This mod popped up on Slipgate Sightseer with a barebones description, promising '42 large complicated maps, custom sounds, textures, atmosphere' from its sole author, and I instantly knew I was in for an experience.
Mods like this always have such a specific vibe to them. The story is a fanfic about ranger's cool punk daughter, living in a future dystopia. Everything is kitbashed together with assets from half a dozen games and another dozen mod packs (you can almost make a game out of seeing how many Half-Life/UT99 textures you recognise). The environments are breathtakingly huge and laced with bespoke work. This is a labour of love, through and through.
And to be clear, it's not 'good' in the traditional sense. The vast levels are largely dead air—a problem exasperated by the obtuse critical path and lack of signposting—with enemies scattered loosely throughout them like so many crumbs upon an expansive, lavish carpet. One of the first things I was asked to do was throw myself onto the roof of a moving car on the highway below, and while I'd consider my air control in Quake-style engines to be relatively good, I definitely needed to quickload that one a few times. Even now, having only made it mid-way into the second level, I have serious concerns that I may have softlocked myself somehow. Maybe I'll just noclip through the gate that's blocking me and damn the consequences.
But I desperately want to press on, because I keep seeing glimpses of what they were going for, and I love it. You can feel the parts of the layouts that were almost certainly sketched out on some spare notebook paper. You can see what the set-pieces were meant to be, even if they are rather too ambitious for the primitive nature of the engine. Someone desperately wanted this mod to exist, and they weren't going to let anything stand in their way. Even if I'm not having fun, that kind of energy is intoxicating.
