Reviews - Half-Life: ESCAPE mod for Half-Life

This mod is very fun! It has nice mapping and it is very fast paced! I highly recomend it.

(This review is for Escape 2.0)

While I thought this was a decent return to Black Mesa and an interesting revisiting of the original Escape mods, I also felt it was dragged down quite a bit by three major issues:
- A lack of ammunition
- A lack of health
- Too many enemies

Any one of these would be an annoyance, but when combined they can result in a wildly fluctuating difficulty curve. The fact you never get a crowbar means there's no easy way to take out the lesser enemies (headcrabs & zombies), and when the mod frequently doesn't give you enough ammo to deal with all the enemies - especially early on - it leaves you rather frustrated.

The mod also has tons of Vorts pop up throughout its rather lengthy runtime - often so many that you're GOING to get hurt unless you constantly quick-save/load - and given you don't really get any armour, that makes you especially vulnerable. I played on Normal and had a rather miserable time.

It's especially frustrating because the maps themselves are actually really good! They're well designed, have good layouts and (aside from the odd bit of annoying trigger placement) were fun to make my way through. It's a real shame I couldn't enjoy them so much because the combat was so badly balanced.

Overall, if you're going to play this I REALLY recommend you do so on Easy, because otherwise the overly challenging combat is going to ruin what's otherwise a pretty great mod.

(And also, if you're not going to let us wear an HEV suit, don't tease us by letting us come into contact with several throughout the mod! That's just MEAN.)

I appreciate all the hard work has been done and enjoyed a new version overall, but honestly I like old escape 1 and 2 more than this. On a gameplay side biggest ploblem is a balance, especially when the player encounters dozens of enemies while being totally restricted on supplies. I had to use godmode on final fight, because I have no idea how to finish that with provided supplies and numbers of enemies (played on normal). Lack of melee weapon adds to the list, especially when the player needs to break some vent to proceed (could be softlock if out of ammo), or deal with some headcrabs. Player guidance became less clear and more frustrating then it was (hev suit and some other items like helmets which player is not able to pick up, some paths and puzzles are very unclear, like that warehouse with movable crane which I totally skipped by jumping over the gap), and strangely that was not a problem for old versions. Some memorable moments (like crossing the canyon with broken skybridge from escape 2, or nuclear explosion in the end) were missing, but some were altered to less interesting way for some reason (like using some random teleport to enter xen later instead of Blue Shift teleport with bossfight with robo-soldier). BMS stuff (like VOX or textures / overall design) feel out of place and contrast with original HL aesthetics which is still prevelent for most maps. Also I encountered some FPS drops on 3080 (!) closer to the finale.

On the positive note, I like the addition of tram ride on the beginning, how most levels were expanded, sidekick characters which periodically appear all through the game and take part in the story, some lighting work was great and defence with placeble turrets is a neat idea.

I encounterd only one critical bug, when the player is able to stuck inside the train on the transition to second map (so I had to jump right before the moment when the game changes level).

Anyway, I want to thank autors for such an unexpected comeback after almost 15 years (may be more), and I want to wish them a best luck on their future endeviours!

It was a good mod. It had a interesting story actually, also it was the first mod I played that had male scientist in his lab coat as principal character. What is more, I liked the references to Half-Life: Decay.
Overall, it was an excellent mod (ignore what I said at first) and deserves my 10 points!

Reviewing Escape 2.4

Neat tram ride. Just gets right into it.

No crowbar, ammo-starved... is this survival horror?

That electric water section. Was the solution seriously a ridiculously precise crouch jump? Why make it that hard? There's nothing fun about having to quickload 10 times until you're frame perfect on that jump.

Great worldbuilding. The extra voicelines really make this mod feel professional. Really dug the public radio broadcasts. Chills, man. Chills.

Nice references to other Half-Life games, e.g. the Blue Shift teleporter room.

Buy boy is it hard! Such minimal health... why punish the player like this? Every good Half-Life game gives you a chance to top off every so often to balance the scales. I'm scrounging for even a single health pack here, made infinitely more frustrating by Otii blasting you in the back and Vortiguant backspawns. A lot of cheap shots considering the skimpy health situation. Fortunately, the situation does improve toward the end.

A touch buggy. Got stuck a few times and the AI occasionally failed me. If you save and reload, it breaks the playerfreeze on the tram. And then you get stuck. At the very end, if you Alt+Tab away, you can find yourself in the credits map. Noclip out for a quick battle.

Pacing is slow burning and forward progression can feel frustrating when you stumble upon yet another power outage keeping you from stretching your legs. Rarely do I feel like I'm getting into the groove because I'm constantly hitting road blocks.

This mod has too many ideas and not enough execution. The glowing hint system is a perfect example. Valve never felt the need to artificially indicate a clue or objective, but this game was pretty difficult until you trained yourself to scan every room for the glowing orb. Breaks immersion.

I was getting pretty sick and tired of the headcrab cheap shots toward the middle. Constantly leaping at you from around every corner, in the dark, and just general ambush tactics that felt unfair and unfun.

Cot dang that outdoor area brought my PC to its knees LOL. This is a game from 1998, how is that even possible?!

Oh you cheeky sonuvabitch. All that depleted uranium... and then the battery cache...

HEV zombies are awesome and I love how they were introduced.

Oh WOW that BM Xen recreation! This is what HL1 could've been.

Does a great job showcasing the Tau Cannon, something Valve never did well because it was quickly overshadowed by the Gluon Gun.

Vortigaunts in the server room? That was insane! Combat setups are pretty good in general. Excels at trapping the player and empowering them to lash out like a cornered animal, yet also gives you plenty of room to run and gun. Constantly keeps me on my toes and isn't too hard that I need to reload. Heavily rewards good accuracy and precise movements. When you nail an encounter, you feel like a Half-Life god. Definitely needed more of this earlier in the mod.

Mod starts to get pretty fun once you get to Xen (never thought I'd say that).

Finishes strong. Lots of improvement from the beginning levels as intensity and urgency ramp up. Puzzles become less burdensome as combat and progression shift into focus.

I was originally going to be much harder on this mod, but the *** half was good enough to earn it a recommendation. High production values with some great ideas. Could use a little polish and editing to improve gameplay flow, but it's definitely worth playing. Although maybe wait for Escape 3.0!

This mod is amazing, but it would be even better if it had crowbar and flashlight instead of useless friendly NPCs that have 1000 HP but never help in intense fights.

A well-thought-out mod that leverages old-school HL gameplay and introduces new styling and designs. The new scenery, voices, mechanisms and maps are a great refresh to a mod and game, allowing HL1 to still be fun and exciting in 2024!

I have not played before either patch. With that said, I found that at 'medium' difficulty, it was very well balanced for health and ammo. The author listened to the community and responded. I highly commend them for listening and enacting change.

Great work! Will keep an eye out for anything else they develop! <3

You don't see a remaster of mods you've played about 20 years ago very often, so I was very excited when ESCAPE 2.0 was announced.

After having played it to the end, the sheer amount of work that was put into it really blew me away. This is not a simple repack of the old mods, but a well built and high quality mod with lots of interaction and scripted sequences. Also it's quite challenging considering the choice of weapons.

Hope to see another sequel or follow-up ;-)

Despite some bugs with triggers it's a very strong release conveying the spirit of HL1.

I love this mod (plays in this 9 years ago), it’s first time when you play role of scientist.
Great mapping, geometry at levels are well. Some unique details also present here.
Just play and see!