I've played Human Error a long time ago, I tried again some years ago but I couldn't figure out how to make it work again after the source update, anyway as far as I remember it was a nice mod, some of the new models where a bit uncanny but decent and they even added new gameplay mechanics like remote manhack control or generators (ANDERS!) defense as well as new/old enemies from hl1. The ending was a bit meh, but considering it was a free mod it was more than enough (Also the ending song must become the anthem of CPs asap).
Entropy: zero on the other hand was unknown to me until today, so I decided to download it and play it immediatly: I left the difficulty on hard since I used to play hl2 like that and damn fucking son this game is a halberd in the anus when it comes to ramping it up.
- First of all, all weapons now deal more damage, including enemy ones, meaning they die faster but you do too.
- Rebels have still the pin-point accuracy they have in the vanilla game (in opposite to vanilla combine soldiers that where basically blind) and will one-shot you for kilometers aways the moment they hear one of your cell dividing, they are also put in the most nasty places waiting to jump at you, I had to repeat the apartment session like, 30 times because I ended up there with 2 hp and the machine gun guy kept killing me even while ducking behind the cabinets.
- Fast zombies apparently weren't deadly enough, so now they are almost silent, pitch-black so you can't see them in the already dark af levels and can kill you in two hits, the game also throws waves over waves at them in cramped spaces.
- The level design seems obsessed, expecially in the early levels, in putting as much prop_physics trash on the floor as possible, making even walking down a corridor a challenge, I died a couple of dozens of times because I got stuck on stuff laying around and got gunned down by the Webul with a shotgun™.
- It's nice they put night vision instead of the flashlight, except for the fact that it's not an actual night vision but just a gigantic flashlight, which means that if you try to peek from a corner of a dark room you'll still won't be able to see shit because of the wall's shadow. Also the "night vision" last so long and recharge so fast they may have as well put it infinite, what's not infinite however is the stamina, WHICH IS NOT SHOWN ON THE HUD.
- The levels are incredibly dark, I'm not talking to just those that were supposed to be such, like the zombo underground, but even those that were literally filled with lights are impossible to navigate without having to leave the NV on all the time, sometime I even forgot I had it on just before it ran out.
- Some of the puzzles are really trial and error, there's no hint on how to proceed and you either cheat or spend 20 minutes trying to figure how, and let's not talk about those that can lead to your death (like the final boss).
There's also some other minor details like the fact that without subtitles I couldn't decipher the muffled, cheeky banter of the main protagonist, that the hand and viewmodel manhack are ripped straight from Human Error (at least they credited it) and that the loooong bullet train section servers no purpose except maybe making a veiled reference to Afraid of monsters...? Am I the only one who saw that? Other than that it seems a pretty solid mod, I had no idea where the story was going though, only that there was an epidemy in City 10 and the Vortys were doing some creepy magic bullshit on a combine reactor or stuff like that. I give it a 7/10, the Dark Souls of Half life 2 Ep 2 mods.
