In Deep takes you through the scrapped version of Half-Life from 1997, re-imagined and revamped. What awaits you is a surreal, fast-paced, and action-packed journey through the old Labs once again!
6/10 for now. More releases or edits will determine future ratings.
This is a mod I've watched for a good while and even worked with back when I was also working on Shaft. Saying that, I've seen how the maps evolved and improved over time. To see what the final result is for Office Warrens just shows a lack in polish, love, and direction.
I see many blocked off sections that used to be alternate paths which got hastily removed. Some rooms that have lighting and everything but aren't accessible. The entire last section doesn't resemble anything from a earlier incarnation of the chapter that I've seen, and features broken vending machines, and other objects like a func_pendulum door you can commit suicide on. The actual alternate path from the alpha version of the chapter doesn't even work anymore which makes no sense.
There aren't any custom models which is just odd, and essentially just makes this a map pack currently. The 'last modified' dates also point to this being quickly patched up and released to avoid being removed as a mod on the Source Modding Community Discord.
I hope things improve, and more time and care is put into future releases.
Uninspired, lacking, and phoned-in is what I would describe Half-Life In Deep.
My expectations were low, but it managed to be worse than what I expected. I expected a mediocre mod (a 5 to 7 out of 10,) not a mod that some how is worse in areas than the alpha campaign.
The mod lacks challenge, even to non-veteran players, and you could easily do a passive run of the mod. Only hurdle is the Alien Slaves next to a changelevel that appear in retail. The puzzles consist of 2 box puzzles, breaking a breaker box after you leave the area with the turret (really rendering that puzzle kinda pointless unless you want to grab the items in the room with the turret, but I'm going to assume most players will ultimately just shoot down the turret before reaching that breaker box,) walking across some ceiling tiles (which break way before you actually get near them, basically holding your hand so there's no challenge or risk,) and the elevator shaft you have to jump upon.
Any non-linear path has been boarded up excluding one elevator shaft you can walk up, and a section to get a revolver but both rooms don't really provide anything besides being extra rooms. There's one door to the left of the hallways with the first box puzzle that leads no where and just looks awful, would of been better if you would of just removed it outright. There's tons of rooms attached to doors that can not open that serve no purpose beyond that you didn't bother to patch them out or finish them, which include random blast doors ending certain hallways.
Layout wise, it's basically the bog standard alpha campaign, but it leads from one cafeteria to another? One with a vending machine with buttons that slide to the left. Along with a lot of those scripted sequences being kinda buggy and seemly unfinished.
At points the geometry is somehow WORSE than what the alpha had and some geometry is worse than the final game. You could make the argument for the latter, but should you limit yourself to the detail of the alpha, especially when you somehow managed to be worse in certain aspects than the source material and it is clear that a lot of those under detailed areas in the source material were clearly unfinished? Texture alignment is questionable, I understand what you were trying to do, but a lot of it doesn't make sense to real world applications of it (no one would make custom ceiling tiles like that, they would cut it to fit corners and such.) Also, what's with that func_pendulum door? It logically doesn't make sense and it causes more issues than it really adds as detail.
Also, the lighting! GOD! Everything is too dark, even areas with lighting. Is your gamma/brightness/contrast settings correct on your monitor? Some areas without lighting seems like you just forgot to add lights, while others were clear that you intended the lights to be off. Plus, the .RAD lighting between the two maps are inconsistent, one being an orange hue (which looks fine,) which changes into lights with a green hue (which looks bad.)
Enemy choice is questionable, the alpha used Human Grunts as placeholders for the Zombies, the beta used Zombies, then retail changed them to Alien Slaves for some reason. You have both Alien Slaves and Zombies? It also seems like the Alien Slave placement is there because you just copied it from the final campaign and never changed them to Zombies. Could be wrong, but the mixture is a bit awkward in my opinion.
It is clear you pushed this release out to keep your channel in Source Modding Community, the mod was made in 3 days if you look at the folder creation dates. You didn't create this out of passion, you created this so you can grasp on to some sort of fame and relevancy. If you're going to create something, make sure you're doing it because you want to, not because you "have" to.
Just play Preliminary's office demo.
nice
yes