Finally! I was able to play, vote and actually review a challenge here in RTSL.com. And well I also have to say this was way too much better than the previous competition with that annoying time restriction! So on this occasion, I really quite enjoyed this whole competition from the beginning till the end.
Before I start the proper reviews for the entries, I have to say, most of them use the episodic main goals, and although in some of them is really hard to tell which element they used, at...
If I remember correctly, the regular pistol in A Stroll in the Park was at the beginning, right when you get out of the vent....
I love playing BMS maps and was disappointed to see there were only 2 entries. I still got an enjoyable 60 minutes of play time from them so I'm not complaining. Here are my thoughts:
Disarray: I liked this one the best. I thought the layouts and enemy placement were really good. You never got into situations where the combat seemed unfair or impossible. In fact if you looked carefully there was usually a solution to any challenge hidden somewhere, like the explosi...
Uhh I love Black Mesa and I do love these outside environment levels.. So I had high hopes for this contest.. It saddened me to see there were only 2 entries sent. Never the less thanks to Phillip and my thanks to the 2 authors of said maps. Without you and one another I doubt that we would've seen either level.
My general opinion for both maps combined is as follows:
Disarray by JamaicanDave
[recimage id=3]
Certainly a brilliant map and w...
I have a similar impression of the HECU and Surface Tension in general. It's one of the most tedious chapters in Black Mesa. I think JamaicanDave did an excellent job in Disarray of hybridizing an exterior and an interior. It plays like an interior map, but it has the visual appeal of being outdoors. It's a great example of taking something you might find unappealing as a mapper and morphing it into a form that supports your strengths....
I really enjoyed your entry, very good level design....
As there were only two entries to this challenge, one of which (Disarray) is my own, this will essentially be a review of A Stroll in the Park. Despite only two maps I reckon there’s about 45-50 mins worth of gameplay and certainly recommend anyone who owns Black Mesa give it a try.
A Stroll in the Park by Skorly
[recimage id=3]
I quite enjoyed this map and it’s remarkably long for a challenge entry, taking me around 30 mins to complete at ...
Just like the previous Quiet Rehabilitation, this one has amazing level design, visuals, combat, exploration etc. I'm not really going to go in depth with that.
One of my favorite things from this mod was the jump puzzle with electrified water, you know what I mean. What I liked was that you need to jump on wood because things like metal are electrified as well. One thing I didn't like about that jump puzzle was one part where some wood things come down so you can jump on them. The idea is clev...
For a map made in a week's time, this is excellent. This is Valve-quality level design, this could be placed easily in HL2. The creator managed to get everything right: from the tile floors to the more destroyed places.
As for the combat, it was fun. You get plenty of ammo, sometimes a little bit too much, and there are plenty of enemies to shoot.
I believe the ending was a bit rushed, but for a map made in a week's time that is quite likely to happen. I see there is a sequel, so I'm going to...
I personally do not really like horror maps, but I decided to give this one a go.
The atmosphere is well crafted; it's very unsettling. There are some jumpscares as well, some of them I found to be a bit too cheap, but most of them worked.
As for the gameplay, it's a bit of puzzle solving. I found some of the puzzles annoying because of the lack of hints as to what I am supposed to do/achieve.
As for the combat, it's almost non-existent, there are only a handful of enemies throughout the map...
Black Mesa's Surface Tension was also one of my least favourite chapters, whilst in the original Half Life I remember it being one of my favourite. I think for me a big part of the issue is anything related to the HECU in Black Mesa (that's marines, vehicles, automated defenses, snipers) can deal a huge amount of damage very quickly and accurately. Unless they're setup in a way that restricts or disadvantages them they're just not much fun to fight....
I wanted to enter but I gave up after scrapping a couple maps.
I personally didn't like the combat in most of the outdoor areas in the game so I had a very hard time coming up with something I thought was fun and fit the theme.
The HECU is a bad enemy in huge open areas because they only provide the player with one option, hide behind cover. I hated most of Surface Tension because of this, especially the dam. I am an incredibly aggressive player so I despise waiting behind cover. Usually,...
Thank you for your detailed answer. It definitely cleared the clouds in my mind....
The big highlight of this mod is definitely the combat; the shooting feels good and there are plenty of enemies to put your bullets in.
The level design is good in the outside area at the start, but when indoors it becomes more basic.
This is a good mod to pass the time, it's a lot of fun....
Did not really enjoy this. When you start the mod the first thing you will notice are that the controls and the mouse sensitivity are really weird. You will also notice the visuals: every gun has had a makeover. There are also "new" weapons, which I don't think is necessary, because the new weapons act almost identical to other weapons you have.
The level design is... meh. It all looks very blocky and basic. I could see outside the map a couple of times. The lighting is nothing special.
The co...
Let's hope that after the full release Crowbar Collective will focus on making mapping easier.
I hope they will, it will be good for mappers and for them, since mods greatly expand the lifetime of a game....
A lot of it comes down to being unfamiliar with Black Mesa's assets and the level of additional complexity needed to make maps that resemble the retail ones. Their organization scheme is unlike Valve's, the lighting is almost totally different, and NPCs tend to lack options. A great deal of BM's architectural detail comes from elaborate BSP rather than props, which is very time-consuming to make.
It's a difficult thing to learn within the limited time span of a contest, and it doesn't seem ...
Only 2 entries? Are mappers scared of Black Mesa or something?
Anyway, the two entries we got were quite enjoyable.
Disarray
[recimage id=3] Very enjoyable entry. One of the things I really liked was that it rewards you for exploring. You can find useful things everywhere if you just look for them.
Combat was great too. You get a decent amount of weapons to fight with as well. There is a Chopper battle near the end which feels like a cool clim...
yes, played the base game, non retail version though...will also have a look at the other two......
This one might not be, but try the first two challenges. Of course, the base game is said to be great too....
OK, just bought it...hope it's worth the download.....
Yes, it's designed to work with the retail version....
I don't have the retail version of Black Mesa installed on the PC, so I'm assuming it's not worth downloading as it won't work for me...maybe others are the same..please correct me if I'm wrong....
To the 20 or so people who downloaded before this comment, I apologize. It was the wrong link. It's working properly now....
Well, I don't map for Black Mesa (only for HL2 + episodes). However, the most prominent reason for the low amount of entries for BM is that mapping for Black Mesa is more difficult than mapping for HL2. A higher level of detailing is required to sort of make the map come across 'believable'. In addition, the assets available for BM mapping don't allow a broad variety of possible environments....
I've been waiting for this challenge since it was announced and very excited to play, but there are just 2 entries? Well, I'm disappointed tbh. I hope there will be more BM challenges in 2019.
Can other mappers explain me why there is very low interest on this challenge? Is the subject not interesting enough, or you guys were pretty busy with your daily life lately?
Than you JamaicanDave and Skorly. I'm sure I'll enjoy both of the entries....
I really don't want to sound grumpy on this review. And despite inside the competition, there are at least 3 entries that are definitely worthy, some with really interesting concepts, and with nice quality. I just hated the time restriction concept. In my personal opinion, I think I just hate games that don't allow you to take your time or explore. And in real life, I hate to be in a rush all the time! So some entries in here were a total nightmare for me as a gamer.
And well, because ther...
Excited!...
Nicely made, very short map....
Drew Mobley’s Prison Break really made me feel like I was escaping prison.
The level design was amazing and the combat was great.
Even though I am not a big fan of telling the player things with text on screen, I did not mind it very much here. You can forgive a lot of flaws in a mod when it is fun to play.
I played a lot of mods today, most of them being bad. Very glad we have simple, short, fun mods like this being made....
City 13 is boring. It's just boring. The map looks terrible. Plain and boring. The combat is awful. There are WAY too many enemies. You will be fighting them in either a overly long city street with no cover anywhere when they are about 200 metres away or in a house. In the houses the creator thought it would be a good idea to put Combine with shotguns at a doorway, one at each side so you are basically forced to take damage.
Avoid it. I mean it....
Unforeseen Circumstances: Episode 1. It goes from one place to another, from one style to the other, you get the point.
The mod starts off pretty nice with a good looking environment, until you get to the combat. There is one Metrocop. Once you turn the corner, there are multiple Soldiers waiting for you. Why? I only have a pistol and a crowbar and one piece of cover to hide behind, and you want me to fight 5 Soldiers at once?
After that fight you will notice another flaw in ...
Lost Industry was a fun mod to play.
The map looks good that's for sure. Combat not so much. There are 2 main combat parts: at the beginning and at the end. At the beginning it is fine, but at the end it is just waiting outside a room for soldiers to walk in so you can shoot them with your shotgun.
There is a horror-type part in the map which feels very random because such a part never reappears. After that there is an outside area which was quite annoying because there was a...
Very well made medium length mod. I loved the use of low gravity. Very well balanced difficulty/ammo placement. No negatives I can think of. Play it....
Xenogears 2.5 is not worth your time. There are about 3 or 4 textures being used throughout a map that is way too big. The combat is very dull, there are only 3 enemies (1 of them being a Guardian as a final boss) which will sometimes not even attack you. The optimization is also a huge issue. Why? Because there is no optimization. Type mat_wireframe 3 in the console and you will see that the whole giant map is being drawn at all times.
The music is good, but because it's on a ...
Probably this weekend....
When will this be available for playing?...
Review: My god is it awesome, the only problem is you get the crowbar (pickaxe) way too late but never the less it was enjoyable the ending was AMAZING and the song you picked was fitting for the ending.
Overall: Very good mod, highly recommended and best off all this is a personal favourite....
This year, if like me you're sad that we didn't have HalloweenVilleFive, rejoice!
"Halloween Horror" a compilation mod made of map's for HL2 has been released by "SMC" (Source Modding Community) on moddb :
https://www.moddb.com/mods/smc-map-labs...
Well, this problem is definitely not a engine glitch, but a really weird jump - just crouch at the end of it and you will be good to go ......
Review:
It is bad the level where there are infinite spawning of pit drones are the most difficult, and many problems is that there are no autosave it is very bad at that particular level. You have to pick a certain weapon in-order to defend the ally properly and don't get me started of how bad he's path nodes are, he moves and reloads where the pit drones are there is no NO WAY to atleast have a gaining strategy to stop the infinite spawn, I actually reseted and played it ag...
Hey Leon,
After 1,5 Years i Downloaded the complete Version of 2.0. to replay your mod on a new Linux System.
Im not able to play it under Linux because i have no enemys. They are shooting but you cannot see them.
An old Version from my Backup of 1.1 is working fine....
Maybe some Models are missing? The first Combine Zombie is pink/black.
asterix...
If you run out of ammo, you can still go on. If you run out of health you are dead.
I would pick up health....
Nuclear Plant is a classic DOOM level but in Half-Life 2. What not to love?
Combat feels good, not as good as when playing the map in DOOM of course, but it was still fun. Blowing up enemies with the explosive barrels was just as satisfying as in DOOM.
I checked if all the secrets were there, and I believe most of them are.
One big complaint though: Where is the music? Maybe something went wrong when I started up the map (if so tell me). Music is a very important aspect of DO...
If you have never played DOOM before, I highly recommend doing so, it's really good....
No, they just weren't used much....
Well, that was September, October came and went too and now it's November...no more monthly chats ?...
Thank you for your chart, the dev' noticed it and posted it on his faceb**k page. I've uploaded it on m*ddb.
Also, the story, I know, I've tried my best to see everything the dev' posted on m*ddb and fbk, it seems the story is a conversion of a book writen by Marc Laidlaw called THE THIRD FORCE, a tie-on novel to a VG of the 90's called GADGET.
He seems also to use some content from manwha (Korean manga) but it takes some weird turns here and there...
For example, the "final boss" that m...
All Hallows' Isle
[recimage id=1] First thing you will notice when playing is that the textures scaling of the ground is pretty bad, you can see every individual pixel of it clearly. For the gameplay itself, it's just walking to the other side of the map and back again. When you arrive at the other side of the map, you drink something that was apparently poison, go to the other side to get something else and it turns out that was poison too. It end...
Yeah, I haven't seen it that way. Though I guess I could replay it again trying to do that. Though I think not been seen by the xenians is really hard! because sooner or later the bastards will get you mercilessly....
Visually the most stunning HL2 mod I have played. Just awe inspiring really. I did have issues with the shear size of the map and my old slow video card so after an hour I shut down and grabbed the quadro from my workstation. Smoothed things out at the cost of an extra 110 watts an hour.
I did have game play issues here and there, but every time I did I just looked around the map and said damn this mapping is awesome.
(with one exception, getting attacked by 30 manhacks in a tight group with...
Posted this same comment over on Moddb.
I see people are still writing comments on this mod, so I guess it's time to address a few things. Let me make it clear from the outset, Roman is not a bad guy, I still have respect for him and what he wanted to do.
Hi, I'm Ian, one of the guys who worked on this mod. I spent quite a bit of time on it, actually, working to remake the intro map to as close to perfection as I could. Unfortunately, during the entirety of the dev process, there was a huge ...
Starts fine without gauge...
2.7.2 here. CTD with no error messages...
Fun long mod.
If you do not use the default "f" binding for the flashlight go to ..\sourcemods\fromcmb\cfg
Edit these 2 files
nightvision_disable.cfg
nightvision.cfg
and change these lines to your key
alias "switchToOff" "bind f NightvisionOff"
alias "switchToOn" "bind f NightvisionOn"...
Though I think it should be classified as short or medium. Not "very long" by any means....
Great mod. AND
To get normal crosshairs back
Delete these 5 files from the scripts directory/folder
weapon_crowbar.txt
weapon_frag.txt
weapon_pistol.txt
weapon_shotgun.txt
weapon_smg1.txt
I.E.
:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\steamapps\sourcemods\hunger\scripts...
The 2 maps to play are distress_signal which will lead you to distress_signal_2. The other 2 maps are unfinished duds. With unfinished mods it's better to load maps through the console....
Wow, I never knew that concerning the RGD5 grenades... I swear none of the grenades in S.T.A.L.K.E.R ever produced a sound when you threw them.
I appreciate the reply. Thanks! :)...
Hi,
Thanks to all for reasonable to the critic in my address thank you that play mine of fashion of :)
Into the account of a sound of the RGD5 (РГД5) grenades, any person doing military service knows how there is a throw of a fighting grenade, the throw sounds quite so! it is not a bug! I in army personally threw the fighting RGD5 grenade and I know how it occurs (after a throw falls off the check and there is a heat of a cap pass explosion), in real life it at all not as in video games, is...
Got it installed and running using a guide posted on Steam by Pigfaced....
Hopefully this game is legit......
Got it installed and working fine using this guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=490354689
Per instructions in the guide, always enter the console command:
ai_norebuildgraph 1
before starting play....
Just played this one again and can absolutely confirm that Breen is in the map. True he is hidden to the point where you may never find him but he is there. Spoiler follows; At one point you run through some long corridors and ultimately find a door that takes you to a ladder that leads to a room with Combine elites. After dispatching them you can climb another ladder and find yourself facing four combine on a ledge outside the building opposite. They too are dispatched an...
Having read all the reviews here I still can't tell if anybody managed to get the final boss fight to trigger. I noclipped through the garage door and found all the weapons etc. but that didn't do it.There seems to be no way of opening that door and getting the vehicle inside. Has anybody done it?...
Further to my previous review, I played this again a few weeks later and the APC did appear in the final battle allowing me to finish the game as intended....
This competition had a lot of great entries, but there were also a lot of simple/average ones. This competition also holds a personal record for me since this is the Ville with the most "It's WOW" ratings I've given in total, so that must mean something. I do think that the Phase feature could have been implemented in a better way in some entries. Despite this, most entries were fun to play, despite their shortcomings.
Found
[recimage id=3] I ca...
I'd love to play this game but I'm going through hell trying to get the controls set up. I use a joystick and mouse, and it works in regular half life but in echoes I can never get strafe to work of the X axis of the joystick, it turns instead but I use mouse to turn. Y axis moves forward and back but there's no analog control, just full speed. it sees Y as a button and I can bind it but its never analog.
What the hell is screwing up all the key mapping?...
I disagree with you in regards to that infamous booth... It's pretty much a necessity for breaking enemy line of sight, otherwise Alien Slaves would roast you alive in less than 2 seconds after they spawn (mind you, I played on Hard). It also acts as a relatively safe spot for you to use the health dispenser in case you ever need it. You can definitely take temporary refuge in there without triggering the Snark spawn too... The trick is to not stay there for too long. Snarks harassing you is an ...
Played through this with no known problems on WON version, can't pass the very first jumping trial (after picking up first set of keys) on Steam version :( ......
Well, first I have to say there's no doubt Unq is a very talented modder. That's a fact. His maps always look very pretty and well polished in every aesthetics and technical detail. In here the voice scripts are delightfully done and the whole work feels real and coherent from the beginning until the end, in story terms. Because as I'll write next, gameplay was quite a turndown in my opinion.
So here the concept is very interesting and overall cool to play, very entertaining. But being an ar...
A really nice set of entries. Overall I thought the quality was very good. I only had problems with the "Found" entry (it kept crashing during the final battle) and Hospitalization (crashed when I died once). There was one entry with some graphical issues but most were solid.
I really enjoyed the diving suit in "Hidden Variables" and the clever weapon in "Warlock Den". The escape pods in "Off-Word Relocation" were also interesting. It was great to see the authors trying new things here.
...
I thought I wouldn't like this one. But actually, I did. The whole mapping design looked good, and resemble those classic "Doom" maps, but with a pure HL2 Style.
Then I also thought I was about to have some problems with the gameplay but I didn't have them at all. To me, this was fairly easy even on medium skill. I thought I also wouldn't be able to pick up the SMG'S of dead CMB but I reach to pick up much ammo at the beginning by using my pistol wisely and progress through the whole map. So...
Overall a dreadful map. Very bad laid out, and to me, it seems like the whole train map was broken. so I have not much more to say...
Possibly this was the first work ever of this author.
Things like this shouldn't be released. So if you have something similar, please never show it up....
Heads up that the links are broken...
A fantastic Ville that happily consumed hours of my time. Thank you all for making this.
So many words have been said that there's not much more to add. The ratings so far were surprising to me in some cases, however everything depends on personal taste/what's important/not to the individual. My ratings in a 1-10 format, top to bottom;
Hospitalization 9/10
Mutual Place 9/10
Pit Stop 8/10
Warlock Den 8/10
Found 8/10
Off World Relocate 8/10
Facility 34 7/10
Last Train from Ravenholm 7...
I just wanna say thank you to all mappers, this challenge was awesome to play. Me and my mates had much fun for several hours. Have a nice week all....
Yeah, It's a good mod, just tactical shooty shooty bang bang games aren't my cup of tea....
Has anyone else received the models/torso/fast_torso.mdl missing error?...
"Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them"
- Bruce Lee...
Beacon
[recimage id=5] Wow, what a great entry to start with. The design of the environment is amazing. Much attention has been given to detail. The combat feels great as well. The final battle was a bit too easy though, the chopper started attacking me after I had already hit it multiple times. That doesn't mean it wasn't fun shooting it down though.
Maritime Harassment
[recimage id=4] Just like B...
probably because the new villes are based on source sdk 2013 singleplayer...
I can confirm that the gunship battle in Found repeatedly crashed for me also....
The gunship section in the Found map repeatedly crashed for me too. Shame as it is otherwise a fun map to play....
*Couldn’t think of intro, sorry*
Found
[recimage id=3] The start, ESCAPE, gave me some fake sense of urgency. It told me to run, but it was awkward after realizing that the threat were just 2-4 zombies. Did I also locked myself in a box? From the gas puzzle itself, I can already guess whose work is this. (Oh wait, what? Not the same person?)
The elevator/cage ride was a mixed bag for me. It was fun to spectate the battle below, but it reall...
I really had fun with this mod, sad to see it was never continued after episode 1.
I finished all the secrets, would have been nice if it gave a special ending but i can't ask too much from this mod after all it has done....
Geesh! When I first see this map, I thought it could actually be an interesting concept, and probably it is though in here is executed in a tremendously hectic and abstract manner.
I had to see the solution in the video, but even watching it I really don't know if talking to specific people in there trigger the actual solution.
All in all even the solution seems like a big bullcrap or cheap rip-off, so yeah I guess the only cool nukes to play with are those available in GMOD....
It doesn't even take more than 1 or 2 minutes to see this is a horrid never-ending arena map.
The only value I see on this map is that you can port it to GMOD and actually use it as a living shooting range to test new weapons you may download.
Avoid It. I really don't know if there were any more maps available for the 50 SDON, but sure it was a shame this was a part of this event....
That's fine, I understand your position/opinion on the matter... but for me gameplay involves actually being able to play the map... and despite of map design and the level of playability if something occurs that breaks the game, or you can only progress by using console commands then I personally consider that a b*tchslap regarding gameplay.
In another note, bugs aside, this was an amazing Ville, and I think the entries have been judged harshly, probably because of the increased standard of ...
A highly successful competition overall I think. Lots of enjoyable content to be found as well as some new and interesting gameplay ideas.
Found
[recimage id=2]
I do enjoy the setting of Ravenholm usually so I went into this one with fairly high expectations. I found the train ride at the start underwhelming to be honest. I hate being so constrained. The helicopter battle was a challenge but enjoyable. Unfortunately I could never complete this ...
So many new maps and mods are no longer linux compatible...
A game breaking bug is a game breaking bug. It has nothing to do with gameplay. Something on a technical level went wrong. Design isn't involved in this at all....
I'm glad my flowchart has gotten some use! :)
I intentionally left out details for achievements as to not ruin the challenge of figuring them out, but honesty, some of them are very hard to figure out (Circle of death is one of them and even chaotic butcher can be rough if you don't know how to make all the headcrabs spawn) I actually had to scour the internet to figure out a lot of these and most of the results I got were in broken English and on a website in Korean I believe. I finally foun...
You're funny. I'd call any game breaking bug a disaster gameplay wise... wouldn't you? Far more disruptive than over using silly fog effects for example ;-) But what would I know!...
nah its a disaster gameplay wise...
"a disaster gameplay wise"
what do technical glitches have to do with gameplay?
Disaster?
You really can only think in extremes....
how do i give 6 stars...
Metal benches and no gravity gun don't mix....
Hoi, that little door blockage isn't a bug Mr. Potato. After defeating those Combine soldiers and the CP units, you can break down those wood props/barricades blocking the other double doors. No major bugs so far in 3# (Mutual Place)
Hope to see your playthrough!...
Oh I know.. apart from bugs it's an excellent mappack... amazing stuff. Had no issues playing it ealier today apart from the crashes on Found. But just a disaster livestream wise.. crash bug on #1, stuck battery on #2 and evil door blockage on #3. Never encountered that many bugs on a Ville before. Also, Xblah, you created something special there.. I bow to your mapping powers. This potato isn't worthy...
