A half Life 1 Opposing Force mod (standalone). You are Alexander Shepard; Corporal and a soldier of the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit. You don’t know exactly what’s going on. But orders came in to pack up everything and head out for a highly classified mission.
Well, what can I say. It was a long time after I played a decent GldSource mod set in the Half Life universe. And this one is more than decent. This is epic. From the very start, till it's climatic ending.
The story simple: You are a HECU soldier, trying to cover up the whole Black Mesa incident and ending up fighting for your own survival. But, in this mod you can actually see the huge mobilization of the HECU military division (trucks, jeeps, tanks and equipment laying around) and their struggle to contain the alien invasion, things you rarely see in Half Life mods.
The quality of the mapping is superb, the general layout and architecture of the maps is interesting and comprehensible (as to where to go) and the scripted sequences really bring Military Duty's world to life.
The enemy placement and spawns are well placed. I never encountered an absurd amount of enemies, neither have I come across endless, empty corridors with no signs of life.
It had many memorable moments along the way: The train ride, the Gargantua fight and of course the ferocious end fight for your escape, to name a few.
And one of the mod's more important asset is it's length. I have played many GldSource mods that are under 30 minutes of gameplay. I played Military Duty for almost two and a half hours. And that's one of the things I liked the most. It was not a demo. It was a full game.
To sum it up, this mod is a refreshing addition to the GldSource modding scene. A must-play for every fan, not only of Opposing Force, but of Half Life in general.
A pretty nice romp - level design felt a bit cramped at times and like Opposing Force itself the plot was fairly light, but it made decent use of the OF assets and the end battle was pretty fun. Nice work all around!
This mod is above average, but few things prevent it to be great.
+ Nice and intelligent level design
+ Some big epic battles
+ Long gameplay
- Difficulty (enemies teleporting too close to you)
- Hostile Blue-shift guards shout at you as if they were taking friendly fire
- Final fight (you do not have to fight it, just watch)
- No ammo for laser nor heavy machine gun
Anyway, with some polishing this could be superb.
This mod contains everything I love from Opposing Force, nearly all the weapons, tons of combat, and realistic level design and fast paced. My favourite of the Opposing Force mods right next to Field Intensity and Operation Black Thunder.
TL;DR: DON'T LISTEN TO THE CREATOR, DON'T PLAY ON HARD.
Promising at first with really nice visual design, several small level design flaws, but later followed by annoying game design decisions.
Big momma fight? Cut her HP in 3. You fight it as long as in original HL, but all that time at one single "arena", and soon enough it's swarming with baby-headcrabs. By that time you may have about 6 AR grenades and 5 hand grenades - doesn't seem sufficient for a boss fight, especially after you spent them 20 minutes ago, right?
Alien Grunts spawning a meter behind you? Nice touch. Don't forget that you need to put dozens of AR shots in its face, or 2 very accurate Python/Desert eagle shots which are very scarce. Or play on "normal".
Mod creator says "Play game on Hard"? Because author knows where every single monster spawns, thus he does 180 noscope to a recently teleported monster and thinks it's too easy? NO, you don't know where they spawn. Play on Normal. Hard is HARD.
Levels overloaded with high polycount resulting in stuttering here and there? Add headcrabs those jump at you as the game stutters, while you have 20 HP left after the boss fight? - the ultimate ragequit combination.
Fix it up and it's worth 11/10, because voice acting is even better than in OPFOR, new custom models and textures look GREAT and this mod has a lot of potential. Otherwise it feels like quite well made Release Candidate version.
Man that intro was bad. Clearly effort was put into the voice lines, but the timing was off and it dragged way too long. After minutes of pointless banter, sarge leans in and starts to tell us why we're here and... it's over. I'm on the ground. OK.
I love hated the crowbar-less intro. This game reminds you how important the crowbar truly is, in case you've forgotten. Never thought I'd be at a point where I have the pistol/SMG/shotgun and desperately want a melee weapon.
Bro that security guard said "aim for the head" just as I blasted a magnum round through his skull. Comedy.
Inconsistent interactability. I spend 2 minutes frantically bashing the half-open door wondering if my game is bugged, then the very next scene you present me with another half-open door, except this time I can break it open. Why. Sometimes boxes break, sometimes they don't. Only one way to find out... sigh.
Pretty good scripting. I quite enjoyed watching that full battle play out between HECU, Black Ops, Blue Shift, and Xen.
Game got super hard near the middle with the romp through Xen. Almost no health or ammo given this entire segment. I was left fighting the Gonarch with the electric thing and those vomit balls. Kinda exhilarating. Definitely has a sinusoidal difficulty that starts low, graduates into high, then back low. Actually feels intentional and definitely suits the mood. Survival horror kicks in and you start to panic. I did say I beat the Gonarch. I had to dig deep and fight it with unconventional weapons, but hey, it builds character.
This mod has a sick sense of humor when it comes to giving you ammunition for weapons you don't have.
Ah, this is exactly what I expected the ending to be. Just as bad as the intro. Low quality mics and buzzing choppers in the background make it hard to hear what's being said, and it just ends up being a rambling wrap up to quickly tidy this one up and put a bow onto it.
Still, that was a pretty thrilling combat finale. This mod has a way with creating vast, chaotic arenas with scores of enemies that don't feel unfair. Good use of allies to make it seem more like a war and not a one man power trip. It was a lot of fun and didn't punish the player for taking risks.
Just ignore the acting and plot like most mods and enjoy the gameplay.
This mod is basically Opposing Force if Shephard escaped. Love it!
This mod is very nice, simple but fun. Level design is ok, it could be better. Voice acting was sometimes good and sometimes very amateur. I enjoyed it from start to finish. However, somethings bothered me a little bit.
At the start of the game, I completely missed the knife, I reached a point where I said to myself "Man, I totally missed a melee weapon", because of course you don't kill baby headcrabs with a pistol hehe, right? This can be avoided, for example, by putting some planks or boxes blocking the entrance, and putting a knife or crowbar next to it.
The maker should take care when building a place that looks explorable, but it actually isn't. The part where you fall into a waterfall at Black Mesa, I've died two or three times trying to get on that little place with a dead scientist. There wasn't an indicator that said "Hey, it's deadly here", it's not far enough to get you killed.
Ropes... Like the idiot I am, I usually just keep jumping around while exploring the maps I play. There was an eletric wire hanging on the ceiling, I guess it was a rope since I got stuck on it and died. Even though it was my fault, you shouldn't use things like ropes on dangerous places, to avoid this kind of situation.
At the end of the game, I got stuck on the elevator, forcing me to reload an older save. I've played on Steam. Still, the ending was pretty dope, lots of enemies to kill and marines to assist you, just like Field Intensity. Please, more of it! For a first mod it is pretty neat, hope to see more from the author!
There is an area from BLUE SHIFT! (living quarters outbound).
One of my favorite mods for Half Life. Short for a retelling of Adrian's story but it's really well made. Top tier level design and the missions and enemy placement are really fun.