Recent reviews by LiL Peep's Australian Tour

if you're expecting a spiritual successor to kf1 you will be dissapointed, modding and online community is dead and the game is unchallenging and boring maps are small and cramped

yes

the ending feels even more bleak knowing it never got finished, damn. 10/10

awesome. strider battle is way less tedious then hl2 stider moments

more half life. although its short in comparison its fun and its great to see what happens from barneys perspective as the events of black mesa unfold. if you were to get it on sale its worth it if your a half life fan its obviously a must buy either way.

okay so its clear that most people are just thrilled to have a new half life game and they cant be impartial, i really wanted to love this experience but i cant lie so here goes.

so i just built a new water cooled beast of a gaming rig and this was was my first experience on this machine, i was on ultra settings and i must say i was genuinely blown away by the train ride in to black mesa, its beautiful and the attention to detail is there. the new voice acting breathed new life into this game and i had a lot of fun journeying through the re-imagined labs however this game is not without flaws and anyone paying for what was originally a free mod should probably be aware.

this game has massive frame rate spikes, i was running on solid 240fps until around about when i reached the surface this is when the fps fluctuate rapidly it dove down to 50 or so during events and by the time i reached XEN the spikes would go as low as 15fps this game is clearly not ready so i cant imagine what it was like to play this on release if its still this bad now late in 2020.

there are some strange bugs many of the more obscure ladders in the facility would not allow you to climb them like they were just textures? and there are some weird design choices like chain link fences that act like impenetrible walls you cant shoot through and soldiers cant see you through them but there are others that dont do this? weird.

if your annoyed by invisible walls there are no shortages of them here, but its all pretty negligible to the overall experience..that is untill you hit XEN! i don't rember XEN being particularly exhilirating in the orignial hl1 but i dont remember hating it either. i was constantly jumping onto things the devs clearly did not intend for me to and as a result was getting jammed between rocks and greenery and getting spat back out.. there is a hyper linear path in this place and you have to try to figure out exactly where the game wants you to go if you want to have a smooth experience.

before i ♥♥♥♥ all over xen i want to say that it was gorgeous and i was in awe throughout the experience but the gameplay is just repetivive and tedious with no end to the stupid non-sensical puzzles making it an absolute drag and you will be praying for it to be over i cant imagine playing though it again i doubt i will go further than than black mesa next run through.

XEN was not the only problem though the combat sucks it might have been excusable 30 years ago but no longer, the rocket laucher seems to blow up in your face constantly if even the smallest object is in your periphery i found myself having to run out into the bare open taking on a barage of tank shells and maganizes to the face just so i could line up a single clean rocket shot this becomes a modest annoyance coupled with other bad weapons it results in an overall frustrating experience i dont rember the rocket laucher being this bad but the shotgun hasent changed at all unfortuately the animation takes what feels like forever! you find yourself awkwardly standing in front of enemy soldiers faces waiting for the gun animation to finish so you can take the next shot its tedious and makes the shotgun feel like a leaf blower and i avoid using it.

the game froze up a few times i had to restart the game when i jumped into the portal to go into xen what a buzzkill! also you seem to get stuck in a lot of things and have to restart because of that too, i got stuck on the yellow rail train and again on xen when i stepped into a blue pool.

the gore is a really nice touch that this game sorely needed to spice up the combat and physics unfortunately it dosent save the shotgun from being an absolute drag to use, which is a shame really.

theres a few more things i could add and more i have forgotten but i think this is enough detail to get a picture.

ultimately there is nothing new here you have not done before, places are reimagined by adding some extra side rooms to make it less linear but really its the same epxerience with new textures if you are a big hl1 fan and have money to burn i suppose its worth the price but for anyone else i would not recommend. the original hl1 experience is just better because it works properly and theres gore mods for it too. ultimately this game needs some serious bug fixing and i would not recommend it untill its running more smoothly.

they have the gall to charge 15$ AUD for a buggy half broken mess..unfortunately its half life so we are all gonna play it anyway