Dark Interval is a campaign mod created as an alternate take on Half-Life 2, incorporating selected early story drafts and cut content. We're creating new maps, assets, characters and story beats to fill in the blanks, and to build a coherent story of its own. The mod is released in episodes, the most recent being Dark Interval: Part I - an intro chapter to the bigger picture.
Shaping up quite nicely. I wish there was more ambient noice however.
Nice Game continue with great work. I hope there will be part 2 soon :3
Before update: 6/10
After: 10/10
Good work!
This is for Dark Interval: Part 1 released on October 19th, as I never played Chapter 1.
I enjoyed the modernized and recreated versions of leak maps, there were some pretty cool puzzles in there. The atmosphere and theme was consistent throughout all the maps and it definitely had the "Alternate beta" Half-Life 2 feel. Using a single weapon throughout a section was pretty cool, it was nice to see the Immolater in a new, high def model! It was great to see the Manhack Arcade and a fully playable, amusing game. New dialogue was nice. The intro scene and the outro scene were fantastic, especially the Combine Assassin at the end.
There are a few cons that aren't major or gamebreaking just a few annoyances I noticed throughout the way:
-Lighting is REALLY dark in some areas, I had my flashlight on for a lot of the game.
-Some NPC's have no interaction or dialogue, and were standing there lifeless, and there were no facial anims but I read this is being addressed!
-Some of the level transitions are strange, for example before you arrive at Kleiner's lab. You climb up a ladder, but once you arrive at the next section of map there is no door or anywhere to imply were you just came from.
-Movement speed felt a little too slow for the big maps, I would recommend implementing unlimited sprint, as it felt tedious to walk so slowly when you couldn't sprint.
-The optimization on a few maps was poor, I would have steady FPS on most maps but on a few maps with steam particles, FPS would tank.
-A nodraw areas such as behind a door where you could peek through the map
Overall I enjoyed this mod very much and I cannot wait to see more content. This is very coherent and structured version of a Half-Life 2 beta interpretation, storyline wise and I can't wait to see where the devs take it.
9!
Seriously, try this. It's an experience of it's own. Like Black Mesa, the mod takes the original source and turns it into it's own entity. It's so good.
What should i say? it is just the best hl2 mod i´ve ever played - and it were a vast number...
It is really good to see some release of this mod. Well, this work is still very far from a complete mod, but how many "old story" based mods were cancelled without any significant content produced? There we can see a lot of work and effort put into the mod, and, though, it has some minor technical issues, nevertheless, it is something solid and playable. Especially impressive is the fact, that this is moslty a work by only one person. Obviously, this work based on the leaked content (like all other "old story" mods out there), but everyone, who ever saw or worked with this stuff, know, how much of work need to be put into, before you get something working, playable and good-looking.
What's good.
1. The visuals. The design of this mod is just impressive. It was already known by seeing those numerous screenshots of work-in-progress, but now we can "touch" it and see in every detail, in "live".
And still, playing the mod gave me some surprises. Some places really look like continuation of Viktor Antonov's concepts! Probably, I spent hours on these maps by just looking all these details.
Also, the mod includes two version of "industrial": ch01_industrial (the "official" one) and rej_industrial (the "rejected" one). It is interesting to compare, how the level was changed during development, and shows to us, how uneasy could be level-designer's decision. So much were cut... that's pity, although the final version, indeed, much more solid in gameplay sense, and has the great visuals too.
2. Perfomance. I have 8 years old middle-budget PC. And, though I played at almost highest settings, I can't complain about low framerate or lags. The mod runs pretty smoothly.
3. The gameplay. It is not just a collection of some redesigned "beta" maps. We not just walking around, at least, not the most of the time. Sometimes, one should put some effort to find his path. Sometimes, we need to interact with friendly NPC, and there are even some enemies to fight. Although, in this chapter we almost have no weapons, fightings are not tough or unfair.
4. The sound. There is a good and unique ambient atmosphere on each map.
5. It's alive! Some players (including me) just love to see pre-incidental levels, in which we can see the life before something goes wrong and player enters into fast-pacing action (like the first maps of Half-Life and Half-Life 2). Chapter 1 of Dark Interval is completely "pre-incidental". Nevertheless, there is some action too, what differs it from HL and HL2.
What's bad.
1. Bad playtime-to-size ratio. Although, the mod takes a lot of space, it could take less than an hour or even half an hour (if you already know where to go and how to act) to complete. It is actually not a surprise, because the mod is highly-detailed and has much of content. And there are only a few maps. I think, when there will be much more levels done, this ratio will become much better.
2. There is almost no new monsters or weapons. Because this is an "old story" mod, our highest expectation are concerned about cut NPCs and weaponry. Most likely, their time still has to come. In the end, only one, introductionary chapter, was done by now, so, we could expect to see new stuff some time later.
3. Some level parts tend to disappear. Most of the time you probably won't notice that, but if you examine the level carefully, eventually you will see it. At first, I thought, it is perfomance problem of my old hardware, but after talking with the developer, I understood, that his levels just reached some limitations of Source engine.
Anyway, I don't think this is a critical thing, at least, it does not affect gameplay, and, as I have said before, most of the time you even won't notice it.
4. No voice act. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible for one-man team to create full game from scratch with all new contents, characters and voices. One still can make the game by his own, but something should be sacrificed. Voice act is the hardest part, because voices should be unique to make no confusion for players.
And this is when the community should come for help. I hope, eventually Cvoxalury will find some good-sounding volunteers for his mod.
Currently, instead of voices we got text messages. Probably, it is better, than to have poor voice-acting.
5. Besides the great visuals, I haven't seen much. In Half-Life 2 we saw and heard a lot of interesting things, watch some scenes, etc. No, in Chapter 1 there are some scenes too, but they were took directly from Half-Life 2, and they didn't attract much of my attention. It would be good too see some new scenes... Probably, this is another thing, the author had to sacrifice to make the release possible.
I omit here some minor technical problems, but I spoke about them directly with the developer. Anyway, most likely, all these problems are temporary things, and will gradually disapper whilst the mod develops. Because of it, I am not going to judge this mod strongly for now.
Sorry, 1 rate was 'casue of Step4enko. Really sorry for that.
Amazing...