Reviews - Wonderland_War

The level quality is excellent. It's extremely faithful to Half-Life's level design. They did take a bit of liberties with Xen, but they were minimal and they were actually good liberties taken too. This is by far the most Half-Life like Half-Life mod I've ever played.

For gameplay, it's pretty good, just like Half-Life pretty much. The medkit weapon is a very fun addition, allowing you to heal yourself and friendly targets. You can get "ammo" for the medkit from normal medkits and health recharging stations. The squad hud was very helpful, in fact, it was quite satisfying to see that you have 11 people in your squad. The fact that the squad hud shows you who is in your squad and your squad members' health is also pretty helpful.

The voice acting was okay, but I really didn't like the custom voice lines for the marines and security guards, especially because the normal lines sound way different from the custom ones.

Despite the level quality being very good. I must say that I got stuck in areas a lot, the circular/maze-like levels didn't help with that either. There's quite a bit of areas that seem to lead to nowhere and have no reason to exist. In addition there are some spots that took me forever to find because there was no indication that I needed to do a certain thing. Sometimes it seems like you walk into an area without doing anything, but then when you walk back to where you came from, monsters spawn and then you have a new area to go to.

The mod is very good, but I can't necessarily give it anything above an 8 because of how easy it is to get stuck in some areas.

Here's my nitpick list:
-The shock roach doesn't regen ammo when you aren't holding it.
-The spore launcher's "pet" animation doesn't play a sound, it's supposed to growl and then the player pets it to soothe it.
-It is a little annoying to spam click the medkit to heal targets (in order to heal them as quickly as possible), it would probably be easier to hold down the attack button to heal, just like in TFC.
-The medkit viewmodel could be better, particularly the buttons (yes, TFC had this problem too since it's the same model).

These nitpicks did not influence my score for the mod.

It feels unfinished and even somewhat incompetent, but it's not entirely bad.
The voice acting is simply not good, it's something you'd hear out of like a joke mod which doesn't feel right in a mod that isn't a joke mod.

The puzzles are simply fine. Some of the levels require you to look around a bit too much though, you shouldn't have your puzzle be a searching game. The first puzzle is just put one box on one button to proceed which isn't a good thing, why have a puzzle that is literally test 00 from Portal but arguably worse?

There's also a lot of map flaws, like indented test chamber signs, they would look fine if they were styled better but they simply just look weird. The lighting is also not that good, it mostly uses warmer colored light when most of the lighting should come from observation rooms. There isn't much contrast and the lighting is at best in the orange portalgun level.

The escape sequence feels dull and uninteresting. The crusher room from the portal 1 trailer isn't art-passed so there's a lot of beta remnants. After escaping that room, there really isn't much to say aside from bland/unfitting detailing/details, improper usage of lighting and just things that somewhat mislead you and not in a good way.

In conclusion it's just an average Portal 1 mod. It doesn't get Portal's style right and it doing its own thing could be fine if it was more distinct from the original Portal (Rexaura does a good job doing this). Despite some puzzles having problems, they're mostly fine. The mod it self also just didn't seem to have much thought put into it.

The problem with this mod is that it doesn't really "update" the game. The walls and floors are too clean and there is a lot of Portal 2 stuff that doesn't fit with Portal at all.

This is my favorite game of all time and the only game I am a fanboy of.

When you have a funny joke mod that has well made maps at the same time, it is funny and good.

It's kind of meh, putting Portal 2 stuff into Portal like this doesn't mix well. But I'll go over the positive things first.

The Good:

The idea is great, Portal has some issues despite the fact that the creators of Portal were new to the Source Engine and so Portal wasn't made the best.

Bringing back the beta particles is a good idea and it works well too.

The new textures for the elevator models look great.

The Bad:

Some things here will also explain why Portal 2 in Portal doesn't mix well.

For instance, the Portal gun in Portal 2 is supposed to sound old but in Portal 1 it is supposed to sound new and clean. But the sounds of the Portal Gun got replaced by the Portal 2 Portal gun.

The new crosshair is supposed to be the Portal beta crosshair but it doesn't look too good since it doesn't work properly.

The sounds of the buttons don't sound good at all.

Remember, in Portal 1 the metal walls are actually blocks. So they aren't held by panels. This is why you see some of the blocks pushed too far or too back.

Also, there are no new graphics. It is literally just the same game but with ugly looking Portal 2 textures.

There are no new maps, just textures, models, particle effects and sounds.

Unfortunately it was disappointing, the thumbnail looked like an amazing graphical overhaul similar to cinematic mod's graphics but it doesn't actually look that good.

Please make this an actual sourcemod rather than making me put it into the custom folder. Also I recommend you get playtesters so they help you determine what is good and bad. I am willing to help you with that too.

My 2nd favorite Half-Life 2 mod.

Very fun multiplayer experience. The mod is well made and I am sad that it seems to be dead right now.

It's updated on steam, go buy it.
Seriously though, this is still one of my favorite mods and what makes it more impressive is that it was released in 2012.

It's a masterpiece and a true experience.

This mod has a great atmosphere, feels like Portal, no issues I can find.