Spherical Nightmares is a Half-Life 2: Episode Two single-player modification. The story takes place in the Half-Life universe and you take the role as Gordon Freeman. Your journey begins in an unknown location.
This review may contain spoilers
The most challenging part of this mod was figuring out that one of the poorly lit windows is breakable, after that it's a linear jaunt through something I could barely consider a gauntlet, more a slog through shin deep water.
I feel like I missed a potential puzzle early on as there was a room I couldn't enter (Solving it through the window was almost possible, if not for the gap you can drop the ball in so it becomes inaccessible). I don't think this could have done much to alter the flow of the mod, however, so I moved on.
The AI noding was sub-par, which often led to a full line of soldiers running at me all at once, suffice to say they died quickly. There was a health kit around every corner, I couldn't pick them all up if I wanted to inflict damage on myself just to get them all. The only time I felt like I was low on ammo and should switch weapons was when the sequence that weapon was best suited for was already over, and I'd round the corner to find I would have been switching anyways.
The only time you need to use an RPG, you are instantly given a box of munitions for it.
The train sequences weren't something I've seen before in too many mods, but they weren't really special either.
To be fair, I had come to this mod through a review from PCGamer. I was given high expectations that fell flat. To be frank, I don't feel this belongs in the comparison chart with minerva like the article says.
Also, over dependence on particles and light volumes just looked wonky.