City 14 - Half-Life 2

Enjoyable but seemed too short. Found the combines a bit predicable at the point when you are up in the small tower shooting with the machine gun.

This one is a frensh mod whish is also one of the first experience in mapping and coding from the author who made everything by it’s own. Starting and first mission is quite done in a basic way of room and walls mostly squary. Progression, well agremented by short puzzles, make you see the mapping skill increasing to the second section progression through the second part is well balance between gameplay and design that still sufer from a lack of experience. Taking in account the way it was release and trough the fact it’s enjoyable with here and there some good point it’s worth to play.

The Abandoned Workshops Syndicated Review

Gameplay:
The map is split into three small parts, the first is set where the prequel ends. You take your changed to escape the building while it’s breaking. The second area is puzzle based with light amount of respawning enemies such as headcrabs and antlions when passing their trigger points, but does get a little annoying. The puzzles aren’t exactly frustrating but the last one can be a bit confusing. The third part is where most of the action is set, fighting combine and striders along side the rebels. It’s balanced with enough supplies through to the end. A good variety in gameplay which makes the map more fun.

Design:
The building you start in is the same as before but of course with extra locations. These are rather average looking until the second part where it gets a lot better. Structure is great and very different with a more ancient look to it. Texturing has also been done well here, mixing well, especially with the lighting. The final area didn’t look as good but it was still above average yet could of had the same feel as the second area did to be a little more consistent.

Conclusion:
Good variety in gameplay, balanced and fun with a decent design throughout.

Rating: 30%

Copyright:
This review was written by Ryan “Quakis” Rouse and first appeared on The Abandoned Workshops and is republished by permission.

Park your vehicle in the garage grab some ammo,do some killing then go in the door to the warehouse.

swamp buggy/airboat thing

Fluffy The Hampster’s Syndicated Review

Number of Maps: 5

Score: 2 out of 5

Annoyance Rating: Thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon…

Lighting: Decent in most places, good in others.

Architecture: Ranges from decent to **** to good to decent to ****.

Textures: Decent to **** to decent to ****

New Models/Skins/Etc.: Haha! Ha! Hahaha! Haaa!

Gameplay: Where the hell am I?

Story?:
You are Someone “Someone” Somone and something teleported you to the oppressive City 14. There is no evidence that you are, infact, Gordon “Hey Barney, catch me later and i’ll buy you some milk” Freeman, but the Combine hate you at the same degree of hatred.

Onwards:
I feel violated.

Anyway, welcome to City 14! I was drawn to this map with promises of crapology and mediocarity. First time expresses tell you that this mod is primarily French, translated to English. I experianced no problems with the multi-linguality, probably because there are barely any conversation besides usual combat phrases.

As per graphics, you’ll notice that whomever is mapping extensively sucks, especially when it comes to exteriors. Maps are outlined with poorly created canyon walls and combine-related walls are boring at best. Things get better by Chapter 2, which is nice. The inside of the base is masterfully creepy, using enough lights to make the place not seem completely black, but little enough to cause the player to use lights most of the time. However, the mapper seems to be focussed on making ****** wooden structures inside of bases, despite it looking extremely out of place in a combine base. These are *all* crappy and out of place, especially with it’s crappy texture.

Gameplay is decidedly anti-combine and anti-storyline. You teleport somewhere for some reason, discover a crowbar under a sofa, suddenly discover a HEV suit in the closet and kill things for conspiciously no reason. Why the combine are hunting you, nobody knows. Why there was a HEV suit in the closet, nobody knows. How you can use pistols, crowbars, sub-machine guns, shotguns and grenades with masterful skill, nobody knows. Hercules in New York has a better storyline then this.

Other gameplay includes some zombie killage, and strategical encounters. Twice has there been defensive positions protected by turrets at every corner, causing you to think hard about how you are going to defeat the turrets and get to the button it protects. This is possibly the only interesting part of the mod, and it works considerably well, if not short.

The mod also makes hilarious use of scientific terms for chapter names. Anthropic Principle? The destruction of gunboats, combine soldiers and zombies has nothing to do with the explanation for the coincidential features of the universe! A perfect representation of someone whom has no idea what the hell he is talking about. Other goofs include the hilarious prescence of a HEV suit (in the middle of nowhere, guarded by a zombie) to term how empty in plot this mod is.

With piss-poor mapping comes obvious bugs. The seperation of maps is usually when an airboat is in the middle of the air and about to hit the wall. Because of this, it’s ridicilously easy to flip your airboat over and because you require it to proceed, will end up restarting alot. Some puzzles make absolutely no reference to what you are supposed to do. After spending an hour attempting to get past a blue shield, I just nocliped through it.

Summary:
It’s decent. It’s mediocre. It’s 50% ****. It’s a half-arsed attempt at a serious mod. No plot (or storyline), crappy mapping and unimaginative textures drag the mod down.

Copyright:
This review was written by Fluffy The Hampster and first appeared on Combine Destiny and is republished by express permission.

Review
There does not appear to be much of a story to this mod having got the wake-up call from the G-man; it’s very much a matter of stumbling from one Combine encounter to the next by way of some good puzzle layouts.

The first level skips through a few different environments in quick succession before you reach a fenced water front setting. The opening sequence will have you rearranging the furniture to progress and includes an onslaught by swarms of Combine troops forcing you to back-off and reconsider your tactics.

The water front is the first of a few sequences that require a fair bit of wandering and searching for help to progress. Here and elsewhere, the author does a good job of making the puzzles suitably complex, adding much to the gameplay and expanding the sets into both exploring and combat based layouts making this a thinking mans mod in parts.

The set design, especially in the first chapter, is nothing special. It’s fairly basic and bland in places with sparse incidental content and textures that are no more than acceptable with nothing new.

The pace picks up with the discovery of the airboat but here again the level of design only meets the minimum requirement with short bursts of water rides confined by tight surroundings which restrict maneuvarability.

The combat set pieces are well thought out and combined with the mod’s puzzle elements are the backbone and strength of the game. Chapter 2 contains a nice balance of environmental settings, combat and puzzle solving with a noticeable improvement in set design and the choice of textures. The end sequence requires a considerable amount of actions and climbing around to unravel all the events needed to reach the final point of the chapter. Also, as with all the set pieces within the mod you need to make sure you have searched every possible lead and avenue.

Overall the mod scores well in some areas of mapping but low in others, the set designs are adequate but nothing special with some areas showing seam problems and giving light leaks, (sorry I do not know the technical term for this - someone please enlighten me).

Elsewhere, more thought should have gone into one level change where it’s possible to finish upside down in the airboat without the means to upright it. Furthermore, the way that the airboat first appears on the scene is both unusual as well as making it possible to be missed by the player, leading some players (me included) continuing on without it. See also the comment posted on the mod listing here on PlanetPhillip regarding this issue. Finally, one very well staged and tough sequence includes the need to turn off more than one wall mounted turret-gun. I am not completely sure this sequence triggers the same each time, leading to confusion as to what has been switched off and when. I also found that on the first play through, one wall was very stubborn when trying to break through and when I did, it still needed me to noclip to get through the gap. However, on repeat plays most of these minor glitches did not always reoccur.

I guess the point of all the above is an indication of maybe not enough care and test playing afforded to the mod. It’s not a bug ridden mod with none of the above points spoiling the playing experience in any way. The level of combat matched with the puzzle orientated layouts far out weigh any minor glitches the mod may have.

The choice and use of the original HL 2 cast and hardware provides a good mixture throughout. With plenty of ammo and health available (if you are prepared to search for it), the game flows well and overall the gameplay was nicely balanced. Added to this, the environmental surrounds were varied, keeping you alert with changing sets that hold your interest and as far as I could tell, all new designs. None of the layout looked familiar or that it was taken from the original game or other custom mods. However, there is nothing new in the way of weapons or skins.

Negative Points
- No story
- Nothing outstanding
- Some minor mapping issues
- Set design very basic in areas

Positive Points
- Some good combat sequences
- Good balance of original HL2 cast and hardware
- Challenging puzzle sequences
- Good layout design in places

Conclusion
Not a classic, but more than worthy of a “go play it now!” recommendation. The end sequence leaves the mod open for chapter 3 and I sincerely hope the author can go on and improve on these first two chapters that show so much promise.

My Recommendation

Was this even playtested? You need to no-clip half the time, ladders don’t work, and the crowbar in the beginning is in a pretty non-obvious location, while the prized HEV suit is in plain view being guarded by a zombie.

The airboat is introduced for no reason, and you have to ditch it to noclip through one of those blue shield wall things.

This is a terribly made mod, probably by a lone french canadian. (cite automatically translated to cité to me, but considering the mod, it’s probably just poor spelling.)