Recent reviews by Ky / Nas

Genuinely in terms of puzzles this mod far outshines what Half-Life 2 has on offer.

The puzzles in this mod are multi-layered and inventive even when working with a style of puzzle that was commonplace in HL2, like the wire puzzles. Damn man they do such a good job with the wire puzzles.

The first chapter is the most fun linear set-piece driven mod for Half-Life 2 that I have played, and the second chapter has a more open ended approach to level design that reminds me of Farcry 2.

The soundtrack bangs as well. Genuinely if you aren't gonna play the mod at least listen to the original soundtrack on whatever site or streaming service you get your tunes on.

Getting into the negatives, let's start with the story-

I only really have one issue with the narrative:
The story is interesting but of the two factions in the story they don't really do a good job of making you care about one of them, which makes the choice between them at the end feel a little hollow. I feel like some characterization for the Lambda command beyond them being the people who gave you the mission to begin with would've done the story some good.

As it stands there's not really any motivation to not side with the Anarchists, they give you ample reason to join them and not a lot of reason to distrust them at all.
Meanwhile the faction that sent you on the mission to begin with continues to prove that they're untrustworthy backstabbers with no real concern for wellbeing of the individuals they're saving or working with. Y'know like them telling you to jump out of a moving train.

Maybe that's the point? If that's the case though it's strange to me that they would offer a choice at the end to begin with.

Moving on to gameplay-

The only issues I have gameplay-wise are:

1. A single puzzle where you're expected to use a physics object to flick a switch and then shoot a cord within 3 seconds, but the icon it displays above the switch looks like a crosshair which mislead me into wasting a bunch of munitions on it and not knowing why it wasn't working. The time limit on hitting the cord is also a bit too fast given the time it takes to look down from the switch, play the animation for pulling your weapon out [since it's put away when you grab an object], and then line up the shot.
   
   Personally I think bumping it up to 4 or 5 seconds and making it more clear that you're expected to use physics objects to hit the switch
   [perhaps through environmental clues or something]
   would be all that puzzle needs to be on par with the rest because the concept for the puzzle is fantastic, it's just the execution that's disappointing and irritating.
   
   
2. There's not really any replayability apart from
   the two endings [which you don't need to replay the whole game for]
   the hidden supply caches and secret areas in chapter 2
   and the one bonus level that isn't really all that long and also lacks a reason to play it more than once
   
   I feel like this game would benefit greatly from some kind of challenge modes that put the mod's pillars
   [combat, puzzles, and exploration] on display.
   
   That said, I'd say the best option in terms of fun for the player and ease of development would be to have some kinda endless arena mode with one or two maps so you could play around with the weapon sandbox against some actual enemies and some kind of sniper challenge map where you have to fight combine snipers using the rifle.
   [There's a part where a combine sniper shows up in the campaign but you can't shoot back at them which was really disappointing for me cause I figured a sniper battle would be a cool set-piece.]

Anyway uh, to summarize:
Game cool, play it. Listen to the soundtrack too cause damn it bangs hard as hell.

This game is one of the most fun, and one of the most difficult story driven games I own! It's difficult enough to be worth your time, yet easy enough to enjoy playing. This game also has multiple different paths to choose in the main story, a level editor, and workshop compatability, making the game incredily replayable! This game offers hours apon hours of game play with the story alone! This is one of the best examples of indie game development gone right that I have seen!