Reviews - Grey mod for Half-Life 2: Episode Two

After waiting years for this project to get released, this mod didn't deliver.

When I first began this game, I had a very unique and amazing experience. There are very few mods that sent me chills under my skin in the first ten minutes. It was just so different in comparison to many other projects. Despite how strong the introduction of the campaign was, I found the rest of the campaign to be dull and cliche.

Gameplay: Instead of being a standard linear Horror FPS, the player is forced to go through puzzles, backtrack, and interact with some new gameplay types. One of which is to use a drill to break through a dry wall. Though, to every new mechanic like that, there's a ton of dull elements to the game that stands out much more.

Health for instance, is extremely scarce and enemies just perform too much damage. To add insult to injury, the melee weapons in this mod is utterly useless. To the point where conserving ammunition is thrown out the window, just shoot anything that moves. I personally do not mind the health being scarce or enemies performing massive damage, but elements like those must be remedied.

Horror: The introduction in the campaign left a strong impression on me. It's very rare for me to lean back on my chair and take a break, during my first play-through for a game. Sadly, the rest of the mod never really lived up to the introduction. There's a ton of cliches and jump scares for the rest of the duration.

Story: If there's one thing that's important to a horror genre, would actually be story. When it comes to playing a horror genre, you're challenging yourself to be brave. Though, being brave isn't about "I felt like it", you're being brave to accomplish something, one for instance would be story. Fighting for the conclusion, apparently, the story in Grey was non existent.

I really hate to bash and criticize other people's hard work, but I don't like to lie either. If no one's going to critic other's work, quality will drop.

I've been watching this mod for almost a year, and I can't tell you how disappointed I was with it. The game starts out pretty scary, but ends up getting very dull after the first few maps. Everything that is supposed to scare you is usually a jumpscare. (Something coming out of nowhere making a very loud sound.) The maps were all good a so. Some of the enemies were very laughable. The plot was confusing and hard to get into. Enemies are too tough and ammo/health is VERY limited.

Overall, I rate it 4/10, because it got too bland too quick and stopped being scary.

There's a lot to be said about the indie take on survival horror - one would be looking more toward that specific niche in the genre just to get a breath of fresh air. Even then, major corporations are struggling to present something even remotely plausible and worthy of having a place in the survival horror genre (with little success mind you).

Here, we have a new addition to the horror theme known as "Grey." What's presented in its images and videos is nothing short of intriguing to one who has a taste for the more psychological side of horror, that of the likes of Silent Hill.

The art direction of this game is quite astounding, contributing greatly toward the build-up of the atmosphere. There is blood, rust, and dirt caked over almost everything you see.

The sounds and music in the game isn't anything to complain about, but it isn't really anything memorable either. The loud sudden noises of a monster in the distance and the "ping" of the pipe as it impacts a wall is not unfitting in the slightest. The voice overs are nice too.

One thing to take note of in the game is that it's not a walk in the park. Often times you will encounter a monster that is surprisingly powerful and will take a chunk of your health with every hit. They too have a good amount of health and will take quite a few hits or bullets to put them down.

Unfortunately, Grey does not take long to complete, me having beaten it in less than an hour. There is a hardcore difficulty I may have to get around to one day, but it's a bit demotivating considering normal mode was hard enough.

Overall, Grey carries a great atmosphere, but is greatly bogged down by difficulty and disappointing brevity. It has a lot of potential, and I honestly expected more out of it, but what it offered satisfied my craving for a plausible horror experience.

I had high hopes for this. I really did.

Looking at this as a game designer, a lot of this was very poorly made. There were grammar issues in one of the loading screens, and that didn't really bother me. But what bothered me is that the main character had to tell me where to go, and there was like NO exploration being done. If I explored, sure I found batteries, but it seemed so long it didn't even matter. I bet I could beat the entire mod without getting more batteries.

The voice acting was amazing, but again, I didn't need him talking every 4 seconds.

The models were nice though. The intro is my favorite part of the mod.
That's it.

The animations are really awkward. It seems like this mod is too focused on scaring people and not really focused on the little things, like the animations of the pipe. It's like a skin of the crowbar obviously. Like I needed to say it.

The Music sounded like it was made in like 10 minutes in FL Studio. There was a part that was an EXACT ******* sound from the "Hits" sound folder.

I'm sorry but this mod was only good for the mapping, and some of the models. Call me picky, call me rude, but this AoM ripoff was an extreme letdown.

You guys have better talent and I know you do. But really?

This mod has a great points and also bad points. The atmosphere is really cool and some textures and models, but the gameplay was a bit bad and boring.

Great atmosphere and level design. Terrible combat. Some enemies are tanks, they take many hits to put down and there are no ways of avoiding damage. No dodge, no run. You walk at a snail's pace while all the enemies move faster than you. There are very little heals in the game so i spent most of my time with 1/100 HP. Eventually i quit at a room with an infinite number of enemies it seemed. almost no way of avoiding damage i would continuously die.

WARNING: this game crashed my computer 3 times. Even on lowest graphical settings the game itself would crash and consume a massive amount of gpu processing. (ranging from 400 MHz to 1200MHz depending on the room/settings) CPU processing even on my 3.3GHz i-5 would consume a full core.

First, I had played Nightmare House series and Cry of Fear before, so I will make a little comparison between these horror mods.
Grey has two story modes to complete.

Normal mode has nothing interesting to say. This is just a dumbed down version of the hardcore campaign.
I really want to skip the whole part if I could.
There are few good puzzles around, but there are also a lot of nonsense periods.
A path will always open behind you without any clues or sounds.
It's a very frustrating experience.

The Hardcore mode has a better design in every way, and you don't make the same mistakes again.
That's the spirit behind the Grey.
I am eager to play mistake series after I played Grey.

Grey has great props, weapon models and animations.
Levels are very beautiful too, but it feels more like NH2 than CoF.

The combat isn't fun because there are a lot of monsters are scripted.
Most of them guards a specific position.

The Hints tell you to search the side rooms and escape from the monsters.
That's not totally true in this case.
Most of them are staying in a tiny alley or a room.
You have to fight them back without a choice.
The rewards are usually useless in the hardcore mode.
Prepare to crash a hunderd of empty boxes and find a few batteries.

Ammo placements isn't wise too. I saved the ammo and I have no chance to fire a single shot of my submachine gun.
The game just ends without a climax.

I love the art drection, but Grey fails to deliever a charming gameplay.
It's definitly worth a pay or donation for its art design.
However, Grey has no surprises like NH2 or CoF will give you.
Grey is a very polished work, but you will want more from it.

Terrible ending and game design decisions, derivative horror tropes, incomprehensible narrative.

So, I download it, and tested it, here my opinion :

Story : I'm french, so i didn't understand everything, but the hero need more interaction, seriously, he see a dead body, no reaction. He's teleported in strange place, he say juste once 'WTF' and, it's all, after that, all are normal like puppet monster or zombie : normal, i see them everyday.

Originality : We cleary see the mod is inspired by classic horror game like silent hill, so no really originality.

Graphics : Best point I think, Nice overhaul models, nice animations, good mapping, nice textures (little low res for me ^^) no really thing to say about that. Hud are really nice too.

Programming : Very nice, no thing to say.

Sound Design : Fire weapon is flat.. Ambiance sound need to be improve, i haven't been scared once time.

Gameplay : The worst part ever ! Seriously, have you give the mod to tester ? Because it's really extremly harcore ! Ennemi can kill you in 6-10 hits, not a problem if they can't touch you before you touch them ! But when you have low health, were are the health recover ? some food who give you 5 pv ? pills : 0 pv (i don't understand that) ? Compare to the damage take by monster it's just hilarous ! Another thing : Autosave. No way, you need to add more autosave, you die so many times and you need to redone all the map, youpi !

I think i say everythink, I hope you take in consideration this and not buried it (OpForce2 like).

Hope you release an Hot Fix.

(Sorry for my bad english)

I take that all back. It was scary, and then came all the PewDiePie references and it ruined it. I am sick of people doing this to good mods.