Half Life 2 review... with a diffrence...

now... seeing that the first half life 2 game was released all the way back in 2004, you must be all wondering what the hell i am doing reviewing a game over 6 years old, but yet this review is not on about the half life 2 you all know and love, this is about a version of half life 2 which is really not that well known about, i am talking about one of the biggest mods ever made in the gaming world, i am of course talking about the half life 2 "cinematic mod" 10...

http://cinematicmod.com/index.php

the cinematic mod is done by a small team known as the "fake factory", they have been for several years now slowly upgrading the entire half life 2 series to modern stnadards, by editing every level in the entire game by adding much more detail then what was in the original half life 2 game. they have done all of this, (editing every level in half life 2, episode 1 and 2 as well) but keeping the original feeling of the game, like the still annoying car trying to boost over huge gaps (and failing 90% of the time) and still being scared half to death as you go through ravenholm. the cinematic mod also aduges HDR and Bloom settings as well in the source as well to make the visural effects as stunning as possable, it also edits thousands of textures, upgrading them to much higher resolutions and gives the game a much more darker feel as well by editing most of the lighting in the game (even going as far as editing the particle effects in the game as well) the mod also edits every gun in the game, making them alot more modern and stylish, as well as editing every npc in the game as well to have HD meshes and textures. the mod also edits the game by acctully making it feel like you are in eastern europe (rather then somewhere not real) by adding alot more plants and detail to the scenery, including deleting the silly 2d trees in the distance and replacing them with new 3d trees (mainly pine trees to get the eastern europe vegitaion accurate) the replay value of this mod is fantastic, i have been playing it consantly recently, and finding it so much better then the original game (and the original game was already very good) trust me, if you have a copy of half life 2, and a powerfull enough graphics card, please download the cinematic mod 10, its fantastic!...

the current version of half life 2 cinematic mod is "CINEMATIC MOD 10" but other older variations are avalable for people who do not have as powerfull computers, but as i believe, pictures say more then any book can do, so here are some pictures of this fantastic mod...

(the images with two pictures on them, the top image is a picture of an area of an original game, and the bottom image is of the cinematic mod 10)



(images do not work for european countries. uk and america only, please visit the main website to see the screenshots)

http://cinematicmod.com/cm_10.php#screenshots

i give the cinematic mod a 10/10, a fantastic mod, grabs a good old brilliant game and some how with witchcraft manages to make it even better, and brings it to a modern audience, this is a must have mod, most certainly a mod you need to try before you die, please, give this mod a go, you will most certainly not regret it...