Reviews - Re-synthesizer

"Steam, Tracks, Trouble & Riddles" is as original and intelligent a Half-life 2 mod as I have ever played.

The first time I.....*ahem*......'tried' to play this mod years ago, I gave up on it very soon after starting it -- not being able to figure out how to assemble the make-shift railroad cart -which was required at the very beginning of the mod...

I recently tried this mod again, last night, and was much more successful...and somehow....very miraculously....managed to finish this mod without resorting to, say, any youtube 'walkthroughs,' etc.

The mod is exceptionally difficult: The setting seems to be a "steam-punkish" post WWII Germany that is 'quasi-modern.' The graphics are unique and very high quality and reminisce of Germany -me-thinks.

The premise of the mod is 'puzzle-solving' and requires extreme patience, 'fiddling around,' thinking and brainstorming.

Because of the overt difficulty level of this mod, I believe that "7" out of "10" is a fair rating. It is worthwhile to complete the mod, but for me it was aggravating enough that it was only 'barely' worth playing it all the way through. I have to give this mod at least a "7" because of how intelligent and well put together it was...

This is a great, great user-made mod for HL2 -easily one of my favorite HL2 user-made mods and one of the best.

Alyx accompanies Gordon throughout the mod, her animation and abilities are fluid and superb -she is able to crouch, run, jump, climb, descend, etc. more adeptly than she ever was in any of the 'OFFICIAL' HL2 games or sequels, amazingly.

This is a very, very well-done and long mod; some of the puzzles are very difficult to figure out and there are script errors here and there which required me to load a saved game and then try the same thing over in order for a door or something else to open which didn't the first time around.

The environments are quite varied and the graphics are very good. There is a lot of exploring; sometimes the battles with the combine 'bulls' are on the difficult side but for the most part the combat difficulty level is just right.

I rate this superb mod a 9/10.

Amalgam is one of the better and lengthier HL2 mods I have played. There are a diverse array of environments (indoors and outdoors - including a somewhat lengthy "Citadel" type environment). The pacing is somewhat uneven: There are long 'exploratory' stretches and stretches of intense action. For the most part, difficulty level in terms of fighting 'combine bulls' is just right, though a few parts it is overtly difficult without a 'God cheat.'

There was one aggravating part of this mod that necessitated a youtube walkthrough cheat: About halfway through the mod, there is a silo door that requires hitting buttons "1, 2, and 3" in order to be activated so that the silo door can be opened. After trying this several times and 'resetting' the power, the door still wouldn't open. I then resorted to the youtube walkthrough of this mod and discovered that the correct sequence of numbers (to open the silo door) is "2,3,1." Without this youtube walkthrough, I never would have learned this: There is nothing in the instructions during the gameplay that would indicate that a specific and correct 'numeral sequence' needs to be entered in order to open the Silo door.

All things I consider "Amalgam" to be a good -but not great- user-made HL2 mod. I rate it a 7/10.

I'm generally not much of a fan of RPG PC games.....compared to other genres....

Dungeon Siege is a rare RPG that I have owned for a long time -- as well as played all the way through about 5 times. It's still so good of a game with such high 'replaybility' value that I end up playing it all over again once every several years.

The in-game GUI is very well designed, once you learn it. I love how you start out from rags -as a very simple inexperienced peon-farmer......and very, very slowly increase strength and dexterity.....as well as end up buying and trading many items that become more and more lavish with every succeeding town you stop at. Makes me feel kind holy -like Lehi- with all the trading you do and the fact that you 'progress' little by little - so that by the end of the game, you are much much more stronger and experienced than you began as a farmer -- and literally are ready to visit 'hell' and vanquish the demonic Seck in their own lava chambers....

I rate this game an 8/10.

From the beginning, "Logistique" 'looked' like it could be a high-quality mod. The graphics are good and the voice-acting was well done.

I was able to 'play' very little of this mod: I had to constantly utilize 'noclip' cheats to get from one area of any map to another. There was no HUD. I never had a functioning flashlight without utilizing the 'impulse 101' (all weapons cheat). Combat sucked if only because there is no 'sprint' available in this mod; you can only walk at a slow pace.

Why this mod wasn't as buggy for others as for me is a mystery. I had the latest version installed...

I rate this unplayable buggy mod a 3/10.

"Somatic" is a good mod, but it fairly short in length. Only because of this, I rate it a 5/10.

It was a decent mod while it lasted, but the mod was far too short. Because of how short it was, I rate it a 5/10.