Die In Pain, Rest in Peace Review - D.I.P.R.I.P. Mod for Half-Life 2

D.I.P.R.I.P Warm-up (From now on referred to as DIPRIP) was not really a mod that I had really taken an active interest in, it was like one of those films that are at the cinema that you wouldn't pay to see but it was on television you'd watch it if there was nothing better on, but then it turned out that you should have seen it in its glory at the cinema. This mod is just like that, a mod that I only installed as I had nothing else to really play at that time and I felt like something new.

I fired up the newly installed game and was surprised by how different it was to anything else I'd played as a mod.

I started my own server just to get used to the controls, which were very usefully explained as part of the loading process and drove around blowing up haystacks.

The game responded quickly and the car/tank thing drove like the vehicles in half life 2, use the mouse to look and you steer with the controls. This takes some getting used to, as in HL2 I was unable to shoot behind me and maintain a decent driving direction and thus during actual online game play found that I would run headfirst into either a pond or a wall whilst my enemy looped around my and shoved missiles into the sides of my helpless jeep.

But that's okay, that's part of a game like this and that's what makes the game so brilliant. It's not a game based on a desperately elaborate story line that requires you to unlock puzzles or follow a tutorial to get into it. It has no single player and with the basic tips and tricks coming as part of the loading screen it's essentially a get-stuck-in game.

And it was the best modification I've played... ever. It took me back to the good old days of Quake 3 Arena when you just joined a server grabbed a gun and then shot your enemy into tiny pieces to have them respawn and do that to you and thus have that blissful cycle continue for several hours before your eyes start to bleed. And this was exactly the same type of game, I could have played this for hours if it wasn't for the fact that I felt like it was slowly sanding down my eyes.

The game uses the graphics style of the HL2 engine which is a very detailed backdrop and amazing graphic styles, but then it also has highly complex and badass looking tank-mobiles which from a distance blend quite easily into the background. I was unsure whether that very detailed blob in the distance was an incoming death car or the beginning of a seizure.

There are 4 ninja cars in this picture... find them.

And this would be the only defining part of the mod that I think needs work, Mario kart had some simple maps with some easy to see cars (nothing to do with the fact that they had giant people pushed up inside them), whilst quakes players were easily see able from the texture line up due to their awesome yet pointless outfits. Now if the actual cars had something more pick-out-able from the rest of the map then that would be perfect, perhaps making them a slightly lighter colour or perhaps decreasing the level of detail within either the cars or the map, making them easier to see.

Other then that there is also the point that at the point of this review there were 3 cars which were playable, all of which had a different thing, one was stronger but slower and the other was faster but weaker, the usual cliché style of basic classes within games. But it didn't really matter to the game play, if someone comes screaming at you with 3 rockets already mid-flight and the other one already having dinner with your colon its not really going to make a difference whether you are the heavy tank or the light go kart. You will be blown into thousands of giblets.

This is not a massive problem with the game its just something I've picked up on and perhaps doesn't really need any work. The different cars look cool and that's what really matters in the end. You didn't pick Sarge because he was a soldier, you picked Anarchi because he was on a hover-board or hunter because between her gun and her headdress not much else was left to the imagination. The cars look awesome but if you're going to make difference game-wise to them perhaps make them a bit more see able. TF2 is a good example of visual differences between classes as you can tell them from the backdrop as well as easily tell which class it is just from its basic outline.

Overall the game is fun, its simple and brutal, the graphics are good, the explosions are awesome, the weapons are clever. It's the perfect SETTMPS (Shoot Every thing that moves person shooter) for those who don't want tactics or thirty buttons to tie your shoelaces. It's a game for just pure un-censored fun, it even has Arnie as the in-game announcer.