Prequel for Half-Life Mod allows to look and take part at the events before Half-Life. You assume the role of Dr. Gordon Freeman. You will meet Kleiner, Vance, Barney, Rosenberg and other characters.
Disappointment with Half-Life 3 led many mod developers to create their own interpretations of the sequel to the famous FPS saga. That's why is so rare and original to find a prequel to the first title. However, what Half-Life: Induction delivers is lackluster in practically every aspect, especially in terms of game length and bland gameplay.
Modelling is almost the only aspect of worth in Induction. The characters of Half-Life are reskinned and fit the lab-like ambience of the mod. However, while the textures and mapping are faithful to the classic style of Black Mesa, they are not outstanding in any way. The lack of music also contributes to failure in setting an engaging ambience: why not even original Half-Life music isn't present is something I cannot fathom.
The story is supposedly the strongest point of Induction, but it turns out it is not. Key characters from Half-Life 2 are presented in a rather mundane routine, which is a nice nod to the saga, but the narrative they are involved in goes nowhere. It's just a slice of life that's so boring it makes us question why we would be interested in Gordon Freeman's story at all. I got to praise the Easter egg achievement system though. As for the dialogue, it is a big drawback to juggle between Russian dialogues, which are unfitting and horribly acted, and the original English dialogues of NPCs. This has improved tremendously though with the release of Induction 1.3, featuring cleaner subtitles and decent English voice acting that somewhat merges with the original Half-Life 2 characters.
After some ups and downs, gameplay is definitely the worst offender. Every variation of Half-Life should always be conceived as an action mod, not a walking simulator. Period. The base game doesn't even have graphics to make it visually appealing. Additionally, the mod is extremely short and the puzzles are few and far in between, most of them extremely easy, although there are notable "final status" endings if you screw up the expected pace.
Got some time to kill and you are bored of the umpteenth variation of Half-Life's prequel/sequel? Try it at your own risk. If not, don't even look back.