I actually just discovered Beyond Black Mesa and Escape from City-17 earlier this evening. Beyond Black Mesa was kind of cool, but I didn't think it was near as well done as Escape from City-17. The combine soldiers looked okay I guess, but I really wasn't a fan of the zombies being portrayed as regular zombie movie type zombies. I love the unique Half-Life brand of parasitic aliens that latch onto your brain, mutate you, and turn you into a zombie into a creepy, wailing, slowish moving zombie. The running spitting modern Hollywoodesque zombies this just weren't very Half-Lifey to me.

The big over the top Matrixesque fight scene toward the end between Adrian and the Combine soldier struck me as extremely comical (and very lame). And the whole sacrifice thing at the end when he drops the grenade behind them makes no sense. For one, it has a bright flashing red light on it, so the Combine have to be really dumb not to see it yet they are still approaching them. It would have made more sense for them to run, unless I missed something, they seem to be sacrificing themselves for no other purpose than to kill half a dozen Combine soldiers (did I miss something?). Feels like it was done for no other reason that to be sappily dramatic (though it suffered from that through and through with the dire voice over narration), and to bring a quick end to the story. However, I still have to appreciate the effort that was put into it.