Ennui
The Freeman
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2003
- Messages
- 22,711
- Reaction score
- 116
Mod Hall of Fame is an editorial series devoted to bringing well-deserved attention to the best and most interesting Half-Life 2 mods of all time. Each installment focuses on a specific modification and highlights the qualities that make it an enduring classic worth a download by any Source modding enthusiast.
The core premise of the modification Research and Development is poignantly simple: you never get to use a weapon, at least not in the conventional sense of the term. There is not a firearm or even a crowbar to be found in the entire extent of the singleplayer campaign (which lasts from two to three hours depending on your pace and how good you are at solving puzzles), except of course for those in the hands of the Combine forces attempting to thwart you by shooting you full of bullets. In stark contrast with the standard run-and-gun formula of most singleplayer maps and mods set in the Half-Life 2 universe, Research and Development forces you to truly engage with the environment; you are equipped only with the Gravity Gun and faced with the task of surmounting a series of increasingly difficult environmental puzzles. The result is nothing short of beautiful – a mod that in some aspects is even better than Half-Life 2 itself.
Created solely by the elusive developer Matt Bortolino, Research and Development appeared on the mod scene in July 2009 without a hint of the pomp and fanfare normally associated with a major mod release – Bortolino quietly uploaded it to ModDB one day and left it at that. Word spread quickly and the mod exploded in popularity, receiving well-deserved attention from both the gaming press and modding enthusiasts. Today it is considered by many to be among the finest singleplayer Source modifications in existence, along with Adam Foster’s Minerva series.
Many popular Source mods distinguish themselves by virtue of having a visual aesthetic and gameplay style that depart significantly from the familiar look and feel of the Half-Life games (think of mods like Dystopia or Insurgency), but Research and Development does just the opposite: it excels by taking those elements that made the Half-Life series so good in the first place and ruthlessly improving upon them. The result is a game that both looks and feels distinctly like Half-Life (R&D has more vent-crawling than you can shake a stick at) yet improves upon the environmental puzzle aspects of the original game in every conceivable way. Clad in the same tired palette we’re all too familiar with from every other Source mod out there – stained concrete, chipped plaster and corrugated metal siding – Research and Development nevertheless manages to deliver a fresh, exciting, and intelligent experience that even Valve would have been proud to create.
The emphasis of the mod is on environmental puzzles, with combat taking a secondary role that usually involves catching grenades or mines and chucking them back towards whatever is trying to kill you. You’ll face and defeat everything from Combine soldiers (and Zombines) to Hunter-Killer choppers, gunships and even a Strider, all by using the environment to your advantage. In addition to old Half-Life standbys like stacking crates and changing water levels, there are dozens of fresh environmental puzzle mechanics introduced throughout the mod. Some are as simple as knocking rusted pipes out of place, scrounging cogs to fix broken machines or using cables to complete a circuit, but many are much more involved and require significant effort, attention to environmental clues and sheer brainpower to solve. The difficulty of these complex puzzles is heightened by the fact that you often have to solve them under duress – navigating a maze of zombies while a Hunter-Killer drops roller mines on you, or quickly switching track junctions while riding on a rail cart as Combine soldiers toss a hail of grenades at you in a segment reminiscent of the “On a Rail” chapter of the original Half-Life.
At times, the amount of attention to detail and environmental context clues makes the mod seem almost like a classic adventure game being channeled into a more modern and accessible form. The “use” button is just as important as the Gravity Gun, and without examining the environment and thinking about what is presented logically you won’t get very far at all. The very first puzzle you are faced with at the beginning of the mod is simple: read a note tacked to the wall in front of a cage holding an antlion carapace that emphasizes its flame-retardant properties and drop it on a nearby fire that is preventing you from proceeding. It gets much harder from there, but by virtue of Bortolino’s nearly flawless level design the mod holds your hand the entire way, gently introducing you to the various new puzzle mechanics before cranking the difficulty up. That doesn’t mean that it can’t get frustrating at times – it certainly does – but with very few exceptions the frustration is always a result of your inability as a player to solve the puzzle before you, not at the mod itself for being unclear or misleading.
For those of you who are saying “But I like combat!” never fear – there are plenty of combat-oriented segments too, and you get shot at quite a lot during the course of the campaign. However, you have to use the environment to your advantage to dispatch your opponents in unorthodox ways. At one moment you’ll be using pheromones to direct antlions against waves of Combine soldiers and at another you’ll build a makeshift vehicle with which to take on a fearsome Strider. Many combat segments require deflecting incoming fire by holding a pane of bulletproof glass as a shield while looking for a way to use the environment to take down your foe. You’ll lob mines back at the choppers who dropped them, grenades back at the Zombines who rise from the murk, and only rarely make use of the tried-and-true method of launching something heavy at the bad guys with the Gravity Gun. The mod has fantastic pacing, alternating pulse-pounding action segments with more contemplative puzzle segments; all in all, the mod is so well-designed that it feels like something Valve produced rather than the effort of one guy in his spare time.
Research and Development is so sublime because it achieves the tenuous balance between using the familiar setting, atmosphere and mechanics of the Half-Life 2 universe while simultaneously offering a refreshingly novel gameplay experience and in every way improving upon the purely puzzle-based aspects of the Half-Life series. It takes the shooting out of first-person shooter and replaces it with an imaginative sequence of puzzles and challenges worthy of any great point and click adventure game without sacrificing the intensity and action to which shooter fans are accustomed. Whatever you want to call it, it is without question one of the most enjoyable and rewarding experiences available in the entire Source mod library, and if you’ve never been exposed to it you owe it to yourself to get acquainted immediately.
The core premise of the modification Research and Development is poignantly simple: you never get to use a weapon, at least not in the conventional sense of the term. There is not a firearm or even a crowbar to be found in the entire extent of the singleplayer campaign (which lasts from two to three hours depending on your pace and how good you are at solving puzzles), except of course for those in the hands of the Combine forces attempting to thwart you by shooting you full of bullets. In stark contrast with the standard run-and-gun formula of most singleplayer maps and mods set in the Half-Life 2 universe, Research and Development forces you to truly engage with the environment; you are equipped only with the Gravity Gun and faced with the task of surmounting a series of increasingly difficult environmental puzzles. The result is nothing short of beautiful – a mod that in some aspects is even better than Half-Life 2 itself.
Created solely by the elusive developer Matt Bortolino, Research and Development appeared on the mod scene in July 2009 without a hint of the pomp and fanfare normally associated with a major mod release – Bortolino quietly uploaded it to ModDB one day and left it at that. Word spread quickly and the mod exploded in popularity, receiving well-deserved attention from both the gaming press and modding enthusiasts. Today it is considered by many to be among the finest singleplayer Source modifications in existence, along with Adam Foster’s Minerva series.
Many popular Source mods distinguish themselves by virtue of having a visual aesthetic and gameplay style that depart significantly from the familiar look and feel of the Half-Life games (think of mods like Dystopia or Insurgency), but Research and Development does just the opposite: it excels by taking those elements that made the Half-Life series so good in the first place and ruthlessly improving upon them. The result is a game that both looks and feels distinctly like Half-Life (R&D has more vent-crawling than you can shake a stick at) yet improves upon the environmental puzzle aspects of the original game in every conceivable way. Clad in the same tired palette we’re all too familiar with from every other Source mod out there – stained concrete, chipped plaster and corrugated metal siding – Research and Development nevertheless manages to deliver a fresh, exciting, and intelligent experience that even Valve would have been proud to create.
The emphasis of the mod is on environmental puzzles, with combat taking a secondary role that usually involves catching grenades or mines and chucking them back towards whatever is trying to kill you. You’ll face and defeat everything from Combine soldiers (and Zombines) to Hunter-Killer choppers, gunships and even a Strider, all by using the environment to your advantage. In addition to old Half-Life standbys like stacking crates and changing water levels, there are dozens of fresh environmental puzzle mechanics introduced throughout the mod. Some are as simple as knocking rusted pipes out of place, scrounging cogs to fix broken machines or using cables to complete a circuit, but many are much more involved and require significant effort, attention to environmental clues and sheer brainpower to solve. The difficulty of these complex puzzles is heightened by the fact that you often have to solve them under duress – navigating a maze of zombies while a Hunter-Killer drops roller mines on you, or quickly switching track junctions while riding on a rail cart as Combine soldiers toss a hail of grenades at you in a segment reminiscent of the “On a Rail” chapter of the original Half-Life.
At times, the amount of attention to detail and environmental context clues makes the mod seem almost like a classic adventure game being channeled into a more modern and accessible form. The “use” button is just as important as the Gravity Gun, and without examining the environment and thinking about what is presented logically you won’t get very far at all. The very first puzzle you are faced with at the beginning of the mod is simple: read a note tacked to the wall in front of a cage holding an antlion carapace that emphasizes its flame-retardant properties and drop it on a nearby fire that is preventing you from proceeding. It gets much harder from there, but by virtue of Bortolino’s nearly flawless level design the mod holds your hand the entire way, gently introducing you to the various new puzzle mechanics before cranking the difficulty up. That doesn’t mean that it can’t get frustrating at times – it certainly does – but with very few exceptions the frustration is always a result of your inability as a player to solve the puzzle before you, not at the mod itself for being unclear or misleading.
For those of you who are saying “But I like combat!” never fear – there are plenty of combat-oriented segments too, and you get shot at quite a lot during the course of the campaign. However, you have to use the environment to your advantage to dispatch your opponents in unorthodox ways. At one moment you’ll be using pheromones to direct antlions against waves of Combine soldiers and at another you’ll build a makeshift vehicle with which to take on a fearsome Strider. Many combat segments require deflecting incoming fire by holding a pane of bulletproof glass as a shield while looking for a way to use the environment to take down your foe. You’ll lob mines back at the choppers who dropped them, grenades back at the Zombines who rise from the murk, and only rarely make use of the tried-and-true method of launching something heavy at the bad guys with the Gravity Gun. The mod has fantastic pacing, alternating pulse-pounding action segments with more contemplative puzzle segments; all in all, the mod is so well-designed that it feels like something Valve produced rather than the effort of one guy in his spare time.
Research and Development is so sublime because it achieves the tenuous balance between using the familiar setting, atmosphere and mechanics of the Half-Life 2 universe while simultaneously offering a refreshingly novel gameplay experience and in every way improving upon the purely puzzle-based aspects of the Half-Life series. It takes the shooting out of first-person shooter and replaces it with an imaginative sequence of puzzles and challenges worthy of any great point and click adventure game without sacrificing the intensity and action to which shooter fans are accustomed. Whatever you want to call it, it is without question one of the most enjoyable and rewarding experiences available in the entire Source mod library, and if you’ve never been exposed to it you owe it to yourself to get acquainted immediately.
