With the Gravity Gun, a clever and resourceful rebel and your intelligence, is it possible to escape from the Combine?
Rat’s nest is a single-player map for Half-Life 2, built and polished over a four month time period. The map continues off of my previous Half-Life 2 map, Down the Drain. This map focuses on non-confrontational combat, allowing the player to defend against Combine forces withoutactually engaging in direct combat.
This is accomplished in two ways, with two new mechanics. The first of these is a warehosue with a gantry crane (using the magnet), where the player must fend off increasing waves of combine forces. The second is a rail-based water section, with an NPC piloting the boat and the player manning a rocket turret. While the player is rarely any any true danger, the events occurring during the level give a sense of urgency and potential danger, urging the player to action.
- Title: Rat’s Nest
- File Name: hl2-ep2-sp-rats-nest.rar
- Size : 9.11Mb
- Author: Shaun McCarty
- Date Released: 12 May 2009
- Source: bobdog’s HL2 Reviews on FoxHole
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- Copy sp-rats_nest.bsp into your Half-Life 2: Episode Two Maps folder.
- Launch Half-Life 2: Episode Two
- Open the console and type map sp-rats_nest.
- Press enter/return or click the Submit button.
- Play and Enjoy.
I’ll try and create on this weekend.
Click on the thumbnails below to open a 800 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots may contain spoilers.
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17th June 2009
Half-Life 2: Ep2, Single Player Mods and Maps
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[...] Rat’s Nest (EP2) [...]
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[...] Rat’s Nest (HL2:Ep2) [...]
17th June 2009
The amount of combat is almost non-existant, especially if you position the items in the main warehouse carefully
But that’s not the point of the map!
What I liked about it was the crane use and the fact it only had the Gravity Gun.
For me the Hall Of Fame is a way of saying “play this because it’s either great or interesitng”. In this case it’s interesting.
There’s way too much text on the screen and I missed some of it, don’t really understand why it can’t have voice acting and before you say because of the lip sync I’d rather have voice acting with no sync then text!
The last section requires you to ride the boat and fire. I honbestly don’t think I hit anything, so maybe I’ll play the last part again.
5 Words Or Less Review
Cranes can be fun!
18th June 2009
Can anybody tell me where the .vmf file goes? The map keeps crashing on me when I get in the rebel’s boat.
18th June 2009
The .vmf file doesn’t go anywhere. It’s the map’s source if mappers want to look at the construction. It crashed on me once too at that point.
18th June 2009
It was certainly interesting! The crane interface was a little clunky, and I think a few of those containers were made out of rubber… but certainly an innovative idea executed well. The missiles at the end however just went their own way, and when the boat turned, it sometimes yanked me off the mounted weapon. If you like non-combat puzzles, you’ll love this map. Otherwise…..
18th June 2009
I’ve made five attempts now to board the boat but it’s crashed every time. I won’t be trying again. Shame, because I was quite enjoying it.
18th June 2009
To be honest the last part is just a ride anyway.
19th June 2009
Actually Mike would you like me to send you a save just after the boat ride starts?
18th June 2009
Very innovative. Very good indeed. At my 6th attempt I finally got the containers in the right positions. This take a bit of working out but makes for a goodly challenge – very satisfying.
Both great and interesting
18th June 2009
Can’t seem to release my self from the crane. Noclip doesn’t work either. Great Ideas in some of these lately. I know these guys are doing these for their school projects, but I can’t help but feel that we could repay them in some small way. Maybe some sort of contest with us donating a small pot of cash and voting for the winner.
18th June 2009
Use the “use” key. I think that should work.
18th June 2009
No that doesn’t work for me. It works to start using the crane but not to stop, I’m stuck there and can’t follow the girl.
19th June 2009
Would you like me to send you my saves?
19th June 2009
Yes Please!
19th June 2009
Brian, you have to turn away from the console (face the doors behind you) and press the ‘use’ key.
19th June 2009
That doesn’t work. must be something in my setup?
Thanks, Brian.
19th June 2009
What spoilt it for me was the unpredictable behaviour of the crane and the things on the crane, the author made a comment about this, and how it was unfixable, but on the whole the mod is playable.
Agree about too much text, I find concentrating on more than a couple of lines of text means that I have to play through a few times to fully understand what the hell is going on,
And the boat ride at the end needs no player input, just keep your head down, even when I could fire the rocket launcher I couldn’t actually hit anything.
It’s like the author got bored and just wanted to finish as quickly as he could.
20th June 2009
I like maps without combat, but this one is an exception I think, while this map is well designed and quite different from others, still it wasn’t fun. I can’t have fun without a good story, so this was it. Action lovers will enjoy this probably.
22nd June 2009
This MOD is definitely not for me. ( too boring )
22nd June 2009
Here they are:
/files/misc/rats-nest-saves.rar
I had to replay the level because there are two times you need to sue the crane and I only had one point saved.
I added two other saves. One to show you how easy the last part before you level the area can be and the second just after the boat starts in case you had the same issue as andyb.
I have to say that all the times I played it from my last save the boat got stuck and I dide, unless I jumped out of the boat.
23rd June 2009
idea good – realisation bad
that’s all to say, cran part was funny but also very very annoying as my crane got stuck each fifth second.
The boat part was not that good, the boat pushed me away from the cannon
The text was far too much and too fast.
But mapping was good any everything looked really nice
30th June 2009
I too have trouble with the game crashing when in the boat and after reading all the above I wont bother to finish it. Up till this point I was not that impressed any way, design was very basic with questionable scale in places, the magnet was ok but hardy original, the only point I enjoyed was throwing truck wheels at the Combine using the gravity gun, went back and did that sequence again just for the hell of it, see how many Combine you can roll over with one wheel.
3rd April 2010
I got stuck at the crane control too and nothing I did would get me off of it. Wondering if left handed set-up might be the issue (changed use key to “Enter”. But I tried “E” as well and still no luck. Maybe switching it breaks some key bindings? No idea. I give up.
4th April 2010
Thankfully, I didn’t have any tech. issues as some did with this map.
I did find it to be a refreshing ” vary from the norm ” with emphasis on accomplishing the task in a timely manner without actually having to fight your way through. The goal wasn’t difficult but the map was set up as to make it plenty interesting to do. I still found myself geared for a fight at any moment and when the combine did burst in, I hung around for a half dozen ” tire ” kills. Fresh and imaginative.
22nd April 2010
I am stuck to the crane, too. I even restarted so I could read the directions (too much text).
I turned around, I pirouetted, nothing. (I did manage to pick up the chair?) I got “attached” to Mr. Whirly in R&D, too. There should be a similar command available to disattach you from the crane.