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.
First of, I liked playing the mod. Especially since it's free, that's pretty nice and I'm looking forward to what will be added in the future.
However, I don't really know what the mod wants to be. It feels like a Half Life 2: Reimagined with roughly the same story, but just the details changed a little bit and all the characters are retextured. Some of the character outfits look straight out of Star Trek, very out of place. Of course, there is more of a nuance to that, but you get the gist. I think the new Combine outfits look amazing, though!
The weapon handling feels great, also all the new HQ textures look really good. But it's not really change that much. There is nothing terribly amazing about that, it's the source engine after all. It's fun sure, but I didn't notice anything too much "revitalised", except the textures and the animations. I liked that there are special animations for when you press reload on a full magazine, that's great attention to detail!
The voice actor for G-Man at the start was surprisingly well done, I really liked that! Barney on the other hand was irritatingly off, unfortunately. All the others were different, but solid. I wish the voices were a bit louder, though. Compared to me hitting the crowbar at something, I could hardly understand the voices at the same level.
Now to the map layout. Since the sequence of events is basically the same as Half Life 2, the maps are in part also pretty similar. Not the exact layout, of course, but just the look and feel. That's not a bad thing, though, except if you're tired of Half Life 2 maybe. One thing that I found very odd is the fact that some character textures and weapons look very modern, but most of your surrounding are still straight out of 2004. Like you have these high-res Combine NPCs running around, but the wall next to them is just a flat object with a wall JPEG on it. That breaks immersion a lot and it somehow also kills the mood. I know that retexturing the entire game, especially in such a dated engine is hard, but that's just how it feels at the moment.
Also, sometimes the map was just way too large for absolutely no reason. All in all, though, it feels like Half Life and that's a good thing so job well-done with room to improve.
I also feel like the introduction took waaay to long. It felt like running around for 30 minutes before anything really happened. Also some of the more story heavy sections of the game were pretty boring to be completely honest. You just stand there and click on things and wait for the NPC to finally stop talking. It's also not very interesting since, like I already mentioned, it's at least at the core, the exact same story. But I'm not going into much more detail here, cause of spoilers.
I've played Half Life 2 a lot of times now, so maybe that is just me and this point is not so important for others.
==> In Conclusion:
What would I change?
- Shorten the introduction a lot, at least cut a good 1/3 of the walking simulator
- Look for another voice actor for Barney
- Shorten most NPC dialogues or scripted (!) sequences, especially when nothing else is happening
- When you have to look and "E" at random things that the NPC will then explain for you to be able to continue. Yeah, remove that and make it optional if the player really wants to hear the story.
- Rethink some of the larger maps where not much happens
- All in all, make it a bit more dynamic. Sometimes the game can feel quite long-winded. Go through this vent here, around 10 corners there, follow the hallway and at the end listen to NPCs.
- Try something new with the story. I know this is a bit exaggerated, but it feels like you did to Half Life 2 with this mod, what Disney did to Star Wars with The Force Awakens. That's not to say it's inherently bad, but some people just don't like the repetition. If that's all intentional then please communicate that more clearly. That's why I mentioned it felt like a Half Life 2: Reimagined.
What did I especially like?
- The new HQ textures look pretty much all awesome!! I think CP looks a lot better than in the base game, for example. Not just due to the high-res textures, but just the overall look and feel is a lot more dystopian.
- Very neat feature that you get to play the NPCs gun while they're busy doing NPC stuff and calling an elevator or something. That's a nice change!
- Some new weapons and enemies. That was an especially refreshing experience. Maybe that's the "revitalised" combat system.
- Also that new green flamethrower guy! Looks absolutely terrifying and I like the weapon.
Overall, it's pretty fun to play. There are a lot of things that can be improved, of course, but I'm looking forward to what the team will be doing with the mod in the future. I think they're headed for the right direction! Hope this review is helpful.
PS: Also the consul looks absolutely ridiculous, why make it this weird looking bald guy? Is that supposed to be a re-skinned Breen? My god...
Неплохой мод однако, было интересно поиграть!
Not bad mod, interesting to play
Solid gameplay but maps requires some polish
I'm pretty new to half life and don't really have a sense of quality when it comes to video games so take this with a grain of salt. I found this mod to be playing it way too safe. I remember seeing snippets of the half life 2 beta discussions and I found it sort of disappointing to not see the whole pollution idea. Areas where we see citizens working seemed like a huge turn off. Some NPCs don't react when you throw junk at them or ram into them. For example, the man sleeping in the train station only groans once if you walk up to him. Any more interactions like trying to throw his beer or wine give off no reaction. Maybe have him yell at you or something. Whenever I see mechanics working on machinery, they are either doing the normal crouching animation or just look like they are frozen mid animation. Maybe have the citizens interact with each other, pass each other tools or small talk. I do want the city to be bleak and foggy. The city looks perfect for more dirt and pollution. The weapons look awesome and shiny. The shooting feels good and I hope more weapons are like this in the future. If civil protection are just humans with armor and guns, make their combat more panic like. Some cops could scream or pop in and out behind cover while fighting. Like before, alot of the NPCs' clothing really sucks. I don't like the weird ball shoulder jumpsuits civilians wear. I think just having them wear normal or drab clothing could have been better. All in all, this made leaves a lot of stuff to be wanted. In my opinion, more human-like reactions and behavior for the NPCs is all I need.
Overall I would say that I enjoyed the demo. The beginning sections before you reach the lab tended to feel a bit barren and stretched out. There wasn't a lot of interactivity with the NPCs and the walking around section could have been shortened a tad. The main enjoyment I got from this section was recognizing some of the map sections I had seen in the beta.
The voice acting for Barney was alright but the tone (or audio quality?) sounded a bit out of place sitting next to Kleiner when they were talking.
Once you're given weapons, things start to improve. I felt like the levels for gunfighting were well laid out and quite fun. I don't think this section needed to be quite as long as it was either but it did make up for the beginning.
Asides from what I've already mentioned, the ending of the mod is a bit sudden and just kind of happens. Also, I noticed on several occasions the NPCs (mainly citizens) bugging out or acting weird. Lastly, I'm not a big fan of the new headcrab design.
I just played through the entire demo (which was a lot longer than expected), and I have to say I enjoyed it!
I'll admit that my hopes weren't that high when I started. The beginning train station level specifically just wasn't that good, it was by far the least polished area in my opinion, it just didn't have that "lived in" feel that a level should have. But goddamn, when the sequence of entering the city plaza with that original HL2 soundtrack playing in the background occurred, I could tell I was in for a helluva ride.
Combat was very similar to HL2, I personally LOVE HL2's rather simple combat mechanics, so there's no issues here. Animations were smooth and satisfying, and the addition of the stunstick was pretty cool.
There were a lot of areas that needed some more polish, not as bad as the train station, but it definitely felt unfinished in certain areas. I noticed that a lot of the areas needing polish were levels where intense combat took place, which shows that the devs clearly focused mainly on scenery in this demo, a lot of areas where you're just supposed to take in your surroundings looked pretty complete, while areas with combat just looked basic and generally incomplete.
The art style was all over the place IMO, it was just a mish mash of HL2, HL2 beta, and original content, all three of which sort of colliding with each other. It was EXTREMELY jarring to see a default HL2 zombie being controlled by a custom, high poly headcrab model. I sincerely hope you guys plan on remaking most NPC textures like you did with the citizens, being forced to be that close to the original low quality GMan face texture was not enjoyable.
There were some engine bugs, though it wasn't that common. Usually it would just be a lighting bug, such as a chair seemingly glowing in a dark room, however I would occasionally find a citizen or two just randomly crouching or cowering in terror for no reason. Also, was the Cremator supposed to be hostile? Originally I thought I had to sneak by it or else I'd get incinerated, but I soon found out that it just... ignored me, despite the fact that I was on the run in an area a citizen probably wasn't allowed to be.
Voice acting was decent enough. GMan and Barney was passable for a free mod, but goddamn whoever voiced Kleiner was ******* amazing, you guys genuinely struck gold with whoever you casted. Mossman was also pretty good, she didn't sounds like Judith, but considering they're completely different characters between beta and retail I can imagine the difference was intentional.
Overall, it wasn't flawless, but I enjoyed it. This has HUGE potential. If you guys just fixed bugs, focused on one art style, and ran some levels through a few more layers of polish, this could rival Black Mesa in quality.
7/10
Youtu.be
this is only the demo version, however needs a ton of work at this point. the lightning feels obsolete, and has a lot of low poly models...you need to redux the redux a little bit :D
music and sounds (and voiceacting for the most part) are 10/10 tho. whoever making those dont let him go.
mod has defenetly huge potential, but cannot give more then 7 at the moment.
First of all, people are harsh, WAY too harsh to this mod. The comments I have read on various discord servers regarding this mod were pathetic most of the time. To everyone who is involved in this project, only listen to constructive criticism and do not be discouraged by the nitpickers' opinions. On to the review:
The demo was fine, but it lacks lots and lots of polish. I think this is why the mod has a mediocre rating as the date I am writing this review. It has things going for it for sure, but there are also some weird design choices, I think it would be best if I focused more on those alongside the things I enjoyed:
1- The maps are fine design-wise but not really fun to play. Sometimes the way you are supposed to go is a bit vague, sometimes they have questionable scripted sequences. Generally, there is too much walking around without purpose.
2- Some remodels are both unnecessary and bad. The headcrab looks especially bad, it should be called fatcrab. G-man is another unnecessary remodel, the suit just looks wrong. I don't see the reason behind these changes?
3- Viewmodels are pretty good, models, animations etc. but HEV arms are way too big.
4- I really loved the fact that the weapons pack a punch. It is a good change after HL2's peashooters. My only criticism is that there is no reason to have two melee weapons. As far as I know, the team is not planning to re-introduce the weapon dropping mechanic, it just makes the inventory more cluttered. I am fine with multiple weapons of the same type but it would be better if every weapon had a purpose. It is just a slower but more damaging crowbar and that doesn't sound too exciting. Will there be multiple SMGs similar to this as well?
I could go on with much more detail like how the APC doesn't have rotating wheels or Kleiner has his eyes open while he is injured or how the cremator doesn't have sounds etc. but, as I have said, the majority of this mod's problems are due to lack of polish.
Give it a good overhaul and I think it will be one of the better remembered leak / beta mods.
I noticed that in the beginning level, if you make the mistake of bumping into the last citizen in the line waiting to pass through the security checkpoint, it will bug the game and you will not be able to pass through, unless you restart the level. However, the weapon models textures and animations are well fleshed out and sound much better. Keep up the good work.