Hazardous Course review - by Kaffikopp

My original rating for this mod was lower, mainly due to me raging at some of the challenges, but after giving it another chance I ended up playing it to the very end, gathering some thoughts along the way.

First off I’ll say that this is far from your standard Half-Life mod fare: there’s hardly any weapon usage apart from a couple of short sections and no combat to speak of, but the difficulty level is still excruciatingly masochistic. Make no mistake about it; this mod is hard – very hard. Chances are high you will be raging at least a couple of times while playing, and hitting those quicksave/load buttons a few hundred times throughout. But still, the mod is for the most part quite fair; if you take your time and keep your eyes open, mind clear and saving often (I recommend some unique saves as well, not only quicksaves), the different challenges are very much manageable. Sure, there are quite a few obstacles and traps that result in instant death; I certainly had to hit that quickload-button many times at several of the challenges; but I think that’s part of the charm and what attracts players to this type of mod – masochistic difficulty, but oh so satisfying when you manage to complete something. Look at this mod like the I Wanna Be The Guy or Super Kaizo Mario of the Half-Life world.

Still, there were a couple of times where I was close to ramming my fist through my monitor in pure frustration and caused me to ragequit (and rate the mod lower than I now do) – the tank at the shooting range springs to mind. When I initially played this section I was close to 100/100 in hp/armor, but because the tank keeps spamming both missiles and rockets in a never-ending barrage and I had literally nowhere to take cover except behind some scrawny metal plates (behind which I could still take damage), and if I tried to dodge the missiles I ended up still taking damage due to the splash damage of them hitting the wall behind me, I kept dying over and over. I had previously even found the “secret weapon”, but the tank seemed to withstand absurd amounts of punishment and I always died, even when running out of rockets myself. This caused me to think – what would a player do if he hadn’t found the rocket launcher? What if he had wasted all of his grenades as well? The 50cal machine gun doesn’t really help much either as you’re guaranteed to take lots of damage when using it. I ended up just enabling god mode for this part, but promptly ragequit shortly after.

After cooling down a few days I decided to give it another go and try to beat the tank without cheating, and discovered that there’s a small section you can stand where it can’t hit you but you can still shoot back. By abusing this I finally managed to destroy it and move on. If this is what the author intended the player to do I’m not sure, but in any case having to abuse what I can only consider to be a glitch in order to proceed is simply poor design. Having said that, this is really only one of a very few examples in this mod of poor design – most if it is truly excellently crafted, with a lot of attention put in to both detail and gameplay.

As I had now cooled down a bit and decided to not raise my temper while playing, I found myself really enjoying and appreciating the mod. The sense of achievement after completing the rather absurd challenges is oddly satisfying, and the mapping is also very good – there is some very clever environment design throughout, with a lot of attention to detail. There is one part where the player journeys through a steel mill and through a factory where a certain feature of the mod is manufactured, and it truly feels alive – almost as if it could exist in the real world. I imagine the author must have done a lot of research on these elements as they feel quite real and immersive.

While the familiar feel of Black Mesa that we have experienced oh so many times before is present, the mod still feels very fresh, obviously due to the unique nature of the premise of the mod, but also because the architecture and entity work is often very impressive as well – the aging Goldsource engine seems truly pushed to the limits, and I found myself wandering around every now and then, just appreciating the details.

Another aspect of the mod that makes it great and unique is the use of humor – the standard dialogue and character animations from the original game are recycled in a wonderfully hilarious way, almost like giving them new life. The same goes for the very premise of the mod – the familiar Hazard Course has been given a twisted makeover, as if the mod is taking place in an insane alternate reality version of the original Half-Life world, where the Black Mesa staff have taken the role of crazy scientists. This culminates after completing the main part of the mod, when the player can access the Climbing Tower – which as the name suggests, is a tower that has to be climbed, but which extends far into space, needs its own massive support beams, and where the climbing consists of various very lethal challenges. Oh, and the reason for it existing? The higher heads at Black Mesa saw it necessary to create it in order to keep their staff fit, as an addition to the Hazard(ous) Course. Delightfully absurd and twisted.

Gameplay-wise, the climbing tower is a step above the main part of the mod, the Hazardous Course/basic training, in difficulty and insanity (wouldn’t even think it was possible) - only the most hardcore of players will be able to complete it, as some of the stages require knowledge of how to abuse the physics in the game, like fast climbing ladders and air control. This is also apparent earlier in the mod, for instance in the long jumping section – I didn’t know that if you looked even slightly downwards while longjumping, you’d jump a shorter distance. Had I known this beforehand I would have been spared a few frustrating moments. And as already stated, the climbing tower is even more difficult in this regard. Still, I can’t fault the mod for this, as that’s one of the main appeals of this mod; it’s hardcore. And figuring out how to do these types of maneuvers is part of the enjoyment, at least for me.

There was one part of the climbing tower that I had some trouble with, though – some platforms had to be raised by rotating cranks. For some reason, I could never get the platforms to raise as high as they were supposed to (I checked out a video walkthrough of this part to make sure I didn’t do anything wrong) – they would always eventually fall down before they were completely raised, and sometimes they would even get stuck at the bottom, so I would be unable to move them at all. As I assumed this part was pretty bugged (at least I was dumbfounded as to what I was supposed to do), I had to noclip past it, which was a shame.

Speaking of glitches, there is one section in the mod which is sort of a spoof of “On a Rail” – a train maze the player has to traverse. In this section there are track switches that must be used in order to get the train on the right track, but this would often get bugged, resulting in the train being unable to proceed at all, just coming to a full stop when trying to drive it through the changed track. The only way to remedy this seemed to be to load a save from a previous level, which quickly became very annoying, as this part has a lot of waiting and doing nothing except riding the train around. Thus having to replay it several times (quicksaving/loading within the level would not fix the stuck train-bug) became incredibly obnoxious. The author has even stated in the FAQ that he was aware of this bug, and his suggested solution is indeed to load a save from a previous level. Even if this was not fixable, seeing as he was aware of the bug I think he should have done more to cut down on the amount of waiting there is in this level, since as I previously stated having to replay the same section over and over is completely unnecessary and annoying, especially when there is so much waiting involved. I have to retract a point from my overall score for this alone.

I also experienced a recurring crash at one point after walking through a level changer, making it impossible to progress. The only way I could go on was to do “changelevel (levelname)” in console, which worked fine.

On a more positive note, there is another aspect of the mod I particularly enjoyed and which should increase the replay value – there are secrets hidden throughout, which can grant you an easier time for some of the challenges, and which often contain humorous elements. Finding all of the secrets unlocks a short but nice bonus map, but there are also two proper secret levels hidden in the mod: these are particularly good, almost like standalone maps as they are quite different in both gameplay and atmosphere from the main part, but still very much enjoyable to play. Also, a tip: if you see something that looks like it can be climbed or otherwise scaled (like a pipe, light fixture, or something extruding from a wall) – it’s quite plausible that you are able to climb up by doing some crazy acrobatics, as many of the secrets are reached in this manner. There were some pretty absurd ways I had to jump for some of them.

Outside of the mod itself the author has also included the source files for the maps, as well as a document where he explains his thought process in creating the mod from start to finish. Very interesting read, especially if you are a mapper yourself. Really nice gesture of the author to include this, particularly the source files, so one can have a look at how he managed to achieve some of the rather intricate entity setups.

All in all, this was a wonderful experience in familiar locations but with a unique feel throughout, with some genius setpieces and craftsmanship, really pushing the old Half-Life engine to new limits and recycling old content in a beautiful manner. While the gameplay is often masochistic, the sensation of achievement is equally delightful upon completing it. While there are a couple of sections that are downright unfair and a few unfortunate bugs, the overall impression was one of a high-quality work with loads of replay value. While this mod is not for everyone (I certainly had to give it a few tries before it grew on me), I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this, even if only for the humor and unique take on the standard Half-Life elements we have seen so many times before. If you have to cheat through some sections then so be it; this mod should still be played by anyone who considers themselves a Half-Life fan.

8/10