I expect that the next mod this guy does…contains less technical issues.

But performance issues were so bad I almost had to stop playing, I have a midrange PC, and I’d often drop down to 30fps, and even down to the 20’s in really rough spots.

I wanted to see what on earth could make the game run so poorly, and I think that the author completely neglected to run VVIS during his compile. The whole map (I was I was exaggerating) is being rendered at all times.

Also he played strobing dynamics lights around all of his flames, which totally rape performance as well. But gameplay was sound.

The worst part for me was my growing hatred of supply crates. In places, I was literally up to my eyeballs in the damn things, and they almost exclusively contained too many health kits. I dreaded finding a room full of the damn things, because I pretty much had to check them all for useful items. I may have cried, but I can’t be sure.

In the course of playing, I occasionall see: “Warning: overflowed CClientRenderablesList group 7″ and props (boxes, chargers, vehicles… everything) go invisible.

I have an underpowered box, but I’ve never seen this before.

I’m going to say what I found positive and what I found negative.
It has a lot of action. A LOT. There are basically no challenging puzzles, only action, so I recommend it to hardcore players, and that they play it on hard so they can have a lot of “fun”. The outskirts area were nicely made, much better than the ones before them. But, I’ve noticed a huge fps drop in these maps, I got around 5 in the action scenes. Also, this could be more interesting, and could have a more balanced play and battle areas. In the indoors area there was a lot of FPS drop aswell as some huge bad looking textures that made me cry. This indeed could’ve been better and has a good potential. I see no story in it, just action and killing spree and a huge set of environments.

There were some good moments though, when the enemy placement actually worked and presented a challenge. Such as the shootout after you’ve taken down the strider and passed through a (silly right-angled) tunnel. But those moments were few and far between, Overall, it gets a ‘Play it when you’ve run out of other mas and mods to play and there’s nothing to watch on TV and you really really want to play HL2′ recommendation from me.

I tend to re-evaluate my scoring over time, ones expectations rise with the release of more ambitions and challenging work from authors and teams. With the success of such releases I tend to have a new bench mark, as such standards get higher and I tend to lower my ratings. But there is one bench mark we can all use this being the original retail HL1/2/EP1/EP2 games. I sets these at 10/10 and while a few have come close I don’t think any mod be it HL1 or HL2 can match the original in every aspect, however, for sure a few are worthy of 9.5/10 compared with the retail game.

I don’t think that this is now a particular relevant way of bench marking, far better to bench mark from the mod that you reckon is the best you have played to date. Better still don’t bench mark just go for what you enjoy and had fun with, for me that’s what matters.

I did have fun with Unexpected Conclusion and Barnz posting gives light to why this mod has its limitations, also ones expectation that in many respect the next chapter will show improvements.

He made some false decisions, this led him to work with wrong people – it was a long development. I’m glad people enjoy, and talk about his work, he deserves it. By the way, he’s working on a sequel. I’m sure it will be better – he’s also busy with real-life problems.

I think where I differ is not considering the mod HOF statues, for me the quality just is not there, nor does it have any thing in the way of outstanding design. As for the story line, well there may well be one, but you get no sense of being part of a story when playing, there are no links from one segment to the next or any attempt through out the mod of telling or developing a plot.

No bugs found. The only problem I had was that in the later stages the lights and sky are very bright and glary.
I like long mods. This is a long mod. Enjoyed the combat a lot with well placed enemies – well placed to kill you – but do not bother with easy skill.

The story is that you are hunting for your brother, so I have no problems with a series of linked environments as you follow his trail. It makes sense and gives the author an excuse to use a wide variety of scenarios (though with perhaps a little too much re-use of certain layouts); the ending tells you to watch out for the next episode, which I for one will eagerly await and will play as soon as it becomes available. Instead of being disappointed by the ending, I was happily surprised.

I strongly encourage people to give this mod a try, and don’t be put off by the less positive reviews. There is enough here to satisfy most HL fans (including hunters – I love fighting hunters), the quality is perfectly good enough not to detract from the gameplay, and the mod is pretty long so it draws you in and lets you shut off the outside world. For a free download, those are major plusses. Well done to the author, and a massive thank you for the many hours of enjoyment that you provided with this mod.