As for gameplay, it’s a very harsh style. One I feel more akin to Rainbow 6 than CS, but with lots of similarities to both. The single objective gameplay is great too, and the random location spawning is so it forces you to adapt your tactics depending on the ghost’s position.

Visuals wise (seeing as it’s running on HL Ep1 engine I believe) it’s astounding the fidelity they’ve come out with.
The mapping itself is sometimes great, other times not so. There’s a huge range of vertical levels on most of the maps, and then routes through which only the recon class can get to opening up gameplay directions which can mean choke points aren’t so painful.

The main problem with the maps is that they were balanced for 6v6, and most of the time it’s 8-12per side or more. When it’s 6v6 suddenly routes that were always camped become available and the whole game changes, forcing your team to work even closer together, and bringing the ghost into play alot more often.

With a bugfix, possibly a new mode (my personal hope is VIP escort) and couple of fresh maps the mod would hopefully get the attention it deserves.

However, it was undeniably pretty to look at. Shame about the gameplay.

What the review says is all true, the gameplay mechanic on its own is very strong. Unfortunately where the mod falls down is definitely not its looks, but its UI, its map balance and its weapon balance.

Regarding the UI, I have to clarify that I’m talking more about the team, class and weapon menus and just how well-explained the game is through the interface. The HUD is actually quite nice with clean look and some very useful features (scrolling compass, squad assignment and squad member info).

But where it falls down is by not explaining to a new player what everything is and does. You won’t get menus telling you what each class is good at, what abilities they have and what weapons they can use. You also can’t see the damage differences between two different SMGs, for example. What this means is you’ll spend a lot of time having to pull this information out for yourself through trial and (often painful) error.

There is also a lot of missed opportunities for a small bit of text on the HUD to tell you what’s going on. There’s nothing to tell you the game mode or rules at the start of a round, so you run around like a headless chicken for a bit. The Ghost has no text on the HUD to tell you it’s really important and you should go defend it/pick it up, and when you do pick it up you don’t have any text explaining how to use it.

These represent minor but much needed changes that teach you how to play the game. It’s like shipping a board game with no rulebook. Sadly from what I can see of the patch notes this has not been addressed and subsequent patches have instead focused on adding new content with some balance changes.

Bottom line: The NT team has done well to release such a visually/aurally polished mod, but even though the gameplay is fundamentally quite simple, picking it up to begin with will prove difficult for most players. If you are kinda hardcore and you can stick with it you may well enjoy it. And anime fans will love it either way.