You have been Gordon Freeman, Adrian Shepard and Barney. And what did you did during all that time? You killed all those poor Xen aliens! Have you ever thought about their Point of View? POV-Point of View is a new single player Half-Life MOD where you will play as a Alien Slave named Xonxt.
You will have new weapons to use, be able to explore new and old areas of Back Mesa and of Xen in a MOD with a story that will allow you to (re)visit areas of Half-Life, Opposing Forces and Azure Sheep but, this time, with a different point of view. Humans will try to kill you, Xen forces will ignore or attack you and you will have to survive to all this. Friends will now be your enemies and enemies your friends now that you will play as a Alien Slave… POV is not an easy game. The player can’t use the human health kits or health re-chargers and he will not have a armor or any energy shield (making the human battery or battery recharges useless). To make it a bit more easy for the player, he will have more weapons then the common Alien Slave and a way to heal himself that will make the gain of health depend only of the player skill These weapons, will be alien bio-weapons type and the player will not be able to use human weapons like the MP5, Glocks, etc. but he can use turrets or mounted machine guns. Other changes will be visible during game play since, this time, you will play as a Alien Slave…
Nihilanth’s Proclamation, heard by all Xenizen, at the dawn of the Great Invasion:
“My children, my citizens, my followers, hear me. The time has come: the threshold has been crossed. Our home is befouled, our realm tainted, our sanctuary desecrated. A border world has come to demolish, destroy, and devour us all. The prophecies have come true; the Great Invasion is upon us. Hear me and learn, my faithful. The denizens of this border world call themselves ‘Humans.’ They are murderous, genocidal, devilish creatures. They are unnatural: they have broken the natural order. They change the world instead of changing themselves. They call this ‘Technology,’ and they wield it to terrible effect. The prophecies told us this day would come. Their words were true, and so we must trust in their guidance: ‘The secret of their success will be the instrument of their downfall.’ I am gifting a legion of you with my power, enhancing your minds to research this ‘Technology’ and develop our own form to use against them. Go forth, kindred of Nihilanth, residents of Xen, worshipers of my greatness, and unleash your wrath upon these foul creatures. Together, we shall turn their strength against them and push them back into their world. Then, the fate they reserved for us shall become their own. Hear me, and obey.” “The secret of their success will be the instrument of their downfall; the fate of all will rest on one.”
Xonxt’s Report (player) to Nihilanth, during the Great Invasion:
“My father, my leader, my master, you have spoken and so I shall obey. The Xen Techno Biologic Unit experimentation is progressing according to your wishes. Great headway is being made in the development of most of the various XTBUs. In particular, the evolution of my own project, the Xen Techno Biologic Sphere, is nearing completion. The XTBS is capable of gravity-independent movement, and is surrounded by a thick carapace to protect it from damage. Its visual apparatus features a non-specific retinal pattern to bypass anthropometrical security systems. The facilities for speech are now fully implemented, but can only be used once you gift the XTBS with your mind. For combat, I have duplicated what our enemies call a ‘Gun’ by crafting a three-pronged, nasute-like structure. A gland, which produces quick solidifying chitin, supplies the projectiles; bioelectrical energy generates power to rotate the biogun; and a pair of glands, whose secretions react explosively together, provide the propellant. The XTBS only needs a little more time to fully evolve. The visual apparatus still needs to develop 90′ z-axis rotation to align properly with ‘Human’ retinal devices, while the biogun has yet to achieve full socket rotation. Soon, however, it will be ready for mass production, the first of the weapons foretold by the prophecies.” “I swear on my life, you will have the XTBS at your disposal.”
This was July 2017’s Classic of the Month mod.
- Title: Point of View
- File Name: hl1-sp-point-of-view-with-steam-update.7z
- Original File Name: pov.exe
- Size : 51.32MB
- Author: Davlevels
- Date Released: 18 December 2006
- Extract and run the pov.exe installer and locate either your \SteamApps\[username]\half-life or \SteamApps\common\half-life folder (whichever is relevant to your particular Steam installation) when prompted.
- Extract and run the povsteam.exe updater and locate either your \SteamApps\[username]\half-life or \SteamApps\common\half-life folder (whichever is relevant to your particular Steam installation) when prompted.
- Restart or start Steam.
- Point of View should now be listed in your Library tab.
If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.
The playthrough below is part of the Classic of the Month Event, run by Don AKA Unq.
Please note: These statistics are valid from December 2010
-
15,077Overall
-
1Today
-
21Last 7 days
-
62Last 30 days
-
1,058365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 10 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 4 Hours, 30 Mins
Shortest: 3 Hours by Bolloxed <---- Boooo.. Evil
Longest: 6 Hours by fleetlord
Total Time Played: 44 Hours, 55 Mins
If you believe this release is missing important tags, please suggest them in a comment?
How can I buy this game or play it?
So let me get this straight, you are writing a story for another game for half life but this time you are going to be a vortigant?
I think this is a nice idea. Are you trying to publish this game? Well, if you are good luck.
Sinan,
Firstly you need a full working version of Half Life. Then download the .exe from the POV website (many mirrors) and install the application.
Open Half Life and find “Custom Game” on the menu, open this and POV should be installed. Just it play like any other Single Player game.
If you need more help, try their website and forums.
Good Luck and enjoy!
Patrick,
No, I’m not writing a story or involved with this mod in any way. It was released as a free addon and can be downloaded from their website.
I’m just trying to list some of the best Single Player mods available.
Play that one just after Azure Sheep, they are 2 simultaneous stories which common areas.
i cant figure out how to get this to work
i downloaded it and everything, but it still wont work. Any suggestions?
Make sure you installed it into the right directory.
Awesome mod.. be sure to play it. Its pretty cool being the alien and spewing green electricity. It does get a little repetetive towards the end, but its mainly due to the lack of variety in weapons.
This sounds great. But slight porblem. I need to know what it’s talking about when it says
could not load libary C:\SIERRA\Half-life/POV/cl_dlls\client.dll
Anyone know how to solve this?
Gameplay:
Fantastic new gameplay, as you play as an alien slave and you can use their lighting attack. This attack can heal you as you attack organic enemies; this is explained in the story. The mod isn’t too hard, and a lot of the boss battles are challenging, yet possible. You won’t run out of attack power so you’ll always be able to fight back. There are a lot of new enemies in this mod too which gives it more variety. Story is good and takes place before Half Life, during Half Life and after Azure Sheep, after all, it is the sequel. Sometimes the gameplay can get tiresome in some places.
Design:
Very detailed and a much better improvement in room design and layout compared to Azure Sheep. Lighting is good, and structures are well thought of. Texturing is done well, and aligned with care. Enemies are placed well as well.
Conclusion:
A fantastic mod, that’s very entertaining, sometimes tiresome.
Rating: 90%
It is not AFTER Azure Sheep, it is at the same time. At various stages, events from one appear in the other, both ways.
And the ending of POV actually merges with the ending of Azure Sheep.
Your comment regarding a factual error in a Syndicated Review raises an interesting point: Should I edit those sorts of mistakes?
Currently I normally spell and grammar check but that’s all. I wonder sometimes where I should even do that. I don’t want this discussion to take over this post, so I have created a forum thread.
Just adding here 2 examples, in case the reviewer coma and check this website:
1) At one point, in POV, the character is capured and kept in a glass cage for a while. Then Barney somes, sees him, and carry on. That scene appears in both mods, from their resêctive angles.
2) Later in the stories, Barney and Kate find a silo containing a captured Xen Manta ship.
A bit later, the alien character comes to the same area, and rides that ship to get out of the silo.
I really wish I could edit my typos. In some cases, I have no idea how some came into the text…
I don’t doubt that you are correct. Please be careful about giving specific details in case they spoilt the mods for other players.
I thought that if you were a memeber of PP and logged in, you had the ability to edit your own comments. Is that not the case?
After I have upgraded to WordPress 2.x I will check to see if there is a pluign with some sort of spell checking functionality.
No, there is no displayed option for me to edit a post.
I agree with everything with Syndicated Review. But I recommend this mod only for Half-Life story fans, cuz this mod is great, but not typical. Some people don’t like the lees variety of new weapons, still great, but they are few. And there’s no too much Chum Toads!
Rating: 5/5
Good: Best ‘different” concept; great new idea for getting health; double hive-hands!
Bad: Short; sounds get annoying; “flashlight” is weak.
Review:
I must say that this is one cool mod. If you can find another mod that places you in the shoes of someone other than human, then you win. So the story is cool. Basically, you are a factory worker, and when the humans come to Xen, they steal this everything-weapon, called the XTBS, and you must go get it back, because it’s your project.
Anyway, the concept is cool, and so is the way that you gain health back. Since you are a Xenizen, you cannot use the HEV chargers or MED stations. Just remember that. As for the minuses, they are small. First, I thought the campaign was rather short, but it is high-quality. Second, the sounds that are used for some of the things had me bashing my head into the wall. Ok, not really, but I was close. And third, the “flashlight” you get to use is somewhat weak, but I think that may be my low-quality monitor. So, overall this is a cool mod, go download it.
steam patch available for those that need it
http://www.fileplanet.com/hosteddl.aspx?%2fplanetquake%2fdavlevels%2fpovsteam.exe
Is there ANY Point Of View walkthourghts because I don’t know if I missed something or its bugged but it just dosn’t want to let thourghts a part.
Try the Official Forums.
I’ll publish a walkthrough if somebody wants to write one.
Excellent, excellent mod! The point of view aspect reminded me of the classic poem Beowulf. Then a wonderful book was written called Grendel by John Gardner which was written by the monster’s point of view (if you get into that whole Anglo Saxon/Midieval sort of thing).
I loved everything about this mod, especially the immense & detailed story line involved & how it was presented. I’m glad that there’s going to be more to come.
If you like this mod, you would probably be interested in “Xen-Warrior”, a mod of mine in which I used the Chronicles: Episode 1 levels to make you play as an alien grunt, similar to “Point of view”.
Classic info (file name, author, size,…) are not include in the description is it normal?
I’m stuck in a human base after the train the one with million doors that can’t open HELPPP
If I remember correctly, you keep advancing towards the front of the train & then you’ll witness the G-man having a conversation. After this, the door will open but take cover because they’re coming to kill you.
Oh yeah, my recommendation:
not that not train but whwn I get of train there is some base . first you must destroy the sentries to enter then there is so many doors everywhere I dont know where to go most of doors wont open
Okay, I know where you’re at. This is a maze of sorts with some rooms leading off of your main path. There’s nothing much in them unless you want to kill some grunts or admire the level design. They’re worth looking at. Just keep your bearings though. What you really want to do is when you come into the main room (like a reception area), there’ll be a door on your right, a door in front of you but offset to the left (says Office Complex) and then there’s a door on your left with sectors listed in different colors. Simply follow the color lines through the rooms making your way through the sectors until you reach Sector D.
This mod could be considered revolutionary… it delivers the most comprehensive and well-thought-out storyline I have ever encountered in a third-party mod, and does it in one of the most unobtrusive ways (no cheesy cutscenes, ala Azure Sheep, here) I’ve seen yet. The pacing is brilliant, with the game starting in a familiar Xen level and introducing the storyline and main character. Periodic journal updates (which are themselves explained in a journal update… that’s how meaty the story is) serve to flesh out the storyline without interrupting the game. In addition, they provide an incentive for exploration… you’ll have to do a bit of looking around to “find” all 40 journal updates. Many of the updates feature interesting (if unnofficial) information on many features of Xen and the Half-Life storyline.
The gameplay isn’t quite on par with the story… but it’s damned close. Your status as a super worker (explained in one of those handy journal updates) grants you more speed, stamina, and capability than the average alien slave. New weapons – as well as new takes on old weapons – are featured. The ability to heal yourself through your electrical attack (explained in a journal update) insures that you’ll be using it most of the time… which is dissapointing, but not an issue that detracts from the game’s overall playability. Many areas have you fighting alongside other Xen aliens, including a brand-new warrior worker (journal update… yeah).
Perhaps one of my favorite features of this mod is the fact that its story ties in with that of Azure Sheep, another excellent (if not this excellent…) mod. Be sure to play Azure Sheep first so as to pick up on some of the tie-ins POV contains. POV’s ending ties it together with Azure Sheep very nicely. In addition, the ending is bittersweet… what’s even more amazing than the fact that a mod can even HAVE a bittersweet ending is the fact that POV pulls it off with zero cheesiness.
My only real gripe with this mod is that it introduces several new human enemies, who carry new and intriguing weapons… the “sergeant,” for example, lugs around a very beefy machine gun that looks like it would be an absolute joy to unleash on a roomful of enemies. Unfortunately, you’re never given this opportunity… even though the sergeant drops the weapon when he dies, you’re unable to pick it up.
In short: INCREDIBLE. PLAY IT NOW!!1!1!1one!!11!
A very pretty mod that follows on nicely from Azure Sheep. Although drawing health from earthly life forms can make this a little easy. That said aiming at gun flash when zapping grunts at a distance is nice. My only regret is that the Gargantuan is under used. I fully expected to follow it charging through the complex. Another very playable DAVlevels mod
I thought was pretty fun, I esp liked the duel hive hands.
Very good & unique game only lacking suspense.
I don’t remember being impressed by this mod by far, mainly because: (SPOILER) killing and gaining health at the same time(END) was way too boring/(lack of variety, strategy, gameplay, ..), not to mention the lack of other weapons, which is quite logic, you’re a slave, but it’s one major point I feel it shouldn’t be compensated by the originality of the mod. The boredom was increasein a small amount by the journal edits.
I loved Azure Sheep and I don’t know why this is compared to it, except one or two common points in their timeline.
But maybe I remember it wrong! Hope it’s worth a second download
HEY GUYS PLEASE HELP!!!
I am in the room past sector D after getting off the train when the G man will appear.. I shot thornets towards the turrets to make the other ones take it down and so I did again and took them all out.. so… what now? I’m stuck where do I have to go???
i tried everything the door won’t open and tried to jump over the fence but I didnt make it? any clues? Thanx!
I think it’s kind of dumb that you can operate machines and use keycards and stuff. Slaves aren’t stupid but I don’t think they know how to work earth’s technology.
PS, I don’t like how this mod kind of tampers with the half-life story, esp the Gman special forces.
Those are the only things I didn’t like about the mod, The rest was good and much better than azure sheep.
What must I do ,when I reached one cop ,who stayed near the truck.Before I reached him(the cop) , I fell from vestilation.I open the door ,killed the cop ,than I saw truck ,two big red door ,two small ,and the first small had the controll panel ,which can open the door ,and I don’t know what must I do!
hey guys.. I seem to be stuck in this mod…
I’m on map “pov05d”, and fighting a marine… thing is, I’ve thrown all I got at him..and he just wont die.. (at least he’s not using his gun on me..)
anyone know how to move this along??
Could be a bug, can’t you move along? If the grunt’s not dying and not using the gun, he’s probably stuck and this shouldn’t stop you from continuing.
this mod rocks, but I’m stuck in basically the last boss I think, that yellow robot mounted with a minigun that also throws grenades into your head, how can I defeat him? Please help me!
Keep trying. He is very tough. If you run out of explosives use your electrical attack (alternate fire when you see your claws), which can also heal you.
This mod is quintessential to every Half-Life owner that seeks to further his enjoyment of the game, or its universe, with third-party mods.
However, even if the idea of playing a Vortigaunt seems interesting – it has a few noteworthy weaknesses. I personally found the difficulty to be quite easy, considering that the secondary attack of the main weapon steals life from the targeted enemies, but this is obviously done to counter an obvious gameplay problem of making the protagonist different from its human counterparts.
The other weapons are quite useless, considering they don’t provide the same previously mentioned advantage of the main weapon. In the end, the level design is superior to that of Azure Sheep, which is more than welcome.
Even with the aforementioned weaknesses, the storyline is definitely original, and is worthy of its Source engine, of which the author has unfortunately put on hold.
Shame there’s no HL2 version where you can play as an Antlion/Antlion guard, or a type of Zombie in ravenholm.
Or even as a Combine Advisor, that’d be fun.
Just excellent, love the marine vs dark ones combat too, and the tie ins with Azure SHeep and Adrians and Gordons adventures.
I actually love this mod. It makes a good twist, playing as a vortigaunt, and the new introduced weapons (both in this one and new in azure sheep, the predecessor) are great.
The best thing was that, after playing Azure Sheep, everything tied in so well. All of the small bits in maps which didn’t seem to make any sense tie in as Xonxt crosses paths with the main character from Azure Sheep. It was new and innovative that instead of health packs / batteries, the design would give you a few scientists to kill and sap the energy from.
Overall, one of my favourite half-life mods. I particularly love how it is still fresh and interesting because it uses new concepts. No really annoying bits, and it wasn’t too long either!
I Really like this mod but there’s one big flaw in it: (unlike everyone else) I found this mod to be extremely difficult. I mean most of the enemies are humans with guns. All you have is scarce Chumtoads, Stukabats and an electrical attack that takes time to charge. Yeahhhhh…
While there have been a couple of other single player Half-Life mods that incorporate playing as a Xen alien (Xen Warrior) or fighting on the side of the Xen aliens (Mission of Mercy), it has taken until now for a mod to really do it right. Point of View casts you as Xonxt the super worker, which is a step above a normal alien slave. The designers went all the way on this mod; you have new alien weapons (including the classic slave green-lightning attack), you make alien sounds, and you even bleed yellow alien blood. The little professional touches like these, combined with the fairly solid gameplay, design, and a detailed story, make Point of View a mod worth the download.
POV comes to us from the same core team that developed Azure Sheep, Andrea “Toadman” Butti and Davide “DAV” Cintrao. In fact, if you’ve played Azure Sheep you’ll notice quite a bit of crossover between these two mods, both in characters/enemies and in locations/sequences. POV ties in nicely with scenes from the original Half-Life and Opposing Force, too.
It was interesting to assume the role of an alien slave in this pack, and I found it mildly surprising how fun it was to be an alien. As is generally expected in Half-Life mods, you start out (on Xen this time) generally minding your own business when bad things start happening and of course it’s up to you to set them right again.
The story unfolds as you pursue your quarry, the vile Earthlings that stole your prized lab experiment, the XTBS (Xen Techno Biologic Sphere). Speaking of the story, that is one of the strongest points of POV. It is told to the player through Xonxt’s journal entries, using a popup text screen that pauses the game while the player reads it. The reading of the journal (and thus the interruption of the game) is entirely optional – an icon appears on the player’s screen when a new entry has been made, and the player must press a specific key to open the journal to read the entry. This was a great approach, as it allows those not interested in the story (or those playing through a second time) to play unimpeded by the usually lengthy journal entries. The story itself, primarily written by Jeff “Doc_Brown” Murchison, is very well composed. It helps to clarify the events in POV, as well as explain Xonxt’s reactions and motivations; it also offers some needed hints on occasion. At times the entries are a bit wordy, and overall the plot seemed a tad melodramatic, but it makes for an entertaining experience if you are a player who enjoys mods that are fleshed out with a solid, believable storyline.
If you’ve played Azure Sheep, you’re familiar with DAV’s mapping style. Personally, I found much of Azure Sheep’s design to be uninteresting, repetitive, and much too drawn out. I am happy to tell you that POV’s design is a step better – overall the architecture is more interesting, and as a whole the mod (even though it is composed of 37 maps) is much tighter, although there are still some patches of boring, repetitive sections, not to mention that many of the maps, in particular the underground tunnels, are on the whole too dark. And be warned: the r_speeds of a number of maps peak at well over 2000, so make sure your computer can handle it before playing. The other components of the pack, such as enemy models, weapon models, sounds, and new textures, are also well done and give the mod a professional air about it.
As I said above, it was fun playing as an alien for a change. Obviously your main adversaries are human, but POV does a good job of mixing up the enemies you face, as there are several different factions of grunts, security guards, and of course the dreaded turrets. There are a couple of tough ‘boss’ encounters too, which will certainly challenge you. Your ‘built-in’ weapons are the standard slave attacks – the green lightning attack and a melee swat for close-in attacks. You also get a few other alien weapons to use throughout the pack, including the classic hivehand and snarks but with some new additions as well. But note that the weapon models include the ‘draw’ and ‘holster’ animations, so it takes forever to switch weapons, which is a real pain in the ass in the middle of a battle.
The only problem with the weaponry is that you’ll likely find yourself using the lightning attack almost exclusively. When you hit a lifeform with the lightning, you gain health. In fact, it’s the only way you can gain health besides the few Xen healing pools that are scattered about – you can’t use health chargers or medpacks. This somewhat limits the potential of POV, but I didn’t find it too much of a hindrance. Just make sure you are good at headshots.
This is an enjoyable pack, with some minor drawbacks. Yes, the mapping is a little uneven and future projects from this team would benefit greatly by tighter mapping and game design to keep the intensity level up. But overall Point of View is a pretty professional effort that finally lets you test your mettle as one of ‘them.’ Plus, you get to have Gargs and headcrabs on your side! What else could you possibly ask for?
Notes
This review is republished here by permission and was originally published Wednesday, 10th September, 2003 by Unquenque.
This review was originally posted on the Ten Four Website, which is now offline. Permission has been granted to republish the full review and more details can be found on the About page.
Very GOOD Job! Worth the time & effort, but it’s VERY HARD. You have to get used to the slow weapon selection & aiming. The only other personal minor complaint is the story wasn’t deep enough, it just gave the basics of how & why. Given the format used to tell the story it could have been so much more.
Manually
Easy
6 Hours
Just finished this mod. It was awesome! It looks very professionally made, and I like the idea of playing as an Alien Slave. In my opinion it lacks some maps on the surface, because most of them are underground. Also the grey spheres were too strong and the last boss (the yellow robot) was too hard. The ending was also great. You can visit many places from Half Life and Azure Sheep, for example the Dam in Half Life from the Surface Tension chapter. The idea of keeping a diary was brilliant. You can also fight with other Xen Aliens in many part of the mod but unfortunately you have to kill them at the end of the game.
Manually
Easy
3 Hours, 25 Minutes
Thank you for a very interesting fashion. I loved.
Manually
Easy
6 Hours
Great idea – but poorly executed – could have been so much better.
Also a few very annoying bugs that take a bit of working to get around.
Very limited weapons – you use the same one for 90% of the time, but there are a couple that are extremely fun and unique – it’s a shame they weren’t used more often, in the end the whole mod started to get a bit repetitive and I just wanted to get to the end ASAP.
The level design can be confusing and annoying at time with dead ends and no indication were to go which usually isn’t an issue – but when you spend 2 hours running around zapping everything with the same weapon it becomes.. meh. It’s also very easy to skip entire areas, which I’m sure I did since I never found certain weapons..
This is a difficult Mod, a couple of great boss fights but the manner the story was given didn’t help.
Manually
Medium
3 Hours
This is one of my favorite Half-Life mods. And boy, where do I begin?
In this mod, you play as a vortigaunt. But you’re no ordinary vort, you’re a super vort who’s more intelligent, agile and stronger than the rest. You can’t use health packs to heal yourself anyhow, but you can heal yourself by hitting your enemies with the lightning attack. So basically, unarmed scientists and engineers are pretty much walking healthpacks.
But that’s not the end of the line. You can still use weapons like snarks, alien hornet gun (you can even dual-wield them!) and there’s a few more that I will not spoil.
The map design – from the looks, scripting to the gameplay – is one of the best that the Half-Life community has to offer.
The story is alright. Though, it would be confusing if it hadn’t given the player a diary that kind of explains what the character’s thinking about. So yeah, story isn’t really in your face at all times, it’s kind of like how Doom 4 treats the story – it keeps it in the codexes that you come across in the game and you read them when you’re not shooting demons.
There are a few things I don’t really like about this mod – for an example how there’s a whole new military force equipped with those weapons from the Alien movie. I know that vorts aren’t stupid, but how the hell do they know how keycards work? The creator(s) should’ve made a cutscene where the character observes how a human opens a door with a keycard.
The lightning attack is pretty much the only thing you’ll be using in the mod. It gives you health, it’s infinite and deals pretty considerable damage too. Two bolts are enough to kill a human grunt.
Apart from that, I think the mod is a must play. So, go ahead and try it out.
Manually
Medium
3 Hours, 20 Minutes
If you fancy playing through the Black Mesa incident through the perspective of a Xen unit, then Point of View does an commendable job of portraying the experience. Playing as a Vortigaunt slave with superior intelligence named Xonxt, you are tasked with retrieving back an important developmental weapon, the “Xen Techno Biologic Sphere”, that was stolen by Black Mesa scientists. Your journey will take you from Xen to Black Mesa as your story intertwines with the Black Mesa incident, with new areas, familiar scenes and new weaponry to accompany you on your quest to take back the XTBS.
Point of View features it’s own, very short training room that’ll let you get used to playing as Xonxt, such as the Vortigaunt’s charged electric attack and how to access the journal entries required for learning about the story of Point of View. The story itself is serviceable and does tie in with Half-Life and its expansions well enough, but it does require reading the short journal entries (40 in total) and the main campaign offers few cutscenes. Despite the use of journal entries, there is new, limited voice acting for new enemies and characters that isn’t distracting and works fine to keep the original Half-Life feel intact. Level design, too, is pretty faithful to the original game and is also fairly well put together, if with a few optional areas to explore that just lead to a dead end. Some of the boss fights are enjoyable and utilise the environment well. I particularly liked one fight against an armoured personnel carrier armed with machine guns in every direction that has you dashing between cover to reach a spot that’ll help you defeat it. The new enemies fit the original game’s lore, such as scientists armed with hazardous needles and engineer crew with crowbars, and the new weaponry like the Stukabats are fun ideas that are well executed.
Weaponry is limited, however, and the main form of attack that you’ll use in Point of View is the Vortigaunt’s electric attack. This attack has to be charged and can be finicky to use. Charging leaves you open to attacks and so the game can be difficult if you don’t use cover often and effectively. What isn’t great is how the mod doesn’t give you a crosshair to use, so aiming the electric attack is very difficult and sometimes frustrating if you need to get that first hit in. Combat, as such, may be off-putting and hard for some. This isn’t helped by how your only means of recovering health is from standing in healing pools that take a while to replenish your health, or from using the Vortigaunt’s electric attack that steals health from enemies. I found the most effective way to fight human enemies armed with firearms is to attempt to aim at their heads to kill them quickly whilst simultaneously stealing a great deal of health. Fighting can be a chore against turrets and enemies with miniguns who can kill you within seconds, so if you play this mod make sure to play on an easier difficulty or potentially use auto-aim to hit enemies.
Another issue that I had was that I came across a bug during the scene where you attempt to fly on the back of a Manta Ray. In my game, the Manta Ray slowly rose up towards the ceiling door, the door opened and then closed without the Manta Ray escaping. My character suddenly started to take minor damage from nowhere and the next level loaded but was glitched, as if my character was spawned outside the map. I had to fix this by opening the console and manually changing to the level that I was supposed to be on.
By the end of my roughly 5-hour journey through Point of View, I was glad it ended when it did. Any longer and I’d feel as though the game had outstayed its welcome, but thankfully it didn’t. The final cutscene was rather amusing, but much like the rest of the story it was fine. Not exemplary in any case, but did scratch the itch that I had of experiencing the Black Mesa incident through the aliens’ perspective. If you wish to see how playing as a Vortigaunt in Half-Life feels and want a bit of a challenge at the same time, then Point of View is a decent recommendation if you are a big fan of Half-Life side stories.
Manually
Hard
5 Hours
Much like Azure Sheep, Point of View is a classic mod that has many good ideas going for it. However, also like Azure Sheep, it also has a lot of weaknesses holding it back. While I would say as a whole is Azure Sheep’s superior, it suffers a lot from the combat loop. As you’re playing as an alien slave, your arsenal of weaponry is pretty limited, and most of the time you’ll be using your zap attack. While it can be powerful, it takes a bit to charge up, and by the time the mod’s over you can get pretty tired of it.
Additionally, without spoiling much, this mod attempts to tie into Azure Sheep at many points. Unfortunately, this also means you’ll be revisiting a lot of the more dull maps featured in Azure Sheep, including the dull hallways.
I would rank this in the same category as Azure Sheep. It’s a classic mod that has a lot of great ideas that were novel at the time, but is held back by strange design decisions and a reliance on long corridor level design. Still worth the play, but temper your expectations.
They really made playing as an enemy really interesting, the gameplay loop is fun and the level design is good.
It’s a good time.
Manually
Hard
4 Hours
This was one of the first Half Life mods I ever played. Going through it again was a pleasant experience. It’s certainly rough around the edges, but the unique perspective is entertaining enough to make up for that. I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to try something a bit different from the standard gun-play from the base game.
The visuals, the gameplay, the story, the philosophy around it and how it pairs with humanity even to this day (more also currently too); it was all perfect.
The only thing I would change is some places looking like mazes. Sure, that was the point, but I think it was a wee bit too much. Either way, it’s harmless compared to the experience this brings. Totally recommend it!
Manually
Medium
4 Hours, 10 Minutes