People sure love playing as the bad guy, huh?
(Spoiler Warning)
I tend to really enjoy game mods in Source, something about how they play always scratches a good itch for me and I can tend to put up with a mediocre experience due to that. Entropy: Zero fits that spot to a tee, it's an alright HL2:E2 mod that functions and has some neat ideas but is pretty unremarkable
The tone is probably the strongest part of the game, I think it does a good job at imitating HL2's vibe despite being the story being on the opposite foot. Instead of the misery of the world having a tinge of hope due to Gordon's appearance, you're the one removing any and all hope the rebels could have had. It's really effective when clearing out the streets at the beginning where you see the rebel call-outs in a different light, and I found the most effective use to be the stealth section: you hear the rebels all chatting about how they'll go on after the war in their compound with hacked turrets. Once you sneak to the final room, you can revert the hack, leading to every turret firing for a single second causing the entire area to go dead silent. Something about that really stuck with me and I was expecting more of that throughout the game
Instead the rest of the game was mostly focused on slogging through the underground and citadel with boring puzzles and a lot of searching for the right item/place to use an item. None of the puzzles were engaging and they all felt like artificial reasons to lock the player from progressing forward instead of being more diegetic like the ones in the Half-Life games. I did shockingly find the escort section to be enjoyable, the pace at which enemies were sent at you combined with the size of the area and the speed of the escort target made it so I felt like I was constantly doing something without being overwhelmed
And then comes the two boss fights after all that, both sucking major ass. Both have issues where it's hard to tell whether the damage you're doing is affecting the boss and both bugged out on me multiple times, with the first refusing to go to the next area in its first phase and the second not taking any damage in its final phase (I had quite a few bugs throughout the brief hour and a half I spent but those two were the worst).
It's fortunate the weapons aren't the issue at least, they're more or less the same to base HL2 except they feel a bit more potent overall and the modified AR2 feels amazing. I played on the hardest difficulty but never felt like I was having too much trouble, they give you plenty of ammo and health/shield throughout the game but not too much of an excess so reckless players can still easily die. I think the only issue that comes up relating to this is the few sections with endlessly spawning enemies aren't very fun since there isn't much risk if you carefully position yourself
Entropy: Zero is an alright hour and a half to two hour experience that won't amaze you but won't enrage you. Honestly I played the game just because I wanted to play the sequel, but I'd say it was somewhat worth my time (especially because it's free)
(Spoiler Warning)
I tend to really enjoy game mods in Source, something about how they play always scratches a good itch for me and I can tend to put up with a mediocre experience due to that. Entropy: Zero fits that spot to a tee, it's an alright HL2:E2 mod that functions and has some neat ideas but is pretty unremarkable
The tone is probably the strongest part of the game, I think it does a good job at imitating HL2's vibe despite being the story being on the opposite foot. Instead of the misery of the world having a tinge of hope due to Gordon's appearance, you're the one removing any and all hope the rebels could have had. It's really effective when clearing out the streets at the beginning where you see the rebel call-outs in a different light, and I found the most effective use to be the stealth section: you hear the rebels all chatting about how they'll go on after the war in their compound with hacked turrets. Once you sneak to the final room, you can revert the hack, leading to every turret firing for a single second causing the entire area to go dead silent. Something about that really stuck with me and I was expecting more of that throughout the game
Instead the rest of the game was mostly focused on slogging through the underground and citadel with boring puzzles and a lot of searching for the right item/place to use an item. None of the puzzles were engaging and they all felt like artificial reasons to lock the player from progressing forward instead of being more diegetic like the ones in the Half-Life games. I did shockingly find the escort section to be enjoyable, the pace at which enemies were sent at you combined with the size of the area and the speed of the escort target made it so I felt like I was constantly doing something without being overwhelmed
And then comes the two boss fights after all that, both sucking major ass. Both have issues where it's hard to tell whether the damage you're doing is affecting the boss and both bugged out on me multiple times, with the first refusing to go to the next area in its first phase and the second not taking any damage in its final phase (I had quite a few bugs throughout the brief hour and a half I spent but those two were the worst).
It's fortunate the weapons aren't the issue at least, they're more or less the same to base HL2 except they feel a bit more potent overall and the modified AR2 feels amazing. I played on the hardest difficulty but never felt like I was having too much trouble, they give you plenty of ammo and health/shield throughout the game but not too much of an excess so reckless players can still easily die. I think the only issue that comes up relating to this is the few sections with endlessly spawning enemies aren't very fun since there isn't much risk if you carefully position yourself
Entropy: Zero is an alright hour and a half to two hour experience that won't amaze you but won't enrage you. Honestly I played the game just because I wanted to play the sequel, but I'd say it was somewhat worth my time (especially because it's free)