You wake up not knowing where.. or even who you are, your first instinct tells you to get out.
Positive:
-The mod keeps in fear and tension almost the entire game.
- Although modest, but a good plot.
- Mod is atmospheric.
Negative:
- The mod is very dark and there is no flashlight in it, well, or I just didn't find it...
- The mod is short(
In conclusion, I will say that I liked the mod!And for me, he's incredibly creepy!I kept waiting for "Infected" to show up somewhere in the dark and kick my ***, but I never saw him there...
(This is my first time using this style of review, so it might be changed afterwards)
Positives:
-Pacing was incredibly good, backtracking from the end to beginning was ultra scary
-Some rooms were well designed
-Examination
Negatives:
-Cliché storyline
-Bland most of the time
-No puzzles, challenge or threats
"Metus" is a mod which was a lot more rewarding than I first thought. Considering that this is the first mod of creator, I'd say it's quite decent.
Storyline: 4/10
It was pretty "meh". You wake up in some kind of mine/cave/underground facility and of course you don't remember anything from your past. It's something we all have seen at least 1000 times already ^^
Not much was explained in the notes. Even if not premeditated, it felt like it wasn't in chronological order. Follow up on the notes didn't make sense to me, but I got a little grip on what was going on.
Cliché storylines are always 3/10 for me, but some notes and a some kind of plot raises the score to 4/10- below average.
Design was overall pretty bland, but they were constructed well. Need of details are urgent however. Some maps had nothing but walls, roof, floor, note, and two doors. Some areas such as the Office and the area before it were decent however.
Details/constructing get 5/10
Lighting on the maps were pretty.. terrible. The only sources of light on the pitch black maps were pointlights on the notes. Some areas had bright lighting which made no sense considering the following map being pitch black yet again, +there was no lantern. Lighting gets 2/10.
Those two combined is 7/20 which is 3,5/10, and that raises up to yet another 4. So, level design gets 4/10- below average as well.
Puzzle section is something I'd rather not cross on this case, but I need to. Puzzles were nonexisting nearly. Total of two keys and one note having the most obvious hidden message ever. That is not good, and having no puzzles will make the gameplay very boring. Puzzles get 2/10 which is very bad.
Music/ambiences/sound effects were used very well. Most of the maps had an ambience which made the experience a lot creepier. The biggest plus of the mod was the backtrack part from the furthest map to the beginning- it was incredibly scary, and that's where the multiple creepy ambiences were at point. M/A/S gets a solid 9/10- awesome.
Scare factor- it was very good too. Repeating myself- the part where I had to backtrack was very scary and creepy. I was scared troughout the whole mod, and it was a good thing! Scare factor gets a solid 10/10- superb.
Overall:
It was a short mod without anything special excluding the environment, most of the stuff was custom. I'd recommend this mod for those who are looking for a scary experience. Otherwise, I'd suggest you not to download this mod since it's lacking on every other aspect.
In short: Scary, bland, different.
Score: 5,8/10 = 6/10 - Enjoyable
Interesting story,but nothing is happening no gameplay here ,just going throw the doors
****
Good for first map
Rating this is quite hard, but considering that this is creators first mod and it does not have any big mistakes like clipping textures, it is fine.
+ A lot of custom stuff, mostly from Penumbra but still
+ Not boring
+ The style, design, interaction and gameplay is good and fluent
+ Just because the maps are quite small, there is no chance of lags
- Over 800mb of data and only about 15 minutes of gameplay? Really?
- I do not really mind that but the story really could be a bit more deep
- Even for a small mod, only one monster encounter and a few scares
- Some minor problems like some doors not having locked/unlock sound and things like that...
So what to say... If someone wants to play fast mod without much puzzles and does not have much time to play longer mods and wants to play something fresh and kind of unique, it is worth a try. Unless you have slow download speed because the file size really does not correspond to the length of the mod and the download could take longer than mods gameplay.
Positives:
- Some scary moments
- Some areas are designed decently
- Custom items
- You can interact with stuff around you
Negatives:
- Story is almost non-existing
- Maps are way too short, inluding the story itself
- Most parts lack details
- Nothing makes sense
What to improve:
Since you're a new level designer, I'm going to go into detail and explain what you should think about untill next time and why.
Mapping:
Some areas are actually decent and I like the penumbra style some of the maps have, but most of the maps lack details and are way too short. Each map took me 5 seconds up to max 5 minutes to complete. Not only is it annoying to have to sit through a loading screen over and over again, but we never really get to immerse ourselfs into the maps, since they end so quickly.
If you're only going to make a corridor and nothing else, make that corridor into the map you already have for example. You don't need to make a whole map just for one short corridor.
Puzzles:
I would also like to see more puzzles. Puzzles that makes sense! I saw a locked gate, went into the office map and did absoutely nothing in there, since there was nothing I could do, went back and the gate was suddenly open. Same thing happened in a different map. A door was locked, I ran around the map a little bit, exploring. Suddenly, the door unlocks itself automaticly.
Be more creative. Make up something more realistic. Maybe the player can activate the gate by using a computer? Or finding spare parts in a storage room? Hell, even key quests would be better.
It would also take a little longer to complete each map if you added more puzzles.
Details:
Add a little more details to your maps. Can be anything from fog, some debris, decals etc. You did add some sound effects though, which really increased the creepiness.
Story:
The story is very cliché. "You don't remember who you are or where you are" is so overused. It can still be intresting though if you add intresting plot twists, an antagonist and good character development. Sadly, this custom story really lacks all of that. I understand it's just chapter one, but the story barely developed at all.
What you did good:
Player can interact with stuff. Like, if you click on the bed, a computer, a corpse etc, the character will say something about it. I like that.
The dark map with all the corpses was actually really scary. I also like the build up. It took a while before the monster showed up. First it was okay, then a little creepy, more creepy, then that really dark map, then the encounter. Good job on that!
You also added a short intro and some custom material, something not a lot of new mappers do.
Conclusion:
Average maps with a cliché story. While it had it's scary moments and has some creative ideas, the story in general doesn't offer much new on the table.
3/10 - Bad, but okay for a first story.
Wow, that was quick I finished chapter one in like 10-15 minutes, really short and disappointing and bland.
First of all I liked the atmosphere, but it was really rushed design, like there was nothing to explore at all, pretty non-linear gameplay and just running through maps, beginning was nice start, but when I progressed more and more it becomes bland and boring a lot, there's no detailing at all just hallways and corridors and just walking and walking. I mean it was little scary when I reached final maps and that encounter comes, but everything is just planned blandly and boring experience, glad there was not cheap jumpscares, I know you builded only nice atmosphere, but I expected a lot more! Like more scares, puzzles and many scripting events.. overall there was like 4-5 scripts coded. I have played hundreds of stories and this wasn't that good at all, mapping was okay, but story didn't make sense at all. Really quick chapter to play and make me want discover even more, well if you split those chapters like " example. Chapter 1 this is just exploring and player reveal dark secrets" then "Chapter 2 contains more events and more complex story, what Chapter 1 didn't show at all.. and so on" if this is you're plan, great! Otherwise I expected much more. It was okay story, but you really need more detailing and a lot of more interesting gameplay to make this mod more enjoyable. Sorry if being little harsh, but I'm just critizing a lot when I write a review.
Playable, but needs much more work and interesting gameplay - 5/10