About
The mod takes place on a previously abandoned cliffside prison. The combine have moved in and are re-using the prison as a place to hold rebel leaders. Gordon is required to infiltrate, free the Rebel leader and escape from the facility.
Basic Details
- Title: Rock 24
- File Name: rock-24.zip
- Size : 206.20Mb
- Author: Henley Bailey & Richard Acherki
- Date Released: 18 November 2006
Files
Screenshots
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Reader Recommendations
40 recommendations, average score: 4.05 (out of 5), standard deviation: 1.85
PlanetPhillip (2351)
andyb (1022)
mel (819)
Goddess Alyria (424)
Stef (404)
Jasper (364)
AI (314)
piledriver (311)
Grey Acumen (299)
Kasperg (283)
21 February 2007 at 3:10 pm
If you are talking about the wires hanging from the ceiling that were electrified, then the way out is via vent.
Look around and you can see it! Try walking up the metal beam that is sticking out of the rubble.
23 February 2007 at 10:08 pm
I’m impressed. That is an excellant mod. You should be proud of it. 5/5
With some mods, you finish and you are glad. Not the case with this one. I kept wanting it to go on and on.
04 March 2007 at 9:10 pm
Awesome mod… but I’m stuck on the big room where there’s a large vehicle in the corner, a huge pile of boxes, and a broken bridge. I jumped over the bridge, and blew up the plug to destroy the forcefield to get into that small room… but I can’t figure out what to do now?
07 March 2007 at 2:07 pm
If you look carefully in that small room Richard should appear on the screen and tell you to press the button, at a certain time it will turn green and then you should press it. If not you may have run into a bug, try reloading a save.
07 March 2007 at 8:38 pm
Ended up reloading a save, and it worked. Thanks!
07 March 2007 at 9:43 pm
Hi.
I am stuck in the room with the circular locked
room and forcefield blocking the two stairs.
I went to the switch and got into the HEV room
and returned to the main area. Climbed up to the
top of the circular room, but no combines to take out. And Richard is not talking to me. The map seems dead. There are no triggers happening.
Map name: d1_wakeupcall_02.
Please help.
08 March 2007 at 11:51 am
Hi Telios,
have you actually picked up the HEV suit, you must do so before Richard will contact you. If you have then chances are that you have encountered a bug, (sorry about that) Try reloading a previous save and let me know what happens.
08 March 2007 at 9:41 pm
I finally got it going last nevening. It’s functioning correctly now. Thanks for the help.
Great game, I love it.
23 March 2007 at 2:25 am
Ok I feel embarrassed, but how the hell do you get passed the first helicopter, right out the bat you come out and shoot at it, all the guys die pretty quick and I’ve been shooting at it, Ive hit it with rockets at least 25 times… am I supposed to shoot something on the ship? cause Ive shot that and a lot on it several times, and nothing, hell Ive shot every thing and nothing happens. please help, I really must be missing something.
PS for the guy who is having problems switching weapons, use one of the SMOD variants, strip all the files that are unnecessary and would overwrite important game info, so you just have the core and the guns and such, and merge it into the rock24 file, It lets you drop guns, so you can drop and cycle by dropping and picking up.
23 March 2007 at 3:03 am
ok, nvm lol I shot the helicopter about 10 more times and it died, just a tad bit of advice and no offense is meant cause you have one helluva level set going for you that looks like it took a tremendous amount of work… something I learned from the hard core super inflated super stat based type games as well as the generic what is now console like shoot’em ups (aka second generation pc shooters like quake and such) well, its that repeatedly smacking a guy till he dies, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, (to stress my anguish do note that I didn’t use copy paste for that) in the same fashion till you run out of some obscene amount of hit points that make no sense as to the level that your at, and while thats really beside the point as that the repeatedly smacking is retarded enough, it just plain isn’t fun.
To be specific its not only obviously redundant, but its tedious, its mind numbing, I wont even go into the carpel tunnel thing, and most of all its been done so many times that its insulting.
Mabey Im so passionate about this because somewhere along the line I became a huge tactical shooter fan, but variety is everything in a game and people need to do something new, hell thats why I wont play the vanilla hl2’s combat scheme as that generic run n gun is boring as hell. Thankfully the smod and smod tactics exist, and I wish all of you could play this mod the way I play, but Im not sure if I can release my version of the ST since Its been modded and tweaked in every way, but since its based off of their original program set up Im reluctant to do so… either way, what Im trying to get at is that well… why would you make a fight where you shot at a chopper in the same fashion, with no developmental signs of when its going to die, FOR OVER TEN MINUTES!!!!
Fortunately this is not a poster child for what I was ranting about up there, just that one part, please, its much much cooler if you actually have a fight, not a spiting match, see FEAR or MANHUNT or Condemned or Riddick for what I mean by that.
Sorry for the rant, really, just kinda got going there, but I do hope you can understand just what I mean by it.
PS: most of that anger isn’t directed at you guys.
04 April 2007 at 6:22 pm
Please can anyone help me with this mod … I’m stuck on the 1st level after a shoot the second chopter .. then what???
05 April 2007 at 1:33 am
Sergio, I had to start this one again to remember. For me, I didn’t get to take the 2nd chopper down. In the midst of the battle, the screen fades to white & you hear Gordon breathing & then the next map loads where you wake up in your cell.
05 April 2007 at 11:33 am
lol .. that’s funny .. maybe I’m too good, I wans’t suppose to get the 2nd chopter …
thx anyway, but I started the 2nd level manually and got to the end already
Pretty good mod though
06 April 2007 at 6:24 am
I have made it past the section with where “Richard will be talking to you. Climb around the stairs to the top & take out the combines that start attacking across the catwalks. After you have killed them, go back down the spiral stairs & Richard will have gotten you access inside the circular room. Once inside the room, he will eventually get a weapons cabinet to open. Grab what you can. He, also, will disable the forcefield. Push the red button on the console at the end of the stairs & a door at the top on your right will open up. Go up the stairs, through the door.”
I make it to where the vortigaunts appear and give me some power… then i can climb past the rubble – I am able to enter the little room with a zombie and the “hazardous waste” but I can’t get past this point…. i see a hole in a brick (cinder block) wall with a light on a generator – but i cant fit thru there…where do i go from here????
06 April 2007 at 6:46 am
Ha … refer to post #97, J. Had the same problem.
06 April 2007 at 12:17 pm
hmmmm, that didn’t help….i have the door control panel glowing green – the door with the zombie is open – what other door am i looking for… i tried the ‘use’ key on them all with no luck
06 April 2007 at 2:14 pm
Go back to the console & press the button again – the door on the other side of the fence (the side you broke the lock on) will open momentarily. That’s why I had the problem & thought it was a bug. You can’t see it open standing at the console & it only stays open a limited amount of time so I was just never fast enough (or clever) to back up & look.
30 April 2007 at 3:25 am
I’ll just have to wonder what lies beyond the first four minutes of this mod. What happened to me is: My comrades and I dispatch the first gunship that appears. But as soon as the second appears, I’m left alone. Then, a second gunship appears. There are no health or suit power-ups. There were two ammo boxes to start with, but one of them has disappeared. The only ammo box that is left requires me to go through fire to access it, and every time–and I do mean every time–I finally get to it, I am immediately killed with a bomb. I can get a couple rounds of rocket launch ammo from fallen comrades, but these gunships take an ungodly number of direct hits to take down (how many is it–five? six? ten?). Cover is scarce.
I found this mod way, way too hard, even on Easy mode. I tried a couple dozen times, and then gave up. Downright aggravating.
30 April 2007 at 3:57 am
Your supposed to lose the battle with the gunships.putting it in god mode wont help you need to be captured in the first part in order for the mod to continue.
30 April 2007 at 4:12 am
I haven’t used god mode with Rock 24–I hate cheating (I normally have sv_cheats set to 0 in fact).
But I understand now. I do lose the battle with the gunships. I get blown up, right off the ship. The first time this happened, though, the second map didn’t seem to load. Maybe I didn’t wait long enough–because it seemed clear to me I had been killed! (Nearly dead to begin with, then blown 100 yards from a near-direct-hit with a missle!) After the first time that happened, I didn’t wait at all after being blown off the ship–I just hit F9 immediately.
I just tried it without hitting F9, though, and [b]Wakeup Call[/b] does indeed load. Thanks for the advice.
01 May 2007 at 7:10 pm
**SPOILER ALERT** **SPOILER ALERT**
**SPOILER ALERT** **SPOILER ALERT**
These comments contain minor spoilers!
I just finished playing this mod. Some random comments:
The voice acting was pretty flat and therefore not very good (sorry). But…there was voice acting, and having it added a very important dimension and level of interest. I wish more maps/mods included it.
As can be seen in my first comment above, I had some trouble with the first map. It wasn’t obvious at all to me that rather than being dead, I was about to enter the second map. I really appreciate the basic concept, though: Rather than defeating all enemies, you lose and are captured instead. I just wish it had been done a bit differently.
I encountered some problems. For example, in one spot, I had just come down off a lift, and went forward a bit, where I found Dr. Newell. But he said absolutely nothing. I eventually assumed I had to go back and kill a couple enemies I’d simply rushed past a moment ago–and rush past I did, because that’s more realistic to me (i.e. less risky, and to conserve ammo). After killing those enemies, Dr. Newell finally spoke. But I missed most of it, since we were so far apart at that point.
There were a few things that seemed…goofy to me, for lack of a better word. For example, in one spot (right before I got on the aforementioned lift that took me down), the two men who were fighting with me stayed behind. But…why? There were no enemies around, nor anything for them to do, nor anywhere for them to go. It made no sense to me. In another spot, a female NPC said (in an emotionless tone) “I’m too injured to go with you” (or words to that effect). But she looked absolutely fine.
I didn’t care for the elevator sequence, which essentially requires the player to die before figuring out what course needs to be taken to proceed. I was glad to be a Quick Save addict when that happened.
The endgame was ridiculously difficult. I went against my usual tendencies at that point, and simply enabled god mode, to avoid frustration.
This mod looked great. The environment was more realistic and more thoughtfully designed than most I’ve seen. But for some reason, playing it seemed to be as much work as fun for me. As a result, I played it in short intervals, rather than my usual several-hour gaming excursions.
30 May 2007 at 11:34 pm
HELP! newbie trying to escape the BIG BIG room with the small fire burning in the middle, with one tall broken walkway overhead and a chained fence towards the other end that you cannot seem to get into. This is not long after re-uniting with the prisoner guy outside the elevator. There are bloodcurdling screams coming from the other side of the big room. I cannot figure out what the next part of the puzzle is. i’ve tried stacking boxes to jump over the fence, I’ve tried running and jumping to the other side of the broken walkway, etc. No luck. Thanks for helping!
31 May 2007 at 3:05 am
If I’m thinking of where you are there is a set of stairs.Climb up and jump over the broken part of the walkway and go to the console and listen to what they have to say.Oh and stand on the railing to get mor distance.
31 May 2007 at 3:56 am
Yeah, you have to make that jump and it is possible. You might want to do a quick save right before that part so you don’t have to keep walking back up the stairs. Once you have made the jump & killed the baddies, your friend tells you what to do to get past the blue forcefield. Hope we helped!
01 June 2007 at 11:43 pm
THANKS!!! damn now I finished this game!
28 June 2007 at 8:37 am
The story is one of rescue and escape.
After the intro sequence gliding over the S.S. Rebellion at sea, the opening map finds Freeman receiving his mission details: find and rescue rebel leader Richard G. Newell. The action is soon to commence.
On easy setting the mod gives a couple of hours play time. With the 200Mb plus download I was expecting longer play time, but this mod does pack a lot of content.
The essence of the mod once you release Newell, is to jointly fight and navigate your way to freedom. This is achieved by interactive gameplay between the two main characters, with Newell providing both help and hindrance, depending on how he feels when you the player, get around to playing the mod, or what mood he is in when you next reload. It’s not all bad with plenty of opportunities to separate and go your own way to carry out tasks and experience some more typical elements of HL2 gameplay.
There is not a great variety of the HL2 cast with mostly common Combine troops, supporting scanners with the odd turret gun emplacement. Except for one major encounter with headcrabs the alien world is thinly represented. There are few other enemy forms that await you, but that’s another story.
The interaction with Newell continues to the end of the mod, in some ways it may have been better after a period of joint encounters, for the authors to cut Freeman loose and then maybe join up again with the end scene. After a time the inconsistency of Newell’s actions and reactions drags the pace of the mod down and you end up feeling like leaving him. Yes, sad I know, but it’s only a game.
The set design is good if limited due to much of the mod taking place within the HL2 prison complex. The best of the design and layout is afforded to the two main battles scenes against the Combine. Here the architecture opens up giving the players opportunities to demonstrate their gaming skills within sets admirably designed, scripted and orchestrated on a grander scale.
Textures and attention to detail is adequate, with neither having much significance to the prison area, and little need for incidental furbishing elsewhere.
The puzzle and task solving elements are mainly negated with the influence of Newell, who if not close at hand always manages to find a screen to interfere with the proceedings.
The mod contains some new stuff noticeably in the form of Newell with face-lifts to some other members of the rebel force, these are convincing and have you thinking if they were part of the original HL2 cast. Lots of new voice acting with again Newell being the leading actor. His voice was good, if a bit like Barney form HL2. The other cast members are not so good and it would have been better if they had kept their mouths shut. Also some of Newell’s voice was drowned out by background sound effects, which I thought was bad scripting. The introduction and first level based upon the ship would appear to be a unique piece of work. The ship is well designed but the set is a bit cramped for action play. Also, the cabin furniture looked out of place, I am being picky now.
Now for the ‘not so good bit’. There are some issues with this mod that I don’t think should be dodged and I see no reason why potential players should undergo the frustration that I and others experienced. However, in fairness, it’s possible to play through the entry mod without encountering any of the following. The biggest issue I and many other players had is with the lift sequence but I will do my best not to give spoilers here. It’s not difficult to figure out what is required to complete this sequence; achieving it is another matter. The key is to trigger a means of escape from the lift. You may need repeated attempts for this to either trigger or activate in time.
It appears that some of Newell’s actions are triggered by voice scripts and if you don’t keep to the intended paths these may not trigger leaving you wondering “what next”. I also got killed in a few places without any apparent reason. Just to add that the level loading on the ship is very long and you lose the loading screen and caption, give it time.
Negatives
- Trigger Issues.
- Limited use of HL2 cast & hardware.
- Some bad voice acting.
- NPC script issues.
Positives
- New content including Skins.
- Some good voice acting.
- Some good NPC scripting.
- Well executed Combine battles.
Conclusion
The highlight of the mod for me are the two major pitch battles against the Combine. Almost every other aspect of the mod has good and not so good elements. Newell’s actions were positive at times leading from the front, whilst on other occasions he did nothing with his back to the action. At times you did not know who was leading whom. The voice acting was likewise hit and miss and you can make similar analogies with gameplay and the overall content. What there was, was good but a lot seemed missing.
This is still a good mod and if you can play through without encountering some of the issues, it’s a very enjoyable experience ranking alongside some of the best HL2 custom mods to date. Nevertheless, I cannot help thinking that the mod was not tested to the full, with the few issues raised being simplistic in form and obvious by their presence.
Thanks to the ‘Two Blokes’, look forward to more from you in the future.
10 July 2007 at 2:23 am
Thanks for the review Mel, the problems you encountered were mainly due to not wanting to spend another 6 months on something we wern’t getting paid for. There came a time where we decided we needed to just wrap it up and get it out.
Neither of us could keep spending the time we were on developing Rock 24, it was so much work you wouldn’t believe it.
So, we got it to a state where we decided people would get a decent experience, hopefully without experiencing the bugs we knew of. Obviously, some people would get bugs we didn’t know about as we only had our rigs to test out on. Luckily we have both worked as games testers so could do a lot of the testing ourselves.
We did send it out to 4 other hl2 guys who played through and gave us their thoughts and bugs. We fixed as many as we could but had to leave some as things that may appear simple or an oversight could actually be a huge headache for us to fix… so we didn’t.
Anyway, glad you recommend it and hope others will give modding a go so we can play some new stuff too!! ;D
Cheers,
Henley.
10 July 2007 at 5:08 am
Nice of you to respond Henley. I can fully imagine the need to pull the plug, there must come a time when you reach saturation point and run the risk of doing more harm then good, also a need to get on with life. It’s easy for someone like me to say something is simplistic and obvious, but another matter for the developers to actually change and correct an issue, so I must apologies for sounding a bit presumptuous in my conclusions.
All at PlanetPhillip appreciate the work, effort, time, sweat and tears that must go into a project of this size, and we thank you once again.
19 July 2007 at 4:34 am
lol, I didn’t die the first time on the elevator sequence, but I didn’t jump in time but instead of dieing, I landed in one of the grids around there, only taking 20hp damage, but obviously I had to restart because there was no way for me to get there without using noclip, so I just reloaded andm spent most of the ride in top of the elevator =P
19 July 2007 at 6:39 am
Yes, I experienced the same, what amazes me with this elevator sequence is that when it works as intended, it’s smooth and sweet.
25 November 2007 at 7:28 am
This mod is great! The mapping is the best of it: precios triggered sequences and visually stuning maps.
There’s something not very good with the enemy placement, but this is a must-play mod for everyone HL2 fan =D
27 March 2008 at 9:31 pm
yeah! this mod is so awsome i played it over 10 times!
26 April 2008 at 11:48 am
I really have no complaints t all about this mod. I only downloaded it last week and I’ve played it through twice because it is just brilliant. The voice acting is a lot better than any other mod that I’ve played and the action is well balanced. I personally like the fact that there are no anitlions but there could have done with being more zombies.
25 May 2008 at 5:27 am
The puzzles were all annoying and frequently didn’t make much sense. To its credit, however, it did not have the no cheating things that The Citizen had, so I was able to skip through some of the more annoying ones. Unfortunately, that seemed to be what most of this mod consisted of. The fighting was mediocre at best and not much thought seemed to be put into making it interesting in the least. More like they made the levels then put the NPCs in as a afterthought. Sorry, but I have to say:
02 June 2008 at 5:24 pm
Very awesome game, especially for someone like me who really doesn’t have the time to always sit down and play a game that is 6 to 10 hours long. It has a few flaws. The combat is a bit sporadic and some of the puzzles can be a pain…specifically the incident with the elevator. Still I recommend to any fan of Half-Life!
26 June 2008 at 7:38 pm
This is a very great mod. It is a full game, and is full of action. This actually doesn’t veer too far from the true storyline.
@phillip: This is a final version. They released it on the Valve Dev Wiki.
26 June 2008 at 8:35 pm
I believe the version I have is the latest version.
26 August 2008 at 8:04 am
Unlike others, I saw the elevator bit coming a mile away. I mean, come on, it’s Half-Life! City 17 is bereft of elevator inspectors, AMIRIGHT?
But back to the mod, people have already said what they thought was good about it and I mostly echo it. The mod did a pretty good job of setting up the scenario and establishing Newell as a recurring character. The architecture is… different. Not in a bad way, but it’s not what you’d expect coming from the Half-Life universe. Though I never quite understood where Rock 24 was situated, the scripted sequences with rocks crashing through windows and such really gave the impression that the place was falling apart.
I’ll focus on the parts that I thought were odd. SPOILERS ahead.
- The sniper confrontation is just awkward. You sneak your way over to the hut with the rocket launcher and, where is the sniper coming from? That sci-fi looking building on the horizon? That guy has some aim! Trying to return fire is difficult since your movements are controlling the rocket and you are invariably trying to get out of the sniper’s line of fire.
- The fact that Newell can die. In the “chain room,” after the Combine invade, I wasn’t aware of the mounted guns in the hallway, so I tried to actually defeat the Combine on my own and Newell died in the process and without warning. Using the mounted gun, it was pretty trivial however. The chains themselves confused me a bit. As a general rule of thumb, if you’re going to have an NPC bark orders at the player, you ought to have a couple variants on the line and make them repeat it every 20-30 seconds as appropriate. Some of us just don’t get it the first time.
- The ending confrontation with the rebels versus the Combine Soldiers… something just felt broken about it. The Combine kept spawning from an unseen location, leaping down the platforms, and immediately die at the hands of the rebels. I didn’t even have to intervene as I watched some 20-30 Combine jump to their deaths. Very odd.
But minor issues aside, it’s still a fairly enjoyable experience and well worth playing. There is some unique stuff going on here that’s worth checking out.
28 October 2008 at 7:23 pm
Overall, this was a very good experience. The storyline and most of the voice acting were engaging, but it’s greatest strength was also it’s weakness.
Your rescuee was annoying at times, and the occasional cameragrabs were intensely annoying and disorienting. At one point, the solution was to let this mad scientist rescue the girl, while Gordon watched from the shadows. What’s up with that!?!
Overall, ham-handed storytelling techniques occasionally got in the way of an otherwise excellently executed story.
17 January 2009 at 1:40 am
Ok so.
I can’t get past the elevator part. I get in, press the button, the doors close, then i go up. Then i Fall. I always die. Then, I put buddha on to see what to do, but im just stuck in the elevator. I cant get out.
Any help?
17 January 2009 at 5:37 am
Gotta keep the vort alive and get him in the elevator if I remember right.I know for sure he can’t die
17 January 2009 at 6:29 pm
Scratch that.I was thinking of a different mod.
02 March 2009 at 5:29 am
SPOILER ALERT!
antipancake:
As soon as you hit the elevator button, climb out onto the roof on the considerately placed crates; then ride to the top, where you must jump to the other elevator car before the one you’re on falls.
02 March 2009 at 5:33 am
Damnnation, that was a fun, short mod. Some of the trigger points were odd, and I had a helluva time getting out of the first scene in the prison, but once I figured out how this thing was built, it was a good run, and kept me interested. Yes, the vioce acting was a bit “flat”, but whaddya expect from amateurs?? And no, that’s not a dig: it’s a defense. No way y’all would have what you needed to make voices that sounded “professional”, and I don’t think it detracted from it one bit.Henley et al: good job. And thanks, I think most of us truly appreciated it.
06 December 2009 at 10:10 am
The levels in this mod are of good quality; you do feel that this is a prison converted for more nefarious Combine purposes. However, I think other elements of the game fall short.
First off, this scientist you’re supposed to be rescuing seems like a self-insert Gary Stu. I mean, why is he free to run around the whole prison without so much as a slap on the wrist? When he meets Gordon in his jail cell, the Metrocop tells him to get out of there instead of getting the ass-beating he richly deserves. Another time, he tells Gordon to stay put while he goes rescue a rebel woman (played by his girlfriend!). Gee, thanks for playing the game for me. I mean, seriously, why bother getting Gordon to rescue this guy when he can clearly take care of himself? Heck, why is Gordon in this game? Why not make the scientist the main character?
Also, what was with the Vortigaunts doing their Vortessence ritual in the middle of the prison (and just disappearing after that)? It had nothing to do with the story, and seemed like they were there simply for the cool factor.
About the voice acting; the scientist and the first rebel you meet on the boat were decent, if a little flat. However, the others… not so much. The Metrocop sounded particularly dorky, which didn’t help with the lines he was given (“Don’t mess us around!”). The woman you rescued was also obviously reading off a script. The end rebel is also guilty of this, but had the double whammy of having bad sound quality (the microphone crackles as he speaks).
As mentioned, the camera grabs were distracting, and ruined the immersion.
Anyway, I’d play this just to have a look at the level design (the huge hangar door was one of the highlights). Otherwise, it wasn’t a very fun game to go through, and I’d reserve it for when you have nothing better to do.