That's not to say the game is bad but it's not any more well done than your typical HL mod really. Most notable thing is that at many many turns and corners this game feels like a strange mix up of Quake 2 and Half-life but in a bit of a shoddy and moddy manner. Sometimes its gibs other times it's the techy textures, sometimes its the way a robot woman walks that reminds you of the Iron Maiden then there is just the stylization of some creatures, textures, boxes marked health or ammo and sounds that feel like a strogos base.. For those of us who like both games it's a bit interesting to walk around and look at some of these things and play 'i Spy Quake 2 in Half-life" but it's a generic ride. Despite it's moments it's not worth a visit. maybe it's chief gimmick (customizable weapons) combined with some decent lighting effects, art and other visual elements was more impressive in 2000. It's short enough to complete however.

Gameplay: the main feature of this game is the ability to customize your guns in various ways, however the interface for this is basically like a dial letting you go through one setting at a time and this is done in real time so it's not exactly something you can do on the fly in combat. (Imagine opening up yourFallout 4 pipboy in the middle of combat and time didnt stand still. That's what messing with these weird weapons feels a bit like) the pistol turns into a sniper at one point and the sniper works rather well. the best gun for this strange concept is a biogun, similiar to UT99. it lets you combine AP/HP effects among other elements. Mostly the gun ideas aren't bad and the freedom is kind of nice but there's little incentive to constantly be mixing it up. The game also has some really absurd ideas for how a heavy machine gun/rapid fire weapon could work involving rotating barrels that rotate faster to jump around in your arms like an enraged gerbil/snark and adding cooling fins to the barrel to improve that spinning effect. (it's like rims, but on an HMG.) Make no mistake, while the Mechagun (i'm not sure why its called that) is conceptually similiar to say... an HS010 in principle it's nothing of the sort in practice. While it serves as a good boss weapon its not really practicle for much else http://gunmanchronicles.wikia.com/wiki/Mechagun

Design: maps are poor, bland and rather boxy. By the end i was just running through them as they didnt have much in way of exploration or interest really. They feel static. scripting and map progression is okay, visuals, textures and models are okay and actually look really good in differnt spots for the gold source engine. Lighting effects are good. (The technical design is pretty good for what is done with HL, no doubt this game looks nice) The sound is okay if you can overlook the obvious fact the sound assets were lifted from HL and ran through cheesy effects filters. It's too bad the gun customization doesnt pan out this is an idea that would maybe be worth refining very much but it doesnt work as exectuted here. Backstory and setting is the equivalent of going through the cafeteria's ala carte line, picking up everything and rolling it all into a big lumpy ball. I was hungry enough to finish my meal but that doesnt mean I wont get sick.

Historical: This has none really. I saw it in a store long ago but never played, yet remained curious. Digging up the HL again and going through things like this and other mods i've wanted to take a stab at. Pletny of independent mods beat this imo. Funny hwo valve was proud of this one to support it, have patches on official updates, etc. yet seemed to shun Half-life Decay. Which I played after this and a few other mods and felt like I struck treasure.