I just have 2 things to say

1) quality
2)

I’m really sorry for that, look in the About section of the mod site, and give the solution you’ll find in the FAQ a try.

Thanks

Note there are a couple of potential spoilers ahead (although I’ve tried to stay vague).

Firstly, the second level seems to have a bit of a balance issue; I was playing on normal and spent most of that level on the brink of death, health felt just right through the rest of the pack, so it seems like that level could have done with some more health kits or armour.

The other main issues I had were technical ones; there were a few places where it seemed like I got stuck with no way out, one at a cage in water, where it seemed like I couldn’t jump out without a buoyancy aid (so if you didn’t get one first you were stuck). At another point I fell down a pit with no apparent way out. Also, at the “ride”, it seemed like you got stuck if you didn’t make the containers start moving first. I’ll give the pack some benefit of the doubt in this regard though, since I was playing it pretty late (and could have overlooked some obvious stuff). Also, at the giant Antlion, you could see outside the level through parts of the pit it comes from.

As a last nitpick, the ladders on the ending bridge could have done with a light to highlight them or something (That kind of feels like “dumbing down” to me in a lot of instances, but this was a dangerous section where finding things easy is important).

Story was pretty thin, I have to admit there were a couple of points where I got a kind of “wait, why am I doing this again?” feeling. It seems like the story text here is all you are really given. It does come together at the end though, and “escape!” could be divulged easily enough considering you are in a prison.

Those were pretty much the only issues I had, the rest of the design is top-notch and could have come straight from HL2. It was also interesting to see a pack using the bugbait, although the Antlion AI seemed a little passive at times (I threw it somewhere and they just sat there in a few instances, which I don’t recall happening in HL2). There were also some well placed turrets and small puzzles.

It’s definitely play it now material, especially with what a lot of HL2 mods are like (although the general quality seems to be rising now). The lack of story isn’t as big an issue as it was with Awakening since it can be inferred much easier here (as I said earlier “escape” is pretty obvious here; in Awakening you were Shepard who had arose to, err, do something).

Oh I’d love to play it, but the installer says I don’t have Steam installed…

“Riot Act” is easily one of the best mods of 2007! I just finished it and it’s a great ride. Best of all each level is fairly diverse! The creators make great use of the existing Half-Life 2 objects/backgrounds and create something new (but famaliar). Kudos to them for allowing you to see more of the inner workings of the Combine.

Jimbo Said:

Oh I’d love to play it, but the installer says I don’t have Steam installed…

From [url=http://uoz.multiplayer.it/ra/index.php?content=about]Riot Act’s About page[/url]:

Q: I can’t install it! It keeps me saying that I don’t have Steam installed!
A: You can fix it, do as follows:

1. Open regedit
2. Locate your HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Valve\Steam directory
3. Right click on the right pane a create a new “string value”
4. Name it “InstallPath” without the quotes
5. Right click on in and modify it: put you Steam installation path, should be something like C:\Program Files\Valve\Steam\
6. Restart the installer

I don’t care to much for stories so I can’t complain about that. My only gripe is health. There are times where my health is very low and there is a shortage of health packs. Overall though, I do like the game and the puzzles. Hope we get more of these type of games to play. Many thanks.

This mod is one of the best I played for HL 2. Map quality is very good in every way (details, enemy and item placing, etc). Surely the story wasn’t the most important thing the designers watched for, but it wasn’t necesary for the concept of the mod.

Even I teamed up with Ant Lions Again, something I ever wanted to do again. Sure there’s no vehicles to drive, but the ant lions are there! and in some way the presence of those bugs didn’t make the game “very easy” like Nova Prospekt chap. of HL2. I had to use them in more tactical ways.

I like when a game give me the right number of supplies to make the game more tactical, but sometimes I missed the .357.

4.5/5 I give before, or better.

This is fun. Really fun. The voice acting is slightly wonky compared to the original male voice, but definately not embarassingly bad.

This is the way a mod for Half-life 2 should be, and even better, it’s not about Gordon.

GREAT!
GREAT!
GREAT!

IN ONE WORD: EXCELLENT MOD.

Maybe one of the 5 best mods ever made.

Finished and must use more space to say this is what an excellent mod has. One minor, well major, problem. The really good ones are way too short. I wasn’t disappointed at the ending. I was disappoints that it ended.

Compared to the plethora of **** HL2 mods out there, this one is a a breath of fresh air. It’s an example of how a mod should be made, and all aspiring modders should take a look at it. I hope these guys continue their excellent work.

I experienced the freeze ups as well, but soon figured out it does it everytime a music track starts to play - passed those white double doors with laser behind it for example. I restarted my computer and the problem went away, but try waiting a few moments longer incase the track is “loading”

All I can suggest.

This is a superb mod. The time it has been being worked on, the modders have really made a great job there. Designed maps coherently within architetures current to that of normal Half Life2, while playing it you will be able to recap some places alike in both game and mod. Voice acting is something quite uncommon in this mod, which has been very well applied with intensity and emotion where necessary. Another great aspect for those who do this, when I opened up the mod I was impressed that more than half of the mod MBs size was applied within maps. This made me happy since made mods out there make maps with 2 ~4 MBs, but the rest of the content heavy out to be sometimes nearly as big as 30MB in the total file size with sounds, and some things that shows themsevles unnecesary in certain cases. For what, if you like Half Life 2 mods, and appreciate a good work, you can definitely download this one here and have fun more than just a single time.

The rebel on the other side should shoot the lock after you attempt to talk to him.

I had a problem with the gate Jumbles.
After shooting down the gunships the rebel didn’t appear.
After noclipping through however, he appeared and I continued the game.
Very impressive to say the least. I hope they release more mods with quality as high as this.

I’d like to go back and have another go at the gate - I really don’t like cheating to complete a game - but I uninstalled the mod and deleted the download as soon as I’d finished.

Maybe if this mod was updated - gameplay improved and this bug fixed - then I might give it another go

Only had a chance to play for a few minutes yesterday but I can say that its a very well done mod. Very easy to install and runs very smoothly without any frame rate drops (Ive had mods have bad frame rates even though I didn’t have anything running in the background).
On normal it is fairly difficult, but that could be because I’ve been playing a lot of Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell, and Rainbow Six lately and the guns actually have accuracy. You can use the same tactics with the rifle on Half Life 2.
I found the lighting to be very well done and the atmosphere that the lighting creates along with the architecture feels very similar to the Nova Prospekt level in Half Life 2 that this game parallels.
All in all, I say:

(P.S. First time using the images, clicking on the image below didn’t seem to do anything, so I tried using some html. Let’s hope it worked :P)

Excellent

I just finished this. Fantastic mod. Riot Act is up there with Minerva in my mind. I only have two gripes. In one act I struggled through with less than 50 health at all times playing on normal. A few more health packs in the second level would be nice. Also, during the battle with the gunships, I was confused about how to get the RPG. I only discovered the ladder by accident after a few failed attempts to carry a wooden box across the battlefield to hop a fence.One small bug, since the developer seems to be looking here (also a tiny spoiler): When you board the pod and the squad mate is killed, the HUD icon for a squad stayed up for a while. Not sure if this is a problem inherent with Half Life 2 or an isolated bug.

I agree with many of the points made by Jimbo and Jumbles. (Lol.)

In my opinion, this mod is simply ’solid’, with the added label of ‘what other mods should relate to.’

It’s not really innovative, bar the very well made bridge on the last map. Gameplay is solid. Some fun fights, with good enemy placement and great layouts.

However, my opinions and tastes come again with some gameplay styles. I’m not really fond of arenas where enemies swarm at you from three dimensions. That part with the second (Or third?) mounted pulse gun was very annoying. (I usually enjoy arena maps or arena segements.) In fact, I’m not sure of the author’s intentions here. Was it an arena?

An arena is usually where the player is held up in a single area, with multiple enemies swarming in. The player can only proceed when he/she has killed a certain number of enemies or a time limit as been reached. At the aforementioned area, I could just skip this place entirely and proceed onwards. In fact, I ignored many of the soldiers, did what I had to do, and let the antlions deal with the soldiers.

Of course that’s just nitpicking. But as I said, gameplay was solid but fun. Nothing innovative, though… Bar, once again, the bridge area.

Actually, while I’m on that, that area was a little… Lacking, actually. While the concept was innovative (Gameplay wise.) it lacked good execution and real ‘oomph.’ The strider was easy to dodge… And did you even have to kill it? I think I could’ve just nicked off down to that boat and be done with it. (I’m not sure, since I’ve only played once…) I just think there could’ve been more to that area gameplay wise that would’ve spiced it up!

Again, this is just nitpicking, and my own tastes come into this.

Design was (Here’s that word again…) solid! But alot of it was innovative and interesting. (Like… Yep, that’s right… THE BRIDGE!!!) Nothing really wrong with design, but Jumbles is right to point out how some of the design is quite boring. I, myself, found many places where the design could’ve had the benefit of more deeper lighting and more trimwork. But still, design was solid.

I have to nitpick on design, though. The cart/rail (I forgot the name… And I call myself a Half-Life fan!) sequence in the Nova Prospekt Depot (But I can still balance it out with what I DO know!) felt… Pretty useless actually. But it ended with a moment that made me think ‘cool!’, so that’s good. But still, it felt useless. Maybe more set pieces, eye-candy, vistas…

Oh yeah, I must say while the voice acting was clear and with good quality, the acting (No offense to the actor.) felt very ’static’. But again, that’s just nitpicking.

To conclude, I’ll have to disagree with Jumbles on something, though… I did like the mod! It was fun and reasonably enjoyable! I trusted the comments here with the plethora of ‘PLAY IT!’ icons, and I wasn’t dissapointed. But the mod is still not too innovative (Bar… THE BRIDGE… Oh, and it’s nice to see those exploding Combine locks as shown in HL2:Episode 1…) and is simply a solid achievement.

But like I (And like many other people have…) said above, the mod is what other mods should relate to. It’s the type of thing modders should take notes off of.

And there you go.

By the way, I chose ‘CONSIDER IT,’ because… Well, my review pretty much sums it up. But It’s just that I’ve decided to go with my tastes and opinions rather then if going with the ‘other players will get a kick out of it,’ sort of thing. It’s just that I like to see lots of innovation and I have styles of gameplay which I prefer.

I know what your thinking… “Go play a total conversion” or something, (Although most people here are pretty accepting of others… And freindly!) but I like to play these sort of mods, because it adds to the experience. (Of the actual gaming universe defined in the game itself (In this case, the Half-Life franchise.) that is.)

Very good presentation and overall design.
It’s true that the Nova Prospekt theme is nothing new, but that was part of the idea and it’s pulled off extremely well. Some areas might feel empty in visual terms, but the fast paced combat makes you forget that.
It doesn’t offer anything specially new, but I repeat that was not really the objective. The combat and some of the vistas make it definately worth your time.

The biggest prison EVER? It is in this mod! After crash upon crash, and freezing again and again I lowered my resolution to 1024×768 and reset everything to the lower settings….even using the -heapsize 512000 and finally I got to finish it….Very very impressive and I am going to have another go, which is a rare thing these days!

Brilliantly thought out and fabulous architecture, even if the prison goes on for ever….good traps and a couple of places where the only thing to do is cut & run rather than stay and be decimated.

Definitely a:

I’m really happy you enjoyed Riot Act. Your comments pay me back for all the effort I put in.
Thanks

Review
Not sure this mod has much in the way of a story line, not that it’s ever stopped dedicated HL players in the past. After a short intro showing the Combine running a-muck again through the tenement buildings, you find yourself within Nova Prospekt Cellblock.

Much of the early stages are set within the prison complex, and whilst the design was adequate, the scenery does get a bit repetitive. The combat is intense with strong waves of Combine supported by attacking scanners and turret guns. The intensity of these encounters are draining both on ammo and health. You will need to keep a watch on supplies and reserves of both.

You also encounter both Antlions and their guard, however, you need to find out for yourself which side these sand creatures are on. I have never found the prison concept the most ideal setting for Antlions, they always appear out of place in the confined surroundings of Nova Prospekt.

As with the original HL2 game, the prison part is a long sequence which gives little relief to the enclosed, stereotype architecture of Nova Prospekt and its cellblocks. A few openings and puzzle solving sequences do offer a change to the gameplay without ever taxing the player. The prison sequence was well balanced in terms of the gameplay mix, if a bit short on supplies. Furthermore, it flowed well with ample encounters to keep you on your toes and in anticipation of what was to come next.

The mod finally opens up with an outside encounter against Combine troops and Gunships. Whilst the architecture of this sequence is nothing special, the setting does afford a well designed layout for the job at hand, namely dealing with some heavy hardware amidst a secondary engagement against well positioned troops.

Having acquired the help of an NPC, the mod takes on a new environment of the Citadel. Here the structures and textures are those of the original HL2 game. We also get to ride the clanking Stalker transit system, which gives good views of some admirably constructed Citadel structures made more impressive with good use of light and reflecting angles.

The grand architecture is kept to the end level which is a superb piece of design and script. Without giving to much of the action away, the bridge sequence is by far the best part of the mod. A unique piece of mapping and gameplay for which the author deserves much praise.

In many respects the sequence draws upon the bridge levels from the original HL2 game. This is not to say that the sequence matches the grandeur and depth of the original. Nevertheless, the author has produced a fine piece of mapping, with an intriguing mix of action and involvement set upon an impressive bridge design with a coastal surround.

The bridge and ending sequence left me wishing that the author had spent less time mapping the prison sequences, to give us more levels amidst the big outdoors. I enjoyed the serenity of the end sequence, giving time to admire the the coastline, the fading bridge structure and the merging ocean.

Summary
Tough in parts with intense combat requiring conservative use of ammo, with a care to health levels.

Some fine set pieces, with more than adequate design throughout, if somewhat repetitive in places with sparse incidental content in some areas.

New stuff included good if limited voice acting. An NPC which appeared to have a new skin and a unique piece of mapping with the well crafted bridge and end sequence.

Good use of the HL2 cast both alien and humanoid, along with Combine and their hardware, makes the mod solid in content.

The environmental settings were too limited, with the Nova Prospekt theme taking up, for me, too much of the mod’s content and the resultant gameplay.

Puzzles for the main part are find the right button to progress, plus some good but simple climbing routines.

I have a few issues with the mod, and whilst I did not encounter the trigger problems reported by some PlanetPhillip readers, I did encounter a string of freeze-ups all within the first level of the mod. I have no explanation for these freeze-ups which always necessitated in booting my machine. They never occurred in the same place and whilst frustrating, they did not deter me from continuing the mod. Having read all the posts so far listed regarding the mod on PlanetPhillip, this would not appear to be a common issue.

Negative Points
– Lack of differing environmental settings
– Repetitive enclosed surroundings in part
– Weak storyline

Positive Points
– Some fine architectural set pieces
– Intense Combine encounters
– Good mix of HL2 cast and hardware

Conclusion
Without too much deliberation, this is a fine mod well worth the download and a recommendation to go Play It Now.

Maybe not a classic, nor one of my top 4 or 5, but it’s fun to play and has a lot of quality. Let’s hope we get more from this very talented and established author. I am sure there is the promise of even better things to come.

My Recommendation

a real shame that my pc also frooze up, and only restarting my pc was a option. when that happens 2 to 3 times i stop playi8ng, doesn’t matter how good the mod is. so i hope the makers release a patch of some sort to fix this issue.
because i only played the first map i can’t comment on the rest of the mod, ( or is it a sp-mappack? think that is what it is, seems everybody calls the last 2 years something a mod, even when it doesn’t add something new).
but i couldn’t help that it all looked like a clone of the original HL2 prison sp-maps. did you copy parts of those, don’t say you did. but some windows of control rooms just looked alike the prison maps.

leon

so, because of the freezes i have to say;

not only for my systhem, it’s freezes on many pc’s)

Phillip, I changed the name of the file in the basic details on this one as you had it “hl2-sp-riot-act.rar” when it’s actually “Riot_Act_1.0.exe”.

I can’t wait to play this one. Many different recommendations and comments!

I could send you an unpacked version if you have a server I can send it to.

A place I can send it too.Its over 100mb so email aint gonna work

I have to agree, that would be much easier then sending my FTP details to an email address which I can’t find, and it’ll let others in a similar predicament to me grab the thing as well.