Review by HLWATCHER - Estranged mod for Half-Life 2

This is another mod in the category of those in "Continuing Development", because here in this release we have the first official delivery called Estranged, Act 1. Now, if that is a good thing well I really don't know. I mean, as a pure mod gamer, I prefer a mod to be delivered as a whole instead of parts, although I know there are some very, very ambitious projects, as Underhell mod, which their only way is to release in parts rather than a whole. With the case of this mod, I guess the job into it is great and huge as in most of those Total conversion mods, but I would have better preferred to wait to see this mod launched as a whole, why? Well because here in this Act 1 I found things I liked but others I frankly didn't like at all.

First, the pros are the quite immersive story around this mysterious island and the whole secrets, the gameplay and story tell is quite linear, a thing that I prefer rather than those cut scenes-cinematic mods like Underhell, also the dynamic "search things such as keycards or so" and "go there and press the button" are not overused, like in Underhell, again that's another nice touch.

Now the cons, or things I didn't like at all, but nevertheless can be improved are, the hectic combat and absolutely stupid weapon system used in the gameplay, I just did not like the formula, many zombies in one part, too few in others, plus be able to carry just 1 weapon which is melee in almost a big amount of time during the maps, I just allow the player to use more than 3 weapons and, please correct that terrible enemy imbalance in the whole mod. Also the zooming use is pretty weird, very annoying in some times I'd rather prefer to use the old reliable "Z" key to do that instead of the scroll-wheel in the mouse, also there is an imbalance regarding to lighting in the maps, as dark areas are way too dark and lightened areas are way too enlightened.

Overall, this is a nice mod to play is fun and bad points can be corrected in the future.