Prospekt

This recommendation comes with serious caveats. There are 2 ways to look at Prospekt: how the game plays as-is, and what it could have been. If you take it at face value, you'll get a fairly fun Half-Life 2 fan campaign that takes 2-3 hours to beat. If you go in hoping for something like Swelter, Entropy Zero, or even Hunt Down The Freeman, you'll be sorely disappointed. It's a mostly vanilla mission set with some entertaining setpieces and good action, which could make or break how you see it.

Prospekt is a non-canon Half-Life fangame set during the events of Half-Life 2. You play as Adrian Shephard, the protagonist of Opposing Force, after Vortigaunts break him free from stasis. Gordon Freeman is storming the hellish prison of Nova Prospekt, and they want Shephard to carry out his own mission of sabotage to aid him. Shephard relives past memories of his military experience while fighting against Combine Soldiers and alien wildlife alike, taking him from the titular prison to locations far removed from Earth.

Did you like Half-Life 2: Episode 2? If the answer is "yes," then you'll mostly get the same experience from Prospekt. Aside from some retextures, there are no new enemies or weapons to set it apart from the base game. The HUD is green, and Shephard's combat vest AI has a male voice, but you're playing as Gordon Freeman in all but name. The guns of Half-Life 2 return, aside from the Gravity Gun, Bugbait, and Crossbow. You mostly fight against Combine Soldiers and Elites, though you'll occasionally go up against Antlions, Headcrabs, Barnacles, Hunters, and Zombies as well.

Prospekt's level design is typically more open than vanilla Half-Life 2, featuring several combat sections in wide-open environments. Coupled with the slight health boost to Combine Soldiers, this results in the Combine AI actually being able to use HL2's squad tactics and maneuvering without immediately dying. Enemies feel smarter and more aggressive despite not having any AI improvements. It's a strange phenomenon, but I honestly couldn't complain. It was thrilling to have the Combine enemies act more like ruthless fighters than slow-witted bullet magnets.

The story of Prospekt is pretty middling. It ultimately goes nowhere despite offering some good plotlines. The intro narration goes on far too long. The audio flashbacks to Shephard's military days are well-acted, but they contribute nothing to the overarching story. Shephard's mission lacks a core goal or objective to strive for, outside of causing problems for the Combine. The ending is also very anticlimactic and disappointing. In fact, a glitch caused one of the Vortigaunts to survive the scripted sequence for me, causing him to stand around awkwardly while the scene played out.

If you're hoping for new content and updates for Prospekt, you should just move on. The developer hasn't updated it in years, and all signs point to the game being abandoned. The Developer Commentary feature is broken and requires you to rename files to fix it. Much-requested changes and additions, like the Crowbar being replaced with a Wrench, won't happen outside of community mods. Prospekt could have been turned from a decent game to a great experience, like what happened to Hunt Down The Freeman, but that doesn't seem like it will happen.

It isn't all bad, though! Prospekt has a great soundtrack. The levels are pretty well-designed, and the puzzles were nice when they arrived. The action is exciting and mostly plays well, aside from the confusing final gunfight. The voice work is great, from the new Combine voices to the flashback audios. It might not stray far from vanilla Episode 2, but it does well with the content it utilizes.

Like I said at the start, this review comes with serious caveats. If you want to play a fun vanilla-esque Half-Life 2 fan campaign, then Prospekt might be worth a try. I would only recommend buying it with a deep discount, though. It is absolutely not worth the full price. Other free mods do more without a cash incentive, like The Burton Equation, Dark Interval, or Raising the Bar: Redux. Prospekt ranges from "okay" to "pretty good" in a playthrough, but it could have been great. It's a shame that it didn't get more updates to reach its full potential.

In short, it's okay, I liked it, but nothing more, buy if you are hardcore hl2 fun.
The hardest hl2 mod i ever played (on skill 3), it's really hard to beat even if you are experienced hl2 player.
There are some issues I would like to be fixed, f. e. missing subtitles, sometimes (not often) combine soldiers behavior seems to be broken (braindead or just standing in a single point). The story doesn't make much sense, causes some questions, why I'm in a black HEV suit or what's the point of the memory moments ? The only in Xen also doesn't make any sense to have, nothing for story and also the only map that looks really bad. Generally would be cook if you ever update it, cuz it looks slightly deprecated in terms of cubemaps and projected textures comparing to modern mods (mapbase is perfect solution).
Generally this mod worth your money, nice gameplay, fun fights, some cool moments, liked VA, beautiful maps with level design and lighting.

This game was the best game I've ever played I can't believe it was only 6 dollar The maps were well made and not too easy, and there were plenty of scenes where you had to fight the Combine which was great.

I`ve played for four hours. This game is unbelievable! Only just started really. The physics are awesome.
No weapon yet!

Where to start honestly i feel like what needs to be said has been said and there are reviews that already say more than enough.
But here are my overall thoughts
- This game needs updates, it wont get them afaik.
- Difficulty fluctuates wildly. Sometimes you get more hp and ammo than you'll ever need. Then other times you'll feel like you are lost in a desert dying for a drop of hp or some shotgun shells.
- Some segments feel repetitive like the multiple back to back enemy gauntlets
- i wish the puzzles were more spread out. Its way too puzzle heavy at the beginning and way too enemy spammy at the end.
- A few parts almost broke me notably the final battle and (to a lesser extent) the hunter segment. Don't even get me started on the mandatory vent that requires you to get a metal beam and take it through a cramped dark underwater hallway then up two ladders just to enter it.
- This game is dark and i don't mean it's wet paper bag of a story. I mean It's LITERALLY IT HARD TO SEE.
- lastly and most least many subtitles are missing.
If it was cheaper id recommend it. However for $6 USD you could buy several better games.
Just watch a full play-through on YouTube.

it has a good story but if you were to make a remake of a game then just include the weapons and enemies from opposing force then add them cause people would still enjoy it if it had the enemies and weapons

me personally i dont mind this mod it just could be better and i actually had fun playing it also dont attack me for this please also now knowing that for somereason it crashes everytime i try to open it now so uhm