This is an interesting take on 'Half Life'. For anyone who actually played the PC classic, this NES version plays exactly true to the game. HOWEVER, though this was a good idea, there are a couple of niggling areas of the game that irked me.
For the record, I played till the end!
1- Nes sounds are pretty much spot on, 9/10
2- Storyplot- exactly EXACTLY the same, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, which is a good thing!
3- Controls, simple and easy enough to learn.
4- Game lay out exactly the same as PC (or close to!) Brought back good memories!
Now, the negatives:
1- The health of the character throughout the game, was ridiculously low, not against the zombies/ face huggers per say, but DEFINITELY against the grunts/ soldiers.
2- You missed out the 'save when you want' function. Ie, there were many scenarios where I had absolutely close to 0 health, yet I had to willingly enter a gun fight/ sentry fight with 20-30 hp, which is definitely not enough against bullet based monsters.
3- You missed out the 'heal' and 'defence' stations that were the BIGGEST lifesavers of the PC game. Perhaps a zone were you could heal and boost defence would have helped the player have a smoother experience, preferably after an 'auto save'.
4- You also missed out...the most iconic part of the game: smashing crates with a crow bar! HOW COULD YOU! THAT IS SACRILEGE!- possibly a more satisfying 'break box' sound would of etched my score for the game.
5- There was no menu that could be accessed to change game options, i.e., music, sound,even a return to main screen option would of been nice.
6- After completion of the game, there was no way of returning back to the main game page (i.e., it didn't revert back to the home title screen.
7- Enemies were a bit...naff. I got round most scenarios by exploiting their inability to see me at a certain distance whilst unloading a whole clip in to the enemies face-although if they were any smarter, I probably would not have finished the game at all!
Enemies also have a tendency to run away from me when I chase them and vice versa.
Exploited the enemies so that when they DID eventually try to attack me, I would wait for them behind a corner before they would very slowly, come round it...(hope that made sense, I can't explain it any better...they kind of homed onto my location despite a wall being present, and if I moved left or right, they would follow me left and right, which is what I exploited in the game!)
ALSO!
GRENADES ARE ABSOLUTELY USELESS AS THERE IS NO 'HOW FAR DO YOU WANT TO THROW THIS' GAUGE! THIS IS PARTICULARLY FRUSTRATING IF AN ENEMY IS IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ARENA AND THE GRENADE GOES PAST AND THROUGH THE ENEMY BEFORE STOPPING ON A SOLID OBJECT LIKE A WALL!
The most annoying experience with the grenade was the turret room.IF the turret was next to a wall, the grenade would stop accordingly and destroy it. If the turret was in the middle of the room, HA good luck with getting precise distance (in some cases, you couldn't even achieve the correct distance for the grenade to land because the turret would of gunned you down by then!FAIL!
Movement of character was also a bit annoying, i.e., in a combat situation, you would NOT be able to move the character DIAGONALLY which would of helped a BIG bunch, especially against gun totting enemies!
In my opinion, I would of opted for a 'use the mouse to aim' function as that would of at least helped the player have a fair advantage over the enemy, as they too, can shoot diagonally whilst moving OR stationary!
Re-spawns of enemies are quite annoying, i.e., I distinctly remember, after dying near a room full of turrets, a whole bunch of face huggers would re-spawn, even after I had cleared that area of the map before! ( I was trying to retrace steps to collect Med kits, but was annoyed to see a whole load of 'revamped' turrets and face huggers. NOT COOL!
No land mind options, which would of helped a bunch.
Weapons could not be cycled by pressing 1,2,3,4 etc. If you're a half life fan, you know the classic weapon numbers, i.e., 1 was crowbar, 2 was pistol, 3 was shot gun, 4 was machine gun, etc. You get the idea.
Conclusion:
Although this NES version of Half Life showed glimpses of the PC classic, it is let down by the flaws listed above. This is not to say it is a bad game. For a fan of the franchise, I thought this was not too bad..however due to sub standard controls, user interface, playability, annoying enemies and no breakable crates (did I say that was sacrilege?!) it falls short of being a potentially epic game.
I believe that the controls and playability need to be similar to something like 'Binding of Isaac'. If the control system is not good, you already have a failed game IMO- but based on the effort on the NES graphics and the attention to detail in terms of layout and pretty much identical scenarios of the PC classic, it gets an 'above average' score.
Other than that, I did enjoy the game overall, but a couple of improvements here and there would of made this an extremely fun one.
Hopefully in part 2? :D
Good luck with the series, I will be looking forward to reminiscing more...KUDOS to that!
M