OMG!Great!
Short, sweet, pretty fun and enjoyable, overall, a very good experience, that I heavily recommend!
I just wish it was longer.
Also, lots of environments are very BLOCKY, like rocks and cliffs. Which is, kinda funny
Enjoyed my time with the new levels, not as good as resto but fun to go through versus empty levels.
I admire the effort you've put into the mod in terms of planning, descriptions of units such as purpose and origin and the ideas, but there is a common theme here, it's all written word.
When it comes to execution of all this into a playable mod, you've as good as ****** into your hands whilst clapping.
The mod is ugly as hell, using public and maybe some private assets but everything together does not mesh well graphically.
As I've said before, this is the type of mod I'd see waaay back in the early days of the modding community, nearly 20 years ago.
As I also said prior, I think you need to start working on gaining some skills in the graphical region (3D modelling or 2D graphics for SHP's (buildings & infantry), interface changes and other 2D assets, voxel skills for creating your own private assets that all look and blend well together for each country or faction and further enhance your coding knowledge to make the mod feel more unique.
You could of course hire some help or put out a request for volunteers and build a team to help you.
But as the mod stands right now, its ugly and a total mess aesthetically. As for it's playability, I really didn't enjoy it because for me I've played so many mods and this took me back to 20 odd years ago.
Some people may enjoy it, especially if they haven't played a mod like this. However, I'm sorry to say but I rate Code Red by Major Gilbear with help from Mig Eater so much higher than this, and yes that mod is around 20 years old.
I hate to be so negative and I may even offend you with this review, but trust me, if you are as dedicated as I do see you to be then feelings aside, try to see this as constructive critisism. Remember as well that the RA2 YR modding scene is just as alive and well as it was all those years ago, if not more given the amount of hard-coding alterations having been done to allow much more creative allowances.
You've got a lot of passion I can tell. If you slowly and steadily learn more skills to further aid the originality and potential the mod could have, then you definitely should. It will be so much more worth it later on down the line.
Without a doubt, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly is one of the greatest mods out there.
There are many features this mod brings to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. that, not only add more life to the game, make it an experience worth revisiting over and over again.
Let me explain: first off, Anomaly takes the base game and fixes many flaws. While those flaws don't deeter from the enjoyment level the game delivers, it's a nice touch having those flaws corrected.
While there are other S.T.A.L.K.E.R. mods that deliver a great experience, Anomaly goes the extra mile and breathes much more life into the zone, while still keeping that lonely, dreary atmosphere. It adds a lot more NPCs and monsters to the zone, without feeling out of place.
The overhauls to the survival aspect of S.TA.L.K.E.R. are so well executed here. I honestly can't think of anything to complain about. I love how natural everything in this mod feels. Like it was always, or I should say SHOULD HAVE, been there from the get-go.
Even the overall atmosphere is more tangible in this mod. The added weather effects are just lovely. One moment you're traversing the open plains, and thunder begins to roar in the distance, as rain gently begins to trickle down from the sky. The next moment you're in a subway tunnel, just about to head out into the horizon, as a strike of lightning scorches the sky view. Things like this, while subtle, really add to the atmosphere of Anomaly. And yes, I know these ambient features are already in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. But there's just something about Anomaly, and how it enhances these ambient atmospheres, that make them better.
The subtle, yet profound touches to the combat system are also great here. Combat in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was never its strong suite. While not broken, it could've been much better. Anomaly takes that combat and fine tunes it into a fine wine, if I may say so.
Not to say that Anomoly is perfect. It has some flaws. But they are, in my honest opinion, so few and far between, I really don't see any reason to point them out.
Overall, if you are looking for a way to scratch that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. itch, and you've exhausted the games to the point of boredom, Anomaly is the one mod that, not only is essential, will make you more than happy to return to the zone, due to all the great mechanics it brings.
Verdict - 10/10 masterpiece
Given the good feedback and high popularity, I think the mod deserves a 10!
I’m still enjoying the hell out of this mod, many cool features.
One thing buggs me out. When changing the commander, the player character equips random stuff and sometimes gear disappears from inventory. Is there a way to prevent that?
Дима куплинов одобряет
splendid
You know it's good when a GoldSrc game makes you lag
Illusions of the Dead is a very well fleshed out custom story with a touching, interesting story and lots of detailed maps. It becomes a bit formulaic after a while: Start in Location A, find item in Location B, use item in Location C. The maps, while lovingly crafted, can be a bit empty, and I would have enjoyed more story beats sprinkled throughout them to keep things interesting. Enemy AI would occasionally bug out and get stuck in corners, and some puzzles had unintuitive solutions which I learned from the video walkthrough. The story, while not entirely original, developed in a way that kept me wanting to find out more. I could have done without the insta-death sequences which were frustrating to have to do over several times. It also would have been cool to see the Machine for Pigs and custom assets used more to diversify the experience. Overall, a great addition to the Amnesia canon!
Ugh, the game set the precedent that smashing locked doors with the crowbar is the right thing to do. Spoiler: that was the only breakable door in the entire mod.
Jeez, you gotta be on your toes. No, that's not the lift, the lift is descending to gib you.
It really should be criminal to make the same prop breakable only sometimes and other times metal (?). Even worse; sometimes it sounds breakable but isn't! This, coupled with the door thing means you feel obligated to smash everything in sight, lest you miss a pickup.
Combat does a nice job making it feel like you stumbled into a conflict between HECU and aliens. Occasionally clumsy, but the vibe checks out.
Mapping is a little sparse, but the level design is solid, even if it didn't truly feel believable. Generally a good sense of forward progression and maps that keep the player moving, with the occasional hiccup that doesn't detract from the overall experience.
The sewers are kinda ugly. Square, low res, brown.
Atmosphere is done well, however. I love the environments, from the variety to the grand ideas, even if execution occasionally falls flat.
The ambushes were tough, but able to be dealt with. Just don't be stupid. I liked quicksaving before particularly interesting encounters to replay until I nail the outcome.
Okay I'll say it. The mapping is lazy. It's a solid foundation that would vastly benefit from some polishing and attention to detail to complement the ideas out on display.
You know, I can't tell you how heavily I sigh when I walk into a room full of boxes on shelves. There's a special place in hell for people who not only use shelf-boxes, but abuse them. You can tell how fed up I am with certain things by how quickly I quicksave after completing them. No way in hell do I want to spend 5 minutes painstakingly smashing all these boxes one by one again.
Upsidedownworld caught me off guard for sure. I caught whiff a few times, then bam. What kind of game is this?
Scripting was good, but occasionally nonsensical. Too many times you inadvertently blow something up to proceed. Just seems a little ridiculous is all. But I'm in for the entertainment.
Terminator credits theme lol. Not really sure what happened there, but I had a good time.
I find moddb reviews get pretty polarizing in the 7s. On one hand you have good-looking mods with unfortunate gameplay, then you have fun-to-play mods that look a little dumpy. I'd rather play the latter 9 times out of 10 because I can't stand frustrating gameplay. That alone tips the scales to an 8 for me. If you can overlook the issues, you'll have a blast. Pun intended.
Selling the engine and mod-data is prohibited, cause the proprietary owner is GSC Gameworld.
Brilliant just brilliant
I just finished Hard Reset after 9 or 10 hours of gameplay and it was another great addition to the Ashes series. The gameplay, map design and gameplay were the familiar Ashes mix of the best parts of both old and new. The new set of weapons was interesting and the more limited upgrade system felt more balanced than the afterglow. The last boss battle was my favourite in the series so far. The soundtrack was excellent as always. Overall, Hard Reset was great but here's some feedback/nitpicking on the areas where I felt there were some issues:
The new portraits and spoken dialogue were neat but the music was often too loud during the speech. If it's technically possible, It would be great if the music volume was automatically lowered during dialogue (and monologue). The dialogue view also didn't work perfectly with UI scaling. The main text body was not being scaled so, especially when reading the emails near the end of game, the text was being obscured by the dialogue options that were being scaled.
The game's story was nice, although I did find it a bit hard to figure out what Walker's motivations and goals throughout the game were. His wife had died violently but I couldn't figure out if one of the named mutants of the series was involved or how that influenced Walker's actions during the game. It wasn't really obvious whether Walker wilfully pursued the hallucinations or if the was forced to approach them. I didn't really get how or if the hallucinations were affecting Walker's distaste for the metro tunnels and insistence on entering the mall for example.
Walker's relation to Varni and the General were also a bit unclear. For example, in Michonne the General has a very confrontational employer-employee discussion with Walker where he pays him the money Walker demands, but 2 minutes later (in the next level) his tone is completely different and he suddenly feels he owes walker an explanation since he considers him so committed. Then, just before the final boss battle, Walker returns from one of the easiest areas in the game, and just states he's getting out of there, rather than waiting or following the General, who still owes Walker half of the pay for the job that Walker just finished for seemingly no other reason than the pay (if you don't count Varni telling Walker to drink bleach, help the general, and move in with her, half way through the job).
I think some additional monologues and a post mission text exposition or two would really help communicate Walker's opinions, goals and motivations to the player. I think this would be important, as Walker is the player character and he makes a lot of non-forced decisions (from a Watsonian perspective) that the player can't affect (for Doylist reasons).
On a more gameplay related note, the new weapons and enemies are cool. Modular rifle options probably need a bit of tweaking, with the short barrel being so accurate it makes the laser pointer and long barrel feel redundant. The laser could probably serve better as a recoil reducing option. The 5.56 ammo seems to be relatively ample even when other weapons are running dry. Reducing the 5.56 ammo pickups from 30 to 20 rounds on standard difficulty would seem reasonable for such a powerful weapon.
Wendigos and Cannibal Gladiators both seem to represent the same extremely deadly enemy archetype that is new to Ashes. The Gladiator is tough, fast, evasive, and both quick and hard hitting. To me it seems to have too many things going for it, but at the same time, proto-blaster will make them trivially easy to kill since they get stun locked. I would recommend removing the Gladiator's evasive movement (which makes it extremely hard to hit with anything other than the proto-blaster) and having them instead directly charge towards the player (at a speed adjusted for that shortened distance), but make them more resistant to stun locking. That would give them a distinctly heavy, unstoppable force kind of character that would separate them from the other mutants archetypes and the more streamlined looking Wendigos. The current Wendigo performance is, in practice, pretty much the same as Gladiator but I got the impression that they were designed, and maybe intended, to be avoided most of the time that they appear so I don't have any issue with their overwhelming combat performance.
I also noticed a couple bugs with the new flashlight: the lack of flicker when running low mentioned in the manual, and the flashlight not being lit despite being raised if you replace an empty battery while holding the dead flashlight. I think the flashlight batteries could also last a bit longer as I found that even after buying several, I had to rush through atmospheric dark areas to conserve batteries, which I think took away from the tension of those maps.
Finally, huge thanks to everyone involved for another excellent Ashes experience. All of the chapters so far are easily among the best FPS games of all time.
Fun straightforward old school shooter where for once the Synagogue of Satan is not presented as the good guys. Instead the Palestinian Arabs who live under occupation strike back.
The game is inspired by Max Payne and Doom and makes various humorous references to other games and real world events.
I liked the idea of this story, but the execution of it was poorly done.
Pros:
-Added some new interesting rooms that were not accessible in the main game.
-Atmosphere is good
-Some map designs were unique
Cons:
-Worldbuilding makes no sense, as others have stated that this story looks like it takes before the Main game in some sections, and then it looks like it takes place after. (I believe this game takes place during the main game, but the worldbuilding is poorly done so this is just a guess)
-Different areas connecting with each other make no sense (ex: Entrance Hall to Back Hall).
-A scripted enemy chase right before you go to enter a new area (ex: Brute chasing the player just as they are about to exit the storage area) gets old and overused in this story.
-This could be a personal opinion and a skill issue on my behalf but the Suitor (should not even be in this story as they are in Justine 9 years earlier) that is spawned in the torture chamber feels a bit unfair as there was nothing that I could have done to escape it.
-Too many "enemy spawning upon picking up a main objective item", feels cheesy and predictable
Overall, the story is a good idea but the poor worldbuilding, connecting events from the main game, and the very predictable scripted events, it is an Below Average-Average custom story...
I will give it a 5/10.
I wasnt expecting that much professionality.
- Nice story telling
- Nice UI
- Nice weapons and battle
- Nice grind (armor and weapon upgrades mean something)
I loved it.
Feels like the original game had more time in the oven
Great games never die, they just keep getting modded for the times.