Unholy - GrandmasterJ

 

    Don't let the fancy title screen that looks like the X-Files fool you, this is a Black Mesa adventure. Players take on the role of scientists trying to escape the disaster, unsuccessfully.

SCMapDB page

Original map author:LetKyx Team

Conversion author: Outerbeast

Date of original mod release:2004

Date of final Sven Map release: 2019

Maps in package:4

Map review of Unholy

(originally posted on SCMapDB) 

by GrandmasterJ | February 11, 2023 | 2613 characters

    Unholy is a Half-Life mod that takes place back in Black Mesa, this time we play as a scientist and the twist is we aren't as cool as Gordon Freeman. Honestly the whole thing is mostly vents and is mercifully short.

    We start off with a cutscene, I get to see it but my teammate who joins after the map starts does gets to watch a wall. After turning off survival mode we get into the map proper and its a lot of vents. There are some rooms, some hallways, tons of vents, and it is all Black Mesa themed so it all blends together in a forgettable blur. The extensive use of vents certainly does not help.

    The series is four maps long but it goes by so fast. Players collect weapons fairly quickly at first but then it drops off at the end. On the last map there was a gargantua we kept running by that was really annoying and we had no explosives. Or at least we thought we didn't, pretty much right before the series ended I found some grenades nearby and managed to kill the garg.

    After we beat the map we got a good look at each other as we hung suspended in a black void over a yellow and black caution stripe platform. Then a cutscene plays for my teammate but not for me, I get to watch his stupid face hover in front of mine. I don't even get to see the game text being displayed for him. There was some kicking rad music at the end though.

    This series is short and semisweet. There's far too much vent action, a standard arsenal that does not keep up in the end, and the interesting cutscenes don't work for all players. The broken cutscenes make it seem like this map wasn't well converted. The bland level design, heavy emphasis on vents, and frankly uninspired weapon selection and enemy composition don't help things. The shortness of the map is really to its benefit. It's all over before things can really start to grate. I don't know why the map is called 'Unholy', as far as I can tell there is nothing to that effect in-game. It's all real standard Half-Life 1 mod stuff.

Pros:

  • the short length of the map series is really for the best
  • it's a straightfoward walkthrough map
  • fun end sequence music

Cons:

  • Entirely forgettable, mostly vents
  • player weapons slow down in the last map, we have to deal with a garg before getting grenades
  • cutscenes don't work for multiple players
  • enemies are thrown at the players haphazardly and the weapon selection isn't great
Score: 5.5 / 10

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