The long night - Half-Life

Worth, really worth your time 4/5

Fun.

In the portal room, with the floating platforms and alien slaves, or lightning-bugs, there are actually two caves with portals. Activate the other claw-like thing in the other cave, near where you came in.

OK, that worked.. Luckily I had saved a previous game just before that point.
So I went into the upper portal first, activated the claw.
Killed the slaves, went into lower portal, and activated the 2nd claw.

Here’s my review of The Long Night, one of my all-time favourites for Half-Life. This article was written for Alejandro’s Mapping Center back in September 2003, thus to my best guess, can be considered a Syndicated Review…

From another first time mapper, Germano Guerrini, comes this 10-map pack; and unlike most first releases it features tidy and nice design, low r_speeds and enjoyable gameplay. The game opens with a brief cutscene and according to that you’re in another part of Black Mesa, 18 hours after the disaster. You are captured by the grunts and dumped into some kind of sewer system. At this point, your adventure begins. But unfortunately, it also ends there. There’s virtually no storyline throughout the game; apart from the epilogue from Gordon’s point of view at last scene.

So, after the one and only disappointment about the pack, let’s come to pros. Despite the last four maps, the author clearly tried to emulate original Half-Life maps - in terms of level design and gameplay. And he succeeded too. So if you are looking for some new ideas in custom levels, you won’t find it here. Throughout your adventure; you’ll see lots of scripted sequences, challenging and fair enemy placement, puzzles at the right times and enough item placement - all in familiar Half-Life environments. The author created some very neat levels without too much brushes, thus keeping the r_speeds low at all times. My only bad criticism about level design is for that small Xen section at the end. While all of the other levels successfully emulates Valve’s work, the author’s Xen seems too blocky - not like original’s organic looking levels.

Conclusion: Even three years after its release, this brilliant pack shines between new but not-so-good Half-Life levels. Definitely a must play. - 84%