Proof that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication review - Perfect Stride Continuum Mod for Half-Life 2

It is often the simplest ideas that carry the most weight. Whenever I stumble upon something simple but effective, such as Perfect Stride Continuum (A name which is anything but simple), my heart skips a beat. It is an idea that probably didn't take too long to implement. Turn off friction, make use of the circle strafing mechanic that many competitive first person shooter players are familiar with, and you have the basis of movement for this game. It's a level of ingenuity and simplicity seen only in games such as the Orange Box's Portal.

It's such a simple idea, in fact, that I should have thought of it myself. But I didn't. Evidently, neither did many other people, because here this mod sits, alone, in the "momentum-based puzzle racing mod" category.

The beauty of such a simple idea is two-fold: First of all, it's far easier to develop for. With such simplistic but deliciously retro graphics, cute sounds, and barebones gameplay, I can't imagine development is a nightmare, which will hopefully result in additions to the content further down the line. Second, it stands out. There are a plethora of mods that promise so much and rarely deliver, with long development cycles owing to the people running the show trying to cram as many features in as they can. They often fail to meet expectations, and are cast aside, coming to rest atop the pile of previously discarded mods that weren't up to scratch.

In this case? Not so. A simple mod such as this one, working off such an enjoyable premise, delivers what it promises with the first release. The only way to go from here is up, and we're already at an impressive altitude. It's lack of content would probably be worrying in any other instance, but given that these three levels show a level of replayability similar to Monkey Ball (Another excellent game with a simple mechanic), I doubt people will be tiring of jetting around the three included levels by the time more are released.

Overall, this mod succeeds because there's little to cause it to fail. When the new maps (hopefully) come pouring in, I can't imagine fans of platformers or puzzle games will be putting this one down for a while.