If this was made in current year i would see it as a homage to Half-Life/Source/GMOD horror maps and mods in general and leave it at that, but it was made more or less in 2010 and influenced a lot of other spooky scary stuff. Because of that i am willing to overlook what it actually is - jumpscares, a lot of them - and i hate it. I hope REIMAGINED is more of the good sound-design of this but without the jumpscares.

you can't escape from nightmare house.

This is one of the few mods that I play religiously every October. It's short, but is it delicious.

There's something wrong when an ancient source horror mod has better scares then most modern slop.

Please port Underhell to the newest version of source and patch it to properly function.

The Steam release of one of the my favorite Source mods is here with some nice additions like Achievements and Cloud Saves. In case you don't know, this is a horror mod heavily inspired by F.E.A.R. with good pacing and map variety. After just finishing it again, I can say it holds up well (except maybe the final boss battle) and is a fun ride down memory lane if you've been away from anything Source related for some time. To get all the achievements while finishing the campaign will probably take around 5-6 hours so it's great for a weekend palette cleanser. Relive the Nightmare and enter the House of Horrors, IF YOU DARE!

This review is provided by the 𝓕𝓾𝓷𝓴𝔂 𝓙𝓪𝓵𝓪𝓹𝓮𝓷𝓸𝓼 (Curation Page | Steam Group) and the support of readers like you, thank you.

You should play this. It's a solid short horror experience in the Source Engine with no major issues, it's free to play with none of the negative connotations usually involved with that phrase, and it's a little slice of history thanks to its presence as one of the big indie horror hits of its time.

Is it scary? Well... horror is subjective but this game relies on constant jumpscares to get a reaction from the player. Most of them aren't effective, especially once you've gotten used to the game's way of pacing the scares. Which is to say, how the game doesn't pace any scares and keeps throwing things at you until you're desensitized to them. Many of the scares are very clever and use the Source Engine in ways I have yet to see people replicate. But the sheer volume of stuff happening at all times and the lack of breathing room removes any dread and makes it more "BOO! Haunted House!" than a true horror experience. This is the main reason I'm excited for the remake because the developers have a lot of experience by this point, and I can't wait to see it applied to this story and concept with an actual budget. "In Sound Mind" being their most recent title, and it is very well-made horror.

Gameplay-wise, it's Half-Life 2. The crowbar is replaced by a horrendously overpowered axe which has a secondary fire that one-shots every enemy in the game aside from armored zombies. The pistol is going to be your other go-to for picking off things at a distance because the SMG suffers from Half-Life 2's lack of ammo. Fast zombies eat entire magazines of its ammunition before they go down, making it good for about a few seconds. The shotgun is gotten so late into the game (assuming you aren't finding secrets) that I hardly remember if it was any good. Since the game only took me ~2.5 hours to complete the first time, that means I only had the shotgun for like 20 minutes.

The story is simple but works in the game's favor. You'll probably be able to predict every twist and plot beat, especially if you've played the games it is clearly influenced by. (cough cough FEAR) The voice acting is good for mods of its time, and you may feel the amateur energy today but I never found it intrusive even though I could tell they were limited and had to re-use VA's for some characters.

It's unbalanced, cheesy, not usually scary, but it's never boring. I'm so happy to see this classic brought to modern hardware for all to enjoy, and also very glad to see that they've kept the original mod up on ModDB. Games and mods should be preserved for all time, for everyone to enjoy. Now we need more mods (like "Cry of Fear" which I can barely get to run on my PC) to get this treatment.

Fantastic 90s old school horror.

Drop they hunger mod and the old game F.E.A.R in to a blender, and you get nightmare house.

I binged the thing in one sitting.

One of the best old school Half Life 2 mods, up there with the greats like Estranged Act 1, Entropy Zero 1, Minerva etc

OH MY GOODNESS HEN IT'S BEEN 20 YEARS HOW HAVE YOU BEEN CAW CAW? HOPEFULLY YOUR NOT DEAD CAW CAW.

SP_NIGHTMARE_HOUSE_RAR WAS UPLOADED 19 YEARS AGO CAW CAW. NO RYONA ANIME YET, NO SMART PHONES CAW CAW.

JUST THIS MOD AND SAMSUNG JUKE PHONE CAW CAW. SIMPLE TIMES CAW CAW. HEN I HOPE YOU GOOD DAY CAW CAW.

Still terrifying even for decades later

Even after all these years Nightmare House still holds up fairly well. The only real criticism I have of the mod (aside from stereotype free mod voice acting) is that the weapons feel underpowered, except for the axe, which is overpowered.