Mod for: Half-Life

Designed by: Greydog

Available here.

Time to completion: 2 – 4 hours

Hour-Glass

Warning: this mod contains adult material

If Coca-Cola and Playboy haven’t threatened Greydog with legal action, they soon will.

Hour-Glass, another Half-Life mod, takes off where Half-Life ended. Freeman is recruited into an organization (not unlike that of the Time Rippers from Space Quest IV) that has access to time travel. The mysterious black-suited G-man from Half-Life abuses it to achieve his personal goals and Freeman must put things right. (At least that’s what I think is going on.) The mod is broken up into several separate missions that each have specific goals, which range from killing some guy named Einstein working in the basement of a Coke manufacturing plant to collecting various power orbs and finding the exit. (There is a lot of key hunting involved.) Hour-Glass (HG) takes a little time to get started and once it does, it doesn’t do much to hold your interest. Taking a page from Duke Nukem’s book, HG has an area early on that contains lots of nudity (people will no doubt recognize that the pics have been ripped right from the pages of Playboy) and what can only be described as a lewd act. It’s an attempt at being funny but it comes off as being outright disgusting. Then disturbing as the "customer" fires a shot-gun into "the employee’s" chest in an attempt to take you out. Shooting an unarmed, unclothed woman might be considered entertainment by some, but the entire sequence is for shock value and adds zero to the mod. Aside from that area, the mod takes a conventional approach to level design. There are ducts to crawl through, lots of long hallways, and dank engine rooms. There is an inordinate amount of back tracking to do, especially because the levels are open to interpretation. You aren’t funneled in one direction in most cases, leaving you with some freedom to do what you want to do. The Coca-Cola level is a good example of this. In the basement where Einstein is hanging out there are several valves to open a close. But they don’t do anything – they’re just there. If you want to turn them, go ahead. In contrast there are other areas that look interesting but you can’t get to.

In terms of challenge, HG is slightly higher than middle of the road. Part of the challenge comes from avoiding spots that can immobilize you. This happened most often to me when going down elevators. The platform would get to the lower floor, then I was unable to move, forcing me to reload a game. One of the weapons can also screw up elevators. It shoots out little homing projectiles (the alien gun from HL), which have a habit of gumming up the works of elevators, either stalling or stopping them completely. There are some hidden areas that are actually worth finding. For the most part, they’re filled with useful items. What’s not useful is the tendency to be shot while watching a cutscene. One situation in particular got under my skin. A cutscene kicks in, two doors open, and two soldiers appear. One soldier is behind you, the other in front. It wouldn’t have been as bad if the cutscene didn’t kick in making you defenseless and allowing the soldiers to get in some cheap shots. Eventually I decided to set some trip mines by the door of the flanking soldier. Of course, when the cutscene started I was too close to the door and got blown up. It ceased to be fun after the third time. The cutscenes on the way to various planets are very good though.

Most of the weapons themselves are burrowed from HL but have different models – the knife is of the Klingon variety and the Star Trek phaser shoots like the gauss gun. The plasma gun from Quake II makes an appearance as well, but since the ammo is severely limited and your weapons get taken away at one point, it’s not very effective. (You’ll notice quite a few references to the Quake and Duke Nukem series.) If you know the weapons for HL, you’ll have no problem deciding which weapon to use to best approach a situation.

Hour-Glass has some brilliant flashes, like the shooting gallery in the Coke plant that has competing soft drink machines lined up as targets and the various weapon models, but it’s not a must have mod. More play testing was needed and some tightening of the level design to eliminate some the backtracking would have helped a lot. Plus, some of the elements of the story could have been eliminated altogether without affecting the overall story arc. If you must play all the HL mods, by all means download Hour-Glass, the price is right and the challenge is above average. But for the easily offended, frustrated, and annoyed, download something else.

All that being said, I hope Greydog continues to be involved in mod creation because he’s obviously got a great deal of talent. He’s just got to hone it.

Reviewed by Omni