Experience Half-Life 2 like never before. Return to City 17, held within the iron grip of the Combine and the Consul. Reunite with old friends, and enemies. Traverse vicious canals, make new allies, and brave the horrors of the Quarrytown. Immerse yourself in a revitalised combat system featuring old arsenals made new again, with added features to raise the bar in gameplay. You've been waiting for quite some time, now. It's time to climb aboard.
This mod gets an unnecessarily bad rap.
Everything past the opening sequence (from Gman's intro speech to the teleport scene in Kleiner's lab) is GLORIOUS, in my humble opinion.
The gameplay and firefights with the metropolice are incredibly fun and well thought-out. The weapons feel punchier and deadlier than their release version counterparts, and the models don't look half bad either.
I dare say I enjoyed the combat sequences in this MUCH more than I did the combat sequences in release Half-Life 2. Which is really saying something, considering that release HL2 was already a masterpiece as it is.
The art style is beautiful and much more pleasing to me than the release version of HL2. The developers did an amazing job at recreating the Beta style.
That's one thing about the beta art style that's so eerie and magical, that fact that it somehow manages to be more bleak and depressing whilst being VERY colorful and vibrant. The off-whites, grays, blacks and blues of the release art style are replaced with deep reds, greens, and yellows.
Quaint Eastern-European buildings are replaced with huge looming American architecture. Skyscrapers, factories and corporate complexes all loom overhead, jutting into the sky, making you feel incredibly small and inconsequential (exactly the way the Combine want you to feel).
The overall atmosphere is haunting, beautiful, and palpable. And this mod does a great job replicating this in near Valve-quality past the opening sequence.
The HEV suit also looks amazing, as do the other custom assets and models (besides the manhacks, which look cool on the up-close renders but in-game look like they don't even have blades attached to them at all).
Those are all the reasons I love this mod. But of course, there are always negatives, especially in beta (no, I mean beta as in the early version of a mod, not Beta HL2).
The opening sequence was rough, really rough.
The largest issues with the opening sequence are both the level design, and the length.
The level design in the opening sequence is really weird. It's very difficult to tell where to go, and there are many pathways and doors that look perfectly accessible but are not. There are a lot of times where the level design doesn't even make sense (i.e. at one point you're supposed to run TOWARD a metrocop during a raid / slaughter).
There are many things that lead you to believe you're going the right way (aka lighting hints, events that funnel the player into certain corridors etc.) but many times they are misleading, and the real "way out" or true path is in a really awkward or strange place.
The atmosphere didn't really kick in for me during the opening sequence, I think I was probably too focused on the confusing layout to pay attention. Many of these level design flaws are absent from the rest of the demo though, as everything past Kleiner's lab played like a dream for me.
The opening sequence is EXTREMELY long (and uneventful). I'm not sure if the original Beta was supposed to be like that and they were just being true to source material or what. Point is; it was too long.
In the amount of time it takes you to get from the trainstation to the teleport at Kleiner's lab, you could have made it to the end of Red Letter Day in the original HL2. This coupled with the poor level design makes it kinda frustrating to play through, and not very immersive.
But like I said, don't let this deter you from the rest of the game. Everything past the opening sequence is really really enjoyable.
The voice acting, for the most part, was mediocre. I'm sure these voice lines aren't final anyways, but it's worth noting.
The Gman's intro speech was meh, it wasn't terrible but it wasn't that great either. IMHO they should have gotten JapaneseBushBaby to do him.
I know that sometimes Beta mods use existing voice lines recorded by Valve that were recovered from the Beta leak so I'm not entirely sure what's custom and what's original material, but I'll give an overview of the voice acting anyways.
Barney definitely needs some work. Pretty sure he said "Garden" instead of "Gordon" multiple times during his intro. His voice is too deep and he doesn't have enough whine. He's missing a couple mannerisms as well.
Kleiner is spot-on, so much so that I had trouble telling if the voice acting was custom or the aforementioned leaked voice lines. No complaints here.
Mossman was almost as good as Kleiner, but was a little monotone during the teleport incident sequence.
I saw some of the other reviews saying that the graphics weren't good, but I honestly don't know what they're talking about. It looked great in my eyes (save for a few spots in the opening sequence that had some janky lighting issues). I definitely think there were a few spots that looked a little more dated than release HL2, but that just gave it more atmosphere for me.
All in all I enjoyed my time with this mod and I wish the developers best of luck! Don't give up!
This is a review of the first chapter release.
I've gotta be honest, everything from the introduction until you get the crowbar kinda blows. While the maps are pretty good to look at, they are a pain to navigate. It really feels like I'm just fumbling around, somehow going in the 'right' direction, but it never FEELS right. It's like I'm going through a Beta amusement park rather than an actual world that's lived in. Same goes with the NPCs, they just don't feel like they're present.
But everything after Kleiner's Lab is absolutely 99% top-notch. The new weapon models and animations, the level design and enemy placement, all of it clciks just right. The combat feels great and the levels designed around it DO make sense. The narrative aspect... not so much, but it definitely was fun.
I also wanna give props to whoever's making the soundtrack. These tunes are very faithful to that industrial Kelly Bailey style while sprinkling some sounds of their own.
You guys are on the right track and I hope I see more.
First of all I would like to say that I really do appreciate the amount of work that you all have put into this mod so far. I believe your team has correctly captured the desired dark atmosphere that the original vision for Half Life 2 had, and I solemnly enjoyed the weapon models and and weapon animations. something else I also noticed was the subtle, yet substantial graphical updates that was made for the character models, they were minute enough to not deviate too far from the planned aesthetic. Now, most of the problems I noticed were in the begging parts of Chapter one. I feel as if there was too much walking, and some of the spaces were far too large, and barren. also the metro cops' stun stick is a bit comical. It looks like a laser sword toy that you might buy a child, I think the only change that needs to be made is the bulkiness of it, and perhaps dull, or nullify the bright colors emanating from it. Over all, this is a good mod, dents and scratches should be expected within the beginning stages, so don't take the rougher critics to heart! after review of this mod I believe Palpatine says my concluding thoughts best! "We will watch your career with great interest!" - Phantom Menace.
I originally gave the very first release a 5/10 because it felt quite amateurishly put together at the time. I'm pleased to say this project has come a *long* way. The maps, models, animations, everything you can think of has been drastically improved. Lots of HL2's fundamental mechanics have been tweaked to give a more enjoyable experience too!
In my original review I compared it a lot to Dark Interval, saying how I was hoping it would eventually reach a similar quality and I'm happy to say that indeed it has! Maps are gorgeous to look at, gunplay is fun, pacing is substantially improved.
For the first hour you wander around and look at stuff, but there's so many little moments, easter eggs and scripted sequences to keep you interested and make you feel the world is really alive. (I replayed it multiple times and kept discovering new stuff that you could miss if you weren't looking at the right time)
Then you shoot stuff for the next 2-4 hours.. it's a decently lengthy campaign.
Gunplay is very satisfying *especially* with the new 'draw-frame' system, something all mods should implement it's that good.
One of my criticisms that still holds is that I feel Barney's lines aren't delivered very well. And it's clear (at least to me) that the dialogue in Kleiner's lab is Valve's original script while other dialogues are by the devs and feels less refined by comparison.. but you can chalk these up to me just nit-picking. It's not a big deal.
(Holy hell Grigori's lines and VA is awesome tho!)
Though the biggest thing I dislike is that the gravity gun doesn't seem to have the draw-frames that all other weapons utilize, so it's really annoying to use the gravity gun, because it feels like Freeman has a little war flashback every single time you pull out the gravity gun, so you're stuck holding it for a second before you're allowed to actually use it. It's noticeable since none of the other weapons have this issue.
Anyways, it's really enjoyable to me seeing games get refined and improved as time goes on so I'm really excited to see how Div. 3 will expand the campaign as well as any other possible improvements might get implemented to the base game!
My rating is closer to a 7.5 for the overall experience but I really admire the impressive amount of effort that went into this mod.
(Btw the Alyx gun has no right to be THAT good. Best weapon I ever used in a Source mod. Also plz delete the entirety of Ravenholm k tnx.)
Honesty, this mod needs to be polished a bit more before it's release and the next update.
1. The G-Man intro doesn't need to be a chapter
2. The voice acting is "okay-ish", but Barney's voice is the biggest offender for improvement
3. The map design is lacking in areas
4. Some areas feel like they're out of order and just weird in placement
5. The journey could have been a bit more exciting
6. The gunplay is alright, but It feels like the SMG needs to improve a bit
7. The crowbar thinking everything it hits, is made out of metal.
But!:
1. The train sequence feels nice and looks cool
2. The models on the weapons, vehicles, NPCS, etc look amazing
3. The lab looks good
4. The sounds are great
5. The guns look and sound good
6. I like how they reused the Beta's voice lines for Mossman and Kleiner
7. Although the maps are a bit too wide and not having the "eye-candy", it feels it tries to fulfill the Beta's goal of being bleak.
Although this is a demo that feels a bit rushed and released too early, I wanna giver props to this team for dedication and I hope for more future release and they address the issues with the mod.
A little rough on the edges, but definitely worth playing. Thanks for creating it!
A long but well-crafted demo that manages to capture the essence of half-life. Looking forward to the final product.
I was lukewarm on this mod's initial release, but after playing Division 2, I have to increase my score. They've clearly taken feedback into account and the result is destined to be one of the great Half-Life mods, up there with Black Mesa and Dark Interval. Areas that previously felt oversized and empty are now teeming with visual detail and interesting setpieces that move the narrative along. There's a lot more story now and it doesn't just feel like you're playing retail's story with a beta theme anymore.
You'll notice iconic layouts from the actual Beta maps blended seamlessly into new designs. Combat seems is massively rebalanced, I never felt annoyed like I did before and the encounters flow beautifully. The weapons are stellar with some really slick animation going on and the game is a joy to interact with. As great as it is to see the Division 1 levels in fine form, the new Division 2 content is even better, with not only some great takes on HL2's chapters, but compelling story beats that get me caring about this version of the narrative. Route Kanal is much more fun and engaging than Retail Route canal, Water Hazard is gorgeous, though the boat is a little too sluggish for my liking compared to the airboat, and Ravenholm has some brilliant setpieces that end the current slice on a high note. The thought I kept having over and over while playing this release was "this is near Valve quality, I'm playing a proper game".
There is still a bit of jank. Early on I got softlocked by not walking past a Combine vs. Rebels fight quickly enough and one guard just stood in the way under some scaffolding and wouldn't let me pass (this was right after the underground part with a cremator walking around if the devs are reading). Turns out you have to go by before the sequence starts or you're out of luck and I lost some time trying to figure out a puzzle that didn't exist.
While the Division 1 levels are almost completely improved, the area shortly after the Manhack Arcade needs work, in my original review I said it felt like "taking a level design from the original Doom and putting realistic textures on it without considering it as a real space" and that still applies here. You go into what seems like some kind of condemned combine bunker, but there's also bits and pieces of apartments, random vehicles and highway tunnel and combine wall and it just feels like random geometry wtih props and textures vs. something that has a purpose in the world. It's the one part of Division 1 that doesn't seem to have really changed at all and it still feels like a low point, but the rest of the mod is just stellar with a real sense of place and purpose.
Despite the small issues, this is an incredible experience and it took me about 6 hours to get through the current chunk of content which is pretty hefty. I haven't followed this mod as closely as I should have because that initial impression left me cold, but now I'm incredibly hyped to see how the rest of it goes and I'll be paying much closer attention. This mod has really grown from its humble beginnings and become something special, the finished version will no doubt be spectacular, but even this slice of it is pure Half-Life bliss.
shod have better ai