Half Life: Poke646 (MOD) : Games : Web Wombat

For once, I'll keep my various and many psychoses away from the monitor screen and between myself and the team of psychiatrists currently dedicating their lives to analyzing the floating eyeballs that constantly follow me wherever I go.

Or so I am told.

Anywho, today we'll be discussing the golden single-player Half Life MOD known simply as Poke646, and before you ask (as opposed to after, obviously), no, that's not some sort of obscure sexual euphemism. I save those for my higher-budget reviews, e.g. the ones I get paid for [You and me both - Ed].

Taking place roughly six months after the events that turned Black Mesa from a quiet little desert lab into a swarming mass of strangely irritated alien-type things, you are Damien, scientific assistant at the Poke646 secret labs in the fictional Nation City.

Poke Corp. have taken over the research abandoned by the government after Black Mesa, and in the process have called the creepy-crawlies back into the world once more.

As is always the case, the P646 have cut bait and done a runner, to mix a couple of metaphors. Unfortunately, you happened to be in the supply closet at the time, and a machine-related tremor caused a tin of something quite heavy to bonk you into the land of Nod, meaning they missed you in the evacuation and now you're basically the only hope of humanity, or Nation City at least.

Why? Because, oops, those brainy scientist types, lacking Gordon Freeman-type glasses or goatees, forgot to turn on their anti-alien generators in the big hurry.

Anyone see that show called 'Alien Nation'?
It was a play on the word 'alienation'

Gee, they're leaving the fate of the world to a guy who lets himself be knocked out by something as petty as 44-gallon drum.

Freeman took upwards of three hundred bullets and didn't even bat an eye. Action heroes these days, eh? Eh?

Oh, alright, I'll shut up now and go back to my corner.

The first thing you'll notice about Poke646, apart from the fact that the first thing you're asked to do is solve one of those bloody jumpy-jumpy puzzles, is that the weapons on display are a little, well, eclectic to say the least.

They range from two different types of Ramset gun (think a nail gun that uses explosive pellets to fire projectiles and then add Dack & Blecker) to a green alien thing that eats charcoal pellets, a sniper-crossbow, a length of heater pipe, and a homemade pipe bomb. Of course, it just wouldn't be a proper B-movie if we didn't have, in emphatic fashion, Da Boomstick.

Unfortunately, to match this display of weaponry we do not have a particularly new selection of enemies to face, apart from an ugly purple exploding toad thing that even I would not eat unless faced with starvation or possibly a lack of dinner.

A nail gun by any other name... It tends to blow up when you get near it, which can be quite annoying really, but the overall excellent placement of standard enemies and some tremendously effective set pieces make up for this terrifically.

Not since actually playing standard Half Life have I been so worried about the possibilities of head crabs around every corner, and such was my paranoia that I took to bombing the living shite out of anything that even looked like it might be on a 45-deree angle. This caused some problems, as might be imagined, but I soldiered on in the face of self-engineered adversity.

As is pointed out in a most unsubtle manner by the accompanying Read Me file, Poke646 is one of the few MODs to have an actual soundtrack, and the handful of tracks on offer do well to complement the different environments, heightening the suspense and tension when needed and sometimes just providing that little extra incentive needed to help bust some alien skulls. Whatever the case, it's good stuff.

Level design looks good

No multiplayer to be spoken of here, but it's a SINGLEPLAYER MOD, people; somehow, it seems self-evident multiplayer support isn't going to be of the greatest importance to Team Poke646. Maybe that's just the ramblings of an overly jaded game reviewer, but even so…

What effort would normally have gone into perfecting the online experience has been quite obviously channeled into the single player area of Poke646 and it shows.

All the weapon models, textures and animations are of such a high caliber as to be almost indistinguishable from the real professional deal.

The same goes for scripted events and puzzles (getting the power to work so you can turn on a busted microwave and blow a bloody great hole in the adjacent wall, anyone?) tickling the old brain box whenever even the slightest hint of boredom starts to set in.

It's not a particularly small MOD, either. At 198Mb to download with 5 levels split up over 26 medium-to-large sections, Poke646 is just large enough to keep you going but not so big as to drive you to despair and the inevitable cry of "oh Lord, when will this depravity end?"

If I have any criticisms to level at the Poke Team, it's that the ending could have been improved a tad, as the end puzzle seems to be reliant upon more blind luck than anything else. Still, for such a big project, that seems a bit petty, so let's not make too much of it.

Rocking like a very large avalanche and rollicking like only a Half Life MOD can, Poke646 is, to be polite, the dog's bollocks and no mistake.

Anyone found without a good reason to not download this example of MOD making at its finest will be taken outside and given to the zombies. Have a nice day.

Game: Half Life: Poke646 (MOD)
Players: 1
Online: No
Developer: Poke646
Distributor: Poke646

Rating: 90%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)

Half Life: Poke646 is available for download now.

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