Offshore – Half-Life 2: Ep2

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
This modification offers a multi-level side story of Gordon Freeman while en-route to City 17 via Highway 17 in the infamous buggy.

When Gordon’s buggy was taken by the Combine Dropship, some maps of combine outposts hidden in one of the buggy’s side compartments were lost. Gordon was immediately dispatched by Dr. Kleiner and Dr. Eli Vance to locate the buggy and return the missing maps.

Setting: The entire modification is set at night on a small, rocky island off the coast of City 17. Rugged terrain, abandon structures, and multiple combine outposts will make escaping this island hell more than just a walk in the park.

His plan: Gordon surrenders to the combine so he could be transported to the facility where the buggy was left for scrap. Upon his surrender, he found himself in a small prison facility on the rocky island, waiting for a visit from Dr. Wallace Breen who would read his sentence personally. A familiar face woke him from his deep sedation…

His mission: Locate the buggy and find a way to return to City 17 with the stolen maps.

PDF Walkthrough Now Available

A PDF walkthrough is now available on PlanetPhillip.com

Specifics

This is a fast paced and highly intense single-player modification for Half-Life 2.

Game Style: Lost Coast style in terms of an add-on mission

Game Time: Estimated 5-7 hours (first time through) depending on your skill level and difficulty setting

Chapters: There are 9 chapters with a total of 27 playable levels. Each chapter should take between 30 and 60 minutes to complete.

Difficulty: Very challenging — especially on Difficult mode.

System Requirements: Personally I have no problems running the mod (my system is average based on the Valve polls that have been published), but the poly count is high — there are a number of large open areas, so keep that in mind when configuring your settings before you run.

Resources
PlanetPhillip Download Servers
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Installation Instructions:

If you have a previous Beta release you need to delete the folder before you install the new one.

1. Unzip the zip file into SourceMods (a folder called Offshore should be added)
2. Restart Steam. Offshore will show up in your game list.
3. You should see the new game in the your game list. Enjoy!

PlanetPhillip Note

All text taken from the homepage.

Screenshots

Click on the thumbnails below to open a large (1024×640) image. WARNING: The screenshots may contain spoilers.

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Reader Recommendations
83 recommendations, average score: 4.45 (out of 5), standard deviation: 1.16
Post Details

Posted: 23rd February 2008

Category: Half-Life 2: Ep2, Single Player Mods and Maps

Tags: , , , , , , ,

There are 104 Comments. Click HERE to add your own!
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  1. Homeslice72 Says:
    20 March 2008 at 7:48 am
    Play It Now!

    Thank you SO much man. EXCELLENT!

    Reply

  2. YoYo Says:
    22 March 2008 at 7:41 pm

    Need some help. I am at the islandplant_3 map were the gunship is making my life miserable. How do I destroy it? Can’t find a rocket launcher

    Reply

  3. YoYo Says:
    23 March 2008 at 5:41 pm
    Play It Now!

    Finally decided to use a cheat code for the RPG problem. Finished the mod, overall a very enjoyable experience. It’s a very large mod with lots of different areas and surroundings. The puzzles are a nice touch, but at times they are a bit out of logic. The storyline sometimes eluded me, I just kept going and hoped for the best. Had no technical problems like crashes but in some areas the framerate dropped dramatically
    Still in my opinion It’s one of the best HL2 mods around at this moment(and I played quite a few). I want to thank the developers for there effort!

    Reply

  4. Anon-00697 Says:
    26 March 2008 at 10:47 pm
    Play It Later

    The only reason I don’t give this the full “play it now” rating is that it was way too long, too repetitive, and there were three or possibly even four major battles that were way beyond my average playing skills…

    I commented on another mod recently that it would have benefited from being broken up into several smaller chunks, I think the same about this one. To be fair though the design clearly reflects the fact that an awful lot of work & skill has gone into it. There do seem to be one or two places where you have to go through seemingly endless corridors that are the same again & again, but maybe some liked that.

    The escape routes were more or less impossible to find at times, ammo was mostly in very short supply, especially when facing the hunters, and I have to say I only finished it at all because I decided to break my own rule & cheat. Sorry, but that’s the only way I could possibly have completed it, I don’t actually know what setting it was on, just the default, (so probably “easy”) so there’s absolutely no way I’m going to go back & try again.

    The outdoor scenes were excellent, apart from the massive drop in framerate, to a crawl at times, even when I dropped the resolution as low as I could, which was very frustrating.

    Clearly a very ambitious project and an enormous one. I do very much look forward to any more work by this modder/mapper, and hope that the next offering might be a tad smaller….

    Reply

  5. gmgcsmith Says:
    27 March 2008 at 5:02 am
    Avoid It!

    Alll in all a good shooter, but needs lots of work, i.e. bugs,for some reason you get a pause then have to hit esc and resume game,now am getting and have had these previously,(eng.error)ed_alloc. No free edits.tried several times to get the car to jump in the tunnel in no-7, but will not complete the loading seq.crashes.not a good game ,but there were some parts i did enjoy,especially the fire fights ,but as in my last post of 03/19.thiose red errors are still there .this game needs some serious fixing,not up to par with Leon`s Coastline game. I am going to delete it not worth the time to fight through the bugs. Oh by the way /this is for D .Yep re-d/loaded EP-2 from Steam. So know I have the game installed.Thanks for your help. This is for YOYO its on the pier.

    Reply

  6. -= D =- Says:
    27 March 2008 at 5:41 am

    alll in all a good shooter,but needs lots of work,ie bugs,for some reason you get a pause then have to hit esc and resumre game,now am getting and have had these previously,(eng.error)ed_alloc.No free edits.tried several times to get the car to jump in the tunnel in no-7,but will not compleate the loading seq.crashes.not a good game ,but there were some parts i did enjoy,especially the fire fights ,but as in my last post of 03/19.thiose red errors are still there .this game needs some serious fixing,not up to par with leon`s coastline game.am going to delete it not worth the time to fight through the bugs.Oh by the way /this is for D .Yep re-d/loaded EP-2 from steam.so know i have the game installed.Thanks for your help. This is for YOYO its on the pier.

    I’m sorry you had these problems. There is always someone. Nobody else has reported any such problems — including the beta testers — so I hope this doesn’t deter others from trying. Apologies.

    Reply

  7. geekofalltrades Says:
    28 March 2008 at 7:20 am

    I’m having trouble with that tunnel jump too… I just tried maybe a dozen times, off both ramps, with and without turbo, and now I’m done for a while.

    Reply

  8. MikeS Says:
    28 March 2008 at 12:15 pm

    geekofalltrades: I had trouble with the tunnel jump, but solved it by killing most of the combine on the other side of the barrier. Not sure how they were stopping my clearing the barrier but they were! Perhaps they were wielding a big anti-buggy magnet?

    Reply

  9. geekofalltrades Says:
    29 March 2008 at 3:54 am
    Play It Later

    Well, finished, although I never did get over that jump… I just managed to get stuck on the top of the wall, then Grav-gunned the buggy over. This is one meaty mod… it kept me occupied for probably ten hours. I played it on normal and had a difficult time with it, so if you want a challenging mod, you might try this one on hard. That said, a number of the big battles can be completed without diving right into the fray. I sat back and sniped enemies out of several of the larger areas. One thing that added to the combat was the reskinning of shotgun-wielding combine soldiers. They now have red eyes and red and gray armor. While it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense from a realistic point of view, it sure enhanced the combat; when you saw one running at you, you knew you had to take it out or eat lead.

    The level design is detailed in most places, and varies pretty well throughout the mod. You can tell that a lot of time and effort went into it. It does tend to suffer from deja vu, though, as you can tell that some setpieces and even some whole areas have been copy-pasted (I believe the author admits to as much… with this much area to cover, you can hardly blame him). Most of the levels are circular, but at least two of them (“The Underground” and “Who Turned Out The Lights?”) are so massive in their circularity that they’ll completely blow your mind. Whether this is a good thing or not is for you to decide, as it does cause a few player-navigation issues. In “The Underground,” for example, flipping a particular switch will open a door in a place that you never would have expected. I ended up noclipping around that level until I figured out where I was supposed to go. Expect to do a lot of vent-crawling, too… if you can’t figure out where to go at any point, try looking around for a vent or door hidden behind physics props, because it’s a good bet that’s where you need to head. It wouldn’t be Half-Life without vent-crawling, but this was a bit excessive. Some of the goals could have been clarified, too. While they weren’t overly obscure (as I did eventually figure them out without the aid of a walkthrough), some levels, like a vast outdoor level in which three generators must be destroyed to proceed, can take some time to figure out.

    Another complaint was that I never did get an RPG. There were rockets for it littered all over the place, but I never did get the launcher itself. I ended up having to use impulse 101 to get one, as it’s necessary to pass several areas. Another complaint is the inexplicable presence of the the Magnusson devices (a.k.a. “Strider Busters”) from Ep2. I had thought that they were supposed to be a new invention at the time Ep2 took place, so seeing them in a side mission of the original Half-Life 2 breaks the continuity a little bit.

    If I wanted to pick a nit, I would say that it’s odd that the levels are littered with dead Cubbages. I realize that they’re meant to be generic security guards (as their jackets say “Security” on the back), but they aren’t generic security guards… they’re Colonel Odessa Cubbage. Twenty or thirty of him.

    Full of exhilarating firefights, sneaking-and-creeping, and puzzle solving alike, this mod is sure to satisfy, but be ready to get stuck, because it will happen at least once.

    Reply

  10. mel Says:
    01 April 2008 at 4:01 am

    I experience very noticeable drop in frame rate with the later large outside areas, this spoiled some encounters and sequences for me, coupled with this was a total loss on two occasions in the later stages of all screen in game data, i.e. no health, ammo or weapon readouts also no cross air in fact no on-screen date what so ever including save and load captions.
    I will pay through again before posting any conclusion.

    Reply

  11. galocza Says:
    13 April 2008 at 7:11 pm
    Play It Now!

    well, i had the homepage of offshore in my bookmark list (together with a few other mods), but only now had the chance to play it through. did it live up to my expectations? lets see…the good
    after the first 3-4 mediocre chapters this mod begins to really shine: quite a few nice puzzles,
    really good, epic battles, good use of ep2 content and vehicles, some spectacular (outdoor) scenes. on my old comp it was very choppy but I enjoyed them nontheless. this mod gotmore addictive from chapter to chapter, just as if the first chapters were practice or i dont know made by a different person?
    i really enjoyed most of the bigger, more complex levels but sometimes i was lost.
    good variety of enemies.
    the bad
    i also found the first 4 chapters quite repetitive. i know that there isnt that much variety in the original game either but the prison-office-warehouse-etc part really seemed too long.
    it was also annoying the constant hunt vents at first, then i got used to it and my first thing was after cleaning an area to move everything that can hide a vent.
    there were a lot of puzzles where I simply didnt know what i did to get through. sometimes it was ‘hit the switch and run around to see what opened’. memories of doom…
    for a work of this magnitude I expected some more immersive story, some new voices or cutscenes would have been nice.the ugly
    mind you, my comp is broken i played with my 5 years old comp, some of the problems may have been caused by this. and none of the problems were serious except the first one.
    i had a few crashes at a point (around 3-4th chapter i think), actually then i only looked for an excuse to stop playing but when i gave it its last chance it didnt crash 8).
    on two levels all objects got invisible but i kept bumping them. made some fights annoying but not very serious.
    on the first level once my hud disappeared, quitting and reloading the game and my save solved this.
    the sight of combine forces worked quite awkwardly: sometimes they saw and shoot at me from half a world away (eg outdoor scenes, metrocops), sometimes they didnt saw me from 30 meters.
    a few times i was shot at when i saw no one around, i guess it was through objects/rocks.I can say that I dont regret playing through this mod: it may not be the bestest (‘only’ among the best) but really an epic work which – if you can live with the repetitive first chapters – will challenge you to the end. its not flawless, still got from me a “PLAY IT NOW”

    Reply

  12. HDsTALKER Says:
    17 April 2008 at 2:49 am
    Play It Now!

    IVe been playin this awsome mod. But i believe I didn’t get the rocket launcher whenever i was supposed to get it. Anyway i still manage to play a good portion of the game. Now i’m almost at the end, when youre fighting the chopper in that big compound. there is no Rpg ( except the ammo for it). So am I supposed to beat the chopper to get a door open or am I just missing something??

    Also on a technical side i’m trying to access my console command, I always had access to it but now it just doesn’t seem to open at all. anyone know how to set it back again?? and yes the box is checked in my advanced controls options.

    If anyone could help me out it would be really appreciated.

    Thank you

    Reply

  13. -= D =- Says:
    17 April 2008 at 3:52 am

    Anyway i still manage to play a good portion of the game. Now i’m almost at the end, when youre fighting the chopper in that big compound. there is no Rpg ( except the ammo for it). So am I supposed to beat the chopper to get a door open or am I just missing something??

    Wow. Ok. There are RPG’s all over the game and I am surprised how anyone could have made it this far without one. How on earth did you ever survive the buggy levels? Probably 5 or 6 other people have run into a similar situation.

    Anyways, there *is* an RPG on that level — I’m not sure you can get to it if you are on the ‘other’ side of the big fence. It’s on the second level — near the door you came out of near the shed opposite side of the door.

    The RPG appears in one or two other places before this.

    The first place is at the beginning of chapter “Overwhelmed” in the lockers right when the level starts.

    Running with the -console option should give you access to the console.

    Reply

  14. mel Says:
    17 April 2008 at 5:53 am

    Phillip, any reason this mod post does not have a ranking facility?

    Reply

  15. LarixUthule Says:
    18 April 2008 at 12:31 am
    Play It Now!

    I played the game through a few weeks ago, and it took several days (6?) of playing it for a few hours at a wack after work to finish it. I’ve played it again recently, and was able to complete it more quickly. I loved: The large maps; the challenges to the HL2 way of thinking, “I can’t pile all those things up over there to get over that fence,” or, “that’s too far to jump,” or, “I don’t think I’m supposed to go in there.” …and many more surprises. Assume nothing, try anything…what a pleasure! Thanks -= D =- — nice nice work.

    Reply

  16. MikeS Says:
    18 April 2008 at 1:04 am
    Play It Now!

    This mod is a delight. It’s BIG with great potential for replays. I’ve no hesitation in calling it my favourite of all time. Tremendous work, Darrow!

    Reply

  17. rzx150 Says:
    18 April 2008 at 10:28 am

    i am currently stuck in chapter one. after fighting in a big prison room, i got to a quiet room with a few computers and a window that has a view of a prison yard. this is after the battle with the combine and a large army of manhacks. so far its very fun and i don’t want to stop now!

    Reply

  18. -= D =- Says:
    18 April 2008 at 7:27 pm

    i am currently stuck in chapter one. after fighting in a big prison room, i got to a quiet room with a few computers and a window that has a view of a prison yard. this is after the battle with the combine and a large army of manhacks. so far its very fun and i don’t want to stop now!

    If you get stuck, there is a walk through posted on my wiki page [http://www.halflife2.net/wiki/index.php/Offshore].

    Good luck!

    Reply

  19. Lantathae Says:
    26 April 2008 at 11:54 am
    Play It Now!

    Wow this one is long! But well worth it. The puzzles are quite hard and I spent a few hours on one level not knowing where to go before i realised i had to retrace my steps just a little more than how i was.

    So good especially if you want a good challenge!

    Reply

  20. Fenris Says:
    04 May 2008 at 12:41 am
    Play It Now!

    Well that sure was a marathon session! Damn, this mod was long. I really enjoyed this mod, but it almost seemed like work at times! Though I consider this mod worthy of a 5-star rating, I had a few problems: choppy framerate, difficult puzzles, obscure routes, repetitive-looking areas, and very large interior spaces.

    The choppy framerate was likely mostly my computer not being up to snuff. However, in most cases I’m able to run vanilla HL2 without any problems, and I can even run some of Fakefactory’s Cinematic Mods with minimal issues. This may be related to the large level sizes, but I don’t know for sure.

    The puzzles and “boss-battles” were entertaining and intruiging. However, at times the solutions seemed disingenuous. I frequently needed to load a quicksave a half-dozen times in order to figure out what I needed to do, or consult the walkthrough, or both! This is partly on me, but a bit of prompting now an again in the mod wouldn’t go unappreciated. The same goes for obscure routes; sometimes (for example in the outdoors run from the striders) I couldn’t figure out what I needed to do at all until I gave up and went to the walkthrough for a pointer. In my opinion, any game should teach the player what responses are appropriate in order to progress further; the learning curve was kinda steep in Offshore, but for some that’s fine. Similarly, the story that connected the chapters and levels seemed somewhat sparse at times; I felt like I was running without much on an idea where I was going.

    Part of the reason I might have gotten lost a lot was that many areas within a level looked very alike. Some parts reminded me of Wolfenstein (the original) in how it seemed I was wandering a series of identical rooms. I had to leave desks pointing where I had been in order ot figure out where I was going. Further, some rooms seemed ridiculously large. Near the end of the mod, there was this huge room with a battle going on inside; this room seemed big enough to hold the entire square including Breen’s obelisk from the beginning of HL2. While this didn’t pose a gameplay issue, it just seemed strange to me to have a room that big.

    Don’t let these criticisms dissuade you from downloading this mod. It did some very interesting things with combats that I havent seen before, especially with unlimited-spawning monsters. In the Half-Life series, you never really need to run for your life. With persistence and skill, you can defeat any number of enemies, but Offshore shows how one man, even the Freeman, can’t always take on everything and hope to win. Now, I’m sure there are plenty of unlimited-spawning mods out there, but Offshore did this in a way that seemed not only plausible but frightening – the panic I felt while running through hallways trying to evade Antlions is something I’d recommend to anyone!

    Reply

  21. jayaitch Says:
    07 May 2008 at 4:14 pm
    Play It Now!

    Masterpiece! Don’t miss it – 5 out of 5

    Reply

  22. Mman Says:
    14 May 2008 at 2:53 am
    Maybe?

    The nature of this mod will probably make it divisive for a lot of people; it’s essentially a very long string of arenas with the occasional puzzle and pretty much no story.

    If you like pure combat this mod will probably blow you away, it has some of the most well designed combat situations I’ve seen in a HL2 map, and a LOT of them too. I played on hard, it was above average in diffculty but it never felt like things were utterly impossible and I made it all the way, although I found a few areas kind of annoying (like the ones where Antlions just keep coming), and one or two could have done with a few more hints of what to be doing (I occasionally overlooked a stash or ammo crate which made a situation seem ridiculous, when it actually wasn’t that bad).

    I think the length works against it in a way, due to having no story it’s likely you’ll burn out if you just run straight through as it’s as long as a relatively short retail game, although the architecture/lighting quality is surprisingly high considering the length (there’s one or two that just feel like a bunch of cut and paste rooms, but, while not up to the very best SP mods, the design is almost always at least acceptable). I actually took a break of a few months part way through before going back to it, but I don’t hold that against it too much as I treated the pack as a series of disconnected (above-average and occasionally great) combat situations to dip in and out of as I wished (I’d probably recommended pacing yourself and doing something like a chapter a day).

    There are a few issues I had; the way further was very unintuitive at times to the point where I had to use noclip to work it out, as a hint, 90% of the time you are stuck the way is hidden behind an object. I had to summon myself as rocket launcher as, while a few are provided MUCH later, the early combat situations seemed to have rockets everywhere but no launcher, I assume it was there yet overly hidden, or it was somehow forgotten about entirely, either way it was dodgy design. Also, many areas gave performance problems despite being able to run 95% of levels at a solid 60+FPS, however, this may be just me as I only recall getting it after I went back to the pack after my “break”, so it could be down to Valve breaking the engine somehow rather than the pack itself (I need to do more testing of that theory though).

    I give “consider it” as a neutral ranking since I consider its design so divisive; if you play HL2 mostly for combat this will likely be the second coming for you, if you play for story and/or particularily distincive visuals you’ll probably just get bored part way through. I loved it overall, but, despite enjoying most of it I still got burnt out and needed some time way from it (which happens very rarely to me).

    If the author adds some story and true progression to their next pack it could be truely amazing, because they’ve already refined combat to a level above almost every other designer I’ve seen, maybe even Valve themselves when it’s at its very best.

    Reply

  23. lackoo Says:
    26 May 2008 at 6:45 pm

    Please check this:
    http://img399.imageshack.us/my.php?image=a0qedytjovuw3.jpg
    Russian release?

    Reply

  24. planetphillip Says:
    26 May 2008 at 11:15 pm

    Russian release?

    This has happened before with a few mods. The bad thing is that the mod is wrapped up in an illegal, Steamless version of the game. I have seen them for ale but they are certainly available for download. There’s little, if anything, the author can do.

    Reply

  25. Denizen Says:
    22 June 2008 at 5:58 am
    Play It Now!

    Man, this should get 6 stars!
    Some parts better than the original game!
    Plus some some unforgettable flodded areas.

    Reply

  26. Anon-00698 Says:
    25 June 2008 at 12:46 am
    Play It Now!

    cool mod !!!

    Reply

  27. Hoyy Says:
    22 August 2008 at 4:06 pm
    Play It Now!

    Altough i didn’t cleared it out yet, I think that the mod is pretty well done, with a lot of puzzles and creative combats. There are several chapters, and each one of them has a good duration and an excellent lasting appeal. Specially liked the “underground” chapter, where a friend and I had quite a laughs with innusitated situations, like chopping zombies apart and seeing a few bugs happen (altough they have been caused propositally). All in all, the design is not an average, the map design is magnificient and 5 stars definitely…

    Reply

  28. Hoyy Says:
    22 August 2008 at 4:09 pm

    It does tend to suffer from deja vu, though, as you can tell that some setpieces and even some whole areas have been copy-pasted

    Yeah man i’ve been talking this with my friend, hehe! ==D== don’t take it seriously man but it’s rather funny to think about that as I said the same thing to my friend about that “copy-pasted areas, man!” . Oh, and about the “reskin” of the shotgun wielding combine, it already came with ep2, so Valve did it. Also, did u noticed that the buggy has a very weirdo orange light underneath it?? I wonder what is that!

    Reply

  29. clunkfish Says:
    02 October 2008 at 1:38 pm
    Play It Now!

    Superb. The author has done outstanding work for other games too, and this is professional quality – it’s an absolutely unmissable HL2 mod. It must have been a huge amount of work (the level of detail is stupendous) so many many thanks to the author for giving pure gaming pleasure :-)

    Reply

  30. Robspace 1 Says:
    15 October 2008 at 6:00 pm

    I can’t see any way possible of beating these overwhelming odds except with the help of God! Maybe it’s just my copy but I seem to have 50 or so Combine coming at me in the warehouse in chapter 5 or 6-I’d think this is too much for one person to take on. It would be nice to have a little rebel help here. Maybe in the next one?

    Reply

  31. Robspace 1 Says:
    18 October 2008 at 8:31 am
    Maybe?

    Just finished this, finally and really glad it’s over. This one was a real workout and it was just not much fun for me. It did have it’s moments but they were overshadowed by long periods of boredom, confusion and just plain lack of interest. How anyone can honestly compare this to Minerva or Rock 24 is beyond me. This mod crashed so many times I lost count. I had to completely reboot my computer most times to start it up again. I noticed that just about half the technical complaints were about the crashing and most seemed to be in the same areas.
    I had to resort to cheating in way too many tough spots. The firefights were just way to mismatched and the enemy was way too overpowering. The balance was way off on that. Why throw an army at one person? Makes no sense and is not realistic at all. To be fair there should never be more then 7 or 8 Combine coming at Gordon at any one particular time.

    In this mod there is several instances where there is at least 20 or more Combine, PLUS hordes of spawning Antlions and zombies all at the same time or one right after another with no break in between. One man can only do so much and one of the reasons Half Life is so popular is because it is somewhat realistic. The battles are winnable and the player stands a chance. Not so in this mod. You can run for your life or try to make a stand and get the hell beat out of you. I don’t like running so I lost alot of battles until I gave in to God mode. I had to get some help from above to win.

    This could be a really good mod if it was fixed up. I don’t like bad mouthing anyone’s work because I know how hard these people work on these for us and it’s greatly appreciated, so anything I say that sounds negative should be taken as just contructive criticisim. If I made this mod, and I don’t even know how, I would make these changes.
    1. Shorten it-make it into 3 parts with a definete story for each. Each chapter would have a start and finish and a set goal that the player can follow pretty much on their own with no help from walkthroughs. There was several parts I had to noclip through because I could not figure out the next move. Chapter 8 lost me real good. I came out the tunnel and could not find the generator that was supposed to be right above me on the hill. Where was it? I did find the generators in the enclosed area and saw no way of shutting them off. No switch and no instructions in the walkthrough for that or the other two. Just vague directions to their locations and that was it. I ended up noclipping through to the tunnel. Same with the car jump on the sand dune. I tried to get that thing over the fence for about 30 minutes and gave up. I had it all the way back to the water and had the turbo booster on but it just would not clear the fence, so noclip won again.
    2. Add some peoples voices to give it a natural, realistic sound. Also more music and sound effects would have be great. Both were really needed all through this. Get rid of the pink/black checkered water..I have never had a mod crash and freeze up as much as this did. It was happeneing about every 30 minutes, even with all settings turned down and my video driver updated. Not happeneing with other games, or very little if at all. This mod needs a patch really bad.
    3. I would let only one person write the story. This seemed to have too many ideas that were clashing with each other. The “storyline” was nearly impossible to follow and made it more work to play. It took away from the fun aspect of the overall project. When a player has to constantly second guess his every move it becomes tiring and nore of a chore then a good time. The ending was abrupt and made no sense. The whole experience left me feeling defeated and beaten rather then victorious. I “won” only because by then I was living in God mode just to get through the slaughter that were the firefights. The ending SPOILER-SPOILER-SPOILER–had soo many enemies coming in from all directions, it would have taken a miracle to make it out alive. There is no possible way for one person to survive that many people and insects and zombies and that other thing that shoots the wires or whatever., it was just overkill. Maybe someone can tell me how they survived the 3.5 minutes to stay on board the train long enough to make it out of town. How could anyone make it through that without cheating?

    So, that’s the stuff I’d fix. I did like this mod, but it just needs work. I’m keeping it to play again and try to make it through without cheating. Right now I don’t see how that’s possible, unless I am supposed to run away instead of fighting but then what kind of “rebel” would I be if I did that? I would say play this if you have the time, it’s very long and can be boring at times but it is nicely done in alot of areas. Take your time and play it in small doses so’s not to burn out with anger when it strts crashing. Who know’s maybe you’ll be one of the lucky few to now have this happen.

    I

    Reply

  32. Jeff Says:
    25 October 2008 at 12:32 am
    Play It Later

    I finally “finished” Offshore. Even though I was on the train, it told me I missed it. I’ll have to go back and play the last battle again to see the end (if any), but that’s my problem. :)

    Overall, it was a good mod, and while the level repetition bothered me a little bit, my big issue was the sheer volume of junk lying around in the rooms and hallways. I spent more time clearing a path thru boxes and debris than searching for ammo! I had to rely on the walktrhu three or four times to figure out what my goals were, or which switch/generator I missed the first time around. The purple check water afflicted my install as well. Maybe its a DirectX8 issue?

    These gripes aside, there were more than enough outstanding scenarios in the mod, and while a few of them seemed ridiculously difficult on “normal”, nearly every level had at least one impressive or surprising design element.

    Overall, this was a great effort with awesome gameplay interspersed with some confusing goals that needs just a little more polish to make it complete.

    Reply

  33. Bobz Says:
    16 February 2009 at 9:15 pm
    Personal Favourite

    Loved it. Brilliant and hard – even in easy!
    For first timers, the walkthrough is almost a must because there are door switches very remote to the door being unlocked or make sure you activate every switch you see regardless.
    In one map there is a huge area with multiple striders and hunters. It is possible to rush through but I recommend you play it. There are many ways to play it and, for me, I have never enjoyed a map so much (I played it loads of times).

    Reply

  34. J-Man Says:
    21 February 2009 at 10:00 pm
    Play It Now!

    Tough game play at times, got stuck in the prison. Had to use Noclip to find the “air duct” entrance ( Darrow, you hid it very well ) so far, it’s been very challenging, and there has been a problem with it-the game crashed on me after 2 hours, don’t know what that’s all about, (buggy game i guess), has anyone else experienced this ?

    Reply

  35. gundy535 Says:
    25 February 2009 at 3:32 am

    I have never had a crash with this game (all the way through once on “easy”). This is one of the best mods I’ve played despite some of the perceived shortcomings from other comments.

    I noticed a couple of days ago that Steam felt compelled to perform some sort of automatic update in regards to this mod, and now I cannot get passed the islandunderground3 in Chapter 4 (thanks a LOT, Steam). Also, since that update, I keep hearing a strange “cracking” sound in my speakers whenever I fire the pistol. Looks like I’ll have to see if NVidia has any updates to work around the Steam update.

    Other than that, Great Game!

    Reply

  36. Jumbles Says:
    26 February 2009 at 3:09 pm
    Avoid It!

    I downloaded this one because it was the highest rated mod for Ep2. I’ve struggled through to the bit where you get the Dodge Charger but now I’m being shot at by a Combine Gunship and I never found any of the RPGs so I have no way of shooting it down. Coupled with the fact that my frame rate has once again plummeted to around 5fps I’ve decided to abandon this mod.

    Reply

  37. Ol' Scratch Says:
    28 February 2009 at 5:15 am
    Personal Favourite

    Absolutely brilliant! One of the best mods and maps I’ve played yet. I agree with a couple folks up top, in that some of the solutions to the conundrums could’ve been laid out to help us find them, and more use of voiceovers and music would’ve been even better; but, overall, this is a MUST PLAY mod. I believe it took me nearly 10-12 hours overall to finish, and that’s WITH the walkthru’s help. I dislike using walkthrus, but in this case it was almost necessary, which lends credence to the “help us find the hidden stuff with some sort of hints” suggestions.Speaking of, wasn’t there a game once upon a time that would have something move (like junk falling over), or some kind of flashy light, that would point you to the “secret” and the way out?Phillip and those who didn’t find the RPG: I found it where -=D=- said it was the first time you can find it, in a locker early on. But I’m the type to move slowly, peek around corners, and when the room is cleared, dig around looking for goodies and such, so I tend to find things like the second RPG where the gunship is. However, one thing I have noticed is that one can sneak slowly and quietly, and when the gunship or strider turn away and resume their orbit, you can sneak around the peripheries of their movements, and get past them. And if they “see” you and start shooting, just hide and freeze; and they’ll lose interest and move away. Usually.

    -=D=-, you and your team did an amazing job. I think this one goes into the “must have” list with Leon’s CtA, and the Minerva: Metastasis mods. If you decide to tweak it a bit, or even build a new one, let me know so I can beta test it!!

    Everyone else: just friggin’ DO IT. You won’t be disappointed.

    Reply

  38. Fred Carver Says:
    07 March 2009 at 2:05 pm
    Play It Now!

    If I can find the time, I’ll play this one again. Very interesting locations and situations.

    Really deserving of the Mod of the Year award. Nice work!

    Reply

  39. Black Dog Says:
    08 April 2009 at 4:53 pm

    I enjoying the game. I’m at the train station at the very end and I can’t seem to finish the game,end up getting killed or I miss the train. By the way i don’t know which “flatbed” I’m suppose to hop on? The train looks weird.
    Couldn’t find the switch by the large T.V. screen? Running around like a chicken with my head cut off. lol
    Guess, I’ll finish it later! When I’m less frustrated.
    The “PLAY IT NOW” refers up to the last part. lol

    Reply

  40. Black Dog Says:
    08 April 2009 at 7:33 pm

    OK,finish the game. Tried it again after a good nights sleep. It was easy!

    Reply

  41. Andrew Says:
    12 April 2009 at 9:25 am
    Personal Favourite

    Staggeringly good mod. I’ve never played the like (I’ve played probably over 50 HL2 mods by now). Right up there with C2A, Minerva, Rock24 etc. as one of the great all-time HL2 mods. A monumental amount of work, much appreciated!!

    The fights are really well balanced, the puzzles challenging and the outdoor scenes beautifully crafted. in fights, there’s no better pacing to be found. Some maps allow you to play them upside down, sideways and backwards, which is a real creativity booster. You can play this thing a different way every time.

    Hats off, -=D=-. You created a true classic.

    Reply

  42. Joe Says:
    14 May 2009 at 4:43 pm

    Hi,
    I am having real trouble with this mod. The gate blows off the cell, then the game saves, then i cant pick anything up or open the first door. Does anyone have any suggestions??

    Reply

  43. aaronbok Says:
    25 May 2009 at 6:46 pm
    Personal Favourite

    Just finished Offshore, absolutely superb mod. It has a little something for everyone. Inclosed frantic fighting, plus some lovely open battlegrounds. I found various different ways to finish some of the maps, which makes this very replayable.
    Well done to everybody involved in this project.

    Reply

  44. aaronbok Says:
    06 June 2009 at 2:27 pm

    Thanks for the info Phillip. I have just contacted the Offshore created and thanked him.

    Reply

  45. Yeeyoh Says:
    22 June 2009 at 5:07 pm

    Hi, love the site.
    Could someone fix the link to the walkthrough though, I’m stuck and I’m also stuck finding the walkthrough for this offshore mod. The link here says page not found, and the link on filefront takes me back to the main filefront page. So any help finding this wlakthrough would be great.
    Ohh, and, I’m stuck near the beginning were on the way in a crate was keeping a swaying metal plate door open enough to crawl through, but now that I’m on the other side trying to get back the crate is gone and the swaying metal plate door is closed, and I can’t seem to find another way out of the offices.
    Any help would be great.
    Thanks

    Reply

  46. jjawin118 Says:
    14 September 2009 at 3:34 am
    Play It Now!

    An absolutely fantastic sleeping giant!Little repetitious here and there but it’s a very large mod.enjoy!!

    Reply

  47. dougjp Says:
    27 September 2009 at 3:51 am
    Personal Favourite

    Fantastic work and hours upon hours of gameplay, sometimes frantic, often more than interesting. Sometimes I shake my head at how fortunate we are to get to enjoy work like this.

    Not all “love-in” though. If it wasn’t for the walkthrough, in 3 or 4 spots, I never would have completed the game. While some might say that’s the price you pay for a difficult complex mod and its a good reflection on the author, I disagree. I view that as a ‘problem’ with design. Also, when difficulty for an average experienced player is such that I’m swearing AT the game in anumber of different places, something’s wrong.

    However I did eventually get through it all without cheating, except the ending which turned me off – it was just so “grand finale” style.

    Reply

  48. esswok Says:
    12 December 2009 at 10:41 pm
    Personal Favourite

    Fantastic MOD!!!

    I had some trouble getting into the vents/ducts. and had to use noclip often to get in vents/ducts.

    I can not believe how big it is.

    Just when you think that they are setting you up for the final battle it loads to another section.

    WOW

    Reply

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Podcast 17 · Providing truth to Citizens! says:
    8th December 2008 at 3:25 pm

    [...] Offshore [...]

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  2. Geek-Gaming » Blog Archive » Offshore says:
    11th July 2009 at 1:09 pm

    [...] Sur PlanetPhillip  Laisser un commentaire   |   [...]

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