PARANOIA Mod for Half-Life Don't be Paranoid about wasting your time with this one review

I'll be honest, not many mods compel me to go the full distance with them.  There's always something that cries out poor production values and the initial interest begins to wane.  Well let me tell you that Paranoia is not one of those, it reeks of high quality assurance and is a credit to the development team behind it.  Trust me when I say you will not be dissapointed with your investment in this mod.

So what's it about?

In Paranoia you take the role of a Spetsnaz soldier, sent in with the rest of your team to take out a group of terrorists who have taken over an industrial complex.  From the beginning everything seems to be your average mission but as you progress you uncover a dark secret about the complex, I won't give away too many details but its safe to say that it involves a lot of evil mutants wanting your head.

 So it's just another zombie mod then?

Yes and no.  Sure there are mutants and other baddies out for your blood but this only takes up about half the total length of the game, the rest is spent in intense firefights with terrorists or other spetsnaz related tasks.  One thing this game does well is to really make you feel as if you are part of an elite spetsnaz team.  This game even rivals some retail titles with the depth of it's team AI, they move as if they know what they're doing, they take up tactical positions when opening doors and the animations make them believeable.  You will actually be caring what happens to them and making sure you do your job to protect them.

Enough of the humans, what of the zombies?

About mid way through the game you will encounter your first one.  These mutants are not like your average run of the mill ones.  They take alot to take down and can kill you very quickly, which perhaps brings me to my first critisism.  In a way the mutants are too powerful, easily able to take you down with two or three swipeswhilst able to take full clips from a handgun to the head, and these are just the easy ones.  As you progress you will encounter harder and harder enemies that just refuse to lay down and die, forcing you to rely on the invincibility and infinate ammo of your comrades.  While this may be the type of enemy the developers were going for, it is rather frustrating when you run out of ammo for a gun versing a single badguy.

Final Thoughts

 Apart from the insane zombie difficulty and some lack of direction in the tutorial level, Paranoia represents a thoroughly enjoyable, albiet brief (3-4 hours), experience.  From the quality of the animations, the level design detail and the AI, it shows that the developers have poured their heart and soul into this mod and have come up with something top class.  I highly reccommend everyone download and try this, the only real issue is that you'll be crying out for more.

Verdict 

Paranoia is a must-have for zombie fans and anyone with half-life still installed.

8/10