When the Combine raid your Resistance hideout, you are forced to flee into the depths of the Outlands. But with Overwatch forces hunting you down, and the local fauna out to get you, danger is always just around the corner. Play through four chapters of Half-Life gameplay, exploring new locations, meeting new characters and uncovering lost secrets.
Reviews (0 - 10 of 49)
I feel like this was an extremely good and well-polished mod. This mod has a lot of the feel of original Half-life 2 and episodes, and left me feeling good throughout most of it.
The settings this provided were great, there were some nice little secrets around a potential conspiracy theory, and everything had a polish that I kind of expect from Half-life 2 itself. Not perfect, mind, but to the point where it felt like it could have been canon. There were some areas regarding things being climbable that it seemed clear you shouldn't climb, but they aren't game breaking.
My biggest complaint was that some of the battles were a little repetitive (particularly the ending ones) and that there wasn't a special place for the gnome from the beginning to go in the end (that I could find; I'd love to be proven wrong.) It was also a little too easy for my taste, which might not necessarily be a bad thing. The voice acting wasn't the best, but it wasn't the worst.
A solid mod for people looking for an extension to Half-life 2.
While I wish I could give this mod a 10/10 notable flaws that are prevalant throughout the mod have lowered the score for me which is a shame considering the time it took to develop the mod.
First off the intro is very well made and really feels like a full on invasion forcing the player to run away, this was my favourite part of BeginningVille and still holds up to this day as one of the better HL2 chase sequences.
But after the chase the problems start to arise with the slow raft where you have to fend off Fast Zombies, Manhacks and Soldiers all at the same time with very little space to move in, not only this but straight after you're forced to fight a hoard of soldiers while waiting for a lift to pick you up and if you die during this then you're sent all the way back to the spot before the slow moving raft. This was fine in BeginningVille as it was at the end of the pair of levels and therefore the end of the difficulty curve but in this mod it is right at the start of the mod and therefore should be close to the start of the difficulty curve.
Right after you fight Acid Antlions which do come in droves but they're relativley easy to fight so it's not too much of a problem, the problem arises when you get ambushed by them and escape under a door my health was low at this point so when I saw item crates I ran towards them only for the floor to give way under me and then have me attacked by more than 5 HeadCrabs at once which killed me.
One of the more ridiculous combat encounters happens soon after wherein you fight spitting Antlions, a guardian and a Gunship all at the same time, meaning very little cover from the gunship as you need to be constantly dodging projectiles and hitscan to survive.
Killing the sniper with a canister would've been very satisfying and inventive but I just shot a rocket at him and he died long before I could do that so the effect was taken away.
When I reached the river I jumped in to avoid enemy fire only to get a game over from the 2m drop into water, this water being toxic would've stopped me from doing this and having to replay from the fireable canister.
I don't have much of a problem with the river, it looks good and plays good apart from one area near a secret area in the pipes where I didn't realise there was a second switch so I went exploring and found my way out of the map by jumping on a container like I did with a secret area found previously in the mod, this was how I found the secret room with the word "Borealis" written on it, I wish I found this legitimately instead of by easily getting out of the map.
The Strider battle was weird, the ramps made it seem like you had to jump into the Strider with the boat to kill it like in the R&D mod but it didn't seem to do anything but shooting it felt much more effective and easier so if it did damage the Strider shooting it was much more viable.
Being dragged through water is a highlight of the mod, it is a well made setpiece with a few surprises on the way but it's unfortunate that it's the last part of the mod that I liked bar the bridge collapse.
The ending map was very painful, for one you have to fight about 20 soldiers at once (one with a shotgun and (2?) with AR2s) and then you have a hold out battle with very little warning and time to prepare your health/armour, it turned into a game of "find the exploit", this time being hiding behind inside the armour charger house and poking out to take potshots with a shotgun until the ammo runs out and you are forced to run around like a headless chicken to get smg ammo until the helicopter arrives which was enough time to play three 2+ minute tracks. The final battle doesn't really feel like a finale, there's no big bad and it's almost like the same combine battle i've had atleast 5 times in this mod before but longer.
It is a shame I had as many problems with this mod as I did since it is well made and polished minus dropships visibly disappearing but this is probably gonna be HL2 MOTY'15
One of my all-time favorite HL2 mods. The level design, combat, puzzles, all of it is so expertly crafted, and it looks great.
I hate bugs!
Good
Pretty nice mix of exploration/puzzling and combat. Some unique and satisfying gunplay. I especially enjoyed the minigun section where you get to immediately turn it around and re-enact the combat scenario from the opposite viewpoint.
Nice gravity gun use. Felt like it belonged, especially during combat. The antlion guard section was intense and challenging.
Difficulty is perfect on medium. Not too difficult that you feel you need to cheese your way through with quick saves, but I definitely died a few times when I got overwhelmed, however it never felt unfair because even while you're being torn to shreds, you're already thinking of a solution that could've prevented this. However, I tend to enjoy a difficulty where you don't die, but do take heavy damage. Being able to figure out a solution BEFORE you're overwhelmed, otherwise you're just suiciding to see the future which feels cheap. But that is a rather difficult concept, with most mods either being too hard or too easy. If you're a sharp thinker under pressure, the difficulty here is well-balanced.
Clever and engaging mapping, although perhaps a few too many "shoot the barrel in the locked room" puzzles! The first couple times had me thinking I'm a big brain, but it quickly turned to pandering. You start to wonder just why somebody would board up a room from the inside and conveniently leave ******* bombs behind. Does anybody know what exactly explosive barrels do? Aside from blow your *** up? Like, is it fuel? Then why are they EVERYWHERE, even in remote offices that would never need a massive barrel of gaso-*******-line? I can't believe this mod is what's setting me off here when it's so obvious in the main game, nevermind every mod. It's a part of the Half-Life universe, I guess. It's like, "don't forget extra batteries for your flashlight", but more like "don't forget your massive 345.6 lb 55 gallon drum of explosive gasoline for your gas-powered nail clippers".
Some cute platforming that gracefully toed the "this is hard enough that it's probably not right" line where you often find yourself building a comically high stack of physics objects to reach a platform way up here and woop, clipped through the wall. Yeah, that wasn't the path forward... that said, Uncertainty Principle rewards out of the box thinking, but does it in a way that's naturally revealed to the player via careful inspection of their environment. Challenging puzzles that don't feel cheap or impossible to figure out, rather rewarding with an appreciation for the details.
Sniper portion perfectly navigated the question of "am I blindly running out into the open to discover the way forward so when I die I can easily figure it out next time?" Rewards recklessness without making it feel like a suicide mission. "Bold" is a good way to describe the character.
The game manages to beautifully scare me and introduce enemies. In a wide open arena where you can foresee all possible threats, a few concrete tubes obscure surprise terrors.
Vertical combat was masterfully implemented. Challenging gunplay that constantly has you thinking, "I can do better". You have to not only think outside the box in puzzles, but combat as well. But that's not to say brute forcing combat isn't possible either. This mod gives many avenues for completing a conflict, some more rewarding than others.
Exhilarating forward progression sequences, like in the water tunnels. The player is in control, but not at the same time. Think quick or just ride the wave?
Varied environments that rarely bore. Lot of effort and thought went into this mod and it shows. Exquisite level design.
Very well designed and high quality mod.
Incredibly fun mod. Absolutely loved the vehicle sections.
Amazing