This exceptional mappack has now been released as a full mod and all other downloads have been removed. If you are having trouble getting the old files to work or are new to this pack then you should download this mod. The link can be found under the Basic Details section.
This mod continues the story where Half-Life 2 finished and offers one possible scenario. After the big explosion you fall to the ground and are very badly injured. Some people find you and take you home to a small village outside the city where the citadel was built. After 3 months you’re strong again and want to fight on.
You have never seen Alyx or any of the others since the explosion. But you try to find new people that will fight with you against Breen. Nobody wants to help, some are afraid, others think that Breen has learned his lesson and won’t start again. It also seems that most of his organization was lost in the explosion. Then you hear that along the coast Breen is starting again and trying to take control again. So you decide to go to the coast. There you take a little boat and go along the coast so the Combine won’t notice you coming.
- Title: Leon’s Coastline to Atmosphere
- Author: Leon Brinkman
- Date Released: 06 August 2006
- Download 1: PlanetPhillip Filecloud Server
- Download 2: SP Mods
- Download 3: FileFront
- Download 4: FilePlanet
- Download 5: Gau-PC
- Download 6: PlanetMirror
- Download 7: Game Updates (Bit Torrent)
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Please email me about a broken link and I will do my best to repair it as soon as possible - thank you.
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19th March 2007
I normally leave SPY to reply to questions, but this time I have no choice but to intervene.
@Stef.
This is not the place to discus problems with CoD mods, but I will reply to your comments this time. The problem with the weapons pickup only affected a very small amount of players. The majority of people who play the CoD mod has no problem whatsoever with weapons pickup. Unfortunately no one was willing to help me find a solution to the problem, so a patch to fix the problem was impossible to make.
I just thought you should be aware of the facts before you post a review and make a fool of yourself. Because I WILL be explaining these facts on any website you post to.
19th March 2007
The mod was GREAT, except from the nuclear explosion on… I had no idea where to go or how to get there. I tried for an hour, but I’d just randomly get crushed or burnt. It wasn’t until I turned on Godmore and noclip that I was able to figure it out. It just seemed like random explosions and various barriers that just killed me instead of blocking me. Tone down the shaking, explosions, and burnings and it would have been a little more enjoyable. Kinda silly to make the destruction “realistic” if I can’t move “realistically.” It is a game after all.
19th March 2007
You just needed to learn the path to go.Also need to use the Run/Shift key.You must do the same as Breen did in the video clip.Use the button on the console.I myself have never had any problem with Leons/Baltics maps.I love em and will try the Doom maps once I get it installed again.
19th March 2007
even when this is not the place to discusse the Cod sp-mappacks baltic and i made, i still will answer it. let me start with saying;
To Stef;
why didn’t you mail me about this problem???!!
i realy don’t understand that, i ALWAYS answer every mail in a few hours to a day. that said, like Baltic said, a few people had that problem, and we didn’t know how to fix it, have asked around but nobody did help us with it, finally there was nothing else to do as leave it like it was, (even more so because only 5 % or less of the players had this problem!). another problem was that people didn’t had any weapon at all, and couldn’t pick them up from death soldiers either. i did get many of those mails either, and that was caused by having to many mods placed in there cod directory. after removing them the sp-mappacks played fine.
the suggestion that i would release a mappack where you can’t get ammo is a bit strange of you, do you realy think that after spending months or hard work i would release something like that??
please, just ask me next time when there is a problem, i ALWAYS put my emailadress in the txt file, and i ALWAYS answer.
leon
(this in compairison to some other modders, that most of the time simply don’t reply to questions and comments)
19th March 2007
Leon most of the time I contact people but since i know that you come here quite a lot and that , in fact, had problems contacting other releaser make you sometimes saying ‘ this time i don’t send an email and get directly in contact with the developper’ i won’t spaw this topic and email you about future question and answers
19th March 2007
ok, good to hear. still, even when we couldn’t help it that you had these problems i still want to apologize for it, and want to thank you for playing all the maps/mods.
thanks,
Leon
19th March 2007
I still don’t believe that warrants hating somebody. Be angry with them or frustrated but not hate.
Anyway, Baltic was right this is not the place to talk about Leon’s CoD maps (I misread Stef original comment), especially since you (Stef) have your own website to rant on, but it seems everybody has said what they needed to say.
So, no more off-topic please.
28th March 2007
I don’t know if anyone else has had this problem with the mod or not (and I must say, Leon & Team did a great job) but ever since I got to the point in the game where you lose your weapons and confront Breen, the get gassed, etc., I cannot change weapons after I pick them up… I’m stuck with whatever weapon I last picked up until the ammo runs out, then it switches to the next one… I’ve gotten to the level where the Combine guard is walking around in a circuit, you have no weapons and you have to find the crowbar to break a lock on the weapons storage area… I’ve gotten the crowbar, broken the lock, and got into the storage area, but keep getting killed right and left because I can’t change weapons after I pick them up to take out the three soldiers and the buzzkill that keep coming after me… any help would be appreciated… BTW, dunno if this makes any difference, but never found the Enviro Suit up to this point either..
28th March 2007
Resonator, read from post 343 down a few.
28th March 2007
many people had problems with the fact that you loose the suit there in the mod, (many comments above handle this subject). when i knew then, when i made the maps what i knew now, then i would never have take the suit away form the player. you loose the suit when you loose all weapons, (Breen takes them away of you in that small room, with the glass floor and under it all your weapons). i thought that it would be extra challenging to loose the suit, what makes that you can’t see how much health you have, and you can’t switch between weapons. the only way to get another weapon is to shoot up all ammo from the weapon that you have then.
but, you will get back your suit, just hang on. best thing for you to do is, when you have broken the lock on that door from the ammo room, to make sure you get not a grenate as last weapon to catch, but instead the shotgun, or what it that small machine gun that lays there around. once you have done that take cover behind something and take out first the 3 combines. from there it will be easier again. i have made a walkthrough that can be found here, if you still have trouble;
WALKTHROUGHS;
http://www.sp-mods.com/C_to_A_manual/
http://www.sp-mods.com/C_to_A_manual_short/
3rd April 2007
I am thoroughly enjoying playing the mod. I’ve played HL2-Episode one but I have enjoyed this mod more. However, I am stuck at one point and cannot get any further. It is on map 10 where I have trouble. I am on the otherside of the glass wall, where Barney was taken away. I see the vent below the ledge from where I came from, but when I go into the vent, and jump down, I die when I land (I hear the cracking of my legs), and then the screen has that wonderful red tint. I have tried to jump, rather than just falling, but this does not work. What am I doing wrong. Thanks for any help.
3rd April 2007
I just wanted to say that this website and community is awesome. I posted on the general forum orginally, and received email the very next day from Phillip giving me the info I needed and where to find additional help, as well as letting me know he had moved my post to this specific forum since it was about this mod in particular. When I was going through the lists of mods looking for the right place to post, I missed it, because I was looking for “Coastline to Atmosphere” instead of “Leon’s Coastline to Atmosphere” – and instead of getting some reply as to how I was an idoit, n00b, etc., like I’ve received on other forums, not only did get a direct reply from Phillip via email, but Leon repsonded right away in this forum as well. All I can say is thank you, kudos, and keep up the excellent work! BTW, I persevered long enough that I was finally about to get past that point I was stuck at… it only took about 20 tries since my health was so low that only 1-2 hits killed me, but I eventually got past it. Thanks again!
Res
3rd April 2007
I’m glad you like it.
Don’t forget the search, it’s not perfect but it’s okay.
Well done. It’s so satisfying to finally get past a section that causes has problems. Almost better than finishing a game or mod!
3rd April 2007
Lenny, i am afraid that you just have to less health when you jump/fall down through the ventelator shaft. and i don’t think that many times trying will help, best thing to do is i asume to go one saved point back and try again from there. but, then try to not get damaged to much, so that when you reach the vent again you have more health. let me know when you keep having trouble and i will help in another way if possible.
Resonator, i agree that Planet Phillip is much more friendly as many other forums. i also hate those forums where people can’t reply in a normal way, (gaming and everything that comes with it should be fun, right?!)
leon
4 other HL2 sp-maps;
/posts/leons-mappack-1-half-life-2/
WALKTHROUGHS;
http://www.sp-mods.com/C_to_A_manual/
http://www.sp-mods.com/C_to_A_manual_short/
14th April 2007
Verry nice one, thanks for making it ^^
23rd April 2007
Leon just dropped by to seriously commend you on this rather large and intricate single player mod. I’ve been a avid downloader of single player mods since the original HL and I think this map pack deserves the highest honours. Action packed, extremely well designed, sometimes frustrating with the amount of enemies but overall an amazing experience. Have you recieved word from anyone at Valve because this is some highly worthy of their own mappers. This is definetly in my eyes the best HL/HL2 single player mod of all.
Thanks for the experience.
27th April 2007
geoffreyfleming
let me first apolotiace for my late reaction, but i have just been relocating to another home and that was a huge task to do, (also took it about a small week to have internet on my new location/home).
thanks for the kind words about this CtoA HL2 sp-mod, i’m glad you liked it.
about Valve, it’s strange but CtoA was never noticed by them, (they have writen about other mods but not this one), don’t know why. when it was released i have mailed Valve about it, but never did get a reaction from them.
beside this 15 sp-maps mod, (that i made together with Baltic.Forever) we did release another HL2 sp-mappack with 4 sp-maps, (see download section of Planer Phillip, and look for Leon SP mappack. should you be interested in other sp-mappacks/mods of us then please email me or look in the other comments above where i placed links to them, (sp-maps for Cod1+2, Sof2, Prey, Quake2, i still need to release my Fear sp-map,)
leon
3rd May 2007
To be honest I wasn’t expecting a response really just to commend you but this is seriously the best mapping/coding I’ve seen for a single player mod and it was fun as hell to play. I notice you’re a Max Payne fan judging from the music snippets and possibly the drugged out scenes near the end with all that trippy map editting which was quite possibly some of the coolest scenes I’ve seen in Source mapping. I’ve played those other maps too and they are great too. Keep mapping you’re bound to get recognition sooner or later.
12th May 2007
My problem is map 9, believe i am at the end of MAp 9, after i am automatically carried around and left in a pitch black room with a machine gun, well, it is pitch black, and no matter how much i run around in circles, it stays black, and i cannot see anywhere to go, i have even uninstalled and redownloaded and replayed again, but the same thing, so what am i missing, i read the walkthrough, and can find no hole to crouch and walkthrough…. Do i have a glitch? the flashlight does nothing, then when i save it, and try to load it(there’s ususally a little pic to show where you are), i can see in the little pic in the load screen but when i start from that point, it is pitch black, what is wrong
PLEASE HELP ME
12th May 2007
hi Chris, i’m not sure if this is the place where you are stuck, but i’m pretty sure because you say that you are at the end of the map, (9).
then the problem is with your video card driver. many people have commented about this problem above, but i understand that you don’t read through them all. thing is, i used Overlays in this mod, simply explained are overlays photo’s or moving images on screen. i used original HL2 overlays that can be found in the original HL2 files, but they (valve) didn’t use it themselves in HL2. i gess i now why, because it would give these problems. so, please download and install the latest video card driver that you can find for your card and install it, and please play the same level again. and you will now see some strange effects on your screen. don’t know why, but without the latest drivers you find yourself there in a black room, with the drivers you will see normal, with some screen effect.
please let me know if it helped, otherwise i will helpm you furhter with it.
leon (SPY)
12th May 2007
Spy is correct about the video drivers, but you may also have an old graphics card which doesn’t support the overlay in that part of the level. Please see comment number 210 and I apologise for the inconvenience.
We are also working on a new Mod, and you can get more information about this in the forums.
Peter (baltic forever)
13th May 2007
Thx guys, but heres the deal. im running nvidia geforce fx 5200 and have updated,
still black, i open the console and get
“error: Material “effects/tp_refract” : proxy “TextureScroll” unable to initialize!”
I went to #210 and 211, and put in leonhl2-2i and get unknown command, so i am not advancing to next map, also, when i enter the map, i assume 10, it goes black, i get the display that i receive machine gun, ammo and health, but i get no text as discussed here.
I see absolutely nothing but black, occasionally if i move around, i het a flickering across the screen, but still see no hole , for that matter no wall to find a hole, im stumped, why cant i advance manually to next map?
14th May 2007
you need to type
map
to load a map. So that’s,
map leonhl2-2i
14th May 2007
thanks Mr Happy, for explaining that, it’s indeed;
” map LeonHL2-2i ”
without the ” ofcourse.
but, like the walkthrough explaines do you start in a black room and should you see text on screen and a hole in the wall at your right side. but because he i also used a overlay (when i knew then what i know now i would have used them, because of this all!!!!)
so, i am afraid there is nothing else to do for you as start the map that comes behind ” i ” , what is ” j “. because i used overlays in map G,H and I.
so, please open console and type;
map LeonHL2-2j
and you still can play the last 5 maps.
i’m really sorry for this inconvinius!!
should you want to play more of us, then look also here please (below),and very soon a new HL2 sp-mod will be released of us.
4 other sp-maps;
/posts/leons-mappack-1-half-life-2/
leon
(should you be interested in the many other sp-mods/mappacks that we made for other games then please let me know)
20th May 2007
Well, I was enjoying this mod, and had a number of positive things to say about it, until I reached the point where it completely gave in to the overused “Hard = Fun” and “Harder and harder and harder = really, really fun” design flaws.
I don’t mind mods that are simply difficult, if the mod gives a taste of the overall difficulty level early on. If I choose to try such a mod, I can at least tell if I’ll be able to finish it before I’m 80% of the way through it.
Some mods are for better gamers than me, and I have no problem with that.
But it’s a totally different story when I play a mod that starts out at a typical level of difficulty, and then gets progressively harder. What happens in this case is that I start out enjoying it, only to have that enjoyment turn into frustration much later–and as in this case, I don’t get to finish it at all.
Very annoying.
The scripting bugs didn’t help. In one spot, I was in the buggy, shooting Combine that were repeatedly appearing. I was taking advantage of the buggy’s infinite ammo, which I like to do when I can. But the Combine kept coming and coming…and coming and coming. After a ridiculous length of time and number of Combines slaughtered, I assumed I had encountered a bug, so I exited the buggy. As soon as I did that, and took out three or four Combine with standard weapons, they stopped being generated.
In another spot, text appeared on the screen telling me to look for an air vent. As soon as that text appeared, I suspected where that air vent would be. The problem is, I had already been there! (That’s why I knew where it would be…) When I went to the air vent initially, it was impassable. It didn’t become a “breakable” air vent until I went elsewhere in the map, and triggered it to become so. I fail to see why this was necessary.
The part of the mod where I finally gave up is where a slew of headcrabs are dumped on the player. After being killed again and again in that spot, I started wondering if the mod was programmed so that the headcrabs would keep coming indefinitely. If that were the case, a “stay and shoot” approach would obviously always fail. But by this point, all the fun was gone for me, so I didn’t bother trying any other way.
20th May 2007
I’m very sorry you’re so disapointed Chianti, even morer so because you have played about 50% of the mod.
about the mod getting harder the further you get in to it, that comment really surprices me Chianti, because as far as i now are nearly all the games made like that.
let me ask you first on which setting you played CtoA? because we added to the difficultie window that this mod wásn’t ment to be played on Hard, and that the Normal setting should be considdered as Hard, (what makes the setting Easy in Normal). still, as far as i know are there yet 3 people who did finish it on Hard, but i’ll be honnist, i can’t play it myself on Hard. so when you choose Normal then you should have played it on Easy.
about the other comments, where you ended, with all the headcrabs, a solution to it is pick up a floor turret and take it with you in the hallway,. so it helps you with killing the headcrabs, (didn’t think of this solution myself!) but even without it it can be killed all when you reload carefully and save ammo as much as possible. about the text and the airvent, it’s more then a year ago no that i made it, so i’m not sure where that is. but sometimes it can happen that i made a mistake, i tried to make 15 large sp-maps as good as i could.
leon
sorry you didn’t liked it, should you or anyone else want to see walkthroughs of CtoA, then please look here;
WALKTHROUGHS;
http://www.sp-mods.com/C_to_A_manual/
http://www.sp-mods.com/C_to_A_manual_short/
20th May 2007
Spy and his overuse of NPC’s lol
Sorry about this. We are (trying) to hold him back on our next project.
Please dont quit the mod. If all else fails bring up the console with ~ and type in
sv_cheats 1
then press enter, then you can put in either
give item_healthkit
then press enter, or even better you can put
impulse 101
and press enter. that will give you all the weapons and you can enjoy blowing all those headcrabs up! haha.
20th May 2007
The comments made in #375 go for me too. I got tired of finding doors or air vents that opened only after you had walked around the block a few times. They didn’t make narrative sense. As for the difficulty, I noticed a big step up once the player went to the satellite.
I didn’t finish this mod. I finally gave up in exasperation after I’d wasted all my ammo trying to defeat an army of elite combines in the nuclear reactor, only to find (after engaging Buddha mode) that they were respawning infinitely. According to the walkthrough, I was close to the end, but after that section I simply couldn’t be bothered.
Oh, and I absolutely loathed the drugged sequences. They were just plain frustrating.
So to the makers of this mod, I’d like to say thank you for your hard work (I enjoyed most of the mod, despite these negative comments), but please, don’t make the same mistakes with the forthcoming Strider Mountain mod.
20th May 2007
I agree, Leon, many games get progressively harder, but not all of them do. And even the ones that do, don’t get as hard as this! I feel comfortable saying this because I have so far never played a game I couldn’t finish.
I was playing CtoA on Easy mode.
I tried enabling god mode, but the command “god” does nothing. Is god mode purposely disabled in this mod?
Thank you for the comments, MikeS. You mean it actually gets even harder than this?
I want to say something positive, so let me say that I loved the classical music. It was very surprising to hear it in a HL2 mod, but I found it beautiful and somehow…appropriate. I’m sure some people didn’t like it, but I really did.
Leon, thank you for creating this mod, and please don’t take my comments the wrong way. I have an idea how very hard and time-consuming it is to make this sort of thing, so I feel a bit bad commenting negatively on it.
20th May 2007
Ah, never mind, I see–the command sv_cheats 1 must be entered before the god command works. Strange; I’ve never seen that before, since I have sv_cheats 1 in my autoexec.cfg file. (Always used to have sv_cheats 0 in there, until I began playing third-party maps/mods, where “harder = more fun” rules the day.)
I finally got past the headcrab portion. Being low on ammo, and knowing how hard it would be to continue, I purposely put three guns in the elevator with me. But when I left the elevator, fought with some Combine, and went back to the elevator, the guns were mysteriously missing. Can’t catch a break.
This mod is simply too hard–far, far too hard–to be any fun for me. Sorry, I’m just being honest. Uninstalling now.
21st May 2007
Thank you for trying.
Lucky you stopped now. before you got to the part where you have to run after breen and gman.
That was the hardest part for me! haha.
21st May 2007
you are right Achanti and MikeS, this is at the end indeed a bit to hard. personaly i like to make (and play) maps that are hard, very hard at times. but, they have to be playeble. there is nothing so frustrating as playing and getting killed over and over and over again. cheating can solve this, but doesn’t fell right in some strange way, (at least to me). about 60 to 70% of the players of CtoA did find it to hard. and i always read all the comments very carefully, and then keep them in mind when i make the next project. so, for sure that SM (Strider Mountain) wil be hard, but not so hard as this mod. And don’t mind giving negative comments, when they are ment serieusly, then it’s ok.
leon
29th May 2007
well, i think i at the end. but, dont know. i was under the affects of the gas and saw the gman then the screen goes black and if i face a certian way its kinda yellowish but dark. i can shoot the gun jump but no walking sounds. their is music. any hints? thanks
29th May 2007
turns out i aint at the end. the dev console shows a error loading a texture file. i found the walkthrough mentioned in the readme. have loaded next map and am on my way. unarmed and woosie but progressing. great mod very hard. but, not hard enough hehe.
29th May 2007
wow John, not hard enough he???
and that when a lot people complain about that this mod would be impossible to play because it is so hard. am glad someone likes hard gaming like i do.
thanks John!!
leon (SPY)
29th May 2007
thanks leon for the nice complement. will wack a few zombies in your honor. cant waite for your next mod. almost finished with this one less then 4 maps to go. wack wack
31st May 2007
I don’t know if you can help me but I’ll try:
I am playing the “Coastline to Atmosphere” mod and it is just great! Now I seem to be stuck and I am wondering if I have reached the end?
I am in the place where I destroy the plant, I have been all the way to the top of the room to activate the console downstairs, I am now downstairs and have activated the console. I get a short film showing me how my biggest enemy says: “this is where I get off” and the building gets destroyed! I tried a lot of things to escape and/or to follow him but I get killed on the way!
Is there a walkthrough or is this really the end?
I am greatful if you can answer/help me
31st May 2007
Walkthrough is in the properties section of the mod or here
http://www.sp-mods.com/C_to_A_manual/
31st May 2007
thank you for linking to the walkthrough Andyb. there is just one way to finish that map (you’re still not right at the end), and that is as soon as that cutscene of them running away has ended you start running like crazy, (press run button, shift i believe). you run back all the way you came the stairs up and elevator again. and at the top of the stairs you find now that a gate is opend that was before looked. but the explosions are so placed that one error and you’re to slow, and get killed. still, you can do it!!
leon
the new sp-mod, “Strider Mountain” is released this summer).
11th July 2007
Review
This is an in-depth review of the gameplay and content of the mod from a player’s point of view.
If you don’t have time to read the main body of the review now, but would like a quick synopsis, then go to the ‘Summary Points’ section near the end of this review.
Storyline:
After the big bang ending of the first epic encounter with Breen, Freeman is pulled and saved from the wreckage. In time he recovers to learn that Breen is plotting a return to power, and is based somewhere along the coast. He sets off alone along the coast in pursuit, yet again, of the Combine leader.
Known Bugs:
The vast majority of players will have no technical issues with the mod; however the unfortunate few, like myself, may encounter problems with levels 2h and 2i. The author has explained that he used ‘Overlays’ not previously used by him or the Valve team and these overlays have proved troublesome to a few players. They appear to be triggered by graphic cards and drivers, so updates are advised but are not a guarantee for solving the problem in every case. The problem for me takes the form of repeated crashes in the two levels mentioned above. You have the choice of either moving carefully through the levels, or skipping and manually loading the next level. But please be aware this is an issue affecting only a few players.
Gameplay: Unorthodox Content
In some ways the author pushes the boundaries of normal game play and includes what may be termed by some, as experimental, levels that advance the playing experience and player’s willpower to greater limits. Without giving too much away, you will experience some unorthodox scenarios in the later stages. So if you lose something like suit power don’t think it’s a bug, this and other scenarios are meant to vary the gameplay. Reading the posted comments here on PlanetPhillip, many players have been confused with these levels and expressed a dislike for the step away from the norm. Having played through these sections of the game I believe that they add to the experience, and the author was right to include them even if he has since said, that he now has doubts about their inclusion due to the mixed feedback.
My view is that if authors with the talent of Leon do not try different and new ideas then gaming will not progress, and in any case he was right to include them.
Gameplay: The Journey.
The Introduction is seen through the flight path of a seagull as it emmerges from the ocean sky to cross the coast and continues over the terrain of the Combine outer defenses. This intro and the first level are set below a star-studded night sky and amidst these surroundings your journey of pursuit begins.
Your journey follows a similar pattern to the original HL2 storyline, one of Combine engagements as you travel for the main part using the road buggy, to face your first encounter with Breen in his mountain headquarters.
The Combine knows who and where you are as your reputation precedes you, and they commit all their heavy weapons to an early elimination of the Free-One. You will face Combine Gunships including the helicopter, dropships, armoured vehicles and Striders. Combine troops and scanners are ever-present, with the elite core called into action in another desperate attempt to stop you.
The game flows well through the early stages with quick and intense Combine engagements often accomplished with attacking scanners. You find the road buggy early into the campaign. Also, there is a brief use of the water buggy as you make your way through the foothills. The buggy ride never opens up fully, and you are not afforded the chance to hit the accelerator and keep it there. It’s more a stop/go ride to deal with Combine and search to find the next button or keycard to open the next door or gate. The Combine encounters are among the best I have experienced to date, with the authors deserving much credit for well constructed and orchestrated combat throughout these early levels of the mod.
Gameplay: Breen’s HQ and beyond.
Having reached Breen’s Headquarters the gamyplay at first becomes more restricted. As you pursue the Combine leader through his metallic structured base you encounter only troops and attacking scanners. The scanner attacks are very intense with swarm after swarm sent to intercept you, for the most part you fight them off with your back to the wall, with all escape routes blocked. When I first played through the mod I considered these sequences to be over the top, with the number and frequency of the attacks being excessive. However, with subsequent replays I have come to enjoy these encounters using the shot gun for good target practice.
Puzzle solving is not a strong feature of the mod, tasks take the form of finding the button and navigating paths through a maze of corridors in some areas. One memorable sequence involves shutting down a power source, this necessitates lots of climbing about an intriguing layout to finally disconnect the controls.
Breen has more than troops and weapons to stop you, and soon you are to be subjected to more than just physical forces. The gameplay now takes on new forms and as previously stated, your powers, resilience and mental stability will be tested to the extreme, with a degree of stealth also needed in a few areas. You will need to experience these for yourself, you are not getting any more from me!
Gameplay: The Final Encounters.
The story has a few more twists and turns as Freeman closes-in on his adversary, or is it now adversaries! The chase heats up with the full force of the Combine elite core deployed at key strategical advantage points. The overall gameplay is much as before, predominately pitch battles against the Combine set within their strongholds. This is mixed with typical HL air-duct navigating, along with increased use of cut scenes depicting the flight of Breen and his companion. Time now becomes one of the major factors making up the gameplay, with the Combine complex exploding and disintegrating about Freeman and foe alike; the chase takes on a frenetic pace.
Summary Points.
The mod is best played through first time around on easy setting, with the combat being intense enough on this setting, normal setting would be for the brave, with hard level only recommended for the dead.
Apart from intense encounters with the combine and their support weapons, the mod is not that hard. Navigating, task solving and some decision making is made all the more easy with use of both ingame messages and cut scenes.
This is an extensive custom mod and by far the longest of it’s genre released to date. With 14 playable levels you may find it best to play through in 2 hour bursts, spreading the play over 3 or 4 nights, but that’s just my choice.
Set design is good throughout with the early outside, coastal and road way encounters seeing the best of the mod’s architecture. The middle to later levels are a mix of varied set design from very good complex layouts, to the more straightforward enclosed corridor format.
Textures and attention to detail is good throughout the mod, without looking too familiar. The settings and architecture are based on the original HL2 concepts, and the mods real strength is in the way the mappers have used these environments to base the gameplay.
Overall the mod is very much a gun feast and once you enter the enclosed world of the Combine and their leader, the gameplay mix is restricted. Although the unorthodox levels (sorry can not give much away here) enrich the gameplay and playing experience. I feel that there was a need to vary the environment mix more, giving more options to enrich the gameplay and content.
The best of the gameplay is undoubtedly the early levels where the environmental setting affords full utilization of the Combine hardware. You encounter all the might of Breen with gunships, helicopters, armoured vehicles and Striders pitched against you, as you pursue their leader by both road and water buggies. Here the balance of gameplay is maximized, by this I mean the author has include many different elements of gameplay for the player to undertake and experience. Whilst there is plenty of intense gameplay to follow later in the mod, I don’t think the balance of the early levels are surpassed or equaled.
Puzzle and task solving is limited to find the button or key to open the door or gate. A few well designed layouts add interest to the task solving with a few intriguing climbs. To some extent this element of the gameplay is negated by the over use of the ingame message system.
I did not encounter any new stuff in the way of skins or weapons, with most of the hardware being seen before.
The musical soundtrack is an interesting choice of action game themes and drifts neatly into the mod in a reassuring way, as opposed to a dramatic background to the action. This worked for me and while there were a few cases of the music not quite fitting the gameplay, such as a slow-foxtrot at the beginning of minor Combine shoot outs, overall I enjoyed the author’s choice.
Having played through the whole mod again in preparation for this review, I am please to say I did not encounter a single technical issue from beginning to end. The problems of freeze ups in a few levels experienced in previous plays, seems to have been fixed with the recommended graphics and drivers updates.
Negatives
- Lack of different environmental settings
- Overuse of ingame text massages
- Overuse of cut scenes
- Partly restricted gameplay and flow
Positives
- Hours of fun and playtime
- Some great balance of gameplay
- A complete story and playing experience
- Innovative parts
- Great pitch battles throughout
Conclusion
This is the bit I have not been looking forward to, how to conclude one’s views of a mod of this undertaking. It’s difficult not to get carried away with all the enthusiastic comments posted here on PlanetPhillip. I guess it comes down in the end to whether you enjoyed the experience, overall I did. For sheer playing experience and intensity it has no equal among HL2 custom mods/mappacks, but there are drawbacks and some aspects could be improved.
Too much of the mod takes place within enclosed environments and midway through the later two thirds of the mod, I was calling out for open space and sunlight. I think the way the HQ and Combine complex sections of the mod flowed into one, was too much of the same enclosed stereotyped gamdeplay. This could have been better structured by the introduction of say, a City 17 section or any other environment that releases the player for a few levels from his enclosed surroundings. This could have been achieved without lengthening the mod, as there is scope to shorten some of the levels with repetitive enclosed settings.
The ingame text massaging did not sit comfortably within the mods storyline. It never appeared to be integral to the story, being more like an after thought. You are not aware of the origins of the massages and they came across more like excerpts from the author’s walkthrough. Also in many cases they were unnecessary and only negated the gameplay.
If you think for a moment that I am not going to highly recommend this mod, then you are wrong, the playing experience far out weighs any negative issues I can list.
Thanks to Leon and his team, good luck with future releases, if they come close to our expectations we will all be richly rewarded.
Make sure you play the ‘Final Credits’ to the full.
My Recommendation
11th July 2007
I’m not sure when Leon says that Valve never used then env_screenoverlay, but that is a rediculous comment. I doubt he is trying to dodge resonsibility for the graphical errors, but I cannot think of another reason why he would make such a bullshit statement except for one comment I read before expressing how he “has absoultely no idea how the entity system works.”
But perhaps these are both misquotes, to say Valve didn’t use the overlay entities is to say you haven’t played the first half of Half-Life 2, or at least you don’t know how to map. Two things which are obviously not true of Leon.
But this is inconsequential. I agree with a great deal of this review, except the “well balanced gameplay” part. Hard != ingenius gameplay mechanics, the battles are in no way balanced and are rarely creative showing nothing more than a sudden overwhelming rush of enemies without various tactical situations taken into consideration.
Also, the environmental quality is not of a high or exceptional level. There is alot of attention to detail, however, there are also a multitude of areas that are plain ugly, poorly designed (in regards to the merger of form and function), or show beginner mistakes. For example, the very first thing you see, a huge rock face, Leon has left the texture scale at default making it look like crap, this is just one of thousands of errors that make me wonder “why would someone with this much skill but this little effort in?” But that’s ok.
As one early example of where the merger of design and gameplay fail, is the entire buggy ride, in which there is barely enough room to navigate, and you may be forces to load a saved game several times simply because the car is stuck. There are others, but I don’t want to give too much away.
Take this with a grain of salt however, I have been mapping for nearly a decade and so have a more critical eye for design than most.
A+ for effort, C- for result, not at all what I expected from someone of his experience.
11th July 2007
Leon probably didn’t worry a lot about the “beginner mistakes” as you call them because he had to map all those levels himself. Now maybe if he was working on a larger team with more mappers he would have time to worry about more of those mistakes.
11th July 2007
Well MrHappy, Thanks for your response to the PPT review. I was pleased you ‘agree with a great deal of this review.’ The comments you make are a bit strong in places, however, that’s fine by me. The gameplay I will agree is varied with long spells lucking imagination; I am not a mapper so you have the advantage with technical aspects of design and game layout.
At the start of the review I state that the review is from a ‘players point of view’ and attempt to keep clear of aspects I feel I am not qualified to comment on in depth. I am sorry if I did not keep to this intention, but made a point of quoting the author on some of the issue raised which maybe termed technical, please see earlier posts where Leon replies to my bug questions.
Overall your comments are not those of the average player, no way are players going to be aware of, as you put it, thousands of errors, we tend to consider the overall playing experience and dwell little on the fine detail.
The negatives I have remarked on plus the ones you have posted here, will not deter players from gaining hours of fun, free fun at that.
12th July 2007
i like this mod very much and would love to play anyone’s else’s, you know for comparison.
i also look forward to leons next..
12th July 2007
jab688, have you played Leon’s Mappack?
12th July 2007
thanks Mel, i made (together with baltic Forever) indeed another Hl2 sp-mappack, simply called Leon’s sp-mappack, it has 4 large sp-maps. beside these i have made many other sp-mappacks that all can be found on sp-mods.com or ;
http://www.leon.triplebit.nl/
and we are working now on a new HL2 sp-mod that will be released this summer, please see for more info here;
http://www.stridermountain.com/
leon
12th July 2007
GUYS! Now you’ve done it!! I knew u guys was working on a new mod, and I was really looking forward to it. Somehow Ive missed out on the stridermountain.com webside. I finally had some time off to look through the forum mails that pops in daily, and there i found the link..
So… Now I really cant sleep before this mod is finnished!!!
It looks amazing! Any idea when it will be done? (I guess you’ve answered this 1million times before..)
Again, thx for all the joy u guys put into the HL universe!
12th July 2007
We are hoping to release August. September at the latest. Because we are going to mod for crysis when its released.
Here is an interview if you are interested.
http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/BlueWolf72/strider-mountain-half-life2-modification-interview-33365.phtml
12th July 2007
also, thanks for the support kim, we really appreciate it.
13th July 2007
i would like to comment more on the last comments, last comment of mine was made when i had very little time.
first i would like to thank you Mel for the excellent review you wrote, i am more then pleased with it. what can i say, it’s for at least 80% positive. then the comment of Mr Happy, i did find some of your comments a bit strong indeed. we’re just talking about a mod, a game, nothing serious, (although it took us 1,5 year of hard labor for many hours a day).
what surprises me always again is the personal taste of people, what one likes is ‘hated’ by the other. i guess i have had around 1000 or more comments on this mod in the last year, (here and on other sites, and all those mail that i did get). I’m glad that about 80% or so like the mod very much, some did find it even better as episode1 and any other mod they ever played of HL2, (i can’t wish for a better compliment). therefore it surprises me so much that there are also people that really don’t like the mod, find it badly made and a waste of time to play.
this is not new to me, had simular expereinces with other sp-mappacks that i released before, from other games.
the biggest lesson that i have learned from this is that i never can make a mappack/mod that pleases everyone. there will always be people that don’t like what i make, (i always listen very well to every comment and try to learn from them). am just glad that the majority does like what i do.
about the rock texture in map1 not being sized right (to small). that is indeed a big mistake, but when i made that first map i never had worked before with the HL2 rock textures (i didn’t use them in that 4 sp-mappack that i made before CtoA). so i didn’t know i had to blow up the size of them. and there will be many more things in the mod that could be improved. still, it was fun to make it, and i think it isn’t all that bad. all i can say is that i hope that “Strider Mountain”, our next sp-mod, that will be released soon is hopefully better, and also liked by you Mr Happy.
leon