PlanetPhillip.Com lists and reviews single player combat and puzzle maps and mods for the Half-Life series of games.
It currently lists 1228 maps and mods, with 35450 comments, of which 8643 use Recommendation Images.
It also includes nearly 50,000 screenshots, more than 256 weekly poll questions, 535 commenting members and 400 other articles about gaming.
Want to contact me?
Privacy Policy | Terms of use.
Not connected with Valve Software.
Copyright 2003 - 2012. Phillip Marlowe. All Rights Reserved.
17th May 2012
I like to judge the competitions more as a whole project, than for the particular entries they have. That said, i found this DOORVILLE comp, as a very fresh and nice piece to play, so that’s why i think this competittion retakes worthily the succesfull way of other great and interesting competitions as Sniper, Hunter or Rooftop Ville.
That’s really relevant, and well here i think all of the entries were very environmental, and offered cool small battles.
In some maps specially in What’s thru here Alyx? and Above the Canals were the only ones where the doors where actually the main argument of those maps, i liked more Avobe the Canals, because gave me feeling that i’ve been there, and the combat in that open field at the end was great and i really enjoyed it, tough i would have prefered to get the RPG and maybe a crowbar sooner in order to strike by surprise in that final battle, despite of the too much invisible walls and that unuseful airboat which got me confused for a bit, that map was the most beautiful in view terms and i allways like good looking scenarios in HL2 maps specially inthe open areas.
What’s thru Here Alyx? was an ok winner, tough i tought maybe ATC was also deserving of the triunph, WTHA? was the best winner because it was the best map which developed the “beyond the door” concept, tough that “out of the cannon” concept was wierd and i mean just crazy!, think Gordon gets out of the path and kill a CMB platoon, then shoot down a Strider and then confortably gets back to alyx again, CRAZY!!
With Amplifission, i agree it was a totally100% migga map, but maybe too much in his style, the door there was just a big stuff to go on, and solve basic puzzle.
Unknown hazard I give personaly a Mention of honour to this one why? because i think it was just subestimated just because of its darky aspect, but actually the first ambush where you precisely enter to a secondary door to take the CMB by surprise was a clever and a really fun detail, and also the last battle against the CMB units and the fast zombies was something that I enjoyed.
In You Missed One, the whole thing was to solve the wierd valves puzzle in there and that’s it, the doors were abscent at ALL, i think the Canals entrie was so much more intense and interesting tough there were not doors at all there!
Ok so in conclussion i liked this enries and i hope we see the rest Competitions as playable, fun and with interesting combat in them as this first one was.
17th May 2012
It has the same repetition based, mindless puzzles of Amen that have insta death, only here there is a tiny bit more variety in the types of punishment you recieve, falling back down to a part you just passed like in the first and second puzzle thus it still in effect wastes your time but is somehow less annoying than dying… or taking falling damage by spending to much time on those air lifting things, and then theres a type of puzzle that does the normal type of punishment real puzzles are supposed to have.
This one takes your time as you try and solve it by thinking…
A maze like one which is basically a type of perception/memory based puzzle.
If your bad at it you merely have to keep pressing your body against the side of the walls until you find a way through.
Then theres a bunch of the same random stuff we got before, like a random scream in your ear… -_- yeah these guys don’t know horror so they might as well not bother trying that, which thankfully they dropped in the sequel Half-Quake Sunrise.
Theres the same niggling issue I have with the voice over of a few guys that basically sound like a bunch of modders talking random poop to the audience, which seems to go contrary to any atmosphere the music is trying to build. The abstract nature of the mods graphics, like Amen, may have been to cause eerieness but unfortunately starting at blackness for to long doesn’t do much except bore you.
It would be way better if they added some actual hand drawn art to the walls, pencil sketches. So instead gone for a more surreal storybased mod rather than the bland experience we’re left with.
In other words The Present is 2 tiny steps forward with one good puzzle that requires you to think (maze), alternate forms of punishment, but aside from that, like Amen just alot shorter… & has less music.
If you want something mentally stimulating I would skip these half-quakes and go straight to the newer one: Half-Quake Sunrise.
17th May 2012
And forgot to actually click on a recommendation! Silly me..
I only give it a “Play It Now” because I consider some entries a must-play – read up to see which.
17th May 2012
I’ll be continuing my review now, with a recommendation of “Play It” now that I finished the mod.
Above the canals: Actual hl2 setting, but window in DoorVille? Never seen so many invisible walls in one map, nor so many police in one hl place; final battle was duck, wait, stand, shoot, reload, repeat!
Amplifission: I might be Miigga’s new fan and start playing all his maps since I only see quality stuff coming from him. But I agree, it misses the atmosphere, the story, some connection to the hl2 universe, despite being in it visually (textures, models, props). Other than that, top notch work as always. You and Au-Heppa from HLSS should sit down and talk, and then do great things together
Already reviewed You Missed One in a huge spoiler up above. Now I took a pause here in the middle of the mod, but wanted to say this:
PP was probably looking for bright ideas, but even those take time, and authors spent 5 percent on that and the rest on implementing, when the desired ratio would’ve been a lot higher, 20/80 at least. Because the actual map imo shouldn’t necessarily be big in order to be good, gameplay shouldn’t be long. Let’s be real, how MUCH quality mapping can you make in 10 days? Instead, imo, the map should be rather short and sweet, innovative, funny even. Like finding someone dancing in a bathroom, or saying a dirty joke to a colleague, or finding plans and sketches for Borealis. That (last one) would’ve gone straight to my heart. In other words, I would’ve wanted to see an elaborated and playable hl2 easter-egg.
And the 2nd part:
Indeed I can see how the prize would go to “What’s through there“, even though in the first 15 minutes or so I was about to give up because nothing was happening and thought to myself well map must be broken! The button to open the door beneath the siren is also kind of buggy, you press it once for the siren to go off and then try as you might to push it again and shut the loud siren down, except it doesn’t work for about a minute or two. Now on my first playthrough I didn’t know that, so I only pushed it once and ended up going “What the hell am I supposed to do?!”. What was more annoying was the damn siren itself, that not even game pause would pause it.. And another bug: couldn’t pick up the nades.. But when the action started I was right as rain. I do hope the author fixes all these dead times and we’ll see a short but polished release out of this, because I see potential.
Just as I went back to finish the mod, I was going “OK.. 2 more left”, so yea, I guess this wasn’t the most successful competition here on PP.
Yet what a pleasant surprise! Unknown hazard would have taken it for me. The only draw back would be the improper ending. Exploration is rewarded, for eg the shotgun is neatly hidden; layout was new style, like the pools of bodies and holes in brick walls; I also like the way mappers find new ways to give items to players, like the hanging health kit, tho probably few notice such small details.
Too bad no puzzles, but I hardly missed them while playing. Short and sweet for me.. I dunno why people called it dark and depressing, maybe I got used to bad lighting from playing other maps, also I found the darkness in trend with all the bloody dead bodies and I wish I hadn’t missed what looked like some great fighting. I for one had a blast playing this one!
And as I went back to play the last entry, now I was glad I had the chance to play this mod, as Miigga’s and Tobias’ were my fav entries.
And I have to ask, was there a rule about the ggun? Or were the entries stages of the game where the player didn’t acquire it just yet?
Canals.. hmm, is that it? As there were no bugs, there was no spark either. And I agree, map was awful bright, I know HDR is nice and all, but maybe darker skybox (sorry if that’s a newbish idea)? At least the setting looked most familiar (second, of course, to Above the Canals) and was 2 minutes of good fighting. But oh so short.
I don’t know if I have any final words, but seeing how short that last map was, I might go and do something I rarely do: replay my favorite 2 maps of DoorVille!
16th May 2012
Above the canals
This one had a good idea but I got a little dissapointed. The enviroments are dull the rebel assault on the base was nice though. The heli fight at the end took forever. It could take alot of beating, that chopper. Its not a great map but its not bad either.
Amplifission
My first thought was, Wow. The starting room was really nice to look at, and it kept the same atmosphere through the entire map. I liked the puzzles a lot this would be the winner if the combat would be any good. I felt like the map just threw a bunch of enemies at me to slow me down.
You Missed one
This one was really creative and fun to play. Its entirely puzzle-based. In my opinion, a good HL2 maps should mix combat with puzzle. But that was not a rule, so I would say this would be a clear winner for me.
Unkown Hazard
I can’t review my own map
What’s thru here, alyx?
Something about this map really annoyed me. It felt wrong, somehow. I really could not understand how this could be the winner. Nothing personal, its a very well made map, but I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the others.
Canals
This is a beatiful map if not for the eye-burning bloom. I seriously needed to turn down my brightness to be able to see. The combat was really fun though, and I really belived that could really be behind the door.
16th May 2012
Thank you all for the feedback and thanks again Phillip for picking my Map. After playing the others I could see it definitely could have gone to them.
I started mapping about 3 and a half months ago and this is my first released map although the second one I worked on. The first called FreedomTrain is larger and also set in the Halflife 2 world playing as Gordon. It is pretty much done gameplay wise but optimization will be tricky. I’m a slow mapper I think, but will try to get more entries in this contest if I have the time when the 10 days are running. Mapping is peaceful and addictive and I wish I had more time.
Feedback is good.Thanks!
16th May 2012
my first proper pp mod!
i enjoyed the lean equipment pacing personally. having to lure headcrabs and zombies into fires to progress slightly further..
making use of the crowbar was something that, i must say, under-represented in the valve games.especially once the gravity gun appears.
if it wasn’t for mods like this, the crowbar would just sit there doing nowt!
trying to do headshots with the magnum against a charging screaming zombie is still tough for me!
excellent!
16th May 2012
All things considered, you got a whole lotta entries. Perhaps this smaller style allows mappers to not end up binning a map because it’s too ambitious.
16th May 2012
when i first played half life 2 many years ago i sometimes wondered “whats behind that door” or “were does that door go to ” and thanks to “doorville” we know get a chance to see unseen glimpses into new area,s of the half life 2 world
so i shall do this review in order of map…..
ABOVE THE CANALS is a interesting map which begins with the water hazard area of the original game…. and it took me a while to find the door until i realised it was actually a window ! .. however after that was smashed with the crowbar you will greeted with what looks like a scrapyard…. after killing a few zombies and arming yourself with a pistol you find yourself again looking for a door…. until you find the fence instead…. from then on you encounter a battery puzzle… and many guys found it hard to locate the 3rd battery … however this is located earlier in the game which i thought was good…. the rest of the map was pretty standard as hl2 scripts go…..
AMPLIFISSION.. is my personal favourite…… this is standard MIGGA work… to be honest MIGGA is my favourite hl2 mapper ( with leon being my fav modder ) … his work is class and AMPLIFISSION is quality… a good mix of puzzles,action and nice textures…. i personally thought this should of won.. but i suppose some may disagree..
WHATS THRU HERE ALYX… is a cramped map but extremely well made… to get that much detail into such a small area isnt easy but its done well….. i found this a bit annoying at parts… but thats probally me since i prefer more free roaming maps … but not bad
UNKNOWN HAZARD … is another excellent map…. maybe a bit dark at parts but great to play.. the end could of been better…. but a well balanced map with not too many npc,s and some good set peices
CANALS … is another good map and basically is a extension of when you first enter the canals in hl2 before meeting the rebel and vortiguan …(sorry about the spelling ) ….. anyway theres a good firefight but the lighting is crazy in this map….. if the author is gonna extend this map and release it as a dedicated hl2 map then he needs to fix the lighting…
On a personal note i rated the maps as follows :
Above the canals: PIN
Amplifission: PF
You missed one: PIL
What’s thru here, Alyx?: PIL
Unknown Hazard: PIN
Canals: PIL
as phillip stated theres been better mapping competitions.. however this was good fun and worth playing… so as a overall mapping comp i give it PLAY IT NOW!
16th May 2012
I understand why you say that but the theme and the rules were about making it feel as though it belonged to the area chosen. If Miigga had chosen and area from Ep2 then he probably would have won. But he chose HL2 and his level is out of place for that reason.
16th May 2012
I’ve done this as play each game and then write and on to the next one. As an overall for all the entries this is most definitely a play it now. However I’ve rated each one as if it was a single entity. As the longest ‘Above the canals’ was the one that disappointed me the most.
Mr. Walrus chose to use familiar parts of the HL2 series rather than build new, but in the time saved could have used a little more inventiveness to bring it alive.
Miigga! Well as far as I am concerned, just carry on in your own inimitable style.
Tony DeBlasio! More please.
Above the canals:
As has been said already the invisible walls were frustrating, but the one place they should be in they weren’t! You can get into an area I’m pretty sure you’re not meant to and there seems no way out? Fortunately I found the first battery first time, however at that stage it was not evident where you will need it. Apart from a couple of zombies and headcrabs at the beginning the only combat was at the end, it was not that much fun as the metrocops almost stood there waiting to be shot. Another pain was the helicopter, it takes a stupid amount of rockets to bring it down even after seeing a body fly out of it!
Looks-wise, it was OK using HL2 stuff for such a short development time.
As with any mod or map I play (for me at least) fun is the major factor and in this one it was only a light dusting. Overall on its own it’s a Play it Later.
Amplifission:
Ok! it’s from Miigga so we already know its going to be fun and look good. Not his most difficult but there were some doors in it. Overall on its own it’s a Play it now.
You missed one:
It looked good and was as confusing as the pipework in in a chocolate factory (I used to work in one), but it wasn’t much fun for me. Combat consisted of one Zombine and two fast head crabs. I think I finished it, I tried to open the green door and it went back to the menu?
What confused me most was why do you start with so many weapons most of which you don’t need? Despite it’s good looks. Overall on its own it’s a Maybe.
What’s thru here, Alyx?:
Well that was (very) short! But sweet.
It’s not often that a short game is more than a modicum of fun but this one was quite a little gem in my opinion. For what there was of it it looked good, played well and above all was fun. I was a little worried when the bad guys turned up and I only had the crowbar, but a couple of Thwack’s and they gladly gave me some more weapons (very gentlemanly of them).
I played this through a second time, with noclip on to see if I missed anything as the gas canisters against the wall are just begging to blow a hole in it but alas no. Overall on its own it’s a Play it now (and nearly a personal favourite).
Unknown Hazard:
And yet another short offering! Not as good as ‘What’s thru here, Alyx?’ but still not bad!
A bit dark, but still a reasonable amount of combat, its maps like this that make you wish the torch was a bit more realistic and didn’t die after a few minutes. It looks OK and indeed is a short donation to the fun fund. Overall on its own it’s a Play it Later.
Canals:
Ouch! This brings back some painful memories of San Diego, California!
All things aside, this was not that bad, it was very short with some combat and it had a door. Overall on its own it’s a Maybe.
Phillip, despite your reservations this competition provided some interesting entries, probably due to the time limit. More time allows for more complacency toward deadlines.
16th May 2012
I really like Leon’s work and thoroughly enjoyed this mod. I’ve played it twice so far, but will replay in the future.
16th May 2012
I’m sorry If I confused the names but the proper one is Tabe.
Even though it sounds like insults, it teaches you lessons. Now that people said it, my maps ARE dark and depressing. Now i know what to work on until the next competition.
16th May 2012
I will say that its not a improvement of the previous mod.
We get a unique environment, mostly it’s set in metallic clean looking military bunkers (though first it was a space station), where there are a few puzzles to do every once and a while but nothing difficult. There is however some laser tripwires tied to pop down sentries which was a very nice touch.
Compared to previous Poke we actually can pick up the assault rifle off grunts which the obvious lack of it was one of the things that annoyed me before.
But this time we only have 5 weapons instead of the 7 we had before.
The action is still fairly easy, perhaps slightly easier than the previous mod which paints a bad picture for me… eventhough you are fighting grunts theres always to few, and eventhough the creators took emphasis on ammo conservation (in fact going so far as limiting the Assault Rifle ammo to 150) but you still are never short on it, just the other weapons.
Health conservation is still a issue sometimes but found that I only died twice.
What impresses most people about this mod & its predecessor is that everything is new, textures, weapons, music, and unique settings.
The only thing that isn’t new is the aliens… except for the boss of course.
We get 2 boss battles one of which is the Gonarch which was nothing special.
The architecture is fine, with detail added to every area like its lived and inhabited by real people. We even get to see some books like references to Barney, Resonance Cascades, how they warn the outside world of what happened by publishing novels.
We see very little of the city.. the feeling of nostalgia of returning was good with a nice music track playing in the background… we are treated with a moment of peace before we meet aliens. But it’s just a short trip through a basket ball court/bar and back into the underground passages.
Theres also 2 rather mediocre parts, the tram ride which almost always are (original HL made tram rides seem somehow good), and the ending boss which could have been better if we had more room to maneuver, here its just a hide and throw-pipe tactic.
Then theres the unexplained storyline, here the bad guys are the humans once again, the weird thing is Xen are still unwillingly being teleported to earth eventhough we destroyed the main teleporter! We end up having to stop the Poke646 military from nuking Nation city… so it feels like the sequel was sort of thrown in… with the ending cinematic being really cheesy.
Overall I think what I thought of the previous mod, just to easy.. a few simple puzzles, messy storyline but beautiful and very long.
16th May 2012
I didn’t manage to enter in time. However it taught me quite a lot, I spent far too much time on little things. Either way, im still working on my map. I will finish it after my exams.
I will review these maps another time.
16th May 2012
The way I see it is mods don’t get a free pass at becoming top rated mods if they are very short and/or have no proper ending. Most the people here exaggerate how good it is. We didn’t see anywhere near enough gameplay to even speculate if it would be PF material…. I myself have played well over 100 mods and only 2 have I given a PF!!!)
It offers nothing in terms of storyline/puzzles and the combat is rather average, 2 tough grunt fights with alot of smaller fights. You get the shotty and m4. Here we have some great architecture, texturing, making it really look like a industrial/storage area. Theres the elevator we have to activate elsewhere, with a short area underneath the complex and a few stairs up to the helicopter pad and while it was really impressive… we didn’t get to see more.
There a single scripted sequence that merely makes you wonder whats happening and why it doesn’t get explained.
It seems the mod ends when we end up in a room we can’t get passed.
16th May 2012
What constitutes a Personal Favourite for other readers is none of your business. If they loved it, then what you or I think of it is of no concern.
I don’t think anybody gives a “free pass” just because something is small, but neither do we judge something on its length.
Just because you ahve given onlky 2 PF from 100 does not mean your opinion is more important. Just means you are harder to please – nothing more.
16th May 2012
Played through the first 3 and I think I’m one of the few to finish You Missed One, in 2 ways actually.
16th May 2012
As Migga1 said, the theme was not really inspiring. I made like until the zombie bashing the door, then I was out of ideas, it felt like there were no point in continuing. And the name Unknown Hazard sounds cooler than the map actually is.
Can’t wait for the next competition in a couple of weeks.
16th May 2012
This immediately reminded me of Minerva, which is very surprising as I never expected one of my favourite mods to appear in HL1 form, not even in my imagination. I know its Adam Foster It’s his trademark messages.
Its one the few mods (apart from Infinite Rift if memory serves me) that does Xen… and manages to make it beautiful and engaging.
It doesn’t have any of the normal jump sequences, respawning aliens or teleporters we’ve come to expect from these kinds of mods.
It also does something that the majority of mods don’t. Whats the word…. a storyline. Most mods either treat it as a optional text file, or throw a wall of text at the beginning and forget about it till the ending. Here it serves to drive the player and maintain intrigue…
However the storyline fails to deliver a reason as to why you are there and merely poses more questions than it answers. As a prequel I expected more.
What seals the deal for a Play it Now is the challenging gameplay and he does this with aliens! It’s amazing what a difference a few extra aliens makes, I can’t count how many times in HL mods we come up against only 1 or 2 aliens at once (not counting houndeyes), here we get 3-5 in good hand full of encounters.
The mod keeps good pacing with a few lighter fights in between the bigger ones with the stray bullsquid/headcrabs and provides us with lighter artillery of M4a1, Spas-12 & grenades without to much ammo.
Anyone reading this has got to take pointers from this guy.
There aren’t any puzzles apart from 2 simple fetch quests to press a button, but neither feel repetitive because the trek is short and I think it enhances the gameplay by having to improvise tactics when you’re going through areas in reverse, and the areas are so nice you can’t help but appreciate them from a different angle.
My only real criticism is it could have been longer. I wanna see more of this.
The problem I foresee is puzzle lovers not liking this, and anyone expecting to play a long mod.. because Minerva was long and I to was expecting a prequel to do alot of explaining.
16th May 2012
My turn to review? I can see why Phillip had a hard time judging, all of the entries seemed to have their drawbacks.
I didn’t mean for my map to be too confusing, I tried to make it as obvious as possible without completely giving it away. For anyone stuck,
Hint:
How to solve:
Above the Canals
I liked how it tied some things together, but the swarm of metro cops I mowed down at the end as well as the chopper more or less ruined the experience for me. I’d place it second on the believability ranking.
Amplifission
I’ve seen this mapping style before. As already mentioned, it doesn’t feel like Half Life. I would say it is my pic for most entertaining, though the way a few things were put together detracted from the experience.
What’s Thru Here, Alyx?
I didn’t personally like this one very much. I was confused about what was gong on, why it was happening, and what I was supposed to do the whole way through. The introduction was a nice touch though. The funny thing is that I thought about using that exact door.
Unknown Hazard
My first pick for believability, though not perfect. Also a tie with Amplifission for most fun to play. There was a reasonable variety in game play, though the setting was a bit bland. Hard to criticize for only ten days, my entry only had one room. This map would win it for me, except the ending had way too many shotgun toting combine and I couldn’t tell if they were infinite or if I was just supposed to run around them.
Canals
BLOOM! + combine = an okay entry. Some of it was fun but it fell a little flat for me. I think part of that has to do with my inability to remember anything except the area in the screenshots.
Overall? Hard to say. By the criteria of the competition I think I would choose Unknown Hazard as the winner.
16th May 2012
Just finished playing through all of the maps. While I won’t say I was overly-impressed, I do think that all the mappers did pretty well. I feel Migga’s ‘Amplifission’ was by far the best mapping-wise; the detail was great, good lighting, fun gameplay, just a generally good map. Though unfortunately it didn’t seem to fit the style of the area very well imo :/ I think WizardExt’s ‘Canals’ felt the closest to an actual HL2 map, and I greatly enjoyed it despite its short length and the brightness. If it weren’t for the late entry, I would consider it the clear winner. All the others I enjoyed as well; I thought that those two were the crowning achievements though.
Thanks for the criticism on my own map btw, and apologies for its problems. I soon discovered while making it that the nature of the area was demanding an abysmal amount of invisible walls. I tried my best to avoid them, but that required either placing in a ton of very obvious and out-of-place looking barriers (which I had to do as well regardless) or making it very open, which I thought would make it feel too distant from linear HL2 maps. The gameplay was dull too; the last part of the map, the attack on the Combine fortress and the heli battle, was incredibly rushed as I completed it in the last 3 hours of the competition, right after staying up all night to finish it. I rather wish I’d submitted it late as a more finished product, like what occured with Canals. Though luckily I learned a lot, and ofc there are the other 5 to look forward to working on ^^
Btw, in several of the maps, including my own, I found that the scenes didn’t play :/ is anyone getting this same problem?
15th May 2012
Sorry for the bloom/hdr in my entry. I don’t want to murderer peoples’ eyes.
Here are my reviews:
Above the Canals
I was looking for a door, but found a breakable window. The progression was a bit weird in the beginning, many hard turns. I didn’t like the invisible walls, they blocked large open spaces. Felt awkward, made me frustrated. I didn’t like the kill triggers. Visually the map could have been stronger. That area works okay in HL2 since you are riding a boat. But here, in this map, you are higher up and see behind the scenes. A lot of backdrop models are close to the player.
I like battery puzzles. I enjoy looking for them. But this battery puzzle was a bit lame. I found one but spent ages looking for the next one. As a last attempt I decided to backtrack to the beginning of the map… where I found the missing battery. Not good.
Most of the encounters played bad for me. Headcrabs out of canister stood still, Combines at the end had no cover, making them easy kills and their behaviour boring. The helicopter took way too many hits, I thought I did something wrong and looked for other possibilities.
Interesting area to choose, but I didn’t enjoy it too much.
Amplifission
This map looks really good, but doesn’t feel Half-Life 100%. Gameplay wise it’s also, at times, a bit outside the Half-Life universe. I get Portal vibes.
The map feels a bit random throughout. Like many slices of different cakes, all merge to be one. Nom nom!
Overall it looks and plays great. I like the variation between encounters and puzzles. Good job!
What’s Thru Here, Alyx?
Visually interesting. Love the amount of details and the area itself. But the script failed on me, I think.. I spent a long time trying to understand what to do. Breaking crates, pushing every item and button I could find. Had some random encounter with combines and a Spider standing outside. But nothing seemed to make things progress.
Really confusing map.
You Missed One
Interesting design, I love pipes. But this one I didn’t finish, I had no idea what to do or how to progress. I managed to push some buttons and turn some wheels. But after a while I just got bored of not knowing, getting stuck and doing same thing over and over.. I gave up. And having Alyx, outside, fighting.. that just made me nervous.
Unknown Hazard
Cool intro! Linear freedom. I like feeling of having an advantage and a choice. The map played really well for me, most encounters were really fun. Some nice exploration areas. The ending was a bit odd. I ran past the combines at the end and up the stairs towards the light. Was prompted with a fade and success text, but the game was still running and I managed to get killed while having my black screen.
Anyway, I liked this map. Well done!
15th May 2012
Three short, unconnected, in the meaning of separate maps (no mapchange).
“Standoff”, the first map, is also available here at PP as particular map:
http://www.planetphillip.com/posts/half-life-standoff-half-life/
(Maybe remove this, Phillip?)
It’s hard to describe this mappack, as there’s no connection between the maps, each is unique.. somehow. Therefore I’ll describe each map separately.
“Standoff” (map standoff)
First map of the author, we start in a corridor as we can already hear gunfights behind a door. At least we have the HEV suit and a pistol – with only 17 bullets!
Opening the only accessible door reveals some sort of chaos, scientists standing around frightened, a guard tries to return the shots of the soldiers, who are outnumbering him.
So it seems we need to help him. And the scientists.
There’s not much to do, just killing grunts with several weapons you can find or grab from the dead soldiers. I don’t know how to describe balancing here in the meaning of the combat, it’s either too easy due to many health possibilities, or too hard because the quite large number of grunts.
The mapping is cool, lighting and textures are nice. But it’s just all over very, very soon.
“Moonless Nights” (map moonless)
This is a cool, tiny map. As you’ve guessed right, it’s night. Ha!
Another, even tinier gruntfest but here it can be tough due to the lack of ammo or weapons.
The point when you finally grabbed enough ammo from just-killed soldiers, is already the end.
There’s not much to say here, just that the mapping is interesting, nice textures and lighting again, just as in “Standoff”.
It only looks unfinished as the hop into the water (which is the end) leads into a tunnel, which itself leads to nowhere but suddenly fresh air again and an empty area.
Balancing is a big problem here, it just isn’t good when it’s too easy, but this is far from easy. Rushing in is suicide.
Playtime is even shorter than in “Standoff”.
“Lambda Frustration” (map frustration)
The only map that isn’t a gruntfest – but an Xenfest
It’s also the only map with “effective” scripts.
You’ll be happy when finding the HEV suit and weapons, as suddenly… have fun!
As piledriver wrote this is the best map, but with the worst mapping imo.
It’s usually poor textured, lacking of variety but you don’t have any time to watch anyway due to the big amount of action here. Pure adrenaline when played the very first time!
It’s a BM style corridors map with at least a few details, alarm sounds continuous and there’s no time to rest, except when you finally killed the majority of aliens.
The balancing is very good here because there is only very limited ammo.
The pro’s & con’s below are meant for all three maps together this time.
Pro’s:
-Plenty of action, requiring combat strategies, rushing in will result in a quick death
-Decent mapping with good textures, lighting (maybe except for last map frustration)
-Good atmosphere (maybe except for map moonless), supported by music
Con’s:
-Maps are not connected
-No story
-No puzzles
-Short playtime (~1-5 minutes each map, total of 10-20 minutes)
-Combat (balancing) can be tough, act wisely!
-Not much variety in gamedesign
-Maps looking unfinished and are just too tiny
Conclusion:
this could’ve been a very good, maybe great mod.
If the author would have combined all maps together somehow, mixed in some puzzles and at least a silly story
Unfortunately it’s just a small, average mappack.
However, if you like gruntfest-style maps, this is made for you.
15th May 2012
Part of “Woodpigeon’s mappack”. Single and very first map of author.
It’s only one corridor where the action already starts immediately – behind a door.
Scientists being held there by the army. There are plenty of plenty of weapons and ammo, compared to the map’s length. Also lot of health kits, HEV batteries and chargers.
The mapping is quite good, it contains a tiny outdoor area at the end.
Lighting and textures are nice. But all in all it’s nothing special.
For a more detailed review and other comments, check the comments at Woodpigeon’s Mappack page found here:
http://www.planetphillip.com/posts/woodpigeons-pack-half-life/
15th May 2012
First of all: it’s not that bad as mel wrote here. “Gruntmatch” is worse! But that’s just one comparison.
So here we have a old, single map containing fighting grunts and knocking out turrets only.
At same places are tripmines, so I suggest to save some special ammo or weapon.
And be aware of the dark room. Well, it’s no real “dark room”, just a “d a r k” room, get it?
The grunts have shotguns or assault rifles, some throw grenades. Some are placed just oddly. (why would a grunt hide behind a crate, when there’s a turret in front of it anyway?)
That’s just one minor flaw. However, there are some more of course.
But let’s point out the good things.
These are nice combat action with very good balancing in my eyes. Music is playing too.
Another thing is the quite good mapping for a first map.
There are good layouts, nice lighting and even a outdoor area.
If only it would be more detailed, more variety in textures and stuff.
However, the flaws can easily “overwhelm” the positives.
What I mean is the missing story or puzzles, longer playtime and more variety in general.
Nonetheless if you like tough gruntfest-style maps, you’ll surely like this.
Pro’s:
-Nice combat action
-Pretty good mapping for a first map, good layouts, nice lighting (+outdoor area)
-Balancing – watch your step, there’s not much health or HEV batteries
-Relatively well atmosphere – you never know what to expect around the next corner, door
-Grenades provide tactical procedures
-Music fits imho
Con’s:
-Very short playtime (~5-15 minutes)
-No story, puzzles
-Not much variety in mapdesign, enemies, weapons etc.
-No HEV at start – but can be found early ingame
Summary: Well done gruntfest for a coffee break, worth a look if you like these style of maps.
15th May 2012
A tiny map with only four more or less big, boxy rooms. No details, pretty textures or anything enjoyable visuals here.
The only enemies are… how did you know, Einstein?? Some aliens and assassins are hold in cages in one room, god knows why.
There is like everything important missing here besides the mapping and graphics I already mentioned.
That includes a story, puzzles, atmosphere and every other essential thing to make it a good map such as at least a few scripts.
The only good thing is, that you’ve the HEV suit and chargers, health chargers and some weapons right at the start, but imo there’s no need for the chargers anyway. So balancing is also a negative thing here.
After killing all grunts there’s nothing to do, no exit or something like that.
Pro’s:
-HEV suit and weapons at start, also two health- and two HEV chargers
-Some combat
Con’s:
-Very, very short playtime (~1-3 minutes)
-No story, puzzles, scripts
-Poor, basic mapping (at least good lighting)
-No atmosphere, no scripts, no variety, no fun
-Balancing – it would be better if there wouldn’t be health & HEV chargers
-No readme, no infos about the map
-No point at all
15th May 2012
Confession about my map: The competition theme didn’t really inspire me much. I wanted to enter anyway. I ended up not really putting all my effort in. I lazily ran with pretty much any idea I got without thinking about it much.
And now for my short reviews of the other maps:
Above the canals
Lots of invisible walls. Low framerate so I guess the map was not very well optimised.
I could not find the third battery, but funnily enough the puzzle accepted a barrel as a substitute for a battery. Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/tDHiP.jpg
Use a filter_activator_name next time to fix this.
The combat was not particularly exciting either. The metrocops kind of just stood there and fired at me while I was doing the same to them. Also, the helicopter required a ridiculous amount of hits to take down.
Other than these problems, the map was alright.
What’s Thru Here, Alyx?
I got stuck in this one quite a few times. It’s never clear what you’re supposed to do and fighting a squad of combine soldiers without any weapons besides the crowbar is kind of silly.
It wasn’t that bad but I don’t understand why this won, to be honest.
Also, having the
You Missed One
Very well-made map. Perhaps a little bit too cramped. Also a bit confusing.
Probably would have won this competition if it was up to me
Unknown Hazard
Quite atmospheric, albeit lacking a bit in visuals. Used maybe a few too many zombies. I liked the “sneaking” and the grenade hole in the wall.
Overall a pretty good map
Canals
The bloom is murdering my eyes
The combat could be more exciting; the combine soldiers are just running directly at me at regular intervals.
Overall a fun map and it looks a lot more HL2 than my map does, for sure.
15th May 2012
Yeah, I’d love some HL1 competitions as well.
15th May 2012
Well, there was one and it only got one entry, but there will be more in future.
15th May 2012
It sounds like this was a competiton which was good for mappers but not so fun for the players.
It is a shame that the competition is limited to Episode 2 because I think it would be nice to open one up to a wider range of people with the new Portal puzzle maker. I want to make maps but always have problems with Hammer.
15th May 2012
This site is not really focused on portal, so it would be silly to have a Portal competition. Especially for the new Portal editor which is focused on not needing a website to see and play the maps.
17th May 2012
Yeah as a gamer i’m really picky and i probably wouldn’t play a PORTAL comp. i’d see it as a pain in the but, because is annooying for me to play 6 or more maps just center in the portal puzzle solver dynamic that i don’t used to enjoy with portal mappers-moders too much, i prefer combat and fun arround the action fights and environments HL2 brings…
15th May 2012
I can’t access this from Steam as I don’t get the Custom Game option. Can anyone please tell me how to correct that?
I tried running from the CD, which gives me the custom option, but the game doesn’t start. The screen says “LOADING” but nothing happens. My non-Steam game is version 1.1.1.1.
Also, how do I add a picture to my profile?
15th May 2012
Certainly not the best mapping competition I have run but not the worst either.
I enjoyed all entries to varying degrees.
In other competitions the winner was clear to me from the moment I finished playing all the entries, but not so in this competition. No entry stood out as much better than the rest for the criteria I judged it on.
I hope you enjoy playing the maps and below are some thoughts about each entry.
Above the Canals
I think that this relied too much on the visuals of the actual HL2 game. I understand why the map has lots of invisible walls but it really broke the immersion for me.
I don’t think the author carefully read the rules, because this should have been done without any invisible walls.
The actual map seemed to fit the location very well, but I admit I haven’t gone to the play to find it and compare.
All in all I felt the author did a good job of making the are fit the location but it was perhaps too ambitious for such a short competition time. Too many parts were too bland. The battle with the metrocops was too easy and same for the helicopter.
Amplifission
This looks and plays like a Miigga map. The problem is that Half-Life 2 doesn’t. I feel that Miigga didn’t do a good job of making me believe that the area I was in was really what could have been behind that door.
The gamplay was too “Miigga” as well: shoot enemies that drop in, find puzzle, solve puzzle, shoot charging Combine soldiers, look for way to exit area etc etc.
There’s no doubt it was fun to play, but I just didn’t feel it was the right map to win.
What’s Thru Here, Alyx?
I certainly enjoyed the start of this and beside the canon thing and what seemed to be an invisible wall by the pickup truck, this was a fun map to play.
It was not too ambitious but didn’t feel tiny either. The author used the area well, although I suspect if I played it a few times I could find some exploits.
You Missed One
There’s little wrong with this entry expect it wasn’t much fun to play. If this is what was actually in the building from EP2, I probably wouldn’t be complaining but since it’s a stand alone map I hoped for more.
Unknown Hazard
I can’t quite put my finger on what I didn’t like about this but it was perhaps too dark and depressing. It was pretty fun to play and probably has the most replay value of all the entries but nothing really excited me.
Canals?
It is interesting that this is the second entry for the same door and it’s good to compare this with Miigga’s. As much as I enjoyed it, the lighting was just too bright and although the area looked perfectly set up for a strategic battle, the combine were too easy to kill.
They should have come from more directions.
15th May 2012
Philip. you sound utterly dissapointed with all of them. How is it possible this got a Play It Now from you?
15th May 2012
It didn’t get a Play It Now from me, it got a Play It. My recommendations are different from readers. I feel that all readers should play this mod.
I didn’t mean to sound “Utterly disappointed” but I have to admit to being a little disappointed. I really felt the theme offered really interesting possibilities.
15th May 2012
I guess it could have had more entries, but your expectations might be set too high, considering that these are 10-day maps.
15th May 2012
I don’t believe so. The amount of work people put in was fair, it was more the style and ideas rather than the quantity of content.
17th May 2012
I agree in here, and a HUNTER or maybe 2 would be just fitted perfect in there!, and maybe a gunship or a heli, would be great to fight in there too.
15th May 2012
I decided that I’d give this mod a try, and now I wonder why I did…
The mod definitely takes its cues from M.C. Esher and other optical illusions, but there’s no actual gameplay to make it enjoyable.
It passes itself off like it’s a puzzle mod very early in, with a very simple to understand goal for the first level.
After that, the sense of puzzle-solving and general ‘logic’ flies out the window and it’s down to just random guessing.
In total, there’s just three ‘puzzles’ to solve (with trippy intermissions), but only the first one was an actual ‘puzzle’ (if you consider search quests to be puzzles). The second and third are both really just mazes of random for the sake of random. By this, I mean there is no way to actually figure out the maze, only random guessing. I was eventually lucky enough to get through both on one go, but it’s generally a pointless endeavor.
Back onto the ‘trippy intermissions’ though. These are partly the shining moments of the game, aside from maybe the first level. They are weird, they are optical illusions, and make awesome use of the Half-life engine… unfortunately, they too are a little clunky. Maybe it’s because the HL1 engine wasn’t that great at handling these types of effects. Maybe I’m a little spoiled because game engines have improved so much at this point that HL1 just feels clunky. Either way, this mod suffers because of that slight clunkiness that defeats the optical illusion it’s trying to show.
The ending is just a little too absurd for me, though… if you have the patience (or luck) to get to that point, you’ll see what I mean.
Generally, it’s really too short, a bit broken, and over-the-top absurd at the end. If you want a better representation of how weird the HL1 engine can be, play the Half-Quake series.
15th May 2012
i need to know all the weapons name
15th May 2012
I quite enjoyed this map for it’s variety of inventive puzzles and well set up action sequences
1. The puzzles are broken up by some nice action sequences. I particularly enjoyed the last battle with Hunters and Combine
2. The rising water puzzle is pretty tough and I died a couple times. I thought this kind of time pressure sequence is very cool but I think the author overdid the difficulty as it got quite frustrating when I screwed up just a little bit.
3. The lighting and level of detail was excellent much like most of the author’s maps. Every room felt quite populated and full of detail. The author has a very distinctive style
4. My favorite puzzle was the moving combine ball puzzle.
5. Looking forward to Miiga’s next release
15th May 2012
After finishing it and reading the reviews and replying on some, I don’t know where to start.
I’m just so frustrated that somehow not enough betatesting was done and if it was, the feedback wasn’t properly used by the author. I’d almost reach out and tell him to have another go at it and finish it because the potential is huge, for the modder and for the mod itself. Starting a new mod seems ok but to leave this one unfinished is just .. a damn shame! Pitty!
It’s hard to talk about this without treating it like a beta and therefore frequently hinting, pointing and saying I want more of this, less of that, fix these etc.
For instance, the part with the elevator and the debilitated fast zombie is kind of buggy but to go into detail is pointless now.. “Interpenetrating entities! (player and func_tracktrain)” in map 3_5 console messages; is there an smg in this mod? I missed it and now see all this ammo; as PP said, the fast zombies area was unrealistic, and as others pointed out, there were other areas of this kind, too; also the going in an S pattern became repetitive.
And just because you give the player real guns doesn’t mean you need to make less or zero Ggun (I realize the pleonasm) puzzles from that point on; you can also remove his guns? or make puzzles with those real guns? It’s just weird, this feels like a 2 part mod, which stresses out the fact stated by a previous reviewer, that the environment was built around the puzzles and not the other way around (it would’ve gone unnoticed if not for the entire guns part).
On the other hand, the puzzles are awesome (yes, I remember saying ‘awesome’ a lot in the first minutes of playing this mod), I gotta hand it to you. As PP said, a great puzzle needs to consist of 2 parts: player figuring out what to do, which should take like 90% of the time and effort, and player actually solving it. In this manner your mod proudly resembles R&D.
And for this alone people should play it. No, my bad. For this AND for the 2 things that made me feel like an action hero(ine), namely the train hopping and the shotgun acquirement. You should use something in those lines to advertise/describe your mod. I probably felt more of an action type person compared to others because I prop jumped a lot and could walk on rooftops and see future enemies.. Map needs to be more closed in (and NOT by invisible walls) cus you just can’t have people jumping over/down and dying.
The ending clearly stresses what’s seen in the mod overall, that you just had enough with it and wanted a release asap. The fact that you’re meeting with Dog and Alyx (as seen from left to right) should not be in the description, however. That tiny detail you put at the end should have been inside the mod, imo, wrapped around a compelling story. All good mods need one. Maybe even make a cutscene out of it, idk, something special and memorable. After all, the player is a friggin action hero
Kyo’s first paragraph in his/her review would be my words exactly when rating this.
PS: I have to ask the author to get another batch of testers or else I won’t sleep at night.. pretty please, James?
15th May 2012
Ade
Thanks for your comments. I totally understand where you are coming from. I have thought about going back and tweaking / updating the mod and as a beta tester I respect your comments. I think most of the community have played the mod now so changing things at this point would probably not really be worth it.
It may seem a bit like an excuse but this mod really was a learning process for me. I have learnt a great deal and I am including many of those lessons in my new mod. You can play a section of that new mod at the link below:
http://fpsleveldesign.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/half-life-2-deep-down-playable-level.html
If you would like to be involved in beta testing my new mod please let me know. I’m always looking for people who are willing to give good honest feedback.
Also, a woman’s perspective is a wonderful thing in a community filled with boys!
Jim
15th May 2012
I know what it’s like to have a first map or first 5 maps as a stepping stone and moving on to other, greater things. But like I said, this is obviously more than a stepping stone and deserves to have versioning. The most of the community might have played it, indeed. Still, I know some of them also play updated versions of mods. It’s actually pretty traditional on moddb to follow up a mod during its entire life cycle. Perhaps in a distant future, then, if you’re having a blast creating your current one.
In conclusion, I believe that every little thing a mapper releases should be updated once in a while.
Looking forward to playing that map, also I sent you an email so you’d have my addy and send me more for testing!
14th May 2012
Yet another weird Russian mod. To be honest it’s boring at all times.
The reasons are that you have to do long walkways, compared to the playtime there’s less action and I just didn’t understand the story (due to Russian voices only).
The mapping is also odd, many undetailed areas, locked doors and just empty rooms or sections. So you spend most of time with running around, finding a non-locked door.
Sometimes there are outdoor areas, that’s at least a bit good news.
You start in BM and teleport to several other areas do to some tasks, being beamed back to the teleporter just to start another assignment.
A few cutscenes, show what’s going on or what’s happening what you activate a button for example.
Positives are some customized stuff, such as a new HUD, weapons and sounds, graphics, models and textures. But that can’t, by far, not save it for at least being decent..
All in all, it truly was boring. If only more detailed worlds, interaction, puzzles.
Or at least English voices or subtitles. But no.. So I say “no” too
Pro’s:
-New stuff like HUD, textures, models, weapons & sounds
-At least some combat, many weapons (also: Gauss + Egon gun ammo up to 250)
-Some outdoor areas, sometimes with rain and action
-Playtime is okay (~15-45 mins)
Con’s:
-Story? – sorry, all voices in Russian only
-Boring, boxy and very undetailed mapping, often empty rooms etc.
-Long walkways
-Balancing, combat is too easy so play on “hard” (except for some “boss” fights maybe)
-Neverending game crash in “d2_canals02b” map
-No atmosphere
-Almost no puzzles
14th May 2012
This 5-level mappack is fun! It has almost everything important to make it good.
But it also lacks of many things and some things are not that well-thought out.
The story takes us from Nihilanth to a secret lab, so then we need a new HEV suit and a weapon (but why all doors are locked?). We find our rusty friend, Dr. Crowbar
Then a little journey with some cool puzzles, scripts and nice combat starts.
On the way to Nihilanth we visit a weapon storage, warehouse-like area, a short outdoor section and some canals and labs. And, we ride a little ship.
If only there would be more detail. But the mapping is good. Some corridors have great architecture and lighting.
A good point are the scripted sequences, something exlplodes, something happens.
There is even a short cutscene with the Gman.
After some time we carry a ridiculously amount of weapons and ammo, that’s bad balanced.
Making the combat too easy. Some turrets and enemies can be annoying though.
Puzzle design is nice and always logic. It can take a while to find out what to do to succeed finally. There’s no cheating necessary.
If some more work here and there, better balancing and more puzzles, longer playtime and so on – I’d give it a “play it later” or even higher! It’s fun to play, altho it somehow looks unfinished at times.
Pro’s:
-Interesting story, atmosphere – also a short cutscene
-Average combat, very easy so play on “medium” or “hard”
-Some cool, logical puzzles
-Some nice scripted events
-Decent mapping, sometimes very neat architecture and lighting
Con’s:
-Some undetailed, empty rooms, areas
-Balancing, combat is too easy, maybe turrets can be annoying
-Short playtime (~10-30 mins)
-Some design oddities
-Minor bugs like clipping
-Disappointing end
14th May 2012
Running the first few meters will already tell what to await in this little mappack.
It’s undetailed, poor, boxy mapping with at least good lighting.
But that’s not the worst! Final Run’s low point is the game design overall, oddities everywhere, poor mapping, no story or puzzles. It all just feels like from a random generator.
There is no atmosphere or anything special at all.
You run around, grab the longjump module, kill some grunts and aliens, and that’s it!
There’s no interaction with anything, nothing to see. Nothing to do, nothing do understand.
Just as mel, I also had to load map 2 manually..
Sorry, this just a terribly bad.
Pro’s:
-Some combat (at the end lot of weapons and ammo)
-Final “fight”
Con’s:
-Pointless design & gameplay
-Very short playtime (~3-10 minutes)
-Poor, boxy and undetailed mapping
-Stupid AI
-Balancing
-Minor bugs (mapchange, game crash, script)
-No atmosphere
14th May 2012
So that’s how it ends. The continuation of “Faraon 1+2″. Unfortunately it got worse again.
A positive aspect is, that it starts again where part 2 ended.
The map feels like a large maze, filled again with lot of grunts. Mapchanging is annoying as there is more than one “entrance” to the next map, and you have to backtrack a few times.
The main goals are switches, but they can be missed easily, bad.
There’s also no clue what they do, so you have to find out for yourself.
The mapping is good, nice architecture but “Faraon” lost it’s charme totally now.
This could have been way better! Atmosphere is gone, there is still no story or other puzzles than finding switches, and finding out what they activate.
Even the combat became boring and just stupid. This doesn’t make fun, sorry!
Pro’s:
-Decent mapping, some nice textures, good lighting
-Lot of combat, this time with Magnum
-Some (frustrating) button puzzles
Con’s:
-No story
-Stupid gruntfest, sometimes grunts flying in the air, or stuck in the ground
-No real puzzles
-Balancing, there’s much ammo but less health possibilities
-No atmosphere
-Annoying mapchange
-Minor bugs like clipping
-Switches can be missed
-No fun at all
Conclusion: Only play part 1+2, this one’s not worth it!
14th May 2012
Very short continuation of “Faraon”, it starts right were part one ended.
The lighting is cool, and the action continues just as in part one. This time there are also aliens and turrets. The balancing is fair and good. It just lacks of the good archtecture from part one. And playtime, it’s even shorter. But there are also part 3 and 4.
An odd thing is, that you start without anything and there’s a turret around the first corner.
This means, you have to play part one first to get weapons and ammo.
Pro’s:
-Continues from part one
-Good lighting, decent mapping
-Decent combat
-Good balancing
-Nice atmosphere
Con’s:
-No story
-No puzzles
-Needs playing part one before
-Very short playtime (~5 minutes)
-Not much variety in design, enemies
-Sudden end again
-Ammo for Magnum and rocket launcher, but no weapons to use them
-Perfomance issues
14th May 2012
Sweet gruntfest map with unique, “Conundrum”-style design and plenty of combat, weapons & ammo. The weapons & ammo are already available right from the start.
There’s only one area, we start in one of three little houses with the mentioned goodies, and outside is a large Egyptian-style temple. That’s where the action takes place mostly.
So head inside and find a way deeper in it…
The action is hard, but fair and not impossible due to plenty of ammo. But sometimes it can be a little due to the sheer amount of soldiers, and even more are coming!
I like the setting, design of the temple and lighting, it looks very good.
It’s only a pity that there’s no real story about it, and also no puzzles.
After cleaning out the temple, which can take a while, we find a way more deeper inside the building. And that’s where “Faraon” ends. So go check out “Faraon 2″!
Pro’s:
-Very good mapping, archtitecture and lighting
-Excellent combat action, plenty of ammo
-Good balancing
-Good atmosphere
-Lot of equipment at start
Con’s:
-No story
-No puzzles
-Very short playtime (around 10 minutes)
-Only grunts
-Not much variety
-Sudden end (try “Faraon 2″)
-Ammo for Magnum, but no Magnum?
-Makes hungry for more
14th May 2012
Yet another little gruntfest with several assassins.
It’s starts in a staircase with the HEV suit, crowbar, AR and (contact) grenades. That’s a lot!
But you’ll probably need it. The combat is tough, but nice balanced and not impossible.
There are some traps to avoid, so I suggest to proceed carefully into a new room or area.
The worst flaw is the mapping, if only the author would’ve make it more detailed, more witty.
Usually grey textures and not much to see. Oh and forget about the crates, they can’t be broken.
So after fighting your way through normal corridors and small rooms, they are at least a few outdoor areas which look nice. The lighting is quite good at all times.
Just the playtime let’s me keep saying “think twice”, instead of a “maybe?”.
Pro’s:
-Decent mapping, good lighting – but poorly textures, almost no details
-Nice combat action
-Good balancing
-Cool start equipment
-A few nice ideas, scripts
Con’s:
-No story
-Very short playtime (~5-10 minutes)
-No real puzzles
-No scripts
-Undetailed textures, emptyness – therefore not much atmosphere
-Not much atmosphere
-Crates can’t be broken
-Sudden end
14th May 2012
After playing the horrible “Freeman’s Allegiance”, this was short fun! Although it’s not that different! Yet again it’s boxy, undetailed mapping with only a few corridors and small rooms, until the end. There’s a little outdoor area with two suprises!
The lighting is okay better here, just the mapping is again very basic.
Balancing is also an issue, as this time it’s just too easy. There are plenty of healthkits and chargers, and also HEV batteries. Also lot of ammo. I suggest to play on “hard”.
At first there’s the HEV suit and the assault riftle with an ammo box. After a few corridors with enemies and also the first health + HEV charger, there’s a bigger room and more enemies. Hit a button, next room, next corridor.. Not very sophisticated, but this way you can’t get stuck.
A tiny snack for lunchtime break
Pro’s:
-Decent combat (but stupid AI)
-Ending is okay
-Good lighting
-A bit fun while it lasted
Con’s:
-Basic, boxy mapping without any details
-Very short playtime (~5-10 minutes)
-No story
-No puzzles
-Balancing, it’s just too easy (too much ammo, healing possibilities)
-No atmosphere
14th May 2012
Single old map, only corridors and small rooms with button. Simple gruntfest with absolutely no atmosphere, a real story is missing too.
We start in a ugly, bright room (every room is like that) grab the HEV suit and see a single headcrab (just as mentioned in the readme). So we distract the headgrab from the scientist who’s our only health source (!) Next step is finding a weapon quick, to get rid of the headcrab.
Then we proceed to other rooms, hit several buttons, killing grunts and that’s it usually.
At last a little (or big?) surprise is waiting..
The whole map last only like 10 minutes, the balancing is terrible as there’s indeed no health, nor stuff for powering up the HEV suit.
Throughout the map there is nothing special to be found, or to do.
Pro’s:
-Lot of combat (gruntfest)
-Tactics required to stay alive
-A few button “puzzles”
Con’s:
-Poor, boxy mapping with ugly lighting
-Balancing
-Design oddities
-No story
-No puzzles
-No atmosphere
-Very short playtime (~5-15 minutes)
-No fun at all
Conclusion: To be honest, I was happy to finish it finally. Hands off!
14th May 2012
Hmmm… this one’s weird.
Of course it’s no typical HL mod, it’s rather a total conversion which has nothing to do with the HL universe.
As the other people here above alreasy explained what it’s about, there is no need to describe further.
It just feels like a point & click adventure, but in 3D. There is a lot of talking with multiple choices. You ask questions, get answers.
A diary reminds you of your progress and what you should do next to proceed.
There’s also an inventory where you have to carry around several items which are needed to solve the game.
Therefore it’s indeed like an adventure in a place without hope.
I wouldn’t call it art, but I can understand Technoblue’s more detailed description about the main point of the mod.
The design, environment is really unique and something special. There are new models, graphics and a unique interface.
At first it was a bit confusing how to place the ID card at the board, but after some I figured it out. That was also the ahhhhh!-point, meaning from now on I could proceed quickly. You can’t get stuck in the game unless the red bar in the top-left drops to zero.
It’s always obvious what to do, but how to manage the “problems” can be a bit tricky here.
An odd thing was the main puzzle, to bring the pliers to Amir. I’m not sure if it’s necessary to really hide in the complex just as it should have been done. I accidently found a way to smuggle the pliers in a different way, which is…
An annoying issue is the save system. Sometimes the game crashes and then you have to restart all over again. Or you’re put in the place where you really was saving, but without the knowledge you’ve already gathered by talking with the people. Oddly you still have the items, though.
Game tips:
Controls:
Don’t change the defaults, otherwise interaction might not work properly.
W,S,A and D is movement of course, for forward, backward, strafing left and right.
Left-click people for opening a menu (talk, give items). Right-click anywhere else, will open your inventory and diary.
Use mouse-wheel up or down to scroll through diary. Right-clicking again will close inventory & diary.
To know if a place or item is interactive, a message will appear at the bottom of the screen when standing in front of it.
Left-click then to open a menu, showing the options what you can do now. Left-click the option you want.
Non-Player Characters (NPC’s):
There’s no need to talk to everyone about every topic. The important NPC’s have names, while the most are nameless.
So when you approach an NPC, standing close enough a text message will appear at the bottom, showing the name and how to interact with them.
Click with the left mousebutton to open a menu, select the balloon to start talking with an NPC, use the normal number keys on your keyboard to select a topic. For example: press 1 for asking: “How you doing?”. You’ll then see the questions and answer at once.
If you get an useful, important information you’ll hear a sound (bell ringing). This means you’ve progressed in the game.
Check your automatically updating diary often (right-click anytime at a non-interactive place) to know what to do next.
Of course the diary only auto-updates when you did something important about the game, like getting an useful information.
14th May 2012
OK ty, nige, for pointing that out, it’s been a long time since medium backtracking was used in a hl1 mod (or I just haven’t played enough of those in a while) but I still think it’s the author’s fault for making it look like a bug and not hinting us that
as the schema on the walls did not seem that obvious to me that
. But in the end I got to the end, so to speak.
I actually found 2 odd endings with the same ‘Out of range’ message, and from the comments I seem to have finally finished this particular mod that didn’t leave me quite happy. I kind of feel like I wanted more from it? But in a bad way. Like OK I’ve seen this, done that, but where do you keep the good stuff? Despite having a new enemy, new models (for me), marvelous layout/mapping and I want to say new mechanics but I think they were just small artifices or fireworks if you may, I, for one, found it lacking, boring overall and hard in places. For eg, too few or no h-packs after having my a** zapped by never ending spawning vorts or dying a lot by the hands of auto-trigger-assassins. And the empty chargers? Not funny. Try frustrating.
That doesn’t mean I enjoyed most of the combat, it was engaging and I loved the effect of
, they did scare me. And the intro credentials are charming but they don’t actually let in on the player’s clear objectives (other than get out alive which is overused) and are not followed by a proper story. And as others mentioned, no puzzles, which for me is like minus two points, not one.
And it was bit buggy and seen enough to say it needed proper betatesting, but: it did entertain me for a few hours yesterday, I did have that drive to not go to the bathroom but play and see what’s next, and could’ve finished it in one sitting if that scientist wouldn’t've looked so funny while trying to follow me, so this brings it up from a maybe to “Play It Later”.
14th May 2012
Thought this was an average mod, though not as bad as everyone seems to see it here. I don’t recall having to noclip thru anything, but I don’t remember exactly how I got past the city so I can’t say for sure. The mines were indeed dark and dull but I figured it was for building suspense and all that. As for the ending battle with the apache, a number of players seems to have demanded a rocket launcher and only got a cache of bullets, like so:
Though helicopters in HL2 are immune to bullets, the apache in HL1 is semi-vulnerable to bullets, albeit with a huge damage resistance. It did take me a couple of reloads, but I managed to take down the apache using the glock handgun. Non-RPG apache battles are fairly difficult, but I’ve gone thru it in some mods (e.g. virtual reality) and it’s a real challenge as an improvised boss. Unfortunately, a good boss battle does not save this mod from having a non-ending. So it just comes down to an average rating.
14th May 2012
My initial issue is the difficulty curve being high in the beginning and then being relatively easy until the osprey part in the end.
I did however like the fact that this mod takes a city landscape as its something I’ve seen in Poke 646 & so did Black Ops. But here it seems more of a normal day time landscape rather than night. So it still feels fresh.
Its quite a long mod and the good texture work, good pacing, it impresses in general sense.
This mod has some good parts, though the whole gman’s explanation as to felt like it was thrown into the player and not really told in any detail. So it felt like the revelation was told in the most uninteresting way.
The ending was sad and I personally would never have gone onto that ship. The storyline felt so random I couldn’t really understand what I was working towards, or why grunts where attacking me in the city.
No puzzles are easy but I have no issue with them. Autosave blunder here though but that doesn’t ruin my recommondation.
Overall worth playing.
14th May 2012
I’m content with my recommendation mainly because its a mod you should play, just don’t go into expecting great things, to blow you away, its just a good way to spend a coffee break.
I found it to be very short, lacking in anything great combat wise, and no real puzzles apart from finding your way around the place.
The mod just needed more oomph in the gameplay department, while I liked the surprise in the beginning against a alien grunt, it was mainly the normal running and gunning after that.
It makes good use of a small area that the map surely is… and its got some of the most beautiful texture work I’ve seen in any mod so far. Although architecture is mainly average to above average in the areas we see, its the excellent textures at work here that provide a nice variety and unique space mod. Something that rivals USS Darkstar.
Its got 3 scenes of humor, one of which you can miss if you don’t keep your eyes open. I must say Unq is a good designer I hope to see more if his stuff soon.
14th May 2012
This one had some nice level design, however plagued backtracking, easy combat and short length.
The 3 things I hate most.
It features some ‘key hunting’which we don’t see much of in hl mods.
I remember seeing a huge number of houndeyes which I really want to see more of in mods. They are only dangerous in packs, modders should know.
The saving grace of this beauty is the architecture, it feels like each area has its own charm and signature trademark. And it never feels a chore to play unless you spend a tad to long looking for that dam key which didn’t take to long for me, some people might get frustrated.
What left me unsatisfied was the ending, where you find a ton of ammo for the rocket launcher when you already have alot… you get to destroy the thing only to find the mod is over?
14th May 2012
A unique beginning, you escape from being held captive (for some reason), and you fight it out across a train which I’ve never seen before.
It does alot of things decently, decent combat, decent level design but manages to stay fresh, Though its a tad to easy, considering that the grunts have no AR grenades, and most encounters are 2 grunts.
But it keeps a good pace throwing action at you in intervals.
Theres 1 key hunt and a easy run from a garg.
Its also fairly short so you won’t spend more than 18 minutes but I must say I did have fun eventhough it wasn’t hard.
a very anti-climactic ending considering you just found a rocket launcher you don’t need…