This is easily one of the best Half Life 2 mods. It offers a comfortably similar mission style to compliment Half Life 2. Minerva may be short in overall game hours, but if you enjoyed Half Life 2 you will definitely enjoy this reminiscent detour.

Minerva offers exactly what you would expect from what is a mod side story that is intent on delivering a unique and enjoyable experience with purposely simlar gameplay to Half Life 2.

I would highly reccomend Minerva to anyone that enjoyed the Half life 2 singleplayer experience, but is still craving more of what made Half Life 2 one of the best atmospheric story driven fps games. You will not be dissapointed.

Amazing Half-Life 2 Mod. Definitely worth playing.

Bored of waiting for HL3 ? So am I, but here's a little something to make the wait easier.

MINERVA: Metastasis is a source based mod set in the Half life universe. Its amazing if you're into HL and it's universe, probably a bit less if you're not (you would definitly rather start by playing HL2)
It has similar atmosphere, mechanics (duh), and immersion than HL2 and it's Episodes. Consider it as a plus or a side quest to the main game, kinda the way Opposing force and Blue Shift are to HL1.
It's creator has worked at Valve so no wonder it is a good game !

I really enjoyed the map and plot. No spoiler, but I can tell you that once again you're gonna have to f*ck with some huge combine installations :D
It's hard to tell when the game events occur compared to City 17's events, I think it's just some Resistance action happening before Gordon's come back.

Only downside is that the game had some weird graphic settings the first time played it, it was really bright and well... quite ugly compared to what I was seing online.
If it happens to you (you can compare with the community page screenshots) add "+mat_dxlevel 90 +mat_hdr_level 2 +mat_hdr_enable +mat_fullbright 0" (no quotes) to your game launch options.

The game is free if you already own HL: E1, so get it !

*NOTICE* I just finished playing this mod and here is my final verdict.

MINERVA: Metastasis, what may appear as a generic, fanmade Half-Life 2 mod on the outside actually appears more on the inside. I have played many Half-Life 2 mods and this one definetely goes on my list of one of the most interesting if not one of the best Half-Life 2 mods I have ever played. The mod is mysterious which really fits into the Half-Life universe, the story is told via text which may seem horrible on paper with many flaws, which it does don't get me wrong, but it gets the job done and in a way gives MINERVA its character.

The level design in MINERVA is very similar to Half-Life 2's level design yet also has some variation with the mod being more maze-like than Half-Life 2's which in my honest opinion gives the mod more variation and gives an immersion factor to it. The mod is also surprisingly challenging compared to Half-Life 2 and I was playing on Normal difficulty! I mean its not rage inducing hard but the beginning levels do stir up a challenge with the mod throwing enemies at you in tight corridor-like locations. It the kind of hard difficulty which does test you, makes you think and makes you aware of your surroundings and makes you think of plans to take on the many Combine foot soldiers and aliens head crabs and zombies that you will encounter.

There is a lot more to say about MINERVA, the design of the levels and the detail that the mod developer placed are truly amazing, the gameplay and pacing is spot on and the mod just truly feels interesting to play. Many things in MINERVA are also interesting with the themes of Greek Mythology being in the game with the Narrator telling you your mission objectives via text.

The story in MINERVA like I said is mysterious with a lot of what is going on is confusing but atleast there's forums to explain whats going on. A lot with MINERVA also fits in with the Half-Life universe that I feel that someday Valve should incorporate into that next Half-Life game that we are all waiting for. When you get to a certain part involving a portal you'll see what I mean, not spoiling it that is.

In the end MINERVA is a must play, it really makes you happy to play a good Half-Life 2 mod, its short yet sweet, and plus it makes you think more as to what Half-Life 3 could be.

MINERVA is a beautiful, well paced mod for Half Life 2. Taking place on an island occupied by the combine, it features fantastic level design that rivals that of vanilla Half Life 2. The areas weave together in a very believable way and every area is shrouded by an air of mystery. Also noteworthy is the expert use of verticality. I often found I was able to use this to my advantage against the numerous, well placed enemies in MINERVA. Not only are the areas well designed, but each is also visibly distinct. Because of this, I never found myself lost for long. I even stopped once to admire the setting sun reflecting off the ocean's waves. The Story is engaging enough. It does a good job of adding to the mystery of the island, although it would have benefited from proper voice acting as it is sometimes difficult to read during intense gunfights.

Over all, MINERVA provides some of the best Half Life 2 content I have experienced. Anyone with a copy of Half Life 2 owes it to themselves to give this a try.

Pretty much the best HL single-player mod. Adam Foster got hired at Valve as a direct result of his work here.

~2 hours of harder combat and little puzzles in a HL2 universe story, finished it in one go and thought "This was nice, I should recommend this", so here it is =)

Some voice for the messages would've made this better though :P

A Half-Life 2 mod that should be a really game!

This hands down is one of my favourite Half Life 2 mods. While being that same to Half Life 2 with sounds, graphics and all that jazz, it has a very different story to it that uses a bit of Greek mytholegy. The game has a person telling you things but instead of speaking, they use writting. This is good because you don't have modded voices (and alot of the voice acting with bad mics make a mod seem bad) but you will have to stop to read it.

Since this is free, why not give it a shot? This sucked up more than 2 hours of my life on hard difficulty (because where is the challenge of playing a game on an easy difficulty :P ) and is was worth it. Just make sure you have Half Life 2 installed.

8.1/10

Great mod with great visuals and quality!

Holy ♥♥♥♥. That's all I have to say.
This game kept me thinking! Hell, I was stuck on a few parts for extensive periods of time.
While playing through this mod, I noticed a few things that were similar to the original Half-Life.
You don't get too many supplies that make you fell over-powered.
Or too little supplies that make you feel too under-powered.
The only problem I actually had with this was trying to read the text in the upper right corner,
and the auto saves. You need to have more frequent auto saves.
I died just after this long elevator part and it took me all the way back to the start of the elevator.
Please, add more auto saves so you're not repeating too much.

Thanks for the great game!

DEFINITELY had to write a review for this one. If you like Half Life, you NEED to play this mod.

This was the first time in a long time that I felt like I was playing something truly set in the Half Life universe. I stopped thinking "wow this is a great mod" and kept thinking "wow this is an actual Half Life game." Valve also basically accepts it all as canon as the guy was hired on by Valve after this mod's completion, and he went on to work on Portal 2 and is working on whatever form of Half Life currently exists within the Valve offices.

Excellent design and the story - though somewhat light, doesn't actually FEEL light. It's intriguing, and Adam Foster excels at storytelling even through the environment, making the gameplay flow smoothly and just feels more open and fluid than most level designs even in a lot of modern day games.

Just, please play it. It's so good. Adam Foster contributed to the greatness of Portal 2, and his hand will be at work in whatever Half Life comes out next, whenever that might be.

Minerva should be classified as an expansaion as opposed to a mod. It doesn't modify anything; it expands upon the first hour of Half-Life 2: Episode 1. A game that left me a little cold once you escape the Citadel. Minerva takes the best bits from Episode 1 and makes it twice as big as well as giving it its own vague and unique storyline. It's an incredible expansion that knows exactly where it's best at and embraces it. This is precisely what Half-Life 2: Episode 1 should have been, and would have made a great precursor to the formidable Episode 2. This game is free. You have literally no reason to not play it.

I dare say this is damn near a masterpiece. On more than one occasion, this phenomenal game is better than Half-Life 2 itself. The level design is some of the smartest I've ever played. Its pacing is also a great mix of suspense and tension, never leaving me bored the way some sections of HL2 did. Minerva's use of the HL universe is also fantastic. It cleverly builds on the existing material and pushes to delve deeper into the Combine's sinister plots.

The game isn't without its problems however. I found myself lost twice, having to look up the solution in a walkthrough. The problem would have easily been caught by a larger QA team, so it's hard to hold that against the creator. I also would really have preferred a voiced narration instead of blocks of text. The story was well written, but reading so much text in between firefights kind of pulled me out of the action. Again, this is easily forgiven for what is essentially a one-man project, but it would have really helped the pacing.

Overall, this was without a doubt the best Half-Life 2 ‘mod’ I’ve ever played. But what’s more, this one-man game was one of the best FPS’s I’ve ever played. While it lacks the polish of most other games, it more than makes up for that in cleverness, style, and execution. A fantastic ride from start to finish.

This is a tough thing to review. I have mixed feelings about level design - Sometimes you are told about a "door" which turns out to be a metal plate in the wall. Sometimes you are told to do damage to some crappy reactor - It turns out you're supposed to dump crates inside of it. Some puzzles were tough.

Certain fights seem badly setup - enemies in a bunch as if they just spawned and didn't even walk apart. The chase scene were you run away from soldiers without weapons. That was very fun, but you are supposed to wait for the next area to open, while most people would run away and not wait for the door assuming it was closed.

There's also the thing with breakable scene elementns. No, a sparking piece of metal in a huge collapsing cluster♥♥♥♥ of identical surroundings is not enough to attract my attention.

Despite of it's many shortcomings I suppose I sort of, enjoyed this mod? I felt more happy at the end then I did at the end of HL2, and that says something. The level design really wasn't that bad, since I never consulted a walkthrough. I did on multiple occasions during my HL playthrough and that game's level design is considered to be amazing. It's only two hours long but trust me - it feels a lot longer than that. In a good way.

So yeah, check this out! Definitely worth your time. I certainly wouldn't buy it if it was paid, but it's free!

MINERVA is a community made mod for Half-Life 2. I guess you could call this one Half-Life 2: Episode 2.5. It looks, feels and plays exactly like the other Half-life 2 parts. The story is small, yet very entertaining. The levels are amazingly well made to match Half-Life 2's environment. It is certainly not an easy game and you will sometimes spend some time to figure out on where to go next, but it is certainly not too difficult either.

If you liked Half-Life 2, then you definitely need to try this mod.

The story and the levels come together as polished gems.

A truly amazing experience, especially for a mod! I highly reccomend checking this out.

Impressive! You should really give this one a go. It has very intricate, dark-souls-esque level design and quite challenging, well paced encounters in which the still superb AI of HL2 shines as bright as it ever did.

Possibly one of my favorite Half-Life 2 Mods.

Great game with awesome story totaly worth of play so cool