Journal #6794

So someone was talking about a mod that he's making in the forum, and his mod premise reminded me of a Russian mod with no subtitles or dubbing, called Red Star episode 1. Like Chronicles, this mod will prolly never see episode 2 and above. Unlike Chronicles, this mod features a much more lengthier gameplay, alot of new weapons and monsters (not model replacements), and has an overall more exciting storyline than Chronicles. Well, that is, if you speak Russian. Otherwise you'll have no idea what the flip you are supposed to do.

This mod takes place in space, the final frontier. In this mod, you will boldly go where no sane person has gone before: onto a planet with suspected terrorist activity. And so it begins.

You are a Russian Agent and a member of some Russian Battlecruiser, and in the intro scene that's even longer than Redemption's intro, you converse in Russian with your Captain about something, but since it's Russian I never did figure out what it was.

Inexplicably you take one of the cruiser's hoppers and land yourself on the surface planet. Upon arriving with your two buff and muscular bodyguards, something is wrong. No one is around to greet you and all is strangely quiet. So this is what it's like entering an area with suspected terrorist activity.

After you explore a huge part of the complex (about 20 minutes of exploring) you encounter some nifty weapons, like the TFC wrench and a large pick that's analogous to the They Hunger Shovel. Eventually when you finally get to the other side of the bay you encounter some scientists. Cleansuit scientists. With glocks. Yelling "LETS GO" and "SQUAD, GET FREEMAN." Oh no.

Assuming that you survived those cleansuit "scientists", you make it back to the landing bay, where your ship is perfectly fine. Your muscular bodyguards, however, have already become monster_barney_dead. What a shame.

So you get on your hopper and return to your Russian Battlecruiser, only to find that it is now in crap condition. Dead bodies everywhere, broken machinery, and no Xen aliens could only mean that terrorists have taken over the ship.

Hopefully, you didn't get hopelessly lost in the large battlecruiser, and I hope that you found where the surviving crew members are hiding. Once you find them, the Captain yells at you in Russian about something you need to do, but you can't do it because you don't speak Russian. How you got on this Russian Battlecruiser in the first place is a mystery that will never be solved. Though interestingly his aides all speak plain English "With my brains and your brawn, we'll make an excellent team."

It turns out that you have to lead one of his aides, Luther, to a door that only he can open. But that's not important. What is important is that if you ask Luther to heal you, then he will literally change his head into that of an old caucasian male with glasses, and heal you by punching you. Now I don't know what kind of Russian inside joke this is (assuming it is one.) In Soviet Russia, doctors heal you by punching you while changing their heads.

After that ordeal, you can lead Luther-Walter into a poorly lit control room. He tells you that you need to activate some Russian buttons equivalent to the ones in the BLAST PIT chapter of Half Life. This is by far the hardest part of the game. The combine terrorists are literally around every corner, and come in groups of 3 or more. And it is hard to come by any health. And to top that off, there is a hassassin-commander-with-lotsa-HP lurking around. Man, why do Russian mods have to be so hard?

This mod has pretty good mapping, enough to convince you that you are in a spaceship and not in some backwater part of Black Mesa. However, some areas have very repetitive texturing and architecture, so it becomes rather easy to get lost. Overall it is an nice mod in a nice battlecruiser with brand new enemies to deal with (like those cleansuit "scientists") Too bad the storyline/dialogue is all in Russian. I would say it's a good one to try this week.