The Long Night

Upon finishing this mod, my first thought was that it felt almost like a brief remake of the original Half-Life. The same environments, nearly the same progression from one to the next, and a similar ending. Yeah, it's all there, only with fewer maps, and way more ambushes.

Yes, its author likes ambushes a lot, don't tell me about it. Add that to the scarcity of pickups and you have a nice challenge for the next couple of hours.  I had to press the quickload key more times than I can admit. Even at the easiest setting, the digits of your health and HEV suit levels will be colored red most of your playthrough.

Another caveat is the lack of a meaningful story. It's more Gordon Freeman and more Black Mesa, just in case you hadn't had enough. Come to think of it, I must have spent more hours in those facilities than at college.  But to be fair, this mod was released less than a year and a half after HL, when extravagant stories and total conversions weren't the trend. The important thing here is another type of "worldbuilding": the brushwork could have been signed by Valve themselves. It's neither blocky nor buggy. The talent is evident.

You'll see maintenance areas (which always seem to be designed like death traps, OSHA should be ashamed of them), offices, labs and, of course, the unavoidable trip to Xen. But it all entertains, because it's brief, well paced and you rarely get stuck.

If we disregard the final stretch, the quality of the maps appear to increase gradually as you run and jump through them. The last "lab" section, where you have to activate the teleporter that will take you to the alien planet, left a good impression. You need to visit separate areas to get different machinery going, akin to the rocket puzzle in the original game. It was a welcome surprise after a mostly linear experience.

The ending is a bit of a letdown, more of an afterthought I guess. Then again, it's not that easy to properly tie up stuff. Like this review, for example.

Playing

• ModDB.
• RTSL.