreasonable autosave points. With proper checkpoints, to be honest it'd still be a 6/10, but a hard six.
The creator(s) seem like they meant well, and other than the inability to see things, I thought the intro was decent enough by itself.
Raise the bar it did!
This is a review on Version 0.3, and not any later versions. As is, it's very rough and obviously still in development. The textures I feel are decent, but the uniforms in the prologue are a touch too new looking. That much is nitpicking.
What you're supposed to do isn't 100% clear, and when it is relatively obvious, there's no easy hints as to what you're supposed to do. I don't mean that there should be a popup, but there should be some sort of light or subtle hint over your objective. Valve (and Crowbar Collective to a large extent) put in subtle hints to what you're supposed to do in the level design. I got to the point where I assume you were supposed to get your crowbar equivalent, but I didn't see it anywhere.
The mapping is otherwise half decent, if the halls a little too rectangular and straight. Almost of the siderooms don't rewards you / reward you enough, meaning it is reasonably possible to run out of ammo. This could, of course, be just early development issues, and that's fine, but I feel it should nevertheless be brought to attention.
The voice acting is nothing great, and is serviceable, but again, to my understanding, these are by no means final. I ran into an issue where, if I ran ahead of the HECU in the very beginning, the event wouldn't trigger. I thought I had to somehow get into the gate, but that proved impossible. I eventually found out you were supposed to wait for them to do kick (or at least attempt to) in the door.
I feel like there is genuine talent and skill in this mod, but its currently buried under clear early access. I will definitely check this mod out again and will be looking forward to further improvements.
The first update to Half-Life 2 since... - well, Update that has made me want to play through the campaign again. Not exactly perfect, but for the most part it does what it has to do. There's that, and there's going to be a handful more of updates, so maybe that hollowness will eventually be filled up further.
Probably what 99% of retro (and non-retro) Unity engine horror games want to be.
P.S.
Yes, I know it has nothing to do with Unity.
One of the greatest Half-Life mods ever. It feels like an official expansion, and one that's arguably better than at least one of the officially released ones. It lightly re-imagines some monsters, and adds greater variety to the zombies, making it Black Mesa feel just as colorful and alive as it does in the fan remake, Black Mesa.
A truly astounding mod that may have some rough edges, but will all the more be put in the books as being one of the greats for decades to come.
