HarriotLovesYou
This mod really surprised me with how good it is. The level design is very good, both in terms of visuals and gameplay. I've seen mods try to have a big climactic final showdown in a huge battle and fail miserably, but this mod actually succeeds in this regard. The sole weak spot in this mod, in my opinion, is the Gonarch fight, but I also don't really like the Gonarch fight in Half-Life so that's not really a fault unique to this mod. Military duty is honestly in the same league as Field Intensity and Echoes, and I think it deserves more attention. Overall, this is a very good mod!
2005
This mod is just okay. It's not balanced for hard difficulty, the level design is quite mediocre, and once you get ahold of a gun it's actually fairly easy to take advantage of the quite incompetent AI and wipe them out easily. Both endings are unsatisfying. It's not offensively bad, but it's pretty mediocre.
Poor in concept and execution. The levels are mostly quite large and barren, not very interesting to look at. Even the levels that are directly ripped from Half-Life look noticably worse. The encounters are not paced very well, being so frequent to the point that the game almost feels like one long broken-up encounter that you're constantly fighting. There are several excessively long elevator rides, and the fight at the end will literally block you with an invisible wall until you have defeated all the enemies the game wants you to, an awful design decision that flies in the face of Half-Life's game design. This feels like it was someone's first attempt at making a mod, and I hope they went on to make things better than this.
2005
This mod has a good atmosphere and a few good combat moments, and I will compliment it for giving almost every door a use whereas every other Half-Life mod just kinda throws random locked doors in any given hallway as set dressing. Outside of that, there's a lot of issues. For one, visibility (or rather lack thereof) is not a fun gameplay mechanic. The game puts you in tons of pitch black hallways that you have to navigate with the shitty GoldSrc flashlight (I turned on fullbright in some parts because it was just so annoying to figure out where to go), and later on even starts putting transparent enemies in them, making it really difficult to parse out how many of them are where they are. Later on the game even just starts turning some enemies invisible, which is just an awful and completely baffling decision that makes those parts a complete nightmare without turning on godmode. Speaking of nightmares, this game isn't scary - at least not for me. It startled me a few times with some sudden enemy appearances, but there's a substantive difference between startling and scary. I've played Half-Life a dozen times and as much as I love it, its enemies do not particularly instill fear in me, which is a problem for Afraid of Monsters because every enemy is just a reskinned Half-Life enemy. Fear of the unknown is an important element of horror, and I just won't be scared by enemies that I know so well. It ultimately became a chore running up to and away from zombies so I could stab them between their attack animations. This mod has some good elements, but it's ultimately very troubled and makes for an at times frustrating experience.
I think this is a step up from Operation Rosenberg, but it's not at all perfect. The visuals are fairly decent for the most part, but the maps are generally too large and open in my opinion. The combat is alright, but just alright, but the final two fights are pretty bad to be honest. I think this quadrilogy of mods peaked with Escape from Area 99, which was charming in its silliness. This mod overstays its welcome just a bit too much.
TBD
A very short mod, but what's there is just fine. Difficulty can be a little high, but it's alright.
The only feeling this mod inspires in me is "eh." The level design is fairly plain for the most part, and the combat suffers from the inverse problem that a lot of other mods have - where other mods struggle with throwing too many enemies at you to the point that it's overwhelming, this mod has comparatively fewer enemies and thus feels empty and boring. It still has encounters to be sure, but a lot of them feel poorly designed and I will admit to using cheats to get through some of them because they're just unreasonable. There's one moment where you're ambushed by a horde of Alien Controllers while riding a lift and the game turns into a bullet hell where you have to be constantly dodging, making it impossible to aim and properly take down any of the controllers (as more of them spawn in!). This mod also makes the baffling decision of having a few moments where only one option on a diverging path will be correct and the rest will unavoidably kill you if you go down them, adding a very strange element of trial and error which just doesn't feel fair or satisfying. The more I think about this mod the less I like it, but it's ultimately just mediocre.
2012
I wish I could kill the person who made this mod
2002
This review contains spoilers
At the end of this mod, you have to destroy an Osprey. Once you've destroyed the Osprey, immediately a helicopter shows up with almost comical timing. That's the perfect microcosm of this mod - it just NEVER gives you a break. There is just constant fighting. It's exhausting. I heard that this was one of the best Opposing Force mods but I didn't really like it that much. The environment design is pretty bland and poor, but I will give this mod points for its assassin encounters - whereas even the official Half-Life games tend to overwhelm you with a lot of assassins, this mod is comparatively much more reserved with its usage of them, with there typically being around 2-4 per encounter. I think this more reserved usage of them makes them much more manageable and enjoyable to fight. But overall, the mod is very tiring to play.
2021
This is a decent reimagining of Uplink so far. I think this mod's biggest problem is the weapon changing being way, WAY too slow, limiting your ability to effectively switch weapons in combat. But the atmosphere and design is very professional and very good.
This is a step up from Residual Point. Quite good, I would say. This is a quite good mod.
Playing this mod feels like traversing a liminal space. There are so many maps that are familiar to someone like me who has played Half-Life and Opposing Force so many times, but are changed and rearranged just enough that it's a little unsettling. But as far as the gameplay goes, it's decent. Runs into the problem a lot of Half-Life mods do where the way to progress isn't very clear, but it's still decent. Residual Life is definitely an improvement.
A solid mod by all means. It doesn't blow my mind or anything, but it is good and worth a play.
2022
This mod's environmental design is very good, some of the best I've ever seen in a Half-Life mod. As far as game design goes, it's not bad. It's fairly short, but what's there is decent. It's not perfect by any means, I would say there's a bit too much wandering around, but overall this is a fairly decent mod that I would say is worth a shot.
Idk if I liked Darkstar or if I liked MMOD's version of Darkstar, but I still liked this either way.