Dissolution is a science fiction, single-player mod for Half-Life 2 that mixes adventure and action game-play. Set in the year 2089, in a universe dominated by a mega corporate entity, Xterrier, the player awakes in a hidden lab to the voice of the mysterious Wilson. Guided by Wilson, the player must make their way through the ravaged Xterrier 581c colony, making use of any and all resources they can get their hands on in order to survive, all the while attempting to piece together the events leading to the colony's collapse and their own identity.
This review may contain spoilers
Some of the screenshots of this mod seemed pretty interesting, so I downloaded it, poured a cold coke in a glass and loaded up Dissolution.
The cinematic introduction (although it's a bit long and static) managed to keep me interested all the way to the end. Thank God for my long attention span and wisdom of old age. A 14 year old might have started chewing on his keyboard when he had to sit through that.
I wake up on a slab, apparently unknowing and unloved because suddenly citizens of a planetary base start attacking me. Meanwhile, this wierd voice coming from inside my head and some PDA's with audiofragments are trying to tell me what's going on. I find it hard to concentrate since the volume of the fragments is low and some guy is trying to beat me with a crowbar. While voice acting is awesome, design-wise it's clever to keep the important conversation at uneventfull parts of the game.
The mod looks pretty decent. The custom art isn't high quality but it sets the theme pretty well. Although, after a few minutes I get the idea that the maps were made with a set of only 5 textures and 5 different prefabs of rooms/corridors. Did I just pour another coke in my glass or was this also a dejavu? While some special rooms are a refreshing change, most of the maps seem very repetive. Same goes for the gameplay: get the keycard, throw the switch, get the other keycard, throw the other switch. Not many kudos for innovation there.
However, the characters were pretty well done. The main NPC's were original or had a nice twist. The mad suicidal citizens were fun to blast away and those wacky psychedelic crows, even though they seem out of place, had a way of giving you permanent migraines if you didn't get rid of them quick enough.
Overall, if you like quick run and gun action, you could rate this 8/10. If you value original storyline, innovation and pretty graphics (like me), this will not satisfy you. However, the few nice traits made me give Dissolution 6/10.