Reviews - Aublak

This is what Half-Life needs. I can't wait to see this mod expanded on. What really makes me excited is the idea of this getting integrated into other mods.

Its fun and varied. A bunch of enemies are given minor tweaks to mix things up for veterans. The headcrabs can now detach themselves from zombies like in HL2. The female assassins feel like they are more fragile.

He lifts a bunch of stuff from other places, but I don't care. Its well put together. There are some severe glitches, but its usually fixed by quickloading your last save.

The maps are pretty and thought out. Some of the puzzles don't have a clear answer, I needed more of a hint to solve them. I hated that I have to often fight and solve a puzzle at the same time, but overall pretty good experience. Its worth your time.

My favorite game, better than HL2.

In HL1, it always felt like you were somewhere were you shouldn't be. You were an everyman caught up in the worst catastrophe ever.

And somehow you slowly became a badass. At first you would fight minor alien fauna, then human soldiers, followed by an alien army, until you killed the big bad Alien boss. Its not the most complex story by today's standards, but it was more then we asked for at the time. The presentation and atmosphere is still incredible today. The enemies are still fun to fight and the weapons are unique and varied. A must play.

I was really excited about playing this mod again. Back in 2001 it took me forever to download it. Eventually I got stuck and there was no reliable walkthrough to get me through it. I never finished it back then.

So I decided to replay it. And I regret to say that I am underwhelmed. The levels are very straight forward and linear. There is a ridiculous number of locked doors. I hate locked doors. Having Kate as an ally is more of a hassle than a help.

I find that a good mod/game is best played on the hardest difficultly. This is where the mechanics and maps should really shine and where you can really experience the intelligence and thoughtfulness of the mapper. I didn't feel that way about this mod. At times I was at the end of my rope and at other times I was breezing along. I had to use godmode several times to push through.

Enemy placement was either very good or very poor. I was often being ambushed by Vorts with reliable cover and at other times I was too much in the open, which I though was unfair. I was often exploiting the grunts weakness of extreme range by sniping them with my pistol. The 'Aliens' pulse rifle made the MP5 obsolete. After I got the HEV suit, I should have never got the MP5 in the first place. There were basically no puzzles aside from 'find the button'. The map transitions were also pretty lame.

With that said, I enjoyed the beginning most of all. Headcrabs were always well placed. The part where you had no weapons and had Kate protect you was oddly very fun. I really enjoyed my attempts at distracting a zombie while having Kate shoot him down and at the same time dodging Kate's shots. That would have been fun if that section was drawn out longer. Maybe the player could have only been given a melee weapon for a while longer. The Panthereye battle was a bit of a joke.

I don't know. I feel like there was a lot of lost potential. A lot of effort put into it. I wasn't bad really, but I had higher hopes. Blue Shift was better.

This is the first mod I ever played, so I may be a bit bias. Simply playing new levels was the coolest thing ever at the time.

I have replayed it recently and I have to say it is fairly mediocre. However the levels don't look that bad and it changes nicely from combat, horror, and puzzles. The puzzles are pretty simple. It has a vague and simple story. It isn't bad, but it isn't that memorable either. It isn't very long either, but you typically won't finish it in one sitting.

Good mod

It feels like STALKER, but plays closer to Metro 2033. I finally get to know what it feels like to be an American playing a Russian fighting Americans, heh. The levels look great and the design is well thought out. I found the human enemies far more difficult than the monsters, which made the monsters feel less threatening. The sound effects are great, but they often get overwhelmed by the heavy metal soundtrack, which I didn't care for. I would have preferred a more subdued combat soundtrack. I like the selection of guns and some of the new game mechanics like the ballistics mask and gasmask are welcomed. It unfortunately felt too short and I ran into many CTD bugs. Regardless, this should be on your list of "must-play HL mods".