Reviews - Half-Life: Sum mod for Half-Life

I wish my brushwork looked like yours!

I previously felt that HTC was the best of the three mods linked together here, but as a whole it comes together nicely. I greatly enjoyed this, and it is such a treat to look at. To be cliche, short but sweet :)

The mapping is really great. I also love the atmosphere. What I don't like, however is the combination of low definition models and props with ultra definition ones. Same thing goes for textures, which are sometimes weirdlymixed.

Amazing trilogy

The first thing I have in mind when finishing the game is the level design. I'm goldsrc mapper too and for me it's just amazing and well detailed ! Amazing work done by the author that provide me a good inspiration for my own creation ! Thanks for this !

But there are some points I didn't like, the level design is amazing but finally a bit repetitive with the same textures. The lightning is too flat with the same tones, and it's the small point that for me which could be more worked. And last thing about lightning, in general it's too dark.

Now about the gameplay, I recognized the author gameplay style because I played Half-life Urbicide lately too and it's the same thing. In Urbicide it's a bit better but in Half-life Sum it's too repetitive, walking, taking weapons, monsters appearing or on your way, killing them, continue and repeat again and again. It's a shame having a so wonderful level design but not well-used to serve the gameplay and the areas created. So sometimes I was a bit boring.

The final part is interesting, and I didn't expect it but repeating it 3 times with the same camera in the bed, well... a bit boring too when you are repeating the same thing for the third time.

But still be a very good MOD so far.

Quite the journey this is. You play as the only female HECU, apparently? Not that it matters.

The first part is called HTC, a beautiful title where you need to hunt the proverbial C who offed you and your buddies. She did finish you off, but I guess she missed all the vital areas, eh? I must say, the design for this part of Black Mesa is great, I really dig the designs for corridors, tunnels and doors. All the vent crawling though? Not so much, although the fact that you can open two vents without smashing them to bits is definitely a plus.
There are some huge areas that I liked where the big fight happens which I thought would be a boss fight, but my expectations were subverted once again. The area where the light goes off gave me huge Unreal vibes, although placing a sniper beyond your nightvision was definitely a jerk move. Ouch. I really liked that you could explore or backtrack certain areas for extra goodies, that was a nice touch.
My friend laughed for 5 minutes straight after witnessing the end of C lady, although it was a bit anticlimactic given that it was the big G who stole the kill. Alas. The chase overall kind of ended shortly, too.

The second part involves us being recruited by G-man, because of course. I'm sure it's a bingo square somewhere for HL mods at this point. Here it becomes apparent that the mod wasn't really designed for Hard skill, given the lack of medications and an abundance of very nasty Alien Grunt spawns, whose hivehand somehow manages to find its target much better than in the original. I spent majority of this part running around with 1HP, thanks to cleverly hidden headcrabs and the aforementioned Grunts. Tension, anyone?
While I applauded the huge open areas in the first part as a plus, in here they feel like wasted space with nothing going on majority of the time, not even extra goodies. Shame. Still, I liked the reference to Doom 3's Pinky introduction with the glass room, that was nice. Lots of great detail throughout, making the working areas feel lived-in, with interesting posters and great brushwork. I know that stuff takes time, so props for that.
Surprisingly, the black ops played nice this time and didn't grenade me even once. They probably saw me assaulting one of those vending machines with my infinite supply of quarters for extra health, aww.
This part ends on another humorous note with G-man saying a line I never thought was even recorded, cut files? Or did you actually ask Shapiro to voice it? In any case, amazing.

Part three felt like a repetitive loop if that's what you were going for. Your flat is a mess with several shoes lined up in your wardrobe, which is pretty realistic given the protagonist (haha). The part where you get spooked by a zombie while you have no weapons feels like a missing opportunity to have him chase you, given the availability of side rooms where you can kite him. The part with purple crystals was somewhat brutal, given the constant onslaught from the most annoying enemy in the game + the fact that crystals explode and deal crazy damage if you were standing close + they blind you momentarily after you destroy both of them, giving an ample chance to fall down or get zapped. Plus the health carries over from each encounter, which might pose a problem if you were bad at the game.
Later, you end up being thrown out in the middle of nowhere in the desert, making you think like this was all just a fever dream. Would be funnier if that was Black Mesa right before the nuke dropped, but I guess it's like a sequel bait? If so, I'm eagerly waiting for more. Extra points for making it all a single map, which means you had to cleverly use giant boxes to create multiple skyboxes? Yeah.

Overall, great usage of various assets, greatly improved levels compared to standalone releases of previous parts, lots of attention to detail, funny and tense moments, it's good. Not great, but definitely worth checking out sometime.

You play Half-Life: Sum as the grunt Jane Doe, starting in a room very injured, watching a female assassin finishing a scientist. She then shoot Jane and leave her to die, not realizing Jane was still alive and hungry for revenge.

This mod is amazing, it has very well detailed maps, with amazing visuals and lighting. The sound design here is pretty good, it feels dark and hopeless, in a devastated Black Mesa full of bodies, blood, and abominations. The way the gonomes are introduced is nice, seeing only their back, while devouring a poor survivor in a bloodbath.

It's a pretty balanced mod, I had a lot of fun playing on medium difficulty, without dying once through the entire mod. However, the hard mode was kinda unbalanced and boring, the enemies were too spongy, vortigaunts attack too fast, and the fact that they teleport in front of you, usually in linear corridors, avoiding damage can be very annoying.

There is little to no messages on the screen, but when you reach some chapters, a lot of text is displayed, with some information about your next mission. The time to read them is too short, even if you try to read as fast as you can.

There are many buttons and doors you can interact with, but for some odd decision, some of them you need to press the use key, and others you just need to touch. This usually happens with both doors and buttons, it's very inconsistent and almost killed me a few times. I was running from a horde of aliens to reach an elevator, I started to press the button like crazy, but nothing happened. The thing is, all I had to do was to, well, touch it.

Not nitpicking, but there is a bathtub at Jane's home where, if you get into it while crouching, you get stuck, and can see the toilet flicking like crazy. The only way to get out is by reloading a save.

This mod is very good, with many beautiful places to look at. It's not too long or too short, maybe around 2 to 3 hours of gameplay. It's really worth your attention, give it a shot.

brilliant map design and environmental storytelling combined with fun and balanced enemy encounters make this a must-play for any fan of half-life 1. my only real issue is how a few of the weapon sounds were replaced like the MP5 and desert eagle firing sounds, but that's just a personal preference. otherwise, this mod is basically a Fun-Sized echoes; a modern classic.

Great mod overall.

In terms of visuals as in terms of gameplay, the mod deviates very little from the original Half-Life game, but it does that in a very good way. Both aspects are augmented: the gameplay with new NPCs and weapons (from Opposing-Force), carefully designed and original encounters; the visuals with new textures and models (mostly or all taken from other mods). As said in other reviews, some models or textures sometimes look off.

I wasn’t really impressed by the story nor the cutscenes though. I also though the ending was a bit repetitive, as was the number of times the protagonist is finished with a bullet to the head, yet survives. I also think this mod deserved voice acting for the main protagonist. I think we sometimes hear her voice, but too often it’s just some text. This didn’t really affect my impression of the mod negatively, but had and the story and the story-telling been good it could have made the mod really better.

A few quircks here and there, but they’re just small details, such as alien controllers leaving blood on the black sky.

Some strange mix of textures here and there, but overall a good desing - especially the secret places. The low def models look out of place compared with the quality of the environment. The best part is HTC of course.