Azure Sheep – Half-Life

Silver Sorrow Hangar 16 Says:
21 February 2010 at 6:23 pm

The Following review first appeared on Hangar16.com and is reproduced here with the author’s permission. For more information about the re-publication of Hangar16’s reviews, please see this Forum thread.

Note: I didn’t beta-test this mod, though El Jefe DarkWolf did; also, his co-Jefe JennWolf is the voice of Barniel. I had nothing to do with the development of this mod (although I did play the pre-release beta for previewing purposes… thanks to Starfox for doing the Preview, thus leaving me space and time to fret over how I’m going to add actual content to this review), so in essence, my opinions are based on my own experiences playing through the final version for the first time. I have not been influenced by others, nor the huge amounts of cash transferred into my Swiss bank account. Thank you, and see you in Maui.**
[** Put your own "lei" joke here. Also, this has nothing to do with it, but if a hula dancer's every movement tells a story, imagine what she's saying if she flips you off. It can't be very nice.]

Abstract:
Richard Jeni theorized that women, because of various strange female behaviorisms, came from a different planet. I now know what planet that was: Mercury. Because how can a person born on Earth sit in a hot room and still insist that she’s freezing? Not only have they come with the cure for baldness***, they’ve also come in search of moisture, as he has claimed… which explains their origins. Mercury has a serious lack of moisture, that’s a given. So they come to this blue-green ball and interact with the only life-form present, Adam. Now, Adam’s just minding his own business, naming animals, getting an all-over tan, etc., when here comes this spacecraft crammed with a bevy of disingenuous beauties. Now, this is all new to him… he’s thinking, “Uh… heh… WOW!” And they elected one of their own, Eve 9783-73-7KE, to do the horizontal Macarena with the poor sap. Their plan: “We can mate with this man, and the male children will be our slaves!” It took some doing, since Adam was indeed a bit smarter than we are today. But Eve 9783-73-7KE made him a nice fruit pie with ingredients she found in a tree (the “Tree of Realizing You’re Naked And Covered With Unsightly Hair And Pimples, In Addition To Knowledge, Whatever THAT Is“) with all kinds of “KEEP OUT!” signs around it. He didn’t realize it until he had the second helping, then his IQ dropped to today’s average, which is about 90, (with dips into the 60-range where the discussion of breasts is rampant), plus he realized that he was, in fact, naked.
[*** You've probably seen the Rogaine commercials where women are talking about losing their hair; it's a blind, intended to throw us men off the trail of truth. Be not fooled by their lies and trickery!]

So, their stooge rendered stupid and clad in animal skins, Eve 9783-73-7KE mates the hell out of him, producing several zillion kids; the males of this union were married off to the alien women, and the girls were made privy to the secret. All went well, until one stupid kid killed his brother over corn futures, or something, and then wars and other stuff happened. However, women have stayed in the background, watching, waiting, pulling the strings and watching the puppet-men dance. This is where we stand today.

It’s just a theory, but you never know. Hey, I like ‘em, anyway.

Basics:
R_speeds: Good; no real slowdowns that I experienced.
New Models/Skins/Etc.: It’s amazing how these things can get out of control, isn’t it? A definite yes.
Gameplay: Heh heh heh. Play it.

Story?
**** You… oops. Screwed it up again, didn’t I? No, you’re Barney B. Barney. Waitaminit… “Barney Barney Barney”?? That’s right. When you were a child, you were awful. Your mother would have to call you like this: Barney. Barney! BARNEY! And it just stuck.
[**** And you thought I wouldn't get to use that gag twice. It makes no sense in this context, but the hell with it.]

Okay, okay. The truth: your name is Barney, and your last name really isn’t important. You’ve forgotten it anyway, what with all the shenanigans and goings-on since the “incident” happened. What *is* important, is that the object of your deepest desires (or whatever passes for deep desires in us males), Kate, code-named “Azure Sheep”, was trapped in Black Mesa when the Shiite hit the fan, and now you finally get to rescue someone instead of being Gordon “I Get A Hazard Suit And You Don’t Nyah Nyah Nyah” Freeman’s cannon fodder. And the trials will be worth it (I think)… Kate is hot!

Onward!
Where to start? At the beginning, of course! First off, “Go For A Walk” and get acquainted with who you are and what you’re doing. Don’t forget to stop by the arcade and take a look at the games. Heh heh heh. An interesting twist on the ho-hum Hazard Course. When that’s over with, go ahead and start a new game… it’s okay, it won’t bite you. As you gear up and finally reach your post, you’ll see an old acquaintance arrive for work (nice car, man), and then probably stand in one place and/or fill out some forms. This isn’t made clear, as the magic of “Meanwhile/Later” transports you to the time where things actually happen. This is very important… otherwise, you’d get bored and end up watching “Walker, Texas Ranger”*****, and we can’t have that, can we?
[***** From the theme song: "When you're in Texas, look behind you / Because that's where the Ranger's gonna be." Does anyone else find that frightening? Just what the hell is going on in Texas, anyway??]

So anyway, you’ll be wonderfully immersed in the Black Mesa snafu… albeit not at ground zero, but what does it matter when there are these stupid-looking things shooting green lightning at you? Abandon your post and start looking for Kate, Marine–er… whatever you are! Because Kate, I’d like to mention again, is hot. Now that your priorities are set, let’s find something to blast holes in those jerks. Well… for the moment, you’re going to have to rely on Ol’ Betsy and Ol’ Splinter, which is what you call your Glock and the pool cue you find, respectively. You also call your various body parts specific names as well. You’re very weird. However, once this is all said and done, you’d like to introduce Kate to Ol’ Daniel, which is what you call your [CENSORED]. No, really, Ol’ Daniel is your cat. He likes sitting in laps. One time while sitting in your lap, he got spooked and almost did some serious hurt to Ol’ Mr. Johnson and the Juice Crew, which is *really* what you call your [CENSORED].******
[****** Many thanks to Scatterbrain for that one. We have passed beyond the bounds of a PG rating.]

But primal urges aside, it won’t be too long before you find Ol’ Pumper, which is what you call your shotgun, and not your [CENSORED], thankfully. While you’re here, wandering around, you might as well resign yourself to becoming accustomed to being ambushed by Vorts. This will be a common theme in this mod, to the point where I was even hesitant to go to the bathroom for fear of being ambushed on the way. I must say that it became a little tiresome, but what the hell… it’s free, right? Right.

At first, you have just 100% health. The 15% of HEV juice is gone quickly (why it’s there in the first place is beyond me), so you will have to be very, VERY careful until you can get — yes, you will be able to wear one — an HEV suit, which is available roughly one-third of the way through. Or is it halfway through? Anyway, Barney wears a blue HEV, which is much more aesthetic than that stinking orange monstrosity. Let’s hope Valve tries something in HL2 that doesn’t make me feel like an armored pumpkin. The idea of Barney getting an HEV suit is patently brilliant… and until you get it, you cannot pick up batteries or use the HEV charger to augment your energy. So again, you’ll have to watch it until then. Health isn’t in any great abundance, but it isn’t completely absent, either. For my part, due to combats I stayed at about 50-60% health. I knew you could use the soda machines to get health, but I had no idea I’d be using them so much… anyway, it keeps you on your toes. After acquiring the HEV, I stayed very close to 100% health at all times, full charge. It might help to mention that I’m also very careful and save often. Too often, some might say, but I’ve since had them silenced. Their blood may call out from the ground to the Heavens for revenge, but God likes me more than He does them. So there.

This brings me to combat in general. You’ll be facing normal Grunts, aliens, Special Forces Grunts, more aliens, modified aliens (“but modified by whom?” is your question), and Apaches, who are finally pissed off enough to take to their helicopters and rain fire, rockets and the wrath of Great Spirit upon your minimum-wage ass. Or am I thinking of something else? Anyway, combats are fairly nasty to your well-being until you get your HEV, and then nothing hurts quite so much anymore. One minor complaint is that the weapon crosshairs sometimes get lost, and you really can’t afford to have that happen. At times you’ll be faced with a lot of Grunts, or a handful of aliens. Switching weapons takes a little longer than usual… I guess that’s realism, baby. It makes you think before you go charging in like a pit bull with diarrhea (such colorful similes, I know). And also, ambushed by Vorts. Repeatedly. Between these combats, you’ll be running along corridors.

The Corridor Crawl will be a familiar experience to those who have played DAV’s maps; big rooms connected by twisting corridors. Not that that’s a bad thing necessarily, but I was starting to get disoriented and dizzy by the time I had finished. Maybe it was just my sinuses. However, the maps are well-detailed and nicely appointed, with nice touches of realism — crates, barrels, corpses — to round out your entertainment value. The architecture here reflects the many aspects of Black Mesa quite well; in addition to finding new places to shoot things, you’ll also visit a couple of places that will seem familiar. You’ll also have the interesting opportunity to see the “old” Black Mesa complex. In a contemplative sense, if you put all of the various maps that depict Black Mesa together in a real-world simulation, I think we could cover North Dakota. Anyway, you should find plenty to see and do on your sight-seeing tour of Black Mesa.

And what things to see! The new models are excellent. Some are reskins of existing Valve or ‘Net-available models, but even those fit in quite well. Toadman’s work is top-notch — his toad weapon looks great; Sven Patrick’s re-texturing of Scarecrow’s “Aliens” M-41A (the original version is what I’ve been using for months now) is just beautiful… I may keep this for myself. In the second half of the mod, there’s a Beretta you can scavenge off a dead Special Forces Grunt (more on them later) in addition to the M-41A, and eventually you can grab an iron bar. More weapons are available in the second part than in the first, so persevere. Besides new weapons, there are a couple of new annoyances to your usual stolid equanimity — rats and Archer fish. These guys have taken a normally benign model and an unused one and turned them into real threats to your sanity, if not your health. The aforementioned toad can be either an ally or an enemy… be careful when you see one. Then there are the all-new Magenta Slaves, which are Vorts with red — or magenta, if you will — lightning attacks; the Panther — you’ll only face one, thankfully — is big, powerful and blessedly stupid.

[Side Note: Not that I'm the type of person who usually does this (uh-huh), but I clipped through the shower door (in their version of the Hazard Course) with the girl behind it. I was curious as to whether they would actually include a nude model in the pack (since such things are as common as a handshake now)... to my surprise... well, YOU clip through the shower, if you're so ding-dang interested...]

As for the humans violently opposed to your continued existence, you’ll run into the standard Grunt, and then their evil counterparts, the Special Forces Grunts. Their camo is more ominous, and they’re better at making you hurt and bleed and cry. At one point, the Grunts will become your allies, in a way — you cannot “use” them to make them follow you — but you’re better off leaving them be…they’re busy enough killing the Special Forces guys and aliens as it is. This is the point where you’ll encounter an old friend from OpFor…and he’s “use”ful, too. Don’t let him die (until after he’s helped you)! And speaking of old friends, isn’t that Gordon? Yes, it is! Hey, Gordon! Why does Gordon have an accent? And Adrian has one, too?? I knew it!! They both have a library of phrases, and hearing Gordon yell “Die, you…thing!” was an interesting phenomenon… oh, and don’t let him die, either. Your other allies are Barniel the female security guard, a construction worker named Gus, your co-Barneys of course, the ubiquitous scientists, and Kate. And, by the way, Kate is hot.

Kate, of course, is your object and your help. You cannot get out of this without her… which means you need to keep her alive. An interesting addition to your otherwise destructive arsenal is a health kit which you can use to monitor Kate’s health, and also to heal her should she need it. Following my usual method of stashing a vital friendly in a safe place — this is where DAV’s corridors are extremely useful — then clearing out the area, grabbing the AI and progressing (never leaving her more than a map behind, mind you!), I was able to keep her very healthy. Some people have experienced problems with Kate disappearing, etc., so I can only recommend that you leave her in a very safe place, then have her follow you before changing maps; sometimes a map changes just beyond a door she opens, which is perfectly fine. Clear out the map and then come back for her. In an audio sense, Kate’s voice is pleasant, mostly… meaning, I didn’t want to kill her when she opened her mouth to say something. In fact, when she asked me if I had seen “that… that thing with only one big eye”, I almost fell out of my chair, laughing.

So much for keeping this review PG.

Moving on… the sounds and voice acting. There are a lot of new sounds here… all very well done. Barniel, voiced by our very own JennWolf, is believable. What I mean to say is, she doesn’t affect a horribly arch British accent, rounding out her vowels and giving the impression that she’s only a security guard until she can marry rich nobility. I HATE that. So a voice with a familiar accent is welcome; not grating or annoying. Of course, I realize that she has the ear of my immediate superior, but that doesn’t make a whit of difference. Nope. Please don’t have me killed. I’ll reprise my comments on Gordon and Adrian’s accents: interesting. There. I never imagined Gordon to have an accent… but it fits, in some previously unthought-of way. I like it!

The Inevitable Comparison
So what’s left? I’ve tried to find a way around it, but I keep making comparisons between Azure Sheep and Blue Shift. So someone may ask: is Azure Sheep REALLY better than Blue Shift? My answer would have to be an unqualified “maybe”. They both have their strengths and weaknesses, with one edging out the other in one category, and the other winning another hands down; if taking the larger view, it’s unfair to measure an amateur mod by the work of industry professionals, but when taken piece by piece, one may have distinct advantages over the other. For instance, models: while BS stuck to the confines of the HL universe and produced very little that was new, AS has tons of new, interesting models.

Then there’s story: while Barney was performing just a marginal role in BS, AS was pushing in a new direction, with a brand new angle to the whole story. Certainly not canonical, but at least different. Going hand-in-hand with story are the maps: AS, in comparison, perhaps lacks the cohesiveness and tight mapping of BS and the Gearbox team; Gearbox, being closer to Valve in relations, may have a better idea of what Black Mesa looks like thematically. DAV doesn’t do a bad job in comparison, but it seemed as if a few maps were padding, in a way… the Corridor Crawl *is* a DAV trademark, after all (although, the way I put it sounds worse than it actually is!). However, a lot more of the familiar Black Mesa locations were revisited in AS, and a lot more effort was put into making the maps interesting to look at… for example, the “old” Black Mesa facility, and so on. So AS has the advantage here.

And what about the voice acting? While BS may have had professionals to do its new characters, its Dr. Rosenberg *still* reminded me of the filmstrip guy from World History in high school (“India might be a kind of archipelago — except that it *isn’t* — carrying much-needed Bubonic Plague to the interior.”); AS’s new voices on the other hand, sound real, in a basic way. I would try to describe that, but I’d fail miserably, or at least confuse myself further.

On an ambivalent note, combats are tougher than in BS, which was kind of like a sight-seeing tour on easy. To quote James Garner, “Well… that could be either good OR bad…“

A major issue with just about every single individual on this planet who played BS was its length: BS is infamously short, shorter even than some mods… it’s about as short as an evening with Hervé Villechaize, to put it in a weird way. AS, to its advantage, is rather lengthy, and by extension provides more gameplay for the much cheaper price of free. (I’m still kind of mad about that $35 price tag.) All things considered, I’d say AS was the winner here. If BS was perhaps three times longer, they’d probably be about even in my estimation.

To return to the merits of AS, I’d have to say that I enjoyed playing it. The new characters, models, locations, etc. all made the download — and the wait — worthwhile.

Summary?
A great piece of work. Bravissimo to the Azure Sheep team! And did I mention that Kate was hot? She is. Saucy security wench… kicking me in the groin… it was great!

Rating? 5 out of 5.

Annoyance Rating: 4 out of 10. [various bugs happening to other people; a little difficult, even on "easy"; perhaps too many Vort ambushes]

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

There are 60 Comments.

Follow these comments via RSS

« Previous 1 2

Moonsorrow Says:
14 May 2008 at 10:55 am

Really good mod for Half-Life! I met Gordon Freeman…really cool^^! Better than Blue Shift!

lt1956 Says:
16 June 2008 at 6:12 am

GREAT MOD, worth Playing and Better than Blue shift. Blueshift has some nicer graphics but the gameplay is SHORT very SHORT, this mod adds more to the game and MORE of the BLACK MESA complex!

Plus there is an Elite team that may be under the control of the G Man that fights these ET problems.

What I did WAS open up his Pak files and Replace the old Models with the NEW ones from Blueshift, The only ones I couldnt replace were the Female mdoels which are better detail than the original Barney but not as good as the HI Def back barneys. I wanted to replace wiith Otis model, but no go. But Changing the Models put it VERY close to Blue Shift quality now.

I recommend this mod and I recommend adding the Blue shift HiDef pack so you can enjoy this mod with better human models.

andrej Says:
16 June 2008 at 11:50 am

Did you tried Super Definition Azure Sheep- Half-Life also on this site

here is the download link http://files.filefront.com/Super+Definition+Azure+Sheep/;3851269;/fileinfo.html

The models with this pack are great even better than with Blue Shift HIDef pack

Paul Denton Says:
10 September 2008 at 10:01 am

I like this mod, Really good story and weapons. I liked this more than blue shift.

Robspace 1 Says:
10 October 2008 at 12:22 pm

Great game.This really is better then Blue Shift. It played flawless and it was very professional looking all the way through it. The story was good and you have a really nice looking female companion named Kate to gp through most of the game with you. She’s a decent fighter and easy on the eyes. More games should add women to them. Makes it interesting having someone to look out for.She does get in the way at times but I was happy to have her along most the time, She’s a good shot. This gane is only 45 mb long but seems much longer. It took me quite a while to finish. I had to resort to the walkthrough a few times and had to add some extra wepons at times but other then that it was just right. Good job and I would say this is in the top 5 of all HL games. It’s right below Poke 646 and Someplace Else. It’s really good!

ivorybow Says:
26 January 2009 at 10:16 pm

this is a small problem, but the target sights on my machine gun is a very pale blue. In a fire fight or light area, it can’t be seen and it’s hard to aim, so I am dying more often than I’d like. Any cheat to brighten up the target sights?
Carolyn

Gilfrarry Says:
27 January 2009 at 5:58 am

You should be able to revert to the original HL crosshairs by opening the asheep/pak0.pak file with a program like PakExplorer and deleting the /sprites/crosshairs.spr file, or you could replace it with the same file from some other mod or from a site like this one.

ivorybow Says:
27 January 2009 at 8:19 pm

Hi Gilfrarry..wow! Thanks a million. This is why I love this game…such great talent applied to having fun..did it and it worked!

Talon Says:
10 March 2009 at 11:29 pm

I recall playing this mod shortly after its release. I greatly enjoyed it, even the sections when you had to escort an AI companion around! The combat sequences were well-constructed, although I also recall that many of the hallways and tunnels seemed purposeless and redundant. Still, the bottom line is that this is a well-constructed and fun mod to play!

Silver Sorrow Hangar 16 Says:
21 February 2010 at 6:23 pm

The Following review first appeared on Hangar16.com and is reproduced here with the author’s permission. For more information about the re-publication of Hangar16’s reviews, please see this Forum thread.

Note: I didn’t beta-test this mod, though El Jefe DarkWolf did; also, his co-Jefe JennWolf is the voice of Barniel. I had nothing to do with the development of this mod (although I did play the pre-release beta for previewing purposes… thanks to Starfox for doing the Preview, thus leaving me space and time to fret over how I’m going to add actual content to this review), so in essence, my opinions are based on my own experiences playing through the final version for the first time. I have not been influenced by others, nor the huge amounts of cash transferred into my Swiss bank account. Thank you, and see you in Maui.**
[** Put your own "lei" joke here. Also, this has nothing to do with it, but if a hula dancer's every movement tells a story, imagine what she's saying if she flips you off. It can't be very nice.]
Abstract:
Richard Jeni theorized that women, because of various strange female behaviorisms, came from a different planet. I now know what planet that was: Mercury. Because how can a person born on Earth sit in a hot room and still insist that she’s freezing? Not only have they come with the cure for baldness***, they’ve also come in search of moisture, as he has claimed… which explains their origins. Mercury has a serious lack of moisture, that’s a given. So they come to this blue-green ball and interact with the only life-form present, Adam. Now, Adam’s just minding his own business, naming animals, getting an all-over tan, etc., when here comes this spacecraft crammed with a bevy of disingenuous beauties. Now, this is all new to him… he’s thinking, “Uh… heh… WOW!” And they elected one of their own, Eve 9783-73-7KE, to do the horizontal Macarena with the poor sap. Their plan: “We can mate with this man, and the male children will be our slaves!” It took some doing, since Adam was indeed a bit smarter than we are today. But Eve 9783-73-7KE made him a nice fruit pie with ingredients she found in a tree (the “Tree of Realizing You’re Naked And Covered With Unsightly Hair And Pimples, In Addition To Knowledge, Whatever THAT Is“) with all kinds of “KEEP OUT!” signs around it. He didn’t realize it until he had the second helping, then his IQ dropped to today’s average, which is about 90, (with dips into the 60-range where the discussion of breasts is rampant), plus he realized that he was, in fact, naked.
[*** You've probably seen the Rogaine commercials where women are talking about losing their hair; it's a blind, intended to throw us men off the trail of truth. Be not fooled by their lies and trickery!]

So, their stooge rendered stupid and clad in animal skins, Eve 9783-73-7KE mates the hell out of him, producing several zillion kids; the males of this union were married off to the alien women, and the girls were made privy to the secret. All went well, until one stupid kid killed his brother over corn futures, or something, and then wars and other stuff happened. However, women have stayed in the background, watching, waiting, pulling the strings and watching the puppet-men dance. This is where we stand today.

It’s just a theory, but you never know. Hey, I like ‘em, anyway.

Basics:
R_speeds: Good; no real slowdowns that I experienced.
New Models/Skins/Etc.: It’s amazing how these things can get out of control, isn’t it? A definite yes.
Gameplay: Heh heh heh. Play it.

Story?
**** You… oops. Screwed it up again, didn’t I? No, you’re Barney B. Barney. Waitaminit… “Barney Barney Barney”?? That’s right. When you were a child, you were awful. Your mother would have to call you like this: Barney. Barney! BARNEY! And it just stuck.
[**** And you thought I wouldn't get to use that gag twice. It makes no sense in this context, but the hell with it.]

Okay, okay. The truth: your name is Barney, and your last name really isn’t important. You’ve forgotten it anyway, what with all the shenanigans and goings-on since the “incident” happened. What *is* important, is that the object of your deepest desires (or whatever passes for deep desires in us males), Kate, code-named “Azure Sheep”, was trapped in Black Mesa when the Shiite hit the fan, and now you finally get to rescue someone instead of being Gordon “I Get A Hazard Suit And You Don’t Nyah Nyah Nyah” Freeman’s cannon fodder. And the trials will be worth it (I think)… Kate is hot!

Onward!
Where to start? At the beginning, of course! First off, “Go For A Walk” and get acquainted with who you are and what you’re doing. Don’t forget to stop by the arcade and take a look at the games. Heh heh heh. An interesting twist on the ho-hum Hazard Course. When that’s over with, go ahead and start a new game… it’s okay, it won’t bite you. As you gear up and finally reach your post, you’ll see an old acquaintance arrive for work (nice car, man), and then probably stand in one place and/or fill out some forms. This isn’t made clear, as the magic of “Meanwhile/Later” transports you to the time where things actually happen. This is very important… otherwise, you’d get bored and end up watching “Walker, Texas Ranger”*****, and we can’t have that, can we?
[***** From the theme song: "When you're in Texas, look behind you / Because that's where the Ranger's gonna be." Does anyone else find that frightening? Just what the hell is going on in Texas, anyway??]

So anyway, you’ll be wonderfully immersed in the Black Mesa snafu… albeit not at ground zero, but what does it matter when there are these stupid-looking things shooting green lightning at you? Abandon your post and start looking for Kate, Marine–er… whatever you are! Because Kate, I’d like to mention again, is hot. Now that your priorities are set, let’s find something to blast holes in those jerks. Well… for the moment, you’re going to have to rely on Ol’ Betsy and Ol’ Splinter, which is what you call your Glock and the pool cue you find, respectively. You also call your various body parts specific names as well. You’re very weird. However, once this is all said and done, you’d like to introduce Kate to Ol’ Daniel, which is what you call your [CENSORED]. No, really, Ol’ Daniel is your cat. He likes sitting in laps. One time while sitting in your lap, he got spooked and almost did some serious hurt to Ol’ Mr. Johnson and the Juice Crew, which is *really* what you call your [CENSORED].******
[****** Many thanks to Scatterbrain for that one. We have passed beyond the bounds of a PG rating.]

But primal urges aside, it won’t be too long before you find Ol’ Pumper, which is what you call your shotgun, and not your [CENSORED], thankfully. While you’re here, wandering around, you might as well resign yourself to becoming accustomed to being ambushed by Vorts. This will be a common theme in this mod, to the point where I was even hesitant to go to the bathroom for fear of being ambushed on the way. I must say that it became a little tiresome, but what the hell… it’s free, right? Right.

At first, you have just 100% health. The 15% of HEV juice is gone quickly (why it’s there in the first place is beyond me), so you will have to be very, VERY careful until you can get — yes, you will be able to wear one — an HEV suit, which is available roughly one-third of the way through. Or is it halfway through? Anyway, Barney wears a blue HEV, which is much more aesthetic than that stinking orange monstrosity. Let’s hope Valve tries something in HL2 that doesn’t make me feel like an armored pumpkin. The idea of Barney getting an HEV suit is patently brilliant… and until you get it, you cannot pick up batteries or use the HEV charger to augment your energy. So again, you’ll have to watch it until then. Health isn’t in any great abundance, but it isn’t completely absent, either. For my part, due to combats I stayed at about 50-60% health. I knew you could use the soda machines to get health, but I had no idea I’d be using them so much… anyway, it keeps you on your toes. After acquiring the HEV, I stayed very close to 100% health at all times, full charge. It might help to mention that I’m also very careful and save often. Too often, some might say, but I’ve since had them silenced. Their blood may call out from the ground to the Heavens for revenge, but God likes me more than He does them. So there.

This brings me to combat in general. You’ll be facing normal Grunts, aliens, Special Forces Grunts, more aliens, modified aliens (“but modified by whom?” is your question), and Apaches, who are finally pissed off enough to take to their helicopters and rain fire, rockets and the wrath of Great Spirit upon your minimum-wage ass. Or am I thinking of something else? Anyway, combats are fairly nasty to your well-being until you get your HEV, and then nothing hurts quite so much anymore. One minor complaint is that the weapon crosshairs sometimes get lost, and you really can’t afford to have that happen. At times you’ll be faced with a lot of Grunts, or a handful of aliens. Switching weapons takes a little longer than usual… I guess that’s realism, baby. It makes you think before you go charging in like a pit bull with diarrhea (such colorful similes, I know). And also, ambushed by Vorts. Repeatedly. Between these combats, you’ll be running along corridors.

The Corridor Crawl will be a familiar experience to those who have played DAV’s maps; big rooms connected by twisting corridors. Not that that’s a bad thing necessarily, but I was starting to get disoriented and dizzy by the time I had finished. Maybe it was just my sinuses. However, the maps are well-detailed and nicely appointed, with nice touches of realism — crates, barrels, corpses — to round out your entertainment value. The architecture here reflects the many aspects of Black Mesa quite well; in addition to finding new places to shoot things, you’ll also visit a couple of places that will seem familiar. You’ll also have the interesting opportunity to see the “old” Black Mesa complex. In a contemplative sense, if you put all of the various maps that depict Black Mesa together in a real-world simulation, I think we could cover North Dakota. Anyway, you should find plenty to see and do on your sight-seeing tour of Black Mesa.

And what things to see! The new models are excellent. Some are reskins of existing Valve or ‘Net-available models, but even those fit in quite well. Toadman’s work is top-notch — his toad weapon looks great; Sven Patrick’s re-texturing of Scarecrow’s “Aliens” M-41A (the original version is what I’ve been using for months now) is just beautiful… I may keep this for myself. In the second half of the mod, there’s a Beretta you can scavenge off a dead Special Forces Grunt (more on them later) in addition to the M-41A, and eventually you can grab an iron bar. More weapons are available in the second part than in the first, so persevere. Besides new weapons, there are a couple of new annoyances to your usual stolid equanimity — rats and Archer fish. These guys have taken a normally benign model and an unused one and turned them into real threats to your sanity, if not your health. The aforementioned toad can be either an ally or an enemy… be careful when you see one. Then there are the all-new Magenta Slaves, which are Vorts with red — or magenta, if you will — lightning attacks; the Panther — you’ll only face one, thankfully — is big, powerful and blessedly stupid.

[Side Note: Not that I'm the type of person who usually does this (uh-huh), but I clipped through the shower door (in their version of the Hazard Course) with the girl behind it. I was curious as to whether they would actually include a nude model in the pack (since such things are as common as a handshake now)... to my surprise... well, YOU clip through the shower, if you're so ding-dang interested...]

As for the humans violently opposed to your continued existence, you’ll run into the standard Grunt, and then their evil counterparts, the Special Forces Grunts. Their camo is more ominous, and they’re better at making you hurt and bleed and cry. At one point, the Grunts will become your allies, in a way — you cannot “use” them to make them follow you — but you’re better off leaving them be…they’re busy enough killing the Special Forces guys and aliens as it is. This is the point where you’ll encounter an old friend from OpFor…and he’s “use”ful, too. Don’t let him die (until after he’s helped you)! And speaking of old friends, isn’t that Gordon? Yes, it is! Hey, Gordon! Why does Gordon have an accent? And Adrian has one, too?? I knew it!! They both have a library of phrases, and hearing Gordon yell “Die, you…thing!” was an interesting phenomenon… oh, and don’t let him die, either. Your other allies are Barniel the female security guard, a construction worker named Gus, your co-Barneys of course, the ubiquitous scientists, and Kate. And, by the way, Kate is hot.

Kate, of course, is your object and your help. You cannot get out of this without her… which means you need to keep her alive. An interesting addition to your otherwise destructive arsenal is a health kit which you can use to monitor Kate’s health, and also to heal her should she need it. Following my usual method of stashing a vital friendly in a safe place — this is where DAV’s corridors are extremely useful — then clearing out the area, grabbing the AI and progressing (never leaving her more than a map behind, mind you!), I was able to keep her very healthy. Some people have experienced problems with Kate disappearing, etc., so I can only recommend that you leave her in a very safe place, then have her follow you before changing maps; sometimes a map changes just beyond a door she opens, which is perfectly fine. Clear out the map and then come back for her. In an audio sense, Kate’s voice is pleasant, mostly… meaning, I didn’t want to kill her when she opened her mouth to say something. In fact, when she asked me if I had seen “that… that thing with only one big eye”, I almost fell out of my chair, laughing.

So much for keeping this review PG.

Moving on… the sounds and voice acting. There are a lot of new sounds here… all very well done. Barniel, voiced by our very own JennWolf, is believable. What I mean to say is, she doesn’t affect a horribly arch British accent, rounding out her vowels and giving the impression that she’s only a security guard until she can marry rich nobility. I HATE that. So a voice with a familiar accent is welcome; not grating or annoying. Of course, I realize that she has the ear of my immediate superior, but that doesn’t make a whit of difference. Nope. Please don’t have me killed. I’ll reprise my comments on Gordon and Adrian’s accents: interesting. There. I never imagined Gordon to have an accent… but it fits, in some previously unthought-of way. I like it!

The Inevitable Comparison
So what’s left? I’ve tried to find a way around it, but I keep making comparisons between Azure Sheep and Blue Shift. So someone may ask: is Azure Sheep REALLY better than Blue Shift? My answer would have to be an unqualified “maybe”. They both have their strengths and weaknesses, with one edging out the other in one category, and the other winning another hands down; if taking the larger view, it’s unfair to measure an amateur mod by the work of industry professionals, but when taken piece by piece, one may have distinct advantages over the other. For instance, models: while BS stuck to the confines of the HL universe and produced very little that was new, AS has tons of new, interesting models.

Then there’s story: while Barney was performing just a marginal role in BS, AS was pushing in a new direction, with a brand new angle to the whole story. Certainly not canonical, but at least different. Going hand-in-hand with story are the maps: AS, in comparison, perhaps lacks the cohesiveness and tight mapping of BS and the Gearbox team; Gearbox, being closer to Valve in relations, may have a better idea of what Black Mesa looks like thematically. DAV doesn’t do a bad job in comparison, but it seemed as if a few maps were padding, in a way… the Corridor Crawl *is* a DAV trademark, after all (although, the way I put it sounds worse than it actually is!). However, a lot more of the familiar Black Mesa locations were revisited in AS, and a lot more effort was put into making the maps interesting to look at… for example, the “old” Black Mesa facility, and so on. So AS has the advantage here.

And what about the voice acting? While BS may have had professionals to do its new characters, its Dr. Rosenberg *still* reminded me of the filmstrip guy from World History in high school (“India might be a kind of archipelago — except that it *isn’t* — carrying much-needed Bubonic Plague to the interior.”); AS’s new voices on the other hand, sound real, in a basic way. I would try to describe that, but I’d fail miserably, or at least confuse myself further.

On an ambivalent note, combats are tougher than in BS, which was kind of like a sight-seeing tour on easy. To quote James Garner, “Well… that could be either good OR bad…“

A major issue with just about every single individual on this planet who played BS was its length: BS is infamously short, shorter even than some mods… it’s about as short as an evening with Hervé Villechaize, to put it in a weird way. AS, to its advantage, is rather lengthy, and by extension provides more gameplay for the much cheaper price of free. (I’m still kind of mad about that $35 price tag.) All things considered, I’d say AS was the winner here. If BS was perhaps three times longer, they’d probably be about even in my estimation.

To return to the merits of AS, I’d have to say that I enjoyed playing it. The new characters, models, locations, etc. all made the download — and the wait — worthwhile.

Summary?
A great piece of work. Bravissimo to the Azure Sheep team! And did I mention that Kate was hot? She is. Saucy security wench… kicking me in the groin… it was great!

Rating? 5 out of 5.

Annoyance Rating: 4 out of 10. [various bugs happening to other people; a little difficult, even on "easy"; perhaps too many Vort ambushes]

Get your own GRAvatar

Click here to cancel reply.

PlanetPhillip