Modding. It's not just staple of PC gaming, it is PC gaming. Aside from graphical capabilities and the convenience offered by services like Steam, it's what sets the PC apart from the console crowd as a platform. Mods extend the life of old games considerably (someone out there is probably working on a Quake 1 mod as I write this) and give the consumer more value for his or her money. Unfortunately, the vast majority of ambitious mods disintegrate well before the alpha stage, and the ones that are released are often bug-ridden and severely lacking in polish. Well folks, I'm happy to tell you that that is decidedly not the case with Nightmare House 2. It is polished to a standard one would expect from a AAA retail game, not something made by a few people working in their spare time. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that there's only one thing about NH2 that would make it unacceptable as a retail release (besides its brevity) but more on that later...
Nightmare House 2 is the sequel to a little-known Half Life 2 mod that basically involved shooting re-skinned zombies in a haunted house. I know this not because I played the original (surprising, considering how obsessed I am with HL2 mods) but because a polished up version is included here as a prologue. While the the first game is well made, particularly in the scripting department, it still feels a bit amateurish and does a poor job of setting up for the far, far superior sequel. Fortunately, it only lasts about ten or fifteen minutes and you'll forget all about it once the first chapter of NH2 begins.
The game proper starts in an abandoned hospital. You awaken, as usual, not knowing where you are or how you got there. The first thing that struck me about NH2 is how much it feels like a retail game. The voice acting is top notch. The environment doesn't feel recycled from Half Life in the slightest. New visual effects, models, animations, and even color correction all make this feel like its own game, not something that was tacked on to a preexisting one. As you make your way through the impressively ominous corridors, you'll come across several excellently scripted events right off the bat. Doors slam in your face. Lights flicker on and off. Dead bodies come to life when you aren't looking and sneak up behind you. These touches really sell the idea that this is a professionally made product rather than something cooked up by amateurs in their free time.
The level design is mostly good, guiding the player through the hospital without making it feel too linear, though there were a few times when the next step wasn't as clear as I would have liked. As you progress though this nightmare, the focus begins to shift from horror to action, which might bother some players. I actually enjoyed the change of tone, since there are only so many times a collapsing floor or pitch black room can be scary. Throughout the game you'll come across shrinking hallways and vents, zombies, a wisecracking SWAT team, and a very generic ghost woman, which leads to my biggest complaint of the game. It is just plain too derivative of games that have come before -- especially Monolith games. There are many scenes, ideas, and events ripped directly from F.E.A.R and Condemned, and not in an "homage" type way. They're just stolen. It's not a game breaking problem, but it left me scratching my head at what the developers were thinking. When a mod is this good, it really makes unprofessional things like that stick out like a sore thumb.
Despite this rather large flaw, Nightmare House 2 is absolutely worth playing, and certainly ranks with the best mods of all time. Besides, you can't argue with the price, right?
Check out Nightmare House 2 at http://www.moddb.com/mods/nightmare-house-2
R.E.P
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