Reviews - Get a Life mod for Half-Life 2

One of the best HL2 mods I have played to date. The gameplay is fun, never really getting tiring with the ever-changing enemies, combat environments and features which kept me interested every step of the way. The introduction of features like bullet time had me worried at first, but proved to be fun to use and balanced out. The level design is extraordinary, with constantly changing environments that ensure non-linear gameplay. The use of Hl2's physics engine also creates an enjoyable level of interactivity, helping to immerse the player in the world. The combat was reasonably diverse, with scenarios evenly switching between fights between the suited agents and the walking dead, at a rate which ensures neither gets old. The atmosphere was also extremely immersive, from the wide open areas where the player fights the soldiers, to the dark, smoky alleys and streets in which the player must fight the infected citizens and monsters, almost all areas deliver the intended atmosphere which helps gameplay a great deal. The new hud and damage system are well balanced and easy to figure out and maintain, also adding a certain realism that is usually lacking in most mods these days. Namely the addition of critical damage to certain parts of the body which result in different effects, like bleeding, dizziness, shaky aiming and limping which result in the player wanting to ensure that they take care of each body part, as well as always having a medkit available just in case. This mod is one I have never been able to become bored with, instead having a relatively new experience every time I play it. It is truly worth your time

I deffinitely like the new gameplay mechanics the mod adds, Doom 3-style flashlight being a separate weapon was bearable, and the health system is really well-made, even though I thought health packs would be more rare, honestly. I also appreciate the ammount of effort put in the mod, however...

The mapping is sometimes confusing, for exampe, in one of the maps where you fight retextured antlion guard, you are given so much space and a sideroom with supplies and a button to push. There's even a working magnet on a cane, all of which combined made me think there's something I have to do in orer to continue. After a few minutes of running in circles and checking a walkthrough on You Tube it turned out that after defeating the boss I didn't even have to do anything else in there, just go to a door right next to the one I've come from in the first place.
There's also some maps that feel a bit out of place and I don't really have any idea what they were meant to represent, maps like a church located inside of a cave or burning catacombs straight out of "The Last Crusade". Pretty weird, if you ask me.

(A couple of observations I've made during my playthrough, feel free to skip this paragraph if you don't want to read all of it.)
Like in some other Half-Life 2 mods I've noticed some pretty badly thought-out, thus confusing, set pieces, for instance, in one of the chapters you can't destroy wooden planks blocking the way with any melee attacks, and you have to blow them up. The most logical thing to do is to stuck some of the barrels that fill the room and shoot them. Apparently that doesn't work at all, what you are supposed to do is to shoot a broken pipe in the floor that shoots gas out of it, so it creates a chain reaction which blows up the blocade. What?
In another map you have to stack boxes to continue, but the two most obvious ways to go are blocked by an invisible wall (even though one of them leads to where you are supposed to go anyway, and the other leads to a place you've been to just before). Shortly after, in the same map, you enter an elevator. After it crashes, you wake up several meters out of it, instead of inside (not to mention it has no impact on the story or anything at all). The only think you do in this area next is to enter another, same looking elevator, only this time you have to push a button both to enter and start the said elevator, while previously everything was working by its own. Inconsistence.
Another example of poor design - in one place, you have to shoot a piece of wood that blocks a lever. If you shoot it before a cutscene plays, and then try to proceed, the cutscene will still play, but it will be slowed down and it will be pretty much impossible to continue without loading last save. Things like that really hurt as they are frustrating for the player and could be easily avoided if someone has put more thought in these set pieces.

Occassionally bad english, but honestly, who am I to judge that? Also, I don't know if it's just me, but voice acting, aside from being very amateurish in exectution, is incredibly quiet compared to the rest of the game, weren't it for subtitles I wouldn't have ANY idea what the characters are saying at some points.

I could go on about the story, what is EVIS and what is their goal? Who the f*ck are the guys fighting EVIS and why do they want my help or why do they even trust me? Otherwise, the story is pretty generic and standard for a Half-Life 2 horror mod, nothing I haven't seen many times before.

Also, I swear spiders are making Unreal 2 arachnid noises.

Personally, i think this is mod is my favorite. I love how good you modeled everything. I would recomend for people who are good at games and mods.

This is one of the few mods I keep returning to, The story always captivated me as well as the balance of fear and action to make it so I don't get too scared but at the same time not too calm either.

Amazing immersion, incredible and highly detailed mapping, custom weapons, custom enemies and suspensefull storyline.

All around one of the very best Source mods.

First, I will say that this mod is for sure a hell of a (second-hand) nostalgia drive with the quite cool (albeit almost Counter-Strike: Source copied) world-building that you'll see right the first time you start playing this mod. I don't know what else screams the '2005-2010s' vibe more than this mod, and that's one big plus from me if you play this mod as of now in the 2020 times and so forth.

You can tell that lot of ideas went into this mod, with new redesigned weapons (that yet again pay somewhat of an homage not only to CS:S once again but also to DOOM 3 and other games that were released on similar release dates), 'new' enemies and a new sick soundtrack that unfortunately plays quite rarely if I recall my past memories correctly with this mod. (IIRC, I finished this mod in 2018, and only in 2019 did I decide to write a review about it; rewriting this as of 2022.) You can maybe say that small spiders instead of beloved headcrabs seem lame, but once you'll play this mod, you will fear them just as much as you feared headcrabs. There are other new-looking (or just reskinned) abomination enemies that will give you some goosebumps, but other than that, it still makes sure that the HL2 vibe and feeling are still in place.

What fails though in my opinion is the story (actually its plot) and the level design (actually the pacing, how you 'solve' some of the levels). I also forgot to mention that instead of just being a (nameless) hero in the dark corners of City 17, you're in an entirely new modern normie world with an inevitable apocalypse coming right at ya and the rest of the humans. You're Alexander Zemlinksky, and apparently, you suffer from leukemia, which pretty much means cancer. And as you live for the rest of your uncertain life as a subway technician, something 'uncertain' happens one day as well: you're kidnapped by god knows who, then you find out that suddenly streets are roamed by your exact zombie clones (that infect others so it's not just you), and all you gotta do now is drift on, in this brand new world, and survive above all. This would be quite a cool premise too, if there was just some more to the established exposition that you can already read here on the mod's page, to begin with.

You will only scratch the surface, but once you decide to open the hatch and jump down into the black nothingness, you won't learn anything new or see something that supports the plot and Alex's reason to keep on going; darkness is all there is, and it will persist to the very end. Characters that should tell you something important don't, and if there is someone with promising information for you, they either get killed or they're ushered into the silent chaos (your sister for example that left you a phone call regarding a "mistake she made about you"). And that is everything to keep things short, you will have to play it for yourself because I am starting to run out of remaining characters lol.

Regarding design, there are instances where some level--instead of having a puzzle despite the indication of a lot of props around, machinery, and what not--is completed in quick, and linear way (ie. killing a miniboss instead or/and taking an exit nearby). It won't make sense, it maybe won't feel good too, and neither will the tutorial levels (which are surely tied to the plot once again, but I can't tell). But that is just Get a Life, and you will have to get used to its ways if you want to play through it for real.

I could mention as well that the flashlight being in its own weapon slot(!) is quite annoying, but I bet you surely got through DOOM 3 with the flashlight as a weapon that you had to eventually holster to dispatch some monsters, so good luck on your crusade here. If you expect to be engaged in the plot (which sure you will be, you will certainly try to make sense of the things that'll happen in this mod by progressing and learning more about the world, plot-wise), you might be disappointed at the end. BUT...but, that is Get a Life. I recommend this mod for nostalgia and some new cool things you might not see nowadays. Regarding plot and well-thought levels, developers either forgot or it was intentional, so don't let your guard down.

"Get A Life" is a very interesting and original mod....

It has humorous moments...for example the subway directors who are constantly saying..."Do you want a ticket.....if no.......then MOVE!!!"

There are many custom weapons and a good variety. However, most feel somewhat similar to each other and somewhat 'underpowered'.....this doesn't help in intense combat situations where you are taking on many 'combine bulls' at a time. It would've helped tremendously to have had at least one automatic weapon which had a secondary grenade fire....instead of having to switch weapons from an automatic rifle to a hand grenade, for example. As a result of this, I was often needing to use a 'God' (invincibility) cheat whenever it was required to take on many 'combine bulls' simultaneously.

What primarily 'ruined' this mod for me, more than anything else, was the level of the mod where you are meandering through a nightime wasteland with very low visibility which is infested primarily with zombies.....and are constantly being attacked by very, very large spiders. In other HL2 mods, you at least have a good 'chance' of seeing or evading spiders...

However, in "Get a Life" you are constantly being overwhelmed by spiders -no matter how cautious you are - and bleeding profusely each time you are savagely bitten by a spider.

There were also too many instances of the LOW polygon count textures.....which made 'maneouvering' through broken walls, etc. as being very difficult on the first try to evade an enemy, etc. Also, this user-made mod began 'crashing' on me many times in the level with the many spiders.

"Get a Life" definitely isn't quite a keeper for me....notwithstanding its great potential and unique setting....

I rate "Get a Life" a 6/10.

It's a pretty good game but you die fast and you have to heal your arms, chest, eyes, and whatever but it doesn't heal your health you got to do it sepret you can heal your health bar, i like the game and all that but not the healing part.

um jogo muito bem bolado e de boa dificuldade, eu gostei muito porque juntou mortos vivos com acão e tornou algo esplosivo

This was beautiful