The Heist - Half-Life 2

Rating: B (78%)

Play Time: 30 Minutes

Review:
Here is was the author’s tell us about the way he wanted to created this level : “I set The Heist in an urban environment at night to enhance the stealth aspects of the mission. I want the player to feel that he or she is actually sneaking through heavily patrolled streets and breaking into an enemy compound, and I do that by filling the environment with things he or she would expect in that situation - bright streetlights, sounds of patrolling helicopters, grimy backalleys, etc.”

Design perfectly fits the objective of Josh, the ambiance is moody and not really exiting just after you was teleported and start you mission, you don’t know what’s next, but ontext message provide will guide you and make you, firstly, sneak arround and beware of an hypothetic attack.

The squale, the look at relaism, the ambiance is omnipresent . The way the author jungle with the ambiance from a quite start to a rush and push ending make this map a real well put together realisation and event if the author tell us in the readme that this was a beta that need some improve it’s defenetly look professional. The only issue, but perhaps it’s only accodring with my spec it was slowing a little to much…

Gameplay even if a little too challenging in the second part (the author tells that this was a major part to be modified for the last update) really handle in a particular way your ‘player identity’ through the whole unit mixing with a perfect surronding ambiance the sneaking part with the more fight through part, reaching it’s paroxism through the helicopter escape and the ‘boss fight’ I didn’t really manage to succeed and just decided to escape.

Conclusion:
This is for me another more than interesting realisation that shows the number of talented people that got graduate from the guildhall. It’s short, not perfect but certainly will let you a good enjoyable moment of gaming.

Copyright:
This review was written by Stef and first appeared on SP Map Corner and is republished by express permission.

Great lil map. Interesting outdoor lay-out, it was nice not be stuck in “yet another hallway”. I didn’t find the second part overly challenging because I felt it was balanced out with enough weapons and ammo to make up for it. Wish it had been longer and looking forward to playing more of this author’s work.

Short and sweet. A bit too brief for much in depth coverage here, but what there was played well within admirably defined and detailed sets, if all a bit on the dark side. Action restricted to mainly Combine encounters, with one unique piece of mapping which you need to Play Now and experience yourself.

This is a good piece of work, and I hope the author can take his talent one step further and produce a more complete and balanced mod.

Gameplay:
The Combine have a weapon based on the Gravity Gun and you play as a part of the Resistance whose job is to sneak in and steal the prototype. This is a short one, with a small amount of variety throughout. You can sneak past the combine, charge in or fight them off. Other enemies soon take part such as head crabs and a Strider. The helicopter ride was a nice touch but fell through the map the second play through. A balanced and quite enjoyable short experience.

Design:
Set in a pretty standard city and industrial district with a small warehouse on the lower levels close to a railway. Structure and texturing is above average, with some moderate lighting throughout but nothing too special about it to mention. Map is also set at night with a slight dark ambience throughout the map too add to the stealth aspect.

Conclusion:
Short, balanced and enjoyable map with some standard above average design throughout.

Rating: 70%

Copyright:
This review was written by Ryan “Quakis” Rouse and first appeared on The Abandoned Workshops and is republished by express permission.