You find yourself in what seems to be an abandoned town.
However, your experience tells you to be careful.
Explore and use your new weapons with care.
- Title: Abandon: The Town
- Filename: hl2-ep2-sp-abandon-the-town-v1.1.7z
- Size : 247MB
- Author: ComfortJones
- Date Released: 30 December 2015
Make sure you have Source SDK 2013 Singleplayer installed and opt into the “upcoming” beta by going into properties. Extract the folder to your sourcemods directory and restart steam if it’s running. 2013 SDK>properties>beta>drop down menu select -upcoming
To stay up to date with this mod, check out the ModDB page.
This is the updated file.
Download directly into MapTap [247MB]
You can still use it with MapTap once you have downloaded it.
- Copy the abandon folder into your …\Steam\SteamApps\sourcemods folder.
- Restart or start Steam.
- Abandon should now be listed in your Library tab.
If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.
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3,453Overall
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151365 days
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 10 Users
Time Taken:
Average: 0 Hours, 55 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 30 Mins by Newgoods
Longest: 1 Hours, 30 Mins by Niker107
Total Time Played: 10 Hours, 7 Mins
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Well, I gave up at the house defence. I might try to finish it at some point. The mod is balancing on the fine line that seperates hard and frustrating.
Totally agree. The mod without the quick save option was unnecessarily repetitive and frustrating — if not downright boring. I quit playing after the (super-hunter) hunter encounter. I think the author wasted a lot of great work by changing the Half-Life game play environment. Maybe I will play it later.
I have a reputation for being “too nice” when it comes to my reviews and recommendation images, but I don’t often give Personal Favourites but I did with this one.
I found the initial changes to the mechanics quite strange and my keybindings certainly limit my ability to play well.
You should know that you can’t select difficulty levels for this mod and I have the feeling it’s harder than hard, but that could be my lack of ability talking.
Let me list the changes I noticed:
1. Regenerating health to 20 health points.
2. Collectible and usable health packs (used with the secondary fire of the crowbar)
3. Inability to pickup items.
4. New weapon sounds.
5. New models.
6. Harder enemies.
7 Always running.
The mod starts nice and slowly with sparse interaction., which is fine by me. I like to look around and get a feel for a map.
There is some nice architecture but in general, you can’t enter most buildings and you play on the streets.
There are two main fights with the second being so hard I had to cheat. Now, why would I give a personal favourite to something I had to cheat for? Well, I cheated because I was livestreaming and I believe that changes things. I would like the difficulty to be reduced a bit but sometimes when it is tough it forces you to raise your game.
The changes made and the style of gameplay was really fun and I recommend everybody play it, just make sure you are ready for one of the toughest mods you will ever play.
Using Gauge
Hard
1 Hour, 20 Minutes
Great map. The two major battles were a lot of fun.
One thing I have to give this map is that the theming is absolutely brilliant. It doesn’t use cheeky ‘trigger-spawn monsters behind you’ or cheap jumpscares, but still manages to produce a creepy atmosphere in abandoned streets and houses. The levels themselves were intuitive and easy to progress in, even if a lot of progression hinged on the player seeing a stack of boxes and thinking “Yes, beyond this wall is where progress lies.”
The AI was great! Repeated manhack usage, Hunters jumping up and down buildings to ambush you, Combine hiding behind wrecked cars and inside buildings to take cover… All of it added up to become more than the shooting gallery that so many HL2 maps end up as. I don’t think it was as hard as other people made it out to be as I could beat it without cheats, though having a few more armor pickups wouldn’t have hurt.
I liked the use of custom music and sound effects. However, I would hear this odd monstrous roar once or twice, with nothing showing up afterwards.
The biggest negative that I can give this map is the visuals. A few doors would have light leaking through them because you didn’t block it, and some windows had poor reflections due to badly-placed cubemaps. Some reflective objects also shared this issue. Many of the buildings were just blocks with very little definition to them, which subtracted from the whole thing.
Overall it’s a wonderful map that just needed a bit more polish. I’m looking forward to what you’ll produce in the future!
Manually
Hard
30 Minutes
Went to go play this today and it keeps crashing, so had a look inisde the archive and there is a bat file that mentions “Source SDK 2013”. Shouldn’t the map tell steam to auto download this..?
Currently downloading to see if that fixes the crash.
Download and installed the SP version of 2013 SDK and map still crashes to desktop.
It needs the “upcoming” beta.
Thanks Phil.
Evening
Updated to the upcoming versions, or at least that’s what I believe happened. Its lists as “Source SDK Base 2013 single player (upcoming).
If the updated SDK is installed, then the map still isn’t working as I got another CTD.
So as mentioned later in the thread by someone else recently, I extract the archive directly in the sourcemods folder, (not using Guage/Maptap) and this time it worked.
So either the archive has a file that Guage dosent like or guage is breaking something.
đ
Overall a very good mod that has some flaws and frustrating parts.
First the good stuff. The environments are really well done and interesting. Most of the gameplay changes are pretty good, for example the healthkits mechanism and the on/off crouching feature. I also really liked the modifications to the regular zombies.
There are a few unfinished details in some of the maps, like seeing light edges if you peer over a fence, or railings that should be solid but that you can in fact walk right through. But those are a few small details that the author could easily fix.
Unfortunately the biggest problem with this mod is the removal of the player’s ability to save games. This meant you had to go back to the auto-save point if you died. So every time those damn hunters killed me, I had to replay the entire section over and over. Eventually I got frustrated and put it on god mode. I am not sure what the author was thinking there, and it really lets down what could have been a terrific mod.
Despite the save problem, it’s still a good mod to play. But it could have been great.
Manually
Easy
30 Minutes
Also, I tried lowering the skill level to 1 to get around the first section with the Hunters. Unfortunately this made the machine gun unusable. It would just jerk upwards the moment I started firing it. Weird.
Nice to see people are liking the mod. If you wanna follow its progress be sure to follow my moddb page.
A pretty good experience with the usual good and bad things of every release.
Most of the additions to the base game I did not like. The crouch toggle, rubbish. I am very used to the ‘holding’ crouch style and having that option removed really messed my movement up, which obviously impacted my enjoyment of the mod. Some people seem to like it, I didn’t, and personally I don’t see why it was changed. The same thing goes for the always running thing.
It seemed like this entire mod was more of a learning experience and the author tried to include a bit of everything to get the hang of things: coding, custom models and sound, various combat scripting. I’m not opposed to any of this but I feel these additions should have some higher context in mind. Something that, when combined, can elevate the state of the game. As it stands it’s a bit of a agglomerate of random changes. Most of the custom models don’t really add much to the environment, the new pistol sound doesn’t mesh with the actual stock model, etc.
The worse change for me was the always on running, for quite a big variety of reasons. First of all, the movement (overall controls, not movement speed in specific) of Half-Life 2 is amazing and shouldn’t be messed with. It’s fluid, it’s responsive and it works perfectly within the engine and the game.
Always running means I am much more likely to not examine the environment as carefully. Especially when most of the indoor areas are incredibly dark, (I’ll touch on this later on) if I’m always running it’s going to be much harder for me to spot that pickup in the distance or understand the various details of environmental story telling. I want to feel immersed in the mod, and that’s very hard to do so if I’m zipping all around the place.
It also hurts the combat in my opinion. When in combat the suit’s energy level is completely irrelevant expect for when sprinting. When always running is turned on, this extra mechanic is also gone. This means that players aren’t as heavily punished for playing the combat scenarios more carelessly which contradicts with the lack of quick saves, the inability to change difficulty and the increased damage output of the enemies.
And what exactly does always running accomplish ? Because the only thing I can extrapolate from it is that it makes the more careful players use movement more often instead of trying to take cover behind the counter and staying there forever. But then again, when for most players it seems, the mod is harder than average, it just makes these players feel more frustrated that they can’t play the game in their play style.
The health regeneration I can’t say I’m a fan of, but it was so subtle that I don’t really care. To be honest, if I hadn’t read that the mod had regenerative health before playing I don’t think I would have even noticed.
The second change to the health system I did like. Making it so that the player can carry around health kits greatly improves the game in my opinion. Especially in combat it allows the player to tackle a specific scenario in the way they feel is best instead of having to camp near the health supplies. It also makes balancing the mod much easier which is a big plus. It was a bit crappy that I was using the crowbar to heal myself but I can’t really fault the author for not making a Far Cry style healing animation đ
The visuals… well, let’s be honest. They are nothing to write home about. They work and at least, they don’t make me vomit. But the ambiance was rather well done. The creepy atmosphere of the levels was very well done with the fog and the sound bits here and there. It also seemed quite open in many areas and it felt that I had the option to go around to where I wanted to, especially in the last combat area.
The darkness of the indoor areas is, quite honestly, near perfect I feel. It straddles the line of just bright enough that you can sort of see and too dark. This adds a bunch of positives. First of all the lack of “gamey” lights adds to the immersive power of the mod. It makes complete sense that an abandoned town like this one has no electricity anymore. Secondly it makes exploring the areas a bit creepy, but more importantly, it makes the player explore the world in a slower and more thoughtful manner. Even when not scaring the player (it most likely won’t) it still affects how they play in a subconscious way. With some more work and tweaks here and there it would be perfect.
The combat was definitely what I enjoyed the most about this release. I found it rather easy actually, only died once in the last fight as I wasn’t ready for the swarm of combine that hit me, but apart from that it didn’t really pose a challenge. I did feel like I could approach the combat the way I wanted. As mentioned above the health kits helped with this, as well as the open style combat areas. The scripting was really good I feel. The hunter’s jumps, while hilariously ridiculous, really added to the combat. I enjoyed especially fighting one in the backyard, and out of no where I get shot from above as another hunter had jumped onto the roof of the house.
I did have a problem during the last fight where one of the hunters charged at me, head butting me from one house’s backyard onto the other one, where I was completely stuck and had to reload the auto save. There was definitely a lack of invisible walls (just saying that makes me cringe), not only in the last arena, but it felt like I could also jump out of the map in other areas. (I can’t be sure of this but it sure seemed like it).
Overall I actually really liked the mod and enjoyed my time with it, and to be honest, that is somewhat rare. Great job and I’m looking forward to playing the upcoming installments.
Manually
Hard
50 Minutes
CRASHES ON STARTUP!
I’m running Windows 10 64-bit and Steam v017. All my other HL2 mods run just fine. This one crashes as soon as it launches, but there are no error messages about missing resources or something that typically accompany a HL2 mod crash. Any help please?
Do you have the Source SDK Base 2013 singleplayer upcoming installed?
Yes. I have Source SDK Base 2013 Single Player installed, but I just saw your note about opting into the beta. Hopefully, this will work. Thanks.
I only see one that says upcoming. Anyway, try running that and then running the mod again.
[SOLVED]
2013 SDK>properties>beta>drop down menu select -upcoming
I am a dev. I work with Unreal engine. Simple things I know about Unreal, 99.9% of people don’t know. Little things are the most helpful.
I have the same issue. crash on start. 2013 SDK is installed. I can’t find the opt in beta option??? What’s that? help, thx.
I’ll make that clear in the post and if any releases require it.
Phillip I set sdk 2013 to up coming but it didn’t work.
Then I went back in and set it and tried to launch the mod it said need to update
sdk so I clicked o.k. and it updated then ran the mod.
I had just updated to steam so maybe the beta vesion needs it too?
Sounds like you hadn’t launch the upcoming version or something. Occasionally, different users encounter exactly the same issue but require different solutions.
Can I confirm the mod is running correctly now?
Yes the game is running.
Thanks for the reply.
Not starting in Maptap. :/ It tries to “fix” it, for whatever reason, and then tries to launch, I see *something* there, but then it stops working.
(( it did start after I moved it into source mods and played through Steam normally though. ))
mod crashes when running, through maptap not loaded error : the selected file is not valid maptap archive :((
Okay, okay. I’m gonna be that guy and I’m gonna have to give it a “Play it Later” rating. It’s a good mod, but I think that it deserves to be played when you have some free time and you don’t mind trying something new. It isn’t worth stopping something you’re doing to play it. However, when you do get around to picking it up, it’s a nice hour or so of gameplay.
Warning: This review contains spoilers! (duh)
Okay, so this mod is quite different from others that I’ve played. I’d call the changes that it adds experimental, since not all of them are great, but some definitely do shine as new and interesting.
1) The player is always running (Shift key removed)
This isn’t that big of a change. In-fact, it makes completing long, huge areas a lot easier, since you don’t have to worry about running out of stamina all the time. I did have to get used to it at first, though.
2) Crouching now gets toggled when you press the crouch key
This is a change I didn’t like. I’m used to holding down Ctrl when I wish to sit down and letting go of it when I want to stand up. Having it toggle the crouching stance only distracted me, instead of helping. This feels like what the author wanted the default crouching to be, instead of what the players should be forced to use. However, perhaps it was added to make the game harder on purpose, as the game does feel really difficult to play.
3) Health kits work like ammo and can be used when needed (health also regenerates up to certain amounts)
This is a nice change, but it brings some problems that make the game extremely hard. I’m not saying it’s bad, but unlike the crates in HL2, the health kits are always limited. So if you’ve screwed up even slightly in the beginning of a fight, there is a very high chance that you won’t make it ’till the end of it. I also found myself in a situation where I was spamming right click in a hurry behind a wall, trying to heal up before a hunter goes around the corner and kills me. That was fun.
4) Changes to NPCs
First of all, nice use of the DPFilms models. Second, dayum do the NPCs feel different. They are definitely a much, much bigger threat than they are in HL2. They are able to deal a lot more damage, have faster reaction times, and the hunters are genuinely as terrifying as they were when I first saw them in HL2:EP2. It feels like they are a lot smarter when it comes to charging at you (they almost never miss unless you go behind a wall), and they’re just a lot more powerful and more buff than they used to be. The fact that normal zombies aren’t slow and dull anymore is great, personally I always found them a dull enemy to fight.
5) Changes to Weapons
The weapons aren’t that different. Just a few new sounds and models were used, but I think it’s good to hear and see something new when you’re shooting stuff, since the old sounds and models do get boring to play with. The pistol also feels a lot more powerful, and the new sounds make it feel like Colt 1911 or some other strong weapon. Good job.
6) You’re not allowed to manually Save the game
This doesn’t seem like that big of a deal at first, but not being able to Fast-Save during an encounter really puts the pressure on you, because instead of killing a few enemies, hiding and saving, you have to try and get through the whole battle without dying, and without having any checkpoints. Overall, it’s an interesting change to combat. My only problem is that the map doesn’t always save the game right before a big battle, which it should.
Okay, now, about the mod in general. Personally, I enjoyed walking through what seems to be a past Combine-controlled City, now abandoned and in ruins. I’m not quite sure what the story of the mod really is, but the tone and feeling of an abandoned town are well-made. Walking through the various ruined buildings was refreshing.
The first encounter with the hunters got me killed, so I instantly became more wary of them. After getting used to them in HL2:EP2, they finally felt like a frightening enemy again. The regular NPC encounters were also harder because the enemies are much more powerful.
Now, regarding the last fight. Seeing a big, open area with force fields and health kits scattered around is a telltale sign that it’s going to be a death trap / arena. So, I got ready, collected what I needed, walked around a bit until I walked into a certain house, at which point the assault was triggered. At first, I was able to take care of the incoming Combine forces, but after a while I ran out of health kits and ammunition, and died. This happened a few times until I was able to finally complete the battle and escape into a ‘To Be Continued’ screen. This was an interesting new experience, but I felt quite overwhelmed by that small, yet dangerous squad of enemies. Perhaps this mod tries to show what actual combat would feel like if you were just some rebel on the street and not a strong protagonist. Either way, it is a well-made finale to the mod.
Abandon: The Town doesn’t come without flaws, but neither does any other mod. The changes it presents alter the game quite a lot. Some players might prefer these changes, others will dislike them, wishing to play the levels as they’re used to. I’m probably on the neutral side. This mod manages to stay interesting in its own way, and I respect the author’s wish to experiment with new NPC behaviors and control schemes.
I’d also like to note a few bugs from a mapping standpoint:
1) It took me quite some time to press the green button when you first meet the hunter enemy. Perhaps you could put a small green sprite there to show that it is something the player can interact with?
2) It is possible to get stuck behind a fence when you first meet the hunters. I see that you put unbreakable crates and some barrels there, but for whatever reason pressing E on them doesn’t pick them up, so you have to use noclip to get out.
3) It is possible to get stuck behind the Combine force fields at the final arena battle if a Hunter charges at you and hits you over the field. This can easily be fixed if you make the player clip brush higher.
Manually
Hard
1 Hour, 30 Minutes
Under Linux i had to lowercase all the files, but after that it runs. I had no manhacks…im not sure if this is right.
The carring of health packs didnt work:
ERROR: Weapon (weapon_crowbar) using undefined secondary ammo type (Medicine)
Attempted to create unknown entity type item_ammo_medicine!
So to have the full experience you have to use windows.
That is so true with most mods. Every time Steam does a software update, fewer mods work in Linux. Gonna have to install HL2 on Windows inside VirtualBox. Anyone have any experience with this?
Better luck than me with my iMac because I tried what you said but it still fails with engine error. Tells me to have SDK.. which i already have (upcoming). A little bit gutted đ
There was no doubt from the first area of “abandon the town” that this was going to be good,but how good was another question but i was right with the initial observation.
“abandon the town” is a excellent mod which brings back the core values of half life and does not try to create new ideas like alt mods such as water and g string
granted those mods were good but not my cup of tea.
the mod itself has a good balance of npcs and well placed objects
also the atmosphere gives you the feeling you are wandering around a “abandoned town ”
i find it hard to describe mods unlike other reviewers ( including Phillip ) who seem to have a better way of describing mods and maps although i left school in 1982 so my english language skills are far from good!
this is a great way to start 2016, so well done to comfort jones on the best mod of 2016 ( up to now )!
Manually
Easy
55 Minutes
Map’s gameinfo.txt must be changed. Add SteamAppId 218, ToolsAppId 211 AdditionalContentId 420 lines and edit game source section. I made these changes but it freezes. Tried Moddb’s has new version, same changes must be made.
Do you have the Source SDK Base 2013 singleplayer upcoming version installed. No AppID changes are needed.
Btw guys there’s now a slightly updated version now available.. It fixes some bugs and other mistakes I made like not making the music, derp, count as music. Gameplay wise it’s the same thing though.
Mod good but before final battle. I had use cheats(godmode) because it’s really hard. +
terribly bad that in mod no QuickSave. As for me, so delete them was big error. Also one problem that cannot change difficult.
Manually
Hard
42 Minutes
Abandon: The Town is a good enough mod for someone that wants some more Half-Life 2 action, it provides a decent challenge without being unfair, it may take you a few tries in some battles but nothing that good items management and good positioning can’t solve. The mod doesn’t provide any kind of manual save feature so you will have to rely on the autosaves, which are fairly well distributed. It has a few annoying bugs as getting stuck on a area for trying to jump over a fence, specifically on the end of the intro chapter, requiring you to load your save, which will make you re-do an earlier battle, so beware with trying to explore “too much”. It’s very good in atmosphere with well placed scenarios, it does actually feel like an recently abandoned town under Combine attack.
It’s an overall good mod but with a few flaws, the main idea is great and the developer shows that he can create good challenging battles in the spirit of Half-Life 2, some more Game Testing to get rid of a few bugs, some more intuitive map design and a few more autosave locations, specifically after battles, and the mod would be excellent.
I’m really looking forward for more from the developer.
Manually
Medium
1 Hour
WOW!
This mod is for sure hardcore. Possibly the most hardcore mod for HL2 I had ever play.
And that has some very interesting implications about it.
First of all the mapping was very nicely done, and fits perfectly into the HL2 universe and environment. The first chapter, also is well designed and it’s just perfect to introduce the player to the new difficulty skills, and health-crowbar dynamic.
Then I guess what I like the most from this mod, is the hyper realistic aura overall it. You know, this mod actually made me feel the CMB were a formidable military force to be afraid of. That’s something important, because in any other HL2 regular gameplay fight against CMB is quite easy, even on a regular “Hard” skill standard. Also I even got a little scared at the zombies at first, because they’re very aggressive in all their appearances in this mod that’s a very cool detail, considering all regular HL2 zombies are very lame and boring to fight against.
Also the new weapons are just delightful and I would love to see some more new weapons if this mod have a sequel, maybe an AK47 would a be just great new weapon, or replace the Shotgun with some heavy calibre rifle would be cool too.
Then I think another good point for this mod is it’s overall strategic approach. I mean, being so difficult it’s dynamic forces you to think fast and strategically inside the maps, you have to be very careful where to go and keep moving fast when the final mayhem is on. Also the Hunters are very, very dangerous in close range, so keep a safe distance and discharge all your magazines on those b*stards… I recommend you to first examine the final map good enough and use your weapons very carefully, some of them like the AR2 Pulse balls, and the Crossbow, are just very valuable to suppress enemies from a safe distance, it’s also a good idea to use your grenades in an smart way.
In conclusion, i am very pleased with this mod. Because offers a great challenge for a HL2 mod, this doesn’t feel like any other average HL2 mod, and in my opinion is great if you want to have a hard time action in HL2 combat. Though I understand many things could be perfectible and not many people like to play so hard. So be warned, this mod is the one you’re looking for if you really want a hard arse challenge.
P.D, I’ll also try it on GMOD in order to experience battle with some new and powerful weapons.
Manually
Hard
1 Hour
Doesn’t work for me i installed mod but not game in Steam i have Half life 2 episode 2 non steam Help me Phillip please
No, I won’t help you because this site only supports legal installations.
Now because I can identify a fellow user of my nationality, I’m going to cut this into our native language. Translation in English included, since I feel I would break the rules:
RO
“Florin, modul asta nu merge fiindca trebuie sa ai versiunea de pe Steam. Half-Life 2 si cu episoadele sale nu pot fi jucate cu moduri daca sunt piratate in niciun fel, fiindca nu mai au optiunea “Change Game” din meniu care permitea schimbarea de la Half-Life la CS 1.6 la TFC fara iesirea din program. Nu mai e atat de simplu precum copierea fisierului in folderul jocului si eventual denumirea acestuia, lucru care putea fi facut cu primul Half-Life chiar daca pe siteul asta scria la in instructiuni “Steam”….”library” bla bla bla…
Din pacate in cazul tau nu poti decat sa cumperi HL2 si episoadele sau sa te rezumi la primul Half-Life. Oricum sunt la reducere pe Steam si te costa undeva pe la 5 lei. Asta daca vrei neaparat sa joci moduri.”
ENG
“Florin, this mod doesn’t work since you need to have the Steam version. Half-Life 2 and its episodes cannot be played with mods in any sort of way if they are pirated, because they no longer have the “Change Game” option in-menu which allowed the change from Half-Life to CS 1.6 to TFC without closing the program. It’s not as simple as copying the folder inside the game folder and eventually naming it, a thing which could be done with the first Half-Life game even though on this site the instructions mention “Steam”…”library” bla bla bla….
Unfortunately in this case you can only buy HL2 and its episodes or just to sum yourself to the original. Anyways they’re on sale for Steam for only something around 5 RON. This is if you really feel like playing mods.”
I’m not very impressed by this. Combining a fixed difficulty level with the inability to save your game and buffed enemies results in gameplay that is surely more challenging and repetitive, but not necessarily more entertaining.
Eliminating quick saves, improving hunters to super hunters that are able to jump on ceilings or through windows and can survive two AR2 energy balls (or a full 357 magnum magazine), and then sending these pairwise against the player feels very cheap.
It took me about an hour to beat this mod, although the effective playing time is more like 20 minutes. Due to elimination of manual saves playing time is artificially prolonged by having to repeat the two main battles several times. IMO such repetition adds nothing worthwhile to a game; it just feels like you’re wasting your time. Looking at its size, this mod is surprisingly short.
Choice of the checkpoint before the first hunter battle is poor. As you have to press a button to call the two hunters, why not simply place the checkpoint exactly here? Instead after each death you first have to replay the fight against the combines and the collecting of goodies, which is no fun.
The auto-heal system is odd, because it only heals in steps of 20 health points, so it will heal you from 81 to 100 – and from 19 to 20, which is, of course, completely useless. Would’ve made more sense to heal you from anything below 50 to 50, from anything between 51 and 75 to 75, and to give no automatic healing if you’re already above 75.
Health packs are a nice idea, but limiting their number to 4 and their effectiveness to 20 health points really hurts their usefulness. This goes especially during combat, where you have to change your weapon to the crowbar, use secondary fire, wait for healing to finish, then change back to a different weapon, and continue fighting – if you’re not already dead at this point. Sorry, but the secondary fire of some weapons is really the poorest possible choice for health pack activation. Why not simply give the player a freely configurable key for this?
Honestly, free saves have already been nearly completely eliminated from PC gaming during the recent years (maybe due to console gaming, maybe not, don’t know), leading to nothing but added repetition. I really don’t need this concept introduced into the world of HL 2 mods!
Manually
Hard
1 Hour
Abandon: The Town is your usual Half-Life 2 map but with a small twist. That twist being some gameplay changes.
While the author pretty much stated on the page that this is a proof of concept, as you just find new guns and jump into another arena, I feel like he could do some effort to put a bit of story in this. DOOM did this and it blended with gameplay perfectly, so he can try too.
First off, you now have to heal yourself from medkits by right-clicking with the Crowbar. I find it neat and the semi-regenerative health from Wolfenstein: The New Order appears here too, which doesnât hurt the gameplay that much. The Pistol got slight damage buff. The SMG is now an MP5K and rewards you with accuracy for firing in bursts.
There are some changes to the enemies. While most enemies have more health, there are also some changes in behavior. Zombies now run like Zombines, this is a good addition and makes them much more formidable. Combine Hunters can now jump to close in on you faster, they also are no longer be instantly killed by AR2 energy balls. Also, the Metro Police now have modified voices?
A couple of things this mod got wrong are the map details and its changes to controls. The maps feel barren at times. Like, in some places you just find buildings connected by empty streets with a couple of covers. This mod also disables your sprint and quicksave. The quicksave part can be negligible since I only died twice in a 30-minutes long playthrough. Without sprint, however, the encounters with the Combine slows down too much. It also makes the Hunters significantly harder to fight because they are movement-based enemies. Thereâs also the âtoggle-crouchâ feature that Iâm not a fan off and makes crouch-jumping awkward.
If you want some good changes in your normal Half-Life 2 gameplay, check this out. While it is not much good, it is an OK setpiece that doesn’t overstayed its welcome if you don’t like it.
Manually
Medium
50 Minutes
Looks ok. Plays not so great. Could not get the secondary crowbar effect for health to work.