You are Flynn Weißhaupt, a computer engineer of Black Mesa who worked on the Gibson, a powerful supercomputer. Now with the Resonance Cascade, it is your mission to retrieve the data of the Gibson and destroy it. Because The Gibson is too powerful to fall into the hands of alien forces or the military.
Interesting and medium-sized mod which gives us a slightly changed episode of Black Mesa. It's a clever mix of classic fights and puzzles, with a clear storyline.
The main interest is the work on the sounds and textures, it feels like finding a yet unknown/hidden part of Black Mesa.
High quality mapping makes this an immediate recommendation from me. Sticks to traditional Half-Life game-play and does so with finesse.
Playing on 'hard' provided a finely balanced challenge that rewarded hunting for secrets and being thoughtful with my ammo. Not very often I find a mod which is challenging enough to be exciting without leaving me feeling frustrated with larger scale combat encounters.
I think this comes down most to the way these maps cater to the enemies placed in them. Always cover nearby to evade a Vortigaunt beam, space to dodge a Headcrab or zombie, and a sufficient weapon supply to quickly subdue military opponents. Mapping around the enemies path-finding ability, movement, and attacks makes fighting these classic enemies dynamic and exciting again.
Maps are nicely detailed, feeling full and textured. Good use is made of repeating assets, the environments don't descend into repetition even with their recurring features. Certain locker doors opened in the wrong direction, not a big deal and entirely fixable.
Excellent use of lighting. Appreciate that a lot, adds depth to the atmosphere. Lots of varied colors and patterns with their placements. The design aesthetic of Black Mesa in this mod feels inspired in large part by Kubrick's 2001 and the Alien franchise, both things I like a lot and bring a sleek but ominous atmosphere to the facility.
Objectives are fairly clear and the path forward was never frustrating to find. Small text blurbs give occasional direction. Brief but effective. Subtract from the atmosphere somewhat but are for the most part quite unobtrusive, so I think they do more good than harm for the project. Mapping layout and visual indicators do the bulk of the work.
On 'hard' the crowbar, pistol, shotgun, grenades, and MP5 all got ample time to shine. Each one was a workhorse unto itself. I wish the 357 got the same love. I was quite looking forward to combating the military with it, however there are only 2 small arenas after its introduction. For how significantly the other guns shined in game-play it was unfortunate not to have opportunity to similarly utilize one of my favorite weapons.
I think the weapons selected to put in this project are a solid lineup. They fit the mapping well and each feels important and exciting to receive. I like the design choice.
If you're looking for a tough but reasonably tempered combat challenge with meticulously crafted atmosphere and pacing, this project played on 'hard' is a great pick. Takes the solid design elements and atmosphere of Half-Life, chooses to present them in a refined and remixed package with its own thoughtful sense of style. Not revolutionary in any particular dimension, but chooses what it wants to do and does it well. I think that has paid off big time.
Hell of a romp through Black Mesa Once more!
After 25 years of the Half-Life Modding scene reliving the Black Mesa Incident, it's still amazing the community can come up with new aesthetics and scenery to give everyones favorite Government Blacksite new life! And The World Machine brings that in spades!
In one of the rare mods where the player goes deeper rather then climbing to the surface, the levels themselves become far more claustrophobic and borderline Star War's tech-wise as every floor brings the player closer to the super computer which I ain't going to spoil, but it certain took heavy inspiration from a certain film that was a delight to see in action!
Gameplay is tight! With health and batteries in tight reserve even if the player searches for secrets with ammo even tighter, making every bullet count against increasingly overwhelming odds!
At 13 levels, it's long enough to offer a few hours of play but not long enough to overstay it's welcome. Despite everything, the only negative I can give this is the endless blaring sirens that take up most of the audio backdrop to the point of being obnoxious.
Give it a whirl, only YOU can unplug this Machine!
The mod is a brand-new story with very impressive realisation. Technically it's just mission pack of average length, but I enjoyed it more than some mods which used coding to spice up their gameplay. Visual mapping quality is just superb, with unique style and very clever usage of a levels' space (one of the best I ever have seen in HL mods). This is amplified with good scripting of gameplay moments, monster placement etc. It was quite challenging to play it on hard difficulty, because ammo & pick-ups were limited enough in the first half, even though a tried to use them very rationally and looked for them in every corner :D. So far I found only few rough moments, which can be easily fixed. In one place (twm_6) there is a guard which is intended to open a door for you, but you're getting no warnings if he got killed. Also, sometimes scripted sounds are not set into Not Toggled state, so they continue to play every time when you load a saved game (made after those sounds have finished playing already). Also in some situations you can see your enemies through a non-breakable glass or a fence, but they don't alert on you (it's kinda common HL thing and know that this made on purpose sometimes, but still a bit weird). I hope to see some fixes later, so I didn't count those things in my rating, because I see a very professional work in this mod, just a small lack of testing/feedback maybe. It's definitely one of the best compact HL mission packs ever (13 playable maps of mixed intensive action and some puzzle solving, spent more than 2 hours to finish it), great job for 1 person.
Dr.T released a wonderful and masterfully executed mod with plenty of npc scripts in use. That and fantastic re-pitched alert sounds provide a wonderful atmosphere within the mod. But it won't end here. The whole mod comes with tons of new textures which may for some be a down turn seeing how this plays at Black Mesa.
But fear not. Vanilla assets are well mixed with the new textures and you won't have any trouble accepting the world you've been thrown into. That being said it does play in a secret facility within Black Mesa and much like the XEN Teleportation Lambda had, was classified and information only known to those involved with the project.
Story: The Storyline is simple and unfortunately somewhat short: The Resonance Cascade occurred and it is up to us to rush to our super computer to retrieve vital data which must not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands as that would bring larger implications with it. Must be super important if Aliens are considered less threatening than the idea of the data getting into the wrong hands. :)
Pro:
- Brilliant new textures in usage.
- Fantastic Npc scripts in the earlier mod maps. (The World feels alive)
- Clever thought out puzzles and even some minor secret areas. (providing you with extra health mostly)
- Fantastic level design and architecture. (A true masterpiece that can easily compete on it's own with mods such as (The Core, Crossfire, Field Intensity, Caged or Echoes just to name a few. At the very least on indoor maps that is.)
Contra:
- Throughout the mod we get only 5 weapons (Crowbar, pistol, shotgun, mp5/m4, at the very end the Magnum too) pity.
- Some minor visual bugs here and there. Dead Npcs appear out of thin air at level changes, some null textures on falling objects where you look into the object in a non intended way.
- Later on somewhat repetitive as you always encounter the same types of enemies over and over in a almost reoccurring chronological order. Sometimes it felt a little to much like copy pasting to me and things could've been mixed up little better and where were the Snarks and Barnacle or turrets even?
- The ending felt a little rushed. I would have wished for a proper outro map. Perhaps 1 showing a fight between Grunts and Aliens on the surface till the explosion occurs and then showing a before and after picture once the blast has passed.
All in all a wonderful mod and a well executed release. The mentioned contra points are minor really. The gameplay, the balance and the mapping are all top notch in this exceptional mod.
My congrats to the author and what are you waiting for people. Go and play it.
Good little mod.
Visuals are very good, but gameplay is too repetitive and loud alarm sounds quickly become irritating
I'll keep it short and simple - just super!
This mod progression bug needs to be fixed: On map twm_6 if the security officer (there's a scientist next to him) is killed, there is no one to open the door.
there are some minor flaws, but gameplay is really satisfying.