The Opera (first release + patches A and B)
A Half-Life mod

Anticipation:

I can imagine some people were waiting for this game until their knuckles turned white. For me, I figured I'd wait for the game patiently, because I knew I couldn't be sure it wouldn't be disappointing. I knew that when it came out, I'd download it and give it a try, hoping that it would be good. It certainly looked interesting. Some people get excited just hearing that there's going to be Hong Kong action movie (i.e. blood opera) influences in this. I am CERTAINLY not one of those people.

Hype:

Other than the usual interviews, and sites updating with "The Opera mod's site updates with their progress," the hype, in terms of "how they tout their own mod" was minimal.

Theme:

This is one of the only games, let alone mods, I've seen that actually has a consistant theme. Most of the maps are clubs, warehouses, or buildings--natural places for one of those Hong Kong Blood Opera shootouts (especially with lots of jumping to the side through windows while dodging bullets). The maps are very well done, with a dark but not hard-to-see tone, and lots of extra stuff that's interactive or destroyable (a subway level has pills in the bathroom, loose cash, and some nice fish meals in the kitchen you can munch on). The weapons are all natural for the theme. Lots of pistols for akimbo, and a few traditional SMGs and such--stuff we've all seen in action movies. The overall look of the mod is a little dark, a little flashy, and captures the spirit of the movies pretty well. It should, too, a lot of work has gone into this. Even the sound has a very Hong Kong feel, but instead of trite sounds or music obtusely picked from anywhere, the chosen music and sound for deaths, the credit scenes at the end of maps, and other things, sound really cool. I know "cool" sounds subjective, so I might as well say that the music in this mod sounds way cooler than that crap (can't stress the word "crap" enough here) at the end of Metal Gear Solid or Final Fantasy 8.

What this mod really gets right about it's subject material is that it's more than just two hours of a couple people missing each other. The people who made this mod took it past the concept of "inspired" when it comes to the movies it's based off. The feel you get from Action Half-Life, when it comes to what they've taken from the blood operas, is that they're tourists, putting a fad that's taken them into their mod because "it's cool dude!" The Opera team, on the other hand, have taken the theme and innovated more than any other mod before it. So much is changed here, there's no question what they spent all that time working on it for.

Changes:

There are a lot. So many that I won't really go into EVERYTHING, just a few interesting bits that are especially creative or unique.

First: no health. Unless you have the "perception discipline," you can't tell how much damage you've really taken, or how much is left in your guns. Those two factors are stripped down to their most bare essentials: fire until your guns are empty, and fight until you're dead. Such a purist approach to deathmatch gunfights is very fresh, although new players (or maybe Counter-Strike players) will be annoyed. I, personally, didn't mind at all.

Also: the different "disciplines," which is sort of like character-based skills. You choose what kind of specialty your character has, such as doing more damage, faster moving, faster gun handling, and so on.

In movie style, the maps end with a little credit sequence that looks very nice. The only problem with that so far: some servers get stuck in that, so you could just end up looking at it forever, until their next patch comes out. As soon as that patch comes out, this little comment will be completely outdated, so don't bother too much with it (update: this is already dated, they fixed this bug).

Gameplay:

I feel bad for the SvenCoop team for saying this, but this mod has THE best coop mode, ever. It's called Mookmatch, where you and a small handful of other humans clear a map of "mooks," which are general baddies who stand around with guns and take aim at you. As the manual says, they're the guys in the Hong Kong action movies who are generic workers and die with one hit. A perfect idea for an online coop mode. One of the main problems with SvenCoop is that the triggers and other Half-Life things used in the map can be screwed up by one guy who wants to screw things up (they're working on that, of course). In this, it's just blood simple, and tons of fun. My brother and I, on our first night of playing Opera, played Mookmatch together on a LAN. I thrilled at getting some excellent diving kills with my Winchester. The mooks are just the smallest bit sketchy, because they'll sometimes aim into the air or ignore you. Don't worry, there's still plenty others who will blow you away pretty fast.

The implimentation of the stunts is a brilliant bit. The stunts, by themselves, are cool, stylish, and good for some quick dodging. Other than that, though, there's really NO reason to use them very often, instead of strafing or jumping away. The stunts are varied, with dives, rolls, somersaults, flat rolls, and others. What the mod makers did here was really give a VALID incentive to use the stunts as much as you can, by giving you a score bonus for hits and kills done while doing these stunts. Doing a normal kill can net you maybe $150, but doing a kill while rolling can will give you a $3000 bonus with that. Your accuracy is also increased while diving--I noticed myself that when firing at a somewhat distant enemy, my shots were close but not on my crosshair, but when I fired while diving it was right on. While stunts would be fun to use normally, without a very reasonable incentive, they'd be just flash that wouldn't really be necessary for good playing. They'd be helpful and nice, but not necessary. What the Opera team essentially did was add substance to their style. This proves that these guys have an excellent handle on tuning up good, creative gameplay in their work.

Another feature is the "heroic act," which you bind to a key and push when you're in trouble. It's sort of like the old fashioned "bandage" command where it can save you from bleeding to death (signified by your action meter slowly dropping to the bottom), but with a small tweak where you are healed to full health. It can be used only once per life, and it also makes you move faster I think. All you really have to know is it can save your life when you're a step away from death.

The main weapon theme is akimbo pistols, of which there are TONS to choose from, in small caliber and large caliber, and then a tiny selection of sub machineguns (everyone needs to try akimbo silenced Mac-10s, it's a setup that will really remind you of good old fashioned action movies). I've heard complaints about the lack of automatics, but the idea is that you need to be more skilled with pistols, specifically akimbos, for playing this mod. If you get a stunt kill with the pistols, you get a larger bonus than if you do it with the SMGs. You also have a choice of a Spas 12 shotgun, or an old fashioned Winchester lever action rifle (cool reload animation with that, too).

Bugs:

A few. Some random crash bugs which they're working on and should be fixed soon, supposedly related to 3dfx cards. Other bugs with servers stuck in the map-end credits mode--that's mostly been fixed and shouldn't be a problem. There's a few other small bugs here and there that don't take too much away (the panic-weapon Tomcats seem to constantly regenerate their last bullet, not sure if that's a feature or a bug).

Cons:

There are a ton of extra keys to bind in this mod, and while it makes it even more diverse of play, they can also be hard to keep track of and be a little confusing. The offset of this con is that you don't really need the extra keys all the time (the two big extras being heroic acts and the panic key). As long as you can remember where you bound them after a while, it makes the game easier to move along with.

Another small problem is that you might not get into this game right away. You can play a little deathmatch and this and that, but you might not even like it until you really sink deep into the action and get used to the overall theme which is such a departure from usual multiplayer deathmatches that you could feel shut out by how different it is. There's a pretty big curve, for learning and for getting used to the atmosphere in this mod. This mod just feels so different from every other mod and game out there, with the emphasis less on the team rushing or constant frenzied machine gun and explosive action, and the focus being very tightly on multi person gun dueling, that it might be uncofortable until you get used to. This means gamers will have to give it more than a fair share of trying to really accurately gauge it.

Overall:

I'm not impressed by a mod just because it chooses to have John Woo movie influences in it. That doesn't make a mod more interesting. If you base a mod just on "having style" then all you're going to get is an empty mod. What makes a mod interesting is fantastic gameplay. The guys at The Opera have the very POINT of the movies clearly embedded and interwoven throughout their mod: put all the focus onto the action and make it the best you can. These guys aren't fanboys with a cracked copy of Milkshape fooling around with a mod because "IT'Z KAWL." These guys are professionals who've put out a very professional piece of work. It's still a mod (or TC) so not everything is completely polished, but it's one of the most well realized mods, in terms of action, style, theme, and how to have fun playing.

Now, this isn't really the greatest mod ever, or even the most fun depending on your point of view. However, there's a lot of talent put into this mod, a lot of innovation, and there's some great deathmatch and gun dueling to be had here.

Review by:
John Cable

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