Todesangt

for Half-Life

"Todesangst introduces the new sinister character Dr. Jack Newell, expert chaos theory mathematician and Director of Black Mesa R&D. Gordon Freeman and Dr. Newell have always had an adversarial relationship at best, and Gordon's hero status following the containment of Xen only served to inflame Dr. Newell's hatred and jealousy of him.

The timeframe for Todesangst is set shortly after Gordon Freeman's successful return from Xen. The episode opens with a cut-scene of Mr. Blackstone (a.k.a. the G-man) arriving at Dr. Newell's office. As we soon discover, Dr. Newell has had Mr. Blackstone in his control all along, and has his own intentions for the exploitation of Xen's biological uniqueness. . .

Its up to you, Gordon, to stop your evil colleague from unleashing the horror of Xen on humanity. . . if its not too late. . ."

So goes the creator’s summation of this mod for Half-Life. It’s a good setup but it falls short of making it a sinister must-play user mod.

I don’t like to give hammering criticism to mods because I know how much effort it can be to create one. As good as WorldCraft is, it’s still tough to learn, and anyone willing to give up large amounts of his or her own time (and not get paid for it) to create a mod deserves a slap on the back. They do it for love. Okay, not all of them do it for love.

The mod creator, Daryn Waite, admits that he worked on the project off and on for a couple of years and it shows. There are several "mirrorred" areas. You’ll battle through an area then encounter the same layout you just went through. It’s a short-cut method of extending the length of the mod and it just annoyed me. That being said, there are few innovative areas. Half-Life was known for it’s "jump out of your skin" moments of terror, but Todesangst only has one or two of these moments. One has an assassin and a marine come flying out of an elevator. It takes the routine (getting on the elevator) and turns it into a "Crap!" moment. You can fight the foes or jump into the elevator and make a run for it. There are actually afew cases where running, instead of fighting, is a better strategy.

At one point you can attempt to take out a helicopter with a piece of military hardware. Operating the launcher is tough and way before you get a grip on the controls you’ll be "blowed up real good." But the confrontation is optional – just run like hell.

There are a few new voices and music in Todesangst but they’re all amateurish (Duh!) but they do an adequate job of moving everything along. The story is inconsistent. Mr. Blackstone gets killed in the first five minutes in a set-up that any fool could see coming. Blackstone’s the same guy that managed to survive the original Black Mesa mess without ever pulling a gun! The cutscenes are basically good, although they suffer a bit from odd and unchanging camera angles. Aside from my gripe about the level design, there are actually some interesting areas, like one of Black Mesa’s lobbies and an aquarium. Which brings me to the water sections. For some reason Freeman moves twice as fast in the water as he does on land. Someone must have added an outboard motor to his Hazard Suit!

Even though there are some flaws, I still found myself playing straight through without ever saying, "This isn’t worth my time." It’s a pretty quick mod to play through, not too difficult, and it could have used a little more tweaking, but it’s fairly painless, which makes it good for a few aimless thrills if you’ve got nothing else to play.

And if you're into mods, it's worth your time to visit the Todesangst site. It's got some good tips and explanations.

- Omni

You must have the full version of Half-Life to play Todesangst