“Otherwise… well… I can offer you a battle you have no chance of winning…..rather an anticlimax, after what you’ve just survived…” Take the job. All that you had to do was just take the job. But, no. You decided that your pride was more sacred than your safety. And thanks to a teleport malfunction you are back right where you started… four kilometers underground in the darkest corner of the Black Mesa Research Facility. When you regain your consciousness, sirens and screams are all you hear as you wake up to the reality of utter chaos and destruction. Corpses lie mangled in pools of their own blood. Hallways and staircases are sealed – collapsed by airstrikes. To top it all off, most of the inhabitants of Xen have used their natural instinct to migrate here since the destruction of their home planet, and rifts in space time continue to throw Xen creatures into the bowels of Black Mesa... --- Developed by Richard Martin
Reviews (0 - 10 of 23)
Instinct is somewhat of a hidden gem, if it had came out nowadays it would be praised due to its quality, however, as is, it pretty much flew under the radar of everyone. It reminds me of HL mods of today with its serious feel and vanilla style instead of a mid 2000s mod.
The biggest strength of the mappack is its levels. The mapping and brushwork is top notch, every map is full of details and good looking architecture, though it can get a bit samey at times. Despite taking place in Black Mesa again, the environments doesn't look like BM, it has a more industrial feel to it, not a minus of course, just wanted to mention it. Another thing that differs from HL is the tone of it. This is one of those mods / mappacks that feel lonely, you see a couple of friendly npcs in the first few maps and that's it. Most of the time you'll be fighting aliens and grunts in dark and gloomy areas without witnessing a scripted sequence involving barneys or scientists, hearing them talk, leading them somewhere etc.
Now, the elephant in the room: The pack is unfinished, it abruptly stops after a boss fight with Gonarch. To me this isn't a big deal, just imagine a fade to black after you kill the creature, even with a proper send off it would be an abrupt ending however. That being said, with ten maps of varying length, the experience doesn't feel that short despite the sudden end.
Overall, this is a well made mappack that doesn't have much going for it beside the high quality maps. You don't have puzzles, people to speak to or use in meaningful ways, scripted sequences that would breathe life into the game world etc. and it's unfinished on top of that. Still, I recommend people to try it at least once, there is a fun, quality mappack here despite it flaws.
So playing it in 2023 is kinda fun. Overall it gives you a feel like this mod was created 20 years ago and has a vintage vibe. Sometimes it is easy, I could skip a lot without battling the enemies, sometimes it was hard, I had like 3hp and it were 4 soldiers left so that took my like 10 save/loads. The biggest disappointment is the ending and overall the last map, it makes to no sense. Nice start but then it feels like the author lost interest. So I am 7/10 because overall it was fun, but with proper ending and more sense it could be higher. Also the water level lags a lot.
Great mod, excellent mapping and combats. Damn shame it wasn't finished.
I have a love-hate relationship with this mod. I love the fantastic first half, the mapping, the story, the combat scenarios, all that stuff; towards the end however, it flags a lot. The mapping, whilst still for the most part spectacular, feels stilted and forced together; the final map feels unfinished, the final boss battle doesn't make sense in context, and the lack of any ending credits, or indeed closure to the story, makes it feel unfinished.
Very interesting mod.
Sorry for my previous vote 4/10.
I've replayed it and change my mind.
Challenging gameplay + interesting situations + strong athmosphere.
9/10
Excellent mapping & gameplay, but there are no scientific labs, and Black Mesa in this mod looks more like a military base rather then a research facility.
Level Design is great, you got my score 10/10
Apparently so good that it freezes every minuts... Too bad
Good Mod.