Reviews - omgcheez

This may very well be the best written video game of all time.

Summing this mod is no simple task due to its diverse, almost nebulous nature, but I will try regardless.

Level design - Aesthetics:

The mod's environment choices were ambitions, a far reach from the eastern european streets of half life 2. The diversity of said environments (obligatory sewer levels notwithstanding) is something to be appreciated. Their execution, however, leaves much to be desired. The outlandish arcitecture, blocky design, and odd texture detail and choice detract from immersion. I would recommend looking at left 4 dead maps as inspiration for how to create convincing American cities. The city in Underhell looked like the building templates from hl2 had been lazily tiled over rectangular building approximations. The indoor environments were too sparsely furnished and gave off an off-putting sterility.

Level design - Pragmatism:

In the mission section, objectives were not always as logically structured as intended. While no long term confusion ensued, disorientation was a guaruntee. The areas were also well constucted for their purpose (firefights, chases, exploration).

Combat:

While this is not my primary area of focus (given my fine arts background), I thought that this was an aspect of the mod which stood out to me. The excellent, but excessive, particle effects, the fluid but forceful animations, and the enhanced cover and aiming systems made being an American hero a blast in this Underhell!

Literary Merits:

The story felt Jarringly dicotomous. In the house, you were an unassuming Everyman, trapped in a psychological struggle to gain control of his own life to a great subtle horror backdrop. You have no special abilities, and must use logic to silently explore. However, in the missions, the player is a supreme bad-*** killing machine who massacres entire terrorist squads with the very boot of his Sam Fisher-esque suit.

Anyone could open hammer and gyrate sexually against his or her keyboard and produce a better mod, because the result wouldn't be a plagiarized nightmare of fullbright hell.

The story was shallow. The station had no windows and was a repetitive labyrinth of sterile, monotonous metal hallways devoid of any remarkable qualities. The characters were vacuous and 1 dimensional. The enemies were unexplained, uninspired, repetitive, and unbalanced. While some voice acting was average (with the exception of ALL minor characters, who sounded like they had speech impediments), the script was bland and predictable and offered no nuances from a bare-bones bio shock/system shock clone. Also (and this is not a spoiler) the mod just ends abruptly with no exposition or resolution.

As this criticism is intended to be constructive, I will include suggestions.

Level Design: Vary the lighting a little (Sconces, lanterns, flicker effects). Add windows. Add multiple levels, such as balconies, or observation windows to upper levels. Add more objects to the floor, to imply that humans inhabit the area. Everything felt like it was adjacent to everything else.

Script Writing: Try to make the characters less stereotypical.(Stereotypes include: The troubled visionary, the obsessive, perfectionist scientist, the political martyr, the narcissistic, delusional celebrity).

Pacing/Atmosphere: Enemies should be more intimidating. The citizens were not because the fact that they are demented is never depicted in the mod, or used as a plot device. Bio shock and system shock uses ominous graffiti, remnants of horrific, disturbing atrocities, and classic psychotic babbling to make the enemies horrifying.

Gameplay Balance: Source uses vector cones to simulate bullet spread. Widen those of the NPCs to the point at which they don't aim like hackers in Counter Strike.

PS: I think it is hilarious that the med-kits in this game are hard liquor. Your character would have lethal alcohol poisoning after consuming that many vending machines worth of the stuff, not to mention that he would be unconscious and completely incapable of combat after a few bottles.

The ONLY thing that I truly enjoyed about this mod was the irony that the objective of this game is to shoot yourself in the face to escape it.

However, it couldn't even end on that positive note, as a completely unnecessary deus ex machina ending was tacked on.