Case Closed - Half-Life

Mod Resource Syndicated Review

Good: Great scripted sequences; beautiful architecture; everything is well-placed
Bad: A few distance drawing errors
Rating: 5/5

Details
This is definitly a well done mod. It starts out fairly easy, and progressivly gets harder. The weapons and armor and health items are all placed logically throughout the maps. The playtime is excellent, I got a few hours or so out of it, which is pretty good for an add-on that no one pays for and thus, the artist doesn’t get compensated for. You should really go get this one, its a keeper. You might not be able to play it though more than once or twice, since the surprise is lost in many of the great scripted seqences. The story is that you are Bob Dewey, a janitor at Black Mesa, and you go to work thinking all is well. Then, those fools who call themselves scientists decide to shoot for the moon, and you get the idea as to what happens. Monsters through the walls, Marines everywhere, and by the end of it all, things get to be upside-down crazy. Go get it.

Copyright
This review is copyright Kyle Johnston and first appeared on Mod Resource and is republished by permission.

This is a excellent mod, I recommend it to all. Its also available to play in coop mod in Sven Coop, at http://www.svencoop.com.

Ummm…the plot of this mod sounds almost exactly to same as Half-Life: Cleaner’s Adventures. Is there really a difference?

Hi, Im actually stuck here! I’m in the room you see fom the lift you go down at the games opener, with the yellow loading arm. I can’t seem to find a way out, other than a hatchway on the roof of the office building. I can’t jump to reach it, can’t seem to duck jump to reach it and, I can’t find a jump booster for the HEV either. Can anybody help me out here?

Things to like.
1. Great maps
2. Extra gore
3. Grenade in the face AI
4. ‘Memoirs of an Invisible Man’ inspired section, of which there should be more.
5. The ending, is he dead or off to be transformed into a cybernetic killing machine by the G-Man?

People in this thread seem to think Case Closed is a glowing example of excellent mapping, but I could never sympathize with them. I always found the interior environments boxy and uninteresting, while interior and exterior environments alike suffered from a lack of texture diversity. I also didn’t particularly like the enemy placement: enemy encounters seemed to progress far too quickly, to the point where you’ve fought a whole host of different enemies only a few minutes into the mod. I’ve always prefered a more methodical approach that leaves new enemies to be encountered throughout the mod. This mod’s saving graces are its Xen section and a portion near the end where you get flipped upside down. It’s too bad that more wasn’t done with that section. Overall, worth the play time, but there are more interesting mods that you could play.

we still love you ‘Case Closed’

For those of you who want new models that really match the mod theme (player hands and weapons), take a look at the Half-Life Improvement forum for custom stuff for this mod.

Try giving it more time. Sometimes I get the same message, and the screen looks frozen, but it always resumes the game after a while.

Well it certainly has replayability. It was (almost) as exciting as it has been the first time, many years ago. I especially liked the unexpected events and explosions. The mapping is very good, considering the year it appeared. It’s like there are some lessons some where, but few bother taking them or at least check the maps before them, as an example; this guy obviously started a tutorial of some sort, too bad he didn’t finish it - I hated the lighting. Also great combat. You get plenty of action & thrills for just 12 mega. And no bugs!
After reading the comments, now that I think about it, it is kinda linear and I wish there were more open spaces and crossroads, more exploration and puzzles. But while playing it, the lack of puzzles didn’t bother me, I was too preocupied fighting the well placed enemies (plus the alien grunts had good AI) and distinguishing figures in the dark ;)). Trying different angles/weapons wasn’t always necessary, as there was plenty of health & ammo along the way and the combat was medium to easy, except that time when I got out of the water and there was a grunt waiting for me with the shotgun Enjoyed the Xen part, and the change of gravity (except the chairs glued to the ceiling tempered down the wowness I had in the past in this section).
As for the ending. The first time, it just blew me away, I didn’t have that much experience with HL and it felt so good finishing it (mainly because of the GMan-Terminator theme combination), but now it was too abrupt and, well, too dry, because my character was terminated after all that trouble.
Still, I have no regrets replaying this mod and rating it a 5, it’s a shame it doesn’t have a higher rating.