After clicking on "New Game" and playing for about five minutes, my first reaction was to double check that I hadn't inadvertently launched Blue Shift instead. So strong is the similarity. In fact, this mod begins basically as a remake of that expansion. Why somebody would spend such effort to homage the least gifted of HL's offspring, I cannot venture why. Perhaps the author grew up playing it, who knows.
Yes, you'll run, think, shoot and live through many situations taken verbatim from BS, though later on it also tries to recreate the base game itself in a strange mix. Some maps are carbon copies, like taken straight from the originals. Of course, this is obviously not the case, as ripping other people's assets is frowned upon the modding community, and Insecurity was voted the 6th best mod of 2025 by them. Which means, that the author went the distance to replicate them from scratch. Like I said, this is mind-boggling if you consider that in the end it boils down to yet another Black Mesa story, with the same offices and labs, and the Xen ending.
And the maps are incredible, honestly. They're big and complex enough that they require a certain amount of exploration, despite the final experience being as linear as ever. But several routes and hidden areas are available to you, always in search for that elusive keycard to unlock a much needed supply cache. And it's not short: 5 hours if not more. It's crazy to think that this is the work of a single person. And that's why I feel so miserable having to give it such a "low" score for his troubles.
Come to think of it, there's indeed a lot of copy-and-paste. That's the biggest criticism I can make about the levels. The mapper reuses the same elements across the whole campaign (which once again, is understandable), and in one occasion, I walked into a "new" area that left me very confused, wondering whether or not I was revisiting a previous one. The mod also makes frequent references to the original installments, mostly in the form of video surveillance feeds that reenact Gordon Freeman and company in well known events. But this is insisted upon so much that in the end it gets forced and irritating.
The puzzles are never hard and the routine of "find element to unlock the next area" is abused. There's backtracking, and I found this to be a problem sometimes. Let's say that the exit door requires a retinal scan. You begin looking around for a scientist, but getting to him needs a keycard. And this keycard is behind a wall of debris that you must clear with explosives. Which are stored in a room unlocked by a guard. This goes on and on, until by the time you eventually get the keycard you no longer remember what your name was. I personally never got stuck, but I majored in FPS video games, so a less experienced player might.
The difficulty is high in some chapters, and seldomly there are long stretches of combat with not enough medkits. Keep this in mind if you intend to play on "Hard".
Perhaps my biggest disappointment with the setting was that the premise is inconsequential to the final gameplay, a drawback also present in Blue Shift. Guess I wanted a little more of "role playing". You're supposed to be a security guard, but you don't "secure" anything. In the expansion, at least you got to restart an elevator before disaster struck. Here the resonance cascade catches you on your way to your first post, and from then on the story can be completely ignored, of course. You're alone most of the time and never feel part of a group trying to escape the facility. You meet several BMRF personnel along the way, yes, but none that make a difference. And why are most of the doors locked for you until you get a new keycard? You might as well have a crowbar and an HEV suit.
One detail I found funny was that, upon reaching a certain spot and giving plot exposition, some of the NPCs encouraged me to go on, explaining that they intended to remain there for this or that reason. Yet, you could interact with them afterwards to make them follow you again with no problem.
My final impression was that I had rarely seen such a tremendous amount of raw talent being wasted in something as mundane. But don't get me wrong, it's entertaining and worth playing once. Not many reasons to return, though.
Playing