So, this Half-Life mod is a strange
one. It almost feels like the official expansion to Half-Life that Gearbox
Software never made. You'd think it'd make sense for Gearbox to develop that
one Half-Life expansion that featured the mysterious Black Ops, but they never
made it. Thank god we have this mod to...sorta fill that gap. So, let’s jump in
to Half-Life: Black Ops, and see if the Black Ops possibly had a story worth
telling!
JUST TO SAY, THERE ARE SPOILERS
BELOW! IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE SPOILED, SKIP THIS PART OF THE REVIEW
The story of Half-Life: Black Ops
is one that, while not terribly complicated, is at least a decent reason to
involve the player's character. The game opens with a bunch of opening text
that summarizes the idea of the Black Ops, and what they do. It's decent
enough, and is set against cinematic panning shots of the environments. The
area the story primarily takes place in is called Metro City, the base of
operations for the Black Ops. The player character is known as Declan Walker, a
male Black Ops agent who gets a mission from his superior. He must go alone and
find Dr. Gallagher and assassinate him, as well as recover a briefcase the good
doctor is carrying, which was supposedly stolen from the Black Ops some time
ago. Unfortunately, Walker's mission isn't as easy as it sounds, as this mod
takes place a mere twelve hours after The Black Mesa Incident in New Mexico.
Due to this, Vortigaunts, Headcrab Zombies and other alien creatures are
running amok in Metro City. The player has to track down Dr. Gallagher's
whereabouts through the city's dark and dreary alleys with monsters lurking
around nearly every corner. Also as its revealed early on, the HECU still have
a grudge against any and all Black Ops personnel, and stand in Walker's way as
yet another obstacle to avoid. Travelling from an abandoned night club, to an
empty temple, Walker doesn't find Gallagher, but does find evidence that he is
on the move, and that somebody is helping him. Eventually tracking down his
target at a warehouse complex, Walker comes to find that Dr. Gallagher has
killed himself, and that the person helping him was in fact a traitorous female
Black Ops agent named Valerie Thorne. After Walker gathers the briefcase and is
about to report back to headquarters, he is captured by the HECU and held
prisoner in an abandoned prison complex. After some Vortigaunts teleport in and
start to cause trouble however, the player begins their valiant escape from the
prison complex. After many encounters with both the HECU and the alien
invaders, Walker grabs the briefcase once again, and leaves the place, only to
encounter a Gonarch blocking the way out. After killing the creature, Walker
encounters his superior who shows him what is inside this briefcase. It turns
out to be a nuclear device that the Black Ops plan to place inside the Black
Mesa Research Facility, in an attempt to cover up the incident and halt the
entire alien invasion. Your superior tells you to split up, and to meet him
inside the parking garage in the facility so you can arm the nuclear device.
After fighting your way into the facility to reach the parking garage, you find
your superior dead next to the bomb. After Walker activates the device,
something unexpected happens. A lone HECU soldier shoots Walker in the back of
the head, supposedly killing him. We then see the soldier disabling the device,
making Walker's mission all for naught. However, a few moments later we see the
mysterious G-Man reactivating the device. This prompts the player to suddenly
get up, and run like hell. With the entire facility exploding and crumbling
down around him, Walker tries desperately to escape, but in the end his true
fate is unknown, as the screen fades to black and the credits roll.
SPOILERS OVER
So now that the story is out of the
way, let's talk about gameplay/aesthetics. Half-Life: Black Ops is honestly one
of the more unique Goldsrc mods i've ever seen. It had a unique setting, with a
somewhat interesting story to tell. I mean come on, who didn't want to play as
a member of the Black Ops in Half-Life? Next to the G-Man, they were like the
most mysterious faction out of them all. In terms of asset use, the mod does do
a decent job with its resources. It uses the Half-Life HD Pack as a default for
its resources, and the custom textures it uses for its environments are well
implemented as well. Speaking of that, Half-Life: Black Op's custom setting in
Metro City is a welcomed change from the same old Black Mesa Research Facility.
The city's environments are both dreary and grungy looking, with abandoned
alleyways and apartments. It really gives you a late 80s/early 90s feeling as
you go through the levels. The mod's difficulty is also pretty well balanced,
with a few beginners’ traps here and there, but not too many as to feel
frustrating. The player's arsenal, while limited, has all the basic weaponry
gaps filled to deal with anything that comes their way. Also, the mod has an
interesting way of keeping the player's arsenal well supplied. As stated in the
mod's training level, sometimes in the areas, you will see the Black Op's logo
spray painted onto the wall, or on some object. This indicates a hidden supply
cache nearby provided by the Black Ops which will house anything from ammo to
health, to armor. The mod also adds a couple of new mechanics to mention, the
first being the ability to "hack" into certain computer terminals to
gain an access code for, say, a door you need to open. Secondly you'll be asked
to sometimes find an item lying around, say an explosive or a valve, to help
solve a puzzle. While these two mechanics aren't huge, I find they sort of help
embrace the idea that you are a member of the elite Black Ops. Trained as a
badass agent to handle any situation. One final thing I would like to touch
upon in terms of the mod's aesthetics, is the way the mod tells its story. See,
between level transitions, of which there are 4 in total, the story will be
told through image slideshows with captions over them, in an almost comic book
style. I have never seen a mod do this before to tell its story, and being a
fan of comic books, I really liked this.
Alright, it's pros and cons time! Let’s
start with my personal favorite, the cons.
#1: WHEN DID THIS STORY TAKE PLACE
AGAIN? I think the worst thing about Half-Life: Black Ops was the story's place
in time. See, the opening text crawl at the start of the mod describes events
that happen from 1996 to 1998. Now, if you are making a Goldsrc mod that has
anything to do with Half-Life's original story, you have to subtly and
creatively find a way to make it tie into that story, without it seeming too
intrusive or obvious. Now Marc Laidlaw, the writer for the Half-Life series,
confirmed that the first game in the series and its expansions take place in
the year 200X. Meanwhile this mod claims that it's happening in the year 1998,
a mere twelve hours after the Black Mesa Incident. So, either this mod was made
before Marc confirmed that, or the developer didn't do their research. Either way
i'm listing it as a con.
#2: WAIT THATS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE
THERE! In the mod the nuclear device that is supposed to blow up Black Mesa is
sitting in some random parking garage somewhere instead of in the back of a
truck under the ordinance storage facility like in Half-Life: Opposing Force.
Yet for some reason the mod shows that Adrian Shepard is indeed the soldier
that shoots you and deactivates the device, and that G-Man comes and
reactivates later. Like in Half-Life: Opposing force. This is what I was
talking about in the first con involving subtlety and creativity when it comes
to working around the original Half-Life's story. At this point i'm just going
to say the mod is in an alternate universe and doesn't take place in the canon.
#3: THE ENGRISH. The engrish in this
mod isn't that bad, but you can notice it from time to time. Spellcheck exists
for a reason, and if you don't know why I regard engrish as a con, it's for
this reason. It shows unprofessionalism, and can have a dampening effect on
your entire experience while playing the mod. Let this be a lesson to everyone,
use spellcheck, people will thank you for it.
#4: TERRIBLE SOUND DESIGN. In the
training level of the mod, you are instructed by a male Black Ops assassin who
for some reason has a voice changer lodged in his throat. It's not that the
voice itself sounds bad, but that the voice was obviously edited and changed by
some voice changing software after it was recorded. A tip for any mod
developers out there, you're custom voices don't have to sound like they were
dragged through a voice changer first if you're just making regular human
voices. Save that for robot characters or something. To compound this, the
custom footstep sounds that are in this mod range from okay, to downright
annoying. Why this had to be implemented, I have no idea.
#5: WHERE IS THIS CITY EXACTLY? The
player is never given any sort of context just where Metro City is. So it just
seems sort of weird that the Xen aliens are invading it. I mean I guess it's
within driving distance of Black Mesa due to the fact you and your superior
drive there to arm the nuclear device, but it'd be nice to get an exact
location for story consistency.
Now it's time for the pros section,
oh good.
#1: INTERESTING LEVEL DESIGN. The
level design in the mod is actually pretty well conceived. As I have mentioned
before the dark and cramped apartments and alleys you traverse are both
intricate, and claustrophobic. The way the supply caches are hidden is also
kind of neat, with the player being able to miss a few if they don't check
everywhere around them. Enemy placement is both practical, and efficient, with
only a few being legitimate beginner's traps.
#2: THE COMIC STYLE CUTSCENES. Like
I said, I love the way this mod tells its story. When you look at these
slideshows, it almost feels like a comic book, with sound effects and
everything. Sometimes they even have speech bubbles in them. Though I should
point out that the graphics on these aren't actually drawn in, they are
actually just the game's graphics with a cell shade effect over them.
Still though, you can't deny that it's a unique style.
#3: THE LEGIT TWIST. Coming to
learn that Dr. Gallagher was being helped by a member of the Black Ops was
actually a pretty legitimate twist in this story. Even though we never found
out who Valerie Thorne was, or why she defected from the Black Ops, or who
those other two female assassins with her were, it's still nice to encounter a
twist that doesn't suck.
Half-Life: Black Ops certainly is a
tricky one. While it does fill the void of having a Half-Life game about the
mysterious and enigmatic Black Ops faction, it certainly could have been alot
more than it is. While it certainly has more effort than most mods, the breaks
and damages it causes in Half-Life: Opposing Force's story lower it's score
alot in my view. The almost frequent engrish also brings it down, but on all
other fronts, it serves as a fun little "What if" Half-Life story,
that has its moments. Thanks Walker old boy, you paid your dues.
Half-Life: Black Ops gets the final
rating of 3.5/5. Thanks for reading everybody, and stay classy!
Here is the link to the mod's
ModDB page, for those who want to download and play it themselves! http://www.moddb.com/mods/black-ops
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