Awesome use of stock assets to create an entirely lore-friendly Black Mesa sidequest. Architecture is interesting and detailed throughout, texturing with vanilla wads is varied and colourful and the lighting is up to your high standards. Ambience could use a tickle here and there, but is certainly not lacking.

Gameplay loses a couple of points just because after what was a really challenging and fun middle section with grunts, it gets steadily easier towards the end and then has no big finalé.

Great work. Get back to The Core.

Simply fantastic.

👀

It was a short, sweet HL style and honestly a bit frustrating mission at times. In the first encounter (after switching off the fan) I was left fighting with the HECU at 8HP. Probably bad luck though. But before the last fight there were sufficient health recharges even though it wasn't as intense anymore. There are several areas that were dimly lit, and at first I thought there was a problem with my settings. My brightness and gamma settings were a bit above and I even switched off my room lights. I understand the dark atmosphere required there but it was probably overdone imo.
After the first fight, in the lift I had to use noclip after 4 retries to hit that damn ladder and almost dying :)).

The architecture denotes a skill that has been mastered over the years of mapping. It's clean, coherent, pleasant to the eye. It feels like Black Mesa while still being something original.
The texturing went hand in hand with the architecture, and it left my eyes satisfied.
The ambience - not so much. There's a lack of dynamism (I know it's HL style gameplay we're talking, but we still have all kinds of opportunities as mappers). For example, I think the area under the bridge is a missed opportunity for something happening there - a black mesa metro line for example with a metro passing from time to time. Just my imagination :P.
Lighting - overall good, but as mentioned before, there are few spots with very dim areas and I'm not sure this is actually the map or my settings/monitor.
Gameplay - It's always hard for me to judge this one, because Half-Life is an old game and I don't want to be harsh to a mapper who spent time and effort on creating something nice. For the given context, I think the challenge was sufficiently good, but after finally "bridging the gap", the show was over - well, except for a pesky turret waiting at the end.

I totally understand everyone's procrastination - such as yours with The Core. Instead of doing my chores and preparing for the next week, my brain considers that this review is much more important of a task.

That's a nice piece of work! Going back to low-res HL textures was a bit rough, but the improved architecture and overall character of the map more than made up for that. There's a much better sense of place now compared to the more generic warehouse style of the first version.

I especially like how the first grunt encounter was redesigned. You can now sneak up on a grunt, only the be caught by surprise by grenade-launching grunt on the other side. Gave an interesting dynamic to that fight. The area also looks more like a real functional place than v1.

Some of the other enemies felt a bit dumb though, just passively waiting around a corner until you show up. It would've been nice if the grunts in the control room had acknowledged your presence in the bridge room somehow - a 'Freeman!' shout, a gesture, one or two grunts running around. The fan obstacle setup was better in v1, because the obstacle was visible before the solution was. In v2, I first pushed the button, then found the vent, and wasn't entirely sure what that button had done.

But other than those minor issues, it's an enjoyable map and it shows good attention to detail. I like how you create ladders - much better than the standard single-brush approach. Also, '86 was a good year indeed! Now I wonder whether there are any other easter eggs to be found...

Idk what to review here, it's awesome
really

A beautiful map, it is my favorite map so far, although a part has given me enough lag, this map is really good