Silent Escape

for Half-Life 2: Episode Two

11th November 2012

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3

The Combine have discovered where you are hiding and things only get worse.

With your fellow rebels you must escape using a portal.

Did I mention things get worse? Well, they just get EVEN worse. The Portal worked but not as expected.

Keep the faith you will find your comrades and perhaps you will finally escape, although don’t count on it.

Basic Details
  • Title: Silent Escape
  • File Name: hl2-ep2-sp-silent-escape-v1.1.7z
  • Size : 167MB
  • Author: Pro-Bones
  • Date Released: 26 August 2012

Download Options

Download to your HDD [176.3MB]

Installation Instructions
  • Copy the Silent Escape folder into your SourceMods folder.
  • Restart or start Steam.
  • Silent Escape should now be listed in your Library tab.

If you require more help, please visit the Technical Help page.

Custom Grid View Icon

The fie above comes with a grid view icon. To use it, select “Grid View” in Steam (top right corner). Make sure you have saved the image to a location on your computer – you can’t use it from the compressed archive directly. Right click on “Silent Escape” and select “Set Custom Image”. Then browse to where you saved the image and choose it. Then click “Set Image” and that’s it.

Of course, you can create your own custom image if you prefer.

Screenshots

Click on the thumbnails below to open a 1024 pixel wide image.
WARNING: The screenshots contain spoilers.

Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
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Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
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Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
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Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3 Single Player First Person Shooter Maps and Mods for Half-Life 1, 2 and Episodes 1, 2 and 3
Reader Recommendations
Avoid It!
Think Twice
Maybe
Play It Later
Play It Now!

29 recommendations, average score: 4.45 (out of 5), standard deviation: 0.52 (what's that?)
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Meta Review Data
Statistics based on 24 comment(s) with meta review data.

Installed:
Using Gauge: Users
Manually: 23 Users

Time Taken:
Average: 1 Hours, 38 Mins
Shortest: 0 Hours, 40 Mins by silver8
Longest: 3 Hours, 11 Mins by brianthesnail
Total Time Played: 39 Hours, 7 Mins
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Phillip says Play It!Personal FavouriteMaybe?Play It Now!Play It Now!Play It Now!Play It LaterPlay It Now!Play It Now!Play It Now!Play It LaterMaybe?Play It Now!Play It Now!Play It LaterMaybe?Play It Now!Play It Now!Play It LaterPlay It Now!Play It LaterPlay It Now!Play It Now!Play It Now!Play It Now!Maybe?Play It LaterPlay It LaterPlay It Later

35 Comments

  1. Phillip says Play It!

    This review contains spoilers – you have been warned.

    There’s little doubt that this mod looks fantastic but unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it that much. It had a basic story, voice acting, generally great level design concepts but was let down by the final polish and lacking that special moment that makes you remember the mod for years to come.

    I have this feeling that the modders added lots of things just because they could. For example, the slow motion section after shooting down the Combine Gunship. Why? What was it for?

    I felt the voice acting was not very good. The actors felt they were reading from scripts, instead of acting and sometimes, especially near the beginning there was little or no emotion expressed.

    At no point was I excited and I feel that this was because there was little or no foreboding. That’s the feeling of creating anticipation for coming events. I can’t quite point my finger on it but I feel this mod is almost a collection of excellent levels that lacks a coherent flow and control.

    Yes, the story is there and it’s nice to see things like this included, but let’s be honest, in mods set in the HL2 universe we are quite limited to the types of stories we can tell. That’s not the modders fault for sure, but having a story without feeling excited by the gameplay is as bad as not having a story to begin with.

    A mod this large and detailed needs plenty of beta testing and most modders don’t have the patience for that process. However much Pro-Bones and his team did, it wasn’t enough. I had 2 game breaking bugs. The first one was in the tunnel with the cart that starts rolling as soon as you fall into it. The problem was that unless you duck immediately you get stuck on the ceiling beams. The autosave is in a terrible place and you just restart stuck. Eventually, I got free and fell out of the cart, meaning I was stuck on the wrong side of the gap. That actually was quite interesting because the area where you ride through was beautiful and should be been where you landed.

    The second was when the tank was supposed to burst through the wooden blockade. It did the first time but I died, it never worked after that and I had to noclip through.

    Those are just the big ones and for some that might be the end of playing if they don’t know how to sue the console, but there were lots of little issues too.

    Yes, I’ve been pretty negative up until now and that probably because I was ultimately disappointed with the final outcome of playing – not the end of the story but just how I felt after I had finished playing it.

    Of course you should play this and I applaud the authors for making and releasing it. I just wish it had that “something special”.

  2. Personal Favourite

    a impressive mod …… theres been so many mods of late that have moved away from the way hl2 was created … mods such as “water” and “gstring” are excellent mods however they are just not my cup of tea…. however silent escape has everything im looking for in a hl2 mod and more
    I can understand phillips comment on the lack of any storyline .. however this wasnt a problem … the mod had plenty of action and some nice effects and I enjoyed it from start to finish
    this is one of the best mods this year ( along with black mesa ) and the author(s) should be congratulated on a excellent mod….
    it takes alot for me to award a personal favourite however I think “silent escape deserves it … well done guys

  3. Maybe?

    This had potential but I found a lot of the combat to be poorly designed, particularly the design of the areas where you face Combine soldiers. 9 times out of 10 the soldiers would be funnelled through a narrow doorway, and I’d have no option but to aim into the doorway and shoot as they walked into my gunfire one by one. It was boring, and it happened so often that it almost started to become a running joke.

    In contrast, many of the areas where you fight zombies were very wide open corridors so you could just run past without feeling any sense of danger. Zombies rely on close quarters and claustrophobic spaces. This mod got it all the wrong way round.

    I’m never a fan of having camera control wrenched away from me and this mod did just that at totally unnecessary times.

    All in all, it looked promising from the screenshots but a large proportion of the combat (which this mod relies heavily upon) was just poorly thought out, tedious at best and frustrating at worst.

  4. Anon_557818

    the damn npc that follows me at the beginning keeps getting in my way. I actually had to noclip a few times because I got stuck

  5. Hec
    Play It Now!

    This is a really good appreciated mod, because it’s build with a simple but precise layout, the locations are great and transmit one powerful environment when we playing it, as when we found ourselves in Dark forest, thats a very inmersive part.

    I loved to start in City 17, and proceed outside of there.

    Overall this mod has great scenarios and the combat is allways entretaining, maybe the puzzles are not too much hectic or difficult but is great for me to have those simple but nice puzzles.

    The last part is well done but I feel the devlopers wanted to depend quite a lot on the cutscenes to transmit the context, in my opinion that’s better if the player actually makes those situations happen and doesn’t depend that much on the cutscenes…,

    This is a mod you definitely try, as I think we found less and less mods of this kind, so go on and try it!

    This seems to have an open possibilty to continue, so I hope if there’s another part would be great and entretaining as this one.

  6. Play It Now!

    The main place in which Silent Escape will stand out to players is its outstanding visuals. In many places the graphics go above and beyond Episode 2 with special effects such as light rays and lens-flare adding to the appearance without going overboard. The mod is chopped up into several distinct sections, and each has its own visual style thanks to lighting and colour correction.

    The gameplay sticks totally to the HL2 formula for the most part, but we do get some nice scripted sequences which help to break things up a little. The mod also has quite a significant story compared to its length, which is conveyed through a few impressive NPC scripted scenes. However, when friendly NPCs become involved in the combat it can really become a problem.

    For example, in the game’s cinematic opening the rebels have a tendency to stand in your way and die easily, forcing you to restart which really breaks what should be an exciting build-up. To compound this, later on there is a section where an ally keeps running off without you (locking the door behind him) forcing you to fight off a load of enemies before he returns. I can see the gameplay purpose but do you really want us to hate all the friendly characters?

    There are also some problems when the game tries to create “cinematic” moments that just get in the way of gameplay. For example, very late in the game there is a supposedly shocking plot twist. This is done so suddenly, and without any sort of foreshadowing, that it really lacks any emotional meaning. At several points like this, the mod also controls your camera unneccesarily.

    I like that the modders have gone to the effort of adding a story, but this part seems completely shoehorned in just to give some kind of conclusion to the mod. We are then, apparently, supposed to chase after the enemy, but the game didn’t make this clear so I was killed because I had “missed the train”. The autosave point occurs right before this moment so I had to manually load a previous save, which then broke one of the scripted scenes.

    I realise I have gone quite overboard with the criticisms here because this is really a very well made mod, but these problems really let it down for me. That said you should definitely play it.

  7. Play It Now!

    I really enjoyed this mod, although it isn’t perfect. First the good stuff. I didn’t mind the voice acting; it added to the story for me. I liked the music that came up in certain parts like the fight with the gunship. The maps were for the most part polished looking and I didn’t encounter any bugs. Combat was pretty good, and I liked the zombie disappearing in graveyard.

    The only drawbacks for me were in the Dark Forest map. There were a number of invisible walls preventing me from exploring sections, and I don’t like that in general. The rail cars lying on the track in the Dark Forest map had ladders on the sides, but yet I couldn’t climb them. So I was forced to find out which way the author wanted me to go by taking the obvious routes. Also, the combat with the armored car was too easy as there just happened to be a large gun pointing right at it.

    Overall pretty fun to play, but a little on the predictable side and riddled with those annoying invisible walls

  8. Play It Later

    Few and far between are these “above average” mods, especially these days. Even though it has some faults, it features some semblance of a story and some decent character work.

    There were some pretty large bugs left in, as well as some poor gameplay choices (“protect your NPC from death” is difficult when you cannot control the NPC’s location like a typical squad member). Combat with soldiers was uninspired and left me wanting, especially since they would typically run down hallways single file for the meat grinder. The zombie sections were probably the best sections in the mod, due to some decent ambient music and pretty awesome scenery. I must subtract big points for the apparent lack of soundscapes and other little sounds that would give these places more life.

    The voice acting team needs some serious help. There was a lack of emotional context that ruined an otherwise pretty cool story.

    Epic final battle, worth the download IMO.

    I look forward to more of this team’s work. I hope they come to Interlopers and Planet Phillip to find playtesters in their next project.

  9. Play It Now!

    PIN, in context with other recent offerings. I liked it because it was pretty. Irritating things that others have mentioned, I also agree with. I mostly wanted to point out two items that I think might be bugs:
    – the tank never burst through the fence, depriving me of a battle
    – the final battle was over in just a few moments, nothing epic about it

    Cut scenes, while dramatic, were too long and broke the game’s intensity. I actually thought the voice acting didn’t suck. I thought the music was really good.

  10. Play It Now!

    I feel lucky others have commented and somewhat struggled to describe why they just don’t love it, despite the mod having lots of good things. Great visuals, dulled by awkward cinematics and grim voice acting? Generally good combat, but the tunnel effect of enemies coming only from a limited area in many situations? Gotta applaud the mod maker for everything he did though. And to me its a definite PIN, what else are you gonna play?

  11. Play It Now!

    Outstanding Mod. Plenty of excitement and a good balance of game play and gunplay. The feeling that the experience was coming to an end and then throwing in a twist to continue the game play was quite enjoyable. The train sequence was great fun and a most exhilarating section of the game, although I did feel a bit confused when I missed the train, I didn’t really feel that I was chasing the trader to someplace. I just thought I was going to kill him.
    Anyway a fantastic mod with nice voice acting and a nice story to boot.

    Thanks (Thaks)

  12. Play It Later

    Although some areas seemed non-linear (like the graveyard woods area), it was all fairly linear due to the dreaded invisible walls problem, and there was rarley any part of a map where a player could find a different route to get to the same place. In fact some silly crap was in the dark forest chapter, where if you touch water you die. I thought that was ridiculous. At least put some eels in there and make it feel realistic. And give us a possiblility of crossing the water mabye if we jump on rocks to find a secret or to take a shortcut? Mabye some route exploits would be nice? In other words this author would not let us go anywhere we were not supposed to. That’s not great mapping.

    But the maps did have some good atmosphere, nice enviroments too, although I cant tell you how sick I am of the “northwest forest theme” from Ep2. Trust me, I lived up there in the NW near Portland, and the forest up there are as boring as they look. Giant trees and ferns, and no sounds from birds or bugs or anything. I would rather see some canyons and cliffs from the Highway 17 theme, but we never see those. Everybody wants to do the same old Ep2 forest stuff.

    However the Dark Forest chapter did have a nice Ravenholm feel to it, I’ll give it that.

    I really like the mineshaft level. It was beautiful and had some nice suprises. The combat was also worthy. But the author made the mistake of changing up the sub enviroments too much. One minute I’m in a sewer area, and a few seconds later I’m in a hallway. Next, I’m going through doors to another area, then another door, and another door. Too many doors.

    The beggining of the 2nd map brought us the battery puzzle, which sucked quite frankly. I didnt solve it. Only found two batteries, and got frustrated after looking for ten minutes. I have to deduct. Note to developer: never make puzzles too difficult. Sure we have puzzle guru’s who live for them, but some of us (like me) dont give a damn about puzzles and wont be able to solve hard one’s.

    Im not much for stories, but the story was pretty good with the twist near the end. The combat was overall pretty good, good weapon and health distribution as well.

    A good SP mod, worth playing, but because of the mapping shortcomings, a PIL is the best I can offer.

  13. A nice mod with a few bugs (like the armoured car coming through the gate – only does it once; so I stacked and jumped the wall). My video card’s down right now and the onboard video was completely brought to its knees, especially in Dark Forest. All in all, quite traditional – and I had fun.

  14. Ade
    Maybe?

    Interesting modification we have here, too bad I don’t agree with all the changes to it, like the hit sound, loud music and dusty or dark screen.
    I lol`d at the intro vid and the nice artsy background says right away this is an ambitious project, at least graphical wise.

    Right from chapter 1 the yellow sprint against the white health suit bugs me, so do the hit sounds which make no sense as I can hear them if I get hit or if I hit someone.. And their volume makes no sense either, if I were to be hit/shot in the head, I get the loud strange noises but to hear it all the time it’s really annoying, at first I thought it was the enemies ratatat. The npc got me stuck too. I also found a bug in the first map, after picking up ggun I just climbed like a monkey on those stacked boxes, punned one down and as soon as they opened the door I died instantly but dunno from what, I was too high for something to fall on my head.. Couldn’t reproduce.
    In the 2nd chapter, coming out in the open reminded me of Mission Improbable. I liked the destroyable pillars but the sound in that area seemed broken or maybe I just didn’t appreciate the start of that rock song. Also I couldn’t hit shit cus of too bright HDR behind the gunship and I couldn’t hear its location either cus shit music was too loud! Can you tell I was pissed? That should’ve been a peak in this mod but the result was utter BS. When all that was finished I said Thank God!
    Ah, the alarm in chapter 3.. How we all love loud ongoing alarms that can’t be stopped and go on for hallway after corridor after room after..
    Chapter 4: b o r I n g. When I opened the garage door to find more enemies, that was my first thought.. I just ran through it all, the only thing that kept me going was to finish the mod already. The dark forest was too dark imo and it didn’t hide mapping hickups well.
    In chapter 5, I felt the surrounding edge of the screen looked like a xmas card. I guess throughout it was all intended to be badass but the final outcome was unprofessional imo. Including the ‘look at me I’m at 1 hp with no weapons, movin in slow mo but so determined to get my revenge’!
    I also had broken trigger in chapter 6 and reloaded several times til I decided to start the chapter from the game and worked. I didn’t get the slow dramatic music as a background for hard fights, to be honest. The train sequence was not at all new. I guess there was also a story to it, but even with the voice acting, it just didn’t get to me. And the violins? Really? The only thing I liked in the ending was the 1 stumble he does while trying to walk. Everything else was overdramatic with no real buildup.

    This is a perfect example of what NOT do to in a map, mod, game etc. All eyecandy and no gameplay makes any true hl`er a dull player! Puzzles? were there any? It wouldn’t have made a difference. Cutscenes? One to many, I’m afraid. The mappers are talented but in the end, this mod remains in my memory as nothing more than a screenshot source.

    1. Yeah It was enviroment and atmosphere that got it PIL with me, but I feel your score of “mabye” is more accurate than my score of “play it later”.

      Also, try turning off HDR. I always keep mine off, as I feel that it was a waste of time and resorces by Valve to ever make the feature. It makes stuff too bright, far more than our pupils would allow, and it is irritating and stupid.

      1. Ade

        I can’t agree as I’ve seen some maps make great and beautiful use of it 😛

        1. Still, I would of rather of seen Valve spend their time making real time weather with moving clouds, than HDR.
          :p

  15. Play It Now!

    Go ahead and play it, the action is good and the visuals are nice. I did have an issue with the combine apc near the end but nothing to bad.

    I put 2 hrs because I played it a bit here and a bit there.

  16. Play It Now!

    Great mod! It sure has its ups and downs, but overall I had a great time. Visually very good, throughout. Some encounters were awkward, repeated and annoying; the ones where combines came through doors that you were just about to open. The dialogue scripting felt like a bad movie, mainly because of the delay. I really liked the boss battle. The mod has a great variation in theme, encounters and cut scenes. Sadly I had a showstopper with the APC through wooden barricade. But I replayed the mod shortly after and made it through.

    Go play it, totally worth it! 🙂

  17. Play It Later

    The mod is really well crafted, quite long and has an engaging story… On paper it has all the ingredients for a “personal favorite”. Why then, was my subjective game experience not on the same level?!

    Many of the issues were already raised. I found it somewhat drawn out, at times even boring. The voice acting was IMHO poor with little emotion even at the end. A few missing textures here and there were undermining the whole atmosphere.

    Most of all, the level design was great from an aesthetic point of view, but unfortunately not in terms of game mechanics. And the mod really only “works” on hard, causing some frustrations along the way – having large groups of combine troops rush you all the time can become somewhat tedious!

    With very little tweaks this could have been a great mod, but the way it is now I can hardly recommend playing it right away…

  18. Maybe?

    The choice of name for this mod really doesn’t reflect it at all, its loud, its fast and you aren’t running from anybody. A more appropriate name for this mod would be John Woosville as that seems to be the style the modders are trying to emulate. There are a lot of explosions, breaches, slow motion and other big set pieces which look impressive but they do so often at the expense of pacing and player interactivity.

    The environments look decent enough although at times the lighting isn’t sufficient to see what the next objective is and in one instance the HDR lighting makes for a very frustrating encounter as it practically whites out the screen.

    The voice acting isn’t bad but I think seeing as story seemed to be a relatively significant focus on this mod better direction of voice actors may have been required.
    However the story only really featured at the beginning and towards the end of the mod and while this makes sense in the context of the narrative the mod ultimately suffers because there isn’t really a driving force, no sense of progression or purpose and no real context for most of the mod.

    As for what was modified I was happy to see that the hands were modified and the GUI modifications were OK but the bullet hit sounds were awful and there was really no need for them.

    Overall it was a decent mod, there is obviously a fair amount of skill that went into making this and there were some fun, great ideas in here and I really enjoyed the end (honestly, that’s not just a clever way of saying I didn’t like the mod). Just in future I think you may need a more methodical approach.

  19. Play It Now!

    I thought this was a great mod with tension and wonderful atmosphere and the quality of the graphics and texture where just great and I was sorry to finish it I enjoyed it that much

  20. Play It Now!

    Yeah, it’s a mod to be classed on par with Precursor, Dangerous World and the Citizen…

    You play some random Resistance member fighting his way through City 17, tunnels, forests, and fighting some Combine and zombies, with a bunch of a story to link everything… I’ve to admit that there is some emphasis on making some sort of blockbuster movie here, with slowmo, twists, big battles with epic music, some incursion into horror with the forest…

    Overall I really enjoyed it, the fights were various and cools, I liked some scenes like the fight against the Gunship and especially the final battle on a train, it was fun and gave some motivation to go through…

    I got some annoying bugs tough, forgiving me to give a PF, such as the NPCs blocking my way too many times, and the APC not coming through the door, and also the “dark forest” was the “too dark forest”, I didn’t really see anything…

    Waiting for the sequel…

  21. I’m not five minutes in (screenshot 10) and the NPC I’m supposed to be escaping with has straight-up vanished, leaving me stranded here in anticipation of a scripted sequence that never starts.

    I guess I’ll start a new game.

  22. Play It Later

    I suppose I have to give this one a Play It Later. It’s a decent sized mod, and it’s incredibly detailed and polished throughout. I would have appreciated a bit more variety in the combat. There were several Hunter battles, and each of them was gimped somehow. In the first, it felt as though the Hunter was artificially restricted in its movement, so it couldn’t follow me into a nearby building. This allowed me to stay behind cover and take it out at my leisure. The third Hunter attacked from behind a force field, and somehow got caught on the force field and died before the battle could really start. I’m ashamed to admit that the second Hunter battle is slipping my memory, even though I just finished the mod, but I remember that something was up with it. This was unfortunate, as Hunter combat would really have broken up the mod, which otherwise relied on straightforward Combine soldier and zombies combat. Antlions made a token appearance. I cant” recall even seeing a Combine Elite.

    Story-wise (this is perhaps a spoiler), Silent Escape attempted to tell a grandiose story of camaraderie and betrayal. It didn’t really pull it off, though – in part because of some flat, uninterested-sounding voice acting that made the characters kind of dull, but mostly because there just wasn’t nearly enough set-up or enough attachment formed to any of the characters for the climactic moment to have any real “umph” to it.

    In spite of its shortcomings, it was still for the most part fun to play.

  23. Play It Now!

    I know I played this mod back when it was released, but for whatever reason never got around to a proper review.

    This is very much a Play It Now mod. Just for length alone, and the fact that the maps are very well made – yes, the mod’s not without some issues and bugs perhaps, but overall it has everything going for it.

    The variety of maps was exceptional. I do agree that the Dark Forest was much too dark but I think I had more problems with it the first time I played, where as this time I basically blew through the area and didn’t look back. I know I had some trouble figuring out how to get up to the train in that area, and this time literally ran through the whole zone.

    The voice acting was pretty good, adequate at least, and not poorly written like some I’ve played. I would like to have heard more hints through the various maps indicating that the guys were looking for you, or Combine chatter regarding rounding up enemies, something to give me a clue that I ought to continue moving around and not just finding a nice spot somewhere and sitting down with a dead headcrab for lunch.

    More enemies would have been better, overall. I didn’t have any issues with health or ammunition, on Medium, don’t know whether Hard would have been more of a challenge. The most challenging thing I found, twice, was *not being able to locate the stupid elevator buttons*. Seriously, I do recall from the first time I played, and it happened again, after the flood drops you out into the one area with the klaxon blazing (which is annoying, and should at some point have been stopped by doing *anything*, an explosion cuts out the speaker, whatever). I couldn’t find the buttons that were literally right next to the elevator. *headdesk*

    The transitions between environments were very nice, I think. The ruined landscape and broken buildings, cars and placement of junk was terrific. Using the environment might have gone a little farther here or there, I liked having to use the forklift to exit one building, but that’s about the only time you do something like that.

    Visually everything was so well done. Lighting and mood cues were very well placed. It did overall lack a bit of ‘something’, direction or motivation perhaps. But I did like seeing some of the ‘similar to’ HL2 map areas, courtyards that seem overtly like those Gordon had been through – but we’re not Gordon and we’re not even wearing armor.

    The story was present and accounted for, for the most part, though as others have said it’s a little lacking for any pressing guidance. I felt kind of alone out there, which was the point to an extent, but then I also didn’t really feel ‘connected’ even when I was with the other guys.

    I think this mod hits all the right chords, though still doesn’t quite make it into a PF category just because it lacks a punchline aside from the obvious sad ending. The maps are memorable to the extent that once I opened the game up I remembered them instantly, their familiarity was pleasant, I would kind of liked to be able to explore a lot more in them.

  24. Play It Later

    Another cracking mod I really liked. I wasn’t too keen at first as I hate maps which have me protecting computer-controlled characters. Especially when he blocked my way on the staircase and I could get past so I had to walk down and then back up again!

    The forest areas are incredible. Really scary! But, like everyone says, way too dark. Also, I didn’t care for the gunship scene, which I thought was too hard (for me!). The darn thing shot down so many rockets and poor places to hide imho

    The scene which shows the traitor getting us all killed was great. I loved the graphical effects after this as I staggered through – brilliantly done!!

    However, that’s where my fun ended as I couldn’t play the following areas outside w/ the mounted gun. The game kept crashing and, no matter what I tried, it crashed each attempted. I’m on Mac fwiw… and I applied the SDK patch from over on ModDB but it still crashed. Gutted as I enjoyed the adventure until then! So I knocked it down to PiL… 🙁

    Great mod just not sure about the lighting. One minute it’s annoyingly glaring and then next it’s waaaay too dark! Otherwise, I enjoyed playing this.

  25. Play It Now!

    Just played this again and realised I had forgotten how good it was. Only slight niggle is that in my version I get a lot of red ‘ERROR’ signs that appear to be the result of missing textures. Primarily these would seem to be foliage related. Does anyone know why this would be the case?

    Otherwise it is great fun with some excellent gameplay. Highly recommended.

  26. Play It Now!

    Great atmosphere with beautiful mapping. The gameplay is very interesting and dynamic.

  27. Play It Now!

    Nice mod! I like the voice actings, the custom storyline, and the atmosphere of the maps (especially the dark forest).

  28. Play It Now!

    A really fun mod… it’s mostly streight forward and give a mix between some exploration and lot of combats.
    The story behind (or at least the fact that some team mate follow you) is a nice touch, could have certainly benefit by something more equilabrate in term of puzzle and interaction with ‘your team’ by some cutscene or other stuff 🙂

  29. Maybe?

    Didn’t enjoy it very much.

    The combat with the combines was most of the time boring and there were little to no spaces between combats so the player could take a break. Voice acting was decent but not good enough to get me engaged with the story.

    One thing I liked was the music and the visuals, nothing else. The ending was somewhat intriguing but not so satisfying.

  30. Play It Later

    Looks great. Game play, not so much.

  31. Play It Later

    Silent Escape, what kind of title is that? You’d be running around guns n’ blazing against combine soldiers. Speaking of guns n’ blazing, let me tell you something about the sounds. Everytime you get shot or you hit an enemy, they make a loud ear screeching hit sound. What were they thinking? You better get used to it because you’ll be hearing very loud hit sounds until the very end of the game. Not only that, custom musics are too loud as well to the point that I can barely hear the game. Silent Escape, more like Loud Music and Hit Sounds. The combat is somewhat challenging. You get to fight mostly combine soldiers and a few zombies. The story is very well made, clear and concise with a very interesting plot twist. Gotta love the cutscenes too, they’re pretty decent as well. Map design is good as well, so my only remarks here is that change the title.

  32. Play It Later

    The map design and overall visual did look nice and I did like how you play it with no armor throughout the entire game and still seems fair; however the voice acting seemed oddly paced with slow talking, as if it was directed weirdly, the AI was completely dumb and the story was letdown. I would be more harsh on the rating, but I can see real effort was put into it and that these things could’ve been ironed out with time, so it isn’t a waste

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