![]() ![]() ![]() The narrative gives the story just enough context for you to feel its weight. It starts on a sad, despondent note and gets very dark as you discover the underbelly of the island. You won’t interact with anyone, or even really doing much, but that’s OK. The letters touch on the different landmarks of the island as you encounter them, and the effect is genuinely creepy. While you’re moving about, a narrator reads a series of letters addressed to someone named Esther. You play as an unnamed man traversing a deserted north-Atlantic island. It’s a short story told via the Source engine a narrative experiment from a group of British college students. It is one of the coolest, most unique multiplayer creations I’ve seen.ĭear Esther isn’t really a game at all, but it deserves mention for what it does with the interactive medium. NeoTokyo’s presentation and soundtrack are amazing. With a cloaking device in addition to all of this, the game plays like Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six dipped in a bucket of 90s-era anime. NeoTokyo is the only Source engine shooter I’ve played that features leaning and iron sight aiming it discards leftover rounds when you reload, as well. Even without voice chat, they generally form groups. Because of the somewhat slow pacing, players don’t seem to work alone. It’s a team-based, tactical shooter that combines realistic lethality with a cool, sleek aesthetic.Ī couple of bullets are enough to kill you, and you don’t respawn, so most matches are really a few minutes of strategic maneuvering punctuated by a quick firefight. Well, it rematerialized recently and was actually released back in April.īasically, NeoTokyo is a cross between Counter-Strike and Ghost in the Shell. For those who follow such things, NeoTokyo was featured on the 1UP Show years ago…and it seemed to turn into vaporware. NeoTokyo is the only multiplayer game on my list. ![]() If you’re sick of the Half-Life universe, don’t fret. Research and Development should definitely be near the top of your list of Half-Life 2 mods to check out, especially if you’re looking for something a little different from the original. All you have is a crowbar, a gravity gun, and one antlion minion. The campaign never gives you any firearms you’ll run the whole gamut of the Half-life 2 rouges gallery, but instead of blasting your way through the usual suspects and obstacles, you’ll need to think your way around them. Fighting your way through Combine, you escape from the lab where the gravity gun was first created. It is definitely one of the smartest and most inventive mods I’ve seen.īasically, it turns Half-Life 2 into an action-puzzle game. Research and Development hit the scene just recently, and some are calling it the best single-player Half-Life 2 mod ever, even pinning it above Minerva Metastasis. Research and Development - Marcello Bortolino ![]() The whole thing culminates in one of the biggest and most intense battles in any Half-Life game, official or otherwise. Great set pieces, a fun narrative, and halfway decent voice acting (by fans - be lenient) tie Rock 24 together. It’s a lot like the Nova Prospekt chapter in Half-Life 2. Of course, you fight off evacuating Combine, too. Throughout six chapters, Gordon and the scientist escape the prison as it collapses around them. Your job is to rescue a fellow scientist held in a mountain prison called Rock 24. It’s a one-off adventure starring Gordon Freeman. While most of the Half-Life 2 mods new chunks of the timeline, Rock 24 doesn’t really connect to anything significant in the main story. It was made by former professional level designers who applied their skills toward a pet project they clearly loved. Rock 24 probably gets my vote for the most underrated Half-Life 2 mod. Rock 24 - Henley Bailey and Richard Acherki It shows how preparing the same, old ingredients in a new way can yield interesting results. Minerva Metastasis is a textbook lesson in minimalistic game design. Even better, he mostly avoids the load times that have plagued every official Half-Life release. It’s short - three to four hours, so I don’t want to give too much away - but Foster manages to use the familiar tools of Half-Life 2 to create something that approaches the quality of an actual Valve product. At first, you get the sense that she is pushing you through a rat maze, but the game opens up as the player’s changing relationship with Minerva becomes the focal point. You play as a captured Combine soldier pitted against his comrades by a mysterious woman named Minerva. The entire game is a linear adventure that takes place on a tiny island, but despite its linearity, it feels like it’s happening in a real, dynamic space. The guy who made it, Adam Foster, was actually hired by Valve. Minerva Metastasis is probably the most popular and highly praised Half-Life 2 mod. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |