UPDATE 2: Same old, same old.......

UPDATE: Not much has changed since I posted this review. Frames keep dropping, game keeps crashing, and the game breaking bugs are still present (to me at least), where you have to enter line of codes to fix it. The developers website hasn't been updated since 2015, so my expectations for this mod to be finished are very low.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: At first, I was confused why does this mod have so many negative reviews. The screenshots look nice and the first level was promising. However after finishing it, and looking at the development history, I can see now why many people feel unsatisfied with this. I'm one of those.

Short review:
Pros:
1, It's free.
2, At some points, the game changes it's genre from action to survival to hold players interests.
3, Weapons look decent and have nice reload animations for a mod.

Cons:
1, Zero story.
2, No original voice acting.
3, Extremely short (about 2 hours in first playthrough, less than a hour in second).
4, Not the most interesting level design (at some point it feels like a point click adventure game, where you touch everything, until you find the specific item, that let's you proceed further).
5, Buggy ( While I haven't encountered that many bugs, but the one I did range from enemies standing still to changelevel trigger not working at the end of Chapter 6)
5, Runs abysmally in large areas (from 30 to 11 fps).
6, Chapters can last from 20 minutes to 2 minutes.
7, Terrible cliffhanger (reminds me of Residual Life)
8, Feels like a giant Gmod map, and not a good one.

Verdict - I can only recommend this for the most hardcore half life fans, but even then, approach this one with caution.


Long review:

What looks like at first as another good half life mod inspired by the Black Mesa mod, turns out to be the poor man's version of it. The game is free and still in beta, but after finding out that this was in development for 8 years (as claimed by the devs), I don't think it's gonna get better from here.

The story begins, and I'm quoting the description :" With Major Darren Wilson, one of the employees of the military research complex at Black Mesa. Your objective is simple: get to the surface an escape from this mess at any costs. ". And that's all the story you will get. If some of you thought Gordon Freeman was bland, then after this you'll change your mind quickly. Unlike Gordon, this "Wilson" guy, has absolutely no background, there's no way to know his personality, nobody talks to him, if fact, almost nobody talks to anyone or reacts to anything at all. There's no original voice acting. All of the dialogue is taken from Half Life and Half Life 2 NPC's, so they feel like out of place. What also feels like out of place is Sack Boy from "Little Big Planet" (It may sound like nitpicking, but I have my reasons). In the first level, he's in a bathtub, so most of us thought that this is just an easter egg, but in the second chapter, you'll see him driving a Truck and working at Black Mesa, and that's were I was confused. Was this a joke, that got old the second time I saw it or something else ?


Once the action begins, you'll notice the odd level design. Areas look nice and are packing with detail, but once you try to find a door or an elevator that works, it honestly feels like a Point And Click Adventure Game, so prepare to mash that E button. Now I support games that encourage you to find the path yourself instead of the game telling you where to go, and honestly I didn't mind it at all, but for some this migh make them angry.

There's not much to talk about the gameplay itself. It Half Life, it functions. For some reason, sprinting is absent, so dodging lightning and bullets will be harder. There were at least 2 moments, where I was low on ammo and health, so the game kinda turned into a survival game, since finding them was hard, but it quickly became action game in the next chapter, kinda reminded me of the F.E.A.R. series.

Going back to the levels, the game sacrifices performance over detail and that is unacceptable. In larger areas, the game sometimes drops framerate to 11 (I don't know about other players with this issue, but a 2013 laptop with a Processor - intel core i7- 3630qm 2,40 GHz; 16 GB RAM and a GeForce GT 650M video card should not run Half Life 2 mod at max settings with problems.)

Bugs aren't such a big problem, but at the end of chapter 6, you'll be stuck in limbo, since the changelevel trigger won't activate (if it's even there). To fix this, R mouse click on the game in steam library, properties>general>set launch options and type in "-console". After that, go back to the game and in console type "map wc_08". This should get you to the last chapter, but it's not worth it. I beat it in 2 minutes.

Speaking of length, it's just 2 hours. It took them 8 years to make an unfinished single player mod that lasts only for 2 hours. and 1/3 of the game, you'll be spending to find a pathway, so playing it again will take you about an hour if not less. Chapters can last from 20 minutes to just 2 minutes. Why did they make them seperate chapters I don't know.

Again it's still in beta, work was put in here and maybe developers will take these negative reviews to the heart and fix this mod, but for now, I have my doubts. Overall, this is not a good Half life 2 mod. At least it's free.

Verdict - try it out for your curiosity, but don't expect to find much enjoyment.


Joke review: This is not Black Mesa 2.

Verdict - No

At least it's better than "Hunt Down The Freeman"