Recent reviews by Mr. Spetzer

I miss my wife. I can't believe she forgot who I was. I just want to lay with her just a bit longer.

I'd like to preface that Pacific Drive is an interesting, immersive, and scratches a primal itch to upgrade stuff and be obsessed with some major object in the game world. It's like My Summer Car and Stalker had a weird love child that also accidentally rubbed shoulders with Half Life storytelling. So it gets my positive rating.

THERE'S SOME PROBLEMS HOWEVER:

No Mid-Mission Save
Strange clunky controls
Certain Annoying Enemies
Resource gathering issues
And many more...

The games atmosphere and the way you can customize just about every part of your car is neat which scratches my ape brain in a very nice way. The problems however do need to be noted. Such as the story, progression, and how you drive around in your car.

Progression is a real issue, because it seems like you need to go further into the zone sometimes to get items that you'd get the ability to collect BEFORE entering further parts. Such as all of the Marsh Eggs and Swamp Coral. You need a thermo vac which you can only get from Thermo-Sap Crystals, which I only have ever found during ONE drive. You can get a few by scrapping armored cars, but the actual veins of it you can find in the world are very limited. I only found them during ONE story mission, and I've been trying my damndest to find more ever since. Because of this, I was sort of blocked on progression, and even looking it up on the internet I couldn't really find any specific junctions that spawn them as the game is so new. So I was stuck with only the armor I could find on random assorted armored cars to fix up and so on. I could find literally everything else, BUT the Crystals.

The story feels as if there's a lot cut from it, I'm not going to go into a lot of spoilers but the beginning of the game is filled with so much random and interesting stuff, but the near end you essentially replay the same mission TWICE in a row before getting to the ending which I wont spoil either. But there is freeplay afterwards, which right now I'm not sure if it's worth it past collecting all the achievements in the game. The other thing is that it feels like the game should have tied the story to your progression a bit more. They often times just GIVE YOU stuff for your progression into the zone instead of making you work for it. Anything having to do with your ARC device is often times handed out by Oppy and Francis. I basically raw dogged the whole game with only the base engine and little to no upgrades at all save for car armor I stole from police cars. It would have made the game feel more like you've achieved something if they tied your car into the progression, like Oppy making you go out and Create, Find, or otherwise acquire Armored car parts to progress into the zone further as a prerequisite. But they don't. Probably something about rail roading but you can beat the vast majority of the game using just normal steel doors and siding with just maybe a fuel upgrade and a battery upgrade. Maybe some off road tires too.

All in all, it's a great game still I think, but with some rough edges to buff out. Like some of the random flare you can get for your car is lacking. I found maybe one sticker in the game VS. you start out with 23 pride flag stickers. Which makes me think there's less actual stickers in the game vs. the pride flag ones you just get by way of unlocking the customization. Granted, I never got that Deco vending machine so MAYBE there's more there. I'm going to 100% the game in the coming days because I have no life and got nothing better to do.

If you enjoy being battered in the balls on each play through of this god forsaken game then you've come to the right place.

a

It's pretty good I guess

Instructions unclear, got shot by a bandit in Cherno

Soooooo, Wilson Chronicles!

I've seen a lot, and I mean a lot of mods throughout the time looking at and playing Half Life mods, this, isn't close to horrible, but it isn't the best in the world. It gets many things right but then gets many things wrong with its presentation and gamplay at times.

Graphics: So, this game, looks very good at times. Not as good as Prospekt or Black Mesa, but you can tell the one man team behind this did take effort in creating a very Black Mesa like / Original Half Life esk area to play in. It lacks in certain areas but that will most likely be fixed in time. What I thought was most impressive was the HUD when I first saw it. This made the game feel like it had an Opposing Force feel to it, but evidently was not that way.

Presentation: It does, exactly what it looks like. I've seen some odd things inside of this at many points, but the game seems to take it's own approach to the look and feel of original Half-Life, Black Mesa on the other hand looked a little cartoon like, everything had some odd modeling, that, was mostly from consistency, but this seemed to ground and keep some of the orginal Half-Life 2 inspirations still, like the guards and scientists being reskinned citizens/resistance.

Recreation Effort: Most of the game I feel, in my personal opinion, adapted well to fit the setting. It felt as if this was the Black Mesa Facility, just as much as playing the mod Black Mesa, they do almost the same things, put garbage everywhere. But Wilson Chronicles does lack in some graphical details here and there, but it is on par recreation wise with the Black Mesa mod.

Models: Many of the models, are kind of sad. I understand that making a human face in a model editor is hard, and a one man team would not have a scanner to scan human faces into the game like VALVe did with Half-Life 2. But, they're reskinned citizens and the soldiers are most obviously combine soldiers, which, I do not have a problem with, since I cannot see a citizens face I recognize from playing Half-Life 2 over a billion times. Also, the HEV suit you get in the beginning, NEEDS WORK, and I don't mean it just needs a touch up, but, just google the suit or look at it in game, but it looks gastly compared to the other models.

Weapons: ADD MORE WEAPONS. I know that there are three types of AR's/SMG's in the game, but I can count the weapons in the game on my hands without counting toes. Now the original game never had anything too special until Opposing Force came along, but seriously, there were more guns in the base game of Half-Life, then there are in this. But I understand there is room for improvement.

Losing Track: I often, lost track of where I was supposed to go, not because the game is so big, but it's because it wasn't immediately obvious of what to do all the time. Sometimes I would be traversing the level for a few minutes before I start smashing stuff or looking in a different direction and I see and air vent or button I can push. The first time you engage with soldiers, it took me so long to figure out where to go until I went into the cafeteria and place a chair next to the vending machine and climbed over it, that's the only way I figured it out.

Beginning: The beginning, I have some issues with, it wouldn't be too bad if left in, but it was still very iffy to look at this intro, and not want to say. That's not cool, or, this seems a little wierd. During the beginning, you wake up in the most 'perfect' home you could imagine for a single guy. It just looked so, plain, very stereotypical, it would have been a lot better if they had just made Wilson's home nearby Black Mesa, like an apartment thing like seen in Half-Life: Decay. This would cut out that driving scene, which, when the cars driving, much better than the scene when he's pulling out of the garage, it looks like the car is actually on a track. Then there were several times when looking around inside the care, I notice how old and expensive this car would have been, granted, I don't know how much a person who, Talks with the pentagon is paid at Black Mesa, but I'm sure this guy wouldn't be a hardened war vet who can take care of ♥♥♥♥ in Black Mesa. Also, looking down, I also saw a MAGNUM! Just sitting on his seat! That's just edgy to be honest. I see some reasons to why this is some sort of bad Fan-Fiction, but nothing a little patching couldn't fix.

After completing Prospekt, I ended up, not feeling like I played a VALVe title, but a half decent mod that should have been put up on MOD DB or something. It would be an amazing mod, if it was free, charing that $10 if you're an American citizen is a bit steep for the 1.8 hours I got out of the campaign. This would be something on par with a still in production mod thats demo was released for the masses to play. Granted, that's a LONG demo, but, a decent one. I'll say one thing, it's fairly decent, compared with the Wilson Chronicles or Hunt Down the Freeman. Wilson Chronicles does have some things going for it, but it isn't the best mod in the world by any means, the dev team on that which I just believe is one guy did a pretty good job, would recommend that still but compared with Hunt Down the Freeman, this mod is like a Half-Life 2 Episode in quality. I never played the version that was released on launch that was a bit more bland than the current release, but from what I understand, this is far more superior to the earlier release, and from what I've seen of the pre-release of the update to the mod, this guy has learned from his mistakes in making the mod and will make better work for days to come.

Now for the nitty gritty of what I thought of the mod.


Lighting: The lighting has been significantly improved from the initial release of the mod. I enjoy a lot of the bloom and shader effects that he has added in the most recent update as of March, 26th, 2018
Enemy Placement: Much improved from the initial release and I do much agree, as well as the toning down of the enemy health.
There would be other good things to say but this review is long enough already, so I just touched on the important things.

During my time playing the mod, I had a lot of problems with certain things that I hope the creator will fix in future.

Weapons: There are far too many weapons in the game, it has the base guns of Half-Life 2 (Excluding the Gravity Gun and Bug Bait, that ladder would have been a nice thing to have TBH). A lot of what made fans appreciate and love the original Opposing Force for, was the aresenal of weapons. I'm not saying, remake the guns and slap them back into the game, but give the people something cool and new to use. An example that would be nice would be the Desert Eagel, it would replace the revolver and use revolver bullets, giving it context to Nova Prospekt would be odd... But it would be nice. Other complaints would be had but this is too long as it is. Also, real quick, make a HECU vest for Sheperd to wear, he just magically gets it, which I understand is easier, but just give him something.

Levels: CHAPTERS GO BY! VERY FAST. Don't make long elevators to fix this either, make the levels bigger and more interesting at the very least, you don't need to make entirely new chapters to fix this but it would be nice.

Xen: You visit Xen for a minute or two, I do like some of the attention to detail though, the Xen Crystals and such. But the combine their aren't even all that special, maybe show some of the ways they turned the Xen life into a combine contruct like we've seen with the human combine soldiers throughout the games. And, what would be cool, is possibly extending the chapters out to make Xen a little longer, and maybe show some easter eggs to previous games. Maybe make an abandoned outpost from the old Black Mesa research teams that went out there. Dead HEV suit owners strewn about, rotting and possibly finding another teleporter gun or a Black Mesa gun or two. (Not like, from the mod, but, the facility I mean.)

Enemy Variants: Literally the only things you kill in this game, are headcrabs, antilions for five seconds and combine soliders, with no variation throughout the game, other than the elites. Yet another thing that was great about Opposing Force is that it introduced new monsters like the pitdrone, shock trooper, etc. Maybe introduce a boss or two like the original Half-Life games did. I know that in the update for the game being made, there will be a forest variant of the combine soldiers... But an entirely new monster would be much more appreciated by the fans you're trying to sway over to you.

There's only a few things to complain about so this will be quick.

The Voice Over: Throughout your travels in the mod, you'll be greeted with a very annoying voice that is supposedly Shepards past coming to haunt him throughout. I never pay any attention to it throughout the mods length and it didn't really matter. They might as well should have just left there with no dialogue through out, except the Combines dialogue which is greatly improved in this.

Ok, finnally over, I do recommend this Mod to anyone that is willing to spend $10 on a mod for Half-Life 2 that isn't fully finished since the creator is making more content for it, and/or you just need to kill two hours.

This is the best mod I have seen for Half Life 2 for a long time