After the Black Mesa accident ... The mission, get out of here! Directors Cut Releasedate: 2024!
This mod is very fun! It has nice mapping and it is very fast paced! I highly recomend it.
(This review is for Escape 2.0)
While I thought this was a decent return to Black Mesa and an interesting revisiting of the original Escape mods, I also felt it was dragged down quite a bit by three major issues:
- A lack of ammunition
- A lack of health
- Too many enemies
Any one of these would be an annoyance, but when combined they can result in a wildly fluctuating difficulty curve. The fact you never get a crowbar means there's no easy way to take out the lesser enemies (headcrabs & zombies), and when the mod frequently doesn't give you enough ammo to deal with all the enemies - especially early on - it leaves you rather frustrated.
The mod also has tons of Vorts pop up throughout its rather lengthy runtime - often so many that you're GOING to get hurt unless you constantly quick-save/load - and given you don't really get any armour, that makes you especially vulnerable. I played on Normal and had a rather miserable time.
It's especially frustrating because the maps themselves are actually really good! They're well designed, have good layouts and (aside from the odd bit of annoying trigger placement) were fun to make my way through. It's a real shame I couldn't enjoy them so much because the combat was so badly balanced.
Overall, if you're going to play this I REALLY recommend you do so on Easy, because otherwise the overly challenging combat is going to ruin what's otherwise a pretty great mod.
(And also, if you're not going to let us wear an HEV suit, don't tease us by letting us come into contact with several throughout the mod! That's just MEAN.)
I appreciate all the hard work has been done and enjoyed a new version overall, but honestly I like old escape 1 and 2 more than this. On a gameplay side biggest ploblem is a balance, especially when the player encounters dozens of enemies while being totally restricted on supplies. I had to use godmode on final fight, because I have no idea how to finish that with provided supplies and numbers of enemies (played on normal). Lack of melee weapon adds to the list, especially when the player needs to break some vent to proceed (could be softlock if out of ammo), or deal with some headcrabs. Player guidance became less clear and more frustrating then it was (hev suit and some other items like helmets which player is not able to pick up, some paths and puzzles are very unclear, like that warehouse with movable crane which I totally skipped by jumping over the gap), and strangely that was not a problem for old versions. Some memorable moments (like crossing the canyon with broken skybridge from escape 2, or nuclear explosion in the end) were missing, but some were altered to less interesting way for some reason (like using some random teleport to enter xen later instead of Blue Shift teleport with bossfight with robo-soldier). BMS stuff (like VOX or textures / overall design) feel out of place and contrast with original HL aesthetics which is still prevelent for most maps. Also I encountered some FPS drops on 3080 (!) closer to the finale.
On the positive note, I like the addition of tram ride on the beginning, how most levels were expanded, sidekick characters which periodically appear all through the game and take part in the story, some lighting work was great and defence with placeble turrets is a neat idea.
I encounterd only one critical bug, when the player is able to stuck inside the train on the transition to second map (so I had to jump right before the moment when the game changes level).
Anyway, I want to thank autors for such an unexpected comeback after almost 15 years (may be more), and I want to wish them a best luck on their future endeviours!
It was a good mod. It had a interesting story actually, also it was the first mod I played that had male scientist in his lab coat as principal character. What is more, I liked the references to Half-Life: Decay.
Overall, it was an excellent mod (ignore what I said at first) and deserves my 10 points!
This mod is amazing, but it would be even better if it had crowbar and flashlight instead of useless friendly NPCs that have 1000 HP but never help in intense fights.
A well-thought-out mod that leverages old-school HL gameplay and introduces new styling and designs. The new scenery, voices, mechanisms and maps are a great refresh to a mod and game, allowing HL1 to still be fun and exciting in 2024!
I have not played before either patch. With that said, I found that at 'medium' difficulty, it was very well balanced for health and ammo. The author listened to the community and responded. I highly commend them for listening and enacting change.
Great work! Will keep an eye out for anything else they develop! <3
You don't see a remaster of mods you've played about 20 years ago very often, so I was very excited when ESCAPE 2.0 was announced.
After having played it to the end, the sheer amount of work that was put into it really blew me away. This is not a simple repack of the old mods, but a well built and high quality mod with lots of interaction and scripted sequences. Also it's quite challenging considering the choice of weapons.
Hope to see another sequel or follow-up ;-)
Despite some bugs with triggers it's a very strong release conveying the spirit of HL1.
I love this mod (plays in this 9 years ago), it’s first time when you play role of scientist.
Great mapping, geometry at levels are well. Some unique details also present here.
Just play and see!
This Review is written for the Escape V2.0 release of March 2024.
What can I say. It has been a nice journey back into my early 20s being able to play this mod in a very fresh and polished fashion.
Just like with the original releases of Escape 1 & 2, we're getting a very fast paced Action mod that actually feels like an official AddOn instead just a mere simple mod and it follows the Events of Half-Life closely.
The mapping was enhanced on such a well polished level that I was sometimes truly astonished how well everything was constructed and looked. Everything was fitting perfectly together. While some map sections unfortunately were kicked out of the remastered version others were thankfully added into their place instead. We get to visit Xen as new place for instance which wasn't part of the original Escape 2 mod.
Pro:
+Fast Action orientated mod
+Numerous puzzles throughout the mod
+Custom Voice Acting and fine npc scripts in place
+Wonderful & logical designed maps with some fantastic architecture in place
+Xen with a clear inspiration taken from Black Mesa Pc game
+A New mod ending (perhaps an indication for a new mod sequel at some point?)
+In general fantastic npc scripting
+long playtime guaranteed
Contra:
-Often an overuse of Alien Slaves. You seem to fight them more than anything else in this mod. Where are the snarks, the Assassins etc?
-Sometimes not so well balanced regarding ammo or health, enemy spawns but not utterly unfair either. You will have to play smart for a change.
-In the later maps the Facility feels devoid of life when it comes down to your fellow BMRF colleagues, sad as they provide many additional npc scripting possibilities.
-Contains some UI sprite bug. It appears as if you're wearing a Hev_Suit with a flashlight. How ever in this mod you actually go entirely without any flashlight. It was confusing at first and requires some fixing.
Go play it people. This is a masterpiece!