**WARNING +18** After turning down the Gman's offer of employment, you managed to escape using an intergalactic teleporter that returned you to Earth. Hiding out within the inner city, you soon believe that the Gman is no longer interested in you. A calm peaceful feeling begins to replace the fear, terror and horror that overwhelmed you during your nightmare with Black Mesa, the soldiers and the Xen species. Feeling confident that it is now safe to return home to your wife and look up some old friends, you make your way back to the old neighbourhood. - By Grey Dog
This reminds me of Duke Nukem 3D, and not just because there are a few sounds we hear in the beginning from it. It has a few things borrowed from it, like a higher emphasis on finding secrets than any other incarnation of the simple hl mods we’re accustomed to, it also has a slightly higher level interactivity having us prod everything… it even has the finding the right colored key cards (which is the only thing that should not have been taken from DN3D in my opinion, gamers have grown passed that).
There are some neat weapons though some clearly where taken from TFC or from gamebanana. I do find it quite fun while it lasted. Each level was unique (eventhough there was a little to much Quake 2 textures for my taste, while I love the old school shooters Quake 2 had the ugliest colour scheme I’ve ever seen that had no variety).
But that along with the invisible grunts at the end which annoyed me to hell and back is the only bad things I can say about it.
The storyline was decent, though I would have preferred to read some books like I thought I would be, and the level design is good for the most part eventhough I thought the moonbase could have been better.
I had fun before the end mission came up so I think that its worth the play. Its quite different to the previous one Adam by the same author.
For some reason whenever Grey Dog created something for HL it's been met with negativity and I don't know why. To me, his mods and maps are all unique in a way that they are meant to be fun first and coherent second. Sure, they don't always make sense or have a serious tone, but that's never been a bad thing in my book. Fun is king after all.
Hour-Glass, just like Grey Dog's previous mappack Adam, is about time and space. The creator sure loves time travel. Just like Adam, fun and experimental design is still the main idea. You go through still weird but more grounded areas this time. There are funny scenarios to witness and strange worlds / unique locations to visit, like the notorious porn theatre :)
Not everything is great of course. Some areas are more bland than others and some, despite well made, have unclear objectives and bad design choices. The worst is the invisible grunts from the future. It's exactly how it sounds and since trial and error is never fun, it makes the whole section a chore to get through.
Despite its shortcomings this is a mod worth playing. If you like fun, well designed levels and scenarios that aren't necessarily serious, love the old 90's shooters and references to them and don't lose your mind seeing the horror that is topless women (!) here and there, give this one a shot, I guarantee you'll enjoy this mod.
The map design is not good, you sometimes need to backtrack but the game dosen't really care to hint it to you. Weapon models are inconsistent, the jokes are immature there are ways to softlock the mod, it has unfair mechanics - you can get killed because of the cutscenes that block your movement and spawn enemies next to you so you can't react properly and there's a lot of porn for no reason. Also both endings leave you unsatisfied.
-Ton of porn. Annoying , loudsy and in your face cutscene kind of porn.
-Invisible soldier. No not transparant but totally invisible, you cannot see them. And who think giving these guy rifle grenade is a good idea ?
-Soldier stuck on animation glitching every where , probably the HD pack
A nice mod with a good length, and it seems like the developer got ***** alot when making this mod XD
it has some annoying invisible grunt but they only appear in the last mission and the story is really weird because apparently gman is your father and stuff.
it does have some good cutscenes as well and the mapping is decent.
Awesome classics!
I really enjoyed and liked this awesome mod mainly because it has some old school style stuff, its challenging and becuse unlike Elitesse and ThePhysicist, I'm not a ******.
8/10 overall score.
-1 for invisible soldiers.
-1 for linux.
hour glass 10/10 =)
Gave me a few nice flashbacks to Duke Nukem 3D, and it was far more enjoyable and well detailed then Adam, even if the story is far more insane and the Pornographic scenes come back with a vengeance D:
Nice work, if only Grey Dog didn't quit modding after the release of Hour-Glass :(