Mod Corner - Half-Life 2: MMod

it's kind of crazy to think that it was 15 years ago when Valve unleashed half-life 2 in world and it's only recently that they brought some life back into the series with the announcement of a standalone VR game featuring Alec's pants which All Things Considered looks pretty damn awesome but the series has been kept warm thanks to the talented modding community in a better example of that is a mod for half-life 2 called M mod which brings along a whole heap of additions and modifications to the base game to make it feel more like it could have been made in our current year instead of the ancient history that is 2004 times so long ago that it almost hurts to think about it now this mod originally came out back in December 2018 but a month or so ago it got yet another update which improved upon the mod even further bouncing out a whole heap of issues just to summarize you've got improved gunplay new abilities for the AI brand new weapon animations bug fixes and visual effects as a mod that's only made by three guys packed with all this content and that happens to work across all of the main games well there's very little to complain about so let's take a look at it and see what it's all about shall we so first and foremost if you're one of those people who thinks that half-life 2 is the worst sequel ever made yes these people exist well this isn't a mod that's really gonna win you over seems more aimed at the kind of people who've played half-life 2 through and through when they're just looking for a reason to revisit it in fact you almost need to have a proper familiarity with half-life 2 to even notice a lot of the improvements that the Mott offers anyway look here's a bit of a quick recap the game takes place after the events of half-life 1 where Gordon Freeman is brought out of stasis by the g-man after what happened at Black Mesa final world has been taken over by an alien race known as the combine it's never explained why the g-man brings him back and because valve now seemed more intent on publishing games than making them we'll probably never know either anyway humanity bears together in the fictional city 17 to try and stop them and as Gordon you're pretty much key to their plans in fact you're the only one capable of doing anything because everyone else just hides out in shipping containers with their thumbs up their ass now the story itself is left intact it's the gameplay where it starts to make some modifications and this ranges from simple things like when you sprint now the screen shakes to make it look a bit more like contemporary shooters you're leaving here Gordon become short of breath and see the edges of the screen fade a bit when you run out of stamina when your health is low there's even various screen effects to emphasize your weary and condition all of the weapon models have been modified - they've got different animations and shader effects in the way they handle has also been changed there's also a few new weapons added in though like everything else in my tits been added in in a way that it doesn't really affect the gameplay in a massive way the first one you're gonna come across is the stun baton used by the Civil Protection units which seems to do double the amount of damages the crowbar it's not really a groundbreaking weapon but it's just another melee alternative if you get sick of using Gordon's crowbar but all that's good for though is crates and man hacks which it can often destroy in a single hit not that it makes those things any less annoying they're basically the video game equivalent of a giant flying mosquito with razor blades for wings when you hop onto one of those in placement gun turrets you can now dismount the gun and carry it around this thing is definitely overpowered especially because one of the first ones you get is during root canal at a point when in the campaign you're only supposed to have the pistol and the crowbar so it makes those sections just way too easy it's basically a pulse rifle that you never need to reload at the cost of more spread when firing than your mum's legs to balance the whole thing out though there's no replacement ammo it has 300 or so rounds but you can only use what's in the weapon then you dry it's probably a good thing sings that does like triple the damage of the pulse rifle during highway 17 and sand traps you can also pull the tap cannon off the front of the buggy and use it as a handheld weapon which functions quite a bit like it did in half-life 1 it's got a shitload of ammo too and does pretty good damage otherwise all of the other weapons return the Magnum shotgun mp7 pulse rifle crossbow RPG and grenade again with minor changes mostly the sound effects animations across the board for all of these are way smoother to like check out the difference between the two mp7 it's really cool to how when you press the reload button when a weapon is fully loaded it instead shows off this animation of Gordon brandishing the weapon admiring it from different angles my only complaint is that I wish there were more of these I think the shotgun is the weapon that looks and feels the best there's just something about using this thing now that feels a whole lot smoother the animation of Gordon loading in more shells looks really detailed and I love how you can even see the weapons strap as well which is also animated realistically there's iron sights added in now - well kind of though it's more like a zoom than traditionally aiming-down-sights I think I actually prefer this to traditional iron sights only because it doesn't limit my field of view as much and I can still be somewhat aware of things in my peripheral vision but you can turn on proper iron sights - if that's more your cup of tea either way though it does vastly improve your aim speaking of gameplay options there's the choice to improve enemy AI - which didn't seem to change things all that much all I noticed was that they loved grenades my way of fair bit more in some enemies during earlier chapters are now armed with pulse rifle the combine can now use the grenade launcher on the mp7 which is cool kind of but you don't really get that much of a warning they're gonna do it and the moment that you realize is usually right after you've caught one with your face it'll be good if at least they telegraphed this attack in some way I don't know maybe like slap me on the arse or something before you Ram at home probably one of the biggest game changes though is that you can swap the way that guns handle from hit scanning to actual projectiles with different guns having bullet drop bullet spread and penetration of the various distances now why this is turned off by default I have no idea because it's the coolest feature of the whole mod this is pretty damn big and it changes how the shooting fills in a fundamental way honestly I never thought the shooting in half-life 2 was all that good it largely got carried by a few weapons like the Magnum the crossbow and the alternate fire for the mp7 and the shotgun which gave it the illusion of being really deep and enjoyable because otherwise it really was just standard its skin in combat pointed something and shoot half-life 2 is again that's more stood the test of time because of the pacing of its campaign and environmental storytelling more than its groundbreaking shooting mechanics I mean it had a serviceable shooting system and that's all there was to it so in the vanilla game there wasn't really any point to being all that mobile or strafing around considering taking damage it was more or less based off line of sight with certain enemies weapons spread would affect the gunplay over long distances but you're really just traded bullets with the enemy until they drop to the ground like a bag [ __ ] so for a change like this to be added into this mod with bullets having actual ballistics makes the combat feel a whole lot more enjoyable there is an actual purpose to staying mobile and keeping your distance it just feels a whole lot better on top of all of that [ __ ] you could even choose what kind of bullet spread you want with three different options along with whether or not aiming down sights is going to be a factor - it's a simple but welcome addition to a shooting system that was really starting to show its age in it showed its age back in 2004 so if there's one setting in this mod you have to try well this is it visually there's a bunch of new things added it to some of them so subtle you probably won't even notice them but your brain did things like the combine eyes glowing a bit more to make it easier to spot them there's more blood decals and more saturation to make the overall image a lot more vibrant you can turn up the view distance as well which is only really useful on chapters like highway 17 and sand traps you can even simulate lens dirt which makes the sides of the screen look covered with grime and dust anybody know dust anybody just particle effects can also be played around with this well and this is the [ __ ] right here you've probably already noticed from my footage but the explosions look a whole lot better the explosions already looked pretty solid in vanilla half life so to somehow be able to dial that up to 11 is pretty impressive I don't think I could ever get sick of throwing a red barrel at someone's head with gravity gun it's like cracking video game for fire effects look way more detailed to some of the areas in Raven home just looked gorgeous never thought I'd say this but the sight of an incinerated headcrab zombie walking around is actually nice to look at you even get a bit of haze from the extreme heat at the flames - it just looks great and it gives you even more of a reason to shoot those strategically placed red barrels [Music] those short sections in water hazard when the airboat has the gun attached to it shows off some really cool looking effects - like when you blowing up those APCs and taking down a hunter chopper I'd love to be able to jack this stuff up even more but I can still appreciate the increase in carnage overall the image looks a lot sharper - like I wouldn't say it's necessarily better it just looks different one thing about half-life 2 is that somehow it still looks really good anyway so you don't really need to do all that much stuff to the engine to make it look halfway decent in the current year this was due to valve really knowing what the hell they were doing with architecture and level design and as a result the base game is still pretty solid like the water effects in this mod have supposedly been improved but the water already looks so damn good in the vanilla version that it's just like putting another layer of icing on a cake that's already good icing on it just one thing I will say don't play the game with motion blur on or any of that crap or else you're dead to me part of the reason I like this mod so much is that it doesn't [ __ ] around with the core of half-life 2 or that much anyway I mean it makes a few modifications here and there but it never changes the game in a fundamental way and the changes that it does make seem like one's more out of common sense and convenience Olek how the flashlight has its own separate meter like what they did in episode 2 instead of sharing it with your stamina and air supply which never made any goddamn sense why they I thought this was a good idea from date dot is a mystery character models are also untouched compared to a mod like the cinematic mod where you can make Alex look like a Victoria's Secret model with a fully modelled cervix and a giant dildo in a bedroom you can find you in all of these settings to get it to however you'd personally like to play the game and there is a whole heap of stuff to play around with you could argue that things like the emplacement gun and the pulse rifle do make those earlier sections easier than they're supposed to be but I mean both weapons are situational and besides it's not like someone's gonna play this mod for a first-time playthrough at this point I'm only playing half-life 2 to dull the pain from realizing we'll never get a proper sequel you can actually play this thing with cinematic mod - if you really want to but that's like ordering a bottle of expensive soup and then getting a chef to dip these nuts into it before serving it and mod is just like someone's gone back in and polished things up it's like the maid in a hotel who's come in to clean things up after a weekend-long bender only she took 15 years to get around to servicing the room instead of doing it overnight there are some improvements I think they could add in future updates like I'd really like to see the option for a grenade throwed button bouncing maybe Q or G so I can just lob out a quick grenade you're in combat off the back of that the option for a quick melee attack would be good to just a quick melee attack bound to F or something so you don't have to swap out to the crowbar just to mash through a crate or a piece of furniture that's blocking your way maybe also being able to attach yourself to a ladder like in more recent shooters and actually seeing the animation of Gordon climbing up it I mean this whole thing of magically moving up or down a ladder without using your hands is about as dated as it comes it's too bad the mod can't fix it so the resistance soldiers don't always box you in either or that they can't get Alex off my dick in episode 1 seriously I know she's supposed to be infatuated with Gordon and I don't blame her but geez lady give the man some room apparently another update for the mod is still in the works planned for release either in 2020 or 20 21 and they'll probably have this done and dusted before Black Mesa is finished as well overall and mod is kind of hard to fault it adds in enough new stuff to justify playing through half-life 2 again but doesn't add in all that stuff to the point of ludicrous e and if someone told me that both had added all this new content in officially well I'd probably believe it [Music] so if you're looking for a reason to replay half-life 2 if even just to forget the fact that we're never going to play a third main game in this series well sunny Jim there are worse ways to go about it the mod is free it runs without a hitch and it does everything it says it's gonna do and you can't really ask for more than that anybody know just

Channel: GmanLives

Views: 831,462

Rating: 4.9101744 out of 5

Keywords: half-life 2, half life 2, half life, half-life 2 mmod, episode 1, episode 2, half-life 2 mod, cinematic mod, half-life 2 update, funny half life mods, black mesa xen, crowbar collective, hl2 mods, source engine, halflife 3, valve software, halflife alyx vr, alyx vr, gordon freeman, halflife mods, hl1 engine, first person shooter, fps games, gggmanlives, gmanlives, hl2 mmod, half life 2 mmod, weapon showcase, half life 2 speedrun, halflife 2 mmod review, mmod review

Id: fjrP9ip0ems

Length: 13min 38sec (818 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 04 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/colachan35]

Its been a long time