You start out peering at poster of a girl in a bikini, and you are in the mist of Halloween. Everything seems to be going well, you see some VERY good models of scientists dressed up as Frankenstein and ghosts, and you can almost hear them breath a sigh of relieve that they escaped Black Mesa alive. So you trot over to your friend’s house and stock up on Halloween necessities, such as a shotgun, submachine gun, detpacks and grenades... Author : Swiss_Cheese
A lot of the nastier reviews have it wrong. It's not that the models suck. they're actually pretty cool and creative considering they were made for a 20th century gaming engine. It's not that the levels suck per se, either, though some definitely do. Like the levels with mazes. The last thing you ever want your player to think while playing your level, is that they don't know where to go next. THAT'S ALL A MAZE IS, NOT KNOWING WHERE YOU ARE. Put a maze in your level and I'm cheating my way through if I bother to continue at all.
Aside from the fact that the game clearly wasn't play tested much if at all, the big problem is that Halloween is rife with logic flaws. Why is it that when I shoot an animated statue of a woman, it taunts like a grunt from Black Mesa and then drops a submachine gun? What sense does that make? I guess it's supposed to be funny? . . . but it's not.
Clearly a lot of time and effort went into Halloween, and the mod has some neat ideas, but as of this writing it has a 7 rating on here, and really, it doesn't deserve it.
I like to play around with levels as much as play them, and if you like doing that, then fire up the cheats and mess around with it. If you're looking for a solid playing experience, though, look elsewhere.
I didn't believe it was possible, but this mod has the best and the worst of both worlds. Swiss Cheese's Halloween Mod is well ambiented and dull-looking, funny and absurd, and as engaging as exasperating to play.
Color palette is an excelent choice for the theme of interest, but is simplistic and at times monotonous. Textures are plain and badly mosaicked, though they have nice designs. Map layouts are at times broad and diverse, at other times blocky and lacking creativity. NPC models are original and fitting with their environment sometimes, but are reskins, and can be out of place or poorly worked. Some sounds are environmental and give a scary mood (even some jumpscares), but some are too loud, monotonous or annoying. In general, the ambience resembles well classic horror themes, although in a mostly mind-numbing way to the point it become tedious to play.
Story is not interesting, nor bad to the oblivion. There are funny moments and also forgettable ones. There are times when you are awaiting some twist comes next, there are others where story goes nowhere. In one hand, you got reapers, ghosts, pumpkin beasts, vampiress, werewolves, scarecrows, aliens, gargoyles, bats, witches and devils. On the other hand, you got scientists with poorly designed halloween costumes and a blonde Gordon Freeman.
Though gameplay is intuitive and well-paced, is quite short and there are sometimes annoyingly scripted maps that made you save and load over and over. A good pool of weapons is provided at the start and at times there is an overabundance of ammo, but at others waves of bullet spongy enemies can easily leave you dry, and that's not even counting that in several parts you are just wiped out of all your weapons. Mazes and puzzles can be challenging and interesting, however some long corridors, dead ends and blocked passages with unintuitive exits can easily make lose interest in playing. AI is as frozen and with buggy pathfinding as incredibly overpowered, accurate and mind-reading. Health and armor is mostly scarce, though there are times when inexplicably you can find 3 or more healthpacks in one place. Difficulty is decent at lower levels, insufferable at the highest. Transitions are good between ambiences, while it also is a bug-fest with shooting, enemy damage and hitboxes.
Is this mod bad? Is it good? Is it a joke? Good or bad? Is the classical halloween theme of the mod well-executed or is another cliché of the horror genre? Is it a good satire or is the developer just pulling our leg? Does it worth it? Is it a complete waste of time? It achieves swiss quality, or is it just cheese? I can't give a definitive answer one way or another. Risk it, I dare you.
EDIT: Played it with 2017 patch, so much improvement in every aspect this mod easily gets a 6. Now is actually playable in hard.
It was...ok...I did have some enjoyment. One concern was the witch map where you have to push some sack into the cauldron. If you don't do it right and it falls off the crates you're practically screwed and have to restart the map(or the entire mod if you don't know what the console is).
I recommend it over Cry of Fear and Afraid of Monsters because it's not tacky and cheesy :)
Good
A Perfect mod for Halloween, This mod by SwissCheese is the perfect blend of everything that makes a horror mod but with the tongue in cheek humor one would come to expect from Humor mods.
This mod has issues with hard to kill ghosts and enemies that appear behind you without warning but this is a perfect mod to pull out for halloween night.
Its bad, there is no plot, no indication of where to go.
It deserves a 2 for making me laugh.
Cry of feaaaaaaaar :3
It's an okay mod, but broken in some parts.
1/10. Awful.
One of the best horror comedy mods for half life! Like they hunger.