Game:

Half-Life (1998)

Duration: 0:00

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17

Author (original): https://web.archive.org/web/20010506003547/http://www.planethalflife.com/heartofevil/
Author (port): https://github.com/timbaker
Download: https://www.moddb.com/mods/heart-of-evil-source-port

This is an excellent port to Source Engine which have my favorite "Night Dive" vibes. Original graphics and gameplay are preserved, but advantages of newer engine are used very wisely. Instead of clunky func_trains, we now have vehicle system, so it's possible to properly enter trucks and helicopters we ride, and NPCs do that now too. Instead of on-screen messages, there's now a GUI for reading the documents we found.

Half-Life 2's better pathfinding and Rebel Squad GUI are used to greatly improve the experience with friendly NPC.

And, of course, better animation system and ragdolls.

Only questionable addition is stamina system from HL2. It doesn't look right here and all other ports of mods to Half-Life Source I've played had unlimited stamina like the originals.

Heart of Evil author has strong understanding that work of art must be coherent. The graphics look kinda simple and nonsensical due to limitations of used engine, so to form this coherence everything else becomes just as ludicrous — a repeat of design of Rise of the Triad from 1995.

Nonsense of graphics is made even stronger by characters who are modified NPCs from HL1 and skies made in Terragen by someone who doesn't have a lot of knowledge in using this tool. Such skies looked as unconvincing back then as AI generated imagery today, because anyone could make them with a few mouse clicks without involvement of skill.

There is a strong foundation in story design: "sadly, main character lacks the intelligence", and this will lead to plot twists, funny dialogues and how things have to be dealt with.

The way events are designed is also taken to the extreme to be laughed at. Door is locked? You can't find the right key and evetually get mad and call an airstrike.

Humorous nature also helps to lift a lot of weight from gloomy and dark themes explored in the story, but closer to the end humor will go away to make them strike. Even bullet-spongy zombies are not annoying here because there's a good reason for them to be like that: they are a symbol of how bad the things go.

Only flaw of the mod: after the first hour it gets too protracted and convoluted with huge explorable areas, easy to miss key items, making the playtime a lot longer than it should be. The author wanted to make a parody of complicated key search but instead of a parody created an annoying version of it.

There's one of the best depictions of Black Mesa I've ever seen. That moment where you go to work as usual in the train, but train tracks are lower than they should be and there's ground from Xen, then scientist greets you at reception and... falls!

Final levels are thankfully not so convoluted and feel rewarding enough to justify suffering through earlier parts. That final helicopter though... the level is too mazy to be able to reach it in time and it always drops enemies when you're not around. I had to use a rocket jump to get to that helicopter from the rooftops.

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