Reviews - lukkasz323

Episode 3 is here.

Great mod that works and preserves the aesthetics of the originals.

My only complaint is that the levels thematically are rather boring, the sense of progression of the environments is meh.

For the most part a really well designed mod.

Here are some of my thoughts:

1. Alarm at the beginning when you press the button cannot be really heard, because of the music.

2. Turrets are deactivated after the player walks past them for no reason.

3. The player gets to fight Combine Soldiers before getting a good weapon. This is done fairly lightly here as you get a shotgun just after that, but you have to be very careful with this. In HL2 you got a Revolver to fight Metropolice SMG units and by the time you meet Combine Soldiers, you already have a Revolver, a Shotgun and a Gravity Gun.

In your mod you don't have any of these at this point, so this could easily lead to bullet sponge enemies, however you've included 2 barrels to help the player with the task, this is great, but they're placed in a weird spot exposing the player to a lot damage, before he can even set them up.

4. "Lambda" door opens instantly after killing the sniper, add a little delay to make it more natural.

5. Skybox areas are too open, dev textures are visible when you noclip outside of the map, this is not needed after the mod's release. Just replace them with NODRAWs, Hammer has a tool to do that in a few seconds. I have a good PC so this is not a problem for me, but I'm pretty sure a lot of people are going to be grateful for this.

My favourite parts of the mod:

1. Difficulty - I've played it on hard and the mod felt fairly well balanced. I never run out medkits, armor or ammo, yet there was never plenty of it.

2. Atmosphere (for the most part).

3. First guardian fight. Nailed the atmosphere. Especially the lighting and choice of music.

4. Barancle / rotor room after raising up the water, great atmosphere, some fake volumetric lighting (sprites / glows etc.) would make this look even better.

Btw I recommend instructing people to install non-standalone mods like these into for example: "ep2/custom/[modname]/maps" instead of "ep2/maps", so that it doesn't bloat their main game files.

"[modname]" in this case is just a random name for content, I've used "city25" this time and it worked for me.

Or just create it into a standalone sourcemod formula.

[Played on Hard]
This was probably the most balanced few hours long mod I've ever played.

Every type of supply: ammo, healthkits, batteries was perfectly balanced. It was fun to use all the new weapons because of that.

I loved the STALKER-like atmosphere and music, the rotating skybox fog, color scheme, sound effects etc.

The first chapter of the mod was amazing, however later on the problem for me was that the mod seemed too long for how little the areas and gameplay differed from each other. As a result I was really getting bored midway through, but the Xen chapter was in the end rather fun.

Overall a very good mod, however I think it was too long for what it contained. As a result the pacing was boring.

It's a great mod on it's own, but the pacing is way too slow for that part of the game so playing through the whole game with it feels off.

Fantastic game, with narrative that blows most shooters out of the water, but it has a share of its own, minor, issues. Since the good things go without saying, I will just name a few things I thought the game was lacking:
While the setting is one of the strongest points this game, I thought it was underplayed at times. After the introduction where you see the city scape at its full, with sea fauna swimming among the buildings, the game locks those vistas away from your perception, be it in exchange of solid walls (granted, the feeling of claustrophobia and isolation works great) or 2d backgrounds behind windows, blurry ones at that. I wish there were more moments of awe at being in an underwater city like right at the opening batysphere ride. It isn't until halfway through the game when the city's grand scale starts to become obvious again. And it isn't until the final 3rd of the game where the clautrophobic close quarters are replaced by what could be compared to underwater city streets, which look incredible.
It would also greatly enhance the feeling of journey and progression of the story to be able to see previously visited sectors and districts just outside, across the water.
Voice acting is great, every single character is enjoyable to listen to, there's alot one can learn about them just from listening to the audiologs, and not even to what these characters are talking so much as the way they talk. Both Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine take the cake in this regard for me, I could listen to both talk for hours on end, and they are both some of my favorite video game villains now. However, at one point in Arcadia I am pretty sure that Andrew Ryan's line in a certain scene was voiced by a different actor than anywhere else in the game, which felt goofy.
Another issue for me is that, while the game takes place 99% at the bottom of the ocean, there is no swimming mechanic outside of that other 1% of the playthrough right at the opening. I would venture to guess that this one part is somehow scripted to create the illusion of swimming. Whenever encountering water, it's simply ankle-, knee- or waist-deep, slowing your movement accordingly to the depth, and in the last case not allowing you to crouch in it. At one point in the game there's even section where there's a drop leading directly into a body of water, but you can't jump down because there is an invisible wall blocking your way. It's a shame because considering the setting, this game had room for potentially creative and fun swimming sections.
Lastly, the ending boss, I'm not a big fan of how the villain just drops all these years of manipulation and scheming to just turn himself into something that looks like a comic book superhero and then simply fight you in what's probably the easiest fight in the game; all you have to do is run sideway so he can't hit you at all. I've fought Big Daddies and even Splicers tougher than this. Underwhelming end to an otherwise great character.
I also thought that some of the guns weren't as useful as they could be, so I used the wrench and plasmids for most of the game instead. Still, upgrading guns and using them on Big Daddies was fun.
From other minor issues that didn't bother me so much I would only name one missing piece of texture, which made a wall in Medical Pavilion see-through, and that nobody safe for the two aforementioned villains has a unique character model, so everyone no matter friend or foe, looks like the same few Splicers. Also a personal thought after seeing the opening level of the game, but I wish there were more scenarios throughout the game where Splicers fight one another and Big Daddies independently from the player, to upkeep the sense of total chaos in the city of Rapture.
Otherwise, this game is a masterpiece. Gameplay is fun and addictive, narrative is simply incredible, the twist unexpected, setting is unique and creative and each mission has something original in store. Easily one of the best games I've played yet.

Good mod, but it feels to similiar to "Echoes", has some major and minor glitches and performance problems (We're talking about 20k wpolys at one moment here).

The mod is basd on Xash3D and uses that fact properly.

Atmosphere is great too. Overall a mod worth playing.